Since the end of Wanli, due to the emperor's own neglect of government, as the only main channel for grain transportation in the south, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has often been silted up in the Huaibei and Shandong sections, and it is difficult to pass at every turn. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Sometimes, a break is a few months, and the state and county officials on both sides of the canal, when the canal is unblocked, like to set up cards under the banner of the imperial court to collect profits, but when the canal is silted, they always stand by and watch, and push the responsibility of dredging to the imperial court, and do not bear the responsibility for maintenance and repair.

Such a thing must not continue.

Since the imperial court has set up the Yamen of the Governor of Caoyun, the management of the canal and the management of affairs related to the canal along both sides of the canal should all be returned to the Yamen of the Governor of Caoyun.

For example, in the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the seven major banknote customs set up by the household department, there were many large and small tax customs, all of which were set up by the emperor's inner court or the governors, fu, general soldiers, state and county officials, and even local tyrants and inferior gentry.

These banknotes and tariff cards of the imperial court and household departments, local government offices, and even government and private offices have made all kinds of taxes and fees on the entire canal like cattle hair, not to mention the boiling of public resentment, and second, the collected tax silver or in-kind taxes, seventy or eighty percent of the ten percent of them have gone into the pockets of eunuchs or local bureaucrats and tax collectors at all levels, and the tax money or goods that can be received by the tax customs of the household department only account for two or three percent of them.

This situation must not be sustained any longer.

Now the Chongzhen Emperor knows that the fall of the Ming Dynasty stems from the collapse of finances, so opening up financial resources is what he has always wanted to do, but so far, in addition to copying corrupt officials and eating big households, he has not dared to make a fuss about taxes.

Because this matter is too wide-ranging, and now that internal and external troubles are serious enough, the top priority at the moment is to ensure the relative stability of existing financial resources.

But that doesn't mean he can't do anything.

The existing cake of the landlord and industrial class in China cannot be easily touched, but he can expand his financial resources by making this cake bigger, or even making new cakes.

This is the purpose of opening the sea and setting up ports and collecting customs tariffs.

In addition, another way that Emperor Chongzhen can think of is to come from one industry to another, one field to another, and only one part of the people at a time, rather than doing a one-size-fits-all and one-spoonful stew, because doing so will easily arouse everyone's opposition.

And the work experience from later generations told him that no matter how capable and capable you are, at any time, don't try to challenge the bottom line of most other people.

Stabilize the Forbidden City first, and then go to clean up the Jingshi court.

Stabilize the land of Gyeonggi first, and then go to clean up other places.

Stabilize the army first, and then put away other walks of life.

By the time they had stabilized the barracks, pacified the peasants, and cleaned up the merchant class, they had no power to resist.

And when all this is straightened out, and then go back to clean up the gentry, at that time, many problems will be solved.

This is the reform idea, or routine, of Emperor Chongzhen today.

Among them, starting with the canal and breaking the ice of the reform of commercial taxation is a very important part.

Therefore, Yuan Keli, the governor of Caoyun, rectified the affairs of the canal, especially the rectification of the many local private customs on the canal, although the official resentment on both sides of the canal was boiling, but it was in the hands of Emperor Chongzhen.

Not long ago, as one of the supporting measures of the great policy of opening the sea, Emperor Chongzhen approved the Caoyun Governor Yamen to submit a request to remove the local private and indiscriminate establishment of tax customs, except for the seven major tax customs that were approved and filed by the Ministry of Household Affairs and sent personnel to manage, all other tax customs were abolished.

At the same time, Emperor Chongzhen also issued an imperial pen instruction that all official ships and civilian ships on the canal, whether passenger ships or cargo ships, must pay taxes as a whole.

Just like today's North and South Post Stations, officials of all sizes have to pay according to the standard for privately renting stagecoaches and food and accommodation, and unless the official ship has received a holy decree, one of them is the first assistant of the current dynasty, and it must also pass the customs and pay taxes.

Unless the civilian ships are requisitioned by the government or the army for official purposes, no matter which imperial relatives or relatives have to pay taxes according to the regulations.

As for the standard of taxation, the tax is calculated according to the length and width of the ship, in fact, it is calculated according to the maximum area of the deck.

For boats without decks, the taxable area is calculated by multiplying the distance at the longest and widest points.

This is the method proposed by Emperor Chongzhen himself.

