Gao Shi quickly came to Wei Jiansu's court room, bowed and said, "See the Prime Minister!"
Wei Jiansu smiled slightly and said: "The ten-month issue was just released yesterday, are you ready for the next issue?"
"Report to the Prime Minister. It's almost ready. The draft will be finalized tonight and typesetting will begin tomorrow."
Wei Jiansu handed him an article and said, "Put these two copies on the front page and don't change a word!"
Gao Shi took it and looked at it. They were two short articles. The first one was "All officials in the Tang Dynasty will take exams this autumn", and the next one was "The slave tax is about to be launched."
Gao Shi didn't care about the content, he was more concerned about the length. The Prime Minister asked that not a single word be changed, so he calculated it and found that it was almost enough to put down.
Gao Shi nodded, "I'll make arrangements tonight!"
Wei Jiansu added: "Print five thousand more copies this month and the court will distribute them to every county!"
"Follow the order!"
Gao Shi bowed and retreated.
Wei Jiansu pondered for a moment, then stood up and walked to the round hall of the Political Affairs Hall, where the meeting was about to begin.
At present, there are only six people in the political hall. Zhang Hao has been dismissed, and his replacement has yet to be decided. Yan Zhenqing, the Minister of Punishment, has gone to Liaodong, and Wang Jin, the Minister of Rites, has gone to Yuanzhou. One person is from Shiwei, and the other is from Dangxiang.
In addition, Bai Xiaode was not here either. He went to Luoyang to preside over the martial arts examination. There were actually only five people in the political hall.
In addition to Wei Jiansu and Zhang Li, there are also Liu Yan, Xiao Hua and Guo Ziyi.
Wei Jiansu smiled slightly and said: "Let me tell you some good news first. Your Majesty has decided to give up recruiting more internal guards. There will be no more 1,500 groups rushing to various counties!"
As soon as this news came out, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. It was easy to ask the gods but difficult to send them away. It would be difficult to recruit another 20,000 internal guards, even in the name of temporary, and then disband them.
Xiao Hua sighed: "Thanks to Wei Xiangguo! Otherwise, 1,500 internal guards rushed to various places to handle the case, and I don't know how many innocent people would have their families destroyed."
Wei Jiansu shook his head, "This actually has nothing to do with me. The emperor calmed down. He also felt that something was wrong and summoned me to discuss other methods. I brought out the slave tax law we discussed before. Everyone knows that,
The emperor is more interested in taxes."
Everyone laughed together. Although Guo Ziyi didn't know what they were laughing at, she also laughed along with them.
The slave tax was planned by Liu Yan, who used heavy taxes to force local wealthy families to give up their slaves.
"But there is a big problem here. Have you thought about it?"
Zhang Li said slowly: "It is true that the number of slaves in each family is a big problem."
Wei Jiansu nodded, "So this requires cooperation with the reform of local officials. In each county, the county magistrate and the county magistrate formulate the plan, but the actual people who implement it are the civil servants. It will be much better if the civil servants in various places are replaced by new ones.
, In addition, killing others and encouraging whistleblowers are good ways. These wealthy families are not fools. They will weigh the pros and cons. They know very well whether they should hide a few slaves and pay less taxes, or wait for the internal guards to come."
"I'm afraid they are lucky! Everyone is lucky." Zhang Li sighed.
"So we need to vigorously publicize it, and publish some cases in the ten-day issue, so that they can see the real facts, which will be a shock!"
At the end, Wei Jiansu sighed, "If all means have been exhausted and there is still no news, then the internal guards will have to come to the door. I also believe that this is a very small number of people."
Everyone chatted for a while and finally returned to the topic.
"The purpose of inviting everyone here today is to discuss the formulation of the slave tax. According to the emperor's wishes, the principle of the slave tax is heavy taxes and heavy penalties, secondly heavy rewards for informing, thirdly linked to the official career of the county magistrate, and fourthly support for old slaves
, with this four-pronged approach, I believe that in five years at the latest, not many wealthy families in the world will want to keep slaves."
Guests sat high in Wolong Restaurant in Xiangyang County, and the crowd was buzzing. Today is the full moon of the great-grandson of the Huang family, and the Huang family arranged to treat guests at Wolong Restaurant.
In an elegant room, Huang Min, the head of the Huang family in Xiangyang, was drinking with several local wealthy family heads. At this time, the door suddenly opened, and Huang Min's youngest son, Huang Yu, walked in quickly and handed a Xun magazine to his father.
"Father, look at this!"
Huang Min took the newspaper and asked: "Didn't you say you can't take leave today? Why can you come again?"
