In the second year of Zhao Yan's empire, what he thought was to completely digest the empire and eliminate all the phenomena he didn't want to see, including slavery, foot binding, private hiding guns, knives, etc.

Guns and knives are very common in Shandong. In Shandong, Liaodong, North Korea, North Mo, southern Mo, western Mo, and Tibetan provinces, basically young and strong rural areas hold guns, and women and children over seven floors can play with muskets.

However, these places are digested areas, and Zhao Yan can obey orders. There are very few incidents of evil people killing people with guns. There are two or three incidents in a year. Zhao Yan's control over the countryside can definitely be said to be strict.

If a gun murder occurs, it is usually a situation where the law cannot be used to seek justice. When the law can seek justice for others, few people will commit crimes, and those who are violated can also seek justice through the law.

As for the gangsters, there is no such thing in Shandong, and there are no bad teenagers. Those teenagers are either sent to schools or recruited into the army. If they perform poorly in the school, they will be sent to militarized schools.

In the early annexation of the empire, gun possession was a common phenomenon. Although the empire's management was relatively strict, it was very relaxed for rural and veterans, and only cities were banned from holding guns.

In the second year of the empire, Zhao Yan sent a large number of gold troops at the beginning of the year. The empire was committed to popularizing free education. How can we implement free education without money?

The seigniorage now mainly relies on mining precious metal minerals. The empire has not issued paper money yet, so it cannot make money by issuing banknotes.

Zhao Yan felt that it was too early to issue paper money. After all, the empire is still in adjustment now, so don’t show up too much in everything, as this will be beneficial to stability.

Therefore, precious metals are the important fiscal revenue the empire is expected this year. Now the empire has occupied the silver-producing land - Central America.

At the same time, it also controls the gold-produced land - South Africa and Australia, where there are many diamonds.

Last year, many gold and silver minerals were explored, especially in the Australian continent. Exploration teams and expeditions have successively found many gold and diamonds.

At the same time, some gold mines were also found in Siberia, but they were too vast and a cold and bitter place, and the exploration team was not promising fast.

In the second year, it is expected that more than 300 gold mines will be developed, while more than 800 silver mines will be developed. However, the gold mines in South Africa have not been discovered yet. However, Zhao Yan still sent the gold troops to South Africa. The order given to them was to dig everywhere if they were not found, and dig deeper.

Of course, in terms of taxation, Zhao Yan also began to consider increasing various taxes.

Personal income tax, excess profit tax, and commodity value-added tax are all levied.

...In the Provisional Congress Building.

Five hundred members of Congress were already sitting around, forming a circle. Zhao Yan walked into the legislative hall of Congress from the back hall. All members of Congress had seen the legislative proposal of the 'personal income tax' handed over to Congress by Zhao Yan.

"Before the vote, I want to reiterate the obligation relationship between the Empire and the Imperial citizens in the Constitution. The citizens' obligation is to pay taxes to the Empire, and the Empire's obligation is to use the tax paid by citizens to develop military, education, infrastructure, and economy. If the Empire has no money, it cannot promote free education, and it cannot promote free medical care. That's all I want to say, who can raise any objection?" Zhao Yan said loudly.

The key process of Congress legislation is debate. Many groups of legislative proposals can be submitted to Congress, and Congress will debate these proposals. Both sides have expressed their own views and then began to vote.

However, Zhao Yan took action, no one dared to stand up and refute it.

The vote began with a voice of approval, and the results of the vote were quickly counted, with 430 members of parliament agreeing.

Not everyone agrees with the imposition of personal income tax, but they dare not object explicitly and can only vote against it in the voting. Congress’s voting is not a real-name system, and no one can find out if they vote against it.

After personal income tax, the bill on commodity value-added tax and excess profit tax was also successfully passed.

Personal income tax is formulated as tax exemption for monthly income of less than 10 yuan. If monthly income of more than 10 yuan, 10% personal income tax will be charged.

If a monthly income exceeds 100 yuan, a 20% personal income tax will be charged.

If a monthly income exceeds 300 yuan, a 25% personal income tax will be charged.

If a monthly income exceeds 500 yuan, a 30% personal income tax will be charged.

As for the excess profit tax, it is when the factory and merchants make a profit of more than 50%, they will charge a profit tax of 5%, if they exceed 70%, if they charge a profit tax of 15%, if they exceed 90%, if they charge a profit tax of 20%, if they exceed 110%, if they charge a profit tax of 25%, if they charge a profit tax of more than 170%, if they charge a profit tax of more than 190%, if they charge a profit tax of more than 210%, they will charge a profit tax of 40%.

