In the Fengtian Palace, hundreds of officials were meeting at court to report important events in the world to the emperor.
The Secretary of the Ministry of Household Affairs had just finished reporting on the drought in Shaanxi. Xue Guoguan, the first assistant, came out, held up a dental plaque and said: "Your Majesty, the memorial that was rushed by the horse last night has been jointly signed by thirty-seven civil servants in Tianjin Town!"
Hearing this, all the civil and military officials in the court looked slightly sideways. What big event happened in Tianjin? More than 30 civil servants were asked to jointly sign a memorial with the same hatred as the enemy? Such a mighty joint signature must have encountered a powerful foreign enemy. What kind of enemy actually
Do you want Tianjin officials and civil servants to stand up and resist?
Zhu Youjian also changed his color slightly and said, "Read it!"
Xue Guoguan held up the memorial and read: "...Li Zhi, the commander-in-chief of Tianjin, disregarded the anger of the people and the people, exceeded his duties and took over his authority, and wanted to impose commercial taxes in a town in Tianjin... We and other civil servants worked hard to stop it, but Li Zhi relied on the emperor's trust.
We have repeatedly threatened those who come forward with impeachment... Thirty-seven civil servants like us... are reporting to the Emperor in unison, hoping that the Emperor will clarify his position and not protect the lawless Li Zhi."
After Xue Guo finished the long memorial, all the officials understood that Li Zhi wanted to collect business taxes in Tianjin.
This was not the first time that Li Zhi collected commercial taxes. In the eleventh year of Chongzhen's reign, he collected commercial taxes on Tianjin West Road. As a result, he was denounced as a traitor by officials all over the world, but he was not afraid at all.
It has only been more than a year, and Li Zhi has been promoted to the commander-in-chief of Tianjin, and he has to collect commercial taxes from the entire Tianjin? Is he so brave that he is not afraid of offending the world's scholars?
Li Zhi was deeply trusted by the emperor. He defeated the cabinet boss Yang Sichang in one sentence. Impeaching several civil servants was not a joke. He threatened to impeach those who resisted business and taxation, which was indeed quite lethal. However, these civil servants in Tianjin were also smart.
He went to the emperor to ask him to make his position clear and not to protect Li Zhi.
Li Zhi was just a general soldier and had no power to deal with civil matters. If the emperor did not deal with the civil servants he impeached, he would not be able to deal with the civil servants who obstructed his tax collection. If he could not deal with these civil servants, Li Zhi's tax collection plan would definitely involve Huang.
dropped.
Of course, Li Zhi had strong soldiers and horses, and the combat power of his soldiers and horses surpassed that of the Ming Dynasty. He could rely on his soldiers and horses to hunt down these civil servants in Tianjin, but that would be no different from rebellion. None of the officials believed that Li Zhi dared to rebel.
The officials looked at the emperor to see what his reaction would be.
Seeing all the officials looking at him, Zhu Youjian hesitated for a while, then stroked his beard and said: "This matter can be big or small..."
Hearing the emperor's vague answer, all the officials knew that the emperor was hesitating.
Li Zhi collected commercial taxes to benefit the emperor! Last time he collected 60,000 taels of commercial taxes on Tianjin West Road, he gave 20,000 taels to the emperor's inner treasury. The emperor was very happy, and it is said that he even praised Li Zhi in front of the eunuchs.
Loyal minister, this time the commercial tax collection in the whole town of Tianjin will cost hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. If Li Zhi can succeed, the emperor will be able to make a lot of money.
The emperor and Li Zhi formed a partnership to exploit businessmen to enrich their internal treasury?
This is really unreasonable!
Upon hearing the emperor's ambiguous reply, all the officials were immediately shocked.
Hu Ke came out of the incident holding a tooth tag in his hand and said loudly: "Collecting business taxes is a bad policy of looting and collecting! Those ordinary people who strive for promotion and run a small shop can only earn dozens of pennies from hard work every day! And Li Zhi
But it is really unreasonable to want to collect business taxes and exploit poor people like fish and meat!"
