Standing in front of the Shanghai Customs Yamen, located north of Pidgin, that is, on the Bund in Shanghai, Xiao Yungui's mind returned to government affairs. This is the original site of the Manchuqing River Customs, the British consul Bafur in the 25th year of Daoguang, responsible for the collection of foreign import and export tax agencies moved to the north gate of the county outside the head dam, that is, Jianghai North Pass, commonly known as "Xinguan", by Jiangsu Province Susong Taidao and management, the original site of the customs, only for the import and export tax of the country's sea vessels.

After the Taiping Army entered and occupied Shanghai, after arduous negotiations and agreements reached with other countries, the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Shanghai Customs Tariff Rules" and the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Tariff Regulations" were finally promulgated, and the Shanghai Customs of the Taiping Army was formally established.

Li Taitai is a British, the first director of the Customs Department was Wei Helin, Li Taitai was only a customs consultant at that time, and later Wei Helin was transferred to Tianjing, and Li Taitai, who joined the Chinese nationality, became the second director of the Customs Department, and has been in office until now.

Li Taitai took his subordinate Chinese and foreign officials to pick up the carriage of the king of the west at the entrance of the yamen, and after the king got off the car, he looked at Li Taitai and other foreigners with great interest, and there were the most foreigners in the three places in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, one was in the army, one was the various departments, scientific research institutes, and factories under the Ministry of Industry, and the other was the customs department of each treaty port.

Without the conservative thinking of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the Western Emperor's rule of Tianjing, it became natural for foreign immigrants to be absorbed as legitimate citizens of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and a large number of foreign brothers with skills joined the Taiping Army.

There are a large number of foreign instructors, officers and soldiers in the army. There were even two companies of foreign soldiers in the newly formed Sixth Army. Most of these soldiers were adventurers who went to the ocean, and after arriving in China, they showed support and sympathy for the Taiping army, so many chose to join the Taiping army. They fought together against the Qing army in the Taiping army. So far, more than a dozen people have died on the battlefield, and the officer who is currently active in the Taiping Army is the Englishman Augustus? Frederick? Woo and the American Bai Qiwen.

The departments, research institutes and factories under the Ministry of Industry are filled with a large number of foreign engineers and technicians, who are valuable talents to provide technology. Pasteur and a large number of foreign chemists, scientists and technicians. They also came to China very early, especially Pasteur. His chemical and biological research provided important scientific and technical research for the Taiping Army's munitions and new goods.

Finally, there is the customs department, where you have to deal with foreigners every day, and there are many cumbersome procedures such as customs entry, customs declaration, inspection, tax payment, etc. Naturally, there will be many foreigners joining this department. Foreigners in this era are very obedient to conventions and credit, and foreigners do not have the so-called human feelings of Chinese people to talk about, in short, they will focus on and meticulously do a good job in this position in their own jobs. As a result, the customs office, which was originally full of corruption and erosion in the Manchu era. Now it's a new look.

Stand in front of the entrance of the customs yamen and shine on the wall. Xiao Yungui looked at the words "fair, honest, and efficient" written on it, and had mixed feelings in his heart, Li Taitai and other foreigners undoubtedly did an extremely good job, and the annual tax paid by Shanghai Customs to the treasury alone has reached more than 9 million taels of silver, which can be described as an extremely important source of income, and you must know that the entire income of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in a year is only more than 40 million taels of silver.

The yamen was bustling with Chinese and foreign businessmen and captains who came to declare customs, and the entire customs did not stop working because of the visit of King Xi, and she still continued to operate in an orderly manner.

"How many things do you have to do here every day? How many days does it take for a cargo to enter customs? Xiao Yungui suddenly asked. Li Taitai on the side replied in fluent Chinese: "Your Excellency King Xi, there are 300 to 500 customs entry and exit affairs to be handled here every day. It takes about two days for a cargo to enter the customs, basically not more than three days, and we will send personnel to conduct on-site inventory of each ship's cargo to prevent entrainment and fish mixing. ”

Xiao Yungui nodded and asked, "Then how to prevent his subordinates from accepting bribes from others for personal gain?" ”

Li Taitai replied: "We adopt a system of mutual supervision and zero tolerance, and every time we go out to inspect goods, anti-smuggling, etc., we will take temporary lottery matching, and at the same time, we will randomly select and review, and once fraud is discovered, it will be sent to justice." The salaries of the personnel working in the customs are quite high, and last year, the year-end bonus of our ordinary staff was 3,000 taels of silver, and no one would give up high-paying jobs for the sake of small profits. ”

Speaking of this, Li Tai paused and continued: "I would also like to thank the cooperation of the coastal anti-smuggling fleet and the intelligence department and other departments, they will always inform us in advance and accurately if they have any information, so there is very little fraud in our customs." ”

