The Manchu Qing Dynasty has always emphasized agriculture and suppressed business, and in the early years, when there was only one treaty port in Guangzhou, the goods from the mainland had to go through many checkpoints when they were transported to Guangzhou, and the heavy burden of commercial taxes, tariffs, and various names of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes was eye-popping, just like the Hushu Pass on the Jiangnan Canal, there were many ghost gates that exploited the merchants in various places, but often these harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes could not enter the money bags of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and most of them were pocketed by corrupt officials and corrupt officials in various places.

After the Taiping Army entered Shanghai, many business owners who were hiding in the concession area were originally trembling, but later learned that the Taiping Army not only did not plunder the rich like the bandits and thieves in the past, but encouraged the reopening of commerce and trade. The bosses of the major businesses returned to the city to take a look, and sure enough, the Taiping army did not commit any crimes, but just copied the homes of those Manchu officials, and many people secretly clapped their hands and applauded, and saw the Taiping army waving silver all over the city to buy all kinds of goods, and the major merchants reopened trade one after another.

Although the trade has been reopened, the bosses of these businesses are still beating drums in their hearts, just afraid that one day the Taiping army will turn their faces, you must know that the Tianjing side has taken away the local merchants, and all the money, grain and goods have been filled into the holy treasury, in short, most of these business bosses plan to return to their hometowns after completing this transaction.

In the next few days, they successively received invitations from the West King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, inviting them to discuss major matters, the bosses of the firms only said that the Taiping Army still refused to let them go, the so-called goose plucking, the Taiping Army still had to extort a donation like the Manchu Qing Dynasty to give up, and they could only come to meet with their heads.

After arriving at the meeting, the Chinese businessmen did not expect that there would be foreign businessmen to participate, and many people thought. Could it be that the long-haired man is so bold that he still wants foreign businessmen to donate? Either way, there's going to be a good show to watch today.

Later, they met the Western King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, who seemed to be a big and rough figure, but he actually saw extraordinarily, and he publicly announced several policies of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom towards merchants, which greatly calmed the hearts of Chinese merchants, and many people had dispelled the idea of returning to their hometowns. Then Xiwang talked about the planning of the China Merchants Administration, and everyone's eyes lit up, and it seemed that Xiwang was going to prosper business in Shanghai. Everyone is a person who has been in business for many years, and the ability to see and grasp the opportunity is not a generic person, and many people can see at a glance that this is really an opportunity. The Manchu Qing dynasty was rotten. The soldiers were defeated in successive battles, and there were disturbances in various places, and the people of the time understood that the Manchu Qing Dynasty was already in decline, and it would not be long before they jumped, and even the foreigners became the guests of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It is also good to follow the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, except for a few people whose families are eunuchs and still play drums in their hearts. More have dispelled their biggest concerns.

Now the king of the west has spoken about the negotiation of the customs tariff rules. It is even more reassuring that under the rule of the Manchu Dynasty, when did the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom attach so much importance to the opinions of merchants? In the eyes of the Manchu officials, the merchants were a group of inferior people who were covered in copper stench, and they had nothing to respect except money. The status of the merchants is underground, even the Wu family, a wealthy family with the thirteen lines in Guangzhou and the number one on Shijie, is as cheap as ants in the eyes of the Qing court.

Yu Songnian frowned. After waiting for everyone's cheers to settle down, he got up and arched his hand: "King Xi, the determination of customs duties is a matter for the government, what does it have to do with us and other small people?" ”

Xiao Yungui smiled and said, "Boss Yu's words are wrong. Do we Chinese businessmen just want to do business locally? In the future, I can also go out and do business in the four seas. This tariff involves the tax rate of our domestic import and export goods, and it must have something to do with everyone. This king knows that this tariff rate will ultimately be determined by our government department, but before it is promulgated, this king can discuss it with everyone, after all, the big guys are people who have been running business for many years, and they also know what the pros and cons are. In short, this king has only two purposes for setting this tariff rule, one is to get rid of the old habits of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, so that the wealth of our heavenly kingdom can be abundant. The second is that this tariff rule can make Shanghai's commerce and trade fairer, and then develop Shanghai's commerce, so that you can work more and get more, and there will no longer be the same as before, there is no collusion between officials and businessmen, and friends are treacherous! This king said here today, as he still said later, we in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom will not do anything to compete with the people for profit, and it is natural to come out to do business to be a win-win situation, and a win-win situation is that our Heavenly Kingdom Department and all the businesses are profitable, so that we can enrich the country and the people! ”

As soon as King Xi's words were finished, the Chinese businessmen applauded again, and even Yu Songnian couldn't help but pat his hands a few times.

