After the autumn harvest in August, the tax inspector sent an inspection team to inspect each branch.
It is difficult to summarize the figures at once, and it is estimated that it will be after winter.
As the head of this powerful department that controls financial revenue and expenditure, Du Xiao knows how popular he is.
His "party members" are natural: transshipment envoys from various places, local city and city magistrates, customs and shipping envoys, "commercial transfer cadres" from the four major trading companies, as well as more and more scientific figures every year.
These people were originally leaderless and didn't know who to turn to, but now they have a clear target: the tax inspector, a member of the political hall.
Since the establishment of the Tax Supervision was proposed four years ago, Du Xiao has actively or passively begun to integrate this force, just like Wang Yong integrated the forces of the Department of Agriculture.
The saint seemed to acquiesce to this.
After Du Xiao figured it out, he no longer tied his hands. He knew very well that the Saint did not want their "tax department" to be too weak and suppressed too hard, so he deliberately cultivated their power. Simply put, the Saint wanted to make money.
The power is greater.
There are of course many ways to tax. The crudest one is to just use a knife or a gun to levy violently. But if there is a better way, it is better to have some rules and regulations, so that the people who are taxed will have fewer complaints and less dissatisfaction.
The resistance to taxation is also smaller.
The tax collection team must be professional, form a factional inheritance, have a relatively independent status, and cannot become anyone's vassal.
After the Anshi Rebellion in the former Tang Dynasty, there was always a prime minister who judged the three divisions, which had de facto integrated the three major departments of household affairs, taxation, and salt and iron, and became an independent political force. The more the imperial court spent, the more their status became.
The higher the number, the greater the power given, so that more taxes can be collected to make up for the fiscal deficit.
Compared with the "Three Judges" of the Tang Dynasty, the Tax Supervisor of Daxia is more legitimate and has greater power. In the end, I don't know what it will look like when it develops.
Du Xiao was born in the Du family in Jingzhao and knew too much about politics. He knew very well that as the first chief of the tax supervisor and the integrator of factions, Du's status in the finance and taxation department would be transcendent and influential.
It may last for several generations. This is a blessing for the family, so we have to work very hard.
What he is currently dealing with is building new ships and transporting grain.
Shipbuilding requires tax supervision expenses. The ships belong to the local government. After the grain is transported to the destination port, it falls under tax supervision.
There are many miscellaneous things, and they are all matters of concern to the saint and cannot be ignored.
After finishing one copy, Du Xiao picked up another one.
The tax inspector needed to pay the Western Region Trading Company for grain purchases: a total of more than 237,000 pieces of silk.
The money was paid in Luoyang to recover a large number of food stamps held by the Western Region Trading Company.
This type of cooperation has continued for many years.
The Western Region Trading Co., Ltd. has left more than ten people in Luoyang to handle such matters. In the past, it received money from the Ministry of Household Affairs, but now it goes to the tax supervisor to collect the money. After receiving the money, it summons the Shangtun farmers who have returned from the Western Region after the expiration of their term and distributes wages one by one.
.
Du Xiao knows that this year and next will be the peak period for settling money. This is because the Western Region trading companies are adjusting their business and slowly reducing the number of acres and number of merchants. Many people who go to the Western Regions to farm will have to return to Luoyang one after another to collect money, and then
Decide whether to stay or go.
However, just because the Western Region Trading Company no longer wants to trade the village, it does not mean that others are willing to give up.
In the past two or three years, Beiting Shangtun has sprung up and is of great scale.
The Zhao family hired more than a thousand people from Qinzhou, Qizhou, and Liangzhou and rushed to Beiting to launch a massive farming operation. Two years after opening up wasteland, they began to make a profit from selling grain. After five or six years, they made a stable profit and could still make a profit by then.
Shangtun farmland that had become mature land was sold to the government, and the government granted it to the families of the immigrated soldiers, so that they could settle down quickly.
There are many other merchant villages similar to the Zhao family.
Luoyang is the settlement center and the Western Region is the delivery center. The entire business community activity has been going on for seven or eight years and is becoming more and more mature.
Du Xiao scrolled down and found that there were indeed several settlement applications for private commercial villages, so he signed and agreed to them all.
Each application has the quantity, location, time and object of grain delivery.
Du Xiao keenly discovered that a medium-sized war would break out in the direction of Beiting by next year at the latest.
Many things can be seen from the direction of supplies such as food without asking around for information.
Du Xiao put the signed official letter aside so that he could record the matter later, and low-level officials such as the bookkeeper would take it away.
He casually picked up the third copy and read it.
The prince asked to stop the corvee and taxes imposed by Tongguang for ten years in some prefectures and counties in Hexi and Longyou.
There are more than a dozen states in the Helong area. The prince asked eight states to be exempted from taxes for one year. Because it involved money and food, the prince transferred to his side.
Of course, Du Xiao is not willing to be exempted from taxes, because the state is still a bit nervous.
He carefully looked at the sage's Zhubu and seemed to agree, but also wrote that the tax supervisor could handle it "at his discretion".
This actually gives Du Xiao discretion, that is, he can make discounts on the basis of eight states: who is exempted, who is not exempted, and how much is exempted, it is up to you.
What a fool! Do you dare to discount the prince's kindness? After a hundred years, the saint will not think about it anymore?
He didn't say anything, so he had to agree to everything. With a stroke of his pen, he signed and agreed.
