In a shop called Xinhua Bookstore in the west of Chang 'an City, it was packed with people.
A scholar dressed in simple but very neat clothes finally chose a book. It was not that he did not want to choose more, but he could only buy one book with the money he had. He touched the cover of the book and was very excited. In the past, books of much lower quality would cost two to three hundred wen each. It was not something he could afford. He had suffered a lot in order to read.
He took out 25 coins from his pocket and handed them to the shopkeeper. He bowed and left the bookstore.
The shopkeeper did not say a word throughout the entire process. He just watched silently. He understood this scene too well.
And the same scene happened many times in the morning.
There were all kinds of books and white paper in the bookstore. There was even papyrus.
Yes, it was toilet paper. How could Li Shimin not solve the problem of going to the toilet? Although he could choose to buy it, why would he buy it if he could produce it? Isn't it troublesome? The people who first came to the bookstore didn't understand how to use the papyrus because it was very soft to the touch and was too water-absorbing. They couldn't write at all.
Upon hearing the shopkeeper's introduction, they were all dumbfounded. Why was clay paper so expensive to wipe their asses? Aren't you afraid of being struck by lightning? In this era, paper was very sacred.
However, this piece of paper really couldn't be written on now, and it was very cheap. One could buy a stack of paper for a penny.
There were also many people gathered at the entrance of the Royal Tang Bank. At first, no one dared to enter.
Many of them were in urgent need of money and loans, but he did not know if what was written in the newspapers was true.
However, Li Shiming had always been a trustworthy person, so people gathered their courage and walked in.
In the end, they really did get a loan. Many people took out loans, but because they didn't use all the money at once, some of them deposited a portion of it in the bank. When they walked out, they had something called a passbook in their hands, as well as copper coins or gold and silver coins.
Of course, it didn't mean that you could get a loan just by going in empty-handed. You needed proof of household registration and assets. Moreover, it wasn't a full loan. You could only borrow half of it. For example, if you brought a house deed worth 200 strings, you could only borrow 100 strings. This was to prevent the risk of the loan.
If he had a household registration certificate, it would be fine. This Li Shimin could use it for the emergency of the poor. It would save those who borrowed money from the landlord. That was an accumulation of interest. Once they borrowed money, they would never be able to turn over a new leaf.
The coin that was issued this time was worth one tael of gold and silver alloy, with Li Yuan's profile picture on it. On the back was a huge cauldron, which symbolized the fate of the country. Then, there were small words: Made in the ninth year of Wude of the Royal Bank of Tang Dynasty
There were two types of silver coins, silver and copper alloy. The one with 1 tael had Li Shimin's profile portrait, and the one with half a tael had Empress Zhangsun's profile portrait.
1 gold coin was exchanged for 10 1 taels of silver coins, 1 1 tael of silver coins was exchanged for 1 string of copper coins, and half a tael of silver coins was equivalent to 500 wen.
This was basically the same as the exchange rate between gold, silver and copper on the market now.
In the future, he wouldn't need to use a cart to pull copper coins when he bought things.
After the first person successfully handled the business, more and more people started to handle the deposit and loan business. On the first day of the bank's opening, it showed the bank's good business ability.
In fact, these two places were not the only places affected by the newspaper. Today, all the temples in Chang 'an welcomed guests, but they were evil guests.
Early this morning, the Ministry of Revenue had come to ask them to register all sorts of information, including population and land, as well as to pay taxes. They had seriously evaded taxes. In the nine years since the founding of the Great Tang, they had not paid a single copper coin.
On the day of the investigation, all the private transactions and private gifts of land were confiscated.
Privately, most of the poor people sold their land to the temple.
The land that was given privately was usually given by some powerful families. They would put the land under the name of the temple to evade taxes.
Regardless of whether it was a private transaction or a private gift, it was illegal in itself because land transactions had to be registered with the Ministry of Revenue before a red contract was issued.
Therefore, legally speaking, the land now belonged to the original owner.
