Great time travel

Chapter 50, Qiongya at the Wind and Rain Meeting in All Directions ([-])

PS: Two days ago, I had a bad stomach, vomiting and diarrhea, and caught up with continuous overtime work at night. I really didn't have time to type, so I stopped for a while, and I apologize here.

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Thick smoke billowed and flames shot into the sky.The sound of burning and cracking wood can be heard endlessly.

The scalding heat wave rushed towards us, making it almost impossible for passers-by to approach.

Chen Ji Cloth Shop in Bopu Port is now bathed in a bright flame.

Watching one of the most profitable shops under his name gradually reduced to ashes, Boss Chen, who jumped in a hurry, had to drive away his assistants. Cloth and satin were moved to the street and piled up.

Idlers and spectators who came to watch the fire after hearing the news from all over the place were three floors in and three floors outside the fire site for a while, blocking the street that was not considered spacious in the first place.However, based on the general thinking of Chinese people that "everyone sweeps the snow in front of his own house, and don't care about the frost on the roof of another house", everyone stands with their hands folded, whispering and discussing, but there is no one in a hundred who is willing to lend a helping hand to help put out the fire.As for Boss Chen and the staff of Yigan Cloth Shop, they became ants on the hot pot in a hurry... and the bosses and staff of several surrounding shops also looked worried, as if they were facing an enemy.

——According to the general experience of people in the Ming Dynasty, due to the dense housing in the city, the fire in this city is often a large area when it burns, and it is not just the disaster of the Chen Ji cloth shop.But in the face of such a skyrocketing fire, any amateur is helpless for a while.

At this moment, the professional firefighting team finally arrived!

"...Ding Dong! Make way! Ding Dong! Ding Dong! Make way! We're going to fight the fire!"

With the clear sound of copper bells and the yelling of a strong man, the newly established fire brigade of Bopu Port this year pulled a few human-powered water dragons, struggling to push away the crowds along the way, and finally arrived at the scene of the fire.The bosses of the surrounding shops were immediately overjoyed, and stepped forward to applaud and applaud - very similar to the attire of the fire brigade of later generations. These [-]th-century firefighters recruited and trained by the Traversing Senate also wore orange-red long-sleeved jackets. Wearing a brightly painted red helmet on his head and yellow armbands on his arms, he looks very capable.

Although due to the limitations of technical conditions, their equipment and equipment are a bit shabby, neither dry powder or foam fire extinguishers, nor high-pressure water cannons and fire trucks driving ladders.Even because of limited funds, they didn’t even have animal-drawn carts, so they had to drag the manual pumps mounted on a few carts around by manpower, but they were regular professionals. With their arrival, the onlookers around the fire scene They all breathed a sigh of relief.

However, this [-]th-century fire brigade has a strange thing that is completely different from later generations. On the back of each firefighter's uniform, there is a big "tax" embroidered on the back-yes, in Lingao crossing In the system of the Senate, the fire brigade is attached to the tax authorities!

As for why the "relevant departments" have such a weird way to let a group of tax collectors come to the fire brigade, please read the following to know.

——Seeing that the professional firefighters had arrived, the bosses of other nearby shops seemed to have a backbone, and they hurried up and greeted with a flattering smile. .And the fire chief with a big arm and a round waist rejected their hospitality with an upright face, saying that the firefighting is urgent at the moment... Then, amidst the flattery and flattery of all the shopkeepers and buddies, he led a group of men to every shop around Chen Ji Cloth Shop The roof and walls of the fire were sprayed with water, trying to ensure that the dancing flames would not spread to the shops around the fire.

Strangely, the firefighters turned a blind eye to the Chenji Cloth Store, where the fire was raging at this time, and did not even pour a single hose on the flames.