The fourth part was about Bukhana. After reading it, Du Xiao took a breath: The saint is really generous.
Shao Shenli, King of Chu, had established a state in the area and made Dawan County (formerly Bahanna City) the capital. Nowadays, everything is in ruins and there is an urgent shortage of money, food and population.
The sage ordered five thousand households from the ten states of Bian, Song, Ying, Pu, Cao, Wei, Bei, De, and Cang to go westward to settle in Chu State, and ordered the tax inspector to allocate money and grain for expenses along the way.
This is not a small amount of money, and it is not the first time I have immigrated to Bakhan.
Shule Xingying also has a large-scale trading village under its jurisdiction. Du Xiao still remembers that last year he approved several grain delivery and settlement orders for the trading villages, all of which were shipped to Bahanna.
By this year, five merchant teams had gone to Bakhana to cultivate land and open up wasteland.
The Ministry of Industry also sent a lot of manpower to the local area to repair and build new wells and canals.
Each of these expenses is not a small amount.
Du Xiao couldn't help but wonder, if the prince were in power, would he agree to these expenses? Most likely not.
He hesitated a little, wondering if this would offend the prince. But then he was frightened. If he was afraid of offending the prince, wouldn't he be afraid of offending the saint? What's more, there is no room for bargaining on these expenses. The saint has already set the tone, and you still want to disobey it.
Is the Holy Mandate not fulfilled?
Du Xiao immediately signed and sealed, agreeing to these expenditures. At the same time, he secretly sighed that King Chu had caught up with a good time. However, maybe he only caught up with the tail end?
How many years can the saint's body and bones last? I heard my sister say privately that the saint sometimes took the medicine of tiger and wolf, which is really...
Du Xiao sighed, put down the brush, picked up the tea cup, and was lost in thought.
Looking back on those days, the rise of the saint became more and more obvious. My sister, who was known to be smart, was sent to the palace to serve the saint. The entire Du family also completely surrendered to the past. The first official position where I flexed my talents was Shaanzhou Ling.
Bao Ling.
Fast forward more than twenty years, and I am now over fifty and entering my twilight years. The whole world is prosperous and everything is getting better, but nothing is eternal. He is not it, and neither is a saint.
Pity.
After drinking tea, Du Xiao calmed down and continued working.
When setting up a town army in Sangzhou, Yunnan, it is necessary to allocate funds to build military camps, provide houses, fields, cattle, farm tools, seeds and rations for the first two years to the families of the soldiers, all of which require money.
The Sangzhou Town Army has a strength of 3,000, drawn from the Shengjie Army.
Du Xiao knew that the Shengjie Army was the last elite of the Shu Army, familiar with the southwest environment and skilled in small and medium-sized battles in mountainous valleys. For more than ten years, the number of members of this army has been steadily declining, from the initial number of more than 40,000
It dropped to 28,000 - after 3,000 people were mobilized to form the town army, there were only 25,000 left.
Twenty-five thousand is exactly the number of troops in a Forbidden Army - the number of cavalry troops is divided into 10,000 and 20,000.
Du Xiao felt that the Saint probably wanted to retain such a team specifically for fighting in the southwestern mountainous areas.
This is not his random imagination. In fact, some people in the Privy Council have such suspicions. There are even ready-made examples: Ningyuan and Qinghai armies each have 20,000 troops, with the main troops surrendered from Fujian, Hunan, Lingnan, Wuyue and other towns. The former is
The troops were stationed in Changsha, Yongzhou, Jiaozhou and other places successively. The latter was stationed in Guangzhou and relied on the navy division for landing operations.
These two troops have been organized into the Forbidden Army and have not been split up, demobilized, or consumed like other surrendered armies. The organization has always been maintained and used to suppress the vast south.
They are actually influenced by the environment and climate.
It's okay for the northern troops to go south for a short period of time, but if they are stationed for a few years, it is really difficult to adapt. Furthermore, the terrain in the south is not suitable for the northern heavily armored warriors to attack in large numbers and the cavalry groups to attack repeatedly. What is needed is to be good at
A sergeant who is good at mountain climbing, agile and capable, and adapted to hot and humid environments.
Ningyuan and Qinghai's 2nd Army with 40,000 people can be classified as the Forbidden Army, and it is also possible for the Shengjie Army. Moreover, their combat effectiveness is not weak. They have been fighting in central Guizhou and Yunnan for a long time. They are no longer the weak force they used to be.
Hao is the only force whose combat effectiveness has improved in the past ten years.
After Du Xiao read it, he approved the required money and food without any hesitation.
He was busy like this until the evening. Du Xiao picked up the last one and looked at it casually.
Compared with the previous expenses, the last one is pitifully small, only a thousand dollars.
He was a little confused, how could such a small expense be put on his desk?
Upon closer inspection, it turned out that the saint was going to give a banquet in Shendu Garden to entertain the scholars who came to Beijing to take the exams - no wonder.
It is already September, and some students who came early have already settled in the capital. By late autumn and early winter, almost all the scholars who are rushing to take the exam will arrive in the capital with the envoys of the imperial court and register at the Ministry of Rites.
At the end of February next year, the triennial imperial examination will begin again.
"Every year goes by so fast." Du Xiao sighed with emotion, and signed his name. After finishing the printing, he didn't bother to clean it up, and went straight to the page.