In Chapter 105 of Dream of the Red Chamber, the Embodied Guards came to Ningguo Mansion to confiscate its property.
Jia Mansion was holding a banquet at the time. When Jia Zheng heard the servant's report, he was still puzzled. He had no dealings with Court Official Zhao, so why had he come as well?
Before long, Court Official Zhao entered with a broad smile, looking as though he bore no ill will.
"Stop," Bonaparte said impatiently.
"What?" she asked impatiently as well.
"Is he going to spend the rest of his life in the place where he's being held?" Bonaparte said.
"You need patience..."
Before she could finish, he rose to his feet.
Georgiana quickly skimmed over the descriptions of everyone's reactions when the sudden change occurred and began reading what Nick had written.
Among the countries of Europe, France most closely resembled the Qing court. The Qing court's fiscal system was very similar to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century system of "tax farming for private profit." Tax farmers had once been denounced as "monsters that should be smashed," because they "plundered without suffering any punishment." In the end, the fury of the French Revolution buried both this system and France's old era.
By comparison, Britain's tax rate during the same period was higher than France's and far higher than that of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Under Britain's Four-Corner System, its advantage first lay in an effective taxation system. Especially compared with France's tax-farmer system, Britain successfully resolved the problems of tax collection and economic fluctuations.
Inefficient taxation meant that whenever local governments faced emergencies such as military affairs, they had to squeeze the people dry under all sorts of pretexts beyond the Single Whip Law. This was precisely the pattern condemned by the law's opponents: "Open taxes are