Seeing that the military was unswervingly on Li Yuanji's side, the spokespersons of many wealthy families in the court had no choice but to say anything more about Li Yuanji's profit through water transport.
After all, although their family's background is deep, if they really take action, they are no match for the military.
The military does not need to send too many soldiers and horses. It only needs to send soldiers and horses from one school to raid their homes and wipe out their families.
Li Yuanji saw that all the spokespersons of the wealthy families had stopped talking, and nodded slowly and said: "It seems that all the ministers agree with my words, so it's settled. In the future, whoever wants to do business by water transport, or go to sea
To do business, you must spend a sum of money to clear water transportation, otherwise, there will be no hope of passage on the river or sea."
"Here..."
Spokespersons from numerous wealthy families reluctantly agreed.
Li Shentong laughed loudly and said: "I still have more than a dozen fishing boats in my hands. I plan to start a fish trade in water transportation. I plan to spend 100,000 guan to dredge water transportation. I don't know if Your Highness will allow it."
Li Shentong was taking this opportunity to beat up the drowned dog, and he was also taking this opportunity to raise the price of dredging water transportation.
Just think about it, a fish seller has to pay 100,000 guan to purchase the right to use water transportation. If others do other businesses, wouldn't they have to pay more?
Such as cloth, porcelain, leather goods, jewelry, jade, medicinal materials, wouldn't it cost three to four hundred thousand yuan, or even more?!
He is a prince, and he is also a powerful prince. How can ordinary people change the tone set by him?
The spokespersons of all the wealthy families suddenly felt as if they were mourning for their heirs.
Li Gang, Wei Zheng and other officials who were thinking about the people all frowned.
As a person in power, he competes with the people for profits and monopolizes a very important transportation industry. This is not a good thing for the people, and may even develop into a government-run industry that exploits the people.
Therefore, after Wei Zheng hesitated again and again, he slowly raised his hands and said, "Your Highness, it is understandable that you use your family's money to facilitate water transportation, and you also use water transportation to make profits and reduce the consumption of the national treasury.
It's just that Your Highness has banned all ships except official ships from using water transport, which is very detrimental to the people.
Some people who rely on fishing for food may not be able to survive in the future."
Li Yuanji also thought of this, but he didn't expect Wei Zheng to say it in advance, so he immediately smiled and said: "Wei Qing, don't worry, I just said that merchant ships are not allowed to pass through water transportation, let alone go to sea, but I didn't say that fishing boats are not allowed.
Go fishing in the river.
I will instruct the soldiers patrolling the water transport to let the fishing boats pass.
When necessary, fishermen can also seek shelter from patrolling soldiers."
For example, if you encounter river flooding, or encounter robbery by water bandits, or encounter a shipwreck, you can seek shelter from the navy of the Tang Dynasty.
This is the most basic operation and the most basic responsibility of soldiers.
As a soldier of the Tang Dynasty, when you see the people of the Tang Dynasty in trouble, you should step forward.
Specifically, Li Yuanji will ask Li Xiaogong and Samurai Yi to draft a charter and issue it.
The current navy of the Tang Dynasty was established on the basis of the remaining navy of the former Sui Dynasty and the navy founded by Li Xiaogong in Jingzhou.
Then it has to be reorganized and refined again.
In the eyes of most people in the Tang Dynasty, the navy was just that. Except for playing some role in specific places, it was of no great use elsewhere.
But Li Yuanji knew that the navy had great potential. Once it was completed, it would not only be able to navigate the rivers and lakes in the Tang Dynasty, but also the sea.
In this era when the sea is still in unknown territory, if Datang can form an ocean-going fleet, then Datang will be qualified to manage the world and dictate any political power in the world.
However, there is still a long way to go before we can form an ocean-going fleet.
Datang needed to lay a certain foundation before it could launch its ocean-going industry and start a new journey on the ocean.
A thousand miles begins with a single step.
The navy of the Tang Dynasty was the foundation of all this.
Wei Zheng didn't know the grand goal in Li Yuanji's mind. After hearing that Li Yuanji would not ban fishing and would even provide fishermen with a certain amount of protection, he handed over his hand and sat down again.
Li Gang stroked his beard and said hesitantly: "What about the small merchants and hawkers from various places? Without them to communicate goods from various places, the commercial tax of the Tang Dynasty would probably be reduced by more than half."
Li Gang valued business taxes, not the life and death of small businessmen and hawkers.
In Li Gang's eyes, scholars, farmers, industry, and commerce were industries run by lowly people and were not worthy of attention.
If merchants could give up their business and go farming, then there would be more farmers in the Tang Dynasty.
In his opinion, this is definitely a good thing.
Most of the veterans in the court had similar thoughts to Li Gang.