However, those noble families did not dare to take back these lands now. Now that tax evasion was killing you, you could only suffer in silence.
As for the poor people, Li Shimin had also instructed them to return the land to them. If the land had no owner, it would be taken back to the state.
The problem of the land was solved, but the temple still refused to pay taxes. The reason was that the temple was exempted from taxes under the imperial edict.
The next day, there was another article criticizing the temple in the newspaper. It pointed out that since the establishment of Li Tang, there had been two emperors who had never issued such an imperial edict. Were the monks deceiving the emperor or trying to rebel?
It turned out that the monks were too greedy. Although they said that the four elements were empty, they were actually extremely greedy for money. They just did not want to pay taxes. That was all money. The imperial edict was issued by Yang Jian of the Sui Dynasty, but would it work in the Great Tang?
Therefore, they surrounded the temple and asked them to take out the imperial edict. Otherwise, it would not be a problem of tax evasion, but of deceiving the emperor.
The monks had no choice but to push out a monk with the highest seniority to come forward and say that from now on, the temple would pay taxes according to the law and accept the management of the country.
This bunch of b * stards, they would always fantasize about it until the end, hoping to get lucky.
As long as they dared to refuse, Li Shiming would dare to massacre the temple. When the army arrived, they had already received Li Shiming's order. The final result was that the monks gave in and Li Shiming won.
There were also people from the aristocratic families who came to register their household registration. They could only silently accept it. Would they dare to resist? They didn't dare.
There were also people from the newspaper office who came to ask about the seeds of winter wheat in the Imperial Villa. They were all ordinary people. After hearing the news in the newspaper, they came to the newspaper office to ask where they could buy the seeds. The commoners believed in Li Shimin. They dared to plant the seeds without waiting for the results of the experiment.
Li Shi Min was very happy when he heard this and immediately gave instructions, He asked the commoners to bring their household registration to the Imperial Manor to collect the wheat seeds. They only needed to return the same amount of wheat after the harvest in the coming year.
This time, Li Shimin was even more confident in fighting the locust plague. At first, he did not expect the newspaper to be able to save the people from waiting for the results of his experiment.
Therefore, they began to stock up on a new batch of wheat seeds. Then, through the newspapers, they told the people in the entire Guanzhong area that they could receive the new wheat seeds as long as they were willing.
When Kong Yingda, Yu Shinan, and the other scholars saw the new book, they said that the punctuations had a great effect on marking the meaning of the scriptures. After seeing the contents of the book, they called the emperor a great scholar.
How was this even possible? Li Shimin was still copying all kinds of scriptures with modern annotations, including the masterpiece Zi Zhi Tong Jian, which scared them to death.
The publication of newspapers and the establishment of the Royal Bank, how could Li Shimin not be present at such a historic moment? After the day ended, he led Zhangsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling, and Du Ruhui to Chang 'an and praised them. Inspecting the work and observing the people's feelings.
Li Shiming was wearing casual clothes, sunglasses, and a folding fan in his hand.
Yes, officials, you're not mistaken. It's sunglasses and a folding fan.
How could he not have a divine weapon to act tough at this time? The other three people were dumbfounded when they saw this. Brother-in-law, we agreed to act tough together and fly together. Is this okay?
The four of them were wearing sunglasses and holding folding fans in their hands. This was the Tang Dynasty version of the F4.
The four of them accidentally led the fashion trend of the Tang Empire. A few days later, when the folding fan was listed in the bookstore, it immediately caused a crazy scramble among scholars.
After leaving the palace, Li Shiming said,"Wuji, let's go to Xi City today."”
Coincidentally, the bookstore was in Xi City. The goods sold in Xi City were mostly clothes, candles, cakes, medicine, and other daily necessities for the common people. It was also a gathering place for Hu merchants, so there were also many jewelry stores, warehouses, Hu Ji wine shops, and so on.
He looked around and saw a shop selling ironware next to the bookstore. Needless to say, this was Zhangsun Wuji's family business, but what a coincidence? Two shops next to each other? However, Li Shi Min didn't care.
