Under the gaze of everyone in the lobby, Zhao Muyu quietly flipped through the account books and tax seals on the desk, and his eyes gradually revealed a shocked look.

Zhao Muyu has been in politics for many years, during which he has experienced countless winds and waves, it stands to reason that he has seen a lot of the world, even if he can't be happy and angry, but he should keep a low profile on such an important occasion, and there should be no such "gaffe" reaction.

In fact, in Zhao Muyu's opinion, those account books are nothing, but they just record the accounts of Liu Ren's incoming and outgoing goods in Jiaozhi, at most, how he was excluded in the business field, he has seen a lot of this kind of thing, and he also knows something about the business world of Jiaozhi.

Since the cloth business of Jiaozhi was shared by the four merchants who won the right to operate the cloth of Jiaozhi that year, Zhao Muyu had to find the four merchants when he bought the cloth business in Jiaozhi.

In order to avoid malicious competition between the four merchants, and also to ensure the interests of those merchants, Li Yuntian divided the four merchants into their own regions to conduct cloth business in Jiaozhi, and distributed the resources in those areas as fairly as possible, prohibiting the four merchants from engaging in cloth trading across regions.

This does not mean that Li Yuntian will leave the cloth business alone, because the four merchants are in a monopoly position in their respective regions, so every two years he will set a minimum amount of tax for the four cloth merchants according to the level of economic development of Jiaozhi.

Once the annual tax payment of a fabric merchant falls below the minimum limit for two consecutive years, Li Yuntian will add a certain penalty as a punishment as a means of incentive.

It is worth mentioning that Li Yuntian used the cross division method when dividing the areas of the four major cloth merchants, taking Thanh Hoa Province as an example, Thanh Hoa Province is divided into two areas, the south of Thanh Hoa Province belongs to Zheng Wanrou's mother-in-law Zheng family, the north belongs to Chen Ningning's mother-in-law Chen family, and the two areas south and north of Thanh Hoa Province are divided into two other cloth merchants.

On the issue of geographical allocation, Li Yuntian not only adopted the method of cross-division, but also used the model of drawing lots, so as to create conditions for the four cloth merchants to do business as fairly as possible, so that all the members of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce were convinced by this.

In fact, not only the cloth, but all the business of Jiaozhi Li Yuntian is distributed in this way, he knows that those businessmen who bid for the commercial franchise of Jiaozhi are not afraid of losing business in Jiaozhi, after all, there is no winning general in the business field and the battlefield, but he is worried that he will not be able to get fair treatment in the business field.

Li Yuntian treated those businessmen equally, dispelled their concerns with practical actions, and made them dare to invest in Jiaozhi, which in turn promoted the rapid development of Jiaozhi's agriculture, industry and commerce.

In order to raise military salaries when Li Yuntian put down the Jiaozhi rebellion, he held a bid for the commercial monopoly of Jiaozhi in Yangzhou, and then it was a great success, and Shun Lì raised enough military salaries, so that it caused a lot of shock in the officialdom of the capital.

It is no secret that Jiangnan businessman Jia has a lot of money, and it is very rare to ask him to take out a huge amount of money to support the worrying situation of Jiaozhi like Li Yuntian.

After all, businessmen are profit-seeking, and it is difficult for them to come up with a large amount of money without sufficient benefits, and it is really surprising that those businessmen led by the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce willingly invested in the Ming army's successive defeats.

Therefore, Zhao Muyu knew that the business management rights of Jiaozhi were in the hands of those bidders, and it was not surprising that Liu Ren was suppressed by Chen Tianyuan in Jiaozhi, after all, Chen Tianyuan held the franchise of the cloth business in his hands, and Liu Ren offended him.

As Zhao Muyu had guessed before, Liu Ren's account books recorded that Chen Tianyuan used shoddy, low entry and high sales to exploit those cloth merchants in Jiaozhi, because Chen Tianyuan held the cloth franchise in his hand and was very powerful in the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce, so those cloth merchants who were exploited could only swallow their anger and get by.

Liu Ren also put a letter in the account book, which specifically pointed out that not only the cloth merchants of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce, but also other merchants such as rice merchants and salt merchants had all joined the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce, which made the merchants in the Jiaozhi territory have to succumb to the obscene authority of the powerful figures of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce like Xiang Chen Tianyuan.

And Liu Ren was precisely because he offended Chen Tianyuan, and then was designed by Chen Tianyuan, and ended up in a point of bankruptcy, Chen Tianyuan's approach was very simple, first find someone to order a large number of fabrics from Liu Ren, and then tear up the supply contract signed with Liu Ren before, forcing Liu Ren to pay a large amount of compensation to the buyer who ordered the goods, and then went bankrupt.

The reason why there is a masterpiece, according to Liu Ren's statement in the book, is that Li Yuntian is powerful, and he is worried that there will be accidents when he enters Beijing to sue the emperor, so he left this masterpiece.

There is nothing to surprise Zhao Muyu in the first half of the book, it is nothing more than a bitter complaint about the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce in the business world of Jiaozhi and bullying, which he has long been accustomed to.

What really shocked Zhao Muyu was the second half of the book, Liu Ren scolded Li Yuntian for being tyrannical and preying on the people, which made him feel so surprised that he "lost his temper" in the court.

According to Liu Ren's revelations, Li Yuntian controlled the military and political power of Jiaozhi, so he set up a wide variety of taxes in Jiaozhi, and the tax rate was simply appallingly high.

