Song Zhong looked at the big merchants who kept coming in, and his eyes almost narrowed with laughter.

Unlike later generations, in the Ming Dynasty, wealthy people really hid themselves and were extremely low-key.

In addition, due to the restrictions of the Ming Dynasty's clothing system, it was impossible to see people wearing gold and silver or having luxurious clothes.

Just like the shopkeepers who just entered, they are usually the managers of a restaurant. On weekdays, they wear a linen robe and smile at everyone they meet, even ordinary people. Sometimes they can talk to them after drinking.

I didn't see any unusual reaction from him, and he greeted me with a smile after all.

It would be very difficult for the Jinyiwei to investigate these things. They can't really investigate everyone in the capital. Not to mention the workload, it would not be very meaningful.

Now, it’s much easier.

Song Zhong also knew that most of these shopkeepers were in the open, and there must be someone behind the scenes who had not come out. But it didn't matter. He could follow the clues and at least he had found them.

"Your Highness, this move is really quick. To make some money in the capital, you need fame. Now that Zhengyang Avenue has been renovated, the houses on both sides are priced sky-high, which is equivalent to the face of the brand."

"If there are no shops on both sides of this avenue, who dares to say that they are famous?"

Song Zhong sighed to himself.

When it comes to making money, who can compare with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince? Touching the new clothes on his body, Song Zhong felt extremely comfortable.

As New Year's Day is approaching, the Jinyiwei will all be given an extra month's salary as a New Year reward, and other benefits remain unchanged.

This made everyone very motivated, and they thought about solving some cases to report back to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

"Boss, I heard that the superiors intend to arrange a special fund after the New Year. Is this true?"

A captain saw that Song Zhenfu was in a good mood and asked bravely.

As soon as the news of this incident came out in the Jinyiwei Yamen, it spread quickly and the brothers were very excited when they heard it.

In fact, the Jinyiwei had funding before, but the amount was rather tight.

Now it is His Royal Highness the Crown Prince who takes action. Can the feeling be the same?

"Don't worry about the funding, brothers. Since His Royal Highness has spoken of this, he will definitely not be vague. We, the Jinyiwei, are His Royal Highness's loyal confidants and will not treat you badly."

Song Zhong said with great responsibility.

The reason why he dared to say this was probably because the arrangements made by the Crown Prince had already been in place, with a special fund of 2 million strings of cash available for expenditure next year.

The biggest subsidies here are intelligence and pensions.

The intelligence in the past brought almost no money, but now, it will be reclassified into several levels, and the high-level intelligence is said to be worth thousands of strings of cash.

Thinking of this, Song Zhong's smile became even more intense.

"With what Envoy Song said, we brothers can rest assured. If the brothers below ask about this matter, we can have an explanation so that we don't have to be confused and worry about it every day."

"Boss, you don't know that the brothers below are feeling a little unbalanced now that they see the treatment of ordinary soldiers is almost catching up with ours."

The thousand households next to him said.

Originally, the treatment of the Jinyiwei was the highest among all the guards in the entire Ming Dynasty, and the only one that could be compared with it was the Xiaolingwei.

Now, because of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, the treatment of the guards in the capital has skyrocketed.

There is no need to compare with the Black Armor Guards. They are the personal guards directly under His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, and even the name was given by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince himself.

But the treatment in other garrisons is getting better and better.

Not to mention three meals a day, but every meal was filled with meat and fish, as if I were eating out every day. It was truly a godly life.

What does it matter if you are a little bit hard and tired? Who can be relaxed?

Besides, the Jinyiwei themselves were doing things that offended people, and they had to suffer grievances from time to time. They also had to do a lot of dirty and tiring work.

"I'll explain it to the brothers later. Everyone will have the benefits before the New Year. This is the consideration of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. He also understands that everyone has worked hard for a year. However, after the New Year, the entire Jinyiwei will face an assessment."

"The content of the assessment is unknown, but if you fail the assessment, not to mention being promoted to the Imperial Guard, you will be directly relegated to the bottom of the society and will not be able to enjoy many benefits."

Having said this, Song Zhong paused for a moment, and then said in a deep voice: "Even you guys should go back and not slack off."

"Everyone, including me, needs to pass the assessment."

Hearing this, several thousand households and hundred households became a little nervous.

But when I thought about it, I found that the Crown Prince was still very reliable.

It is conceivable that some brothers of the Jinyiwei will definitely be eliminated in this assessment, but His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is kind and righteous, so this assessment was not carried out before the New Year, but after the New Year.

