After thinking for a moment about the war in Ireland and Wales, William looked at the tax report on his desk again.

Last month's meeting asked Osborne, who is Chancellor of the Exchequer, to look for talent, and instead he looked for a bunch of bookkeepers who were good at math and had the experience and ability to manage accounts. However, even he himself said that this group of people was only used for emergency relief, and could only calculate a bunch of numbers, and it was impossible to make any constructive suggestions. And the report that William is looking at now with only data and no self-insight is their masterpiece.

Seeing that the tax reform has been raised for almost a month, William is also a little anxious, but he still has a glimmer of hope.

After finding the pile of bookkeepers, Osborne Butler confidently said that he had found two talents, but they both had their own careers now. One is the mayor of Caen, Freilly, and the other is the Dutch banker Rodolf. In order to be able to recruit them, Osborne's butler was ready to visit him personally, but he had been there for a week, and there was no news.

"Your Majesty." Faller. Osborne pushed open the door and crept in from the outside, "My father, Osborne, is waiting outside the door with a man who is said to be the mayor of Caen, asking to be received. ”

"Quick, let them in." William forced his emotions, though he couldn't wait.

Subsequently, in Faller. At Osborne's instructions, he saw Osborne's butler and a man of about twenty-six or seventeen years of age with Norman blonde hair and blue eyes.

"Who is he?" After they saluted, William asked.

"Your Highness, this is Freilly, the mayor of Caen, Countdom of Mortan." Steward Osborne then introduced the people around him, not only by name, but also by repeal and adjustment of some tax items when he was mayor of Caen.

This is exactly what William needs now, in addition to being an economic expert, he also needs to be a person who is interested in reform, and the first of the reform must be taxation.

"Mr. Mayor, since you are now the mayor of Caen, you must have a good understanding of the country's existing tax system, so can you explain this before you give your opinion?" William was in high spirits, and his test of the mayor had already begun.

"Yes, Your Majesty," said Mayor Freilly respectfully, "the present tax can be divided into an agricultural tax for farmers and a commercial tax for merchants, if it is divided according to the taxpayers."

"The agricultural tax includes the annual tribute paid to the lord, the miscellaneous tax on the rental of farm implements, the poll tax and rent tax paid to His Majesty the King, the tithe paid to the church, etc.

In addition, in order to prove that the land was owned by the noble lord, the peasant would pay a 30-year tax every 30 years or when the lord changed, and he also had to pay a certain percentage of the money to the lord when the land was bought and sold and when the heirs inherited the land.

Commercial taxes are not so numerous, but because of the mercantilist and protectionist policies that the Norman kingdom has long pursued since your reign, heavy taxes are often levied on factory owners and merchants who have become rich because of the policies, as well as a wide variety of tolls and customs taxes are levied between counties and at border checkpoints."

"The former was made by His Majesty the King and the Treasurer of the Kingdom on the one hand, and the Church on the other, and it was a fixed decree which could not be changed by the localities and the nobles.

In the latter, the customs duties on the frontiers were set directly by the king, while the customs taxes and taxes required of factory owners and merchants in the provinces and regions were set separately from each locality. ”

William listened to Mayor Freilly and stopped, he didn't speak, just looked at Mayor Freilly, he nodded knowingly, and continued: "This tax collection system has serious drawbacks.

First of all, on the one hand, there are too many fixed taxes in agriculture, and on the other hand, there are sometimes more miscellaneous taxes such as those used to build roads, so that even in a good harvest year, the peasants do not get much surplus assets.

On the commercial side, border taxes, toll taxes, and other exorbitant taxes, which at first glance seem to be squeezing merchants, but in fact they are eventually passed on to ordinary people, because merchants set the price of goods much higher than their original value.

In this way, on the one hand, the commoners have no money to buy goods, on the other hand, the nobles need to buy goods at a price several times higher than the value of the goods, and in the long run, the nobles have to borrow from usury merchants and Jewish merchants on a large scale, and the way they use to repay the loan is to increase taxes, so that a vicious circle is formed: tax increases, price increases, and borrowing, and then a cycle that starts from tax increases, and finally, only after the lowest level of the commoners are most suppressed, and the commoners accumulate resentment, one day it will explode. ”

William was deeply touched by what he said, in fact, no system may be perfect, a flawed system is not terrible, what is terrible is when the flaws of the system become a cycle.

Fortunately, the problem was not serious in the Norman kingdom, and the oppression of the peasants and merchants at home was not William's only option, he could choose to conquer other countries, pass the problem on to others, and benefit all classes of the country through colonial rule.

William's situation was relatively light, on the one hand, because the church in the Norman kingdom was weak, because without the intervention of the church, the government could collect more taxes, and would not be dragged down by years of war.

"In fact, last year the state revenue of the Norman kingdom had reached 153,000 pounds of silver, but the total amount of taxes actually paid by the peasants and the toll taxes in various places was more than that." "Sixty percent of the peasants' taxes," said Durgo, "gave sixty percent of the peasants' taxes to the churches and lords, and the remaining forty percent went upwards, and only eighty percent of the forty percent went into the hands of His Majesty, and the remaining part was embezzled by officials at all levels."

If you want to cut money, on the one hand, you need to take money from the church and the lords, and on the other hand, you need to solve the problem of corruption. ”

The problem of corruption is a big problem, compared to the money given to the church and the lords in the system, its seriousness is internal, although it may be small, but this should also be based on a small foundation, if the church and the lord's money are really sent together, then who can guarantee that they will take the same amount as before?

"That's right, not only the state, but even the wealthy Flanders, where most of the money is in the hands of the church and the lords, but my income is much less." William was very unhappy with this situation, especially in the newly conquered territories, where there were many restless beatings against the 'old aristocracy' that were encroaching on his interests, which made him even more angry.