The rise of maritime trade not only drove the development of six major port cities and the prosperity of industrial and commercial manufacturing, but also caused more smuggling and pirates. .

Sometimes, pirates and smuggling are not separated.

Compared with the sea trade in the Ming Dynasty, an important reason why the Tang Dynasty did not prohibit it was that the court established a Maritime Bureau and a customs office, which could receive a lot of tariffs a year.

The Tang Dynasty has established six port customs bureaus, and all merchant ships entering and leaving the sea must pay customs duties before entering and leaving. Customs duties are divided into ship tax and banknote tax. Ship tax is charged according to the size of the ship, while banknote tax is taxed at 20 per cent according to the price of goods. Some important materials are prohibited from exporting, such as copper coins, iron materials, weapons, etc.

The 20-tax tax is naturally not high, and the tax is actually very small compared to the huge profits of the sea trade. But the imperial court is not that simple. Ship banknotes and banknote tax are just regular customs taxes, and there are also additional courses. The attached courses are often higher than regular taxes, sometimes even several times more.

These taxes are naturally converted into the cost of commercial goods, which increases the price of goods and reduces the profits accordingly. As a result, smuggling began. Some smuggling was just to evade customs taxes, while others were to smuggle some embargoed goods.

“Smuggling is amazing?”

"Smuggling is of course great. As long as there is 10% of the profit, smugglers will appear in large quantities. If there is 20% of the profit, smugglers will be quite active. If there is 50% of the profit, smugglers can take risks. If there is 10% of the profit, smugglers will dare to ignore any law. If there is 3 times the profit, they dare to commit any crime and kill and set fire at all."

Li Chao said.

"Do you know what are the two latest businesses that the people are talking about now?"

"Maritime trade?" Cheng Yaojin asked.

Li Chao shook his head.

"No, it's private salt dealers and maritime smuggling. These two professions are called the latest professions and the most profitable industries. As long as you are willing to take risks and take risks, you basically don't have any capital or difficulty, and you will get huge profits."

"Well, the new salt administration in the court is indeed a bit of a scam." Cheng Yaojin used a new word. It would be strange if private salt vendors didn't rise. The wholesale price of salt merchants given to salt merchants was 60 cents a pound of salt, and salt merchants had to sell it at a higher price. The salt is not worth so much at all, and a few cents a pound is amazing. This means that directly smuggling and selling salt is several times more profitable.

"The profits of smuggling at sea are no less than private salt. Get a small boat, then bypass the port customs, quietly leave the port, trade with merchant ships at sea, buy and sell goods, and just evade taxes, so that their goods can be made a lot of money."

"Tax evasion and smuggling is a felony."

The court cracked down on smuggling very severely, because smuggling damages tariffs. The court now has a salt tax plan that can earn 12 million yuan a year, and customs tax can also earn 5 million yuan. Such a large amount of taxes must be ensured to control smuggling. If smuggling is rampant, salt tax and customs tax will inevitably be greatly reduced.

For smugglers, if they sell smugglers with smuggling more than one stone, they will be executed for labor reform, and if they are more than one pound of labor, they will be severely punished for labor reform. For sea smuggling, they will be severely cracked down on smugglers with smuggling ships, once they are arrested, they will be exiled for labor reform.

But the same thing is said, although the crackdown is severe, the huge profits of smuggling have made many people take risks. Even in a short period of time, there has been a relatively large smuggling industry chain, with some organizing goods and selling smuggled goods, some transporting, and some going to sea.

In the chain, there are many local powerful people involved.

Li Chao does not smuggle, he is a true taxpayer, so for them, smugglers affect their interests. Those people do not pay taxes, so the goods can be priced lower than theirs. Whether it is export or import, it is hindering them.

The most dissatisfied with Li Chao's smuggling at sea is that they are really not afraid of death, and they do not care about the law. They sell whatever they make money.

The copper coins, gold coins, silver coins, even copper and iron tools, even iron and steel, and even weapons of the Tang Dynasty.

The iron smelting technology and sword craftsmanship of the Tang Dynasty were ahead of the contemporary times and the most advanced. Therefore, some smugglers built underground workshops, built Tang swords and other secretly, and then exported them to surrounding countries.

Tang swords and Tang crossbows and Tang bows have become extremely popular commodities in neighboring countries.

Snake Island is located in the Bohai Strait.

In the strait between Dengzhou and Dalian, there are 32 islands of all sizes, scattered like a string of pearls. The straight line distance of the strait is only 200 miles. With these large and small islands, it makes transportation between Dengzhou and southern Liaoning easier.

This is a traditional route, with a large number of merchant ships traveling, which also makes pirates and smugglers prosper here.

"More than a thousand people." Cheng Yaojin's eyes were red, "The governor of Dengzhou is really useless."

Li Chao said quietly beside him, "In fact, there are tens of thousands of smugglers on the islands in the strait and those refugees who escaped from the sea privately."

"How is this possible?" Cheng Yaojin has been in Dengzhou for so long, and this is the first time he has heard of such news.

"What's impossible? The island is not only pirates, but also the families of pirates. In addition, there are also many smugglers on the island. They even set up many workshops on the island to produce and process illegal exports. Some large smugglers simply set up docks and trading markets on the island. You don't know how lively the archipelago is. They even build houses, workshops, farms, and fish and salvage them."

