In spring, we offer sacrifices to heaven and earth and encourage farmers to cultivate mulberry trees.
However, God was not kind, and by the time the farmers were planting rice, there was only a light rain in Jinling Prefecture. It was similar in Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and Hunan. This year's spring drought has been confirmed, and it is slightly better than last year.
In another time and space, this would have been the fourth year of Shunzhi.
During the Shunzhi period, there were many disasters. Historical records include floods and droughts, frequent earthquakes, winter thunder and spring snow, and meteorites and rain.
In this regard, following the advice of civil officials, Emperor Shunzhi repeatedly issued edicts against himself.
Before the Lantern Festival is over, this year's first batch of immigrants, totaling 80,000 people, moved from several southern provinces to the north...
Thanks to the propaganda of the imperial court, things have been going well in the north in recent years. In addition, the taxes for immigrants are completely exempted in the first year, and the taxes are halved in the next three years. These have made the people who are relatively poor feel excited, and more and more people are voluntarily signing up to move north.
"Luting posted a notice!"
In Nanjing City, passers-by yelled, and people nearby rushed to check.
A scholar shook his head and said: "Since March 1st, the Maqun Racecourse has been open to the public. Those who want to learn riding skills or have fun on horseback can go to the racecourse and pay a fee to enter. All fees are charged according to the hour..."
The people all found it strange that it was a royal racecourse and that they could pay money to play.
Zhu Yuanzhang built many horse farms in Zijin Mountain, especially the horse farms with the largest area. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, they had been occupied as cultivated land.
Now, the farmers near Maqun have been collectively relocated to Hebei, and the Maqun racecourse has been completely restored. A school ground for the imperial guards has been set up in the racecourse, and the palace guards have taken turns to go out of the city for training.
Normally, one-fifth of the racecourse is open to the public, and you can go in and play after paying a ticket. You can rent horses by paying more, or even hire jockeys to teach riding skills. Of course, the hiring fee is definitely not cheap. Only when the emperor comes to the racecourse, can he go in in advance.
The venue will be closed for three days.
The large forest to the west of the racecourse has been designated as a royal hunting ground and is open to the public for half a month every autumn. You also have to pay money to enter for hunting.
The large area of mountain forest to the west of the hunting ground, including Meiling Palace and Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, has been transformed into a royal garden for royal members to go to the mountains to escape the summer heat.
Morning meeting.
Zhao Han smiled and said to the ministers: "Are you slandering me for building a large-scale construction project?"
"I don't dare!" the officials quickly denied.
Zhao Han said: "In years of natural disasters, work-related relief is required. Initially, Guanlou (official dormitories) and Yilou (affordable housing) were built in Nanjing City, which gave a large number of unemployed people jobs. Waiting for Guanlou and Yilou (affordable housing)
After the building was completed, the Forbidden City was repaired, and at the same time, immigrants continued to migrate north, so that there were no more unemployed people in Nanjing. In recent years, natural disasters have continued, and the water conservancy projects around Nanjing have been almost fully repaired through work-for-relief."
Zhao Han glanced at the ministers: "According to the induction of heaven and man, it is caused by my lack of virtue. I will not issue this edict to offend myself. I consider myself a virtuous king. God may also want to test me.
, there is another spring drought this year. The horse farm has been built, and after the spring plowing, hunting grounds and gardens will be built in Zijin Mountain. This is also a work-for-relief project, providing multiple livelihoods for nearby farmers. The hunting grounds and gardens will be enough to build for several years. Don’t worry.
, all the money comes from internal funds, and no money from the treasury will be used."
"Your Majesty is wise!" the ministers shouted.
In fact, many people are slandering, saying that the emperor's internal funds provide the money, but this year the royal family's expenses have increased again, and Emperor Zhao personally decided to increase it to 1.5 million taels per year.
This number has reached the royal expenses of the Hongzhi Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhao Han smiled and said: "Fei Chun, tell me, how much was the national treasury revenue last year?"
The annual income of the previous year cannot be truly counted until the end of February of the following year.
Fei Chun immediately stood up, raised his hands and said: "Last year's national treasury revenue, excluding local taxes retained, was more than 25.57 million taels in silver."
As soon as these words came out, there was an uproar in the palace. The Ming Dynasty had never been so wealthy before.
Local taxes, mainly agricultural taxes and industrial and commercial taxes, can retain 40% at the provincial, prefecture, and county levels, and the remaining 60% is handed over to the central government. However, special taxes such as customs duties, salt taxes, tea taxes, and tobacco taxes, 20% of the revenue Return it to the local government, and everything else is handed over to the central government, and the royal family’s budget is also taken from here.
Excluding local interceptions, the central government can still collect more than 25 million taels in taxes, mainly due to the rapid growth of industrial and commercial taxes and customs duties.
Moreover, several provinces in the north and southwest are still exempting or exempting land taxes. The remaining provinces do not exploit the people too hard, otherwise they can collect more. When the country recovers in the future, the annual income will definitely exceed 30 million taels.
We must know that in another time and space, the annual income of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties exceeded 20 million taels during the Shunzhi period, and it was around 30 million taels during the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties.