However, the owner of the cloth shop that was on fire vaguely guessed the reason for this——I saw the battered boss Chen, first sighed with infinite remorse, and then put on a flattering face to greet him. Come up, take out a stack of circulation rolls printed by the "Australian government" from your sleeve, and ask the "superior officials" of the fire brigade to accept it.But the leading captain hurriedly shied away: "...Don't do this, boss, we don't accept bribes!"

Then, the "Traft Tax Officer" who played the guest role of the fire chief, put on a business-like expression, took out a small black leather notebook from his pocket, opened it in public, and then said pretending to be worried, "... I said, Boss Chen, according to the records of the tax department, you haven’t paid a dime in the circulation certificate for six months since the fire prevention tax was levied. what to do?"

When Boss Chen heard this, he felt that his cloth shop seemed to be saved, so he didn't dare to be stingy anymore, and hurriedly took out more circulation rolls from his sleeve, asking the fire chief to accept it with a smile.This time, the upright fire chief accepted it immediately, but then said with a smile: "... well, Boss Chen is a law-abiding person, and the illegal occupation of the cloth piled on the road in your store A fine, I have received it now, and I will transfer it to the person in charge for you later, and I will make up a proof receipt for you by the way, no need to thank me, but what are you going to do with this fire?
Boss Chen, who was already a good fortune, became angry when he heard the bastard's words: This money is for you to pay the fire tax, why do you treat it as a road occupation fee?Besides, I just piled up the goods on the street for a while, so why do I have to pay?This gangster is really vulgar and uneducated, without any kindness... But the current situation is stronger than others, so he can only change into a crying voice and beg for mercy, "...Gentlemen, I know I was wrong! I am wrong! It's all the villain's fault! But the villain's shop is still burning! I beg you, gentlemen, please do me a favor and save my little shop from the fire!"

Although Boss Chen was crying blood, but this thief and tax official who played the guest role of the fire chief seemed to be born with a heart of stone—only he let out a long sigh and replied unhurriedly, "... …Boss Chen! It’s not that we don’t put out fires. The purpose of the Senate’s taxation has always been to collect and use for the people. Are those shops that have paid the fire protection tax sprayed? They are obviously being saved! It’s just that you haven’t paid a dime of fire protection tax since you opened your business. Everyone has followed suit. They usually refuse to pay their debts, and only come crying and begging for help when things come to an end. Where can I collect taxes?"

Hearing that the other party had already made his words so clear, Boss Chen didn't bother to argue, "... Tell me! How many papers are in circulation. This time, my master admits it!"

Unexpectedly, the other party seemed to be determined to see death, so he just continued to yell at him: "...Oh, how much tax should be charged for this, and I am not actually the person in charge of handling it, so how can I explain it clearly? How about this, Boss Chen, hurry up and go to the taxation department, pay the owed taxes and late fees, and then issue a certificate. As long as you have a tax payment certificate, I will definitely help you put out the fire!"

This kind of insincere officialdom cliché immediately fooled poor Boss Chen - what kind of bad idea is this?Now run over to queue up to stamp and pay the tax, and then run back with the certificate?After dawdling for so long, his shop must have been burned to a pile of ashes long ago!
All of a sudden, Boss Chen, who believed that there were a few talented people in his family and was quite arrogant towards others, finally his legs gave way, and he knelt down towards the little official whom he always looked down on, kowtowed repeatedly, and knocked his head on the concrete pavement There was a thumping sound, "... Please! Lord, please save the little dog's life! I don't own this shop alone, and there are many old people in the clan who participated in the shares. Now it's burned down, and I Even losing your life is not enough!"

"... Huh, I really don't cry when I see the coffin! Boss Chen, when we asked you to pay the fire tax, you were so penny-pinching. Not only did you hide like a mouse, you even incited the guys to fight against the tax! Now you know what to do. Come to beg me? Tell you, it's too late!"

The fire chief stood leisurely in front of the raging fire, looked contemptuously at the weeping Boss Chen, and was about to spit at him, but suddenly remembered something, and stopped quickly, "...cough cough, in short, I just want to say In other words, those who have not paid the fire prevention tax will not be put out to fight the fire. Just do it yourself!"

