Chapter 40 Daming's financial difficulties

Unfortunately, Chongzhen has never thought of adopting this method to take the silver under his control. Otherwise, not to mention getting all the money in his hand, even if he only get one percent or even one thousandth, it is estimated that it is enough for him to support millions of troops without any problem, and there will not be rate every year. As a result In the end, it led to the anger and resentment, the collapse of the people's hearts, and the Ming Dynasty collapsed.

Even if Chongzhen is unwilling to use this method to save money, in fact, there is another way for Daming to solve financial problems without adding it every year.

That's tax, taxing businessmen! The Ming Dynasty has always been a light merchant, but strangely, it has never thought of taxing merchants in the Ming Dynasty. Even if it is a tax, it is only a symbolic little.

Although the Ming government has from time to time used some means to force some businessmen to undertake some material supply in the form of investment or allocation, it has indeed caused many small craftsmen and some small merchants to ruin their property for this, but in fact, for big businessmen, the taxes borne But it is extremely low.

It's not that every emperor in the Ming Dynasty has never thought of this way, but they are facing a problem, that is, who secretly has no collusion or nepotism with those officials?

Daming officials, who doesn't benefit from it? Although those officials have read sages since childhood, they have only read high reading and look down on businessmen. In terms of system, they have always despised businessmen and put the status of businessmen much lower than that of farmers.

But in fact, the interests of businessmen have always been tied to the interests of officials, such as the salt merchants among Anhui merchants, who secretly * private salt, control a large number of underground private salt sales, and obtain huge profits from them. It can be said that they are extremely rich in various countries. However, these people do such things, if there is no official If you defend them, then ghosts won't believe them.

Officials have to give these businessmen all kinds of filial respect every year, so they are short-handed and naturally have to speak for the businessmen.

Sometimes the emperor wants to tax merchants to increase fiscal revenue, but without exception, he will immediately attract ministers to persuade them collectively, saying that it is not easy to compete with the people. This kind of thing will cause very bad consequences. In a word, if the emperor wants to ask merchants for money, there is no door! They have to put this money in their pockets, which has absolutely nothing to do with the country! Ask merchants for money, even if they want to rob them, the emperor can't do it! Everyone formed a group and fightd with the emperor to the end.

As a result, the emperor saw that his ministers were so opposed, and of course, he had no choice but to do it, because he wanted to levy taxes, but he always had someone to work for him! The ministers objected, and this kind of thing could not be carried out. His Majesty can't go door to door to find merchants to collect taxes!

There are such a bunch of bastards. On the surface, they are sanctimonial and stand and speak without back pain. They all look bright, but they are full of male and female prostitutes who are doing things for the emperor. It's really not easy for Daming to increase their financial income, so he has no choice but to keep going there. Some farmers at the bottom of society reach out and give more money if they don't have enough money. If they don't have enough money, they can add more money!

If you don't want to finish it, I'm afraid God won't do it!

Of course, if Chongzhen still wants to take money from other places, he is not absolutely helpless. At least he can completely abandon the sea closure policy, open the sea ban, and set up municipal shipping companies in various places, and collect import and export taxes through municipal shipping departments during the two Song Dynasty. I'm afraid he will collect more than millions of silver in this year. ! It is easy to feed a large number of troops without watching the disasters in various places. Instead of not being able to provide relief, they also have to constantly increase their troops and play to death.

Speaking of the market, the reason why the Song Dynasty was rich is undoubtedly related to the policy of opening ports, encouraging business and encouraging export trade.

The fiscal revenue of the Song Dynasty, even in the late Southern Song Dynasty, exceeded tens of millions of revenue. Compared with the exchange at that time, it was always almost one or two pieces of silver. Even at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the revenue was quite large.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the annual fiscal revenue of the country was only 2 million taels. In the era of Zhengquan, Zhang Ju's efforts to do so, it doubled to 4 million taels. By the year of Apocalypse, it was continuously increased, basically fixed at 5.3 million taels. During the Chongzhen period, because of the continuous increase of Liaoning, training and suppressing. It has been raised to more than 6 million taels, but it has almost killed the peasant class of the whole country, and eventually tossed Daming to death.

It can be seen how big the gap is during this period. This is also the tragedy caused by the Ming Dynasty's closure of the country. It is not easy to be an emperor! I'm really short of money.

It's really unreasonable to say that the Ming Dynasty is not finished. This is like sitting on Baoshan, but the poor jingle. Obviously, the country has accumulated huge wealth, but it can't be collected. Every day, Emperor Chongzhen can only keep squeezing those poor jingling farmers because he has no money to lose his hair, forcing the farmers to live. It's strange not to rebel.

