Chapter 894: The tax department that presides over justice
Yangzhou Jiangdu Qingzhu Garden, which covers an extensive area and is filled with exquisite gardens almost everywhere, was built by Yang, a local salt merchant, twenty years ago.
When the Yang family built the garden, it was almost a sensation, because the construction period took several years, and although the Yang family did not disclose the cost, outsiders speculated that this green bamboo garden would cost at least hundreds of thousands of taels.
This shows how rich Yang is!
Today, several main members of the Yang family in Qingzhuyuan gathered together to discuss the recent difficult situation!
Yes, since the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty captured Yangzhou, the local salt merchants have been in huge trouble. Although the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty is reasonable and will not confiscate properties for no reason, these local salt merchants are extremely wealthy.
They are all smart people and know the importance of spending money to buy peace. After the Tang Dynasty took over Yangzhou, the local businessmen, led by salt merchants, paid taxes and treated the relevant policies of the Tang Dynasty quite well.
obedience.
Without the help of the local tax inspection team or the garrison, more than a dozen of the top salt merchants in Yangzhou City at that time proposed to donate military supplies to the army, and the amount reached a huge amount of two hundred thousand taels of silver.
.
Then we are also active and proactive in agricultural tax and commercial tax. There is no need for tax officials to come to the door. People just come to pay the tax with the land register and shop list, and they don’t hide anything. Each one pays a lot of money, which is enough.
He paid all agricultural taxes and commercial taxes in full, and even more.
The proactive behavior of these salt merchants greatly surprised the tax officials who went to Yangzhou to take charge of tax work!
In other places, the local gentry and businessmen would pay obediently only if blood was shed everywhere, but in Yangzhou, everything was reversed. There was no need for tax officials to come to collect payment, let alone dispatching tax inspection teams.
These salt merchants just took the initiative to subscribe.
Therefore, when it came to the gentry in Yangzhou, especially the salt merchants, the officials of the Tang Dynasty were relatively gentle at first. Since they had paid the money, although they were jealous of the huge wealth of the salt merchants, since they had paid taxes,
Then forget it.
But what I didn't expect was that in just one month, local officials felt something was wrong!
Why?
Because on the surface, the local salt merchants surrendered, took the initiative to donate, paid taxes, and did not openly resist the Tang Dynasty's salt industry policy.
However, they discovered that the Datang Salt Industry Company's state-run salt industry was not going smoothly in the local area. The business volume was far less than expected and the profits were low, which also resulted in the salt tax being far less than expected!
It’s not that anyone is so bold as to create superficial obstacles for them, but there is very little salt in the salt field, and after transporting it to a certain place, the official salt cannot be sold.
And they soon discovered the reason behind this, which was the proliferation of private salt!
You can even guess who is selling private salt, that is the big salt merchants, and the only ones who have the ability to organize such large-scale private salt sales are those big salt merchants
Although local officials, patrol police and other departments tried to put an end to salt smuggling, set up numerous inspection checkpoints, and even blatantly monitored the main salt merchant families in Yangzhou City in an attempt to collect evidence that they were selling illegal salt, the smugglers caught
Although there are many people working in the salt industry, they are all inconspicuous and small roles, and they cannot be contacted by the big salt merchants.
So it was formed that the local officials knew that the big salt merchants were selling illegal salt, but they could not find the key evidence. The local patrol office was powerless. Even after a few months, many people were bribed.
Well, after the establishment of the Yangzhou Prefecture Patrol Police Bureau, three patrol chiefs have been replaced. The first two chiefs were all involved in corruption.
Later, the Patrol Department personally dispatched a patrol team to Yangzhou, but a few months later, of the more than ten main officials of this patrol team, one fell into the water and died inexplicably, one was hit and killed by a crazy horse on the street, and five others
One was found to have suddenly acquired a huge amount of property and was arrested and beheaded.
Even the person who paid the bribe could not be found, because according to the investigation, no one bribed them at all. They found these huge Datang Royal Bank bank notes in their rooms, with a face value of one hundred taels.
, packed a small box with only a small piece of paper inside, telling them to come to Yangzhou to eat and drink well, then take the money and get out. If you dare to do anything else, you will be responsible for the consequences!
So they just ate, drank and had fun every day until the incident happened!
Although the remaining police officers had no money confiscated, they had accomplished nothing and were demoted to the official mansion by the angry senior officers of the patrol department. In this life, they could not expect to return to the prosperous Central Plains.
The patrol teams dispatched by the patrol department failed to achieve even a single success, which fully proves how rampant local illegal salt activities are!
Against this background, Chen Lifu came to Yangzhou!