In this way, the newly opened Chenji Cloth Shop in Bopu Port, which was opened less than a year ago, was slowly burned to ashes in the flames and thick smoke, while a heavily armed fire brigade watched helplessly. Struggling to pour water around the fire.To ensure that the surrounding shops will not catch fire...

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A middle-aged man with short shaved hair, wearing a pullover, and dressed as a "naturalized citizen" stood somewhere in a dark street corner away from the fire, watching from a distance that this kind of phenomenon often appears in the American news of later generations, fully proving that The absurdity of "capitalism's inferiority" cannot be understood:

"...Oh, damn it! How dare you refuse to save the dignified gentry just because of the mere tax payment? This gangster is indeed a barbarian from overseas, who doesn't even understand the basic principles of superiority and inferiority! Great Ming Soldier I don't know when we will be able to regain this place, and give the people of Qiongzhou a bright future!"

Just as this loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty, who was lurking deep into the enemy's lair, was sighing in his heart, he finally waited for an old man and a young man who came to join him.Both of them were wearing traditional Ming Dynasty clothes. The old guy was quite energetic, but the tender-faced boy was limping, as if he had a problem with his legs. He also had scars on his face and hands. They were all looking around vigilantly, as if someone would appear at any moment to make things difficult for him.

After the middle-aged man recognized the other party, he hurried over to each other, exchanged a few words with each other, and met the pre-agreed cut signal, and then complained to the old and the young, "...isn't it already written in the letter?" Having said that, the Australian thieves called barbarians from all over the world to gather together, which seems to be harmful to the imperial court. Please send some more people to inquire about the news. Why did the above send you two? Did those gentlemen take this as a What's the matter?"

"...Look at what you said, the news of the Siyi fleet's alliance with Lingao has long been spread on the ground in Guangzhou, and even the governor was alarmed. How could it be possible to send the two of us here? Various yamen gangs sent There must have been at least a hundred spies who came here!"

The old man chuckled, and replied, "...But in order to prevent people from talking too much and leaking the wind, we didn't go all the way, so that if we got caught, we would be caught by the gangster's minions... The superior also ordered that even When we arrive at Lingao, each team should not communicate with each other, as long as we each do our own thing, our team has fewer errands and fewer errands, as long as we can collect some useful information and bring it back, it will be a great achievement... "

"...So that's how it is." The middle-aged man nodded unwillingly, as if he was quite frustrated that his superiors looked down on him so much, but in the end he sighed helplessly, "...and this young leg is What's going on? Could it be that a cripple was really sent over!"

"...Hey, how can this be possible? It's because this kid doesn't have a long memory, he asks for a beating on his own, and when he landed, he got a blow from the gangster!"

The old man knocked on the young man's head angrily, "...before coming here, I have already told him thousands of times, saying that Lingao has strict rules and told him not to urinate anywhere. But I just didn't pay attention , he took off his pants on the side of the street and pulled them everywhere. So the Australian public servants rushed up and beat us up... Fortunately, they didn't ask us to check our household registration papers, otherwise we would be sifting sand and doing hard work right now. It's..."

"...I can't help it, the customs of the Australian thieves are really strict..." The middle-aged man sighed, "...Follow me to find a place to live..."

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At the same time, in the private room on the second floor of a restaurant one street away from the fire site, Comrade Li Wei, the "true-Australian" negotiator in a suit, was also holding a small white porcelain wine cup, admiring the Chen Ji Cloth Shop, which was gradually reduced to ashes in the flames, teased Wen Desi, one of the three giants in Lingao, with a half-smile, "...Mr. Interesting!"

"...Hey, what can I do? It's become a habit for merchants not to pay taxes at the end of the Ming Dynasty. If they pay taxes according to the regulations, they will be ridiculed. In order to correct their wrong ideas in the shortest possible time, we have Sometimes I have to take some strong medicine..."