"Yang County Cheng asked the child to come over and let his father read the newspaper. It was just delivered to Chang'an Memorial Hall today."
Huang Yu is currently serving as the Hucao of Xiangyang County. He is the least promising of Huang Min's sons and has only become a county official.
Huang Yu opened the newspaper and took a closer look. He was startled by the two messages on the front page. The first one was about the civil servants who would be uniformly examined by the imperial court in the autumn. He didn't pay much attention to it. It didn't matter whether his son would be a civil servant or not.
.
But the second piece of news made him a little bit unable to sit still, 'The imperial court will impose a slave tax, and all families who own slaves will bear heavy taxes. If they evade the tax, they will be fined ten times as much and given thirty sticks.' "Brother Huang
"What important news made your face change?" several important guests asked with a smile.
"This is not good news! The court is going to tax slaves."
Huang Min handed the newspaper to everyone. Several people took the newspaper and gathered around to read it carefully. They were all stunned.
"What do you mean? Aren't we going to enforce the abolition of slavery? Why are we taxing again?"
Huang Min sneered and said: "The sharp knife of the abolition order cannot cut it, so I will use the dull knife of the slave tax to cut it. It will make you miserable, but there is nothing you can do."
A big reason why these local wealthy families dared to resist the abolition of slavery was that their slaves were obtained legally. The court could abolish slavery if it wanted to, but it had to compensate them for their losses.
But the imperial court did not compensate officials for the abolition of slavery. How could it possibly compensate them?
Since there is no compensation, no one is willing to go to the county government to declare, and the county officials have nothing to do with them.
The county magistrates have no choice, but the court has a way. Shouldn't it be legal? Then tax it! The court's taxation is reasonable and legal. You can keep slaves if you want, but you will have to bear heavy taxes, and those who want to evade taxes will be severely punished.
"Brother Huang, is there any way to avoid taxes?"
Huang Min smiled bitterly and said: "There are definitely ways to avoid taxes, but I'm just afraid of this."
Huang Min leaned forward and pointed at the last line, "Look at this sentence!"
'Those who dare to expose the truth will be rewarded with no less than ten crowns each time, and the imperial court will keep their identities secret.'
"Bitter!"
Everyone cried out in unison, this was a cruel move. They could keep it a secret from the outside world, but they had no secrets from the people in the house. The housekeeper, accountant, steward, coachman, and servant all knew about it.
Huang Min said faintly: "I heard that Zhang Xiangguo was reported by the housekeeper before. The housekeeper received a reward of 500 yuan, and Zhang Xiangguo was dismissed from his post as a citizen, with only fifty slaves!"
"Brother Huang, tell me what to do!" Several pairs of eyes turned to Huang Min.
Huang Min sighed, "I don't know what to do? Let's all sweep the snow away from the door!"
A newspaper wiped out Huang Min's interest. He returned to the mansion and immediately found his father Huang Kai.
After listening to his son's story and reading the newspaper, Huang Kai didn't say anything for a long time. After a while, he asked: "How many slaves do we have?"
"More than 1,300 people!"
Huang Kai frowned, "There are so many?"
"Mainly due to the Anshi Rebellion, there were too many northern refugees fleeing to Jingxiang. We are doing relatively well. There are more than 3,000 people in the Du family."
"How much does it cost to buy these slaves in total?" Huang Kai asked again.
"It didn't take much money. It was really cheap at that time and the streets were full of people who wanted to sell themselves."
Huang Kai had experienced Li Ye's power. At that time, he held a bush in the snow to plead guilty, and Li Ye spared the Huang family.
After pondering for a long time, Huang Kai said slowly: "Release them all as civilians."
Huang Min was shocked, "Father, basically no one is willing to take the initiative to release me."
"That's because they haven't tasted the power. There are more than 1,300 people. Once someone reports, it will not only be a heavy fine, but also internal guards will come to the door. Are you willing? It will be ten times the penalty, that is tens of thousands.
Guan Qian, do you think the emperor can't do it? I know him too well. He wants to kill a hundred people. Xiangyang is the place where he first started. He must check Xiangyang first. The Huang family and the Du family bear the brunt. We didn't support him back then. This old grudge against him
I may not forget it.”
"My child understands! I will go to the county government office to complete the formalities tomorrow."
Huang Min hesitated, "Do you want to notify the Du family?"
Huang Kai shook his head, "Du Yan died the year before last. His son Du Youguang was a famous miser. The Du family should be in trouble. If the Du family resolves the emperor's old grudge, our Huang family will be fine."
Huang Min secretly admired his father's scheming, and he quickly said: "Yu'er is a Hucao, so I will let him handle the slave transfer in private without disturbing other people."