Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 245: Census Completed
"Your Highness, I pay my respects to you."
"No need to bow, everyone."
On the fourth day of the first lunar month in 1615, the first State Council meeting of the 43rd year of the Wanli reign was held in Xinghua Palace.
Since Empress Dowager Li passed away in November last year, Zhu Youdong had to wear mourning clothes to attend the meeting, and the whole country of Ming Dynasty was in a three-month mourning period. Of course, there was no need to wish a happy new year.
Not only that, due to the death of the Empress Dowager, Zhu Youdong, as the grandson, naturally had to mourn for 27 months. Although he did not have to give up his work completely to guard the mausoleum as the regent, his marriage would definitely be postponed.
This was fine. After all, he believed that he was not so beastly as to attack two girls who were only thirteen or fourteen years old.
After everyone sat down, Zhu Youdong cleared his throat and said, "Let's get started. Each department should summarize last year's work. Well, as usual, let's start with the bank."
"Yes." Cao Sanxi stood up first. "After nearly a year of hard work last year, the overall operation of the Royal Bank of Ming Dynasty was stable. The six major mints have minted a total of 100,000 gold coins, 10 million silver dollars, 40 million silver corners, and 120 million copper coins. All of the above coins have entered the market, and the acceptance of the people in various places is generally good. Last March, the bank absorbed the first deposit of 300 taels of silver, and recorded it as 300 silver dollars with an annual interest rate of 3%. After that, deposits from various places were gradually accepted, totaling 27 million taels of silver so far, recorded as the same number of silver dollars. Last June, after careful analysis, the Chengdu branch issued the first loan since the establishment of the bank, with an amount of 500 yuan. The purpose of the borrower was to purchase looms and produce Shu brocade. As of November 30 last year, the six major branches had cumulatively issued 356 loans, with a total of 7.8 million yuan in funds issued. Depending on the loan amount and repayment date, the annual interest rate was between 6% and 9%.
In general, the bank is still in a loss-making state. Since deposits far exceed loans, the net loss in deposit and loan interest alone is 2.3 million yuan. In addition to warehouses, labor, security, etc., the cumulative annual expenditure is 4 million yuan. Of course, the bank's coinage also has interest, and at the same time, the six major branches have successfully completed the acceptance of national tax silver and tax grain. The entry of these materials into the unified warehouse has also greatly saved national consumption. These, please ask the Ministry of Revenue to report to you later.
The bank's plan this year is to build branches in every city where a provincial government is located. That means opening seven more branches. However, these seven branches will no longer have mints, and the size of their warehouses will be significantly reduced. "
After Cao Sanxi sat down, Zhu Youdong nodded and said, "For the sake of continuity, let's ask the Ministry of Revenue to make a work report first."
"As you command." Xu Honggang, the Minister of Finance, stood up and said, "What President Cao said just now is really too modest. Ladies and Gentlemen, last year, after the country implemented silver coinage and bank unified warehouse storage, the income and expenditure of our Ming Dynasty has improved significantly!
In terms of income, the income in the previous year was 5.2 million taels of silver, and last year it was 8.75 million. Although in terms of silver content alone, it only increased by 2.6 million taels of silver. But this was achieved without any additional taxes from the state. This increase came from Sun Chengzong's rectification of Yuegang after he went to Fujian. On the other hand, it was mainly the interest from the bank's coinage.
The above is the increase. After the establishment of the bank, especially after the unified use of silver dollars and copper coins to pay taxes, the cost of the court collecting various silvers and recasting them into silver ingots was completely saved. This alone cost no less than 100,000 yuan. Of course, this saving is just a small amount of money. More importantly, after the establishment of bank warehouses in various places, all taxes and physical goods collected by various departments were transported to the warehouses of the six major banks for unified storage. This significantly reduced losses and various acts of corruption. For the first time, the Ministry of Revenue had a general understanding of how much money each department in the country collected and how much money was left..."
