There is half a month to celebrate the New Year, this time in previous years, Ningbo Port will be a lot more deserted, but this year is a little different, even if it has been the Laba Festival, but Ningbo Port is still very lively, the ships coming and going have not decreased, but increased than usual.

It is said that because of the great changes that have taken place in Shuangyu Port this year, Nanyang, Xie Jia and Hongjia, the three largest chambers of commerce in Shuangyu Port, have become closer and closer, making Shuangyu Port more prosperous, and the throughput of goods has also nearly doubled, so now many people want to take this opportunity to make a few more trips to Shuangyu Port and strive to make more money before the Chinese New Year.

Ningbo Port is becoming more and more prosperous, and the officials who manage the port are naturally very happy, because the more ships moored in the port, the more taxes they receive, although these taxes are to be paid, but it is also very easy for them to extract a little oil and water, and the more taxes, the more oil and water they extract, so they also hope that the port is more prosperous as possible.

Counselor Cheng, as usual, got dressed from his third concubine on the third day, and did not have breakfast at home, so he rushed directly to the tax office on the port side, and when he arrived at the port, he looked at the sky and saw that it was still early, so he made up time to drink a bowl of porridge and eat a basket of soup dumplings in the Wang Ji breakfast shop by the port, and by the way, he teased the proprietress who was a little beautiful, and then came to the tax office with satisfaction.

Although Ningbo Port is within the territory of Ningbo Prefecture, the management of the entire port is not under the direct management of the local government, but under the direct management of the governor Yamen, such as the tax office in charge of Counselor Cheng, which is the agency sent by the governor Yamen to Ningbo Port to manage taxes. He, the counselor, was also a subordinate officer of the patrol yamen. It can be said that except for the governor. The local officials could not command him at all.

The scale of Ningbo Port is very large, which is bounded by the Yongjiang River, divided into two parts of the north and south, and a tax office has been set up respectively, of which Counselor Cheng is the chief official of the Beigang District Tax Office, and his subordinates are also in charge of dozens of people, and the rough work of collecting taxes is naturally handed over to his subordinates to do, and Counselor Cheng only needs to check the accounts every day.

I saw Counselor Cheng slowly enter the tax office. After saying hello to the guards guarding the door, I came to the storeroom in the backyard. In fact, the building in the entire tax office is very simple, except for a few office rooms, there are only two large warehouses left, one of which is used to hold tax books, and the other is used to store tax silver, and every ten days someone will be sent to take away the tax books and tax silver, as for the whereabouts of these tax silver, it is not for Counselor Cheng to know the way, but he can be sure. These taxes certainly do not go into the treasury.

When Counselor Cheng came to the warehouse, he saw that two large boxes had been stacked in front of the door of the large treasury containing tax silver. The lid of the box has been opened, revealing a large amount of copper coins in the box, and occasionally some broken silver, and several accounts are counting the number of silver coins, and then comparing it with the tax bill sent together, and according to the tax bill, each tax silver is recorded in the tax book, and it is convenient for the people above to check it in the future.

"Old bald, how is today's harvest?" Counselor Cheng looked at the silver boxes stacked on the ground, and casually asked the oldest tent among the tents, this old tent looked about sixty years old, and most of the hair on the top of his head was bald, so he was nicknamed old bald.

"Counselor Qiqi, today's harvest is good, from morning to now, two boxes of copper coins and broken silver have been collected, and the conversion into silver is nearly one hundred and fifty taels, it seems that today's tax silver is likely to exceed five hundred taels." The old bald man who was keeping the accounts was also very excited.

Counselor Cheng was also very happy to hear the figure of five hundred taels, although these sharp silver are all to be handed over, but as the so-called thousands of miles of officials are only for money, how can there be no greedy people in the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty? Even in his small tax office, a part of the silver will be intercepted as the welfare of the officials in the tax office.

Of course, Counselor Cheng and they will naturally not be stupid enough to touch the silver in the accounts, but when collecting taxes, all the tax collectors will deduct one-tenth of the tax silver, and this money will not be recorded in the accounts, and will be handed over in the evening, that is to say, the tax silver in front of them is actually only ninety percent of all tax silver. When the monthly money is issued, it will be distributed to everyone in the tax office, so that everyone can get the money and don't have to worry about someone telling them, and this is already a common practice in the officialdom.

Counselor Cheng roughly calculated in his heart, just today he can get five or six taels of silver, if he can maintain this number this month, then he can get more than one hundred and twenty taels, this is not a small amount, you must know that even if it is a first-class officer's salary, it is only eighty-seven stone of grain, plus other miscellaneous folds, I am afraid it is not less than one hundred taels of silver, but now he can get one hundred and twenty taels of silver.