The arrival of Chen Lifu did not arouse the alarm of the salt merchants, because the salt merchants felt that they paid taxes honestly, and all the properties under their names paid agricultural taxes in full, and trading houses and the like also paid taxes in full.
After the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty captured Yangzhou, the famous tax inspection team had always been on the same page with the salt merchants, and I had never heard of the salt merchant having his house confiscated by the tax inspection team.
This time several core members of the Yang family in Qingzhuyuan gathered together, it was not related to Chen Lifu, but to the Patrol Department. Since the first patrol team sent by the Patrol Department was almost taken over, the top brass of the Patrol Department
Angry.
It is said that the Minister of the Patrol Department who accompanied him to the north personally issued a document to reprimand other senior officials of the Patrol Department who stayed in Jinling. He scolded the two assistant ministers and several department chiefs. The leader was even in charge of a department of the Patrol Department at this time.
Changdu was demoted to Hunan for this reason.
Then the adults from the patrol department transferred officers from several other places, especially in Guizhou. Guangdong and Guangxi transferred officers from several patrol departments and once again formed a salt industry inspection team and went to Jiangbei Road.
Because of the lessons learned from the previous time, the officers of the patrol team selected this time are all carefully selected. They all have deep qualifications in the patrol department, have rich experience in fighting various crimes in the local area, and are also able to withstand consideration.
Go-getters!
The arrival of the second salt industry inspection team once again made many salt merchants in Yangzhou City feel deeply malicious!
One after another, they began to take corresponding measures, and the same was true for the Yang family. However, they still needed to discuss carefully how to respond. The simplest and safest way is to suspend the private salt business first and wait until the news has passed.
Do it.
However, as the Yang family who are currently the most courageous and have the largest private salt business, if they are asked to stop their private salt business for one day, they will lose countless money. The Yang family is not willing to do this unless it is absolutely necessary.
While they were discussing how to deal with the second salt inspection team of the patrol department, Chen Lifu in the city was also looking at a thick stack of files!
Chen Lifu had already been to Huai'an Prefecture before and met with the local officials. He then rectified the local tax system with thunderous means. He dug out a group of local tax officials and transferred them to the Supervisory Office for judicial trial. The tax inspection
Many green-skinned hooligans in the team were also severely beaten by Chen Lifu.
Rectifying the internal tax system is also Chen Lifu's old routine. Every time before starting local tax work, he will rectify the local internal tax system to ensure that doing things is easier. Of course, this is also Chen Lifu's selfish intention.
, he has always disliked the messy people in the tax inspection team.
After initially rectifying the tax system in Jiangbei Province, he came to Yangzhou!
The purpose of coming to Yangzhou is naturally very simple, that is, the local salt tax revenue is far lower than the tax department expected. Chen Lifu came to Jiangbei Province with only one mission, and that was to collect the salt tax that should be collected.
What is the salt tax due?
Because the output and selling price of the salt farm, as well as the local population, are fixed, it is easy to estimate how much salt tax can be collected. The tax department has already estimated a rough figure. If it cannot reach this figure,
There must be tax evasion taking place!
After flipping through the files, Chen Lifu focused his attention on one of the files!
These files are from the Ministry of Taxation’s internal investigation of the big merchants in Yangzhou City, and these big merchants are all salt merchants!
Yes, before coming to Yangzhou, Chen Lifu was ready to take down these salt merchants. He couldn't control these salt merchants selling private salt, but he had to control the sale of the four-eye part to pay taxes!
He had also borrowed files from the patrol department before, but found that these salt dealers were very secretive. The patrol police could not obtain key evidence through normal means, so they arrested them and ransacked their homes!
Although there is no evidence, according to the behavior of the judicial officers of the Tang Dynasty in the past, they could just find any excuse to confiscate their homes, but today's Datang Dynasty is different from the past.
The Tang Dynasty has now moved towards formalization, and many things cannot be done as casually as in the past. The confiscation of houses must be justified, otherwise the impact will be bad.
Therefore, the current judicial and taxation agencies of the Tang Dynasty focus on legal and reasonable house searches!
However, the salt merchants are obviously good citizens who abide by the law, and there is no evidence that they are involved in illegal salt sales. This makes the patrol police quite helpless.
However, these problems are not a problem in Chen Lifu's view!
Hum, although the patrol department could not find any evidence that these salt merchants were involved in smuggling and selling salt, and there was no way to take action against these salt merchants, it does not mean that their tax department cannot do it!
Their tax department wants to find trouble for someone, but they have never failed to find it. It's just a problem they don't think about!
When local officials, patrol departments and other departments have no way to deal with these salt merchants, it is time for their tax department to stand up and uphold justice!