After Bellistes and Basiliscus left, Qin Dong thought about the name Basiliscus, and felt that the name seemed to be the same as the name of an emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in history, and Basiliscus, the emperor, reigned for only a year and a half before Zeno was ousted from power, and exiled to Cappadocia and died there, Zeno then ascended the throne again as emperor.

If in terms of time, the Eastern Roman Emperor Basiliscus lived in this era, and was the same age as the military attache Basiliscus just now, could they be the same person? Thinking of this, Qin Dong immediately asked the guards to find Liu San.

Liu San was quickly found, and when he saw Qin Dong, he knelt down and saluted: "King! ”

"Okay, okay, this king has already said, don't kneel normally, you must pay attention next time, you get up!" Qin Dong was very dissatisfied with Liu San kneeling down and saluting at every turn.

Liu San stood up and said, "Yes, King!" ”

After taking a sip of tea, Qin Dong asked, "Does your intelligence system know about Basiliscus, the military attache of the Eastern Roman Empire's embassy in Saidica?" What is the origin of this man? What is the family situation and social background? ”

It turned out to be asking about this, Liu San suddenly had a bottom in his heart, and replied without thinking about it: "King, we have done a very detailed investigation of Basiliscus, this person's family is a big family in Constantinople, his father is an important military general of the Eastern Roman Empire, and he also has a widow sister named Venina, according to the news from the spies we deployed in Constantinople, we learned that Venina has recently had a hot fight with the Eastern Roman Emperor Leo, and it seems that she intends to seduce Leo!" ”

Sure enough, it was him! Qin Dong is now sure. Basiliscus, the military attache of the embassy, was the emperor Basiliscus who later staged a coup d'état to oust Zeno and ascended to the throne himself, and was subsequently ousted by Zeno.

Historically, Basiliscus was the brother-in-law of Leo I. He himself was one of the few famous generals in the Eastern Roman Empire in this era, but it is not known how much water this famous general had, but one thing can prove that he is indeed not a famous general, in 468 AD, Basiliscus was appointed as the supreme commander of the Byzantine Empire's army, and the expedition to North Africa to expel the Vandals was completely defeated by the 79-year-old Gaisaric at Mercury (now the Carben Peninsula of the Republic of Tunisia). But Verina obtained the emperor's pardon. He was exempted from responsibility. In January 475, Basiliscus staged a coup d'état that overthrew and expelled the new emperor Zeno, who had just ascended the throne. During his reign, he was dissatisfied with many people because of his support for the one-nature doctrine of Christ. 476 years. Zeno returns to the capital with the help of the barbarians to reclaim the throne. Basiliscus was banished to Cappadocia and died there.

Qin Dong thought for a while and ordered: "Send someone to keep an eye on Basiliscus, and record his every move and organize it into a book for easy reference." Other than that. The king wants to know if this man can be of my use. If there is such a possibility, you can do it."

"Yes, king, the old slave will do it!"

After Liu San left, Qin Dong picked up an official document and saw that this official document was made of parchment, due to the large amount of official use. Therefore, it is much thinner than ordinary parchment, otherwise it is difficult for the official to bear the huge cost of buying parchment.

The content of this official document made Qin Dong frown. The above report reported that since the promulgation of a whip law, coupled with the issuance of new coins to officials and official officials, the new coins have indeed circulated in all the territories controlled by Qin Dong in a very short period of time, but after the promulgation of a whip law, the collection of taxes and forced labor has not improved much efficiency, and the tax officials are not very familiar with the local situation, so there are also difficulties in collecting taxes, and only commercial taxes have been levied before, and agricultural taxes and population taxes have not been levied, after all, Qin Dong has only risen for two years. Moreover, when Qin Dong encouraged farming, one of the favorable conditions was to exempt agricultural tax and population tax for the first two years, and now the prescribed tax exemption time has passed, and the agricultural tax and population tax have also begun to be collected, but the progress of the collection is not very smooth, Qin Dong does not know what the reason is, he can only send someone to find Peteus who is in charge of this matter, and this official document is also presented by Peteus.