It's not just that the filial genius is too lazy to care about this kind of thing, let alone foolishly go to the court and give advice on how to save money to the court. Now he holds the sea trade channels along the coast of Fujian. By the third year of Chongzhen, he only collected the road money from Tonghai merchants, and there will be a net of nearly 2 million taels in a year. The money is recorded in the account.

With this income alone, he basically tops more than one-third of Daming's fiscal revenue for the whole year. If Daming now wants to open ports and set up a municipal shipping company to collect taxes, wouldn't he grab his job?

So he won't care about Daming's lack of money now. Since Daming is now rotten, he would rather let Daming go so completely. One day he will kick down Daming's building and completely eliminate Daming's shortcomings from the root, and he will never now Take action to help Daming survive.

When the dynasties have changed, there must be dead and many people, but this is also the price that must be paid by historical changes. Without paying such a price, it is impossible to build a new social system and social structure. What he has to do now is to take the opportunity to continue to make money and get enough money to support him in the future. The division went north to compete for the funds needed in the Central Plains.

At present, what he has done is quite well. At least the sea wolf doesn't want to make money and spend money with one hand like in previous years, and almost never save much money in the treasury.

Although it has only been a few years since he was caressed, the financial situation of the sea wolf has changed dramatically. Yu Xiaotian no longer has to feel stretched out for lack of money. Now he is in the secretly set up warehouses in Danshui and Keelung. At least more than 4 million taels of silver have been stored, which does not include a large amount of liquidity every day and various temporary reserves on the side of Weitou Bay.

If we take stock of the value of the whole plate of the Sea Wolf Group, then the most conservative estimate is that the fixed funds and various movable real estate currently held by Yu Xiaotian may not be absolutely impossible to cover at least 20 million taels of silver.

If this number is said, it is estimated that it can scare a large number of people. This is the sum of the total financial revenue of the whole Ming Dynasty in the four or five years. If it can be handed over to Chongzhen, it is estimated that Chongzhen will not have a headache for at least many years because he has no money to spend! At least Daming will no longer force the people to go to a dead end because of the lack of money, and Daming will not eventually kill himself.

Of course, Yu Xiaotian will not reveal to anyone that he has such a huge wealth in any case. On the contrary, he keeps crying to Xiong Wencan and urging Fujian for the underpaid money.

In fact, Fujian's financial situation has not been very good in recent years. Although it is not as poor as in several northern provinces, there is still a problem of underpayment.

In the past, when the number of soldiers and horses under Yu Xiaotian managed was small, Xiong Wencan could tilt him and try to ensure that he would pay food and salaries to his men first. However, now Yu Xiaotian is already a general officer in Fujian and is in charge of a large number of Fujian troops. Xiong Wencan also wants to tilt him to ensure that his soldiers can get them in time. The salary is not very realistic.

Therefore, in the past two years, Fujian owes Yu Xiaotian a lot of food and salaries. For this reason, Yu Xiaotian cried a lot with Xiong Wencan, which made Xiong Wencan feel embarrassed when he saw Yu Xiaotian now. After all, Yu Xiaotian has helped him so much, and he must be ordered to do it. He has never been perfunctorily and let the troops send troops immediately. Soldiers, let the disaster relief be relief immediately, and do not shirk at all.

However, he can't solve the full amount of military pay for Yu Xiaotian, which is equivalent to letting the horse run and not let the horse eat grass. If he had been other military generals, he would have quit this long ago. Even if he did not pay in public, he would at least neglect the delay, but Yu Xiaotian did not do so.

However, when encountering a pirate attack along the coast, the sailors controlled by Yu Xiaotian have always heard that the police must come out, including bandits on land. As long as Xiong Wencan let Yu Xiaotian send troops, Yu Xiaotian will also immediately send troops to suppress it without delay.

His practice, even some Fujian officials who have always been vigilant or hostile to Xiaotian feel speechless. Although they look down on Xiaotian in their hearts and even maintain a hostile attitude towards Xiaotian, they have to admit that when Yu Xiaotian was caressed, the whole Fujian seems to It has become much more stable.

In particular, Yu Xiaotian has a strong ability to control troops, but all the officers and soldiers he controls will soon be subdued by him. The military discipline is strict, basically works in various places, and rarely causes disasters in local areas. This is very different from the previous officers and soldiers. Even the people in many places are filial to the command of filial piety. The attitude of the officers and soldiers has changed a lot.