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Volume 1: Fierce Battle in Changsha Chapter 575: Inspection of Customs

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    Standing in front of the Shanghai Customs Office located in the north of the Yangtze River, on the Bund of Shanghai, Xiao Yungui's thoughts returned to government affairs.  This was the original site of the Manchu and Qing Jiang Customs. In the 25th year of Daoguang's reign, the British Consul Barfur moved the agency responsible for collecting foreign import and export taxes to Waitouba, the north gate of the county, that is, Jianghai Beiguan, commonly known as "Xinguan", which was established by Jiangsu Province.  The provincial Susongtai Road is also in charge. The original customs here only handles the import and export taxes of domestic sea vessels.

    After the Taiping Army occupied Shanghai, they reached an agreement with various countries through arduous negotiations and finally issued the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Shanghai Customs Tariff Regulations" and "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Tariff Regulations". The Taiping Army's Shanghai Customs was formally established, and the Shanghai Administrative Department used the original site of the customs as the customs office.  The new pass located in the concession area in the north of the city was abandoned.

    Those who came out to greet Xiao Yungui were Li Taitai, director of the Shanghai Customs Department, and others. Li Taitai was a British man. The first director of the Customs Department was Wei Helin. At that time, Li Taitai was just a customs consultant. Later, Wei Helin was transferred to Tianjing and joined.  Li Taitai, a Chinese national, became the second director of the Customs Department and has been in office until now.

    Li Taitai and his Huayang officials met King Xi's carriage at the Yamen Gate. After getting off the car, King Xi looked at Li Taitai and other foreigners with great interest. There were three places with the most foreigners in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and one was the army.  Here, one is the various departments, scientific research institutes, and factories under the Ministry of Industry, and the other is the customs department of each treaty port.

    With the lack of Manchu rule-based conservative thinking and the Western King taking charge of Tianjing, it became a matter of course for foreign immigrants to be absorbed as legal citizens of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.  A large number of skilled foreign brothers joined the Taiping Army.

    There are a large number of foreign instructors, officers and soldiers in the army, and there are even two companies of foreign soldiers in the newly established Sixth Army.  Most of these soldiers were adventurers who traveled across the oceans. After arriving in China, they showed support and sympathy for the Taiping Army.  So many people chose to join the Taiping Army.  They fought together with the Qing army in the Taiping Army. So far, more than ten people have died on the battlefield. The officer currently active in the Taiping Army is the British Augustus Frederick.  and American Bai Qiwen.

    Departments, scientific research institutes and factories under the Ministry of Industry are filled with a large number of foreign engineers and technicians. They are valuable talents providing technology, especially the scientific research studios, scientists and technicians in Shanghai and Suzhou.  They also came to China very early.  In particular, Pasteur's chemical and biological research provided important scientific and technological research for the Taiping Army's arms and new products.

    Finally, there is the customs department.  We have to deal with foreigners here every day. There are many tedious procedures such as customs entry, customs declaration, inspection, tax payment, etc. Naturally, many foreigners will join this department.  Foreigners in this era were very abiding by agreements and promises, and foreigners did not have what the Chinese call favors.  In short, they will concentrate and do a good job in their jobs.  Therefore, the customs, a place that was originally full of corruption and corruption in the Manchu era, now has a completely new look.

    Standing in front of the screen wall at the entrance of the Customs Yamen, Xiao Yungui looked at the words "Fairness, Integrity, and Efficiency" written on it, and had mixed feelings in his heart. Li Taitai and other foreigners undoubtedly performed extremely well in their errands. Only Shanghai Customs  Nowadays, the tax paid to the national treasury each year reaches more than 9 million taels of silver, which can be said to be an extremely important source of income. You must know that the total income of the Qing Dynasty in a year is only more than 40 million taels of silver.

    The Yamen was bustling with Chinese and foreign businessmen and captains who came to declare customs.  The entire customs did not stop working because King Xi came to inspect, and she continued to operate in an orderly manner.

    "How many things have to be handled here every day? How many days do we have to wait for a ship of goods to enter the customs?" Xiao Yungui suddenly asked, and Li Taitai on the side replied in fluent Chinese: "Your Excellency, King Xi. Every day, there are 300 to 300 things to be handled here.  There are 500 items of customs entry and exit matters. It takes about two days for a ship's cargo to be processed through customs. Basically, it will not exceed three days. We will send personnel to conduct on-site inventory of each ship's cargo to ensure that  Prevent entrainment and fish eye mixing.¡±

    Xiao Yungui nodded and asked: "Then how to prevent your subordinates from accepting bribes from others and engaging in malpractice for personal gain?"

    Li Taitai replied: "We adopt a mutual supervision and zero-tolerance system. Every time we go out to inspect goods, anti-smuggling, etc., we use temporary draws and matches. At the same time, we will also randomly select for review, and any fraud will be brought to justice. In  The salaries of customs workers are quite high. Last year, our average staff member¡¯s year-end bonus was 3,000 taels of silver, and no one would give up a job with high salary and good position just for a small profit.¡±

    At this point, Li Taitai paused and continued: "I would also like to thank the coastal anti-smuggling fleet and the intelligence department for their cooperation. Whenever they have any information, they will always inform us accurately in advance, so there is very little fraud in our customs."  Behavior."