Wen Desi smiled awkwardly, but he cursed the guy in charge of collecting the fire tax hundreds of times in his heart: Why didn't he set the fire earlier and later, but why did he set the fire at this time?Others are ashamed and thrown to Java, but you are even more powerful, and you threw it to Australia in one breath!

——Speaking of it, although the Lingao Traveler Senate has fully borrowed from the early base construction experience of our party from the very beginning, it has worked hard to develop state-owned enterprises and state-owned farms to develop production and improve its own blood-forming ability, instead of just collecting blood from the people.But with the passage of time, the cities and towns in the base area began to become more and more prosperous, even if it was just to withdraw currency and establish tax concepts, tax collection became a necessity.

You must know that if a country cannot establish in the minds of its citizens the concept that "only death and taxation are inescapable" and form the golden rule that "taxpayers are responsible according to law", then this country is tantamount to abolished—it cannot Let's learn from Chiang Kai-shek's life by printing money crazily during the War of Liberation!And even that Generalissimo Chiang, who had a cramp in his head, didn't forget to exploit and plunder among the people while printing money like crazy!

But the agricultural tax in the countryside is nothing more than that, and the commercial tax in the town is not so easy to collect - after all, compared with the ultra-low commercial tax in the Ming Dynasty (the low commercial tax in the Ming Dynasty does not mean that the merchants in the Ming Dynasty The burden is light, and the routine filial piety that needs to be paid to various yamen can often bankrupt businessmen, but the money basically goes to the government, and it is all intercepted by private individuals. The commercial tax standard can definitely be called extortionate.Businessmen these days are not even willing to pay the "Thirty Taxes and One" business tax of the Ming Dynasty. Even wealthy businessmen with a little bit of status feel ashamed of paying taxes. They would rather bribe officials than pay taxes according to regulations. This tax awareness is simply poor. Could not be worse.

Moreover, merchants at the end of the Ming Dynasty were full of resistance to the imperial court, and various anti-tax group incidents emerged in endlessly. The "Five People's Tablets" in Suzhou, which was once selected as a Chinese textbook for later generations, described a large-scale anti-tax movement in Suzhou. If you don't blame the public, you really dare to beat the imperial envoy to death!
Therefore, collecting business taxes in Lingao sounds simple, but in fact it is full of blood and tears-the tax collectors will fight a big fight every three days or so. For any newly opened shops, if the boss has a little background , Basically, it takes a fight with sticks, knives and guns to let the other party know the rules.The most tragic thing is that a family opened a boxing gym, and beat several groups of tax collectors to the north. The most serious time, the senate of the traversers even had to mobilize the army and push the cannons to the street to intimidate those die-hard merchants. In order to barely allow commercial taxes to be collected smoothly.

In the eyes of the travelers, this kind of blindly violent taxation not only has a bad social impact, but also is costly. Every time you have to pay a lot of errands, medical expenses and pensions, it is really not something that can last for a long time things.

But on the other hand, no matter how high the cost of taxation is, merchants cannot be indulged in tax evasion, otherwise it will quickly become a habit, and in the end it will be the same as the current Ming court, where the treasury is jinglingly poor, but the rich people in the south of the Yangtze River are fattening. Oil, but the court just couldn't collect taxes from Jiangnan.

Therefore, after experiencing several riots caused by violent taxation in a row, everyone in the Lingao Passenger Senate learned from the pain, brainstormed, and finally borrowed from one of the three giants at the end of the ancient Roman Republic, the one who suppressed the slaves of Spartacus. The rebellious Crassus consul, relying on setting fires and fighting fires in Rome to make money, eventually became the "advanced experience" of a generation of wealthy people, and decided to try to levy fire prevention taxes in Lingao County.

