Jia She looked around at everyone with a smile on his face, and frequently raised his hands to express his gratitude, becoming more and more modest in his demeanor.
In his heart, he was very proud of this situation. In Yangzhou City, only he understood how much power these merchants wielded. He also felt a little guilty. After all, he was from Song Dynasty. At least, half a year ago,
He is still a Song Dynasty person. On the contrary, no matter how boastful the smugglers in front of them are, smuggling itself is always digging into the finances of the Song Dynasty.
In the Sizhou Forgery Market in Huainan, the commercial tax in previous years was around 40,000 to 50,000 guan. This year, due to the fighting on Nanjing Road, it dropped sharply to more than 13,000 guan. But in fact, the business tax on the east side of Sizhou
In Chuzhou, the value of the grain smuggled out every year alone exceeds one million guan. Not to mention that grain exports are prohibited by the imperial court, but based on the average tax revenue in the market, the tax evaded here is as much as 100,000 guan.
Jia She estimated that the total amount of goods smuggled out of Chuzhou was only 10% compared to sea smuggling. Based on this, how much tax was evaded by sea smuggling? That is hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars or even more
numbers!
The annual income of the Song Dynasty's three shipping companies in Guangzhou, Fuzhou, and Qingyuan Prefecture, which many people regarded as a source of wealth, was only two million dollars in total.
Continuing to extrapolate, it can be seen that the trade volume between the North and the South is now nearly half of the Song Dynasty's trade volume with the South China Sea countries. This is an unprecedented and explosive expansion.
However, the Song Dynasty was always the richest country in the world, and the imperial court was used to spending too much money from top to bottom. There were too many silkworms clinging to the tree of the Song Dynasty court, which took away countless nutrients. Therefore, even if the Song Dynasty's annual income totaled
No less than 20 million guan, still unable to make ends meet. Even if there is no smuggling, everything is an open business. The income of the Shipping Department will normally increase by one million guan, but it is just a matter of time.
This is why the Lin'an court tolerated the existence of smuggling and why many officials happily intervened.
For the officials of the Song Dynasty, it was better than nothing if this piece of property fell into the hands of the imperial court. If it fell into their own hands, it would bring them wealth and honor for several generations. There was no need to hesitate in choosing.
Since officials generally thought so, the various unsightly scenes during this period naturally fell into the eyes of the prime minister.
But Shi Xiang never tried to stop it.
During the establishment of the Shanghai trip, Jia She was deeply involved and was the main framer of many regulations. While he was busy making preparations, he also understood Shi Xiang's intentions.
This is all because in the eyes of the Prime Minister, this huge financial source was first and foremost a tool for him to use to distribute rewards and win over many of his own party members.
In recent years, Prime Minister Shi's sphere of influence has become wider and wider, and more and more officials are attached to him. To feed these greedy pigeons, Prime Minister Shi has been looking forward to this source of wealth for a long time.
On the other hand, as the prime minister of the Song Dynasty, Shi Xiang naturally had a strategic vision.
According to Shi Xiang, the Song Dynasty was smuggling, and the Jin Dynasty in the north was also smuggling, and the payment was extremely precious war horses, ginseng, medicinal materials and other materials.
Both sides poached corners with equal efforts. With the prosperity of the Song Dynasty, it could definitely support it better than any other regime in the north. Moreover, the Song Dynasty also gained the benefit of stabilizing the currency value of Huizi, which was even better than that of the north.
Shi Xiang may also have felt that allowing the Dinghai navy soldiers and bandits who had risen out of the wilderness to enjoy wealth through smuggling and sea trade would help dispel their motivation to go south to plunder.
However, history was wrong.
During political disputes, Prime Minister Shi often used bribes from wealthy people, but after all, he was a scholar from a wealthy family. He had never done business, suffered hardships, had no contact with the common people and officials at the bottom, and had not experienced the tempering of the frontier.
We don’t understand how many things work under the water’s surface.
In the north, Daikin itself was a short-term puppet. Ding Haijun directly dominated trade in an official capacity and distributed the proceeds from trade directly within the military government.
This newly emerged regime has always been based on force deterrence, and the trade system is just a tool to inject blood to the army.
And because the vast majority of people within the regime hope that they can follow Zhou Guogong Guo Ning, advance politically, and even grant him the title of wife and son.
So so far, most people are working together, and Guo Ning can ensure a monolithic internal situation. Occasionally, his own family members will be punished for corruption and profit sharing.
In the past two years of trade, the Dinghai Navy has not collected taxes, so it has not lost any tax revenue at all. However, most of the profits from trade have been supplemented by various aspects of the regime that urgently need money, especially the expansion of the army.
, benefited greatly from this.
In the south, the Song Dynasty faced exactly the opposite situation.
Trade requires people to do it. While obtaining huge amounts of materials and benefits, it is necessary to maintain trade routes, establish transportation channels, open up many nodes, and distribute huge benefits. All of this requires people to handle it. It requires manpower, material resources, financial resources, and power.
