Zhang Yue'er had just stretched out her legs and feet, and Cai Huang hurriedly pulled Lu Tao behind her.

"A few days ago, my sister-in-law went to Zhenjiang. It was rainy. My fifth brother thought my sister-in-law would spend a few days with my third brother, but I didn't expect to meet my sister-in-law here."

As he said that, Cai Yan gave another gift, the paper umbrella opposite him slightly raised and showed a delicate face. Looking at the delicate and white skin, Cai Yan sighed, but there was no strangeness on his face. Looking at Cai Yan, who was one shorter than him, Zhang Yue'er also smiled faintly.

"Your third brother was thinking that your sister-in-law could stay in Zhenjiang for more time, and the fifth brother also knew that this was the time for summer tax, and affair was not as important as summer tax after all."

Cai Yan smiled and nodded, and sighed, "What my sister-in-law said is that the Cai family has a lot of land and is the busiest time every year when the two taxes are the busiest. Sister-in-law also needs to pay attention to her health, so don't be too tired."

He held his fists and bowed again, preparing to leave.

"It was raining at this time, and my fifth brother did not delay my sister-in-law entering the city to rest."

Zhang Yue'er smiled and nodded, and said a few more words without any pain. Then the two of them left each other. They watched Shiqi help Cai Yan climb onto the war horse and lead dozens of horses away...

"Su Mei..."

Zhang Yue'er looked inexplicably depressed. She didn't get into the car until she rode dozens of rides away. The carriage slowly moved towards Hangzhou City again...

Dozens of riders galloped wildly, Cai Yan raised his head to feel the drizzle, and raised his arm to wave the horse whip.

"drive!"

Lu Tao was a few years older than him. Seeing that he was speeding up his horse, he was afraid that the road would hurt him, so he quickly kicked the horse's belly twice.

"Young Master...Young Master..."

Listening to her shouting, Cai Hua couldn't help but pull the reins, and the war horse that was about to speed up slowed down again.

"What's wrong?"

Cai Yan turned around in confusion, and Lu Tao took advantage of his slowdown and hurried to the side.

"The road is slippery on rainy days, this...it's almost entering the city..."

Before Lu Tao finished her words, Cai Yan knew what she wanted to say. She smiled bitterly in her heart. These words almost became part of daily life. She thought it was her want to say Zhang's affairs, but who knew that these words were still the same.

He raised his arm and was about to wave the whip, but in the end he slowed down his horse's speed and ran into a jog. Dozens of riders slowed down and followed.

Lu Tao is very nervous and has a good temperament, but she is not really stupid, so she is busy diverting the topic and distracting him from the attention.

"Young master, that Zhang Yueer came to Hangzhou again. She doesn't want to take advantage of Hairui's business, right?"

Cai Hua thought about it carefully and said with a smile: "It's useless to think about it. Hairui Business is not a business of the Cai family. It's not impossible to ask Hairui Business to help her, but this has to follow the rules on the market, and want to have the low transportation price as before..."

"Don't even think about it!"

Lu Tao carefully looked at him with a slightly raised corner of his mouth, and felt proud, and hurriedly said, "That woman would not want Hairui Business to make money. Master, do you think she would complain to the master? If the master did not take care of him, the government might have caused trouble for us."

"Um?"

Cai Yan couldn't help but be stunned. He turned his head to look at Lu Tao who was following him. Unexpectedly, she would ask this question, but in the end she shook her head and disdained.

"Although Ah Niang and Zhang are not regular relatives, their status is different. Zhang can only be considered a junior in front of Ah Niang. Complainting to Lao Cai can be considered a crime of 'being the following', and this is a taboo in the officialdom."

"Hairui Business was founded by my grandfather and was the dowry industry of Ah Niang. No matter how domineering Lao Cai is, he cannot take it openly. Not to mention that he is the Grand Master of the Song Dynasty today. Even if he is an ordinary family, he cannot easily occupy it. Lao Cai is not as shameless as this."

He also said: "Old Cai returned to the Song Dynasty since last year. It was too short. He suppressed us because of salt puffs. Although Lao Cai did not do this properly, after all, our 500,000 pounds of silver were sent to the treasury, but no matter how unauthentic it was, it was rewarded and what should be knocked has become a thing of the past. If Zhang wanted to use this as an excuse, Lao Cai would be displeased, and he would never want his family to fight to the death. It would be a big deal... Everyone would be in trouble."

Thinking about what Zhang Yueer has done over the past few months, Cai Huang raised his eyebrows very disdainful.

"If the third brother faces each other in front of him, it would be normal for Lao Cai to protect the third brother who has become an old man, but if that woman... a concubine, how can she compare to Lao Cai's biological descendants?"

Cai Yan didn't attach too much importance to Zhang Yue'er. The concubine is the concubine, and she was favored because of her beauty. It would be fine if she was honest and low-key. The higher the profession, the faster she died. He didn't understand. Zhang Yue'er, who was born in the Flower Building, should understand these principles. Why do she look more like she was deliberately seeking death?

Cai Huang couldn't figure it out, but he didn't think of the difficulty of Cai Hong being hung up.

The taxes in the Song Dynasty were very high, and one mu of high-end land had to pay two stagnant taxes. No matter how fertile Jiangnan and rice fields were, they would produce at most eight stones of grain.

The yield per mu is eight jin and two jin taxes are paid. The wealthy family like the Cai family has countless land. In addition to the land of fame and honor exempted by the imperial court, the rest of the land also has to be paid. If you farm by yourself, you have to pay 25% of the tax and rent it to others?

Cai Yan didn't know how other families collected tenant rent, but he knew that the Cai family collected 70% of the tax.