The censor of Zuo Qiandu also stood up and said Zhenzhen: "The Holy Spirit has a clear warning, don't be deceived by people like Li Zhi! Emperor Xian had a tyranny of levying commercial taxes. As a result, the tax supervisors and mine supervisors imposed excessive taxes. Today's tax collection is ten
We will collect hundreds of articles tomorrow, and we are greedy and greedy. People all over the world came out to resist, and then five people from Suzhou resisted the tax, which will be a good story through the ages! If this tax is lifted, it will really be the power of the government to force the people to rebel!"
Zhu Youjian was a little unhappy after being criticized by the two officials. He frowned and said: "Merchant are poor, and farmers are also poor. Why can farmers levy heavy taxes, but merchants can't tax them even a little bit?"
From the bottom of his heart, Zhu Youjian also wanted to collect business taxes. Nowadays, the country is in ruins and there is a shortage of money everywhere. After fighting slaves and bandits, we are short of major generals. If we want to stabilize the situation, we must increase the country's army, but increasing the army requires
Silver, the court really can’t afford it now!
Li Zhi levied commercial taxes, which made Zhu Youjian's eyes light up, as if he saw the hope of saving the country's finances. Li Zhi collected more than 60,000 commercial taxes in the three counties of Tianjin West Road and handed over 20,000. What if the entire Ming Dynasty levied commercial taxes?
If you pay taxes, don't you get tens of millions of taels of tax silver? How many soldiers can you train with tens of millions of taels of silver? What do you mean by building slaves and robbing bandits?
But all the officials in the world did not allow Zhu You to collect commercial taxes.
Fortunately for the military attache, even if the military attaché does business on his own, he only relies on his own power to monopolize certain industries in his own camp. The tax rate of thirty to one tax does not bother these military attaches too much.
However, civil servants have greater power and a wider scope of management. They are inextricably linked to the merchants and gentry doing business all over the world. They can be said to be a family. Almost every merchant has to send money to civil servants, big and small. Civil servants have already
He became the spokesperson for these merchants. Every time they mentioned the need to levy business taxes, these civil servants would be as upset as if their homes had been confiscated.
Hearing the emperor's defense for commercial taxes, the civil servants below were filled with indignation and stood up to defend themselves one by one.
He Shishou, the Minister of Rites, said: "Your Majesty! Collecting commercial taxes is to compete with the people for profit! The emperor must not protect Li Zhi!"
Liu Zunxian, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, went out and shouted: "Sir, if this tax is lifted, the scholars in the world will be scolded. I am afraid that people will be tempted, and the situation will be even more unbearable."
Fan Fucui, Grand Bachelor of Wuyingdian Palace, held up a placard and said: "If the emperor imposes commercial taxes, I am afraid that the voice of resistance to taxes will sweep across the country, and the order of the world will no longer exist. This is to establish a new one besides establishing slaves and robbing thieves."
enemy!"
In order to dissuade Zhu Youjian, Fan Fucui threatened the emperor by saying that Shilin was going to rebel.
Zhu Youjian was a little annoyed by Fan Fucui's words. He was about to speak when he saw more than a hundred civil servants coming out.
"Your Majesty, commercial taxes cannot be levied! I second my opinion!"
"I second the proposal!"
"I second the proposal!"
For a time, more than a hundred civil servants in the court raised placards to persuade Zhu Youjian to give up the idea of levying commercial taxes.
Zhu Youjian was so angry that he closed his eyes.
After a long time, the emperor opened his eyes and saw the hundreds of officials still standing in the middle of the hall. Those more than a hundred black gauze hats were like a big mountain pressing on Zhu Youjian's heart, leaving him speechless for a moment.
.
The emperor is just a lonely man. If all the bureaucrats in the world were to oppose the emperor, the emperor would also shrink back.
Zhu Youjian sighed and changed his words: "I know, pass on my decree and tell Li Zhi not to levy commercial tax!"
After saying this, Zhu Youjian was a little disinterested and no longer interested in dealing with court affairs. He stood up and said, "That's it for today, let's withdraw from the court."
