CH 67.2

“As for what you said, when you open a shop, you have to go to the county yamen to register. There is a record of what the shop is called, what kind of business it does, and when it opens. You can find this record in the county yamen. The merchants who close down their businesses before half a year have to go to the county yamen to report their commercial tax payment, otherwise they will be banned in the yamen, and if they want to open a shop again in the future, the yamen will not approve it."

"In addition, if the future generations want to take the imperial examination to serve as an official, if the yamen check their dossiers and find that there are commercial taxes that haven’t been paid, it will affect their official career. They will check the dossier from childhood, and they will be given credit only if they have no bad records."

Xu He clicked his tongue, he always knew that the status of merchants was not high, but these years the peace and prosperity have improved. The emperor issued an edict allowing the descendants of merchants to take the imperial examination, but the management of merchants was still very strict. At first, he only heard a little about it, but now he understood about it deeply.

"The imperial court's laws and regulations are very strict, but there are still many people who break the law, and many things are unclear." Zhang Fangyuan put the dish into Xu He's bowl: "But in case our descendants are promising, they can study and take imperial examination, we shouldn’t take advantage of the loopholes and pay taxes honestly."

Xu He agreed to what Zhang Fangyuan said, this kind of business was for the sake of the children, and they couldn’t invert root and branch, ruined the children's future, and let the children lose their livelihood before they were born.

[本末倒置 běn mò dào zhì: lit. to invert root and branch (idiom); fig. confusing cause and effect; to stress the incidental over the fundamental; to put the cart before the horse]

He had principles in his heart, but they had to pay a lot of money for the commercial tax, and they had to pay six thousand copper coins a year. His heart hurt so much and he said melancholy: "If we have a son, we will send him to study early, he can take the imperial exam and later we don’t have to worry about the high taxes.”

Zhang Fangyuan laughed: “Didn't you reprimand me for not thinking ahead and pinning my hopes on the children? are you going to change your mind now?”

Xu He pursed his lips, at that time, he didn't know that doing business would be so difficult. He only looked at the rich clothes and fine food of the rich and noble families, how could he know that behind there were layer upon layer of deductions.

"Forget it, I'll earn more and save more money before the child is born."

After he said that, he regained his spirit, ate his lunch quickly and rushed to the door to invite customers.

The shop owners on this side of Tianjie couldn't bear to invite customers at the door, and only hired clerks to do it. There were no clerks in their small shops, so they could only act as the boss and clerk at the same time.

The autumn rain fell for less than half a month. These days, the county yamen had been busy collecting land taxes and commercial taxes, and when the weather was bad, the people were cursing, and the county yamen’s servants were also complaining.

There was heavy rain in the summer this year, the corn was harvested early and it was fine, but the rice suffered, and the rain washed away and smashed a lot of rice grains. The rice was not as full and large as in previous years, and most of them were empty shell rice.

The farmers were also worried from the beginning to the end of the year. They were busy planting the seeds in the spring, fearing that their seeds wouldn’t be good seeds, so they had to look around to buy them. Finally, the spring plowing was over, and the yamen sent people to urge them to pay the poll tax. 

Those who had no money would borrow money to pay the taxes and then prepared for the autumn harvest. In the year with bumper harvest, it was fortunate they could pay the debt they owed in spring, but if they met the year with disaster, they would only owe more and more money.

Many times they felt that life was hopeless, but they still swore a few words to live day after day and year after year, after all, everyone was suffering.