According to Bi Xuanxi's plan, the Dangtu Industrial Zone was set up along the river near Ma'anshan, and official funds were used to buy large amounts of land from farmers, which were then sold to companies that set up factories there.

The first and most important enterprise to settle in is naturally Jiangnan Mining Company.

However, not many other companies have settled in temporarily, and large tracts of land will continue to be empty.

No way, there are not a few heavy industry enterprises in the empire now, and most of them are concentrated in the Shanghai Business Zone.

The development of Dangtu Industrial Zone still has a long way to go.

This is not only the difficulty of the Dangtu Industrial Zone, in fact, although the Chinese Empire widely supported the development of industry and commerce, but at present, the development of industry and commerce in other places except for the trade zone is quite limited.

Limited by the tradition of the past, now private capital basically has no intention of establishing heavy industry, as for the factory and the like, there are not many, except for the business area and the surrounding areas, the only better situation is Huzhou.

Because Huzhou is the main production area of raw silk, every year to Shanghai to supply a large number of silkworm cocoons, part of the original base in Huzhou large raw silk trading houses are also learning from the business zone over there of the peers, one by one to set up a steam reeling factory, although the scale is far from being comparable with those large steam reeling factories in the trade area, but it is more convenient.

In order to support the development of the local silk industry, the local government of Huzhou has also given great policy preferences. At the same time, a large number of traditional raw silk workshops went bankrupt and closed down, resulting in a large number of unemployed people in the raw silk industry, which is the case in Huzhou to engage in the raw silk industry. It still has certain geographical and personnel advantages.

As for Hangzhou, Ningbo, Suzhou and other places, under a series of policies to support industry and commerce such as the Imperial Company Law, the first to develop was not heavy industry, but all kinds of light industry.

And it's not a light industry with machines, it's a traditional handicraft workshop. For example, lumber mills, wineries, tea factories. Porcelain factories, etc., but the scale is larger, and the regulations are more reasonable.

Some emerging industries, especially those with relatively high technology content. Heavy industry, for example. The chemical industry is currently only available in the business zone.

At present, under the leadership of Lin Zhe, although industry and commerce have developed, they are still in a very primitive state.

However, Lin Zhe believes that with the further development of society, the proportion of private investment in modern industry will become larger and larger, and it is very promising to form a preliminary industrial society at that time.

Maybe it was because he saw the stimulation of Bi Xuanxi to build an industrial zone in Dangtu, and Ningbo, Zhejiang Province also said that he wanted to build an industrial zone. The main focus is not on heavy industry, but on the raw silk industry. Ningbo was originally a traditional export port for raw silk in Zhejiang, although it has been robbed of the limelight by Shanghai in recent years, but Ningbo is still an important export port for raw silk.

Although Yan Duanshu, the governor of Zhejiang Province, is an old-fashioned official, he is a very pragmatic person, and he does not care about any traditional hypocrisy and politeness.

As a result, the governor of Zhejiang Province personally took the lead, and the Huzhou Prefecture and the Ningbo Prefecture jointly prepared to integrate the raw silk industry in Zhejiang Province to compete with the raw silk industry in Shanghai.

At the same time, Chen Xiangmeng, the governor of Fujian who had just arrived in place, was not willing to be lonely, Fujian did not have the geographical advantages of developing minerals and transportation of heavy industry, and there was no cocoon production area to develop the raw silk industry, but Fujian's tea trade and timber, paper and other industries are traditional advantages.

In particular, Fujian's tea, but China's traditional export commodities in the past 100 years, along with raw silk and porcelain, is one of the three major export commodities, when the Treaty of Nanjing was signed to require Fuzhou as a treaty port, because the British wanted to deal directly with the tea merchants in Fujian, and buy tea nearby, without being transferred by the merchants in Guangzhou.

With such a traditional advantageous commodity, if it is not made bigger and stronger, Chen Xiangmeng will not be able to live up to the position of governor under his ass.

Therefore, the first thing he did when he first arrived was to organize the Fuzhou Tea Chamber of Commerce under the official guidance, which largely followed the example of the Shanghai Raw Silk Chamber of Commerce, adopted a unified price, and gave certain help to the members of the Chamber of Commerce, so as to strengthen the bargaining power with foreign businessmen, and at the same time effectively avoid tea smuggling.

Subsequently, he formulated a series of preferential policies for tea, and gave great policy support to enterprises that opened tea factories.

The reason why Chen Xiangmeng did this is naturally because today's tea is China's fist export commodity, you must know that tea has always been China's largest export commodity in the past, and in some years the export proportion once accounted for more than 70 percent or even 80 percent of the total export value, more than raw silk.

However, in recent years, due to the overnight rise of China's mill silk, the export volume has increased year after year, although China's raw silk has been exported in the past, but the main market is actually still in the country, and the total export volume is still relatively small.

However, with the large-scale emergence of factory silk, Shanghai has formed an industrial system with factory silk as the core, and foreign merchants are also very interested in factory silk, and the number of orders increases year by year, and so on this year in 1857, in China's five treaty ports, the value of raw silk exported has been the same as tea.

