Tibet

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 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 introduced."

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 did the math 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. The discussion in the Political Affairs Hall 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 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 countless 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 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 whistle-blowers 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 of the sentence, Wei Jiansu sighed, "If all means are exhausted and there is still no news, then internal guards can only 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.

"I invite everyone here today 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. "

The guests in Wolong Restaurant in Xiangyang County are sitting high and the crowd is buzzing. Today is the full moon of the Huang family's great-grandson, and the Huang family has hired Wolong Restaurant to treat guests.

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 court did not compensate officials for abolishing slavery, so how could they be compensated?

Since there was no compensation, naturally no one was willing to report to the county government, and the county officials could do nothing about them.

The county officials had no way, but the court had a way. Didn't it have to be legal? Then let's levy taxes! The court's taxation was reasonable and legal. It was okay to keep slaves, but slaves had to bear heavy taxes, and those who tried to evade taxes would be severely punished.

"Brother Huang, is there any way to avoid taxes?"

Huang Min smiled bitterly and said, "There are definitely many ways to avoid taxes, but I'm afraid of this."

Huang Min stepped forward and pointed to the last line, "Look at this sentence!"

'A heavy reward will be given to those who dare to expose, no less than ten strings of cash each time, and the court will keep their identities secret. '

"It's bitter!"

Everyone cried out in unison. This move was too cruel. They could keep it secret from the outside, but there was no secret for the people in the mansion. The housekeeper, accountant, manager, coachman, and servant all knew.

Huang Min said quietly, "I heard that Zhang Xiangguo was informed by the housekeeper before, and the housekeeper was rewarded with 500 strings of money. Zhang Xiangguo was dismissed and became a commoner, and there were only 50 slaves!"

"Brother Huang, tell me what to do!" Several pairs of eyes looked at Huang Min.

Huang Min sighed, "I don't know what to do either. Let's all take care of our own business!"

A newspaper killed Huang Min's interest. He returned to the mansion and immediately found his father Huang Kai.

After listening to his son's story and looking at the newspaper, Huang Kai didn't speak for a long time. After a while, he asked, "How many slaves do we have?"

"More than 1,300 people!"

Huang Kai frowned, "So many?"

"It was mainly because of the An-Shi Rebellion. There were too many northern refugees fleeing to Jingxiang. We are still good. The Du family has more than 3,000 people."

"How much did it cost to buy these slaves?" Huang Kai asked again.

"It didn't cost much money. It was really cheap at that time. The streets were full of people who wanted to sell themselves."

Huang Kai had experienced Li Ye's power. At that time, he was in the snow and asked for forgiveness. Li Ye spared the Huang family.

After thinking for a long time, Huang Kai slowly said: "Release them all as civilians."

Huang Min was shocked, "Father, basically no one is willing to release them voluntarily."

"That's because they haven't tasted the power. More than 1,300 people, once someone reports, not only will they be severely punished, but the internal guards will also come to your door. Are you willing? It's ten times the punishment, that's tens of thousands of strings of money. Do you think the emperor can't do it? I know him too well. He wants to kill one to warn the hundred. Xiangyang is where he started his career. He must investigate Xiangyang first. The Huang family and the Du family will bear the brunt. We didn't If there is support for him, he may not forget this old grudge. "

"I understand, son! I will go to the county government to handle the formalities tomorrow."

Huang Min hesitated, "Should I notify the Du family?"

Huang Kai shook his head, "Du Yan died two years ago, and his son Du Youguang is a famous miser. The Du family must have this disaster. If the Du family resolves the old grudge of the emperor, our Huang family will be fine."

Huang Min secretly admired his father's shrewdness, and he hurriedly said: "Yu'er is the household officer, I will let him handle the slave transfer privately without alerting others."

"That's fine too!"