Let the brothers of Jinyiwei, no matter what the results of the assessment are, at least they can get this year's benefits.

…

"Grandson, your idea is really good. This way, we can quickly find out the details of these big merchants."

Zhu Yuanzhang said to Zhu Ying with a smile.

It doesn't mean that these merchants must be executed, but if they are under the surveillance of the Ming government, many things will be easier to handle.

Zhu Yuanzhang never looked down on businessmen. It was precisely because he was afraid of them and did not understand business that he increased his efforts to suppress them.

Now following the path of his eldest grandson, Zhu Yuanzhang increasingly felt the benefits of being proficient in business. Large amounts of money and materials began to gather towards the capital under the step-by-step arrangements of his eldest grandson.

The Ministry of Revenue and the Imperial Treasury collected more and more silver.

Because the Qunying Chamber of Commerce paid all taxes on time, the Ministry of Revenue had to collect at least hundreds of thousands of strings of cash in commercial taxes every month just from the Qunying Chamber of Commerce in the capital.

The capital alone can currently provide the Ministry of Revenue with 2 million strings of treasure notes every year.

This is going to solve so many problems.

The most important thing is that the house on Zhengyang Avenue has not yet started construction, and Dasun’s several factories are still under preparation because of the winter.

It is conceivable that when the factory was opened, the tax revenue here increased.

When it came to paying taxes, Zhu Ying never used his status as the crown prince to fail to pay taxes. Instead, he strictly checked and required all taxes to be paid in full, not even a penny less.

It is also because of the actions of the Qun Ying Chamber of Commerce that other chambers of commerce are complaining.

In this way, many of the tricks that have been used before can no longer be used. No matter what, you will have to pay more than before.

Every time those businessmen pay taxes, they feel like their hearts are bleeding.

Even if it was just one more penny, this would have been something that could have been easily escaped before.

The government has also begun to pay great attention to commercial taxes, and it has become much more difficult for ordinary businessmen to evade taxes.

There is no such thing as legal tax avoidance.

No matter what your reason is, you have to pay a certain amount of tax to pass.

After all, generally speaking, tax officials don’t care about so many things and are too lazy to argue.

It won’t work if you don’t pay.

"Grandpa, there is no problem in the business sector at present. The most critical issue is the evil intentions of these scholars to run the school behind the scenes."

Zhu Ying said in a deep voice.

He has received news that the news about the school has spread everywhere and there is a lot of resistance.

Zhu Yuanzhang said disdainfully: "Even if it's those idiots in the Hanlin Academy, what can they do? Their actions have been recorded in the files by the Jinyiwei. We have also seen that they can't cause any trouble."

Zhu Ying shook his head and said, "Nothing has happened in the capital yet, but we have just received news that someone has thoroughly analyzed the matter of the school and spread it everywhere through the channels of the business association."

"After the New Year and Lantern Festival, I'm afraid that local resistance will have formed and it will be difficult to promote development."

Zhu Yuanzhang frowned and said, "But we have found out who spread the news. Jinyiwei are useless and don't even know such news."

Zhu Ying shook his head and said, "The Imperial Guards monitor all officials, so they have little contact with merchants. The news this time was initially spread within the merchant group."

"But there are no pure businessmen these days. They are mostly controlled by the literati behind the scenes. Many talented people in the family may not have retired yet, so it is difficult to find them."

"There are quite a few smart people. But my grandson never thought that he could get into school by hiding it."

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded. Anyone with a broad perspective could see the trick here. Even if the affairs of the court were suppressed, it would be difficult to prevent them from spreading outside.

It’s just that the court officials might be a little more cautious.

"Grandson, have you thought of a countermeasure?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked later.

Zhu Ying smiled bitterly and said, "There is no good way to break this situation. We can only suppress it with the right way and then proceed slowly."

It is impossible to completely change the way of selecting officials in the Ming Dynasty all at once.

This requires that after arriving at the place, there will definitely be some deterioration.

Even Zhu Ying himself could not guarantee whether the people in the Chamber of Commerce would be infiltrated. Moreover, many heads of branches of local chambers of commerce had already begun to make small moves in secret.

In this regard, we can only rely on self-examination.

Fortunately, although the Chamber of Commerce is affiliated with Zhu Ying, strictly speaking it is the Royal Chamber of Commerce, but as long as it is not officially named, it will be the Qun Ying Chamber of Commerce, but it has a very powerful background.

The concepts and many rules involved are different.