If only Shanghai and Ningbo are counted in the two treaty ports, then raw silk occupies an absolute leading position.

Despite the decline in the share of exports, the total export volume of tea is still gradually rising, and tea is the most important trade commodity in the two treaty ports of Fuzhou and Xiamen.

In this environment, what Chen Xiangmeng wants to do is to unify and integrate the production, processing and sales of tea in Fujian Province, and continue to expand Fujian's traditional industries.

In addition to tea, Fujian has several other traditional industries, such as paper and wood, which, like tea, are traditional handicraft industries that can be developed to support a large number of workers.

Judging from Chen Xiangmeng's support for tea and the development of paper and timber in Fujian. Then it can reflect the overall industrial and commercial situation in the Chinese Empire at present.

In addition to the special existence of the business zone, the industrial and commercial development in other places is dominated by cash crops and traditional handicrafts. And modern industry has not yet developed.

In fact, if we expand the scope a little more, then we can see that the economic system of the Chinese Empire is actually very small in the weight of industry and commerce, well, although the taxes collected by the Chinese Empire mainly come from industry and commerce, it is not industry and commerce that feed nearly 100 million people, but traditional agriculture.

Although the current empire is trying its best to support the development of industry and commerce. But the first priority of many local officials is to restore local agricultural production so that the people can have enough to eat, and the development of industry and commerce is only on the back burner.

Other words. At present, the industrial and commercial development of the empire is one-sided, limited to a few areas, such as commerce and trade, Ningbo. Huzhou, Fuzhou, Dangtu and a few other areas. The economic model in other places is not much different from the past, and it is still dominated by agricultural production.

However, although most of the region was based on agriculture, the Chinese Empire's tax revenue did not rely on agriculture.

"As of this month, the Ministry of Finance has collected a total of 360,000 yuan in national taxes this year, of which various commercial taxes account for 70 percent!" Qi Xuanhao, Minister of Finance, reported to Lin Zhe.

Colleagues in the Ministry of Finance believe that there are still certain loopholes and problems in our commercial tax collection system, and if they are optimized, various commercial taxes will be able to enter on the current basis. More than 10 percent! ”

Lin Zhe took Qi Xuanhao's report, flipped through the two pages at random, and said, "Hmm." Now that you have come up with the corresponding regulations, then it is good to implement them, but taxation is about the great plans of the empire, and you must not relax and do not be impatient, and do not cause a large-scale backlash! ”

Strengthening tax control and optimizing tax collection regulations basically means that the Ministry of Finance wants to increase more taxes, and where does the extra tax come from, it is not collected from businesses around the country.

If the tax burden is too heavy, it is easy to cause a backlash from the merchants!

The Chinese Empire's approach to the development of industry and commerce was somewhat polarized, on the one hand, it vigorously supported industry and commerce, but on the other hand, it imposed heavy taxes on industry and commerce.

So that the businessmen are miserable and happy, on the one hand, they can do business with peace of mind and get more profits, but on the other hand, they are also bearing more and more taxes.

Qi Xuanhao saw Lin Zhe put down the report, and immediately said: "In addition, in terms of agricultural tax, the current system is still a continuation of the former Qing era, but our situation is very different from the former Qing Dynasty. ”

Lin Zhe said: "Oh, what does the finance department mean?" ”

Qi Xuanhao said: "After discussion, my colleagues in the Ministry of Finance believe that the conscription system can no longer adapt to the current situation of the empire and can be appropriately abolished, and the miscellaneous taxes should be integrated into the agricultural tax, which can not only increase the revenue of the national tax, but also reduce the burden of the peasant people on the other hand!" ”

Lin Zhe nodded after hearing this: "The general direction is good, your finance department looks at the arrangement, and goes back and takes out a detailed charter!" ”

According to Chinese tradition, the land tax of all dynasties is actually relatively low, if only the tax is said, the burden on the peasants is not large, but since ancient times, local officials in China will always use various excuses to make the people serve the forced labor, and levy all kinds of messy and harsh taxes, so that the burden on the peasants is extremely heavy.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Chinese Empire, in order not to affect the lives of the peasants, there were no changes to agricultural taxes, etc., and they all followed the example of the pre-Qing era, and only integrated various commercial taxes such as centigold.

But it can't go on like this, the reform of agricultural tax is sooner or later, so this time Qi Xuanhao officially proposed to Lin Zhe to reform the agricultural tax.

Lin Zhe naturally had no reason to object, but although the agricultural tax was no longer the main source of tax revenue for the empire, because the impact of the agricultural tax on the national economy and people's livelihood was too great, and if it was not done well, the people would suffer unwarrantedly, so it must be cautious and absolutely not continue to increase the burden on the peasants.

Before Qi Xuanhao proposed the agricultural tax reform to Lin Zhe, the people from the Ministry of Finance had already made the corresponding plan in advance, and in less than two days, Qi Xuanhao took the agricultural tax reform plan to meet Lin Zhe again. (To be continued......)