Wen Han listened to Midile's translation, touched his high nose and smiled slightly bitterly and whispered: "Our British Empire is bound by the hateful Russians, and our concession at this moment may be to set up a powerful enemy for ourselves, this King of the West is a far-sighted and terrible figure, and he will definitely become a fierce enemy of our British Empire in the future." ”

Midile smiled and said, "Maybe we can also use him to further open up the huge market of China, right?" ”

Wen Han let out a sigh of relief and said, "Perhaps, at least so far, he has behaved more enlightened and pragmatic than the Manchu government, and so far, the interests and cooperation between our two sides are still the same." Next, let's take a look at the tariff details that Xiwang invited Li Taitai to participate in. ”

Midile nodded, he was a little curious about the actions of this king of the west, he was very bold to hire a little-known little man Li Tai to participate in the formulation of the tariff rules of the Taiping Army, this Li Tai Midil is known, although he came to China very early, but he is very young, and he is only a translator secretary in the British Consulate, does he have such a talent?

When the counselor of the West Hall carried a huge wooden board, several long sheets of rice paper were nailed to it, and on the far right were written several large characters "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Shanghai Customs Tariff Rules Provisional Draft", followed by small characters written in small letters, which conformed to the writing habits of the Chinese.

Although they have been in China for many years, they are still very unaccustomed to reading Chinese handwriting, they are used to writing from right to left, and Midile has to stand up and look at it carefully. In the midst of an exclamation, more and more foreigner interpreters quickly translated the above words.

On the side of the plank, Li Tai, who was wearing a tuxedo dress, stood on the edge of the plank, he cleared his throat and began to elaborate on the tariff rules sentence by sentence. Next to him stood Wang Libin, the translator of the Mohai Library, Li Tai spoke a word of English, and he translated a word of Chinese. Make sure that all the Chinese and foreign businessmen present can understand.

This tariff rule deals with the tariff rates of more than 250 kinds of goods traded between China and foreign countries, which are divided into different categories, including grain, industry, daily use, medicinal materials, luxury goods, and so on. Generally speaking, it is not much different from the import tax rate set by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but what is surprising is that opium as a medicinal material is also impressively listed, but the tax rate is very high, 60 taels of silver per 100 catties, which makes many foreigners feel dissatisfied.

The opium trade in China has a long history, in fact, it was introduced to China as early as the Tang Dynasty, and at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty began to levy import taxes on opium. At that time, taxes were also paid according to imported medicinal materials, and two coins of silver were levied for every ten catties. After the death of the Ming Dynasty, the Manchu Qing Dynasty forbade the sea for a long time, and in the 23rd year of Kangxi, the sea was banned, and opium followed the old system of the Ming Dynasty. Levy import tax on medicinal materials, and levy three coins of silver for every ten catties. The tax rate is slightly heavier than that of the Ming Dynasty. In the seventh year of Yongzheng. The Qing Dynasty banned smoking for the first time, but this ban was actually only a ban on opium smoke shops and smugglers, and the opium tax was not suspended. In the first year of Jiaqing, the Qing court stopped collecting opium taxes and did not recognize the opium trade as legal.

After the Opium War, the five ports were opened to trade. However, the Qing court still did not recognize the legality of the opium trade, but the smuggling of the opium trade became more and more widespread, and in 1842, the British imported more than 33,000 boxes of opium into China, and Hong Kong became an opium smuggling center. Macao is another opium warehouse outside Hong Kong, and Shanghai and Guangzhou are the two largest ports of opium importation. On the one hand, the Manchus secretly refused to recognize the legitimacy of the opium trade, and on the other hand, the opium smuggling trade was repeatedly banned, which also caused a large outflow of silver. The Manchu customs, the officials of the navy division, and the opium smuggling merchants were in unison, covering each other's profits, resulting in repeated opium bans, and the cowardice of the Manchu Qing Dynasty was also the cause of the Opium War, even if they found out the smuggling of opium, they did not dare to provoke the foreigners.

