The eldest son of the red mansion

Chapter 690 Business Tax (2)

The following days will be the imperial examination. As the first scientific examination of the new dynasty, Jia Ke attaches great importance to it.

He arrived at the Wenhua Hall early, and at this time the Wenhua Hall was ready, Jia Ke sat on the throne, and began to invite this time's Gongsheng into the hall to salute Jia Ke.

After the etiquette, hundreds of tables were moved to the Wenhua Hall, and these tribute students began to sit upright.

After that, Jia Ke took out a sealed bag from the desk and handed it to the chief examiner, Sun Yan, the chief minister of the Military Aircraft Department.

Sun Yan opened the bag and took out the test questions, and then posted them on the mat, after which the tribute students began to answer the questions.

And Jia Ke was not idle either, his eyes were on these Gongsheng, and he was thinking that one of these people was the little prince.

In terms of age, there are probably more than a dozen people, plus Qin Keqing's beauty, I think Qin Keqing's younger brother is also a young and handsome scholar.

So Jia Ke looked around in the main hall, and finally asked him to lock in a few people, and they were all young talents from the local area.

After Jia Ke finished reading, she said a few words to Li Deshan next to him, and Li Deshan's eyes rolled around these people, and then quietly retreated.

After a while Li Deshan came in with a plate of papers.

Jia Ke took the information from Li Deshan and looked at it one by one, and then compared these Gongsheng students, but found that these people were very innocent, and there was no flaw at all, which made Jia Ke a little troubled.

"These people should be monitored closely, and they should not be taken lightly."

Jia Ke can only order so now, he can't just arrest everyone for no reason.

After the palace examination, the rankings will come. These few times, Jia Ke has not interfered, and the rankings sent by Sun Yan and Li Wenbin are completely approved.

After the imperial examination was over this time, Jia Ke announced his decision to reorganize the court's taxation at the top of the court, and announced it to the civil and military officials, and immediately these people were in an uproar.

The income of the imperial courts in the past dynasties mainly came from the taxation of farmers, but now that Jia Ke has changed his mind, he has actually set his mind on these businessmen.

This caused a loss to the civil and military interests of the Manchu Dynasty, because none of these officials had a few caravans under their command, and none of them had received the tribute from those merchants.

So a large area fell on their knees above the main hall of the Qianqingmen, admonishing Jia Ke not to be too eager for quick success.

But Jia Ke came from modern times, so he naturally knew the disadvantages of ancient times. Although he had great power in the past, there was still someone above him. Now that he has managed to secure his position, he naturally wants to reform.

So Jia Ke responded to all these persuasive voices, and together with Jia Ke's hard-core confidantes, they came out to speak for Jia Ke and refute these kneeling officials.

This allowed this decree to pass reluctantly above the court.

When this imperial decree was sent from the capital to various places, businessmen all over the world began to complain.

From time to time, there are turmoil caused by merchants in various places, but merchants have had no status since ancient times, and the ranking of scholars, farmers, industry and commerce is not just talk.

If the peasants were taxed, those princes would have jumped out to oppose it in order to gain a good reputation.

But when they came to the merchants, none of the scholars came out to speak for them. They were all afraid of speaking for the merchants. After that, their reputation among scholars was greatly damaged, and they were considered by other scholars to have a bad smell.

Therefore, although these businessmen made a fuss, it was nothing but the strong government policies and the strict preparations of the troops from all over the country.

However, Shanxi merchants and Huizhou merchants among the three major merchant gangs did not have any objection to this reform. Although it is said that they have also suffered losses because of this reform, Jia Ke has treated them well. Ke Jin's money was also exempted, if he objected again, it would be a bit ignorant.

Therefore, with the presence of these two major merchant gangs in the north, the implementation of the merchant tax was smooth and did not continue to cause waves.

But it was not so easy to calm down in the south. Fortunately, Zhang Chaoxin was still in charge in the south as the imperial envoy.

Since Zhang Chaoxin was ordered by Jia Ke to go to the south to deal with the troubles caused by scholars, it can be said that he has been conscientious.

He arrested twelve wealthy gentry families at one time, and sentenced one to two thousand people to death.

It was under Zhang Chaoxin's high-pressure policy that the gentry in the south became honest. Almost all the gentry who were forward-looking were dealt with by Zhang Chaoxin. I didn't dare to take any action.

This time, Zhang Chaoxin had not yet returned to the capital, and Jia Ke gave him another order, which was to suppress those businessmen in the south who rose up to cause trouble.

Zhang Chaoxin is now in the south, so it can be said that he can stop children from crying at night. Jia Ke can rest assured that he will handle this matter.

Besides, the Jiangnan Merchant Gang is headed by the Salt Gang, and the Salt Gang is headed by Wang Yinggeng. This time the imperial court's order has greatly damaged the interests of their salt merchants. They have to pay one-tenth of their annual profits to the imperial court. In addition to the fees paid by the salt farm when purchasing salt, their interests will suffer the most.

Moreover, Wang Yinggeng still has secrets to hide, so this time helping Yingen can be regarded as jumping up and down. He kept contacting famous companies in Jiangnan, planning to strike the market together to fight against the court.