Specifically, it is to seize some local Ming Dynasty aborigines who trade in private fire brigades.Then, while setting up a government-run fire brigade under the name of the taxation authority, it apportioned the fire prevention tax to each merchant openly and aboveboard.In order to save tax collection costs, this new tax no longer sends people down to collect it door by door, but allows merchants to voluntarily come to the tax department to pay. As for the consequences of not paying the tax... Well, it seems that no one rescues after the fire ?
Hehe, if you just think like this, you are really naive.The lower limit of a traveler's integrity in some aspects is definitely beyond your expectations: if any merchant insists on not paying taxes, then the "relevant departments" will send the most loyal and reliable elite troops to punish his merchants from time to time. The store organizes arson drills, and if there is nothing to do, send someone to set a fire, and then let the fire brigade watch by just in case (to prevent the fire from spreading and burn the entire street) - in several large After merchants' plot to instigate a strike and attack the Senate was pre-empted by the death threat from the Senate's special forces, the forced tax collection that had caused the chaos every time turned into a voluntary tax payment by everyone.

Of course, after this harmonious atmosphere of "glorious taxation", it is not without a few discordant notes.For example, the Chen Ji Cloth Store in Bopu Port is a strong player in non-violent non-cooperation.The owner of the store, Mr. Chen, seems to have experience in fire fighting. He not only dug a well in the yard, but also installed a large fireproof water tank in front of the warehouse. The fire prevention has reached the highest standard of the folk in the late Ming Dynasty.As a result, the spies sent by the Senate tried to light the fire several times in his shop but failed.It also caused the rest of the merchants on the street to be adversely affected, and hesitated to pay the fire prevention tax.

However, after the Senate sent out the final decisive weapon and threw "*********************************************************************************************************************** at Chen Ji Cloth Shop, this long-term tax-paying nail household It finally caught fire, perfectly achieving the warning effect of killing chickens and monkeys...

However, at this time, His Excellency Wen Desi, sitting in the restaurant and watching such a scene from a distance, was not happy at all—not only because this thing was done too unscrupulously, it was really not worthy of public boasting and celebration, And by coincidence, the "true-Australian people" who came from Australia showed it clearly. Seeing these "Australians" whispering and smiling strangely, it was really embarrassing To the southern hemisphere!

——Although no matter which time travel group, the lower limit of integrity in dealing with the indigenous people in this time and space is very low. For example, in order to reach an armistice peace treaty with the Kingdom of Spain, the East Coast Country in South America betrayed the Indians who fought against the Spaniards side by side with them rebel army.The Huamei in North America also once fanned the flames and provoked wars among European countries in order to make war fortune.Even the newly arrived real-Australian people also cruelly enslaved the Australian aborigines and forced them to work hard in the mines... But the fire brigade part-time arsonist is like the navy part-time pirate and the police part-time robber. It still belongs to the category of only doing but not talking, and now it has become the laughing stock of visitors, which makes people feel a little embarrassed.

"...Ahem, it's a pity that you have seen such an inelegant scene. But, I think, the reason why we both sit here now is not to watch such an insignificant small fire!"

Seeing the strange faces of the "true-Australians", Wen Desi had to cough dryly, and changed the topic, "...Mr. Li Wei, I don't know what you think and ask for the proposal we just made. Is it?"

"...It means that more than 100 of us will give up the base in Australia and move to Lingao with the COSCO Asterisk?"

Li Wei smiled playfully, folded his hands, and put his pillow under his slightly stubbled chin, "...how should I put it? It's not impossible for us to move here, after all, the desolate wilderness of Australia, We are already tired of seeing the hard life of having nothing to do but gnawing on kangaroo meat. It is indeed quite difficult. It is a good thing to be able to return to the roots and the embrace of the motherland.

But the problem is, for this unique 4000-ton modern sailing ship in our hands, as well as the remaining 100 tons of alloy steel and modern machinery on board, and our more than [-] traversers, including many biochemical ( Bio-fuel synthesis), highly educated experts in metal smelting and mining... What kind of price are you willing to offer for such a tangible and intangible wealth that can't be found anywhere in this time and space? "