The gentry re-seated.

A few of them drank the wine cup in one go, so as to suppress their shock.

They also knew that King Yan was probably just scaring people, but when King Yan had an attack, the murderous aura of the cold was like a substance, which inexplicably made people shudder and break out in a cold sweat.

As for giving up those interests, in fact, I have been mentally prepared for this for a long time, but I still thought that I could bargain.

That's it, just spend money to eliminate disasters, and save more money in the future, the treasures on ordinary meals have to be cut by one or two, Qinlou Chu Pavilion has to go so many times, and the makeup powder money for their beautiful concubines can only be slightly tighter.

Relieved, thinking about being cut off such a large piece of meat, many people couldn't help but sigh and sigh with a sigh on their faces.

Zhao Mengqi also sat back behind the table, and also drank a cup by himself, but he played with the empty cup in his hand, and his eyes inadvertently swept the manners of these people.

After the slap, it's time to give the sweet dates.

"Don't be resentful, only the world is peaceful, and everyone's wealth is really rich......

Hearing that King Yan opened his mouth again, everyone present felt a pang in their hearts, there would be no more moths.

Hundreds of people looked at the main throne in unison, and saw that King Yan seemed to be smiling, "You should all know that at present, the Great Song Dynasty is suffering from internal and external troubles, and the situation is dangerous...... If the thieves break the city of Quanzhou, most of you will also end up ruined, if you still force the people to live, you will survive this time, so what about the next time?"

The gentry are silent, but they have also read the Four Books and Five Classics, and they must understand the truth, and the lessons of the past in the history books are also vivid, but it is difficult to give up good money, coupled with the depravity of the atmosphere, the feelings of the family and the country, and the only thing left is home.

Seeing this situation, Zhao Mengqi secretly shook his head, "Okay, I'm too lazy to talk about these things, let's talk about sea trade."

Speaking of this gentry, the spirit immediately came, don't look at them always like to flaunt the cultivation and reading of heirlooms, but guarding the golden mountain of sea trade, how can they bear not to stretch out their hands?

The land can be heirlooms, but the income is just like that, and the rent of thousands of acres of fertile land for a year may not be able to exchange for a decent South China Sea bead.

What's more, due to the heavy oppression, the tenant farmers' enthusiasm for labor is getting worse and worse, and the harvest on the acres is declining year by year, and it is difficult to support the growing consumption desire of these people.

If there is no other way to obtain benefits, then they can only intensify the exploitation of the people, and so on until the society collapses, and the change of dynasty starts a new cycle of rise and fall.

Confucianism usually attributes this historical cycle to luck, and the solution is to limit the desires of the ruling class, rather than focusing on productivity improvement, and instead of focusing on the improvement of productivity, they see it as a miracle and imprison.

In the Song Dynasty, it was not very serious, so many new technologies and new processes that were leading the world emerged, and they became more and more difficult in the future, and the literati group of the Ming Dynasty could even hide or destroy all the relevant drawings and materials in the West, but secretly made the smuggling sea trade vigorous.

In the Song Dynasty, there was no maritime ban, on the contrary, it also vigorously developed maritime trade, but there was also smuggling, and it intensified, and even had the tendency to replace the formal maritime trade.

In addition to the greed of the bureaucracy, the main reason for this is the failure of official policy.

Now King Yan obviously has the intention to change this status quo, but he doesn't know what to do, whether it will be good or bad for the gentry present, so they can't help but pay special attention to it.

Sure enough, it's still a touching wealth.

Zhao Mengqi shrugged, "Gu plans to carry out certain reforms to the system of municipal shipping companies, abolish the extraction, lower the municipal shipping tax, and change it to full monetization, and lift the ban on most categories of goods."

As soon as these words came out, it was like thunder, and the whole audience was stunned, including Uncle Xie Fang and other officials, all of them were stunned.

The so-called extraction is to levy a certain proportion of landed goods in kind, and at the earliest time, money is given according to the assessed price of the goods, which is actually not considered a tax, at most it is a low-price purchase.

Later, it was changed to taxation, and the proportion also changed from one-tenth to two-third, or even four-cent, and often changed

, which is very flexible, so that the handling officials can profit from it.

Such an excessively high and unstable tax rate naturally made the maritime merchants who risked their lives to come through thousands of miles of waves very dissatisfied, and it is likely that they will not come again in the future.

Although there is a lot of room for maneuver, the unfamiliar maritime merchants will not find a way at all, and it is more likely that they will still pay a high tax rate after being blackmailed by the officials.

The Pu family, who has been operating in the Great Song Dynasty for several generations, knows the details of the system, and has a rich network of relationships, can not only make profits for themselves, but also use this to strive for the interests of other merchants, so they have a strong influence among the merchants.

In addition to extraction, the Song Dynasty, which was the most good at business, bought goods that had already been taxed, that is, in the name of the state, forcibly purchased some or all of the goods, and then resold them to private merchants at a high price.

In addition, there is the ban, that is, the most lucrative overseas goods are prohibited from private sale, and the state monopolizes the sale.

In the early days, these systems did bring great benefits to the imperial court, but the direct participation of the government in the market inevitably led to many problems, especially when the officials were corrupt.