But as soon as he made a move on his side, he was probed by the hidden guards, clearly, and then the information was sent to Zhang Chaoxin's desk.

After Zhang Chaoxin read the information, he showed a sneer. This Wang Yinggeng embarrassed the Emperor who was still the King of Yan last time, and now he is making trouble again. It seems that his retribution has arrived.

So Zhang Chaoxin immediately wrote a secret order and sent it to the capital in an expedited 800 miles.

It was already three days later when Jia Ke received this secret document.

After reading Zhang Chaoxin's memorial, Jia Ke still had a sneer on his face. He said to Li Deshan who was standing beside him, "Do you think this salt merchant has made too much money and has burnt out his brain? How dare Wang Yinggeng jump out?" Against me."

After hearing this, Li Deshan said quickly: "Long Live Lord, although this Wang Yinggeng gets a lot of money every year, he spends even more. The slaves monitored Wang Yinggeng during this time and found that he has lost a lot of money every year. And the people in his mansion Consumption does not use that money, and it is not even as good as some ordinary salt merchants."

After hearing this, Jia Ke immediately became vigilant. This Wang Yinggeng got silver a year, but if the silver is more than one million taels, it is a huge wealth to whomever it is sent to. If it is used for conspiracy, it is a huge capital.

Jia Ke knocked on the table with a gloomy expression, thinking that no matter what this Wang Yinggeng did with the money, as long as it was not on the surface, it would be a huge hidden danger. It seems that this time is just right, except for him.

So Jia Ke immediately wrote an imperial decree and ordered it to be delivered to Zhang Chaoxin. The content of this imperial decree was to let Zhang Chaoxin act cheaply, so he didn't have to have any scruples about Wang Yinggeng?
After Zhang Chaoxin received this imperial edict, he immediately let go of the stone in his heart. With this imperial edict, no matter how many officials Wang Yinggeng bribed, he would not be able to escape a retribution.

So Zhang Chaoxin immediately called Wei Kun, the two discussed it, and finally decided that Wei Kun would send a spy to investigate who Wang Yinggeng had contacted in the south of the Yangtze River.Let these people write their statements.

And Zhang Chaoxin acted well after getting these confessions.

The secret guards under the command of Wei Kun have been eating this bowl of food for several lifetimes. They have penetrated into Jiangnan to the point of pervasiveness. Sure enough, within a few days, they were able to find out the information of the rich locals that Wang Yinggeng contacted. .

Afterwards, Wei Kun personally brought the family to the door. These rich men were actually all soft-headed. Seeing the spies from the imperial court coming to the door, they were naturally frightened out of their wits.

So before Wei Kun interrogated these people, he told everything he knew, and at the same time sold everything Wang Yinggeng.

After Wei Kun got these confessions, he didn't continue to embarrass these businessmen. He only let them write a letter of repentance and promised to pay taxes to the court on time before letting them go.

After Zhang Chaoxin received Wei Kun's intelligence and evidence, he was considered stable.

On the second day, Zhang Chaoxin called out all the guards of honor of the imperial envoys, and went straight to Yangzhou with his troops.

After arriving outside the city of Yangzhou, the prefect of Yangzhou was already waiting there.

Zhang Chaoxin didn't immediately rest with the payment process, because he knew that Wang Yinggeng's power in Yangzhou City was very powerful. If it went ahead like this, he would probably jump over the wall in a hurry.

Zhang Chaoxin used the gold medal of the imperial envoy outside Yangzhou City to catch 3000 soldiers stationed outside Yangzhou City, and entered Yangzhou with him.

Then without taking a break, he went directly to the outside of Wang Yinggeng's house, and then asked the soldiers to surround it tightly.

On this day, Wang Yinggeng happened not to go out, and heard the report from the housekeeper, saying that the house had been surrounded by officers and soldiers.

Wang Yinggeng was immediately frightened, he had expected it, and the court might have seen his flaws, but now he could only hold on.

So Wang Yinggeng came to the door with his servants and housekeeper, and just as he opened the door, he saw a mountain of soldiers and a sea of ​​soldiers outside, and a large imperial sedan chair parked outside the door of the mansion.

Wang Yinggen didn't dare to neglect, he came to the big sedan chair in three steps at a time, knelt down on the ground, cupped his hands upwards and said: "Craftsman Wang Yinggeng, I have seen the imperial envoy."

As soon as Wang Yinggeng finished speaking, the curtain of the sedan chair was opened by the boy next to him, and there was a middle-aged official sitting inside. The man glanced at Wang Yinggeng, and then said with disdain: "You are a salt merchant. Wang Yinggeng, the head of the

"Cao Min is Wang Yinggeng."

Zhang Chaoxin had already stepped out of the sedan chair at this time, and he came to the kneeling Wang Yinggeng and asked, "You don't do your business well, why do you want to plot something wrong?"

"The grass people are wronged, even if they have the courage, they dare not oppose the court."

After Zhang Chaoxin heard his words, he didn't know if it was right or not, so he just ordered to the soldiers next to him: "Pass down my order to search Wang's mansion, and all men, women, old and children will be detained in a centralized place, and no one can escape."

(End of this chapter)