Excess profit tax is mainly designed for luxury goods. Luxury goods themselves are not something that ordinary people can enjoy. If there is no excess profit tax, it is better to simply monopolize or prohibit it from being dropped directly in the empire.

As for commodity VAT, it is a tax that pays money from everyone's pocket. In later China, every commodity has commodity VAT.

For example, the cost of a certain product is 5 yuan, the merchant wants to sell it for 6 yuan, and the merchant costs 1 yuan if the value-added tax is 1 yuan, the merchant sells it for 7 yuan.

Some angry young people are often questioned, how much tax have you paid to the country?

In fact, every time I buy something, I pay taxes, and there are more than ten types of hiding taxes.

If the empire’s personal income tax is targeted at high-income groups, then commodity value-added tax is an indiscriminate taxation. The level of commodity value-added tax depends on the type of commodity.

For daily necessities like food, you cannot receive commodity value-added tax. The specific amount you receive will need to be slowly formulated one by one. The principle is that the closer you get to the daily necessities, the lower the collection, and the higher the luxury goods.

The empire's commodity VAT also largely levied money from high-income groups because the necessities of daily necessities are not collected much. Commodity VAT plus excess profit tax means that it is levied to collect money from factories and merchants, and to collect money from consumers.

The empire temporarily levied these three taxes. These three taxes alone can increase the empire's fiscal revenue a lot.

...The railway has been constructed everywhere since the beginning of the year, and the railway system in the Jiangnan region is under continuous construction.

The empire began issuing treasury bonds with interest rates of 8%. Treasury bonds will be used in infrastructure, roads, railways, steel plants, etc.

With the completion of railway construction in North China and Central China, the empire's economic trend was strong and the commodity economy had developed greatly.

Especially the railway lines in the Northeast, Shanxi and southern desert areas have been completed one after another, and the raw material output in these areas has soared and has been quickly transported to factories in Shandong via railways.

The most prosperous area in manufacturing is still in Shandong, but with the great unification of the empire, various factories began to sprout like mushrooms in the Jiangnan region because the steam engines no longer had ‘export’ restrictions.

When the Ming Dynasty still existed, steam engines were called exports after they left Shandong. Now it is not the case. There is no restriction on buying steam engines in various provinces of the empire.

The large-scale application of steam engines has made productivity soar and overseas trade has developed very quickly. The cheap overseas raw materials are constantly imported into the empire, and the empire exports goods to the empire.

In the Nanyang area, the Empire opened and established huge sugarcane plantations and rice planting areas. These plantations were extensively planted with Japanese slaves and Nanyang monkeys. Although the yield was not high, the cost was also scary.

The California colonies planted a large amount of cotton, which was also produced by slavery and had a very low cost.

The reserved areas of the Nanyang region are located in the Guinea Archipelago and on many small islands in the Indonesian Archipelago. The main islands in areas such as Luzon, Java, and Sanchifo are not belonging to the reserved areas of the empire, but are the development areas to be developed.

In Australia, the reserved area accounts for 80% of the area. The reserved area means not to enter on a large scale, but areas suitable for agricultural development still need to be developed. The empire has sent special people to Australia for inspection, and after the inspection, the grazing area will be designated.

As Australia's animal husbandry develops, the price of wool fabrics will be greatly reduced. Animal husbandry is a weak project. Australia has unique environmental advantages, so it is naturally necessary to develop it.

At this time, the empire was transferring the cultivation areas of economic crops such as cotton and sugar cane to overseas, because cotton and sugar cane are convenient for transportation.

Local land is used to develop aquaculture and implement extensive grain planting, largely because meat is difficult to transport.

The quality of life is very important, and allowing everyone to enjoy higher quality food is an important principle for the empire to plan agriculture. Those economic crops suitable for transportation can be transferred to the colony and then transferred to the colony.

...In the first half of the second year of the empire, the empire has been committed to state adjustments. In half a year, the empire Congress has determined a complete set of laws such as the Constitution, Criminal Law, Civil Procedure Law, Marriage Law, Commercial Law, Agricultural Law, Financial Law, Environmental Law and other laws.

After the founding of the empire, the literati of the previous dynasty also received large-scale reorganization training. Many people wanted to become officials, but in fact not everyone could appreciate. At the beginning, they were all civil servants at the grassroots level. One was the issue of their ability and the other was the issue of whether they were willing to work hard.