Seeing that the tenant rent in the Cai Mansion was very high, and after deducting the tax of two jin of money, the income was not four jin of money. The people who rented the seeds received more than two jin of money, it was not too deceptive to calculate, but this was just the best time and the best land.

The taxes of the court were too high, and the tenant rent also increased a lot. It was not that there were unscrupulous landlords. This was the case. In two seasons a year, the tax on the high-quality land with eight stones of grain per mu would account for 25% of the tax. How could the tenant rent be lower?

The land deed is in the hands of the landlords, and the government will not pay taxes to the tenants, because the tenants are poor and will face the risk of not collecting the full tax. The government will only collect taxes directly from the landlords. The Song Dynasty was an era when commercial capital was king, and farming was never more profitable than that of business. Landlords often dare not force the tenants too much. If no one farms, they will lose more. The government will not care whether you have farmed or not, and whether you have harvested in the fields a year is required.

Seeing the Cai Mansion has a lot of fields, the gains are not astonishing as it is. It is true that 70% of the rent is true. The key is that can produce eight stones of rice in a year? What about the disaster year?

The Song Dynasty did not prohibit the rich and wealthy from annexing the land, and even encouraged the rich and wealthy to merge. The reason for this was that the high taxes of the court were difficult for ordinary people to bear as much as 25%, even 30%, 40%... or even higher taxes, but the rich and wealthy can bear it and have the ability to give out more real money and silver to ensure the full taxes of the court.

It is necessary to admit that the wise nature of the Song Dynasty. Some people may doubt that with such high taxes, no one will take advantage of the loopholes and greedy for these taxes? Not to mention that no one dares to have the idea of ​​taxes. The annual consumption is as high as 120 million trumpens, and the Song Dynasty attached great importance to the enforcement of the law.

Looking at the thousands of hectares of land in Cai Mansion, the income is not much every year, and only 100,000 to 200,000 knots were recorded. Perhaps all the spectators thought they had read it wrong. Tens of hectares of land and millions of acres of land had to be collected by one or two million knots. No matter how you can't just earn this little, but the fact is that.

Millions of fields cannot be all the best fields in Jiangnan, nor can they all cultivate rice. Jiangnan has two seasons a year, and each season produces up to four stones of grain. Jiangbei can only produce one quarter of grain every year. Every three or five years of farming, and the fields must be suspended for one year, but the tax is fixed. The summer tax of the upper-class fields is 200 cents, the autumn tax is levied for two buckets and two liters of grain, and two buckets of each stone is levied for another twenty cents of money, twenty cents of agricultural instrument tax, two buckets of farm tools pay one liter of charity warehouse tax, fifty cents of cow horns and beef tendon tax, fifty cents of tax grain pay fifty cents of foot tax... etc. These taxes are paid fixedly. Good years are over, but in the year of disaster, the court will be exempted from taxes. If the tax is not exempted, the loss of ten thousand hectares of fields alone will be as high as hundreds of thousands of guan. If the loss is a year, the money earned in several years will be spent in the money. But in general, the annual land income of the Cai Mansion is still 100,000 guan.

The imperial court had high taxes, and the people thought of ways to produce more grain. The farming technology was improved and the rice and grain output was more, and the grain price was correspondingly lower than the value of one stone. It was necessary to transport low-priced grain from Jiangnan to the north for sale through the canal transport.

However, the profit of grain is far less than that of brocade silk and satin. It is not as easy as brocade silk and satin, and the value of grain is much higher by high taxes, and the risk of transportation and sales has increased invisibly a lot. Unless a real big merchant, ordinary people are unwilling to transport and sell grain.

Cai Jing had a reputation on the streets, betrayed Wang Anshi, Sima Guang, Xining reformists, and Yuanyou conservatives were expelled from the court and became famous gentry in the countryside. Under the influence of these people, no one of the merchants was willing to have business dealings with the Cai family, and Caifutian land production could only be transported to the north by Hairui merchants through Gangchen freight.

The new official took office for three reasons. Zhang Yue'er not only changed the officials of the Cai Mansion, but also directly cut off the freight business of Hairui Business. She no longer handed over the output of the farm, shop and workshop under the name of Cai Mansion to Hairui Business for sale, but forced Hangzhou merchants to purchase Cai's grain and brocade at high prices.

Hangzhou merchants were afraid that their reputation would affect their family's reputation and were unwilling to have business dealings with the Cai family. Zhang Yue'er's strength also aroused dissatisfaction among the families, and they were willing to sell the shop to the Cai family but were unwilling to trade dealings.

It's funny to say that the families changed the soup and didn't change the medicine, and directly replaced Cai Yan's rumors with Zhang Yue'er. Not only was the rumor of Hangzhou City circulating, but it also spread rapidly to the surrounding prefectures and counties. Faced with this situation, Cai Yan could only shake his head and smile bitterly.

If the families do not cooperate, even if they use power to force them, they will get several stores? The reputation is bad, and the people are unwilling to enter the Cai family store. The grain and brocade are piled up like mountains but cannot be sold. In the end, they can only be the same as before. They can only think about selling goods to the north, but this is not something that can be done in a short time. Every successful merchant has his own special channel. It does not mean that the goods are sold to the north when they are sold. Even if there are ships that can be freighted to the Liao Kingdom, it is a waste of time to sell them.

A large amount of grain and brocade piled up in the warehouse, but the shop was deserted. It was the time of summer tax. Last year, brocade was not sold, and new silk would be put into the warehouse again...

The Su family experienced all the difficulties faced by Zhang Yue'er in the past. If it weren't for this, they wouldn't have been shipped to the north by the Hairui Merchant.
Chapter completed!