Hence, he said to Zhangsun Wuji,"Your family must be living very well now."
Zhangsun Wuji obviously knew what Li Shiming was referring to. "Thanks to Your Majesty, if it weren't for Your Majesty, the business of this iron shop wouldn't be so good."”It was also because of the new steel-making method that Zhangsun Wuji's family's workshop's steel quality and production had increased sharply.
After entering the bookstore, there was a counter next to the door. There were no bookshelves on the wall where the counter was placed, but there were bookshelves on the other three walls. The books on the shelves were thread-bound books with dark blue covers and black words on a white background. Li Shimin copied the style of modern traditional books, but it was very trendy for today. There were no thread-bound books in the Tang Dynasty.
In the middle of the shop, there were long tables and long stools.
Today was the first day of the bookstore's opening. The shop was full of people, and the stools were full of people. The bookstore did not restrict you from reading in the shop, as long as it was not damaged.
Zhangsun Wuji and the other two knew that the bookstore would open today. Li Shimin had told them when they came, but they were still shocked when they saw it. These people were all highly intelligent and immediately knew what this meant.
They all followed Li Shiming closely, so they knew what he wanted to do, so they were very excited to see this scene.
Li Shiming's actions in the Great Tang had caused them to admire him greatly. Li Shiming was like the sun at noon in the Imperial Court, and even if many people had not been purged, his decrees could still be carried out smoothly.
Everyone was in a good mood as they walked out of the bookstore. Although everyone had different reasons, the result was the same. Everyone was very happy now. Zhangsun Wuji's flattery almost made Li Shiming fly.
When they reached a corner of Xi City, someone came up to them and said,""Sir, what kind of things do you want to buy? I have the most people here, and our Ya Hang is also the largest in Chang 'an. What kind do you need? I'll bring the people here for you to choose." So this was a place for human trafficking.
Li Shiming's face immediately darkened, his eyes filled with killing intent. This was what Li Shiming hated the most. He knew that such situations were common in the Great Tang. It was fine if he hadn't seen it, but seeing it with his own eyes made him unable to suppress his anger.
He turned around and made a hand gesture. Li Shiming was secretly protected when he left the palace. At this time, they saw Li Shiming's hand gesture and a leader walked forward.
"Buy all the Han slaves here, do you hear me?" Li Shi Min said to him.”He would not care about outsiders.
Zhangsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling, and Du Ruhui were shocked. They could hear the anger in Li Shimin's voice. They couldn't understand why he was so angry.
This kind of human trafficking situation was a matter of course for the three of them. It was not a big deal.
However, they did not know that Li Shiming was no longer a person of this era.
Moreover, to Li Shiming, every citizen of the Great Tang was a treasure. In the future, when he wanted to start the Great Voyage Era and seize territory, human resources were the most important.
Zhangsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling, and the others didn't know about this yet, and they couldn't see this far.
"After everyone buys it, restore their household registration and look for the Chang 'an County Magistrate. Tell him that I asked him to do it. After it is done, find the Empress to settle it." Now that the royal family's industry was extremely large and was still developing rapidly, the demand for manpower was also increasing day by day, so it was not difficult to settle them.
After saying that, he turned around and left. Zhangsun Wuji and the others felt that Li Shiming seemed to be different all of a sudden, but they couldn't say anything. They looked at each other and followed him without saying anything.
After walking for a while, Li Shiming said to Zhangsun Wuji,""What would you think if one day your family became someone else's slaves? How do you feel?" Li Shimin remembered that in history, Zhangsun Wuji was forced to commit suicide and all his family members became slaves.
Zhangsun Wuji thought, who would dare? The Tang Emperor was now his brother-in-law, and his nephew would be the Crown Prince. Not to mention this, even if others dared to be slightly disrespectful to him, he could put them in a dilemma of life and death.
Therefore, Li Shiming asked this question in vain. He would not understand it until the end.
He sighed in his heart. It was really a long way to go. The generation gap between people was now measured in thousands of years. It was too deep.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。