Keep investing.
With two years of investment, some things were built and some were quickly destroyed within the territory of the Song Dynasty.
What was established was a community of interests along each trade route, and what was destroyed was the original legal system and government management capabilities of the Song Dynasty outside the community.
According to the laws of the Song Dynasty, smuggling goods with a value of more than ten guan is punishable by death. Officials who protect smugglers will be exiled to Qiongzhou and will never be released. As for the soldiers and civilians along the border, every ten households will be guaranteed, and one smuggling household will be protected.
Ten households sit together, and if anyone can report and expose, the reward will be from fifty to three thousand guan.
During the Chunxi period, the Song Dynasty court cracked down on illegal smuggling, and many people were killed. Yanhan in Chizhou was the main execution ground, and Huangzhou was the small execution ground.
But such a thing is no longer possible in Huainan.
Jia She didn't know much about the situation at sea. But in all parts of Huainan, the army became the escort of the smuggling teams, and the officials were supported by the smuggling teams. The merchants who led the smuggling became more and more powerful, and began to compete with the protective umbrella behind them, and even
I vaguely regard Ding Haijun as my new protective umbrella.
On the contrary, the various government agencies in Huainan, which should have strictly prohibited smuggling, initially benefited from the merchants, and because of Jia She's dealings, they turned their backs on them and closed their eyes; now they have discovered that the merchants themselves have become too big to lose, and have become the government's indispensable
A behemoth to look at.
Let's not talk about anything else, just talk about Xie Guoming in front of Jia She. This man claims to spend millions of dollars to participate in the stock market. Of course, he is just bragging and intends to make a big splash. The ability of this kind of businessman to make money cannot be better than that of Jia She himself, who is very clever.
Jia She estimated that Xie Guoming's private property was about half of my Jia's, which was 200,000 guan. Counting the gold beads obtained during smuggling and buried under the bed, there were still 20,000 guan.
In the early years, a businessman with such a net worth was at best a fattened pig. The powerful officials here in Huainan could wipe out all their wealth with just a flick of their fingers.
But now, the situation is different from that in the early years. The key is not the money itself, but that Xie Guoming has traveled to the North many times to do business. He has made such a huge fortune in just two years, so he naturally has the power at his disposal.
As far as Jia She knows, Xie Guoming has six ships, 300 sailors, and 300 strong civil servants, who can serve as guards in emergencies. He has his own warehouses in Yangzhou, Gaoyou, Baoying, and Chuzhou
And the hotel, Ding Zhuang works for him daily, and there are another 500 people.
There were twenty-three smuggling merchants gathered respectfully in front of Jia She at this moment. Each of them was no less wealthy than Xie Guoming, and their power was roughly the same. The number of strong men was generally more than a thousand, and even more than two thousand.
If you are a small person, you should have bows, swords, and armor at home.
Such a group of people had no publicity at all in the early years, and they were likely to be beheaded by the government at any time. At the beginning of the prosperity of north-south trade, in order to open up a trade route, they had to kowtow along the road.
But after two years, their money bags were bulging, their confidence was strong, and their courage became stronger. Even without Zhou Guogong's call to establish a trading company, these more than 20 smuggling merchants controlled more than 30,000 strong men, many of whom were
They are fierce, cunning and unruly people. With this power, they can succeed or fail, or fail.
Such a group had been busy with their own business before and would not stand out easily. However, they all relied on Jia She's long-sleeved skills and relied on him to open up all the joints, so they had special respect for him.
But this time Ding Haijun came forward, and together with senior officials from Lin'an, he proposed to form a trading house to cover land trade between the north and the south...
The huge benefits contained in this immediately made everyone's heart beat faster, their blood boil, and even their beards were on edge.
The loyalty of smugglers is probably one of the biggest jokes in the world. Here in the Southern Dynasties, the people are not like the victims of the Shandong disaster. They can't survive at all. If they don't have little morality in their hearts, who would take the risk of violating national laws?
this?
But once they become big, they benefit from such illegal and disorderly behavior, and they become the most loyal. But their loyalty is not to a certain person, but to real money!
Those who can give them real money can drive them and control them. And the power of these people will be gathered in one place, and the influence of local officials on them will be completely abandoned. If they are guided by the successors, the Huainan area
There will be a second government office that will take over the government offices in various places!
In Jia She's luxurious garden, dozens of people were all happy. Thinking of the beautiful scene in the future and the money flowing like a river, everyone was breathing quickly. Looking at Jia She was like looking at his biological brother, and they wished they could shed their blood on the spot.
Be an alliance.
However, the Song Dynasty court would not sit back and watch the situation worsen and be completely helpless.
Outside Jia She's mansion, in the small courtyard across the street, someone squinted and stared, repeatedly counting the number of carriages and horses waiting outside the door. After a while, a cold light flashed in the man's eyes, and he said bitterly: "A group of
