In the past 1907, by February 1908, the three eastern provinces exported more than 1,335,000 tons of soybeans, and the total export value surged to 30,913,000 pounds, although the average price of soybeans in the three eastern provinces fell to 21 pounds 7 shillings per ton because of the surge in the export scale of soybeans in the three eastern provinces, but the impact on the best-selling soybeans in the three eastern provinces was not great.

In addition to the fact that the Far Eastern Commercial Bank directly sold to the outside world through its branches in Europe and the United States and other countries, the Far Eastern Commercial Bank controlled 40,000 hectares of land through Yufeng Bank, and obtained a special huge profit through the long-term agreements signed with the military reclamation and official reclamation of the three provinces.

In 1907, the Far East Mining Corporation and the Far East Iron and Steel Corporation mined 13.55 million tons of coal, after the European coal shortage in 1900 and the economic crisis in 1903, European and American countries had a conservative attitude towards their own coal exports, and restricted the way of collecting export tariffs on coal exports, so that the overall supply of coal in the international market became tighter, and at present, in Europe, the price per ton of high-quality coal was 15 kopecks, or a ton of high-quality coal was about 1 pound.

Due to the lack of support from the major coal mining countries, the Asian region was completely dependent on importing coal from Australia, Britain and France in the early days, and the price before 1899 was usually 8 taels per ton of silver, and after 1900, it surged to 10 taels of silver, and then continued to rise because of the Russo-Russian War, and the price fell slightly in 1907, but it still maintained the price of more than 10 taels of silver per ton.

As the world's largest international commodity, even after so many twists and turns, the overall price is still the most stable, for the Far East consortium to obtain a total sales of about 133.5 million taels of silver from the UK, Asia and the Kanwai and overseas markets, of which about 1/10 of the amount is supplied to the UK as low-sulfur high-quality thermal coal.

With the rapid and rapid development of the three eastern provinces, the land prices in some coastal areas of the three eastern provinces and Shenyang and Changchun have also risen rapidly, and the Far Eastern Commercial Bank has begun to appreciate rapidly in a large number of real estate and land previously held.

Of course, compared with the two main industries of soybeans and coal, other industries, including real estate, are insignificant, and although the local iron ore mining volume has increased significantly, due to the growth of iron-making capacity, Far East Iron and Steel Corporation is now mainly selling pig iron as the main business, and some of it is sold to the capital and Southeast Asia.

The business of the Far Eastern Commercial Bank is very extensive, and the business of finance, real estate, ports, shipping, railways, animal husbandry, textiles, timber, grain, sugar, salt, soybean meal, fur, medicinal materials, coal, iron ore, pig iron, copper, silk, seafood, etc., is still very wide, and the vast majority of the business is still in the three eastern provinces, as well as exported to the customs, and from the customs to purchase tea, hemp, cotton, medicinal materials and other commodities, and from the international market to buy other imported goods.

The large-scale sales of coal and the huge huge profits slapped the faces of the illiterate commercial Song Biao and the chief directors of the Far East consortium, and the facts proved that the views of industry experts and economic experts such as Wu Yangzeng and Ouyang Xi were correct.

After all, Wu Yangzeng was a person in the officialdom, and only after the new tax on the coal industry in the fourth quarter was included in the Finance Department of the Governor's Office did he write a report to Song Biao, asking for an increase in the scale of investment in the coal industry within the Far East consortium, and Ouyang Xi was very embarrassed, so he took this opportunity to submit a very detailed demonstration report to Song Biao, using extremely detailed market data and information to demonstrate the development prospects of the coal industry in the three eastern provinces.

Most of the coal currently mined in the three eastern provinces belongs to Jurassic coal and early Cretaceous coal, characterized by low sulfur content and low ash content, which is completely different from the vast majority of coal on the market, especially with this coal, plus the calorific value is relatively high, from lignite to anthracite covers a wide range, the international market demand is high, and the coal in some areas is also high-quality power anthracite, which can be sold exclusively to warships and cruise ships.

It is said that the coal is mainly bituminous coal, and there are more coal in the Late Triassic, and the quality is actually good, but the sulfur content is too high, and the mining cost is too high, which is the two main drawbacks of the coal industry, and it is very disadvantaged when competing with the coal industry in the three eastern provinces.

In terms of taxation, the tax rate of the coal industry is much higher than that of the textile industry, which is the case in every country, even for large industrial countries such as Britain and France, the relevant taxes of the coal industry also account for 1/4 of the national tax revenue, and it is also possible for the three eastern provinces to occupy 1/2 of the total tax revenue for the rich coal reserves and underdeveloped industries.

