After summoning Chen Tingyang, after some comments, Zhu Mai issued an order to grant Chen Tingyang the Minister of Commerce.

The State-owned Bureau was also changed to the State-owned Department, which was one of the subordinate institutions of the Ministry of Commerce.

The former State-owned Assets Manager of the Ministry of Finance was transferred to the Ministry of Commerce - this institution was specially designed to deal with the confiscated inherent assets of the imperial court, such as real estate, shops, etc. Of course, the land was not listed here.

In addition, the Business Coordination Department and the Maritime Trade Department were established, and their functions could be known by name.

After all, it is a newly established department. For the time being, only these four subordinate institutions have to be recruited and elected slowly. Officials even need to be trained by themselves. The subordinate institutions can also be added and deleted according to the situation in the future.

In fact, even such a Ministry of Commerce, which has only four subordinate institutions, is probably enough for Chen Tingyang to work hard for a long time.

Because the Ministry of Commerce is not like the first six departments, there is experience to follow in everything. On the contrary, the Ministry of Commerce has to slowly explore everything, and it is not too urgent to be anxious...

After Chen Tingyang finished his comments and stepped down, it was already noon.

Zhu Ma Su went back to the old Zhulin house for lunch.

During the meal, Hao Guangming remembered the eight great masters of Shanxi merchants and said, "I heard that the eight great masters of Shanxi merchants are very rich, and I don't know how many you can find this time."

Zhu Meisu smiled and said, "These eight traitors were successfully arrested today, but it will probably take some time to find out their property and complete the statistics."

"The Ming Dynasty court should not be short of money now, right?" Hao Guangming asked.

"My husband watched me deal with state affairs every day. Do you still have no idea about the financial situation of the Ming Dynasty?

Although the national treasury now contains tens of millions of taels of silver, our military pay every year in Ming Dynasty now requires 40 million taels of taels.

Including other military expenses, military expenditures alone are conservatively estimated to cost about 80 million taels per year. If a big war is fought, the military expenditure is likely to exceed 100 million."

Speaking of this, he has become a generation of empresses, and Zhu Ma, who was called the Saint Lord of Zhongxing by the Ming Dynasty, also showed helplessness.

Hao Guangming mainly didn't bother to think about it. At this time, he realized what Zhu Ma said.

Nowadays, there are more than 800,000 new Ming army controlled by Zhu Mai. If the old-style official troops that have not yet been adapted in Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and other places are added, the army that the imperial court will definitely have to support is more than one million.

This number sounds exaggerated, but compared to a huge empire like the Ming Dynasty, it is actually a small number.

Because compared with the dynasties of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty still has many incomplete areas that are now ruled, such as the Western Regions, Qinghai, Uszang and other places.

With such a large territory, you must have enough troops to occupy it.

It should be noted that even the Daxia Kingdom, which Hao Guangming belonged to later generations, had such developed technology, and there were more than two million soldiers involved.

In ancient times, the cost of rule was higher. To maintain national territorial integrity and social stability, more troops would be needed.

In terms of military pay, taking the new army as an example, the average annual pay for millions of soldiers is 40 taels, which means that each person has more than three taels per month - this is actually not very high at present.

By doing this, isn’t it not that the single military pay expenditure costs 40 million taels per year?

To maintain the combat effectiveness of soldiers, their armor and weapons must be maintained or even replaced with new ones?

Nowadays, the proportion of musketeers in marching is getting higher and higher, and artillery among all units has also increased.

Musketeers and artillery soldiers need to undergo certain training to maintain combat effectiveness even if they do not have any combat. Even if they do not train live ammunition every time, they still need to consume materials, right?

If a big battle starts, the consumption of guns, ammunition, bows, arrows, food, and other materials will be astronomical.

Therefore, even though Zhu Mai has copied a lot of money in the past six months since she ascended the throne, the Ming Dynasty's finances are still not rich, and even feel a little stretched.

After all, the northern provinces now need to allocate certain funds from the court to restore people's livelihood.

In addition, Zhang Guowei was ordered to repair the river channels in Jiangbei to prepare for the future change of the Yellow River estuary, and he has been spending money. It was just asking the court for money one by one, which was not so obvious.

Finally, the implementation of three years of compulsory primary school education in the three prefectures also requires the imperial court to allocate funds. However, the scale is currently small and the money is not enough.

In the future, compulsory education will also become a terrifying gold-swalking beast...

Therefore, after talking about financial issues with Hao Guangming, Zhu Ma couldn't help but sigh: "Although I hate Fan Yongdou and other Shanxi merchants, I hope that they have made a lot of money in smuggling before, so that the court can search more

Some silver comes."

Zhu Mei, who had been cooking next to her, suddenly said, "Is sister short of money again? My mother can bring goods to Daming to sell money to help her sister."

Seeing Zhu Mai Jing's serious expression, Zhu Mai Jing and Hao Guangming laughed.

Zhu Mai said: "It's not that my sister is short of money, it's that the Ming Dynasty is short of money."

"Is this different?" Zhu Xian asked in confusion.

"Of course it's different." Zhu Mei wanted to explain, but she felt it was difficult to explain to Zhu Mei now, so she said, "You will understand when you grow up."

In fact, Zhu Ma is indeed not short of money personally - the money she has accumulated in her treasury has now exceeded 100 million.

However, most of them were obtained by her during the food crisis in April and May, when she sold her "treasures" for food in exchange for food. Some of them were left over from the Shu Palace, and some were from several companies.

The profits she earned from the factory she invested in in her personal name.

If the Ming Dynasty's finances really come to a difficult time, she will of course take out the treasury to help.

But the Ming Dynasty court must not count on her treasury to supplement the financial gap, and must find a way to solve it by itself.

In fact, with the end of the Northern Expedition, the thieves and bandits in various places were quickly pacified by the new army and gradually returned to stability. In addition, the implementation of the new policy, the finance and taxation in various places were released to the central government normally, which increased a lot of income to the treasury.

.

There were several more searches for the big gains as a supplement, and the current finances of the court can still be barely maintained.

Of course, it was just barely maintained, otherwise Zhu Ma would not have discussed business and prosperity with Chen Tingyang.

···

Considering that financial issues were already the main internal affairs that the Ming Dynasty had to face, after lunch, Zhu Ma did not go to the Ming Dynasty or take a lunch break, but talked about this with Hao Guangming.

"If the Ming Dynasty wants to solve the financial problems, the fastest and most direct method should be to use state-owned factories to make money, right? In addition to these factories, my husband thinks there are any factories suitable for opening them in the Ming Dynasty?"

Hao Guangming sat opposite the desk where Zhu Moe was working here.

Hearing this, he took out a piece of paper and wrote with a water pen while talking.

"In fact, the fastest and most profitable thing in running a factory is the arms business. However, the new army's arms equipment is not fully equipped, and the surrounding small countries have no guest service, so they will definitely not be able to smuggle arms outwards.

Therefore, if the Ming Dynasty wants to open a factory to make money, it has to take the people's livelihood and pay from the pockets of the rich people in the cellar."

Speaking of this, Hao Guangming stopped.

Because he thought of many ways to gather wealth in the cross-border line, opening banks, creating stocks, etc.
Chapter completed!