Indeed, these nobles had all abandoned their outlying estates and moved to Chaoge, so it was understandable that they enjoyed certain privileges.
But Zi Shou felt that they were excellent sources of Foolishness Value.
He had merely made them lose some money on horse racing, stone gambling, ball games, and cockfighting, and they were already secretly cursing him, accusing him of competing with the people for profit. What if he made them pay land taxes outright?
If losing a little money made them react like this, wouldn't forcing them to hand it over send things soaring?!
Still, the amount of land tax deserved some consideration.
The notorious King John had raised the nobles' inheritance tax nearly a hundredfold and increased the tax for exemption from military service more than tenfold. Under pressure, the nobles passed those tax increases on to the people living on their estates, sending the prices of cattle, sheep, horses, wheat, and other goods skyrocketing.
That wouldn't do. When pork rose to fifty yuan, most people could no longer afford it, while the English people back then had been unable to afford any meat at all. When they could bear it no longer, they took action.
Then the nobles started taking on the king.
Next, the people watched the nobles give the king a savage beating, their faces blossoming with happy, peaceful smiles.
King John, beaten black and blue, signed the Magna Carta on the meadows of Runnymede beside the Thames.
Its contents essentially stipulated that everything had to proceed through legal channels, and even the king could not arbitrarily infringe on the nobles' rights and interests.
Looking at it that way, setting the land tax for Chaoge's nobles too high wouldn't work.
What if he forced a "Magna Carta" into existence?
Would he be a foolish