The Prosperous Era of Longwan

The official tooth system is an important system in ancient Chinese commercial management. Its history can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when tooth merchants appeared in the livestock trading market.

With the development of society, the functions of tooth merchants are no longer limited to the livestock industry, but gradually expanded to other industries.

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, with the refinement of social division of labor, tooth merchants appeared in various commodity exchanges.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the official tooth system officially became a national system. The tooth merchants were officially introduced into commercial control by the government, becoming a business group that integrates merchants, officials, and clerks, and assumed official functions such as supervising merchants, assisting in the collection of commercial taxes, and maintaining market security and commercial order.

The implementation of the official tooth system reflects the innovative attempts of the ancient Chinese government to regulate the market.

Through administrative contracting, the government granted part of the administrative power to the tooth shops with a certain official nature, and used the intermediary characteristics of the tooth shops to grasp the market transaction situation and improve the efficiency of tax collection.

The tooth shops applied for "tooth posts" from the government to open businesses, obtained a legalized official background, and paid tooth taxes to the government to do things for the government.

This system completely introduced the yahang into the government administrative system, realized the government's indirect management of the market, reduced the government's supervision and decision-making costs, and extended the regulatory tentacles through the yahang's co-management of the market.

In addition, the official yahang system also reflects the government's refinement and standardization of market management.

Yahangs that meet the subject qualifications must "officially issue seals and documents" before they can operate, and they must establish business accounts to record customer information.

The government uses public power to ensure the implementation of the "official yatie" system, prohibit private yahangs, and take joint and several liability for official yatie ports that cover up and conceal, in order to ensure fair transactions in the market and accurate collection of taxes.

After knowing the "official yahang system", Wei Guangde had a deep understanding.

In fact, this is already an attempt to say that the Ming Dynasty's commercial tax.

However, due to various reasons, the tax was not fully realized, and most of it fell into the hands of officials and yahangs.

The reason is very simple. At this time, the Ming Dynasty government did not collect commercial taxes through yahangs.

The government collected silver and money from yahangs and issued yatie, which is essentially closer to the stamp duty in later generations.

That is, according to private transactions, the brokerage company collects a certain amount of tax according to the transaction amount, playing the role of intermediary certification.

Stamp tax is a tax levied on the act of writing and receiving legally effective certificates in economic activities and economic exchanges. It is named because the stamp tax ticket is pasted on the taxable certificate as a sign of tax payment.

However, for the transaction amount, the Ming Dynasty did not have business tax, tax surcharge and consumption tax as in later generations.

Wei Guangde calculated the business tax of the Ming Dynasty. Because of the rules set by Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, it has now become the ancestral system in the mouths of officials in the court. It is quite troublesome to move. He is too lazy to argue with these people, and it is also troublesome to form cliques.

People from later generations naturally have more flexible brains.

In fact, it is not that people in later generations are smarter, but they have seen more things, and naturally have more ways to learn from, which are actually the crystallization of the wisdom of their predecessors.

Since it is troublesome to confront head-on, just go around it. As long as the purpose is achieved, the effect is the same.

This time, Wei Guangde proposed to increase taxes in Yuegang, which was actually essentially to take advantage of the missing link in Yuegang transactions, that is, the official yahang.

In the future, all goods entering and leaving Yuegang must register their prices, and the yahang will issue bills as transaction authentication, and at the same time collect 30% of commercial taxes on behalf of the government.

Yuegang threw stones to test the waters and explored a set of experience, which will be directly promoted to the whole country when needed in the future.

Here, we must also talk about Wei Guangde's cautious side, that is, this tax law will not be brought out unless it is absolutely necessary.

It's not that Wei Guangde is reluctant to pay these taxes, but if it is rashly introduced, or taxed nationwide, the consequences will inevitably be serious, and it will inevitably cause dissatisfaction among the official and gentry families who have close relations with merchants, thinking that the court is robbing them of their money.

This time, the court needs silver to make up for the deficit, and Zhang Juzheng and Wang Guoguang are in front.

Wei Guangde just beat the drums and fooled the matter, so he didn't have to face those sea merchants directly.

In fact, he had become a member of the maritime merchants without knowing it. If they knew that he was "eating from the inside", the impact would be bad.

When would the commercial tax be levied on the trading links across the country?

Wei Guangde had actually thought about it, that is, when the court had a serious financial crisis.

There was an advantage at this time, that is, in order to alleviate the serious financial crisis of the court, at least, most officials would stand on his side.

