Chapter 433: The Royal Blood is Noble
In the house.
Sang Hongyang sat at the top and said to the Jiaodong King and others at the bottom with a smile: "Your Majesty, I came to Qi to investigate the commercial taxes under your order. I found some trivial matters about the palace a few days ago, so I came to ask about it."
After saying this, he handed some evidence to the King of Jiaodong. The Queen, who was sitting next to him, took it and flipped through it quickly, saying angrily, "What a traitor! They deceived the palace. If it weren't for the investigation by the Minister of Agriculture, we would have been deceived to this extent by these traitors. We really failed the grace of the Emperor."
Sang Hongyang was startled when he heard this, and then asked: "What the queen said, does it mean that the palace is unaware of the actions of these cunning people?"
The queen raised her eyebrows and asked in a cold voice, "What the Minister of Agriculture said, does it mean that he suspects that the royal palace deliberately evaded the court's taxes and is escaping responsibility here?
You can eat whatever you want, but you can't say whatever you want. You want to alienate the feelings between the royal brothers and stir up trouble between the vassal states and the court. What does the Grand Minister of Agriculture want to do?
Do you want to eradicate the Han clan and go back to the tyrannical Qin Dynasty?
If the world falls into ruin one day, will we rely on our clan members to save it? Will we rely on a minister like you who comes from the Legalist school?"
A series of accusations were directly pinned on Sang Hongyang. The first part was reasonable and well-founded, but the last sentence directly angered Sang Hongyang.
The Legalists are now being discriminated against everywhere. Many disciples of the Legalists have changed their schools, learned the doctrines of other schools, and become core disciples of other schools. They can really be described as scattered like stars in the sky.
But what should the Legalist sages do?
There is still no place for the Legalist sages in the temple of all philosophers. From the emergence of Legalist doctrine to its gradual demise, this school of thought has never been recognized by the mainstream academic community.
In other words, the Luo family always disliked it, but what made Sang Hongyang feel very aggrieved was that it was obvious that various schools of thought were plagiarizing many Legalist classics!
At most, it is not as extreme as the Legalist school of thought.
Sang Hongyang said coldly: "Queen of Jiaodong, the Han Dynasty relies on the sword in my hand and the Han law in my hand, not your few words of advice.
Whether the Jiaodong Palace is involved will be determined by the results of the investigation. Since the Prince of Jiaodong is unwilling to cooperate, please go back.
You are your Majesty's elder brother and a descendant of the royal family. Could it be that I, a minister, would disregard the hierarchy and imprison you here?"
The Queen of Jiaodong felt a pang in her heart. After Sang Hongyang came to Qi, many people were trembling with fear, but she didn't care at all. A minister had no right to get involved in the affairs of the royal family. What she was worried about was the emperor's attitude. Her attitude towards Sang Hongyang was to test whether Sang Hongyang had enough confidence.
If it is not enough, it proves that the emperor has no idea, but if Sang Hongyang is particularly strong and dares to respond directly, it means that the emperor wants to take action.
Sang Hongyang's attitude now set off alarm bells in her heart. She was sure that the emperor must have secretly told Sang Hongyang, or at least hinted to him!
She turned around and left, her face as gloomy as water. Seeing that even the usually strong queen had this expression, the King of Jiaodong was even more terrified, and said in a trembling voice: "Queen, why don't we go back to Sang Hongyang and have a good discussion? I'm sure he will understand our difficulties."
Seeing the King of Jiaodong like this, the Queen frowned and said coldly: "What does this have to do with Sang Hongyang? Jiaodong is a big country in Qi, a rare county country among the kings of the world. Can such a kingdom be shaken by a mere minister?"
The King of Jiaodong was just a coward, but he was not stupid. He immediately understood the implication of the Queen's words and was terrified. He was dumbfounded and asked, "What should I do?"
The queen closed her eyes slightly and said coldly: "What else can I do?
If you can bear it, bear it. If you can't bear it, commit suicide. As long as you and I die, the palace can survive.
"My fifth brother committed a serious mistake in the past, but he was only promoted from a vassal king to a marquis. If the emperor dares to kill or exile a vassal king for indirectly evading taxes, everyone in the world will be in danger."
There is a principle in the law of punishment that the punishment should be determined according to the crime. For example, murderers should be punished by death, but thieves cannot be sentenced to death, and slanderers cannot be sentenced to death. If all crimes were punishable by death, then the law would become a joke.
The same laws apply to the princes. If they evade taxes, their entire family will be killed. If they rebel, their entire family will also be killed. So why not rebel?
But even so, the King of Jiaodong still looked at his wife in shock. Suicide seemed insignificant in her mouth. The Queen of Jiaodong seemed to know what her husband was thinking and said lightly: "Born in a royal family, this is our destiny. In this world, except for the Luo family, there is no one who is always invincible. Do you have an ancestor of the Supreme God?
Have you accomplished enough merit to be admitted into Zhaocheng for refuge?
Do you have Luo's blood flowing in your body?
Since there is no such thing, then we should face everything calmly. Even if the emperor wants to kill us, it is not that simple. Until we are dead, who dares to say that they will definitely win?
It’s a pity that I was born a girl, otherwise I would definitely go to Chang’an and travel around the world.”
The queen's open-mindedness is totally incomparable to that of others. If she were an outstanding woman during the Zhou Dynasty, she would most likely become the queen of Zhou or marry into the Luo Kingdom. Sometimes when she read history books, she would feel a little regretful and feel that she was born at the wrong time, but this emotion was quickly suppressed because people always have to look forward.
