In the blink of an eye, another eight months have passed, and the Chamber of Commerce has begun to get on the right track. Gradually, more firms or individual merchants are seeking to join the Chamber of Commerce.

And our President Zhao, relying on the Chamber of Commerce, has very successfully developed his new Yangshan Port near Huating County. Because it is located at the estuary of the Yangtze River, and in the transit zone of north-south trade, Yangshan New Port already has

It will replace the trend of Quanzhou Port.

But Zhao Weiji didn't expect that his actions touched someone's cheese.

"Your Majesty, the people from the Municipal Shipping Department are here again. They said that because our seaport is used for both inland navigation and seaport, the commission for goods exported at our seaport must be increased, from 1 out of 10 to 1 out of 5."

"What, are you kidding me?"

All sea ports in the Song Dynasty have always had a tax rate of one out of ten, so when the tax rates of all ports are the same, Yangshan Port has a great advantage.

Because Yangshan Port is located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, if inland goods need to be exported by sea, they can be directly transported to Huating by water and then exported directly by sea ship.

Although Yangshan Port has a slightly longer sea distance for exporting to the South China Sea than Quanzhou Port, the cost of sea transportation in this era is much lower than the cost of land transportation, and it is also faster. If it is along the Yangtze River or along the Grand Canal

Even the state capitals along the Yellow River can directly reach Huating by water transport, and then directly transfer to the sea.

But if you want to depart from Quanzhou Port, you have to go through a long land transportation, and the cost will be higher.

"What is the purpose of this unreasonable tax increase?" Logically speaking, the tax increase at Yangshan port will not be of any help to the increase in the court's entire tax revenue. After the Yangshan export tax increases, Yangshan Port will be relatively

The cost advantage of Quanzhou Port is gone. In order to avoid taxes reasonably, merchants will naturally choose to return to Quanzhou Port. In the end, only Yangshan Port is unlucky.

"It seems that someone is deliberately targeting us. The only beneficiary of Yangshan Port's decline can only be Quanzhou Port. Go find out for me who is behind Quanzhou Port?"

With the entire Chamber of Commerce society and Zhao Weiji's connections in the imperial court, it was easy to find out who the master behind Quanzhou was.

But Zhao Weiji still took a breath of air when he learned the result. The master behind Quanzhou is: Kaifeng Yin and Shizhong, Xu Wang Zhao Yuanxi.

"I'm going to be the crown prince?" In fact, Zhao Yuanxi was not really a prince at this time, but his actual status was basically that of a quasi-prince. Because his brother Zhao Yuanzuo went crazy in the second year of Yongxi's reign and burned down the palace.

So he was immediately deposed as a commoner.

Therefore, Zhao Yuanxi became the de facto eldest son. Although Taizong was in a dilemma on whether to pass on his son or his younger brother due to the Golden Chamber Alliance, due to the subsequent deaths of Zhao Dezhao and Zhao Tingmei, at this time

It seems more reasonable to pass on the son. So Zhao Yuanxi is basically the prince.

Knowing that the mastermind behind this was the current prince, Zhao Weiji had to pay attention and immediately ordered people to bring in all the other fourteen members of the Chamber of Commerce, his teachers and the best students from the business department of Tsinghua Academy to discuss countermeasures.

"Let's see, everyone, we are being targeted by the eldest prince. Do you have any good ideas?"

When everyone listened to Zhao Weiji's introduction to the situation, they all gasped. Some even gave up on the spot.

"How about we compromise? At the worst, we can just go to Quanzhou Port and export. Why bother with the prince?"

Zhao Weiji understood these people who gave in. Since ancient times, people have not fought with officials, not to mention that this person may be the future emperor. But Zhao Weiji didn't think so, because after he had an impression of this prince Chunhua, he disappeared three years ago.

It seems that he died suddenly of some illness. And now it is the first year of Chunhua.

But Zhao Weiji couldn't tell everyone here, don't worry and fight him, he will be gone in two years anyway. Just when Zhao Weiji was still thinking about his words and trying to persuade this group of people, Wang Bin suddenly spoke.

"I think we can have a fight with the prince."

At this time, everyone was stunned and turned to look at Wang Bin like a monster.

"Everyone, listen to what I have to say. First of all, the officials must not know that King Xu is the master behind Quanzhou Port."

"How can you be sure that the officials don't know?" The unconvinced people emerged.

"Do you think that the official family will allow their successors to go into business? Other remote royal families are fine, but I am sure that the official family will not let their princes go into business, because first of all, the status of our merchants is not

"High, and secondly, the interests involved in doing business are too wide. The royal family has always hated the collusion between officials and businessmen, let alone the prince doing business. It has always been one of the principles of our Central Plains Dynasty to govern the people with Confucianism." Listen to Wang Bin

This explanation seemed to everyone to make some sense.

In fact, Wang Bin basically guessed it right. Zhao Guangyi did not know that Zhao Yuanxi controlled such a large port. In fact, everything was arranged by Prime Minister Zhao Pu for Zhao Yuanxi.

In the first year of Duan Gong, Zhao Pu was appointed prime minister again. After having the experience of being dismissed many times before, Zhao Pu decided to leave a way out for himself. At this time, he saw Zhao Yuanxi, the king of Xu, who had just become the Yin of Kaifeng.