The Jinshi of the Ming Dynasty, after all, still admired talents and discriminated against merchants.

Although sometimes they had to associate with copper smell, they thought they were superior and were actually unwilling to take the initiative to cooperate with merchants.

In their hearts, the ambition was to cultivate themselves, manage their families, govern the country and bring peace to the world.

The financial crisis of the court had already affected the governance of the country and even the peace of the world, so there was naturally no other consideration at that time.

The introduction of appropriate policies should be considered at the right time, otherwise it is easy for good policies to die halfway because they were born at the wrong time.

Wei Guangde knew all this, so at this time he took advantage of the fiscal deficit raised by Zhang Juzheng and tried to make up for it by increasing taxes in Yuegang, collecting experience and perfecting the entire policy.

With so many considerations, when Zhang Juzheng asked how to levy taxes, Wei Guangde calmly expressed his ideas.

"The court has set up official offices in Yuegang to control the market and manage commerce, and by the way, they have collected this part of the additional tariffs. The goods in and out are subject to a 30% tax and are escorted to Beijing by the port."

Wei Guangde said, and seeing Lu Diaoyang's hesitant expression, Wei Guangde knew that he was worried that the tax rate was too high, so he continued: "For goods sold to the barbarians, there is naturally no possibility of adding 30% to prevent the barbarians from buying.

I have said before that the 30% tax is really nothing for the profits that these merchants can make.

There may be some resistance to the goods sent by the barbarians.

But I have to say that those who can afford the goods of the barbarians are only the rich in the local area. Households, ordinary people will not buy their things.

In fact, to ensure people's livelihood"

Speaking of this, Wei Guangde thought again that it seems that this word did not exist in this era, so he explained: "It is the livelihood of ordinary people. The most important thing is food and clothing.

Clothing, most people weave coarse cloth and make their own clothes, and the food they eat is also grown by themselves, that is, salt needs to be purchased from the government.

In fact, as long as the people are guaranteed to have low-priced salt to buy, there will be no major problems with people's livelihood.

Of course, except for natural disasters, that requires the court to reduce taxes or even allocate grain for relief. "

In this era, China is still a small peasant economy, and the demand for foreign countries is not strong.

Because most families are farmers, their grain is self-produced and self-sold.

Although they have to endure the exploitation of taxes and rents from the government and landlords, if the weather is good, life is still very good.

The most famous lyrics in "The Fairy Pairing", "You farm the fields and I weave cloth" actually reflects the small peasant economy life in ancient times where men farm and women weave.

Small peasant economy, also known as natural economy, is an economic model based on the family as a unit, characterized by self-sufficiency.

In this model, family members work together, with men responsible for farming and women responsible for weaving.

This division of labor reflects the core characteristics of the small peasant economy, that is, men farm and women weave.

Another important feature of the small peasant economy is its small scale. Although it cannot reach the level of adequate food and clothing, it can meet the basic living needs of the family.

This economic model lasted for a long time in ancient China, and was gradually replaced by the modern industrial economy in modern times.

However, the current Ming Dynasty is still far from the industrial economy era. Wei Guangde grew up in Bengshanbao since he was a child, surrounded by military households. Except for those who were incorporated into the Hundred Households, other military households also lived such a life, so they were not unfamiliar.

Moreover, perhaps because it was not common in later generations, Wei Guangde actually had a good impression of such a life.

He knew what such a family needed most. In fact, they had no shortage of staple food, and they made their own clothes. Although they were rougher and not as comfortable as cotton cloth, there was really no need to buy them.

The only thing that must be bought is salt.

However, the salt policy of the Ming Dynasty is hard to describe.

Not to mention the poor people, even for a family like his, eating salt is actually quite expensive.

This is also the reason why most big businessmen in the Ming and Qing Dynasties were big salt merchants. They relied on the fact that salt was a necessity of life and a monopoly industry, and they arbitrarily raised prices and exploited the people.

Wei Guangde had long wanted to deal with these people, but their relationship was even more complicated and difficult to deal with.

In fact, as long as the Ming Dynasty cleared the termites in the salt policy, the society dominated by the small peasant economy of the Ming Dynasty would not have been in chaos unless it encountered the continuous droughts like in the late Ming Dynasty, and the court was unable to provide disaster relief due to financial difficulties.

But since Wei Guangde had the idea of ​​collecting commercial taxes, and successfully tried it and perfected his experience, if he really encountered such a disaster, he would be able to alleviate some of the problems by collecting commercial taxes in the country, mainly in Jiangnan, to provide relief to the victims in the north.

