A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 487 Establishing Customs and Imposing Tariffs

The price of diced salt from the salt farm is only so much, the extra salt is the key point. The price of one piece of rock salt is about 1 yuan per silver coin. The salt farm produces millions of rocks of salt a year, which is equivalent to millions of imperial silver coins.

If the output increases by hundreds of thousands of stones, it will be at least hundreds of thousands of silver coins, or even millions of silver coins. Compared with the mere [-] silver coins before, this was worth those people's efforts.

It was only at this time that Wang Che realized how big the appetite of those people was, and the Yancheng Salt Field was still a large salt field, and this salt field was the salt field most trusted by the royal family.

Now this salt field is giving Wang Che a big blow.

There are no longer just one or two people involved in this salt farm. Even if he doesn't send anyone to investigate now, the entire salt farm is almost involved.

"Your Majesty, calm down!" Seeing the emperor's anger, Du She, the attendant beside him, quickly tried to persuade him.

Wang Che slowly closed his eyes, calmed down his anger, and then said: "Give Luoyang a decree, order the Tingwei, Dali Temple, and the imperial censor to come and investigate the affairs of the Yancheng salt field. After the investigation of Yancheng, other salt fields will be inspected one by one. !”

"Wei!" Du She quickly took out a pen and paper and began to write the edict. After Du She finished writing, Wang Che read it, signed it, and then quickly sent it to Luoyang.

Wang Che deliberately did not dispose of the Yancheng Salt Farm himself, and did not even record a single word of the salt farm situation that he knew. On the one hand, he wanted the court to deal with it in accordance with the "Daqian Law", and on the other hand, he was just fishing. He wanted to see if anyone would dare to intervene in such a big case.

After the Guanzhong case, Wang Che's trust in officials in the officialdom was compromised, so he began to use this method to build a nest to see if he could catch fish.

If someone takes the bait, they can be cleared out and sent to the Western Regions, Lingnan, and Ryukyu, so that they can go to the places where they are most needed to build Daqian and contribute to the national integration of Daqian.

Wang Che stayed in Yancheng for a few days and asked the secret guards to secretly search the entire salt farm and found the salt drying field secretly opened by the salt farm. What is unexpected is that these salt fields are not in Yancheng, but in another place.

After the secret guards had completed their investigation, Wang Che left Yancheng and continued south to Suzhou.

All the way south along the canal, the ship traveled very quickly, and it took only a few days to reach Gusu City. Gusu City was built by Wu Zixu. After hundreds of years of ups and downs, it is still majestic and majestic.

Gusu City is rich in silk, ranking first in Daqian silk embroidery. At the same time, because most of the sugar from the Da Liuqiu Plantation is docked here, countless merchants gather here, making Gusu City more prosperous. This has become the wealth center of Daqian.

After Wang Che arrived here, he summoned noble officials and local big businessmen. Because the imperial court developed the Ryukyu Island, the nobles here obtained a lot of wealth from it, so they were grateful to the royal family.

Of course, Wang Che knew very well what these people were thinking, and they just wanted to continue renting the plantation on Da Liuqiu Island. After all, these plantations are so profitable.

A thousand acres of plantation would produce at least [-] imperial silver coins in a year. In recent years, a lot of land has been reclaimed, and each noble family can earn more than tens of thousands of silver coins every year.

Wang Yun recently wrote to the court, suggesting that the court set up a tax supervisor here to collect taxes. Wang Che also came here this time with these intentions. In June of the second year of Qianyuanxing, the great emperor came to his loyal city of Gusu. Wang Yun had also arrived in Gusu City at this time and came to see the emperor.

Wang Yun is in charge of overseas affairs, and his navy has tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of ships. Of course, the ships here refer to large ships with more than [-] materials that can go to sea, and those small ships are not counted.

Wang Che met Wang Yun at the Gusu Palace. The palace in Gusu City was left over from the time when King Huai conquered Yue. It had been repaired several times after the founding of Daqian. It was used as a palace for the emperor to travel.

At this time, Wang Yun was reporting to Wang Che on the current situation on the Ryukyu Islands.

"Your Majesty, there are [-] immigrants to the Ryukyu Islands, most of whom are immigrants from Qi, Zhao, and Song. They have established twelve towns, four ports, and two shipyards, which can be repaired. Ships, manufacturing offshore vessels, have allocated [-] acres of land to plant more sugar cane. After the sugar cane is harvested, rice will be planted. That land is really fertile."

"In addition, there are [-] acres of Xungui Plantation, which can produce [-] dan of cane sugar and about [-] dan of rice each year. In addition, there are twelve sugar mills and one salt farm on the island."

"One stone of sucrose can be sold in Luoyang for more than 7 imperial silver coins. Even in Suzhou, it costs five. In the Ryukyu Islands, sucrose alone can make a profit of two million imperial silver coins every year."

Although he already knew about it, Wang Che was still surprised. There were two million imperial silver coins. You should know that the imperial silver coins produced by the imperial court in a year were only more than three million.

"I request your Majesty to establish a customs tax office in Gusu to collect taxes on materials imported from overseas."

Wang Che did not intend to snatch the two million benefits. After all, this was what he had promised back then. With the benefits of developing the Ryukyu Island, the imperial court did not charge taxes on the sugar. But now that the cane sugar is going to be sold in Daqian, taxes will naturally be charged.

Many nobles who came to pay homage in the main hall also had different expressions. Everyone looked at Wu and Zhao. After all, Wu and Zhao had the largest plantations on Liuqiu Island.

But whether it was the Wu family or the Zhao family, the heads of the two families were like puppets, sitting quietly in their seats, unmoved at all, as if everything had nothing to do with them. The Wu family and the Zhao family were very clear-headed and were not blinded by the wealth. It was a normal behavior for the imperial court to collect taxes. Now that they were sitting on plantations, they were already greedy. How could they go against the imperial court?

Everyone was anxious but could do nothing. The last few people looked at each other and were reluctant to part with the money, so they stepped forward and said: "Your Majesty, the late emperor once said that there would be no tax on renting land on the Liuqiu Island. Why do you want to do it now?"

"Mr. Chen's words are wrong. The late emperor said back then that there would be no tax on renting land on the Ryukyu Islands. However, after the products from the Ryukyu Islands enter Daqian, they need to pay customs duties!" Chen Yan, the magistrate next to him, said directly.

"If Mr. Chen doesn't want to pay tariffs, that's fine, as long as the materials produced in Da Liuqiu are not transported into Da Qian territory!"

If it is not sold to Daqian, who will the cane sugar be sold to? This era is not that of later generations. Trade is developed, the population is at its peak, and transactions can be done all over the world. Now within the scope of China, apart from Daqian, which country can digest this sucrose?

No matter how unwilling these nobles were, the two largest families did not come forward, and in the end they had to hold their noses and admit it.

(End of this chapter)