In fact, in this era, there is no universal currency, and it is normal to levy taxes in kind, and with several other means, the cost of obtaining these overseas goods by the state is certainly lower than that of ordinary merchants, and if the selling price can be adjusted according to market supply and demand, the problem will not be too serious.

For example, spices are no longer exclusive to the rich and noble class in the Great Song Dynasty, and many middle classes also have great demand, but they cannot afford to consume government monopolies, and the actual import landed volume has increased greatly, so the smuggled goods that meet the market price naturally fill the market, and no one buys the goods through the formal channels.

These overseas commodities pinched in the hands of the official cannot be sold, can only be piled up in the warehouse to rot, nominally wealth, but in fact it is no different from garbage, sometimes used as a guarantee for paper money, or to return the old banknotes, and it is a discount much higher than the market price, so it has dealt a blow to the credibility of the banknotes.

At this time, the smuggling trade had already formed a huge interest group, both official and businessman, and many of these people present now were one of them.

At this moment, they were quickly thinking about the pros and cons of Yan Wang's reform to their own family, but with just one sentence, they could get too little information.

So someone couldn't help but ask, "Your Highness, what you mean by monetization and collection means to collect money, but the merchants of Tibet come from thousands of miles, mainly bringing goods, where there will be how much money, even if there is, except for gold and silver, we don't recognize the money of the Tibetan country."

"Don't worry, Lone Nature has corresponding measures."

Zhao Mengqi didn't care how scratched his ears and cheeks in the field, he was still leisurely, "Lone's idea is to build warehouses in various port areas, and the goods from the merchants must be unloaded into these warehouses, and the warehouses will be managed by the newly established institutions, and the merchants will declare the information of the goods, and the city shipping department will be responsible for the inspection."

This process is equivalent to the cooperation and supervision of the warehouse management agency and the municipal shipping department, and it can also prevent the entrainment and leakage of the merchants to a certain extent.

"Then set up an entry and exit *** exchange, the merchant of the goods information price, all those who have obtained the qualification of the importer can go to the free trade, or the exporter is listed to buy by the merchant of the trader, the city of the company is taxed according to the transaction amount, and the settlement of the exchange volume of the royal bank, that is to say, both parties to the transaction need to open an account in the royal bank, can be exchanged for any currency or gold and silver recognized by the Great Song Dynasty into a bank volume, and deposited into the account, the settlement of the transaction is also carried out in the bank, and the same is true for the purchase of return goods by the merchant of the bank, if there is a balance, It can be exchanged for gold and silver upon request."

That being said, Zhao Mengqi will definitely try to prevent the outflow of gold and silver, and through bank settlement, he can also prevent tax evasion caused by private transactions, and perhaps establish the international credibility of the new currency, and look at the status of the dollar in the future.

The gentry didn't have time to think about the impact on most of them, and only asked their own most concerns, "Your Highness, I wonder what this importer and exporter qualification means?"

"It's nothing, it's just for the convenience of management, with such a huge profit from the sale of foreign goods, you can't just let people from unknown sources participate, in case people with bad intentions buy a large number of foreign goods and disrupt the market, then what's that?

It's not unfair to other merchants, so you have to go through the review and submit a certain deposit to get a certain trading limit......

In addition to the reason that Zhao Mengqi said, in fact, the main thing is to strengthen his control over the sea trade, to put it simply, if you are against my Yan Wang, then you don't want to touch this financial road.

The gentry were not stupid either, and vaguely thought of this.

Then someone asked, "Your Highness, since the government has given up the ban and lottery, the loss is not small, should it be made up from the taxation, the price of the goods is too high, and the importer will not make any money."

How can you not make money, as long as the product has an audience, no matter how high the tax rate is, the buyer will bear it, it is nothing more than that the sales are not so good.

As for what kind of loss, in Zhao Mengqi's opinion, it is not a problem at all, and no matter how much physical goods are collected, they cannot be circulated and transformed, so what is the use?

"Haha, you don't need to worry about this, the fundamental purpose of the reform is to promote the development of maritime trade, and a reasonable tax rate will definitely be formulated, and even goods that are conducive to people's livelihood such as grain and horses are not only exempt from taxes, but also can reduce the tax on other goods carried by the merchant."

Although they did not specify what the tax rate was, the gentry also understood that what King Yan said was true, in this case, the cost of obtaining foreign goods is likely to be lower than that of smuggling, after all, smuggling is also a joint to point officials spend a lot of money, if the tax rate is reasonable, which merchant does not like to be above board?

It's just that in the past, the court officials who relied on opening the back door for smuggling could no longer make any gains, but they hated and hated King Yan, and it had nothing to do with their own family.

Thinking about it, this reform is beneficial to the merchants, importers, and imperial court, and the price of commodities is also beneficial to the people, so the maritime trade will definitely be more prosperous.

It is not a great deal to say that this method is proposed, but only King Yan dares to ignore a large number of vested interests from the local government to the court and really implement it.

At this time, many gentry were moved, and planned to go back and wait for the specific regulations of King Yan to come out, and then ponder carefully, maybe they could make up for the losses on the acres of land, and even earn more.

Immediately, they heard King Yan say, "The above reforms are mainly to make the merchants profitable and come to the Great Song Dynasty to trade, but we also not only want to invite in, but also take the initiative to go out!"