Chapter 421: Businessmen’s Discussion
In the morning, Xiao Xia took a boat with the officials to inspect the Yangtze River docks in Jiangdu. There were seven large docks on the north bank of the Yangtze River. Fleets of ships were coming in an endless stream, fully loaded with goods, heading to the docks. In the distance, the laborers on the docks were busy like ants, unloading the goods from the ships and transporting them to warehouses.

Pier No. 3 has just been transferred to the Jiangnan Province General Administration Office, while the adjacent Pier No. 1 belongs to the imperial court and is managed by the General Administration Office. These two piers are currently the busiest piers, and money, grain, and cloth from various counties in Jiangnan Province are being transported to the two piers in a steady stream.

The counties did not want to withhold the money and taxes from the court. On the contrary, they were all very active in transporting the money and taxes to Jiangdu. This was actually a way to transfer the risk. The tax data had long been reported to the court, and the provincial governors and high-ranking officials were eager to transport it away quickly. Every day the money and taxes were stored in the county was a day of risk, and their official hats would be unstable.

The rental income from the official fields and houses was the subsidy for the county’s slush fund. Even if Xiao Xia shouted at the top of his lungs and put a knife to their necks, they would never hand over the rental income to the General Administration’s Office.

Of course, not all taxes were paid to the imperial court. This involved separate accounts between the imperial court and local governments. The Ministry of Revenue was responsible for the accounting, while the specific allocation of money and grain was in the hands of the Transfer Commissioner. It was impossible to send all the money and grain to the imperial court and then send it back to the counties. That would not only be time-consuming and laborious, but also result in huge losses, so they were generally stored in transfer warehouses in various places.

From an official perspective, the Sui Dynasty was far richer and more powerful than the Tang Dynasty. The Sui Dynasty had a large population, and more importantly, the court controlled far more taxpayers than the Tang Dynasty. A large number of self-cultivating farmers provided the Sui Dynasty with a steady stream of taxes and manpower. Especially in terms of expenditure, the Sui Dynasty had much less than the Tang Dynasty. The Sui Dynasty had almost no military expenditure, a complete military system, and no need to pay military salaries. In contrast, in the Tang Dynasty, military expenditure alone accounted for more than half of the court’s expenditure.

Therefore, the huge wealth of the Sui Dynasty was able to be accumulated and used until the time of Wu Zetian.

In Hexi, Xiao Xia had already agreed with the emperor on the tax distribution ratio between Jiangnan Road and the imperial court. It was a 40:60 split. The local share included the money for dredging the canal and the military expenses of the Jin Wang army. The other roads were split 30:70, and the same was true for Hebei Road. King Yang Liang of Qi could not stand up straight because he did not eliminate the Tuyuhun threat to the imperial court, nor did he expand the territory for the imperial court.

Xiao Xia inspected the docks and warehouses. The money, grain and cloth in the warehouses were already piled up like mountains. At this rate, the money, grain and taxes from all counties would be delivered within a month.

Xiao Xia said to Gao Jiong, “Did Lord Gao notice that the supplies we brought here are basically just money, food and cloth, with almost no other supplies.”

Gao Jiong nodded. “Money, grain and cloth are taxes. The report has long been submitted to the Ministry of Revenue. They have nothing to do with the local government. Of course, they don’t want to keep them for the court, so they are very active in transporting them here. As for other materials, they are not included in the report to the court, so they naturally don’t want to transport them abroad. Isn’t the purpose of the liquidation and verification of assets requested by Your Highness?”

Liu Wenjing also said: “When it comes to their own interests, they will definitely not be proactive and will delay as much as possible. They are not proactive in our request for liquidation and verification of assets. After we sort out the affairs of the General Administration Office and the dredging of the canal, we will send a liquidation team to each county to liquidate the warehouse materials.”

Xiao Xia nodded, “We have a myriad of things to do, but first we need to lay a solid foundation. The foundation consists of two parts. One part is ourselves, with a complete staffing and sufficient finances. The other part is our prestige. The decrees we issue must be implemented to the letter by all counties, and no one is allowed to disobey them in secret.”

Zhang Yunqiu also said: “Official power is very important. If we don’t have it, local officials won’t be afraid of us. Your Highness should clarify our official power with the emperor. If we can’t get the official power at the county level, we should at least get it at the county level.”

