In the lobby of the Fang Mansion, Fang Jiuming, the current head of the Fang family, was sitting drinking tea, and the two housekeepers of the Fang Mansion, seven or eight shopkeepers and dozens of account offices were standing in front of him in a regular line and staring at him.

Fang Jiuming slowly put down the teacup and said: "These goods must be transported before the eighth day of the next month, now there are so many homeless people in our city, although they are all poor ghosts, but even if everyone spends ten yuan in our shop, it is a lot of money, you all use snacks, understand?" ”

"Yes...... Master! The two rows of people standing at the front answered in unison.

But one of the shopkeepers asked, "Master, please forgive the villain for talking too much." As you said, those outcasts are a bunch of poor ghosts, do they have the ability to shell out the money to buy our things? ”

"Lao Li, you don't understand this." A shopkeeper beside him smiled and said, "You don't know, these days, that Lord Yue in our city doesn't know what kind of madness he has, and he actually put forward a statement called what is cash-for-work." Let those homeless people build canals, roads, and houses, and work every day, and then he will pay the poor ghosts for food and wages, so ah, those poor ghosts still have some silver in their hands. ”

"What? And that kind of thing. The shopkeeper couldn't help but exclaim: "This Lord Yue has thrown such a lot of silver, is he so much silver that he has nowhere to spend it?" ”

"Not really." At this time, Fang Jiuming sneered, "Don't look at this Yue Yang who looks selfless, in fact, he has a lot of benefits, as far as the old man knows, a few days ago, he got the tax power of our Hunyuan Prefecture from the hands of Governor Jiang, do you know what this means?" This means ......"

Before Fang Jiuming's words were finished, there was a rush of footsteps next to him, and then a middle-aged man appeared in front of the hall.

The man stumbled in, and after he pushed away the people in front of him, he knelt down in front of Fang Jiuming with a puff and cried, "Master...... The old man is not good, the batch of goods we imported from Datong was ...... He was detained by the city gate officials and the tax collectors......"

"What? Our goods have been detained! ”

Fang Jiuming almost jumped up, and asked with a look of disbelief on his face, "What the hell is going on." You make it clear right away! ”

"Master, this is the ......" The man knelt on the ground and wept silently and was about to enter the city, but was stopped by the officers and soldiers guarding the city for inspection, and then he was ordered to pay taxes and poured out......

"Bastard, these people dare to be so unreasonable...... It seems that the surnamed Yue is going to take our Fang family at this time! After listening to the whole story, Fang Jiuming's face became extremely blue.

The middle-aged man said again: "Master, look at it from a young age." In fact, these officers and soldiers are not only taking us under the knife, but the little ones just now saw that it is not just our family...... There are also convoys of the Bai family, the peasant family, the Huang family and the Zhou family, all of which were stopped by the officers and soldiers guarding the city, and those officers and soldiers were also those from the tax collector's department, and they all had to pay our taxes before they could enter the city. ”

"And this?" Fang Jiuming first exclaimed in surprise, and then sneered: "It seems that this Yue Yang is going to die by himself this time." Originally, the old man was worried that he was just targeting our Fang family, but now it seems that he wants to attack all the merchants in the city, so the people he offended will go to the sea. Hehe...... God is going to kill him...... Hahaha...... Old man, go and invite the heads of the Bai family, the farmer's family, the Huang family, and the Zhou family, and the old man will discuss some important matters with them......"

Two hours later, it was still the Fang family hall, and it was still the crowd that packed the hall. It's just that this group of people is no longer the housekeeper and shopkeeper of the Fang Mansion, but a group of forty or fifty-year-old old people, even Fang Jiuming's son Fang Yingdi also rushed over from the yamen at this moment, and at this moment these people are sitting on both sides of the hall looking at Fang Jiuming silently.

"Everyone!" Fang Jiuming was the first to speak, "As you all know, recently, in order to settle the displaced people, Governor Jiang has handed over the Tax Collector Division to that Yue Yang for management, and that Yue Yang has been taking over the Tax Collector Division since he took over. We have been counting the pù and goods of our stores, and it is also stipulated that when each batch of goods enters the city, they must greet the tax collector and pay the tax silver.

Hahaha...... I think my family has been in business for hundreds of years, how can I have paid so many taxes? Grandpa Tai once said: "Cool officials are as fierce as tigers". The old man is seeing it today, he Yueyang is going to slaughter us as pigs! If we don't make any more moves, then all our hard-earned hard-earned money will fall into the pockets of the surnamed Yue, how can this be made! ”

Fang Jiuming's words resonated with everyone. Fang Yingdi, who was standing behind Fang Jiuming, also nodded and agreed: "Yes, my Ming Dynasty has always been a light tax on servitude, although Taizu has set a rule, the commercial tax must be drawn from thirty taxes. But Taizu has only set up a framework. In fact, whether to pay taxes or not depends on the willingness of our merchants, which the previous prefects have done very well. But as soon as this Yue Yang took over the power of the tax collector's department, he began to make tough regulations for us to pay taxes, and whoever did not pay taxes would confiscate whose goods, how different from robbers? ”

"Yes, how is Yue Yang's move different from a robber?"