For Song Biao, who has just educated Ouyang Xi with the long-term concept of development, this is simply the most contempt and slap in the face, very faceless, but no one will get along with money, Song Biao can only knock out his teeth and swallow blood, and send the report to Far Eastern Commercial Bank after approval for Rong Xingqiao and others to learn from.

The Far Eastern consortium has been competing with the coal faction and the textile faction, and before that the textile faction was dominant, as the tax revenue of the coal industry in the three eastern provinces surged to 26,032,500 taels of silver in the last quarter of 1907, accounting for 45% of the annual financial revenue of the three provinces.

This is due to the fact that in the following quarter, as the major coal mines are concentrated and large-scale production, and the coal consumption and foreign exports increase sharply in winter, if the current production capacity continues to grow throughout the year, the tax collected by the three eastern provinces in the mining sector will further surge.

After carefully reading Ouyang Xi's report, although Song Biao was a little embarrassed, he still called the Research Bureau and asked Ouyang Xi to come to his office.

After waiting for about five minutes, Ouyang Xi, who was wearing a black tweed coat, hurried over, and when he entered the office, he bowed slightly cautiously and said, "Lord Zhongtang." ”

Song Biao was already a scholar of Dongge University at this time, and he didn't need to add the title of Taishi Taibao to be a first-class official, so he was naturally a very authentic Zhongtang adult.

Song Biao glanced at Ouyang Xi, invited him to sit down, and said, "I have read your report, and it can be regarded as a lesson for me, and I am worthy of the high talent who returned from studying in the United States, and I admire it." ”

Ouyang Xi was greatly surprised, although he also hoped to gain Song Biao's attention, but he was inevitably flattered to achieve such a goal so smoothly. This person is Ouyang Geng's nephew, his father was the consul general of the Qing court in the United States, his father died early, and since then Ouyang Geng has been taking care of him in the United States and supporting him to study in the United States.

Ouyang Xi was apprehensive, and he didn't even know whether Song Biao was telling the truth or the opposite, so he replied very cautiously: "What Lord Zhongtang said about both is a long-term strategy, and the lower officials also take it as a matter of fact, but there are many unreasonable things in the tax settings of the three eastern provinces, and if you want to increase taxes as soon as possible, the development of mining is far faster than the textile industry." The reason is very simple, because at present, all countries in the world have adopted a conservative attitude towards coal exports, and the taxes are very high, even the tax rate charged by the United Kingdom on coal exports is higher than that of the three eastern provinces, and the United States and Germany are obviously heavy taxes, while the United States and France are higher than the United Kingdom and lower than Germany, and Russia, which is also a major coal exporter, has also adopted higher taxes on coal exports after the coal shortage and economic crisis in Europe. Compared with coal, all countries have adopted support and low tax policies for the textile industry, and the textile industry compared with the industrial powers, and China's textile industry tariffs are too low, simply can not play a role in protecting the country's textile industry, started late, and it is very difficult to make a big breakthrough in the short term of five or six years. I have studied the 22 textile industry countermeasures implemented within the Far Eastern Commercial Bank, which is indeed very comprehensive, but it seems too optimistic in the expectation setting, and I think that it is expected that the textile industry in the three eastern provinces will exceed the hope of the capital within five years, and even if it is realized, it is not of great significance, and the impact on taxation is too small. ”

Song Biao can really listen to Ouyang Xi's persuasion now, continue to invite Ouyang Xi to sit down, and personally pour tea for Ouyang Xi, and said, "I invite you here now mainly to ask you about the taxation of the three eastern provinces. Do you think there is a problem with the taxation of the three eastern provinces, or am I the only one who thinks so? ”

