"Lord Yu, Liu Ren's housekeeper Dong Youcai brought it."

Just when Zhao Muyu and the three officials sent by the Three Law Divisions to hear the trial gathered behind the desk in the lobby with frowns, trying to find valuable information from Liu Zhang's confession, the messengers who had been sent to the inn by Zhao Muyu before walked into the lobby, and the leading messenger came to the front of the hall and bowed his hand to Zhao Muyu and said loudly.

A tall, middle-aged man with a mustache held several account books in his hands, tremblingly followed behind the leading officer, and knelt on the ground as the leader spoke.

Li Yuntian saw that the bearded man looked like he was walking on thin ice, and he suddenly felt a little ridiculous in his heart, although the acting skills of these people cannot be said to be perfect, but they are definitely first-class.

"Dong Youcai, what are you holding in your hand?" Seeing this situation, the three officials of the Three Law Divisions who were hearing the trial immediately returned to their seats, and Zhao Muyu glanced at the eight-character bearded man and asked in a deep voice, although Liu Zhang said that Dong You had Liu Ren's account book, but he couldn't point it out, and Dong Youcai had to say it.

"My lord, this is the account book of my lord's cloth business in Jiaozhi, and I told the villain to take it out during the trial." Dong Youcai hurriedly raised the account book in his hand above his head and replied with sincere fear.

"What do you mean by that?" Zhao Muyu asked quietly when he heard this, and continued to pretend to be confused there.

"My lord, my lord not only records the time, price and quantity of goods in and out of the account book, but also the tax seal issued by the government." Dong Youcai hurriedly explained to Zhao Muyu, "Master, it can be clearly seen from the above records that my lord was suppressed and framed by Chen Bozhao, vice president of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce, and Chen Tianyuan, the nephew of the Chen family. ”

The president of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce held an election every five years, and in the last election of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce, Zheng Wanrou's father Zheng Gui defeated Chen Ningning's father Chen Bozhao by a narrow margin and was elected as the new president of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce, and Chen Bozhao retreated to become the vice president.

Although Chen Bozhao lost to Zheng Gui in the election, this does not mean that the relationship between the Chen family and the Zheng family is like fire and water, on the contrary, the two have maintained a good cooperation in the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce, and the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce is still extremely harmonious and united.

The reason is very simple, the actual power of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce is actually in the hands of Chen Ningning and Zheng Wanrou, both of whom are the kind of smart women with strong dedication, and naturally know that healthy competition is the foundation of the development of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce.

Moreover, the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce has established a series of rules and regulations so that the president and the deacons can check each other and ensure the interests of all members, so as to avoid the occurrence of vicious fights.

The reason for this is that the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce has Li Yuntian, the honorary president, as a solid backing, which makes those forces in the DPRK and China who want to get involved in the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce retreat in spite of the difficulties, and then enables the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce to be free from outside interference.

In fact, today, the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce has attracted many people with various backgrounds in the capital as members, and the participation of these people has made the expansion of the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce more rapid, and at the same time, the foundation has become more solid.

Chen Tianyuan is the son of Chen Bozhao's cousin, and Chen Ningning's cousin in terms of seniority.

Although Chen Bozhao's approach looks like a family industry model, it is different from the ordinary family industry model, because the reason why Chen Tianyuan was able to obtain this position is because he has passed the relevant training and assessment, which proves that he has the ability to take charge of himself, rather than simply being cronyistic, which is also the rule set by Li Yuntian for Chen Bozhao and Zheng Gui, in order to promote the better development of the two industries.

"Present the evidence." Zhao Muyu didn't expect Dong Youcai to bring all the tax seals, and he suddenly felt a little surprised in his heart, he didn't understand what the relationship between Liu Ren's case and the tax seals issued by the tax department of the government was related, and it was the first time that Shuntianfu had encountered a case related to tax seals, so he muttered for a while and said to an errand officer standing in the hall.

When the errand officer heard this, he immediately stepped forward and put the account book in Dong Youcai's hand on the desk in front of Zhao Muyu.

The so-called tax seal refers to the certificate issued by the government tax department to pay the commercial tax, which is usually issued once every time the goods are imported and exported, which means that the merchant has paid the tax.

In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, commercial tax was not the subject of imperial court taxation, and like the previous dynasties, it also implemented a tax system with the field tax including household tax and Ding tax as the main tax, and the commercial tax including customs duties and municipal taxes as auxiliary taxes.

The tax system of land tax supplemented by commercial tax is inseparable from the level of social production, because the most important means of production in ancient times was land, which can be said to be an era dominated by agricultural economy, so field tax has become a pillar to support the social economy.

This kind of taxation system based on land tax was formed in the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and was gradually completed in the Qin and Han dynasties, and was continuously reformed and improved on the basis of Juntian in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and Sui and Tang dynasties.

In the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, with the destruction of the uniform land system, the trend of land annexation became more and more prosperous, and on the basis of constantly clearing the acres of land and sorting out the cadastre, the combined collection of land, household and ding taxes was gradually realized, and the collection system of commercial tax and commodity tax on salt, tea, wine and other commodities was strengthened, so that commercial tax and commodity tax became an important source of state fiscal revenue.

After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Hongwu was born poor, so he implemented a commercial policy that benefited the people, and the commercial tax system was very simple.

The collection agency of the Ming commercial tax is the taxation bureau in various places, although the imperial court has a prescribed limit on the taxation bureau, but does not seek to increase, Hongwu Emperor believes: "There is a fixed amount of tax, if it is possible to restore it, it is to exploit the people, and the dereliction of duty." ”

Therefore, those tax departments that have not completed the quota are only verified and not punished.

