Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 458: It's Not Easy to Be the Master (Part 1)
In addition to commercial taxes, the Ming officials generally performed well. The establishment of the General Administration of Industry and Commerce, coupled with the bonus of Lianzhen Star, has significantly improved other taxes in the Ming Dynasty.
The most obvious change in the numbers is the tea tax: the tea tax here refers to a special tax generated when tea is consumed in the Ming Dynasty. In the context of the general love of tea drinking in the Ming Dynasty, as long as there is a little economic strength, people are willing to buy tea. In the 46th year of the Wanli reign, the national tea tax was only 43,000 yuan.
Of course, as a time traveler, Zhu Youdong also knew that in the original historical plane, the tea tax during the Chongzhen period was only a few dozen taels of silver. Therefore, it was not bad to have a few tens of thousands of yuan in the year he ascended the throne: the Ming Dynasty's officialdom was very bad during the Wanli period, but it was not completely rotten.
In the second year of Tianqi in this dimension, the tea tax in the Ming Dynasty reached 235,000 yuan: although for the lavish Zhu Youdong, these hundreds of thousands of yuan were not much compared to the tens of millions of yuan in the national fiscal revenue. However, the tea tax increased fivefold in two years, which fully demonstrated the role of the establishment of the General Administration of Industry and Commerce and the improvement of the national administration - this is the most gratifying thing.
"Okay, Grand Master." After the three directors of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce spoke one after another, Zhu Youdong knocked on the table and said, "That's all I have to say about income. Next, please tell us about expenditure."
"As you wish." Xu Honggang stood up again and opened another booklet: "Last year, the country spent a total of more than 83.65 million yuan."
"What!" When these words came out, all the ministers were shocked. Old ministers like Fang Congzhe slammed his hands on the table and almost jumped up.
The Prime Minister couldn't help but be excited: the country had been in deficit every year since the middle of the Jiajing period, and it was not until the late period of Zhang Juzheng's rule that it was reversed. After Zhang Juzheng's death, the Ming Dynasty was in deficit every year again, and the emperor's inner treasury had to subsidize it every year. It was not until the current emperor took office as regent that the deficit was slowly reversed, and it was only in the last two or three years that the budget was balanced or even slightly surplus. How many years have these good days lasted? How did it suddenly become a deficit again?
When the Prime Minister heard that the income was more than 60 million, he was thinking that he could save at least a few million this year: The Prime Minister assists the emperor in handling national affairs. Although he is not in charge of finances, at least he is clear in his mind - this year's national expenditure is unusually high.
As a scholar who is well versed in literature and history, Fang Congzhe knows that the most expensive things in the Chinese Empire since ancient times are two: First, fighting. Second, repairing things. And the most expensive thing is to do these two things at the same time. Don’t you see, when Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty just ascended the throne, the national power of the Great Sui Dynasty had reached its peak, it was really a raging fire and oil, and flowers were in full bloom. As a result, Yang Guang built a Grand Canal, fought Goguryeo three times, and brought down an extremely rich and powerful empire - the Great Sui Dynasty was really strong back then. The so-called Zhenguan Reign, at the end of Emperor Taizong’s reign, the number of households in the Great Tang Dynasty was less than half of that in the fifth year of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty!
And now, the Ming Dynasty is also fighting wars and repairing things at the same time. Therefore, this expenditure is definitely inevitable. But when he heard Xu Honggang report the figure of more than 80 million, he still couldn't remain calm.
"Grand Minister, I know that the country spent a lot of money in the second year of Tianqi, but I never thought that it would spend so much. Can you tell us in detail?"
As soon as Fang Congzhe said this, everyone started to make noises. Because of their rank, the three directors of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce sitting in the back row blushed and stretched their necks: Is it easy for us to collect taxes? So many people died, and so much effort was spent. In the end, what we earned was far less than what we spent. If you, the Minister of Revenue, don't explain this clearly, we will be the first to disagree.
"Even if the Prime Minister and you guys didn't mention it, I would still give a detailed explanation of the expenditure." Lifting the teacup beside him and taking a sip of tea to moisten his throat, Xu Honggang said, "First of all, the regular expenditure, the first item, official salaries, 13 million. Ladies and gentlemen, the expenditure in this area in the 46th year of Wanli was 11.25 million. The reason why it increased by more than one million two years later was mainly because of the establishment of new departments such as the Five Overseas States, the Central and Southern Governor's Office, and the General Administration of Industry and Commerce, and after the establishment of these departments, at least tens of thousands of people were added."
No one had any objection to this: apart from other things, the tax police corps of the State Administration of Industry and Commerce alone had 3,000 people, which was completely organized according to the elite military. The total expenditure in this regard was only more than one million, which was already very cheap.
"The second regular expenditure is the army. My Ming Dynasty now has 150,000 new soldiers, including salaries for officers and soldiers, clothing and food in the barracks, gunpowder loss during training, and equipment wear and tear. These 150,000 new soldiers basically cost 8 million yuan every year. In the past, the emperor's inner treasury borne the bulk of this expenditure, but starting last year, all the expenses of the new army have been borne by the Ministry of Revenue."
