Within a few years, Chen Lifu was once again promoted to the rank of Shangshu of the Ministry of Commerce, becoming a high-ranking official of the second rank, and became a member of the imperial study room. His power was so prominent that he could be ranked among the top twenty in the entire empire's civil service class.
But this is not the end of Chen Lifu's career.
In August of the thirty-sixth year of Xuanping, Chen Lifu ushered in the most glorious moment in his life!
He successfully entered the imperial office and became the minister on duty in the Imperial Study Room, becoming one of the most powerful civil servants in the empire.
When he received the imperial edict from the imperial envoy, he almost fainted and could not stand up.
It was his eldest son who quickly stepped forward to support him, and then helped him up.
After seeing off the imperial envoy, the eldest son reminded him that he should bathe and change clothes immediately, and then enter the palace to thank him. However, Chen Lifu said that he wanted to be quiet and then went into the study alone.
The study room is filled with bamboo pictures he has painted over the years.
Chen Lifu's bamboo paintings are considered to be unique in contemporary times. Looking across the empire, there is no one who can draw better bamboo paintings than him. Even from a purely artistic point of view, Chen Lifu's bamboo paintings are regarded as the best.
Ranked first in the contemporary era.
Especially his cold bamboo paintings, even the Holy Emperor was so impressed that he even joked to Chen Lifu, "If you don't go into politics, my dear, you can still be famous in history with just this cold bamboo painting."
However, in Chen Lifu's own opinion, these bamboo pictures are nothing more than a small means to express various emotions in his heart.
After entering the study, he looked up and saw a picture of cold bamboo hanging in front of him. The date on it was the fifth year of Xuanping.
That year, he had just entered the official position from Long, and he drew this picture of cold bamboo to express his ambition. One day, he, Chen Lifu, would stand in the court and assist the Holy Emperor in creating a peaceful and prosperous age.
Now, he is more than half successful!
Now that he has joined the duty, he will be able to hold great power like several senior ministers on duty, and then realize his political ambition: to create a prosperous age of peace and prosperity!
Today's empire is indeed powerful, but in Chen Lifu's view it is far from enough.
The Imperial Navy seems to control the world's oceans, the Imperial Army is invincible throughout the world, and Imperial merchants have footprints all over the world, but this is still not enough in his opinion.
Although the empire had become stronger, it was still far from the standard he had in mind for a strong country and a prosperous people.
He is an official who has served in the local area for many years. He understands better than many officials who have stayed in the central government for a long time that the empire may seem strong, but the people's lives are not as good as imagined.
More than 90% of the people are still struggling to make ends meet, struggling to have enough to eat.
In some areas, there is extreme poverty, and the number of people who don’t even have enough to eat is extremely large!
But at the same time, the powerful and wealthy businessmen are spending huge sums of money!
Thirty-one years of political career have allowed Chen Lifu to see through many things.
Especially in recent years, as he grew older and was expected to enter the imperial study room, he often thought about what kind of empire could be called the true Xuanping era!
The extremely powerful Imperial Army and Navy?
no!
Strong business and industry?
no!
Global hegemony over the earth or even unification of the world?
Still not!
What is a true Xuanping Dynasty?
Chen Lifu found the answer: all the people of the empire can have enough to eat through their own efforts!
There are two very important elements in this answer, one is hard work and the other is eating enough!
Chen Lifu's ideas have always been different from others. When he was a tax official, he was different from other tax officials.
Later, when he took charge of the local government, he was still different from other officials.
Now that he has entered the imperial study room, he is still different from others.
So when he entered the palace to express his gratitude as usual, he handed Li Xuan a paper he had just written and the content was very simple.
When Li Xuan opened the book, he had some doubts. Is this person still Chen Lifu?
Chen Lifu did a good job in the past, and his ideas in all aspects were very mature. However, he was very prudent when administering policies. He rarely became radical, and he was more inclined to conservative policies. However, what he said today is quite different.
It seems a bit radical.
Li Xuan did not give Chen Lifu any reply on the spot, but said he understood and let Chen Lifu go back.
After Chen Lifu left, Li Xuan looked through Chen Lifu's notes again.
It can be clearly seen that this booklet was just written today. The handwriting is new and the number of words is small, only a few hundred words.
The thing mentioned above is simpler, that is, it is recommended to further expand the stepped tax rate of agricultural tax in some provinces in the hinterland of the empire, such as the central and eastern parts of the empire.
This prompted medium and large landowners to further sell off their land, allowing the people to obtain more farmland.
If Chen Lifu's suggestion is followed, then for landowners who hold more than fifty acres of land per capita, the land tax rate cost will exceed the land output, which means that not only will they not make money, they will also lose money.
In the past, although the empire had adopted a stepped agricultural tax rate, the tax rate was not so terrible, and at most it was not profitable.
But now, Chen Lifu wants them to lose money!
After reading Chen Lifu's excerpt, Li Xuan also reflected on the empire's land policy and found that it seemed that it had not changed for more than twenty years. In order to maintain overall stability, although a tiered tax rate was established, it was not implemented.
It's too much.
The original intention was to make large landowners unprofitable, and then let them actively sell their land and then bring capital into the industrial and commercial world.
However, if landowners would rather hold a large amount of land and let it go without making money, the empire would not interfere.
Now Chen Lifu is even more ruthless. He not only prevents landowners from making money, but also wants to make them lose money and force them to sell their land.
But now that more than twenty years have passed, it is not impossible to do this now.
Nowadays, landlords who hold land on a large scale are basically unprofitable. If the management is not good, they will actually lose money.
The current social wealth is mainly concentrated in industry and commerce, and pure agriculture can no longer bring any benefits to the gentry and the powerful class.
With so much land, you can't get much money out of all the hard work, so you might as well invest directly in industry and commerce, such as the oil industry, which has been very popular in the past two years.
After the liberalization of petroleum processing licenses, dozens of companies have obtained petroleum processing licenses, providing ample opportunities to make money.
Therefore, it is now possible to further increase the stepped tax rate of agricultural tax, and the expected opposition will not be too great.
But what Li Xuan didn't expect was that Chen Lifu wasn't done yet. A few days later, Chen Lifu gave Li Xuan another discount, suggesting further shortening workers' working hours and setting a minimum wage standard.
When he saw this discount, Li Xuan was speechless.