Chapter 11 Yutang's search for sages visits Chen Sheng
Mid-November of the fourth year of Zhongping.
It started to rain lightly in Luoyang. In the pattering rain, the carriage slowly drove into Luoyang City.
Chen Mu sat in the carriage, lifted the curtains and peeked out.
The streets of Luoyang, which were a mess a few years ago, have long been restored to cleanliness. The streets are bustling with traffic, and there is an endless flow of cars, horse carts, ox carts, and horse-drawn carriages passing by from time to time.
People wore wooden clogs and held oil-paper umbrellas, walking in the rain. Signboards lined the streets swayed in the wind, and wind horses made tinkling sounds.
The wind horse is the wind chime of later generations, which originated from the nine-piece golden bell with a dragon's title hanging on the Zhaoyang Palace during the reign of Emperor Cheng of the Western Han Dynasty.
After Jinling was introduced to the people, wealthy people used jade to make wind chimes, called Xiangyu, while ordinary people used bamboo, called Fengma or Xiangzhu. On windy days, they tinkled and sounded crisp and pleasant.
Chen Mu put down the curtains and thought in his mind.
Su Shuang and Wang Shiping's business has expanded a step further. They have sold oil-paper umbrellas to Luoyang, and their wealth has been further accumulated.
Oil-paper umbrellas are much cheaper than bamboo umbrellas, and the umbrella surface of the umbrella is made of silk. Paper umbrellas, on the other hand, apply grease or tung oil on the paper surface. This thing appeared more than 200 years later in the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Under the background of monopoly, the price is far cheaper than bamboo umbrellas, but in fact it is not much cheaper. An umbrella costs 300 five baht, and only rich people can afford it.
What paper umbrellas monopolize is not technology or craftsmanship, but raw materials.
Zuobo paper is currently only available in Qingzhou, and the formula is strictly confidential. Even if others want to make oil-paper umbrellas, if they use Caihou paper, the cost will not be worth it, and they will not be able to compete.
Therefore, selling umbrellas can be said to be a huge profit. Nowadays, almost everyone in the wealthy family has a few, and the Qingzhou Business Group has made a lot of money.
certainly.
No matter how much you invent something, it's all just a small amount of money.
The real huge profits will come from implementing the perfect salt-drying method in Qingzhou in the future. There is nothing more profitable than selling salt in the world.
"Shang Shuling, do you want to go to the palace to see His Majesty now, or?"
Xiao Huangmen asked.
Chen Mu slowly said: "It's been a long and dusty journey. After I wash up, I will go to the palace. You should go back first."
"Then I will go back and resume my duties first. I hope Shangshu Ling will enter the palace early? Your Majesty is waiting."
Xiao Huangmen resigned and left.
Some people may wonder? Why does Xiaohuangmen call Chen Mu "Shang Shu Ling" instead of "Ling Jun."
This is because the origin of the word "Lingjun" comes from Xun Yu.
Xun Yu served as Shangshu Ling for decades during the Cao Wei Dynasty. Was he respected by others? People at that time called him "Xun Lingjun".
It was not until the Three Kingdoms period, after Xun Yu, that the title "Ling Jun" became the customary name for "Shang Shu Ling".
Therefore, according to the official customs of the Han Dynasty, Chen Mu can just be called Shangshu Ling or Chen Shangshu? It has not reached the point where Xun Yu is called "Jun".
The house in Luoyang had been bought by Chen Mu a long time ago. Wang Jun often sent people to clean it. Everything was on site and the furniture was still there. As long as you put clothes and daily necessities in, you can almost move in with your bags.
After returning home, he first settled in Dian Wei and other guards, then took a bath and burned incense. This incense burning did not mean burning incense to worship gods, but literally, lighting spices to smoke the clothes to ensure that the clothes were fragrant.
This was the custom of the scholars at that time. Is it true that Xun Ling left a fragrance? It was because Xun Yu especially liked to smoke his clothes. When he went to other people's homes to be guests, the mats he sat on would remain fragrant for several days.
After everything was settled, Chen Mu put on brand new clothes, with a fragrant fragrance on his body, got into the carriage, hung up the palace card, and set off to the palace.
On the way, Chen Mu was already thinking carefully about the next plan and where to start.
In two years, the chess pieces have been almost laid out, but whether these layouts are useful or useless, the only question now is whether Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty will have another year and a half to live like in history.
If he doesn't die, then any plan is meaningless. None of the heroes in the late Han Dynasty dared to make waves. Even Cao Cao and Yuan Shao could only lie dormant and be unable to achieve anything.
