Zhutian: Starting from the Space-Time Merchant

Chapter 144 Tax (Bonus Chapter by Silver Alliance Leader Nuanyang 1314)

"Have mercy!"

"It hurts so much!"

"Your Majesty, I am innocent!"

The salt merchants were subjected to torture, including being put on a cangue, a tiger bench, or a standing cage.

During their torture, each one screamed more pitifully than the last.

This isn't an act; it really hurts.

They have lived a life of luxury and ease since childhood, and have never suffered such hardship.

"Obey your hidden assets and you'll be spared the suffering."

Lin Daohao comforted the salt merchants, saying, "Money is nothing but an external thing; why suffer for it?"

Nobles and imperial relatives could extort money from officials, civil and military officials could extort money from clerks and runners, and unscrupulous merchants could do the same.

These salt merchants were all unscrupulous.

On the surface, they were official salt merchants holding salt permits from the Ming Dynasty, responsible for selling salt to people in various regions.

But in private, they were the biggest salt smugglers in the entire Ming Dynasty.

Salt merchants used the official name to sell smuggled salt, ruthlessly devouring the salt tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty.

The salt tax, which once amounted to millions of taels, was reduced to only a few hundred thousand taels during the Chongzhen era.

The lost salt taxes were all pocketed by them through the smuggling of salt.

Of course, such a lucrative business as smuggled salt was not something that salt merchants could monopolize.

The powerful and wealthy families of the entire Ming Dynasty.

From imperial relatives and local princes to local gentry and court officials, countless people were involved in this scheme.

They cooperated with each other to sell smuggled salt under the guise of the government.

The individual profited, but the money earned was from the imperial court's taxes.

However, this is not the most outrageous thing; the most outrageous thing is the tea tax.

Tea taxes, which once generated hundreds of thousands or even millions of taels of silver, were reduced to a mere few hundred taels by the end of the Chongzhen era.

The tea was all taken by gentry from various places for export.

Since it's all smuggled, naturally no taxes can be collected.

Even a few hundred taels would be a small token of respect for the emperor.

The civil officials of the Ming Dynasty were the most typical examples of saying one thing to the public and another behind their backs.

On the surface, they loudly proclaimed the ban on maritime trade, even going so far as to burn blueprints and watermark data to make a name for themselves.

But behind the scenes, they were all building ships.

Ship after ship of goods, including tea, silk, porcelain, and rhubarb, were shipped out to sea and brought back ship after ship of silver.

However, the civil officials would not help the court collect their own taxes, so they openly engaged in smuggling.

They don't pay a single penny in customs duties.

Thinking of all this, Lin Dao shook his head repeatedly.

"It is a miracle that such a great Ming Dynasty could last for two or three hundred years."

The salt merchants, who were being tortured and forced to pay their wages, had bloodstains flowing from their wounds that soaked through their expensive silks and satins.

Zhu Yuanzhang once stipulated that merchants were not qualified to wear these.

Unfortunately, his ancestral rules were only selectively effective among the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty.

Anything that benefits civil officials is an ancestral rule that cannot be violated.

Things that were detrimental to civil officials, such as skinning them alive and stuffing them with straw, were never mentioned.

The salt merchants opened their mouths as if to speak, but their throats were dry and they could not utter a word.

Lin Dao instructed his guards, "Bring them water."

Several buckets of cold water were splashed on their faces, and the shivering salt merchants instantly perked up.

His first words were a stammering plea for mercy, "Your Majesty, spare my life~~~"

"Phew~ Why insist on this? It's just more suffering."

Lin Dao calmly ordered, "Bring me mulberry bark paper."

Water torture involved covering the mouth and nose with mulberry bark paper and spraying cold water on top.

After several layers of mulberry paper are applied, a person will fall into intense pain.

This was a very terrifying form of punishment in ancient times.

"Zhao Zhilong wrote me a letter."

Lin Dao smiled at the group of salt merchants and said, "He said that when they were interrogating people in Jinling City, they would all talk as long as they were subjected to water torture."

"They can even tell you when he was a few years old and when he peeked at me while I was taking a bath."

He swept his kind gaze over the group of salt merchants and said, "Why don't you try to keep going and create a miracle for me to see?"

There are no miracles.

These salt merchants were nothing more than leeches sucking the blood of the Ming Empire.

Leeches don't even have bones, so where does their strong will come from to withstand cruel torture?

Apply a few sheets of mulberry paper and then spray some water.

When the secret was revealed again after a while, the salt merchants were all devastated.

Unable to withstand the torture, they began to reveal the secrets of their respective families.

Ship fleets and shops in various places, private warehouses in various places, manors in various places, places where silver is hidden in various places, and hidden outlying branches and distant branches in various places.

The family's foundation and hidden strength were all revealed.

The clerks recorded all of these details.

Lin Dao instructed, "Lock them all in jail."

These salt merchants are not easy to deal with for the time being.

We must wait until we have obtained everything they have revealed before taking action.

After all, the hidden power of a family is usually only known to the head of the family.

If we kill it directly, it will be troublesome to find it again.

A curfew was imposed in Yangzhou, and the city was filled with soldiers.

They sealed off the mansions of salt merchants everywhere and arrested their families.

The operation outside the city was on a larger scale.

Those hidden docks and warehouses, and smuggled salt boats hidden in secret waterways.

The backbone of the salt workers scattered in various villages, and the unrestrained sons of salt merchants on the Slender West Lake.

Everything was confiscated.

All the people involved were arrested and imprisoned in the Yangzhou city jail.

The salt merchants, who were once flamboyant and unruly, were thus completely ruined.

