dognovel Chapter 504: Sidious's Determination
Chapter 504: Sidious's Determination
In the city of Rome, in the residence of the highest consul.
It was very lively here today, countless warlords and nobles came to sit in the living room.
These people are either noble, their ancestors are glorious, and have a family history of hundreds of years, or they now hold great power and control a large number of troops or financial resources.
It is no exaggeration to say that these people together are almost half of Rome, and can even determine the lifeline of the entire Rome!
The reason why they gathered together today is very simple. Scipio convened a meeting of elders in the name of the highest consul in Rome.
"Everyone, first of all, I am very glad that you are invited to come to my highest consul's mansion to participate in this meeting of elders."
Scipio stood on the podium and glanced down, and nodded in satisfaction when he saw that the seats were full.
"What is the real purpose of my meeting of elders this time, I think those who are well-informed have already heard about it."
"That's right, for a new decree!"
"In view of the fact that the front line of our Rome is tight and the country's financial situation is very tight, in order to resist the eyeing Carthaginians and prevent the territory of our Roman Empire from falling into the hands of thieves, I decided to follow Daqin's policy of governing the people, starting today , cancel the tax exemption rights of all Roman nobles!"
"All Roman citizens, regardless of their high or low status, whether they are slaves, civilians or nobles, as long as they earn more than a certain amount of profits through commerce, agriculture or other sideline businesses, they must pay the corresponding amount to the state treasury. Taxes!"
Scipio's expression was solemn, and he spoke decisively, apparently not intending to give these Roman nobles any room to bargain.
Regarding the promulgation of the new decree, in fact, he has been brewing for a long time.
Ever since he learned that Ying Yu proposed this in Daqin, he immediately realized the benefits of this decree. It can not only alleviate the oppression of the nobles on the common people, but also greatly relieve the pressure on the country's finances.
The reason why their Roman army was in a stalemate with Carthage led by Hannibal for so long, apart from the fact that Hannibal was truly blessed to lead the army and run the army as a rock, is it because of Rome's financial constraints and food shortages, which caused Every time they obviously played an advantage, they had to retreat to the embarrassment.
Later, after hearing about the success of Daqin, Scipio was even more itchy, wishing to issue this decree in Rome immediately.
However, Scipio also knew very well that the promulgation of this new decree would certainly put Rome on the road to becoming a powerful country, but the resistance it encountered during its implementation would inevitably be quite terrifying.
Because this offends the interests of all nobles, that is to say, he will face the oppression of the entire Roman nobles at the same time!
This is no joke!
In history, because of violating the interests of the nobles, they were assassinated and their relatives were slaughtered. It can be said that there are many examples!
After all, not everyone is a character like Prince Yingyu of the Great Qin Dynasty. He not only has the means of thunder to suppress the violent riots in the country, but also the means of appeasement and cooperation, so that he can ignore the short-term loss of interests and focus on the longer-term and greater return of interests. In fact, the entire Great Qin State was convinced of the new policy's effectiveness.
Scipio thought that he was far inferior to Ying Yu. Therefore, because the people close to him were still around, Scipio didn't want to implicate them, so he didn't act rashly for the time being.
It was not until little Scipio and his daughter had been sent to Daqin in the name of envoys, and he had no worries about the future, that he began to officially promulgate his new policy.
Although he will suffer an unprecedented crisis in this way, for Rome to become stronger, Scipio believes that it is our duty to do so!
The result was exactly as Scipio expected.
As soon as his new policy was put forward, it immediately stirred up waves like a stone, and instantly caused all the nobles present to explode!
You know, who can come to participate in the meeting of elders, which family is not rich and has countless assets under their names?
Some peaceful nobles may just buy and sell tea and silk from Daqin.
And those greedy and bold nobles, in addition to these daily necessities, even sell all kinds of arms and weapons!
And these things, according to the laws of Rome, all need to pay huge taxes!
If their tax-free rights as nobles were revoked at this time, and they had to pay taxes on every income, then their wealth would probably shrink by more than half!
Even paying it once may feel like nothing, but if it accumulates over time, it will be a considerable amount of wealth. Although it will not make them slump, it is definitely enough to hurt them.
After all, the reason why these aristocrats were able to accumulate their wealth so quickly was not only the frantic exploitation of the civilian slaves underneath.
The most important point is the right to be exempted from taxes as nobles. No matter what kind of business activities they carry out, they can be exempted from all taxes.
To give a very simple example, for example, a merchant in Rome transported a large amount of finely crafted silk clothes from Daqin, and prepared to sell them in shops in Rome.
Then, first of all, these silk clothes were transported into the Roman city-state, and he needed to pay the corresponding tariff according to the weight.
After putting the clothes on the shelves as related shops, you need to pay a certain shop tax. After the merchants have finally sold out the clothes, they have to pay personal income tax to the country according to their own income and profits.
The sum of the taxes before and after this item is sometimes even higher than the value of the product itself!
Why did Daqin only sell clothes worth about [-] yuan, but in Rome it jumped to thousands or even thousands of dollars?
Although there are reasons why Daqin exported these clothes at high prices, in the final analysis, it was because Rome's taxes were too heavy, so merchants had to raise prices to ensure their own profits.
At this time, the advantages of being a Roman nobleman are reflected.
Due to the provisions of Roman law, all interest activities carried out by Roman nobles do not need to pay any taxes to the country.
Then they don't have to pay any of the numerous and complicated taxes mentioned above, but can sell these goods at the same high price as other civilians, and the profits are undoubtedly huge.
The most important thing is that because there is no tax, the cost of goods for the Roman nobles is several times smaller than that of the common people.
Once their products are unsalable, or they want to suppress a store, they can lower the price at will.
In this way, those Roman nobles themselves made a lot of money, but the price economy of the entire market will also become chaotic because of their selfish behavior.