After Xu Honggang said this, all the ministers, led by Fang Congzhe, focused their attention on Zhu Youdong.
Why are you looking at me like this? Shouldn't the country pay for the army? Besides, am I a miser like my grandfather? My industry pays the most commercial taxes! In addition to supporting tens of thousands of people in the palace, my annual profits also have to continue to maintain Fangshan School, two military academies, and privately allocate funds to Wei Zhongxian, Xu Xianchun, and Tian Ergeng for some things that cannot be brought to the table. I am indeed not poor, but I am definitely not rich.
Of course, the emperor's majesty has been growing in recent years, and without Zhu Youdong's initiative to explain, no minister dared to say anything like "The emperor's inner treasury should continue to be subsidized." After staring at the emperor for a while, everyone turned their attention back to Xu Honggang.
"In addition to the new army, our Ming Dynasty still has 800,000 old soldiers. Because of the expedition against Mongolia last year, the elite troops of the nine frontiers were all sent out. In addition, the country is preparing to clean up the military yellow book. Before taking action, it is necessary to appease the ordinary military households. Therefore, after the proposal of the Ministry of Revenue, the draft of the Cabinet, and the approval of the Ministry of Ceremonies, the Ministry of Revenue allocated a total of 12 million yuan to military towns and garrisons across the country last year, not only to settle all the arrears over the years, but also to give each military household a subsidy of 5 yuan in advance.
In addition to the army, the Ming Dynasty also has three fleets: Beihai (Li Guozhu), Donghai (Yan Siqi), and Nanyang. The navy burns more money than the army, but fortunately the three fleets are not large in scale, including the craftsmen and logistics personnel on the shore, the number of people has never exceeded 70,000, so this area currently has only 5.6 million.
In addition, the daily administrative office expenses of government offices and the military across the country amount to 2.3 million yuan.”
Seeing that everyone present nodded and no one raised obvious objections, Xu Honggang breathed a sigh of relief: "Everyone, the above is the routine expenditure, a total of 40.9 million yuan. Basically, if there are no major changes , this money will be about the same every year and must be spent.
Next is last year's temporary expenditure. The largest amount, of course, was the 228,000 troops that our dynasty mobilized for the Northern and Western Expeditions last year. Thanks to the bravery of the soldiers, the results were of course brilliant. But the speed at which the money flowed out was also amazing. As of December 15 last year, including the last special fund transferred from the Ministry of Revenue to the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Revenue had transferred 12.5 million yuan to the Ministry of War for this expedition.
As soon as he finished speaking, the Minister of War Wang Xiangqian stood up and said, "Everyone, after the Ministry of War receives this money, there are four main uses. First, it is used to pay soldiers wartime subsidies. Second, it is used to provide pensions to soldiers killed or injured. Third, it is used to pay subsidies to soldiers and civilians. Fourth, and the largest amount, it is used to pay the Ministry of Works and Fangshan to purchase various firearms and gunpowder."
Xu Guangqi, the Minister of Works, stood up and said, "Last year, the Ministry of Works received a total of 4.3 million yuan from the Ministry of War. All guns and ammunition were provided at cost price. The Ministry of Works has detailed account books, which can be checked by the Metropolitan Procuratorate and colleagues at any time."
After seeing everyone nodding in approval, Xu Honggang continued, "Last year, there was also a huge amount of money, which was a special fund to buy grain from the Southeast Asian countries. Since our dynasty opened up steam engine technology to the righteous merchants of the war foundation, a large number of factories have been built in Jiangnan, Tianjin and other places. These factories themselves require land. After they are built, farmers from all over the country must be absorbed into the factories to work. Most of the raw materials of the factories are not grain, so the grain fields must be converted to mulberry, hemp, cotton or other crops. In this way, compared with the 1.15 billion mu of arable land in the country after the reconstruction of the Yellow Book under the auspices of the emperor in the 43rd year of Wanli. On the surface, the arable land in the second year of Tianqi only decreased by more than 3 million mu. But in fact , more arable land has been abandoned, or other crops have been converted from grain fields. Therefore, the grain collected by the Ministry of Households last year was more than 20% less than in the previous two years.
Since the great locust plague that affected the entire North China in the 45th year of Wanli, the emperor has been requiring our Ministry of Revenue to store grain in warehouses across the country, not less than 30 million dan. In order to ensure that the storage level does not decline, and that the more than 200,000 troops go out to fight without food shortages, and to ensure that the national grain price is basically stable. Therefore, the Ministry of Revenue had to take out a special fund to buy large amounts of grain from Southeast Asian countries. Last year, the Ministry of Revenue spent a total of more than 9 million yuan on grain purchases. Excluding the loss on the road, the total amount of purchased grain that actually entered our Daming territory was 23 million dan. "
