Recently, the court has been talking about doing more than the expatriate tax division. Due to the shortage of manpower, the Taxation Department has only set up two branches in Tongzhou and Linqingzhou, but these two places have caused many people to feel very uneasy.

The Beijing-Hangzhou Canal is the economic artery of the Ming Dynasty, and countless ships reach Tongzhou through the canal every day. Now, all ships passing through the canal, as long as they contain goods for sale, are subject to commercial tax, and the tax is paid according to the rate of eleven.

For ordinary businessmen who have no identity background, they have to pay taxes through the canal customs anyway, and after the establishment of the tax department, all other tax cards on the canal have been revoked, and they pay much less commercial tax than before, so they are naturally very satisfied with the tax department.

But for the businessmen, it was not so pleasant. In the past, they relied on their status as gentry, no matter how many goods they carried, they never paid taxes at the customs clearance, and the tax collectors did not dare to collect taxes from them. And now, the status of the gentry is not good, and they have to pay taxes like ordinary merchants.

It's okay to pay taxes honestly, but many gentry are not so reluctant, and many people rely on their fame and background to try to resist taxes, and some even try to beat tax collectors to forcibly break through. In the past, the tax collectors did not dare to offend the gentry, after all, the identities of the two sides were different. But now, these gentry have been kicked to the iron plate. The tax collectors of the Taxation Department are all from the Xiyuan Guards, they are strong in battle, and they only obey the order situation, so it doesn't matter if the other party is a person or a jinshi? And the tax collectors are also carefully selected people, and they all know that they have the support of the emperor behind them, and they are not afraid of these gentry.

As a result, all the gentry who tried to resist taxes were severely punished, and all the goods confiscated were still light, and many people were caught, escorted all the way to Beijing in prison cars, and imprisoned in Jinyi Weizhao Prison. Many were killed on the spot.

In the process, some gentry were unwilling to pay taxes, so they colluded with the local government of Linqingzhou and tried to put pressure on the tax department through the local government, but they were slapped in the face.

But all the gentry who traveled through the canal had backgrounds, and they were either classmates who were officials in various places in the same year, or they had backers in the court. After suffering such a big loss, they naturally refused to give up, and after entering Beijing, many people went to their backers to complain and demand severe punishment for those who dared to act recklessly.

And their backers, the bigwigs in the court, all smiled helplessly, and there was no way at all.

Everyone knows that behind the tax department is the emperor, who dares to go against the emperor?

When it was the eunuchs who were sent abroad to collect taxes, they could also find ways to deal with the eunuchs, incite the people to make trouble, attack the eunuchs in the court, and force the emperor to recall them, after all, the eunuchs were only sent by the emperor privately, and it was very easy to recall. And now, the expatriate tax department was established after the court discussed, the cabinet drafted the decree, and the celebrant was established after wearing red, and it is a serious Yamen belonging to the imperial court, and it is almost impossible to remove it now.

Moreover, compared with the previous eunuchs, the tax department is more trusted by the emperor and bears the heavy responsibility of collecting wealth for the emperor.

Although Zhu Youzhen has only been on the throne for three years, he has eliminated the eunuchs, deposed the king of Fu, and won more than 10 nobles. It can be said that although Zhu Youzhen is just over 20 years old and has only been on the throne for three years, he has already established absolute authority in the court, and the courtiers easily dare not disobey him.

For the sake of some commercial taxes and silver that were levied to offend the emperor, no one would do such a thing.

Since you can't resist, then lie down and enjoy, and think about transferring the loss, such as raising the selling price of goods. As a result, in the past two months, the prices of many goods in Beijing have quietly risen by 20%.

Some people are happy and some are worried, but for Zhu Youzhen, it is undoubtedly the one who is happy.

Only two branches of Tongzhou Linqing were set up, and in just three months, the commercial tax and silver collected were 500,000 taels, so that this year's income of the tax department alone was 2 million taels of silver, which was almost worth the income of Shanghai trade!

If the tax department is set up in Huai'an, Yangzhou, Suzhou, and Hangzhou, and if it is along the Yangtze River, and the tax department is set up in Nanjing, Anqing, Jiujiang, Wuchang, Jiangling and other places, how much will the annual tax and silver be? I'm afraid there are tens of millions!

If the commercial tax is fully levied in the entire Ming Dynasty, how much will the annual tax be paid, and tens of millions of taels of silver will definitely be there.

It seems that this Ming Dynasty is not without money, but the money is in the hands of those gentry, and the previous emperors, including their former themselves, have no way to take the silver out of their pockets.

And then as officials, retired to gentry, the gentry controlled the court, controlled the place, and it was almost impossible for the emperors in the past to collect taxes from the gentry. And relying on the powerful Praetorian Guard, he had the ability to play with the gentry, and he was able to set up a tax department to collect commercial taxes from the gentry.

But, for the time being, that's all.

Several customs were set up on the canal to levy a commercial tax on the gentry who transported goods through the canal, to the detriment of only some of the gentry. But the greatest interest of the gentry is that they occupy seventy percent of the land in the world, and as long as they do not touch this, everything is easy to say. For example, if Zhu Youzhen now announces that the gentry pay taxes as a whole, and all fields must pay field taxes, it will inevitably cause a shock in the court, and the holy decree will not even be issued by the court.

Although Zhu Youzhen now has tens of thousands of Praetorian Guards in his hands, once it is announced that the gentry must also pay land taxes, it will anger all the gentry, and the consequences will be unimaginable, and it is very likely that the world will be in chaos.

Therefore, when your own strength is still weak, there is only so much you can do.

The next thing to do is to continue to increase your strength!

Therefore, on the second day after the Linqing tax department was transported to Beijing, Zhu Youzhen announced that he would allocate 1 million taels of silver from the inner treasury to Lu Xiangsheng of Liaodong Jinglu for military training.

Shenyang has not recovered, but Huang Taiji sent troops to occupy the Horqin Mongol tribes in winter, and now Huang Taiji has tens of thousands of Mongolian cavalry in his hands, and his strength has a tendency to recover, and it is very likely to attack Liaoyang.

And Liaodong has just gone through the war, although it has recovered most of it, but it is in ruins, training soldiers and reassuring the people, and everything has to be silver. However, in order to buy the hearts of the people, Zhu Youzhen announced the suspension of Liao salary. Without Liao's silver, the 100,000 male divisions in Liaodong could not be supported by the treasury alone, and the silver and materials that were lacking had to be transferred from Zhu Youzhen's inner treasury.

Therefore, although the tax department has a lot of income, but other places spend money like running water, and Zhu Youzhen himself can't save money at all.

I only hope that Lu Xiangsheng will unite the entire Liaodong forces as soon as possible and send troops to recover Shenyang, so that Liaoshen will become one and will no longer be afraid of Jiannu attack.

ps: This is the first update, but it's too sleepy, wait for me to sleep for a while and get up and write, you can read it early tomorrow morning, absolutely not pigeons!