In this somewhat dull atmosphere, the convoy of the Jiaodong Palace slowly left Beihai County.
There was murderous intent in Sang Hongyang's eyes. Just as the Queen of Jiaodong had guessed, he had been thinking about finding something to hold against the King of Jiaodong from the very beginning. However, he did not expect that the Queen of Jiaodong would actually lay all these things out in the open, which made him very angry.
He had originally been thinking about completing the emperor's hint without leaving any trace and letting the King of Jiaodong commit suicide. However, with the Queen's interference, even if the King of Jiaodong committed suicide, the Han royal family would blame him for it.
Thinking of this, Sang Hongyang rubbed his head. He was not afraid. Students of the Legalist school were never afraid of having many enemies. They only cared about whether they could be in power when they should be in power and enjoy when they should enjoy.
Shang Yang offended so many old nobles in the Qin State, but he still implemented his new laws. The worst that could happen was death!
It doesn't matter if you are cooked in five tripods after death. The most terrifying thing is that you cannot eat from five tripods while you are alive. This is Sang Hongyang's creed.
A large-scale search and seizure began, and Sang Hongyang gave the order.
…
Chang'an.
The emperor received a letter from Sang Hongyang, which roughly described the gains of the trip. Even though Liu Dan was prepared, he was still extremely shocked to see so much money, grain and cloth.
His first reaction was that these merchants in Qi were really rich!
When he was a vassal king in the Northern Yan Kingdom, he had never seen so much money and grain. The difference between the merchants in the north and those in Qi was simply heaven and earth.
"This is just the counties and states in Qi. If dozens or hundreds of counties and states across the country were to conduct tax audits, how much money and grain would be obtained?"
No one could resist the temptation of unexpected wealth, so Liu Dan immediately sent someone to encourage Sang Hongyang, and then sent another copy to the Grand Mercantile Bureau to motivate him.
Sang Hongyang not only described the collection of commercial taxes, but also wrote in a letter: "Your Majesty, I suggest that the tax be paid according to the assets of the rich households in the world. For every 2,000 coins, 100 to 200 coins of asset tax can be collected. This amount of money is not much for the rich households, but a little bit of it can greatly enrich the treasury."
As a master of making money, Sang Hongyang said that if taxes should be collected, they should be collected from merchants. How much money can farmers have?
The previous Han court only had transaction taxes but no asset taxes. Sang Hongyang felt that this was not acceptable because asset taxes were the big part of the tax because many wealthy households held many valuable items that had not been traded for many years and it was not possible not to pay taxes on these items.
Liu Dan was uneducated and naturally did not understand the twists and turns of economics, but he could understand what Sang Hongyang said in the letter: this policy could bring a hundredfold profit. Whether it was fighting a war or building a palace, a lot of money was needed, and Liu Dan accepted all offers.
So he wrote in a big way, "You should implement it in Qi first, and then spread it across the country after you return to Chang'an."
At the end of the letter, Sang Hongyang wrote about the possible involvement of the King of Jiaodong, and specifically pointed out that the King of Jiaodong was unwilling to admit it. "The King of Jiaodong is rampant and does not take the law of the country seriously. I will rebuke him and report this to Your Majesty. I hope Your Majesty will forgive his sins."
Liu Dan replied in silence: "The law of the country is the most important, the country is the most important, you can do as you please."
The messenger rushed back to Beihai County with the letter. Sang Hongyang opened it and immediately felt relieved. He called his subordinates and said, "Take out all the evidence we have collected about the Jiaodong Palace in recent days, and first arrest those merchants who work for the Jiaodong Kingdom."
These clerks brought from Chang'an will show no mercy. They are all from Guanzhong and have made a fortune by raiding merchants' homes in recent days. Now when they hear that they are going to take action against the King of Jiaodong, they are all very excited.
Jiaodong Kingdom.
Sang Hongyang's actions made the Queen of Jiaodong realize that the emperor had made up his mind. She told her husband about this, and the King of Jiaodong cried bitterly, "Queen, what should I do?"
The queen said in a deep voice: "Your Majesty, cheer up, you are the heir of Emperor Xiaowu.
Emperor Xiaowu, a great hero, how could you be so cowardly?
It's just life and death!
With your current attitude, no wonder the late emperor didn’t like you, I really…”
"Father is the reincarnation of the Holy King. How can I compare with him?"
The queen said coldly, "At this point, there is no other way. You have absolutely no chance of survival. It would be better to hang yourself, so you can still leave some dignity.
The emperor is doing such a perverse thing. I want to see how long he can last. I want to see how long the righteous people in this world can tolerate him. "
————
In the first year of Yuanzheng, the King of Jiaodong was imprisoned and Hongyang denounced him. The king was worried and hanged himself in the state. The people were in an uproar and asked to kill Hongyang, but the emperor did not agree. He gave the king the posthumous title of "Dao" and took five counties from the kingdom to establish Jiaobei County. The Jiaodong State still followed the old system.
People at that time said: "The blood of the king of Jiaodong makes Hongyang noble."
When the emperor heard about it, and also heard about the old song of King Li of Jiujiang, he was furious and killed dozens of people who slandered him. Then the emperor stopped and became closer to Hongyang. - "Book of Han: Biography of Sang Hongyang"
(End of this chapter)
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