"It's so indifferent to us!"

"This is to slaughter us like pigs!"

Everyone talked about it, and they all scolded Yue Yang.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the atmosphere of the entire imperial court was completely different from that of the early Ming Dynasty. From the civil and military officials and eunuchs of the feudal domains to the talents and merchants, there was no one who did not occupy a large amount of land and mines, and there was no one who did not open a shop and set up shops. For them, evading state taxes is a fashion and a custom, both in the north and the south, and for these people, anyone who pays taxes to the court in full will be ridiculed.

It stands to reason that there are not many of these people, their number only accounts for less than half of the entire Ming Dynasty, but they occupy nearly ninety percent of the wealth of the entire Ming Dynasty, in order to keep their wealth, they understand various theories. For example, Gu Yanwu and others have made clear theories such as "hypocrisy" and "king".

These remarks have only one meaning, that is, the current Ming Dynasty no longer needs the emperor, and it is enough to hand over the country to the scholars of the world, and it is the most correct thing to let the scholars take charge of the world.

Viewed from the perspective of later generations, these ideas are undoubtedly progressive and enlightened, and at the same time a great step towards democracy. But there is a big problem here, as scholars, businessmen and officials at all levels, who occupy ninety percent of the country's wealth, they are not willing to pay even a dime in taxes for the country, for them the money is their own, and has nothing to do with the state and the court.

But if the government wants to run and the army wants to fight, these always need silver, right? But where does the money come from? So they turned their minds to the poor, who made up 90 percent of the country's population, but owned less than 10 percent of their wealth.

In Yue Yang's view, the shamelessness of these people who occupy the vast majority of the country's wealth has reached a peak of perfection, using the money and blood of the poor to defend the homes of the rich, is there anything more ridiculous in the world?

Especially in the late Ming Dynasty, the situation of the rich exempting the poor from paying taxes became stricter, and it has become a vicious circle. Some historians in later generations believe that at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the reason why there were tens of millions of displaced people in the Ming Dynasty was because of the great drought in the world and the lack of food among the people, or because the population of the Ming Dynasty was too large, and the per capita arable land became less and the land was annexed strictly, so there was a large-scale migration of people.

But in Yue Yang's opinion, these are all farts. Even by the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was still enough land for farmers to cultivate, but the main reason was the greed of scholars and merchants.

The big landlords, who occupied a large amount of land, worked hard to exploit the peasants in their hands, and in some places the proportion of rent collected reached as high as seven floors. Such a high rent naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of the tenants, and some farmers said: Okay, your rent is too expensive, Lao Tzu can always cultivate your own land without planting your land.

Okay, you can go and clear the wasteland yourself.

Those peasants are so naïve, how can the landlords, who own a lot of land, watch the homeless people open up the land themselves, and if the tenants go to clear their own fields, who will plant them? So they colluded with the government to forcibly collect taxes in disregard of the regulations promulgated by the imperial court that no grain tax would be collected within three years, so that the peasants were not cultivating wasteland, nor were they renting the landlords' fields, and finally they became homeless people, in Yueyang's view, this is the real reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

Seeing that everyone's anger had been provoked, Fang Jiuming's eyes flashed with a hint of history, and he said fiercely: "Everyone, since this is the case, we naturally can't stand still, we have to come up with a charter to deal with the person surnamed Yue!" ”

"Elder Fang, say it, what should we do, we will listen to you!"

"Yes, Elder Fang, what you say, let's all listen to you!"

For these people, if someone wants to collect taxes from them, it is no less than cutting off their life, so they naturally have to resist to the death, and want to touch their silver, not to mention a mere commander, even the emperor Laozi.

"This can be done!"

Fang Jiuming and Fang Yingdi's father and son inadvertently collided with each other, and the two immediately nodded knowingly.

Fang Yingdi immediately stood up and said: "For the father, since everyone has unified their opinions, then the next thing is to do." Didn't the person surnamed Yue make a fuss about collecting cash? Didn't he check our shop to collect taxes? Didn't he block the gates of the city and not let our goods in? Well, let's not open a shop, we won't buy goods, we won't do business, I'll see who he can collect taxes from! ”

"Hiss ......"

As soon as Fang Yingdi's words were finished, the people around him gasped, this guy is encouraging everyone to boycott the market......

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