Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 385: Money is the First Thing to Ask for When Fighting
On December 28, just two days after returning to Beijing, Zhu Youdong appeared at the State Council meeting again.
In fact, according to his original intention, he should have convened a meeting immediately after returning from such a long absence from the capital. But there was no other way. The emperor led the army in person, not only beheaded the enemy king, but also cut off the enemy's territory and gave his relatives fiefs there. These moves were so many and so big that in addition to going to the Imperial Ancestral Temple to report the victory and explain to Wanli and Concubine Zheng, he also had to spend a lot of time instructing Zhang Shize to set the tone for the propaganda of the six major newspapers.
After finishing these things, the national government affairs also had to be handled quickly, and in the end he didn't even have much time to spend with his son and daughter.
"Hey." After taking a deep breath, Zhu Youdong shook his head helplessly: "Let's get started."
"Yes, Your Majesty." The first to stand up was Cao Sanxi.
"Since last year, our dynasty began to build a large number of warships in the two major shipyards of Binhai and Changsha. As of the 25th of this month, when the emperor returned to Beijing, the court spent a total of 16.3 million yuan on the war against the two bandits of Japan and Siam. Among them, the war fund paid 6.3 million yuan, the Ministry of Revenue also paid 6.3 million yuan, and the rest was borne by the emperor's inner treasury . The war fund mainly covered the construction of warships, the purchase of gunpowder, the transportation of materials, and the wages of additional civilians. The Ministry of Revenue and the emperor's inner treasury mainly covered the salaries and pensions of ten new military towns and three fleets."
Well, it seems that when Emperor Wanli assisted Korea in fighting against the Japanese invaders, it only cost 7 million taels of silver after six years of fighting? Even if silver has been depreciating in the past 20 to 30 years, even if this is a modern army fighting... I have spent more than 10 million in the past year and a half, which seems a bit too much?
"Well, President Cao, does this expenditure include the loss of the more than a thousand large Fu ships in the Gulf of Siam?"
"Include."
"Oh~" He let out a long sigh of relief: "How much will be needed for follow-up expenses? I'm asking about the pensions that need to be reissued so far."
"Your Majesty, according to the statistics, in the past year and a half of war, more than 4,200 of our soldiers were killed and more than 12,000 were injured. The compensation for the dead is 100 yuan per person, 70 yuan for the seriously injured or disabled, and only 10 yuan for the minor injuries after recovery. The total compensation should be more than 830,000 yuan. 330,000 yuan has been paid."
Alas, as expected, in this era, human life is really the cheapest. This is just the beginning, and the next battles will probably be more brutal than the last.
With a heavy heart, he sighed. Zhu Youdong said to Xu Honggang, "The Ministry of Revenue's income and expenditure for this year has come out, right?"
"It has been settled." Xu Honggang stood up and said, "Your Majesty, everyone. In the 46th , thanks to the completion of the national yellow book cleaning and the absence of a national disaster this year, the Ministry of Revenue's income this year is: rice and wheat, civilian households, military households, etc., a total of 47.5 million shi. Thanks to the Royal Bank's outlets and warehouses that have been laid out at the prefecture level, the loss rate of these physical goods has been significantly reduced, from 30% in previous years to less than 10%.
Since the Emperor began to supervise the country six years ago, he arranged for Eunuch Wei to reform the twenty-four government offices in the palace. As of today, the taxes on silk, satin, linen, cotton and other items previously collected by the royal family and the Ministry of Revenue have all been changed to monetary taxes. Last year, the amount of silver in this area was 4.53 million yuan.
Fodder, horses, etc. have all been converted into monetary taxes, which amount to 2.3 million yuan in silver.
During the emperor's review of the Yellow Book, it was clearly stipulated that corvée labor could be replaced by silver dollars. This year, a total of 3.3 million yuan in silver dollars was collected for corvée labor.
Next is the salt tax, which is 12 million yuan per year. The tea tax, well, the tea tax is only 43,000 yuan. The metallurgy tax (metallurgy, porcelain) is 430,000 yuan. The ship tax, because the sea trade is not open, the income from this area is only 132,000 yuan. Finally, the toll collection of the completed highways, as of early December this year, a total of 1.35 million yuan has been collected.
In summary, the Ministry of Revenue’s revenue last year totaled 47.5 million dan of various grains and 21.785 million silver dollars of various types.”