"Stop!" Seeing Xu Honggang getting more and more excited, and the other ministers looking more and more unhappy, Zhu Youdong decisively interrupted Xu Honggang's explanation. Then, he said to the ministers of each department: "Everyone present is smart, and they all know what I am going to do after the bank sets up a unified warehouse. That's right, from now on, all taxes in the country can only be collected by one department, and the tax types must be simplified as much as possible. However, I promise that before raising the salaries of all officials in the country, I will not take away the power of each department to collect taxes all at once."
"Thank you, Your Highness, for your consideration of me and others."
"Okay, Da Si Tu, go on."
"Uh, as you wish." Even in the middle of winter, Xu Honggang couldn't help wiping his forehead: he was too excited just now - he guessed that he was the first Minister of Revenue in the Ming Dynasty who did not feel aggrieved.
After calming down, Xu Honggang said, "Last year, the Ministry of Revenue also had a major event, which was the continued national population census. Colleagues, with the strong support of the Crown Prince mobilizing a full 200,000 troops stationed in various places, our dynasty's second real national population census since the Hongwu period was completed. According to the data collected from various places, as of November of the 42nd year of the Wanli reign, there were a total of 103,557,923 households in the two capitals and thirteen provinces of our Ming Dynasty. Compared with the data in the Yellow Book of the 40th year of the Wanli reign, it has almost doubled!"
"Wow~~" This number shocked everyone present except Zhu Youdong!
"Your Highness is wise. If it weren't for your determination to rebuild the household registration system, we wouldn't have known that the country's population had grown to such a high level."
"Yes, there were only 55 million registered in the country before, which means that nearly 50 million people have no registered permanent residence. Except for the hermits in various places, the rest of these people are refugees, right? With so many refugees, if something happens to the country one day, wouldn't it be..."
"That was a close call. Thank you for your hard work, Grandson."
"No, thank you for your hard work. Grand Tutor, this population census took two years. How much did it cost? How many casualties were there?"
"Yes, Your Highness, colleagues. The actual work of the population census is far more complicated and bloody than today's report. In the past two years, due to the malicious resistance of local gentry and unruly people, 320 members of the census team were killed and more than 800 people were disabled to varying degrees. The garrisons in various places deployed 200,000 people, fought one major battle and countless minor ones, and a total of more than 10,000 people were killed."
When a ruler reaches a high position, many casualties are often just numbers to him. But Zhu Youdong knows that behind these numbers are countless lives.
The census, which lasted for two years, certainly caused great damage to the interests of local tyrants and evil gentry. However, although they were the tyrants in the local area, they could not make any waves facing the regular military force of the court.
The reason why the number of military casualties exceeded 10,000 was that, apart from a large number of small-scale conflicts, the greatest casualties were caused by the Wenxiang Rebellion in Shandong.
For politically ambitious people like Xu Hongru, refugees are the soil for his continuous growth. Zhu Youdong's census this time only investigated but did not punish. If you were found to have lost your household registration and fled, you would not be held accountable, but re-naturalized nearby. This fundamentally cut off the foundation for the development of the Wenxiang Sect.
Therefore, Xu Hongru launched the "uprising" seven or eight years earlier than the original historical plane.
Of course, Zhu Youdong is now the grandson of the emperor, and he does not recognize this as an uprising. His attitude towards this kind of rebellion is also very firm: suppress it!
Unfortunately, the Shandong Dusi's guards had been at peace for more than 200 years and were already weak. Facing the Wenxiang believers who had no weapons, organization, discipline, or training, they were evenly matched with them!
Finally, Zhu Youdong was forced to transfer a thousand-household team from Henghaiwei, who rushed over and defeated the main force of the Wenxiang Sect, and successfully captured Xu Hongru and the spiritual leader of the sect, Wang's family, alive. Only then was the rebellion quelled.
Of course, when talking about the population census in Shandong, there is one family that cannot be avoided: the Kong family in Qufu.
Zhu Youdong had of course heard about this family's behavior of claiming to be saints but actually doing extremely shameless and dirty things. However, the time was not right yet, so he specially called the leader of the Shandong Population Census Team and let this family go.
Confucius was a good man. If he knew that his descendants were such bastards, he would probably be so angry that he would come back to life!
Wait, I will deal with you after I finish the most urgent things at hand. At that time, I will take advantage of the situation to rebuild the civilized core of the country.