Because in the eyes of all of them, farmers were much more important than businessmen, farmers had a higher status than businessmen, and farmers contributed more to the Tang Dynasty than businessmen, so they all supported the idea of promoting agriculture through business.
The only thing they worry about is that business taxes will fall after merchants are no longer able to do business.
Although the commercial tax in the Tang Dynasty was not high, and it only accounted for three-tenths of the tax in the Tang Dynasty, this three-tenth of the tax was enough for the court to do many good things that benefited the country and the people.
As a later generation, Li Yuanji naturally had different ideas from them. He also found it funny that Li Gang valued commercial taxes but not merchants. However, in the face of Li Gang's questions, he patiently answered: "Mr. Li , I just did not allow merchant ships to pass, but I did not say that their goods were not allowed to pass, nor did I say that they could not do business.
I will later set up docks along various water transport routes in Chang'an, Luoyang, Dizhou, Yangzhou, etc., and assign several batches of ships to help merchants transport goods in the name of official ships. The merchants only need to pay a certain amount of freight."
Before Li Gang could ask again, Li Yuanji continued: "Don't worry, Mr. Li, I will order the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the people in charge of water transportation to negotiate the freight. Different freight rates will be given for different goods. I will never let it change." It has become a bad government that plunders the people’s fat and their anointing.”
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Basically, when transporting a series of goods such as grain that are beneficial to Datang and various places in Datang, the price can be appropriately lower, or even
Free of charge.
When transporting silk, jewelry, jade, precious medicinal materials, and fine furs, you can charge more, or even impose heavy taxes.
Anyway, these things will fall into the hands of poor people, and will eventually be sold to wealthy families or wealthy people with a good family background. It is absolutely not a shame to make money from them.
Isn’t there a saying that when luxury goods are harvested, they will never reach the poor, because the poor have no access to luxury goods at all.
"That being the case, I have nothing more to say."
When Li Gang learned that Li Yuanji had not taken the opportunity to cause harm to the people and block their livelihood, he sat down again and stopped talking.
Li Yuanji said: "Then this matter is settled. In addition to this matter, I am also planning to set up martial arts schools in each Tao, so that the officers and soldiers of the team and above can study there."
When the civil and military officials in the Taiji Hall heard this, they were in an uproar.
This, this, this has no precedent.
Doing this is a bit like digging into the foundation of the general family.
None of the military officials agreed.
In an instant, the civil servants all watched the military minister's joke.
Just now it was the military ministers who were laughing at their jokes, and now it was finally their turn to laugh at the military ministers' jokes. They were all gloating about their misfortune and could not hide it at all.
Li Shentong's expression changed slightly, and he looked at Li Yuanji and said, "I wonder what the purpose of King Yong's establishment of martial arts is?"
Li Yuanji sighed and said: "The purpose is of course to make the illiterate generals in the army literate."
Speaking of this, Li Yuanji looked at Li Shentong, Su Dingfang, Luo Shixin, Xie Shufang and others, and sighed: "During the process of leading troops in battle, haven't you encountered that the generals under your command are illiterate and can't understand you?"
Will the order be conveyed to the point of delaying the fighter's opportunity and ultimately leading to the defeat of the war?"
】
Li Shentong stopped talking for a moment.
Su Dingfang, Luo Shixin, Xie Shufang and others looked hesitant.
They have really encountered this kind of thing before, and they have encountered it quite a lot.
Take the previous abrupt battle as an example. In the process of chasing Jie Li, Su Dingfang almost bit Jie Li's tail several times. The most successful one was because one of his teams was illiterate.
I didn't understand his order, so I failed to close the gap and let Jie Li run away.
If that team was literate and could understand his orders, this wouldn't have happened.
Maybe Jieli has been caught by now and is keeping Tuli company.
This kind of thing has always been a shortcoming in the military.
However, military strategies, the essentials of leading troops, and various martial arts are almost all things that have been passed down from generation to generation in the general family and cannot be easily passed on to outsiders.
So even though they know that this shortcoming exists in the military and know how to solve it, no one stands up to solve it.
Because no one is willing to pass on what they rely on to survive to outsiders, and no one is willing to teach a large group of people to steal their jobs.
More importantly, a stable dynasty does not need many generals who can lead troops in war.
People's desires are often higher than their abilities.
When a person's ability is much higher than that of ordinary people, he no longer wants to be an ordinary person willingly.
Driven by desire, he will want more.
Therefore, after many people learn the ability to lead troops in war, they can't help but think about showing off their talents and making achievements.
When a dynasty is stable, they will become the source of trouble for the dynasty.
Therefore, throughout the dynasties, in addition to the families of generals strictly adhering to the essentials of the Art of War, those in power also deliberately prevented the spread of the essentials of the Art of War.
Therefore, Li Yuanji and others knew the benefits of Li Yuanji's plan to establish martial arts in various disciplines, but they could not understand and did not agree with it.