Therefore, when Chen Mu entered the court this time, firstly, he wanted to deal with some troubles for Emperor Han Ling, and secondly, he wanted to observe Emperor Han Ling's physical condition.
It would be interesting if Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty did not die of illness for some reason because of his butterfly effect.
Even if he only needs to live for five more years and let Liu Xie successfully reach the age of twenty, wouldn't there be no problems for the four families of Cao, Liu, Sun, and Sima in this world?
therefore.
Still have to observe.
Be patient and endure it a little longer.
The carriage creaked and creaked as it entered the palace gate. Chen Mu dismounted, held an oil-paper umbrella and headed towards the Yutang Hall under the guidance of the small yellow gate.
Outside the Yutang Hall, a young eunuch was busy adding charcoal to the boiler. The floor inside the Yutang Hall was warm. When he saw Chen Mu coming in, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, who was enjoying a song and dance with a concubine in his arms, waved to him to come closer.
"His Majesty!"
Chen Mu took a small step over and bowed his hands.
"Um."
Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty nodded, waved his hand and said: "Withdraw."
The dancer and the musicians slowly retreated.
The hall was empty. Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty stood up and walked up to Chen Mu excitedly. He patted his shoulders with both hands and laughed and said, "Brother Zigui, I haven't seen you in two years, and you have grown taller again."
"Thanks to Your Majesty's great blessing, I have eaten well and slept well every day in Qingzhou, and I have indeed grown taller."
Chen Mu responded with a smile.
"Um."
Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty looked around and found that there were many guards in the palace and the crowds were crowded, so he said: "Let's go to the back hall."
Under the service of several Xiaohuangmen and Zhang Rang, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty went to the back hall.
Chen Mu followed them with small steps.
When they arrived at the back hall, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty said to everyone: "Please step back."
"Your Majesty, do I also want to retreat?"
An inquiry into female history that records the emperor’s daily life.
In the Western Han Dynasty, the historian was called Taishi Ling, and the most famous Taishi Ling was Sima Tan about Sima Qian and his son.
After the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were two types of historians. One was Lantai Lingshi, who worked in Lantai and recorded and sorted out national events. The other was palace female historians, who recorded the life of the emperor and the harem.
The Taishi Ling was no longer responsible for recording history, but was responsible for the astronomical calendar.
For example, when Chen Mu spoke last time, the female historian was in a corner and recorded what Chen Mu said. Afterwards, the female historian was silenced by Zhang Rang under the instruction of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, so Chen Mu's vicious plan did not spread.
There is no such thing as integrity among the female historians in the palace. They did whatever the emperor said. Therefore, many of the ridiculous things done by Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty were not recorded, and no traces of them can be found in history books.
Hearing the female historian's question, Zhang Rang winked at her: "Your Majesty wants to discuss important national affairs. You go out first and don't make any noise."
"only!"
The female historian followed many small yellow gates and left backwards, while Chen Mu and Zhang Rang stayed behind.
When there were only three people left in the back hall, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty asked Zhang to let Chen Mu sit on the same mat with him and sit on the floor.
"Zigui, I originally planned to ask you to come back next year, but this time I urged you urgently. Do you know what happened?"
After the three of them sat down, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty was the first to speak.
Chen Mu said with a smile: "I'm afraid it's because the princes in the court couldn't restrain themselves and asked Your Majesty to stop collecting taxes."
Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty sighed: "These wolf-hearted thieves clearly have huge wealth, but they don't want to reimburse the country. Instead, they let me continue to exploit the people. Do they think my country is too stable and they want to continue to cause more trouble?"
Originally, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty didn't understand economics and didn't quite understand how to collect taxes reasonably, so Zhang Rang instigated a tax of 10 yuan per mu in the world, which in turn destabilized the country and caused the world to be in turmoil again.
Now Chen Mu is taking advantage of legal loopholes to only collect taxes from the rich and reduce half of the taxes for the poor. Of course, the rich can't sit still, and the court's memorials are almost filling the chancellery.
"There are many smart people among the powerful in the world who have seen through Mu's scheme. It's a pity that these smart people are not on the right path."
Chen Mu said: "I once heard in the countryside that when the village secretary went to the house of a powerful family to count the population, the number of people was originally more than 600. The powerful man ordered the secretary to reduce the number by half. The secretary refused and was beaten by the powerful man.
, and finally the matter was settled."
Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty clenched his fists and said angrily: "Such things were probably normal in the past."
"nature."
Chen Mu nodded and said: "With the current tax collection method, I have also heard that many powerful and powerful people colluded with local officials and asked them to help hide part of their property, or let the hidden households they once hid in come out and pretend to claim the property.
