Chapter 429: 428 [Lushan Villa]

In the court speech Baidi Caiyun, thousands of miles of Jiangling will be returned in one day.

Downstream from the Yangtze River is still very fast, unlike the upstream that often requires trackers to pull. In just a few days, Zhou Hexuan came to Zhang's house in Jiujiang, and Zhang Yuanxi took the whole family to the pier to greet him in person.

"Brother-in-law, you have worked hard all the way!" Zhang Yuanxi's attitude towards Zhou Hexuan was extremely warm, to the point of respect, and he was completely different from before. Although he became the mayor of Jiujiang, he knew the reason for it. Everything was because of Chang Kaishen's face for Zhou Hexuan.

Zhou Hexuan smiled and said: "Second brother is too polite, you are busy with business, why come to pick me up in person." Zhou Hexuan turned his head to greet his mother-in-law again, "Mom, how are you doing recently?"

"Okay, everything is fine." Mother Zhang said with a cheerful smile.

Zhang Leyi smiled at her husband with the child in her arms. Beside her were her fifth younger brother Zhang Yuanmo, sixth younger brother Zhang Yuanfan, and fifth younger sister Zhang Manyi. As for the other brothers and sisters, they were not in Jiujiang.

Everyone went home by car, Zhang Yuanxi asked on the way: "Brother-in-law, is the business in Chongqing going well?"

"It's going well, and I've caught up with Liu Xiang's line." Zhou Hexuan said.

"That's good," Zhang Yuanxi said with a smile, "Now that the Nanjing government has abolished lijin, business will get better and better. Commander-in-Chief Jiang is really good at governing the country!"

Lijin has been around since the time of Qianlong. For example, in the "Battle of Jinchuan and Jinchuan", Lijin was collected in the two lakes to raise military expenses. Speaking of which, Lord Qianlong is really top-notch. His father Yongzheng left such a rich treasury, but he was able to lose it all. In wars, he needed to levy more lijin to allocate it.

As for the flood of lijin, it started from the period of the Tianping Heavenly Kingdom and continued until the Republic of China, and the situation became more and more serious.

What is likin?

That is, local governments or warlords set up likas in their jurisdictions to collect goods taxes from passing merchants. You order a batch of goods from Shanghai to be shipped to Sichuan. Taxes are collected in Jiangsu, taxes are collected in Anhui, taxes are collected in Jiangxi, taxes are collected in Hubei, taxes are collected in Sichuan, and even landing taxes are collected after the shipment reaches the destination. .

These taxes belong to likin, which can collect your doubts about life.

The most disgusting thing is that more than 60% to 70% of the lijin collected by various places is used to support tax collectors and officials for corruption, and only 30% to 40% goes to the local governments and warlords.

Not only that, the high tax is only levied on domestic Chinese businessmen, while only low taxes are levied on foreigners. This has caused even more serious consequences. Foreign goods only need to pay low tariffs and low gold, and the transportation cost is far lower than that of domestic products, so they are aggressively dumped in China to seize the market.

Just on New Year's Day of this year, the Nanjing Nationalist Government not only restored the independence of tariffs, but also ordered the abolition of the national lijin and changed it to a unified commodity tax.

This is not just talk. Lijin was not only quickly abolished in the "National Controlled Areas", but many local warlords were also forced to abolish the lijin system.

There are two reasons why the tax reform policy of the Nanjing government has been carried out so smoothly:

First, foreigners actively urged. Although foreign goods only need to pay a low tax, it is still disgusting enough, and foreign businessmen have long hated it. Even when countries return China's tariff autonomy, they request that the lijin system be abolished;

Second, the promotion of domestic businessmen. Whether it is a big capitalist or an ordinary small businessman, they have long been looking forward to the government's abolition of lijin. The combination of these merchants has great influence, coupled with the express decrees of the central government, even the local warlords dare not openly defy them.

Of course, lijin continued to exist in areas that the Nanjing government could not take care of. It's just that since the central government wants to abolish it, let's abolish it, just change the name and collect it separately-although this is illegal.

Although the "Golden Decade" of the Republic of China was a joke, it is undeniable that the national industry developed very rapidly during these ten years. One of the most important points is the abolition of the lijin system and China's withdrawal of tariff autonomy.

In order to encourage exports and increase foreign exchange, the Nanjing government has gone crazy: for goods shipped from China to foreign countries, except for flour, which can be halved, all other domestic products, including cigarettes, cotton yarn, matches, and cement, are all tax-free.

As for foreign imports, except for some scarce goods, the tariffs on all other types of goods are doubled. This has greatly improved the competitiveness of domestic products, which is a hundred times more eye-catching than the bad Beiyang government.

So, the Kuomintang is the spokesperson of bureaucratic capital. Most of the domestic products have shares of officials, so why not support it?

Chang Kaishen also had political considerations for abolishing the lijin system. That is to cut off the financial resources of local forces from the root, weaken the strength of local warlords, and strengthen the central government's supervision of the local economy to increase the central government's fiscal revenue.

Alas, this forced local warlords to increase fines for smoking bans (opium taxes), and some simply took the lead in growing opium themselves.

Take Liu Xiang's uncle Liu Wenhui as an example. The classic saying of this person is: the house of the government is better than the school, and the county magistrate will execute the law on the spot!

But the actual situation is that Liu Wenhui's territory is full of opium, and his troops are supported by selling opium, and they also support tens of thousands of smokers in Sichuan.

What is a smoker? Those responsible for planting, producing, transporting, and selling opium, and even bodyguards who specialize in protecting the opium trade, can all be called smokers, and there are at least a million practitioners across the country.

This is a smoky and bizarre world.

...

Putting aside gossip, Zhang Yuanxi asked the driver to drive directly to Guling, Lushan Mountain.

When everyone came to a garden villa, Zhang Yuanxi smiled and asked, "Brother-in-law, are you satisfied with this place?"

"Here?" Zhou Hexuan asked in confusion.

Zhang Yuanxi explained: "The summer house is specially built for you. In the summer, you can bring Le Yi and Wei Lie here. The climate here is pleasant and the summer is very cool. It is a good place for leisure and relaxation."

"Then thank you very much." Zhou Hexuan accepted it generously.

After walking around the villa, Zhou Hexuan realized that it was very big. Covering an area of ​​at least 10,000 square meters, there are two century-old trees standing in the courtyard, which were directly enclosed when the villa was built, so it looks very natural and quiet.

The main body of the small western-style building has only three floors, with a construction area of ​​about 1,500 square meters. What a waste!

Not far in front of the villa, there is a Changchong River with clear water and beautiful scenery. When staying here to escape the summer heat, you can go fishing by the river or go boating to see the scenery of mountains and rivers.

Near Zhou Hexuan's villa, there is another garden villa. It is said that there is a couple of foreigners and doctors living there. Well, that villa will change owners in a few years, and will be renamed "Meilu" by a bald man surnamed Jiang.

Zhou Hexuan was very satisfied with his new home, and couldn't help but stay in Lushan for another half a month. It was quite pleasant to accompany his wife fishing and boating.

Zhang Leyi seemed to be in a particularly happy mood. It was only her, her husband and son here, and she didn't have to worry about any troubles. She even hoped to spend her whole life in Lushan like this.

Fortunately, Shanghai sent the translation of "Titanic" to Jiujiang, and Zhou Hexuan could read it while accompanying his wife and children.