As long as there is enough profit, anyone will do anything.

On the Silk Road, Hu merchants in the Western Regions crossed snow-capped mountains and crossed the vast Gobi desert. The hard journey was just because of the profits brought by the Silk Road trade.

"Who is a thief, why should we go to Baekje Silla Goguryeo first? We are practicing in this archipelago. There are tens of thousands of people, and we have to catch them all as slaves, so how many labor vacancies have to be filled."

He once again scolded the Dengzhou governor for being useless.

"Don't call the governor, the governor is pretty good. At least he has made great contributions to Dengzhou Port's current development. Besides, the governor can't take care of the encirclement and suppression of smuggling pirates and cracking down on smugglers. Then the governor is under the jurisdiction of the garrison and the Maritime Bureau. The court is also moved by the rampant smuggling and pirates now. Didn't it be officially set up a navy? The Maritime Bureau and the Customs have also set up anti-smuggling teams, and do it step by step, no need to hurry."

Although the court moves a bit slow, it is not too late.

These smugglers were so big before, but they were actually turned a blind eye to the local government. Some of those smugglers were really barefoot, all of whom had heels, and behind them were local tyrants.

But the indulgence of local officials does not mean that the imperial court will indulge it.

No matter how prosperous the Temple Islands are, they will not last long. Once the court attacks, they will be destroyed.

Li Chao was too lazy to pay attention to some smugglers, and did not want to practice with them and arrest people. Li Chao did not object.

Snake Island is a small island, only thirty miles away from Dengzhou. A group of thousands of pirates were actually entrenched thirty miles from the port of the Fubo Fleet Navy. It is funny, but it is a fact.

On the islands next to them, there are other large and small pirates and many smuggling strongholds, but they have always been in peace. Because everyone guards Dengzhou Port and Dengzhou Silla route, they can eat all over the mouth, and there is no need to fight in the internal struggle.

Li Chao and Cheng Yaojin didn't even conceive a combat plan.

Because it doesn't need it, it really doesn't need it.

The government has always been careless about them, which makes them almost forget that they are pirates. In fact, they rarely kill and rob, and their current way of survival is gentler.

Send a few boats to collect money at sea every day.

The merchant ships passing by on the route are very cooperative, as if they pay taxes, send some money and goods, and then they can pass smoothly. The pirates are even familiar with the people on the merchant ship, and the atmosphere is harmonious every time they collect money.

Sometimes they even sell their own smuggled goods to merchant ships, and sometimes they also give priority to buying goods from Silla Goguryeo from merchant ships returning to Dengzhou, all at acquaintances.

In this regard, the Red Viper Pirates are really about to forget that they are still pirates.

Their old nest is only thirty miles away from Dengzhou Water City. More than a thousand people occupy a large island. There are wharfs, havens, villages, and even a piece of their own warehouses and fields. On it, they grow vegetables and grains, and more than a thousand people live happily.

When Li Chao's ten merchant ships approached, several small boats on the sea did not approach.

They recognized the flags on the mast, especially the two flags on the leading ships, the white tiger, black bird, plum branches, which were the flags and emblems of the Li family on the Bashang. People with red poisonous snakes were tactful and would not come to seek benefits.

They can't afford to offend such a top-notch family.

In the past, they just thought that they were both good and water without damaging the river.

But today, these ships turned a corner and drove towards them.

"What a big ship, three masts are so great, and eight hundred materials are ships."

"I feel that the two Li family members are a little bigger, and they probably have a thousand materials."

"Li Shang is a heroic spirit. Look at their merchant ships, the decorations are different. The blue and golden paint of Shabu looks so beautiful, and the bow image is also the bow image. It is a dragon. Just this bow image is worth the money of a three-masted boat."

"Why do they seem to be heading towards our island? What are they going to do?"

Snake Island.

The island is peaceful, and the pirates' boss, Hong Poison Snake, is a woman, famous far and wide. It is said that he was a female general in the Jianghuai Du Fuwei's army in his early years. Later, Du Fuwei died suddenly in Chang'an, and Fu Gongshi rebelled, and the Jianghuai army was destroyed in one day. The female general brought more than a hundred men to the island, gained a foothold here, slowly recruited some old subordinates, brought their families, and started a business without any money.

Early in the morning.

The Red Viper is inspecting several workshops on the island, a Tang sword workshop and a copper coin workshop, all of which are imitated imperial court horizontal swords and Zhenguan Tongbao. These things are very marketable outside.

The Red Viper is very ambitious and has vision. He knows that he will not be a pirate for a long time. In the past two years, he has also begun to take advantage of the benefits of maritime trade to prepare for whitewashing.

She heard that Duke Zhao Li Chao is now in the water city of Dengzhou. She has been looking for people to clear up relationships these days. She wants to talk to this Duke Zhao who is very good at hand and has no other reason, but she just hopes to accept the recruitment and live a stable life.

"The boss, it's not good, we're blocked!"

A big man came running, panicked.

"Who is blocked?" the red venomous snake asked calmly.
Chapter completed!