Petus quickly rushed over, and before he could speak, Qin Dong beckoned to him: "Petus, come, come and sit!" ”

"Thank you, King Xie!" Peteus saluted and sat down in Qin Dong, "I don't know what the king is doing when he asks his subordinates to come over?" ”

Qin Dong handed over the official document in his hand: "This is the official document you submitted this morning, it is about the collection and collection of taxes and forced labor, and your handling opinion on it reads: 'All counties and counties will strengthen the collection efforts, and the local officials will send people to cooperate with the tax officials to collect it'." This is a general way of dealing with it, and I am afraid that it will not have much effect, and the king now wants to ask, why after the promulgation of a whip law, the situation of taxation and forced labor in various places is still not optimistic? ”

Pethius stood up and saluted: "King Qiqi, almost every county and county tax officer in each county has an official document reporting that the tax collection and forced labor are unfavorable and submitted, this official document is written after the lower official asked him to synthesize the official documents submitted by all the counties and counties, that is to say, the tax collection in each county is almost not very smooth, this is a big matter, the lower official did not dare to slack off, so he immediately sent people to the counties to investigate, the personnel have been dispatched, I am afraid it will take a while to get results, but the matter cannot be put aside, Therefore, the official wrote this official document and attached the handling opinions, and handled it in this way for the time being, and then dealt with it as appropriate after the results of the investigation came out! ”

Qin Dong thought for a moment and then nodded: "Okay, the farthest place away from Saidika is thousands of miles, and the person in charge of the investigation will be delayed for a lot of time on the road, so if you want to investigate the results, I'm afraid it will take at least a month, then temporarily follow your handling opinions, and we will discuss it after the results of the investigation come out!" ”

"Yes, King!"

In September 456, the officials sent to various places to investigate the reasons for the unfavorable taxation and conscription sent back official documents of the results of the investigation, and Pethius made a comprehensive count of all the results of the investigation and came to a conclusion, and presented them to Qin Dong after collating the conclusions.

When meeting Qin Dong, Pethius said on the ground investigation results: "King Qiqi, the personnel sent to various places to investigate the unfavorable causes of tax collection and forced labor have all sent back the results of the investigation, and the lower officials have sent people to sort out these results, and found that the reasons for the disadvantage of collecting taxes and forced labor are mainly in several aspects, the first is that the tax officials are not familiar with the local situation and do not understand the local customs, so that many tax officials have conflicts with the local people, which causes the tax collection to not come up. The second reason is that people in the countryside deliberately evade taxes to avoid forced labor, and when the tax officer comes to the door, they get the news and run away, so that the tax officer will pounce on him. The third reason is that many people, seeing that they have to pay taxes, put themselves and their families in the names of local officials and gentlemen, so that because they have nominally become the families of officials and gentlemen, they do not have to pay taxes, so they avoid taxes and servitude, and in return, the officials and gentry collect a sum of money from them, of course, much less than paying taxes, and these three points are basically the reasons for the disadvantage of taxes and conscription! ”

"Smack!" Qin Dongtie slapped the table with a loud bang with a blue face, and said angrily: "It's really unreasonable, the first reason is understandable, it's a big deal that the officials sent to collect taxes try to use the locals, after all, the locals are familiar with the local situation, at least there are no problems in communication, and they will abide by local customs and habits, the second reason must be that someone has reported the news, this must be that the local magistrate has leaked the news, and the third reason is that the local officials want to use this matter to make money, I ask you, How many things do local officials do to shelter the people and help them evade taxes? ”

Pethius bent down and saluted, "My lord, most of them are caused by the first and second causes, because the third cause is very few, and so far there have only been five or six cases."

Qin Dong got up and said: "Five, six, seven is already a lot, it seems that it is necessary to set up a new official office to supervise officials and prevent officials from being corrupt and unable to break discipline!" Now that the matter has been investigated, you should withdraw all the investigators who have been sent to various places."

"Yes, King!" Pethius agreed, and then asked: "It's just that there must be a good way to deal with this matter, otherwise if the taxes and forced labor cannot be collected, our finances will be greatly lost, and if it continues for a long time, it will be very unfavorable to the future!" ”

"This king knows!" Qin Dong thought for a while after speaking, and only after a few minutes did he say: "At this time, King Rong Ben considered it and notified him that in three days, the government chiefs of all the official offices and institutions of the Regent Palace's palace would come to the conference hall to discuss matters."

Peteaus promised: "Yes, my lord, I will go and inform you!" ”

After Peteus left, Qin Dong fell into deep thought, the fact that taxes and conscription cannot be collected is indeed quite nerve-wracking, but it is also very normal in this period, let alone this period, even in the twenty-first century, there are still many people who try to evade taxes. In the end, how can we collect all the taxes in various places as much as possible and reduce the occurrence of tax evasion?

After pondering for a long time, Qin Dong sent someone to call Cao Charlie over, Cao Charlie's current position is the right national teacher, although he is not under the regent palace in his position, but Cao Charlie can't and dare not buy Qin Dong's account, everyone knows that the real head of the Xiongnu Empire is now Qin Dong, the regent, and Enek is just a puppet. The reason why Qin Dong wanted to call Charlie Cao over was to ask him for advice, this old crooked idea has always been a lot, maybe he can come up with a good idea to help Qin Dong solve the problem. (To be continued......)