Currently, the administrative powers obtained by the Jiangnan General Administration Office are the powers of supervision and assessment. Xiao Xia also has the power of emergency suspension, but no other powers of recall and appointment. He certainly cannot get the power of appointment, so he must at least strive for the power of recall at the county level. You cannot touch the official hats of the officials below, so who is afraid of you!
Xiao Xia pondered for a moment and said, “I will write a memorial to the emperor first! If necessary, I will transport money and grain to Luoyang in the spring of next year and have a good talk with the court.” At this time, Xiao Xia saw that the time was almost up, so he smiled and said, “Let’s go back! I will have a discussion with the wealthy families in Jiangdu in the afternoon, everyone come together!”

In the afternoon, the Jin Wang meeting hall in the General Administration Mansion was packed with more than twenty big businessmen from Jiangdu who were invited by Jin Wang Xiao Xia to have a discussion. Of course, the heads of the three families of Xiao, Liu and Chen were also included.

In addition to King Jin Xiao Xia, Gao Jiong, Liu Wenjing and Zhang Yunqiu also attended the symposium.

The hall fell silent. Xiao Xia smiled and said, “The two most important tax-collecting areas of the Great Sui Dynasty are Hebei Province and Jiangnan Province. Both are governed by princes. The emperor did not ask us to manage these two areas. They do not need management, but development, trust enhancement, and hatred elimination. The potential of both Hebei Province and Jiangnan Province has not been tapped. I don’t care about Hebei Province, but Jiangnan Province is my mission. My mission is to make Jiangnan Province more prosperous within five or six years. Only prosperity can win people’s hearts and eliminate hatred. I want to hear your opinions. Please feel free to speak your mind and don’t be afraid of offending anyone.”

Xiao Xia looked around at everyone and said to Xiao Gui, “Patriarch Xiao, please speak first!”

Xiao Gui nodded and said slowly: “Then I will throw out some ideas and say a few words first!”

Everyone’s eyes turned to Xiao Gui. Xiao Gui was currently the deputy head of the family. The head of the family, Xiao Cong, had gone to Luoyang to serve as prime minister. The Jiangdu Xiao family had produced a queen and a prime minister, and was truly the richest family in Jiangnan, but they were just very low-key.

“I think Jiangdu’s prosperity is mainly due to business. Jiangnan doesn’t have as many manors as the north. There are very few manors in Jiangnan. They are either small landlords or self-employed farmers, while the wealthy families basically make their fortunes through business.

For business, the most important thing is transportation. The Jiangnan Canal is indeed seriously silted up. As far as we can remember, in the early years of Kaihuang, the Jiangnan Canal could accommodate six fleets in parallel. Now, many sections of the river can only accommodate two fleets in parallel. In addition, the boat operators occupy the river surface, so blockages often occur, and once they occur, they last for several days.

The eight thousand rolls of silk we bought in Wuxing County have not yet reached the Yangtze River in half a month. It is really frustrating. We heard that Your Highness wants to widen the Shanyang Canal. Actually, the Shanyang Canal is not very urgent. After all, it was just dredged during the Kaihuang period, and the fleet is very smooth. What is urgent is the Jiangnan Canal. If Your Highness wants to make Jiangnan prosperous within five years, then you must start dredging the Jiangnan Canal now and cannot delay it until next year. “

With Xiao Gui’s first speech, Liu Xuan, the head of the Liu family, also spoke up: “In addition to transportation, the factors that affect the development of commerce are commercial taxes and miscellaneous fees. I will not talk about commercial taxes for now, but miscellaneous fees. Now there are checkpoints in each county, on land, on water, and at the city gates. The commercial tax is only 5 cents, but the miscellaneous fees collected by various checkpoints are at least five or six times or even ten times the commercial tax. After a fleet comes out, it is covered with scars, just like being tortured by lingchi. He cuts one, you cut one, and you can’t do business. What’s more, it’s unfair. No one dares to touch the fleets of the court dignitaries, who only deal with ordinary merchants.”

Liu Xuan’s remarks drew a consensus, and everyone spoke up, denouncing the numerous checkpoints in the counties and the exploitation of merchants.

(End of this chapter)