If the name is correct, the Qun Ying Chamber of Commerce will be equivalent to the concept of a state-owned enterprise, and its members will also have a system, no different from officials. Now, no matter what, those shopkeepers are still businessmen, at least they cannot interfere with the government.

Even though he is not despised like other businessmen because of the Chamber of Commerce, at least on the surface, he is relatively respected.

This is also a limit, a limit that Zhu Ying feels.

He did not want the status of merchants to be too low, but he would never let it be too high, even higher than the local government itself. In internal punishments, those who abused their power for personal gain were often severely punished according to the law.

The whistleblower can get half of the confiscated property, minus the money used to make up for the proceeds of corruption.

Such a system forces those at higher levels, such as heads of local branches, to be more cautious when doing things.

But in this regard, the false accusation is equally guilty.

New Year's Eve.

When the day dawned, the originally hot capital city seemed like a blazing fire in this cold winter.

On the streets, people are coming and going, walking shoulder to shoulder.

Even the poorest people wore clothes that looked clean and tidy.

The Spring Festival is an important festival for all ethnic groups in the Central Plains.

It's not just the Han people, all the people in the Central Plains dynasties are like this.

The Ming Dynasty was the first multi-ethnic united dynasty.

Mongols, Jurchens, Khitans, Han Chinese, Turks, Semites and other ethnic groups were very common in the capital.

Even Persians, Arabs, and even people from farther places are not uncommon.

This is the Ming Dynasty, the capital of the Central Plains dynasty.

When her potential was tapped and effectively controlled, people were surprised.

It turns out that our capital is so prosperous.

The government had long ago notified that the houses on both sides of Zhengyangmen to Waiwulong Square were to be demolished.

But that was after the New Year.

The owner of the shop deeds here has received full compensation, which is really difficult to do in today's world.

All of them sang praises to the court’s kindness.

As for the so-called nail households and those who raise the price arbitrarily, they do not exist and are impossible to exist.

No matter whether you are in your seventies or eighties, or a three-year-old child, if you try to raise the price and try to stop us, we will just break your legs and throw you out, and you won't even get any mercy from others.

Nowadays, there are painters painting in front of the shops on both sides. In the days when there were no cameras, the only way to preserve the memories was to paint.

These shops, which are located in prime locations, were controlled by Nanjing locals and were not forcibly expropriated, thanks to Zhu Yuanzhang's generosity when he entered the city.

Because Zhu Yuanzhang had already designated this place as the capital at that time, and did not want to cause public resentment, after the war, he focused on appeasement. Moreover, when Zhu Yuanzhang founded the country, he had already intended to recognize the Yuan Dynasty as the orthodox dynasty in the Central Plains.

Naturally, he would not allow his subordinates to rob and plunder.

These Nanjing people have a special feeling for shops.

After the first shop owner hired a painter to paint for them, other shop owners began to hire painters everywhere, which made the painter industry suddenly become popular.

"Why should you, a painter from the Western barbarians, be paid a hundred more coins than our Ming Dynasty painters?"

"You know that a painting by an ordinary painter only costs a few dozen coins. Today is a good day, and we can all have a happy ending. It will cost a hundred coins each. You still want two hundred coins from me. Do you really think that I am easy to bully?"

A dispute broke out in front of a shop.

It turned out to be a Western barbarian, carrying what looked like painting tools on his back. He recommended himself, saying that he could also paint, but his price was one hundred coins higher than others.

The Western barbarian saw more and more people gathered around him, and instead of being afraid, he looked pleased. He replied in fluent Mandarin with a slight accent, "Sir, please take a look at my paintings first."

"If you are not satisfied, I won't charge you a penny. If you are satisfied, you can pay my price. Is that ok?"

The shopkeeper looked at the crowds and wished that the entrance to his shop would be even busier. Was this matter worth a hundred coins? He nodded and said, "Okay, I'll do as you say."

Upon hearing this, the Western Yi painter bowed to the crowd of people watching and said, "Please all the elders and fellow villagers, be a witness."

There were immediate cheers from the crowd.

Everyone wants to see what the differences are between the paintings of these Western painters and those of the Ming Dynasty painters. They are so mysterious.

The Western painter set up his easel confidently, and there was not much difference between him and the Ming Dynasty painter.

The paper is from the Ming Dynasty, but the pen is not from the Ming Dynasty.

"How can this Western barbarian use a piece of charcoal to paint? It's really strange."

"This charcoal painting, will it burn up by itself soon? And perform a magic trick for us?"

"Just wait and see. Just wait and see."

Under the gaze of the people around him, the Western painter took the charcoal and quickly began to paint on the paper.