Of course, Counselor Cheng only dares to compare with the normal salary of a first-class official, if the other hidden income of a senior official is counted, I am afraid that he is not even worthy of carrying shoes for others.

Next, Counselor Cheng walked to the old bald man who kept the accounts, flipped through the account books in front of him, and then went to the box containing the silver coins and grabbed a handful of silver coins to look at the condition, and found that there was no big problem, so he didn't care about these things anymore, and told the old bald to be careful, and then turned around and went back to his office room to prepare for a sleep, after all, he spent a lot of energy last night in order to feed the little vixen at home.

But today is destined to be an extraordinary day, just when Counselor Cheng returned to the house, before he could lie down, he heard a noise outside, and even someone's screams, as if someone had done something. This made Cheng Shen surprised in advance, there was a lot of money stored in the treasury in the tax office, could it be that there was a strong man who wanted to rush in and grab the money, right?

However, Counselor Cheng soon dispelled the above thoughts, although everyone knew that there was a large amount of silver in the tax office, but not far from the tax office was the military camp of Dinghaiwei, even if he had the courage to do so, I am afraid that no strong man would dare to grab the silver next to the barracks. Since it wasn't a robbery, the only explanation was that someone had come to make trouble.

"Dare to come to the tax office to make trouble, it's impatient!" Thinking that he was not a robber, Counselor Cheng's courage immediately grew, after all, he was only under the control of the governor's yamen, in the whole of Zhejiang, who would dare to provoke their governor's yamen?

I saw that Counselor Cheng straightened his clothes at the moment, made a gloomy appearance, and walked quickly to the place where the noise came from in the front yard with his hands behind his back, but as soon as he got there, he saw that the people from the tax office were confronting a group of brocade guards, and several of them from the tax office had already seen blood on their heads, and they looked very embarrassed, and it seemed that their side had suffered a loss.

Seeing this, Counselor Cheng was also furious, he had been at the tax office for so long, and he had never met anyone who dared to hit the governor's yamen, although the other party was Jinyiwei, but he thought that these Jinyiwei were the local Jinyiwei in Ningbo Prefecture, and he was not afraid of these people at all, after all, this is not the capital, and it is not the turn of Jinyiwei to be arrogant.

At that moment, I saw Counselor Cheng rushing forward angrily, pointing at the group of brocade guards and yelling: "Bastard, you don't look at what kind of place this is, you dare to beat our governor Yamen, I think you are impatient......"

"Ouch~, ouch~" Before Counselor Cheng's words were finished, someone smashed a scabbard on his head, which made him scream, and he squatted on the ground covering his head for a long time and couldn't stand up.

"Ma Baihu, we are here to receive the tax office, not to beat people, I will talk to them about the rest of the things, don't do it again!" Tang Bohu in the crowd was about to cry, he had repeated this sentence no less than ten times, but unfortunately for the group of brocade guards around him, it didn't work at all, and even that Ma Liang and Ma Baihu took the lead in beating people.

After Zhou Zhong took over the city shipping department yesterday, Yang Tong, who was promoted, was eager to show his merit to Zhou Chong, so today he immediately sent Li Lian and Tang Bohu, two deputy promotions, who brought more than 20 brocade guards respectively, and several small officials in the city shipping department, hurried to Ningbo Port to take over the tax collection office.

Originally, Tang Bohu felt that this year was easy, as long as he announced the order issued by His Majesty the Emperor, and then moved out of the great god Zhou Chong, even if the tax office had the support of the governor behind him, I am afraid that he would have to pay the tax office obediently.

But Tang Bohu obviously thought things too simply, when he brought people to the tax office, he didn't expect that the tax office was very arrogant, and he didn't react at all when he heard his words, but just told Tang Bohu that the tax office was under the direct management of the governor's yamen, and no one would want to go in unless they had a warrant from the governor!

This situation has been driven out of Tang Bohu's expectations, and he doesn't know how to deal with it for a while? But at this moment, the Jinyi Guards led by Ma Liang couldn't bear it anymore, they were all the elite of the Jinyi Guards, and even most of them were qualified to enter the palace, but now they were blocked by a small tax, and the other party's attitude was still so arrogant, this simply didn't take them seriously, it can be said that since the day they became the Jinyi Guard, they have never been so angry.

It is precisely because of this that the Jinyi guards who were blocked out finally couldn't help but make a move, they first beat the doorman of the tax office, and then they planned to rush in, and the people in the tax office naturally would not let them get their wish, so the two sides confronted each other in the front yard of the tax office, just when Ma Liang was really impatient and was about to take over the tax office with strong means, Counselor Cheng rushed out, and pointed at Ma Liang and scolded them, but just hit the muzzle of the gun, and was smashed by Ma Liang with a scabbard and couldn't stand up. (To be continued......)