Once everything is retrieved, they will set off together. Inside the Salt Transport Office, Lin Dao is reviewing the confidential documents he has confiscated from the residences of various salt merchants.

One is the network of illegal salt sales in various regions.

Who are the distributors of smuggled salt in each prefecture, state, and county? How much smuggled salt is delivered each month? How much is owed in accounts? Where is the goods delivered for handover?

These were the assets that allowed the salt merchants to make a living.

Only with these local sales channels can the private salt business be expanded and strengthened.

Another factor is the powerful backers behind each salt merchant.

The list was very long, including the chief eunuchs in the palace and the imperial relatives in the capital.

The princes of various regions, civil and military officials of the court, the residences of meritorious nobles in the two capitals, retired gentry, and so on.

It can be said that, apart from the emperor, everyone with any power in the Ming Empire was involved in the private salt trade.

"The powerful and wealthy classes of the Ming Dynasty are all sucking the blood of the Ming Dynasty."

Lin Dao shook his head repeatedly, "They transferred the salt tax that should have been paid to the national treasury into their own pockets through smuggled salt."

"Those powerful and influential people who died when the Ming Dynasty fell deserved it!"

These things are not very useful for forest roads.

At most, it can be used as supplementary information during a raid.

Lin Dao put down his things, sat down in a chair, and began to seriously consider economic issues.

"Land is state-owned and transactions are prohibited."

"To eradicate land annexation at its root."

"There's no need to increase the land tax; we just need to abolish all the exorbitant taxes and levies."

"Salt tax, tea tax, and so on are all the same; they must be subject to a monopoly."

"And commercial taxes."

"With such a prosperous maritime trade, the amount of silver flowing into the Ming Dynasty is in the hundreds of millions."

"But the imperial court couldn't collect any customs duties; it was all smuggled goods."

"If taxes can't be collected, the only option is to exploit the common people. When the people can't survive, they raise flags for breakfast. It's no wonder that the Ming Dynasty will perish under such circumstances."

"A robust tax system must be established."

"Tax collection should be handled by a dedicated government office, rather than being distributed among local officials, giving them the opportunity to line their own pockets."

“These tax collection offices must possess strong military force to ensure that everyone pays taxes.”

"Anyone who dares to resist taxes will be met with armed resistance."

Lin Dao, with his eyes closed, tapped his fingers lightly on the table.

"As for salt, I can provide it for now. There's plenty of salt in the modern world."

"However, we still need to establish shops specializing in the sale of salt in various places, and we also need to restore salt production as soon as possible."

"We need to innovate salt-making technology; boiling salt is too outdated!"

Lin Dao opened his eyes and saw Bian Sai walking timidly towards him, along with her younger sister Bian Min.

"Your Majesty."

The petite Bian Sai stepped forward and bowed, saying, "The hot water is ready; please bathe, Your Majesty."

"Ah."

Lin Dao got up, and the Bian sisters led the way and served him.

Silent all night.

When Lin Dao got up in the morning, he stretched his arms and his joints cracked.

His gaze swept over the two sisters, Haitang and Chun, who were fast asleep, and a satisfied smile appeared on his face.

"My health is getting better and better."

"Even in a two-on-one situation, he wouldn't be at a disadvantage."

Lin Dao stayed in Yangzhou for a while longer.

Besides managing the salt industry, the most important task was resettling the men and women who had returned from the north.

Some men were selected to join the army as auxiliary soldiers.

The rest were distributed to each person as dozens of acres of land, which were then rented out to them for cultivation.

A group of wounded soldiers were discharged and entered various counties and townships of Yangzhou Prefecture to establish local government offices.

These soldiers had all attended night school and were not illiterate.

As for the women, they were arranged to marry the soldiers.

Their hometown had long been destroyed by the Tartars, and almost all of their families had been killed.

With nowhere else to go, marrying a soldier with a very high income was the best way out.

After making arrangements, Lin Dao left a battalion of soldiers to garrison the area and led the main army across the Yangtze River southward into the territory of Changzhou Prefecture.

The Ming army in the Jiangnan region was extremely poorly equipped.

Although after learning of the news from Jinling City, various regions strengthened their military preparedness.

However, most of the money and grain ended up in the pockets of those at all levels.

The militiamen who were forcibly conscripted didn't even have enough to eat, and in some places they were even required to bring their own rations. With such an attitude, how could they be motivated to risk their lives?

Those who dare to engage in reckless fighting in the wild are all easily defeated.

As for defending the city, Lin Dao summoned the villagers from nearby villages and began distributing land in front of the defending troops.

The result was either internal strife within the city or surrender by simply opening the city gates.

"This 'Records of Officials' is truly a wonderful thing."

Lin Dao smiled as he flipped through the book in his hand.

The records of all the gentry with some reputation in this province and prefecture are meticulously documented.

He didn't need to expend any effort searching; he could simply take the book and raid homes to arrest people.

When they raid a house, they also copy the family genealogy, and then arrest people according to the genealogy.

It's so convenient and saves so much effort.

Lin Dao kept the lessons of the Ming Dynasty in mind and abolished all the privileges of these gentry and scholars.

All the land, including mountains, forests, rivers, etc., regardless of whose name it was under, was taken away.

Wherever he went, he immediately freed all the slaves from their households.

This coincided with the widespread servant uprisings taking place in various parts of Jiangnan.

Lin Dao reorganized the military forces in Changzhou.

Salt production was divided into prefectures, and each prefecture recruited a battalion of soldiers as the main garrison force in the area.

These soldiers were finally allocated their own land.

Their fighting spirit to protect their fields far surpassed that of the Ming army.

Having made these arrangements, Lin Dao continued eastward and arrived at the city of Suzhou.

(End of this chapter)