These fields are divided and set aside to reduce taxes. This can be said to be a policy from above and a countermeasure from below."
Before Chen Mu’s tax collection strategy came out, the Han Dynasty calculated the population tax, and slaves in the homes of powerful people were also an important source of tax revenue, because the population tax for slaves was twice as high as the tax for ordinary people, so if a powerful person
If the population is not concealed, the taxes paid every year will be very high.
For example, Mi Zhu, a wealthy man in Xuzhou, had tens of thousands of slaves. According to the taxation at that time, the slaves' verbal gifts alone were considered as gifts, and he had to pay more than 10 million yuan every year, plus the taxes on the land and property. Normally
Tax payment starts at least 20 million.
Therefore, in order not to pay these taxes, the powerful people in various places will more or less conceal their population and transfer their industries, which is commonly known as hiding houses and hidden properties, in order to achieve the purpose of tax evasion.
Now Chen Mu has canceled the population tax, only collects land tax, and has formulated some tax-free policies for the poor. The powerful have figured out the taste, and have studied new tax evasion methods, that is, concealing the land, or dividing the land.
Go out, release the hidden people who no longer need to pay taxes, and continue to exploit loopholes in the law.
Throughout China for thousands of years, there have been countless examples of bad rules like this gradually becoming commonplace in every dynasty.
Moreover, any dynasty that wants to change will encounter great resistance. For example, the Xining Reform in the Song Dynasty, the Qingli New Deal, the Zhang Juzheng Reform in the Ming Dynasty, etc., may be effective in the early stage, but will soon be overthrown by the landlords.
Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty's current policies are still applicable because the powerful landowners are not yet strong. After all, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty's selling of officials can be regarded as breaking the monopoly of official positions by aristocratic families and imperial scholars, allowing many businessmen to become officials.
The bureaucracy is not united.
But if this tax collection method becomes the norm, it will naturally affect the interests of the powerful landlords all over the world. Whether they are aristocratic families or businessmen who buy official positions, they will definitely unite together like never before, and the opposition from the court will become more and more serious.
big.
By that time, there may be another Seven Kingdoms Rebellion, trying to overthrow the dynasty in the name of the Qing Dynasty.
This is why Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty recently felt that something was wrong in the court, so he urgently summoned Chen Mu back to ask for countermeasures.
Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty said worriedly: "Has Brother Mu thought of a countermeasure?"
Chen Mu smiled and said: "Of course, I have already thought of countermeasures on the way. Although some bad rules and bad habits cannot be understood in a short time, it can at least ensure that tax revenue can continue to be collected steadily."
Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty smiled happily and said, "Brother Mu, please tell me what a good plan is?"
Chen Mu said: "This year's taxes will be collected as usual. Next year, Your Majesty can hold a court meeting and declare at the court meeting that next year all exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes in the world will be cancelled, and finally a land tax of 50 yuan per mu will be collected.
As a result, even if those powerful landlords are dissatisfied, they will have to hold their noses and admit it."
"What about the year after next?"
Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty was puzzled that this method would treat the symptoms but not the root cause.
"Book of Han·Biography of Wang Jia" "Emperor Xiaoyuan flattered the great cause, was gentle and courteous, and had few desires. He had 400,000 yuan in capital, 250,000,000 yuan in water balance, and 180,000 yuan in Shaofu."
During the period of Emperor He of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were more than 700 million acres of land and a population of more than 50 million, but the annual tax revenue was only 8.3 billion, which was far lower than the tax payable.
At that time, the total amount of miscellaneous taxes such as oral calculation and tax collection was about tens of billions. Adding in various taxes such as land tax, mine tax, salt tax, iron tax, commercial tax, etc., the normal tax revenue of the Eastern Han Dynasty government for a year was at least more than 20 billion.
Of course, this tax of more than 20 billion is not revenue that does not count expenses. Because more than half of the tax needs to be paid to local officials, or retained for local governments, or to govern the people.
Therefore, 8.3 billion is the actual tax revenue. After accounting for expenses, there should be several billions left over a year. The inventory of 8.3 billion is a more reasonable situation.
For example, the year before last, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty collected taxes from Jingzhou, Yangzhou, and Yizhou, and received nearly 20 billion yuan. But at that time, the world was full of holes, and money was needed everywhere, so most of the money was used to pay wages, appease the people, and stay in the country.
Got the place.
In the end, he only got 2 billion, which was less than his income in a normal year.
And this is already considered good. In the late Han Dynasty, when tax evasion was serious, he could usually get hundreds of millions, which was considered too much.
