The most reckless man in the Ming Dynasty.

Chapter 386 Difficulties and surprising changes!
Zhu Houzhao is very busy now.

The secret letter from the savage Tang Hao arrived soon.

However, Zhu Houzhao frowned after reading the letter, because Tang Hao discussed in detail how to reform the commercial tax system in the letter.

Since ancient times, successive imperial courts have emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce, but many dynasties have obtained considerable tax revenue from commerce and invested it in social construction and people's livelihood development.

For example, the former Song Dynasty, which had a highly developed commerce, was isolated in a corner, but relying on commercial taxes, it not only supported a population comparable to that of the Ming Dynasty, but also supported several barbarians!
The Ming Dynasty was also an agriculture-based dynasty, and it took many initiatives in agriculture, such as reclaiming wasteland and increasing the cultivated area.

However, the Ming Dynasty suppressed the development of merchants too much, failed to establish a complete commercial tax system, and the tax rate was extremely low. The Ming Dynasty's tax revenue was mainly supported by agriculture.

This was because after Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, the Ming Dynasty was in a state of disrepair. There were peasant uprisings at home and Japanese pirates invading the borders abroad. A large amount of financial resources was needed to support the army in order to ensure stability in the border and internal environment.

But China has been based on agricultural production since ancient times, and the Ming Dynasty is no exception.

Therefore, Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang first formulated a strict policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, restricting commercial development, limiting merchants within a certain range, and avoiding excessive mobility of merchants, which would bring instability to grassroots society.

Secondly, Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang implemented a maritime ban policy, prohibiting private overseas trade, which cut off the Ming Dynasty's connection with the rest of the world. It not only restricted the development of industry and commerce and the circulation of goods, but also blocked the channels of economic and cultural exchanges at home and abroad, making the Ming Dynasty only able to connect with the outside world through tribute trade.

In a sense, since the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, successive emperors have attached great importance to agricultural development, and even gradually ignored the existence of commerce. In order to sympathize with the difficulties of the people, successive emperors have repeatedly lowered agricultural taxes and reduced fiscal revenue. However, the problem is that military expenditures in the nine borders continued to grow due to the erosion of border defense. In the end, the Ming Dynasty's finances collapsed completely, and finally the Ming Dynasty collapsed!

Therefore, if Zhu Houzhao wanted to reform commercial taxes, he had to establish a sound commercial tax system.

Tang Hao gave the simplest example in his letter.

For example, in the trade that Ming Dynasty is currently conducting with various countries in the East China Sea, on the one hand, Ming Dynasty can collect tariffs by building customs, and on the other hand, Ming Dynasty can also open textile factories in coastal areas to produce silk cloth, the main commodity in the East China Sea trade.

The purpose of the existence of textile factories is to liberate the common people from the fields in the countryside, to free them from the control of the gentry, and to allow them to have another way of life to support their families, rather than just farming.

Common people and scholars entered factories as workers and worked on time, and then the factories paid them wages, thus forming a new lifestyle. When more and more common people chose to become workers and enter factories, the court could try to build a commercial city based on commercial trade, including but not limited to various factories and shops, to stimulate the development of local commerce.

The imperial court could then conduct pilot projects in these commercial cities, implement the reformed commercial tax system, and then implement the approved commercial tax system throughout the country. In this way, commercial taxes would far exceed agricultural taxes, and the imperial court could even reduce agricultural taxes even further to reduce the burden on the people.

Zhu Houzhao was astonished after seeing it. For the first time, he also clearly realized how terrifying the profits from commercial taxes were.

Zhu Houzhao did not take the previous East China Sea trade seriously, as he thought all the profits came from commodity trade.

But now Tang Hao told him clearly and bluntly that most of these profits were actually commercial taxes levied, including tariffs paid by merchants from various countries when they went to Jeju Island to do business and trade, as well as the fees they paid for renting shops on Jeju Island, etc., and the figure was astronomical every day, so much that it made people's scalps numb!

This is the charm of a commercial city!

This is the charm of commercial tax!

Just imagine, if all the coastal cities of the Ming Dynasty were built into such prosperous commercial cities, the commercial tax of the Ming Dynasty would be a terrifying number!

Zhu Houzhao even believed that, as Tang Hao said, even if the court no longer levied agricultural taxes to reduce the burden on the people, commercial taxes alone would be able to cover all expenses and even have a lot of surplus!
That is the real peaceful and prosperous era!
That is the true revival of the Ming Dynasty!

But before that there is a prerequisite, that is, the Ming Dynasty must open the sea!
Without lifting the maritime ban, the people could not trade freely with overseas countries, and building commercial cities would be a joke. However, the maritime ban was a national policy set by Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, and it has never changed over the years. At most, Emperor Taizong Wen sent Zheng He to the sea, but that was only an official voyage, not the lifting of the maritime ban. In the final analysis, it was just for the emperor to control overseas trade.

Zhu Houzhao knew without thinking what the result would be once he proposed to do so. Those civil officials and gentry would surely scold him harshly!

Moreover, the reason why the civil officials and gentry held high the banner of Taizu and strictly implemented the national policy of maritime ban set by Emperor Taizu Gao was not because they respected Emperor Taizu Gao or because they cared about the people, but only to facilitate their own smuggling and profiteering.

In other words, if Zhu Houzhao really abolished the maritime ban policy, it would be equivalent to cutting off the financial resources of the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, and these greedy gentry would never agree!
Therefore, the difficult problem now is how to force these gentry and officials to bow their heads and agree to the court's abolition of the maritime ban.

Just when Zhu Houzhao was worried about this, Jinyiwei commander Mou Bin hurried over.

"Your Majesty, something happened!"

Mou Bin walked in hurriedly and spoke anxiously without even having time to catch his breath.

"What happened?"

"How can you be so flustered?"

Zhu Houzhao spoke in an air of maturity, with quite a bit of the bearing of an emperor who remained calm in the face of danger.

"Your Majesty, the Imperial Guards have discovered that grain prices throughout the capital have begun to skyrocket!"

"The price of grain has skyrocketed?" Zhu Houzhao frowned when he heard this. "Is it because of the severe drought in the three northern provinces?"

He knew about this matter and had already asked the Ministry of Revenue to allocate funds for disaster relief.

"Something is very wrong!"

"The price of grain had already risen to fifteen cents per pound due to the famine, and now it has skyrocketed to thirty cents per pound!"

"Moreover, the grain in the capital has begun to be sold at a limited price. Many grain shops have limited their sales. It seems that they are waiting for the famine to spread so that they can continue to raise the price of grain!"

Zhu Houzhao's face instantly turned gloomy when he heard this.

"Thirty cents a pound?"

"What do these bastards want to do?"

"There is a severe drought in the three northern provinces. The victims are crying out for food, but they are driving up the price of food?"

Zhu Houzhao roared with murderous intent: "I must kill these bastards!"

(End of this chapter)