Opium smugglers were accustomed to tax exemption, and suddenly the Taiping Army said that opium could be imported as medicinal materials, which was more welcome, but such a heavy tax of 60 taels per 100 catties would only greatly reduce the profit margins. In fact, in Xiao Yungui's view, if China wants to ban smoking, it must first start from itself, just like Pu Dingcha said, if no one in China smokes opium, then naturally there will be no opium trade, why is there no opium flood in Japan in the same era? Xiao Yungui did not mind importing opium as a medicinal material, but after importing it, it was a Chinese commodity, and he wanted to strictly control the flow of opium in the country, and restrict opium as a medicine with strict control of use. The Taiping army strictly banned smoking in its territory, and the tobacco houses in Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi and other places had been swept away, and the illegal merchants who imported opium in the country, the Taiping army found one and killed one by one, and all the opium seized was confiscated.

Xiao Yungui believes that as long as the domestic market is contained, the opium trade will be controlled. Of course, he also had to give an explanation to the foreign powers, and he simply and generously imitated the old examples, and listed opium as an imported medicinal material, but imposed heavy taxes, and he wanted to pave the way for strict investigation of opium smuggling in the future. Come on, our opium trade here is legal, but if you come, you have to pay high customs duties, smuggling? If you find one and catch the other, who let you have a legal way not to go? This is one of the important bargaining chips for Xiao Yungui and the foreign powers to play tariffs.

Bill, an Englishman from Baoshun & Co., immediately stood up in protest, as the representative of the interests of the East India Company in the Far East, he naturally could not accept this kind of tariff pricing, and China had always been a place where the East India Company smuggled and dumped opium, and this tariff rate would seriously affect opium sales.

As soon as Bill protested, many British businessmen also shouted, Xiao Yungui naturally knew that raising the opium tax rate would bring protests from these people, so he stood up and said loudly: "Opium is a harmful thing, but this king still lists it in the tax rate, which is already an open side!" Don't think that this king doesn't know how many boxes of opium are smuggled in the ground of Shanghai every day! Ben Wang Nian still has merit in it as an analgesic medicine, and many medical officers in our Taiping Heavenly Kingdom army are using opium as medicine. Since it is a drug, it is naturally classified as medicine, and of course it is not good for the physical and mental health of our people, so it is natural to impose heavy taxes to prevent it from overflowing! ”

Wen Han was not surprised, Li Tai participated in the formulation of tariff rules, and he had already learned about some of the changes through Li Tai, he knew that the agreement on tariff rules was originally necessary to obtain benefits through negotiation and lip service, Xiao Yungui actually listed the opium trade legally, which surprised Wen Han, but Xiao Yungui raised the tax rate on opium was also expected.

Wen Han stood up and said, "Your Excellency, it is your army's freedom to divide the types of goods, but on behalf of the merchants of the British Empire, I would like to explain to you that the promise of your army to protect the existing interests of various countries is that opium does not have a tax rate listed in the "Regulations of the Five Ports of Treaty Ports", and it cannot be one of the commodities with a fixed tax rate. ”

Xiao Yungui snorted and said: "In the Jiangning Treaty, it has never been agreed that opium is a legal trade goods, which is good, since there was a previous agreement that cannot be changed, then why did the countries send a note to our Taiping Heavenly Kingdom a few days ago and let us re-determine the tariff rules?" In other words, we can not list opium as one of the goods of legal trade, and this king immediately ordered a strict investigation of the opium trade in Shanghai. ”

Wen Han was a little speechless, in fact, Xiao Yungui and the Taiping Army had promised that the vested interests of various countries were inconvenient, in fact, they could continue to pay taxes according to the old rules of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but the ministers of various countries wanted to seek more desired interests, that is, to participate in the formulation of Shanghai customs tariffs to a greater extent, increase their influence on Chinese customs, and seek greater benefits for merchants from all over the world, so they used this as an excuse to set up obstacles for the Taiping Army to collect customs duties, and wanted to force Xiao Yungui to comply.

However, it was unthinkable that Xiao Yungui took on this difficult problem and brought out the opium trade issue when he reformulated the tariff rules, which made the ministers and foreign merchants of various countries, especially the representatives of the East India Company, feel very uncomfortable. (To be continued......)