The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 423

Yan Song spoke calmly and unhurriedly.

Upon hearing this, the other officials, who were originally prepared to question it, changed their expressions. Many of them turned red in the eyes and began to breathe heavily.

If an official collects one million taels of commercial tax, it means he can get three hundred thousand taels. This money is all legal and legitimate. Isn't this a hundred times better than their previous corruption and exploitation of the people?

Of course, it's highly unlikely that an official would collect one million taels of commercial tax. For such a large number of merchants, even if it were to be collected, it would require many officials working together.

Even so, each official could still receive a large share, and no one knew better than the merchants of the entire Jiangnan province how wealthy they were.

The former vice president of the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce alone earned profits of four to five million taels of silver annually, sometimes even approaching ten million taels.

There are four or five such merchants in the entire Jiangnan province alone, and countless others at a lower level.

The combined income of these merchants was astronomical. Even if these officials only received one-thirtieth of that, it was still a terrifying figure.

Most importantly, it must be reasonable and legal!

The thought of this instantly ignited everyone's enthusiasm, and they couldn't wait to go back and organize the files and collect the commercial taxes, fearing that if they were a step too late, their colleagues would beat them to it.

Those officials who had previously considered questioning Yan Song or even opposing him no longer had that thought; their minds were now filled with nothing but money.

As for the interests of the Jiangnan faction? Screw interests! What interests does the Jiangnan faction still have? They can't even smuggle anymore. They've just banded together in maritime trade, but the money they make is very limited. Compared to other maritime merchants, they don't have much of an advantage.

Instead of doing that, it would be better to put in the effort to collect commercial taxes, which would also be quite profitable and more reliable.

The officials of the Jiangnan faction, whose cohesion had already plummeted due to the significant reduction in their interests, now completely disintegrated. Everyone understood that even if they remained on the Jiangnan side, other officials would oppose them for their own benefit.

Since that's the case, it's better to act sooner rather than later. Once all the commercial taxes have been collected, it will be too late to regret it.

“Lord Yan is right. The commercial tax should be one-tenth. No, it should be said that one-tenth is still too little. Even two-tenths would not be too much.”

An official who originally belonged to the Jiangnan faction suddenly switched sides and looked at Yan Song with a face full of flattery.

Hearing this, Yan Song felt extremely satisfied. To him, the flattery from officials who originally belonged to his camp was dispensable. On the contrary, the fact that officials who originally had nothing to do with him had to fawn over him made Yan Song feel like he was on cloud nine.

"Power is truly a wonderful thing," Yan Song couldn't help but think to himself.

At this moment, Yan Song admired Zhou Chu even more. The solution that he couldn't think of, or rather, the solution that he dared not implement due to insufficient authority, was easily solved by Lord Zhou.

This official's attitude speaks volumes.

With someone taking the lead, those officials who were initially ashamed to associate with Yan Song no longer felt so ashamed.

That's how people are. If everyone feels embarrassed and ashamed, once someone takes the lead, everyone finds a reason to comfort themselves, and more and more people will defect.

"Yes, Lord Yan. When the founding emperor set the commercial tax at one-thirtieth, it was only to allow the people to recuperate. So many years have passed, it should have been collected much more long ago. One-tenth is indeed not much."

Another official echoed this sentiment.

So everyone started flattering Yan Song. Even the few officials who still stood with the Jiangnan faction, seeing this, realized that the tide had turned and a sense of powerlessness arose.