Moreover, the Ming Dynasty has now extended its tentacles into Southeast Asia. When the time comes, it will purchase a large amount of food in Southeast Asia to rescue the disaster areas in the north, and there will be no possibility of large-scale riots.

Small peasant economy is the cornerstone of China's social stability. If the people are not forced into a corner, who will rebel?

Zhang Juzheng, Lu Diaoyang and others naturally understand the reasons given by Wei Guangde.

Ordinary people will naturally not buy those exquisitely crafted Western toys. Only local wealthy families and officials and nobles will be interested.

And they will not be short of that little silver.

Therefore, as long as the tax on Yuegang can be guaranteed to be accepted by the barbarians, it seems that there will be no problem.

As Wei Guangde said, the goods exported by the Ming Dynasty are there, and there is only one, and there is no other semicolon. They have no choice at all.

Unless you don't buy things from the Ming Dynasty.

And looking around, who else can provide these goods except the Ming Dynasty?

"In addition, I also think that we can consider asking the three Maritime Customs Offices in Quanzhou, Fujian, Mingzhou, Zhejiang, and Guangzhou, Guangdong to continuously reduce tribute trade from this year.

The court asked them to manage the tribute of the vassal states, but looking at their annual income, I have checked before, and the Guangzhou Maritime Customs Office collected only 40,000 taels of silver in a year.

The annual income of the three places is only 100,000 taels, so what's the use of such inefficiency?"

Wei Guangde brought up the Maritime Customs Office again, comparing the tax collected by Yuegang with the three Maritime Customs Offices, and the effect was naturally clear.

In fact, the Maritime Customs Office was a huge profit, but the profit did not flow into the court, but into the pockets of some people in the local government.

Think about the three major Maritime Customs that ruled the Ming Dynasty's foreign trade. Yes, although the Ming Dynasty nominally banned sea trade, neither Zhu Yuanzhang nor Zhu Di, or other emperors, were fools.

The Chinese trade circle that began in the Tang and Song dynasties was there, and the effect it played was actually easy to understand.

In fact, since the Tang Dynasty, China's foreign trade has been controlled by the government, of course, for the purpose of collecting taxes.

The Ming Dynasty just inherited it, so it also had its own Maritime Customs.

However, the three major Maritime Customs located in Ningbo, Zhejiang, Quanzhou, Fujian, and Guangzhou, Guangdong seem to have formed a tacit understanding, and the tax silver reported every year is almost the same, and it feels almost the same.

In fact, anyone with a discerning eye can see the tricks.

Wei Guangde used this opportunity to bombard the Maritime Customs, and actually had the purpose of squeezing the Maritime Customs' trade to Yuegang.

Compared with the Maritime Customs' points, Yuegang's tax rate is naturally higher. If the Maritime Customs is not more strictly controlled, some merchants may take advantage of the loopholes and get low-priced goods from the Maritime Customs and resell them to the barbarians on the high seas.

In that case, the loss would be the tax silver of the court, and the measure he proposed would be greatly discounted.

This is what Wei Guangde did not want to see.

Since he proposed it, he naturally hoped to achieve the best results.

Although increasing the draw points seems to achieve the same result as increasing taxes in Yuegang, it is not the case.

Because foreign merchants who trade in the Shibosi must hold tribute certificates, documents, number books and other documents, and are foreign envoys. They are allowed to pay tribute only after being inspected by the Shibosi.

Except for tributes handed over to the court, the goods brought by foreign envoys can be opened in the Huitongguan of the capital. The government rewards tributes with preferential prices, and all goods participating in the opening of the market are exempted from commercial taxes; for goods transported to the location of the Shibosi, the Shibosi will purchase them according to the policy of "buying with a price" and no commercial taxes will be levied.

It is reasonable to exempt tributes from tax, but Wei Guangde feels a little bit annoyed about the tax exemption for envoys to purchase goods.

This is a place where Confucius can take advantage, and the tax collected by the Maritime Customs is actually a small commercial tax on the part that exceeds the trade volume.

This is also the reason why the Maritime Customs collects very little tax. The officials of the Maritime Customs can take advantage of it.

Increasing the court's tariffs will inevitably block these gaps, otherwise Yuegang's business may stagnate.

Now Wei Guangde has invested a lot in Yuegang, and it is the greatest benefit for him to support Yuegang with the power of the whole country.