Therefore, Chen Mu's tax law actually only transferred the taxes that should have been collected normally to the powerful landowners. It was not an exorbitant tax.
If you look at it carefully, if those powerful landowners had made up for all the tax evasion in recent years, it would have cost more than 100 billion. Just letting them spend a little bit of blood would not be able to make up for the huge amount of money they had paid less in the first place.
But even so, this policy was opposed by the world's powerful landowners, and memorials calling on Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty to stop collecting taxes flew to the Chancellery like snowflakes.
It can be seen that no matter which dynasty or generation they belong to, these landowners are all virtuous. In order to steal the country's tax revenue and fatten themselves, they will do whatever it takes, which is especially shameless.
Therefore, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty deeply hated these rats and hoped that Chen Mu would come up with a good way to punish these people.
But Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty definitely didn’t know that if Chen Mu really came up with a good way to exploit the powerful landlords, then hundreds of years later, his reputation would definitely spread far and wide. Even if he didn’t exploit the people, he would definitely be mentioned in the history books.
Write down the title of a tyrant who exacts tyranny.
This was true for both Wuzong and Xizong of the Ming Dynasty.
On the contrary, Emperor Chongzhen was deceived into leading the court, but as a result he could not collect even a dime of taxes, and finally ruined his country.
Chen Mu smiled and touched his chin, which already had some beard, and pretended to be thinking.
In fact, there is nothing else to think about.
The year after tomorrow?
I'll see if you're dead the year after next.
If he is not dead, then I will assist the stupid Liu Bei and ask Liu Bei and Cao Cao to assist you together.
When the time comes, we will develop science and technology, follow the path of Britain's first industrial revolution, increase productivity, and liberate the labor force. If internal conflicts escalate, we will then transfer the conflicts and conquer foreign races. We will use a series of political methods to ensure that the Han Dynasty will be in full swing during our lifetime.
But if you die, that's another matter.
If your people are gone, why do you still need to pay taxes?
Therefore, Chen Mu's method was a strategy of treating the symptoms rather than the root cause.
After thinking for a moment, Chen Mu slowly said: "Next year, we will naturally have to resume the oral tax and calculate the tax to appease the local powerful. After several years of taxation, the court will have money in its hands and can develop other industries. Then I will do it again."
Find a way to return to the prosperous age of "Ming Zhang's rule" by then, and it won't be far away."
Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty said disappointedly: "Isn't there a once-and-for-all taxation method?"
"Of course not."
Chen Mu smiled and shook his head: "Why did Mr. Shang change the law? It's because the ancestral law can only adapt to the situation at that time, but not the current situation. Different methods are used in different situations. As the saying goes, expedient measures are adopted, and the law must follow the political situation.
If the new regulations continue to follow the old laws, it will undoubtedly be a loophole for others, and another Yellow Turban Rebellion will easily occur. At the end of the Qin Dynasty, all the heroes in the world were competing for the throne, which was the result of the strict Qin laws and the lack of flexibility."
Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty nodded: "In that case, I will listen to my brother Mu. After the tax comes up this year, we will collect it for the last time next year and then restore the previous tax law."
After the problem was solved, Emperor Han Ling asked some other questions.
For example, the situation in Qingzhou, some problems in various places, etc.
In fact, he really just asked casually. Even if Chen Mu told him these problems, Emperor Han Ling would not be too willing to deal with them. At most, he would order local officials to do a good job.
He is indeed good at delegating power. For example, he favored Zhang Rang and Zhao Zhong. The two of them were so powerful that they were almost fake emperors.
But Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty was not stupid, he was just lazy. So it was okay to give power to Zhang Zang and Zhao Zhong, but the power given to Chen Mu would definitely not be too high. After all, eunuchs relied on imperial power. Chen Mu was not a eunuch, so he had to hide something secretly, at least
Military power must be in your own hands to feel comfortable.
At present, half of the military power in Luoyang was in the hands of He Jin and half in the hands of the eunuchs. For example, Colonel Sili was from the eunuch faction, and He Jin was married to Zhang Rang. Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty felt very secure and began to promote Chen Mu.
After the conversation that day, at the end of the fourth year of Zhongping, Chen Mu, the minister, officially took office.
Shangshu Ling was in a low position and held great power, and his words and deeds were seen by everyone in the court.
It was not easy for Chen Mu to do a good job and prevent the Manchu officials who had already vaguely suspected that he was doing something behind the scenes with Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty from becoming hostile.
Therefore, Chen Mu was caught between the emperor and the court, and had to walk on thin ice and carefully balance the forces of all parties.