Ouyang Xi took the teacup handed over by Song Biao with both hands with great gratitude, and replied respectfully: "What Lord Zhongtang said is very true, there are indeed many problems in the taxation of the three eastern provinces. On the whole, the three eastern provinces are almost the lowest tax areas among the world's major countries, but the standards of mining tax rate and real estate tax rate are roughly the same as those of other countries, especially the real estate tax rate, because of the design of real estate value-added tax, in fact, second only to the capital and Germany, and higher than the four countries of Britain, France, the United States and Russia. Mining tariffs are relatively lower than those of Britain, France, the United States, and Russia. The lower officials do not know who formulated such a tax rate policy, but on the whole, the shortcomings are still very obvious, for the three eastern provinces, such as the three eastern provinces, which have just begun to develop, usually adopt a higher tax rate on agricultural tax and a lower tax rate on industrial tax, especially on mining and real estate, so as to facilitate the rapid increase of basic capital of domestic capital enterprises. The tax rates of the three eastern provinces are the opposite, similar to those in the United Kingdom, which restricts the annexation of commercial properties through high property taxes, and similar to France, which protects agricultural development through low agricultural taxes. Of course, I don't think there is a problem with the design of this tax rate, and it is difficult to evaluate it specifically and absolutely, but its shortcomings are also inevitable, that is, it restricts the free circulation of commercial land, and almost half of the tax revenue of the political axe comes from mining. ”

Song Biao bowed his head slightly and asked, "If you come to adjust, what aspects do you think need to be modified?" ”

Ouyang Xi said: "The real estate tax should be appropriately reduced, and the agricultural tax should be appropriately increased." The current tax policy of the three eastern provinces is ostensibly beneficial to farmers and agriculture, but the low agricultural tax will inevitably lead to two problems: first, it is difficult to transfer the agricultural population to the industrial population; Second, it is easy to lead to large-scale land annexation. The national capital industry in the three eastern provinces is still relatively backward compared with areas like Shanghai, especially for China, a country that lacks an industrial base, with the rapid development of the economy, capital is nothing more than the flow of three directions, one is to industrial and commercial land, the other is to agricultural land, and the third is mining, and the high tax on mining and real estate industry will oppress the transfer of funds to agricultural land to a large extent, if the current tax system is further implemented, national capital will gradually flow into agricultural land on a large scale. The formation of a large landlord class similar to that of Mexico was very detrimental to the further development of industry and commerce. ”

Song Biao thought about it for a while, and felt that what he said was very reasonable, so he said to Ouyang Xi: "The current tax rate policy in the three eastern provinces is mainly formulated by me at the beginning, and the original formulation of such a policy mainly considers two factors, one is that the people as a whole are still relatively poor, and they should raise the rich in the people, and the agricultural tax should naturally be low, and at the same time, it is also necessary to consider that the basis of the economic development of the three eastern provinces is agriculture, such as the cultivation of soybeans and sugar beet, including the development of animal husbandry and the development of forestry, which require small and medium-sized landlords. The rich peasants accumulated capital through agriculture to expand the scale of operation, improve mechanized planting, and promote new planting techniques; Second, it is hoped that capital will be transferred to the industrial field as much as possible, instead of being like the Shanghai Concession, where large-scale capital is crowded into real estate, and businessmen almost always make money by speculating on land. As for mining, after all, mining resources do not belong to the political axe, nor do they belong to individuals, and it is natural to appropriately collect higher taxes for the people of the three provinces. ”

Ouyang Xi replied: "Lord Zhongtang is sincere for the people, and the lower officials are deeply admired, but everything is too much. At present, it is the three eastern provinces that are actively promoting infrastructure construction, increasing basic investment in ports, roads, transportation, water conservancy, canals, etc., including support and investment in the field of education. Appropriately increasing the agricultural tax and the related party transaction tax and restricting the large-scale holding of land will prevent capital from crowding into agriculture, avoid large-scale land annexation, and form a large landlord class. As for the question of the real estate industry, the characteristics of a stage of businessmen are naturally a stage, and in the present environment, there are very few areas in which domestic national businessmen can compete with foreign capital businessmen, especially in the area of setting up factories, and generally only a very small number of domestic businessmen have this kind of management ability. It is still crucial to appropriately reduce taxes on the real estate industry, allow capital to flow into the real estate industry, promote the development of infrastructure through the development of the real estate industry, increase employment and other tax revenues, and ensure the diversity of the national commercial capital and the ability to grow itself. ”

Song Biao still thought carefully for a while, he knew that the problems Ouyang Xi said were objective, for example, the Far East Commercial Bank has been considering increasing the amount of agricultural land holdings recently, and Rong Xingqiao has also discussed with Song Biao the matter of allowing commercial capital to start a reclamation business, hoping that the Far East Consortium will directly arrange for the Far East Grain and Animal Husbandry Corporation to reclaim wasteland, and directly involve the cultivation of cash crops such as soybeans and sugar beets on a larger scale.

As far as the current rate of return is concerned, the profits of reclaiming wasteland to grow soybeans and sugar beets in the three eastern provinces and opening grain and animal husbandry processing factories are higher than those of the textile industry, but this has little to do with taxes, because the textile industry still enjoys more preferential tax policies, and the real reason for the low profitability of the textile industry is the low sales policy of textile products.