This large-scale inclusion has led to a problem, that is, frequent corruption is produced, and these people are basically in Shandong. The people of Shandong have long understood the empire's administrative routines, but they have reported frequently and beheaded every day. The people behind them were so scared that they dared not do anything.

Not everyone has become officials, and many of them have been absorbed into the school.

For example, some of the senior officials of the previous dynasty had great achievements in poetry, calligraphy and painting, and some were very knowledgeable about Chinese studies such as the Doctrine of the Mean and the Book of Changes. Therefore, many of them were hired as professors by universities.

In terms of local administration, the empire basically eliminated slavery and foot binding, which was supported by supervision by the ombudsmen and the media.

The media has played a huge role in supervision, and newspapers are extremely active in reporting corruption [***], just like a shark that smells fishy.

Because of the support of Zhao Yan from these media, Zhao Yan once privately summoned the bosses of newspapers and magazines and had a detailed discussion with them.

The Civil Rights Daily, which asked Zhao Yan at that media conference, has developed greatly in the past six months because they dared to ask what other media dared not ask, so they received support from Zhao Yan.

Zhao Yan's requirement for those media is to achieve the three aspects of "the spirit of reading", "unbiased and unpartyed", and "serving society". Whoever does it will be rewarded. Zhao Yan promised that the empire would give 1 million yuan a year to establish a prize, specifically to reward media with excellent performance.

This is very attractive to all media. If you can win the first prize, you will become famous. With this signboard, newspapers will definitely be much easier to sell.

As newspapers and magazines continue to emerge in the empire, literature also develops rapidly, and short stories and novels continue to appear in newspapers and magazines.

These newspapers and magazines mainly imitate the model of "Imperial Day". The Empire Day is the earliest newspaper in the Empire. At the beginning, Zhao Yan wrote novels on it, writing out the good-looking contents of later generations that are in line with the current propaganda ideas. For example, the Manchu and Han family promoted by Jin Yong were completely shit. Cha Liangyong, his ancestors were officials of the Qing Dynasty, so he was particularly good at flattering the Qing Dynasty.

Under the imitation of various newspapers, a large number of literary works that Zhao Yan was unfamiliar with appeared, which made him realize that the direction of history was completely different.

After half a year of adjustment and publicity, the imperial rule gradually became deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Under the empire, it had good public security and a good legal system, and would not collect taxes randomly. It also took good care of ordinary people. Such an imperial court has never seen it before.

It is generally believed that Zhao Yan was born as a saint, and there were spontaneous temples (ancestral halls built for living people) everywhere. The incense of new poems in various places was very popular whenever the temple fairs came.

The administrative efficiency of the empire has become extremely high after half a year of adjustment. The most significant point is that the empire's central government can remotely control local administration through the established telegram lines, and the empire's information transmission has become extremely fast.

Under the control of Zhao Quan, the Imperial Commerce Department quickly conveyed information and the comprehensive collection of intelligence by the Intelligence Department. The Commerce Department also participated in some speculative business operations, making a lot of profits for this.

The empire's senior leaders have big differences in their understanding of whether the government monopoly or private management. Most senior leaders believe that the empire should monopolize some business.

Otherwise, where can we have money to do education and construction?

But Zhao Yan doesn't think so. There is a big difference between private and state, that is, the state does not have private flexibility in its operations. First of all, it is not very dynamic. Secondly, there will never be any progress without competition, and there is also insufficient entry.

However, Zhao Yan does not fully agree with the relaxation of business restrictions. The United States in later generations was actually a country controlled by merchants, while Britain was different. Britain nationalized many companies, and its vitality was not as strong as the United States, but the society was not as chaotic as the United States... Although the public security in the United States was very good, it had a very chaotic feeling. Assassination and bribery of parliamentarians often occur. Most of the members of the United States were bought and served major consortiums and families.

Zhao Yan would never allow merchants to get involved in imperial politics, but he also wanted to have that kind of vitality. Therefore, it is possible for empires to get involved in business, but competition must also be there.

The various industries involved in the empire can adopt a private business model, that is, give the following managers greater authority and vigorously supervise them. If they are well operated, they will be rewarded, but if they are not well operated, they will be replaced.

Imperial enterprises operate separately from Imperial administration, and adopt a reading accounting model, paying taxes and policies like private companies. The only advantage is that Imperial can provide the most advanced technology, the latest intelligence, and the most comprehensive market research.

With these advantages, you can compete for private companies, which means there is really a problem and it doesn’t make sense to exist.

At this time, the principles of various fields have been determined. After the empire is adjusted, the national strength is constantly increasing.

(To be continued)
Chapter completed!