The reason why Zhao Muyu was touched was because Liu Ren listed the tax rate of Jiaozhi commercial tax in his last book, and the tax rate was so high that he was shocked.

The tax revenue of Jiaozhi is different from that of the Ming Dynasty and the 13 provinces of Beijing, not only the agricultural tax adopts the "apportionment into the mu", but also the commercial tax does not adopt the tax in kind, but converts it into a silver tax, and collects tax silver according to a certain proportion.

According to Liu Ren's explanation, the reason why the tax rate of the iron-smelting industry is relatively low is that almost all of the iron-smelting industry is controlled by the Chen family and the Zheng family of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce, so Li Yuntian deliberately lowered the tax rate to protect their interests.

According to the order of Hongwu in the 28th year, Ming Taizu ordered the abolition of official smelting everywhere, allowed private free mining and smelting, and paid taxes of two-thirds according to output.

That is to say, two catties of the 30 catties of pig iron smelted were handed over to the government as taxes, and the remaining 28 catties of pig iron belonged to the smelters.

It is worth mentioning that before the Ming Dynasty implemented the "one whip" tax law, taxes were not paid with silver taels, but taxes were paid with whatever business was done, referred to as tax in kind, also known as material tax.

This makes officials at all levels take the opportunity to pick the fat and the thin when collecting such taxes in kind and make profits from them, which is an important means for officials to make money.

Li Yuntian reformed the tax of Jiaozhi, converting the property tax into silver taels to pay, which was not only concise and clear, but also avoided the tax officials from using the power in their hands to prey on the people.

According to the tax policy of 2 out of 30 for the iron smelting industry in the Ming Dynasty, the tax rate is 6. 7%, while the tax rate for iron smelting in Cochin is 5%.

Moreover, the smelting industry in Jiaozhi is different from that of the two capitals and 30 provinces, and the smelting of gold, silver and other precious metals is open to the people, according to Liu Ren, those merchants who can mine gold and silver have a close relationship with Li Yuntian, although Li Yuntian set the tax rate at 60%, but the phenomenon of tax evasion is very strict, and the concealed gold and silver are divided among those businessmen, and the severity of corruption is simply shocking.

As for commonly used materials such as cloth and grain, the commercial tax of Jiaozhi is set at 10% by Li Yuntian, while the commercial tax of the two capitals and thirteen provinces is 30 taxes and 1, which is converted into a tax rate of 3. 3%。

In other words, the commercial tax of Cochin is three times that of the three provinces of the two capitals and thirteen provinces.

As for the state-owned goods such as salt and tea, as in the case of gold and silver mines, Li Yuntian also opened them up to merchants and dealers, and although Li Yuntian also set the tax rate at 60%, this was still just a cover-up, and tax evasion was still strict

In addition, although silk is not a national monopoly material, because it is a scarce luxury item in the market, it is taxed separately in the tax rate of Jiaozhi, and it is taxed at 30%.

Due to the remoteness of Jiaozhi and its barrenness, few people in the court cared about Jiaozhi's affairs, and few officials paid attention to the business situation of Jiaozhi.

Therefore, even though Zhao Muyu was well-informed, he was still taken aback when his eyes fell on the tax rate of the thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty, the two capitals, and the Ming Dynasty, he never expected that the tax rate of Jiaozhi would be so high, and he also opened the operation rights of national monopoly materials such as gold mines, silver mines and salt tea to the merchants, which is really incredible.

In the final analysis, in ancient times, due to the underdevelopment of communications, coupled with the fact that commerce was despised by the scholar class, the officials in the capital who had enough to pay attention to the business of Jiaozhi, especially high-ranking officials and magnates like Zhao Muyu, were busy with affairs every day, and it was impossible to understand the affairs of Jiaozhi.

If you talk about the tax rate alone, Li Yuntian can indeed be regarded as "tyrannical expropriation, preying on the common people", which made Zhao Muyu feel very surprised, he thought that Li Yuntian was not a greedy person, otherwise he would never have risked his life several times in the battlefields of Jiaozhi and Liaodong, but how could he make such a low-level mistake.

However, Zhao Muyu had to believe what Liu Ren said in the last book, because the tax seal letter provided by Liu Ren included not only cloth, but also rice, salt, tea, and so on.

Perhaps in order to ensure the safety of the owners of the tax stamps such as rice, salt, and tea, Liu Ren cut off the part of the tax stamps that indicated the identity of the owner, leaving only the tax part with a detailed tax rate on it.

It is worth mentioning that the tax seal of Jiaozhi is different from that of the Ming Dynasty and the 13 provinces of Beijing, it is a special paper, on which the name, quantity, tax rate, amount and time of the taxpayer are written, etc., in triplicate, and the governor's office, the local tax department and the merchants each keep a copy for future audit.

The tax seals of the two capitals and thirteen provinces are relatively simple, usually opening a slip with a seal on it can become a proof of tax payment, and the tax payer will press his fingerprint under the name on the tax payment account book provided by the tax officer, thus providing those tax officials with the opportunity to get up and down.

"Zhen Guogong, see if these seals are issued by the tax collection department of Cochin." After Zhao Muyu looked through some of the evidence left by Liu Ren, he groaned for a while and asked people to take those tax seals to Li Yuntian, wanting Li Yuntian to distinguish the authenticity, after all, everyone in the lobby except Li Yuntian saw the tax seals of Jiaozhi for the first time, and there was no way to know the authenticity.