The low-cost sales policy of this textile is because the product must face the competition of German and French products, and must adopt a cheaper policy of lower prices, which further squeezes the profitability of the national textile industry.

The soybean and sugar beet processing industries of grain and animal husbandry processing plants are more profitable, also because of the lack of relevant competitive projects, which cannot compete with the grain and oil processing plants and sugar factories in the three eastern provinces, and in the field of equipment, the total investment of the former is relatively low.

Seeing that Song Biao was silent, Ouyang Xi guessed that Song Biao was still very reluctant to adjust the tax rate of agricultural tax, so he proposed separately: "Lord Zhongtang, the agricultural light tax policy actually has great benefits, it is beneficial to the increase of farmers' wealth, and it can be quickly expanded to the growth of other consumption areas. The question is how to limit land annexation, and I think it is possible to adopt a tiered agricultural tax and a direct policy to limit the total amount of land held by individuals. ”

Song Biao thought for a moment and asked, "Have you considered the problem of large-scale agriculture?" ”

Ouyang Xi said bluntly: "I don't recommend that China consider American-style large-scale agricultural planting, but more intensive cultivation and planting by small and medium-sized farmers, for example, Ben and France are relatively small in terms of the amount of farmland held per capita, and they themselves do not support this kind of large-scale agriculture, imposing higher taxes on agricultural products, and at the same time increasing high tariffs on foreign agricultural products." This kind of agricultural policy has led to the price of domestic agricultural products being higher than that of the international market, and it is said that due to the special needs of certain quarters, except for the adoption of special preferential policies for raw silk, tea, and timber, other agricultural taxes are much higher than those of China and even higher than those of France. It is precisely because the prices of their domestic agricultural products remain high that the probability of foreign agricultural products pouring into the country is high, such as France's demand for colonial agricultural products, and Ben's special demand for agricultural products from North Korea and Taiwan. The problems of the three eastern provinces are very complex compared to the Guannei, we are actually more suitable to learn from the light agricultural tax and encourage agricultural exports in the United States, as well as the large and medium-sized farm management model, many issues need to be considered very carefully, the tax issue may only be adjusted by a few percentage points, and the impact on the national economy in the long term will be too complicated, especially considering the increasingly close world trade, and the premise that other countries adopt different tax policies. ”

Song Biao did not agree with Ouyang Xi's views on adjusting agricultural taxes, but he still very much agreed with some of Ouyang Xi's views.

Indeed, tax rates are a very important issue.

The coal tax revenue of the three eastern provinces accounts for 45% of the annual fiscal revenue of the three provinces, which is a very complex problem, first of all, the coal industry tax of the three eastern provinces is too heavy relative to the tax of other industries, on the surface, the coal industry tax of the three eastern provinces is no different from other countries, but the three eastern provinces maintain a very low level in agriculture, and adopt a large number of preferential policies in the industrial tax, which is almost equivalent to exempting 2/3 of the industrial tax to stimulate the development of industry.

Although the rapid development of industry did not provide high tax revenue, it stimulated the development of the coal industry, and supplemented the total tax revenue of the three eastern provinces from another level.

However, there is definitely a problem with such a tax ratio, and there is definitely a problem with the entire economic form, and if we want to adjust it, we must make a large-scale adjustment in the tax policies and tax rates of the three eastern provinces.

Except for Ouyang Xi, Song Biao does not have a real expert in the field of political axe tax policy at all, and the level of the so-called Russian experts hired from the Russian Taxation Bureau is probably even worse than Ouyang Xi.

Since he was invited over, Song Biao talked with Ouyang Xi about taxation for a long time, and finally decided to adjust the tax policy and tax rate of the three eastern provinces.

It is in this conversation that Song Biao gradually understood this is actually quite a simple truth, such as real estate tax, in fact, it must not be set too high in this period, to stimulate the inflow of capital into the real estate industry.

Considering the level and actual ability of domestic ethnic businessmen, the best may be trade, real estate, and agriculture, and too much capital flows to trade is hoarding and speculation, too much flow to real estate is a bubble, and too much flow to agriculture is land annexation.

The best way to truly conform to the direction of capital market flow is to flow freely and equilibly, and the market will automatically choose the direction of development that is most conducive to the country and the region, and the so-called macroeconomic regulation and control is to let the capital flow in the direction that the political axe wants.

(To be continued)