After dealing with Zhao Guangyi for many years, Zhao Pu basically understood the emperor's thoughts. Although he was the brother of the official family and became the emperor, he still wanted to succeed his father to his son after his father died a hundred years later.

Otherwise, Zhao Yuanxi would have been given the position of Kaifeng Yin.

In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng Yin was basically equivalent to the crown prince. Zhao Guangyi was Kaifeng Yin before he succeeded to the throne. Zhao Tingmei, who was originally the next successor according to the Golden Chamber Alliance, was also Kaifeng Yin before the accident. So when Zhao Yuanxi became Kaifeng Yin

Everyone believed that this person was probably the crown prince.

But at this time, Zhao Yuanxi was not living as a queen mother. Although his eldest brother went crazy and got into trouble and was deposed as a commoner, he did not die. And characters like Zhao Weiji emerged in the Taizu lineage. So he himself was walking on thin ice.

.

Zhao Yuanxi was naturally overjoyed when Prime Minister Zhao Pu came to visit him. One of them needed the support of the court, and the other needed to pave the way for his future political career, so they quickly hit it off.

But Zhao Pu's support alone is not enough. Zhao Yuanxi also needs the support of more ministers, but you can't win people over just by wooing them. After all, you are just Kaifeng Yin and not the real prince. So at this time, Zhao Yuanxi is needed.

Continuously communicate with the ministers of the DPRK and China.

But communication requires money. Although the Zhao and Song court paid high salaries to maintain integrity, the royal family itself was very frugal. Therefore, Zhao Yuanxi did not have much money.

At this time, Zhao Pu stepped forward at the right time. Through the network that Zhao Pu had operated for many years, Zhao Yuanxi easily became the master behind Quanzhou Port.

Before the establishment of Yangshan Port, Quanzhou Port was one of the largest seaports in the Northern Song Dynasty. In addition, the original Silk Road was basically broken due to harassment by ethnic minorities in the northwest. Maritime trade became the largest seaport in the Northern Song Dynasty.

Trade routes, and Quanzhou Port is naturally home to caravans and ships.

But the good times did not last long. Soon Zhao Weiji established Yangshan Port near the Yangtze River estuary. Yangshan Port already had the convenience of relying on the Central Plains water system. In addition, after he established the Chamber of Commerce, he further integrated business resources, making Yangshan

Hong Kong rose to prominence immediately.

Zhao Yuanxi, who felt that his financial path had been cut off, was naturally very dissatisfied, so he called Zhao Pu and decided to teach his annoying nephew a lesson.

Zhao Pu had been an official for many years and had deep roots in the court. With his power, it was easy to hide Zhao Guangyi from using the Shibo Department to increase taxes to put pressure, so the scene at the beginning happened.

But what Zhao Yuanxi and Zhao Pu did must not be known to Zhao Guangyi. First of all, Zhao Guangyi would never allow such unseemly things as the prince doing business. Secondly, his prince actually colluded with the prime minister and planned to do so within the court.

Forming a party is something that touches Zhao Guangyi's bottom line. The last point is that taxation is the foundation of the country. Changing the tax rate at will without the emperor's knowledge is simply treating the emperor as if he is nothing. How could Zhao Guangyi allow it?

Things like this happen.

"So in fact, there is not much power disparity between us and the prince. Without the officials knowing about it, the prince does not have too many rights, so we can still fight." Wang Bin said.

After the conclusion, everyone regained their confidence.

"So what should we do as the first step?" Zhao Weiji asked at this time.

"I think we can use the influence of newspapers to expose this matter first." At this time, a student from Tsinghua Academy proposed a way.

"This is a good idea, Sir. Let's try it first and then see the reaction in the court." Zhao Weiji was very happy after hearing the proposal of the student named Wang Jin, because his students already knew how to take advantage of public opinion.

"In this way, find someone to submit an article to "Shilin Daily" and expose this matter. Then tell all the merchants who are preparing to export that I will bear half of the commission at this stage. They still only have to pay ten

Just one percent of the tax will be enough, and I will pay for the rest."

In order to temporarily stabilize the situation in Yangshan Port, Zhao Weiji decided that the worst he could do was to shed some blood first, and sooner or later when this matter was over, he would have to return his cheap uncle.

…

Ten days later, in the court hall of the imperial palace in Beijing.

"Who can tell me what's going on with the tax increase at Yangshan Port in Huating?" Zhao Guangyi was furious in the court. In fact, he had heard the news from the newspaper seven days ago, but he didn't believe it at first. But

Due to the current influence of the newspaper, a rumor soon spread in the market that the officials were preparing to gradually increase taxes starting from Yangshan Port.

No matter which dynasty it is, tax increases will always cause panic among the people. So Zhao Guangyi could not ignore the news, so he sent people to Yangshan Port to investigate. Unexpectedly, the export commission of Yangshan Port was indeed

doubled.

This made Zhao Guangyi unbearable. How could he not know about the increase in commission? Zhao Guangyi, who felt that his rights had been stolen, had to figure this out.

"Say, you are all mute. Go and bring the Liangzhe Road Transfer Envoy back to Beijing. I want to ask him who gave him such great power."

Just when Zhao Guangyi was furious at Long Yan in the main hall, two people in the hall looked at each other at the same time, and the same word was revealed in their eyes: What should we do?
Chapter completed!