    Xiao YunguiWith a sigh, Li Taitai couldn't hold back when talking about his errands. He continued: "But smuggling at sea has been very rampant recently. There are smuggling ships from various countries involved. Most of them use new-style clipper ships. This  The smuggling ships are very fast, and the ships of the coastal anti-smuggling fleet cannot catch up with them, so unless the informant¡¯s information is very accurate, it will be difficult for us to catch them. These smuggling ships smuggle opium and other arms cargo in large quantities, which is very harmful.  If we can curb this smuggling trend, our customs tax revenue can exceed the 10 million tael mark."

    Xiao Yungui chuckled and said: "This is inevitable. Soon new ships will join the navy. At the same time, I have also allocated funds to the coastal anti-smuggling fleet. We can also purchase some clipper ships for anti-smuggling."

    We had lunch with Li Taitai and others at the Customs Yamen. We ate ordinary customs food. Li Taitai did not prepare anything specially for King Xi. The only special thing was that Li Taitai brought a bottle of rum from his private collection.  Entertain the King of the West.  This made the Shanghai Navy Administrative Department officials who accompanied the King of the West on his inspection quite dissatisfied, but the stubborn British believed that the King of the West would do something special when he arrived?  In the end, Xiao Yungui devoured the ordinary food provided by the customs and praised Li Taitai with a smile. Now the officials were speechless.

    After leaving Shanghai Customs, Xiao Yungui took a carriage and rushed to the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce and Industry building, also located on the Bund, where he would meet with people from the Shanghai industrial and commercial community in the afternoon.  The Shanghai Federation of Industry and Commerce was established two years ago as a voluntary non-governmental organization. Its original purpose was to allow Chinese businessmen to unite to jointly deal with the dumping of foreign goods, and the Shanghai Administrative Department also secretly provided support to it.

    For the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which is still very weak in terms of private capital sprouting, their only advantage is that they have cheap sources of raw materials and cheap labor. Foreign countries rely on strong industrial production capabilities, and the competition between the two sides is very fierce.  To develop the nation's own industry and convert more gentry into capitalists, so that the entire country begins to transform from an agricultural country to an industrial country, something needs to be sacrificed, and sadly, apart from limited technology, the only thing that can compete with foreign countries is  Products competed with the country's cheap raw materials and labor, so cheap labor became a victim and became a stepping stone for the rise of Taiping capitalists.

    Xiao Yungui knew that he was taming a monster. This monster could develop the country's productivity and gradually change the face of a backward agricultural country. However, the hidden risks would be equally huge. A large number of agricultural people would become industrial people.  After that, the power of the working class will develop rapidly, and sooner or later it is inevitable that this force will enter the stage of history.

    Although Marx is still struggling to write "Das Kapital" with the support of Engels, Xiao Yungui can already predict the development of the working class after the Taiping Rebellion. He does not feel the need to prevent or change anything in advance, because now China's  Capital is still in its infancy, and the first problem he needs to solve is how to transform the country ahead of schedule, rather than starting to gradually transform into an industrial country fifty years later.

    Domestic conflicts and changes will always evolve and emerge. Let the successors worry about the rest. Xiao Yungui is not like Qin Shihuang, who dreamed of building a long-lasting empire. Maybe you tried every means to calculate history, and in the end  You find that you are the one being calculated. Unexpected situations always happen. History is created by people, and talents are the most difficult to figure out and control in the world.

    Xiao Yungui didn't think it was feasible to implement communism in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in advance. First of all, there was no soil for accepting advanced ideas in the country. More than 90% of the country's population was still illiterate. The common people had not experienced the century of humiliation in later generations and the opening up of the Republic of China. Communism was  There is no future. Forcing a republic will only cause the Kingdom of Heaven to fall apart. It is hard to imagine that Xiao Yungui's soldiers who already own private property will support this move. In fact, Xiao Yungui's protection of private property has already decided the direction from the beginning.

    Secondly, the common people today are not used to not having an emperor above their heads. Since Xiao Yungui took charge of Tianjing, there have been petitions and memorials every month to persuade people to move forward. The subjects of the Kingdom of Heaven are all concerned about one issue: Who is the King of the West?  When they became emperor, they hoped to have a Holy Lord and Mingjun to lead them, but fundamentally no one would think of establishing a cabinet or parliament to lead the country.  People who really think like this will be considered heretics, and they may become cabinet or parliamentarians. Everyone will look at them with disdain and say, "How virtuous and capable are you to represent us?"

    Before a truly unified social class is formed and the people are intellectually enlightened, neither communism nor democracy has room for widespread survival. Even if such a process is forcibly advanced, the time and resources spent may be greater than the time and resources required to eliminate the Manchu Qing Dynasty.  More, these things should be left to the successors to complete. It takes time to improve and develop the country. Xiao Yungui does not think that he can do it in his lifetime. He can turn the country into an industrial one.The prosperous era is already its maximum capability.

    Proclaiming himself emperor is inevitable, but Xiao Yungui needs to kidnap more people on the battleship where he proclaims himself emperor. The people he wants to meet now are the people he has kidnapped or is about to kidnap.  (To be continued)
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