At the same time, the method of taxation varies depending on the object:

The value of the goods is generally estimated for all kinds of handicraft products sold by merchants and sitters, and the ad valorem levy is levied; For bamboo, wood, firewood, etc., the implementation of points; For the production of river berths, the fish collection section is levied.

The taxation method has its own color and has a discounted color, and it is generally paid in banknotes and money.

The tax rate of the Ming Dynasty is very low, usually 30 taxes 1, that is, 30 goods are levied on a commodity as a tax, and the scope of tax exemption is very wide, all the things of marriage and funeral sacrifices, self-woven cloth, agricultural tools, food and taxable things, vehicles and ships to transport their own goods, as well as fish, vegetables, miscellaneous fruits and non-market sellers can be exempt from tax.

As a result, the scope of taxation is extremely narrow, only the purchase and sale of acres of houses, livestock, etc. have to pay taxes, and the deed paper has to pay the cost of work, and the second year of Hongwu stipulates that each line of deed paper pays the cost of 40 yuan.

In order to simplify the procedures for the collection of commercial taxes, Emperor Hongwu also laid down and merged tax agencies many times, for example, in the thirteenth year of Hongwu, he once cut and merged 364 tax bureaus with an annual revenue of less than 500 stones, and their taxes were collected by Fuzhou County.

Moreover, in order to prevent the tax officials from encroaching on fishing, Emperor Hongwu also stipulated that store calendars, that is, registers, should be set up in the places where commercial taxes were levied, registering the names, numbers, and end dates of the taxpayers for verification, and at the same time clearly indicating the names of the goods subject to commercial taxes, and the goods that were not marked to be taxed were exempt from tax.

Not only that, the Hongwu Emperor also took a series of measures to facilitate commercial transactions, such as in the early years of Hongwu, because the housing of the military and civilians in Nanjing was provided by the government, and there were too many households in the city and there was no vacant space for merchants to store goods, so the merchants were stored in the shipyard or outside the city, which was not only inconvenient for commercial transactions, but also susceptible to the coercion of the tooth people, that is, brokers, so they built houses along the river in Nanjing, called collapsed houses, which were specially used to store the goods of merchants.

All merchants who went to Nanjing to do business stored their goods in those collapsed houses, and only buyers and sellers were allowed to enter the collapsed houses during the transaction, and the tooth shops were forbidden to enter.

In the 24th year of Hongwu, it was also stipulated that the goods stored in the collapsed house should be paid at a rate of 30 cents, that is, the tax on the collapsed house. In addition, one-thirtieth of the tooth-free money and one-thirtieth of the house money are taken, but the rabbit tooth money and the house money are used to pay for the expenses of the guards of the collapsed house, and do not belong to the taxes of the imperial court.

After Emperor Yongle moved the capital, he built a collapsed house outside the city of Beijing for merchants to store goods, which provided many convenient conditions for commercial transactions.

Therefore, until the Xuande Dynasty and even the Orthodox Dynasty and the Jingtai Dynasty, the taxes of the Ming Dynasty basically followed the ancestral system of the Hongwu Emperor and implemented the national policy of benefiting the people, which made the Ming Dynasty basically not have a lawsuit because of the collection of commercial taxes by the imperial court during this period, so it has never happened at this time to the Beijing Yamen.

So when Dong Youcai showed that there were tax seals in the account books, Zhao Muyu was very surprised, but he was immediately relieved, because when Liu Ren first sued the emperor, he mentioned that Li Yuntian was extorting money in Jiaozhi, and those tax seals were undoubtedly the best evidence.

Due to the low tax rate levied by the Ming Dynasty, coupled with a lot of tax exemptions, this makes the treasury of the Ministry of Households, once the country encounters a major disaster or heavy military operations, it will fall into an embarrassing situation of being stretched and unable to make ends meet, which is an important reason for several large-scale increases in taxes in the Wanli period and Chongzhen period, the most famous is the three salaries added during the Wanli period, namely the three taxes of Liao, Liao and Lian.

In addition, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court discipline was slackened, coupled with the surge of state use, the treasury was empty, so from the royal family to the local yamen in order to obtain money, they privately set up tax collection agencies, arbitrarily opened taxes, resulting in the tax net like weaving, heavy like stripping, and merchants were the first to become the most direct victims.

For example, Zhengde increased the tax of the nine gates of the capital, and at the end of the Jiajing period, the Huai'an dam tax was pumped, and as for the Wanli Dynasty, the tax on the merchants was even more numerous, from the imperial court to the local government, and even the emperor's relatives, dignitaries and dignitaries could use the name to levy taxes on merchants, such as Tianjin shop rent, Guangzhou pearls, door stall business tax, oil cloth miscellaneous tax, etc.

In addition to the original banknotes for ship materials, merchant ships entering Beijing also had to levy two taxes, one for the other and three for all, forming a pattern of "no tax on everything, no tax on everything, and no tax on anyone", which made the commercial tax complicated and heavy, and the commercial development suffered greatly.

Li Yuntian watched this scene in the lobby with cold eyes, and sneered secretly in his heart, he knew why the person who was hiding behind the scenes and framed him showed those tax seals in front of the court, the purpose of which was nothing more than to ruin his reputation, so that the outside world would think that he was extorting money and preying on the people.

However, it is not so easy to frame Li Yuntian, after all, Li Yuntian is no longer the little Hukou County magistrate who could be at the mercy of Cui Hui back then, and he now has enough resources in his hands to help him fight back!