Son of Song Dynasty

Chapter 41 The Magical Use of Tax Invoices

She was also surprised to find that various words were written on each pattern, such as "Kaibao Eight Years", "Kaifeng Mansion Special", "Banguan", "Yiguan" and so on.

Wang Xiuzhi was sure that this was definitely not painting, but she couldn't guess what it was after thinking for a while, and finally couldn't help but ask.

"Sanggong, what are you painting? Why do you write 'half pass', 'one pass' or something?"

"Since it says 'half pass', 'one pass' and the like, then of course it's money." Zhao Dezhao replied without raising his head.

Wang Xiuzhi was even more confused when she heard it. In her inherent cognition, money is a string of copper coins, or it is gold and silver. What can it have to do with a small piece of paper?It should be known that the earliest paper money "Jiaozi" used in history was far from being born at this time, so the concept of "paper can be used as money" did not appear in the daily life experience of people at that time.

"This is money? What money?"

"Money from the imperial treasury, money from the local treasury, and money from my father's internal treasury."

"Sir, why do you always make people incomprehensible when you speak, maybe you burned your brain last time?" Wang Xiuzhi frowned and shook his head slightly.

"To tell you the truth, I really doubted that..."

What Zhao Dezhao said was completely true. If the memory from another world was not so rich that he had no way to doubt its authenticity, he would have wondered if his brain had gone wrong!

"Forget it, Mr. Xianggong, you are hungry, I will feed you later."

Wang Xiuzhi completely gave up her plan to communicate with her husband. She shook her head and left the study, going to the kitchen to make pasta for Zhao Dezhao.

Zhao Dezhao took the opportunity to seize the time and finished tracing the last few details of the pattern, then called Qian Niu'er and asked him, "Qian Niu'er, have you seen the salt notes?"

"I haven't seen it, but I have heard it."

Salt banknotes are the tea and salt monopoly organization of the Song Dynasty. The Tea and Salt Lifting Department issued a special ticket for buying salt. Salt merchants need to pay money to the Tea and Salt Lifting Department in exchange for the corresponding amount of salt notes. Then use the salt banknotes to buy salt from the salt field.In other words, it is actually equivalent to a security.

"Then do you know where the salt banknotes are printed?"

Zhao Dezhao continued to ask.

He himself has only heard that there is such a thing as "salt banknotes". Like Qian Niu'er, he has never seen the real thing, but according to common sense, it is definitely unrealistic to write such a huge amount of salt banknotes by hand, and can only be printed in batches. Yes, since you can print salt banknotes, it’s impossible that you can’t print something like mine.

Moreover, both are securities and require anti-counterfeiting. It is technically most appropriate to hand them over to the same printing agency.

"Salt banknotes should be printed by the supervisor of the Ministry of Industry, and they will print them and hand them over to the Tea Salt Lifting Department." Qian Niu'er scratched his head and replied. He had stayed in the palace and had been with some powerful people. Although he was a poor eunuch, he was very good at increasing his knowledge. He had a good understanding of the basic operations of various institutions of the imperial court.

"Ministry of Industry?"

Zhao Dezhao couldn't help frowning and hesitated. He didn't want to hand over this job to the Ministry of Industry, not because he was worried that Zhao Guangyi would reach out too far in the Ministry of Industry and would take the opportunity to make trouble for himself.It's that he doesn't plan to share more of the benefits with the Ministry of Industry, but if you want people to work for you, it's impossible not to share the benefits.

This is so difficult!

Seeing his master's hesitation, Qian Niu'er chuckled: "Master, if you want to get some salt banknotes to make some extra money, don't go to the trouble, just go to the palace and ask for it from the inner treasury officer Chi. Well, he also has a printing house that prints salt banknotes. All you have to do is ask him. For the sake of God, he will give you no matter what—"

Zhao Dezhao suddenly jumped up from his chair and interrupted Qian Niuer in surprise: "You mean, there is also a printing house in the palace printing salt banknotes?"

Qian Nian'er had a strange expression on his face, obviously "Why don't you even know this?"

"Yes, the palace spends so much every year. Every time the inner treasury is short of money, it prints a batch and gives it to the salt merchants to exchange for money. But it has to be done secretly every time. You can't print more, otherwise the ministers They know that they are going to jump their feet, and they have to enter the palace to face-to-face with the Holy Majesty. At that time, the Neiku Superintendent will have to throw out the blame, so as to gag the ministers' mouths, so the Neiku Supervising Ban does not dare to do it with great fanfare. .”

"Actually, this servant feels that those ministers must have known that the palace is secretly printing money, but as long as the palace is not doing too much, they will turn a blind eye and close their eyes as if they don't know, so as to save some face for the Holy Majesty …”

Zhao Dezhao was a bit dumbfounded. Let me stop you. There is such an operation. The financial system of our Song Dynasty is too cohesive. It is a mess!
But at the same time, he felt a little sympathetic to the emperor's father. You see, you are an emperor. You don't have to talk about your money all the year round. If you want to make some extra money, you have to sneak around. You're living a life like this!

"Since you know that the chief official of the inner court is under arrest, I will entrust you with an important matter."

Zhao Dezhao didn't ask any more questions, and put together a stack of the drawings he had just drawn, and handed them to Qian Niu'er.

"These designs, now you take them into the palace and hand them over to the senior officer in charge of the inner treasury, and ask him to immediately gather people to work overnight to make the printing plates. I will see the first samples in the morning! Remember, let him be sure Follow the anti-counterfeiting standards of salt banknotes!"

Qian Niu'er took the stack of patterns with a dazed expression, opened it and glanced at it, which made him even more dazed.

"You have written 'banguan', 'oneguan', 'twoguan', "wuguan" and "shiguan" on it. It looks like something you want to exchange for money, but it doesn't look like It’s a salt banknote, the salt banknote has to be printed with ‘half stone’ and ‘one stone’, how come it’s half and one stone?”

"Who said I'm going to print salt money!"

"Then you are—"

"Tax stamp!"

A tax stamp is a proof of tax payment.

Of course, Zhao Dezhao's invention was copied from the era of his previous life, and he added some small improvements and creativity.

In that era, tax stamps were not unfamiliar to anyone. The "receipt" that everyone had seen was actually a kind of tax stamp.

Zhao Dezhao's idea is very simple and rude.

How is the deed tax collected?Just sell tax stamps.

Your contract has a transaction amount of one hundred guan, and according to the tax rate of [-] out of [-], you have to affix a tax stamp with a denomination of "one guan" on the contract, and then stamp it with a seam seal, which is considered a tax. If you have paid your taxes in full, your deed is considered a valid deed recognized by the government—it is the same thing as putting a stamp on an envelope and then postmarking it to prove that you have paid the postage.

How to control the corruption of tax collectors?That's even simpler. I printed a total of 200 million guan tax stamps with a total face value of "Kaifeng Mansion Special Tax Invoices, valid for the year" and distributed them. When I checked the accounts next year, I found that your Kaifeng Mansion only sold 100 million guan tax stamps. , but you only pay 80 yuan in taxes, then I'm sorry, you, the tax collector in charge of Kaifeng Mansion, have to enjoy the three-piece set of "dismissal and confiscation of home and exile"!

(End of this chapter)