Seeing the scene of Shang Kexi being divided by five horses, Chen Chunde, the imperial history of Zuodu, retched.

Liu Zongzhou, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, grabbed the hand of Hua Yuncheng, the right attendant of the ministry, and trembled.

Jiang Yueguang, the secretary of the Criminal Department, held on to the pillar and almost fell to the ground.

A piece of flesh from Shang Kexi's body fell on the red robe of Ying Tian Xun Governor Qu Shiyun, who fainted in fright.

Only the military attache and the officials who have experienced the war can still bear it at the moment, and they can't stand it because Shang Kexi was divided by five horses.

However, Fan Jingwen, the first assistant of the cabinet, was still very indifferent at this time, although his fists were clenched tightly in his sleeves, but he had a mysterious smile on his face.

At this time, anyone can be frightened, but he, the head of the cabinet, has to be calm, otherwise it is not enough to show the difference from the ministers below.

Zhu Youzhen allowed the central and local dignitaries who held real power to witness with their own eyes the scene of the still gratifying dismemberment of the corpses of the five horses, in order to deter these officials and give them a tangible impression, so that they could know what the fate of traitors and rebels was.

"This is the end of betraying me and betraying Daming!"

Zhu Youzhen said a word and left here in steps.

At this moment, the officials present couldn't help but shudder.

It was only then that they understood why His Majesty would let them watch the execution of the Rather Gratifying Process.

At this point, these governors and even the officials of the central ministries and temples did not dare to raise the slightest objection to the taxation work after returning to the government, and no one directly said that the taxation was not right at all, nor did they dare to be sloppy.

Even Zheng Zhilong, the general soldier of Fujian, began to have to believe in the determination of His Majesty the Emperor, Zhu Youzhen.

Although the tax administration registration was vigorous a year ago, it was limited to the industrial registration of land shops, workshops and minerals, because Zhu Youzhen did not forcibly collect taxes, but only registered, and the Zheng family's business model was mainly based on collecting protection fees at sea and port port fees, as well as smuggling at home and abroad, and did not participate in shop operation and workshop production.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen's additional commercial tax did not have much impact on the Zheng Group.

At most, it only increased the cost of tea, silk, porcelain and other products smuggled by the Zheng group from China.

But what really had a big impact on his Zheng family was the so-called maritime trade tax in the tariff.

Although most of the wealth of his Zheng family comes from maritime trade and protection fees collected at sea checkpoints, and the imperial court whip can't control him, he also has a large part of it from the smuggling trade along the coast, and like many wealthy merchants in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangzhou, he has a lot of profits in the import and export trade of Daming.

Now that the imperial court wants to rectify the tariffs, this is the only one that Zheng Zhilong can imagine that will affect the Zheng family.

If the imperial court wants to occupy more income in overseas trade, it will crack down on smuggling, and it will force his Zheng group to cede this part of the benefits to the imperial court.

A few years ago, the tax administration did not register the total amount of imports and exports, because this could not be registered, most of the smuggled goods were controlled in the hands of his Zheng family, and the imperial court could only grasp the total production and sales of various commodities, but it could not know how much profit the Zheng family made from buying and selling each year, and no court officials dared to come to his Zheng family to inquire.

Zheng Zhilong doesn't know how much tariff the imperial court has to collect before he is satisfied, now the imperial court can only grasp the amount that should be levied by mainland merchants, and his Zheng family has not even received a tax collection order until now, which makes Zheng Zhilong very puzzling, he doesn't know if His Majesty Zhu Youzhen intends to ignore his Zheng family, or is he waiting for some other means, Zheng Zhilong wants to find out what His Majesty and the imperial court think, is it really to crack down on smuggling, or to restart the sea ban and only do the tributary system?

Because of this, when Zhu Youzhen ordered the governors of various places to enter Beijing, he also came.

Although some in his Zheng clan were already worried that the imperial court would use this to get rid of him, he believed that it was impossible for the imperial court to kill him until he had enough strength to destroy him.

"Your Majesty has a decree, Zheng Zhilong, the chief military officer of Xuanfu, will enter the palace to meet you!"

And at this time, Wang Chengen found Zheng Zhilong and conveyed Zhu Youzhen's will.

For the Zheng Group, Zhu Youzhen is also a headache.

Now, on the surface, Zheng Zhilong is a military attache who is only responsible for the military defense of Fujian.

But in fact, he Zheng Zhilong is the largest smuggling armed group along the coast of Fujian, which used to be called pirates and is now recruited by the Ming Dynasty, so it can only be called a smuggling armed group, and this armed group has also become the official army of the Ming Dynasty, which can annex other pirates in the name of the imperial court and consolidate its maritime supremacy.

The greatest profit of maritime trade comes from the collection of taxes on import and export trade.

If Zhu Youzhen wants to increase the tariff quota, he can only crack down on smuggling syndicates first.

With Zhu Youzhen's current control over military power, control over the gentry clique, and prestige among the people, it is not a problem to crack down on smuggling syndicates within the control of the imperial court.

However, the maritime strength of the Zheng Group is not something that Zhu Youzhen can easily touch, but the Zheng Group's imposition of protection fees on import and export ships has already affected the imperial court's tariff revenue, not to mention that he himself is also involved in smuggling, and he is still the largest in the smuggling trade.

In a way, the Zheng clique is now a navy that nominally belongs to the imperial court, but in fact it is a warlord who monopolizes the maritime economy at sea.

Zhu Youzhen was worried that once he began to formally collect tariffs on the output of tea silk and other products according to the imperial court tax statistics, then this warlord would become a pirate to sabotage tax collection, continue to smuggle frantically, do not follow official trade channels, and conceal trade income, so that the actual tax collected by the imperial court will still be very small.

In addition, the Zheng Group can also transfer its trade losses after the imposition of tariffs to the protection fees levied on passing vessels, which increases the cost of goods for import and export, and affects the sales volume of the overall maritime trade.

Zhu Youzhen had to admit that the Zheng Group had many ways to deal with it, but he had no way for the Zheng Group.

Unless he can eliminate the Zheng group, or Zheng Zhilong can willingly cede sea control and most of the maritime interests to the imperial court.

But no matter what, Zhu Youzhen knew that he could not provoke the Zheng group now, although he now had the army strength that could compete with the Manchus, but he did not yet have the naval strength that could compete with the Zheng group.

Fortunately, the Zheng group did not have the purpose of plotting the Ming Dynasty, at most it wanted to maintain the status quo, that is, to be promoted to the rank of lord, Guangzong and his ancestors could be extremely rich, and he was a Han power, and Zhu Youzhen also knew that Zheng Zhilong was a person who had no vision and ambition, and in the original history, he voted for the Manchu Qing because of the position of the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and ended up being killed.

In this life, Zhu Youzhen didn't think that Zheng Zhilong would become much of a climate, and the reason why he proposed to impose tariffs a year ago but exempted them from taxation for one year was to test Zheng Zhilong.

If Zheng Zhilong had united with the ministers of the DPRK or the pirates at that time, Zhu Youzhen might have stopped the collection of tariffs, but at that time, Zheng Zhilong did not know whether he was attracted by his position as the chief soldier, or hesitated, for fear of angering the imperial court and looking at the next plan of the imperial court, or waiting for the outcome of the war between the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Although he is now the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, he does not have a navy under his own control, and now he can only reach a compromise with Zheng Zhilong, and even to strengthen the imperial navy, he has to rely on the Zheng Group.

Sorry for the late update, three chapters in a row tonight!!

(End of chapter)