Zhu Youdong didn't know how much Spain's income was in a fiscal year at that time. If he knew that Philip could get more than 40 million silver dollars into the national treasury every year, he would probably cry: Even if calculated based on the current market price of two stone of grain worth one silver dollar, his Ming Dynasty, which had the largest population in the world, had a total income of only about 40 million this year!
However, compared with the first time he attended the Silijian review presided over by Wanli when he was four years old, the total national income after all was converted into silver was only more than 19 million, and the actual silver deposited was only more than 5 million taels. Does it seem acceptable?
However, the following part of Xu Honggang's expenditure made Zhu Youdong depressed again.
"In terms of expenditure, last year, the Ministry of Revenue paid a total of 11.25 million yuan in salaries and wages to civil officials, clerks, and runners. It also paid for various materials, salaries, and travel expenses to the nine borders and other military towns as well as the Beijing camp, which were converted into silver dollars and were worth 6.35 million yuan. It paid 4.68 million yuan for salaries, travel expenses, and pensions for the newly built new army's fourth to tenth towns. It allocated 400,000 yuan to the shipyard for research and development funds, and 3.65 million yuan to the Ministry of Works for the production of various gunpowder, bombs, cannons, and firearms. It started construction of two new roads from Shanhaiguan to Liaoyang and from Xi'an to Chengdu. The former will take three years to build, and the latter will take ten years to build. This year, 2 million yuan has been allocated to the Ministry of Works... In addition, there are special paper costs for the reconstruction of the Yellow Book Library, various administrative expenses, disaster relief in a few areas, and funding for the new Taiwan Prefecture. A total of 3.78 million yuan was spent. In addition, due to the frequent mobilization of troops last year, tens of thousands of troops in Liaodong were stationed in the Yalu River for a long time. Therefore, the loss of grain was also very large. Last year, 13 million dan of military rations alone were consumed. In addition to the food consumed by the soldiers, the main reason was the loss along the way, and after Hainan was recovered, not only was the local people tax-free for one year to appease the local people, but also two dan of grain per person... There was also grain invested in advance for the establishment of Taiwan... Of course, according to the established practice of our dynasty, part of the expenditure on salaries, wages, silver and disaster relief for officials and military towns was replaced by grain. Therefore, the actual expenditure last year was: 21.755 million silver dollars and 29.35 million dan of various types of rice and flour. The Ministry of Revenue actually had a surplus of 18 million dan of various types of grain."
Looking at the ministers below, all twirling their beards and smiling, showing a relieved expression, Zhu Youdong wanted to shout angrily: Is this a surplus? Bullshit surplus! If it weren't for the war fund and my inner treasury subsidy, where would the surplus be? It's clearly a huge loss, isn't it?
Apart from other things, so far, the first to third regiments of the new army, the two fleets of Li Guozhu and Yan Siqi, the entire expenditure of Fangshan School and Laboratory, and half of the expenditure of the two royal military academies have been borne by my inner treasury alone, right? Just for these, I spent more than 4 million yuan last year.
In addition, the logistics of maintaining the movement of large troops during the war, the construction of additional warships, the purchase of gunpowder, etc., all depended on the war fund. This amounted to more than 6 million! If these were taken into account, the national finances would actually have no surplus at all - not to mention that if all the more than 40 million dan of grain in the treasury were to flow into the market, the grain price would be cut in half or even quartile. Even if we still calculate it based on two dan of grain for one silver dollar, this year's loss was at least several million silver dollars, right?
In fact, apart from the decisive battle in the East China Sea, the Ming Dynasty mainly fought against Siam this year. And they didn't fight many battles against Siam. As a result, the national finances were in deficit. What about fighting Japan next year? What about expanding the size of the new army at least tenfold and waging a global war?
The problem Zhu Youdong faces now is actually the same as Philip's: the time traveler has become slightly stronger, but the Ming Dynasty is still essentially a medieval state model, and it is unable to support a protracted, large-scale modern war.
What's more, Zhu Youdong's situation is even worse than Philip's: he still has no source of commercial taxes, and for the time being he has no colonies that can provide stable and continuous transfusions to the mainland.
Although the Ministry of Revenue’s salt mines sold gold and the bank’s fire consumption and so on, there must be a considerable amount of money. But how can this fiscal deficit continue year after year?
Fortunately, Siam has been defeated now. The above two issues have been solved.
Then the next step is to turn eastward, completely defeat Japan, and then carry out drastic and thorough reforms in this country.