Of course, this method was not the original invention of the current Emperor Chongzhen, but the method used by the Taixi countries at that time, such as the Netherlands, a country known as the coachman of the sea, to collect customs duties on the transportation of goods by ships.

Such an approach seems to have many loopholes, for example, it does not take into account the weight of the cargo carried by the cargo ship, and the value of the cargo, nor does it take into account the number of passengers carried by the passenger ship, and whether it carries the cargo, and likewise does not take into account whether the cargo ship or passenger ship is full, overloaded or empty, and so on.

However, this method has an obvious advantage, that is, the tax and silver that should be paid by each ship is very easy to calculate, and it is difficult to have the possibility of black-box operation.

Moreover, after the promulgation of this method of taxation and taxation, the owners of ships on the canal or the owners of hired ships will be able to estimate the amount of tax and silver they should pay before entering the canal, which can effectively prevent the major banknote customs officials from arbitrarily collecting taxes and valuing due to human factors, causing the loss of tax and silver to the imperial court, or collective corruption.

Moreover, there is a great advantage of collecting taxes in this way, that is, for the directors of the banknote customs and the tax collectors, it reduces a lot of workload and greatly reduces the labor cost.

The difficulty of the work is also greatly reduced, and there is no need for advanced knowledge or learning, because then the work of calculating customs duties is not very technical.

When a passenger ship or cargo ship passes through customs, no matter what you have in it, no matter how much your cargo is worth or how deep the draft is, you can charge a toll according to the maximum area of your deck, which is absolutely simple.

Of course, some people will say that in this way, profiteers will find a way to reduce the deck area of passenger or cargo ships, and develop not horizontally to the plane of length and width, but to the vertical development of the upper and lower planes.

The idea is right.

Because the Dutch, known as the coachmen of the sea, encountered such a problem.

Since ports throughout the Netherlands were taxed according to the size of the deck, Dutch merchants were willing to hire ships with small decks but large loads to transport goods, so the Dutch shipbuilding industry soon developed plywood ships.

This type of plywood ship usually has three decks, the middle deck has the largest deck area and belongs to the carrying area, while the top deck area is not large, but it belongs to the taxable area.

It was this kind of plywood boat that finally created the title of the Dutch sea coachman!

Soon after the plywood ships were used as warships, the Dutch, which had been weak, quickly gained a foothold in the seas.

If the shipbuilding industry of the Ming Dynasty can develop in this direction, it is exactly what Emperor Chongzhen could not ask for.

Of course, the Dutchman's three-deck plywood ship is a sea vessel.

Therefore, even if the profiteers who rely on the transportation of goods in the Ming Dynasty can think of this method of reducing the deck area to reduce taxes, this method of tax reduction will be very limited, because the water depth of the canal restricts this.

The reason why this is one of the measures to cooperate with the policy of opening the sea is because the tax amount calculated according to the maximum deck area of the customs clearance ship is based on the preset premise that each ship is fully loaded, so the tax amount is relatively high.

However, this also has the advantage of forcing these boats to sail as fully loaded as possible, which can be regarded as a disguised increase in the efficiency of the canal.

At the same time, by raising the toll of the canal, it will also allow those who are suitable for the transportation of bulk goods by sea to the north and south by sea.

Xu Hongzu is fully in favor of this new look on the canal today.

He held an official document appointing him as the secretary of the Ministry of War, and the passenger ship he took was not fully loaded, except for the boatman, it was himself and his servants, but Xu Hongzu, who was born in a big landlord family, didn't care about this little money at all.

After crossing the river from Jiangyin, he rushed to Yangzhou to take a boat, and under the banknote customs in Yangzhou, according to the area of the hired boat, he paid the toll of the whole canal, received the customs clearance certificate, and then went all the way north.

Passing through Huai'an, Linqing, Hexi and other customs customs, you only need to show the passage certificate issued by the Yangzhou tax customs, you can be unimpeded, which saves time and trouble, and will not always cause congestion of ships on the canal.

The countless banknote customs officials in my memory when I passed through the canal a few years ago have all disappeared this time, except for the people who went ashore to buy food and drink when passing by the markets of the towns along the coast, there was no such thing as being stopped and charged.

After a few years, he took a boat to the north again, and the new look on the canal and both sides of the canal made him even more full of expectations for this trip to the north.