Xiao Yungui snorted, Li Taitai couldn't hold back when he talked about the errand, he continued: "But recently, smuggling at sea has been very rampant, and smuggling boats from all countries are involved, and most of them use new types of flying clippers, which are very fast, and the ships of the coastal anti-smuggling fleet can't catch them, so unless the informant's intelligence is very accurate, it is difficult for us to catch them." These smuggling ships are smuggling opium and other arms goods in large quantities, and the danger is very great, and I think that if we can curb this smuggling trend, our customs revenue will be able to break through the 10 million taels mark. ”

Xiao Yungui smiled and said: "This is inevitable, soon the navy will have new ships to join, and at the same time, this king has also allocated special funds to the coastal anti-smuggling fleet, and we can also buy some flying clippers for anti-smuggling." ”

Had lunch with Li Taitai and others at the customs yamen, eating the ordinary food of the customs, Li Taitai did not prepare anything for King Xi, the only special thing was that Li Taitai took a bottle of rum from his private collection to entertain King Xi. This made the officials of the Navy and the Political Department of the Navy who accompanied the Xiwang inspection quite dissatisfied, but the stubborn British thought that the arrival of the Xiwang should be special? In the end, Xiao Yungui devoured the ordinary food of the customs, and praised Li Taitai with a smile, and then those officials had nothing to say.

After leaving Shanghai Customs, Xiao Yungui took a horse-drawn carriage to the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce and Industry Building, also on the Bund, where he was to meet with people from Shanghai's industrial and commercial circles in the afternoon. The Shanghai Chamber of Commerce and Industry was established two years ago as a voluntary organization of non-governmental organizations, and its original purpose was to enable Chinese businessmen to unite and jointly deal with the dumping of foreign goods, and the Shanghai Military Administration Department also secretly supported it.

As far as the budding private capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is concerned, their only advantage is that they have cheap sources of raw materials and cheap labor, and foreign countries rely on strong industrial production capacity, and the competition between the two sides is very fierce. In order to develop the nation's own industry, so that more gentry can be transformed into capitalists, so that the whole country can begin to transform from an agricultural country to an industrial country, there are some things that need to be sacrificed, and the sad thing is that in addition to limited technology, the only thing that can compete with foreign products is the cheap raw materials and labor of the country, so the cheap labor force has become a victim and a stepping stone for the rise of the capitalists of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Xiao Yungui knows that he is domesticating a monster, this monster can make the country's productive forces develop, can gradually change the face of a backward agricultural country, but the hidden risks are also huge, after a large number of agricultural population becomes an industrial population, the power of the working class will develop rapidly, and sooner or later it is inevitable that this force will appear on the stage of history.

Although Marx is still struggling to write Capital with the support of Engels, Xiao Yungui can already anticipate the development of the working class in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and he does not feel that it is necessary to prevent or change anything in advance, because the germ of capital in China is only in the process of development, and the first problem he needs to solve is how to make the country realize the transformation in advance, instead of gradually transforming into an industrial country after 50 years.

The contradictions and changes in the country will always continue to evolve and appear, let the successors worry about the rest of the matter, Xiao Yungui will not be like Qin Shi Huang, delusional to build a long-term empire, maybe you do everything possible to calculate history, but in the end you find that it is you who are calculated, there are always unexpected situations that occur, history is created by people, and talent is the most difficult to figure out and control in the world.

Xiao Yungui also did not think that it was feasible to implement communism in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in advance, first of all, there was no soil for accepting advanced ideas in China, more than ninety percent of the population of this country was still illiterate, and the common people did not experience the stage of humiliation in the next hundred years and the opening up of the Republic of China's ideology, communism has no future, and forcing the communist republic will only make the kingdom fall apart, it is hard to imagine that Xiao Yungui's soldiers who already have private property will support this move, in fact, Xiao Yungui's implementation of the protection of private property has already decided the direction at the beginning.

Secondly, the current common people are not used to not having an emperor above their heads, since Xiao Yungui presided over Tianjing, there have been persuasion seals and recitals every month, and the subjects of the heavenly kingdom are concerned about a question, when will the king of the west be called emperor, they hope that there will be a holy lord Ming Jun to lead them, and fundamentally no one will think of establishing a cabinet or parliament to lead the country. People who really think this way will be considered heretical, and they will become cabinet or parliamentarians, and they will look at them with disdain, "How can you represent us?" ”

Before the formation of a truly unified social class and the enlightenment of the people's wisdom, there is no room for communism or democracy to survive extensively, even if this process is forced, it may take more time and resources than it takes to eliminate the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and these things will be left to the successors to complete, it takes time to improve and develop the country, Xiao Yungui does not think that he can do it in his lifetime, and he can substitute the country into an era of industrial prosperity is already his greatest ability.

And it is inevitable to be called emperor, but Xiao Yungui needs to kidnap more people on the battleship he is emperor, and the group of people he is going to meet now are the people he has already kidnapped or is about to kidnap. (To be continued......)