The Qing Dynasty was able to collect so many taxes simply because it did not care about the life and death of the people. Do you believe that the Qing Dynasty continued to collect three taxes?
When the Manchus and Qing Dynasties first entered the customs, they pretended to be exempted from the three-month salary increase. As the resistance in the south became fierce, the Manchus and the Qing Dynasty's military expenditures were insufficient, so they resumed the Liao Dynasty's salary, but changed the name from "Liao's salary" to "Nine Liyin" .
Although training rates have always been said to be exempted, many places continued to collect them until the early years of Kangxi. In the last years of Shunzhi alone, the annual additional training rates reached more than 5 million taels of silver.
Nearly 90% of the Shunzhi Dynasty's 20 million two-year income came from farmers' grain taxes and additional taxes.
Only 60% of Zhao Han's annual income of 25 million taels comes from agricultural taxes. After all, many provinces are still in the food tax reduction period, and local officials cannot collect more even if they want.
"Today's court meeting, why not discuss business." Zhao Han said.
Song Yingxing was the first to say: "Your Majesty, agriculture is the foundation and business is the last. This is an eternal principle. It is because businessmen pursue profit. The more money they gather, the more they can control the market, and the wealth of the common people is exploited by them. Therefore, the emphasis on agriculture and suppression of business must be made a national policy, and merchants must not be allowed to run rampant throughout the country."
When the ministers heard this, they all said yes.
Song Yingxing also said: "However, the world cannot be without merchants. Strong merchants do not necessarily make a country strong, and weak merchants will inevitably lead to a weak country. In the pre-Ming Dynasty, the decline of commerce began in the Wanli period. The government and the public took and robbed merchants. They even imposed unreasonable taxes and detained the families of merchants. Merchants were exploited in this way, and many families were ruined and their families died. As a result, the circulation of goods was inconvenient, and urban prices increased day by day. In the end, it was the common people who suffered."
During the Ming Dynasty, business reached its peak during the Wanli period, but began to decline in the middle and late Wanli years.
On the one hand, the import of silver from the Americas decreased, and on the other hand, merchants were not treated as human beings. From the emperor to local officials, and later generals and bandits, they would ask merchants for money when they had no money. The business in the Ming Dynasty was far inferior to that in the Jiajing period.
At the same time, big businessmen collude with powerful people to pass losses on to small people, and even become richer through power-money transactions. Small and medium-sized businessmen, on the other hand, have gone bankrupt in countless numbers.
Wu Yingji has been promoted to the Secretary of the Ministry of Household Affairs. He went on to say: "What Song Diange said is absolutely true. There is no stability without farming, no prosperity without industry, and no wealth without business. Xunzi divided the people of the world into four categories: scholars, farmers, industry and merchants. Farmers should do their best. If Jia can inspect the fields and use all the wealth, and the hundreds of workers with skill, all the tools can be used, if it can be done to this extent, the country will be forever solid, the country will be rich and the people will be strong."
Qian Qianyi suddenly appeared: "This is the debate between justice and benefit. Confucius said, wealth and honor are what people want. Poverty and lowliness are what people hate. Everyone pursues wealth. Among all industries, business is the only one.
If everyone goes into business, who will cultivate the land? Therefore, we must focus on agriculture and suppress business. For businessmen, they should make profits with justice and not seek ill-gotten gains. After making profits, businessmen should also make money.
By giving alms to others, you can achieve both justice and benefit."
Except what Song Yingxing said is slightly reliable, the rest are very correct nonsense!
Zhao Han asked: "What Dr. Qian said is that we should use benevolence, justice and morality to restrain businessmen?"
"Of course." Qian Qianyi replied.
"But among the merchants in the world, how many are benevolent and righteous merchants?" Zhao Han asked with a smile.
Qian Qianyi said: "The less benevolent a businessman is, the more the court should educate him."
Zhao Han said: "What do Mr. Pang and Mr. Li think?"
Pang Chunlai said: "Don't let things go, and don't change orders overnight. Set rules for businessmen. It's best for them to abide by them. If they don't abide by them, they'll be severely punished!"
Li Banghua said: "Suppress big businessmen and treat small businessmen well."
"good!"
Zhao Han immediately laughed and was very satisfied with Pang Chunlai and Li Banghua's speeches.
There is no need to talk about big principles, just tell me how to do it.
Zhao Han asked the officials to continue speaking. Everyone followed this meaning and ended up speaking more and more meaninglessly.
Zhao Han concluded: "I heard what Zhu Qing just said about suppressing business, which means that merchants are not allowed to wear silk and are not allowed to live in big houses. What's the use of this? Everyone wants to have beautiful clothes and beautiful houses. The government must not violate human nature in its administration. Just like controlling water, don't blindly block it. Managing business is like controlling water. You should imitate Dayu and remember that blocking is worse than sparing. If merchants want to wear fancy clothes, let them wear them; if merchants want to live in beautiful houses, let them live in them. The desires of merchants will If it becomes more and more swollen, then we need to dredge the river and guide the merchants to follow the court's instructions."
"It's wrong to hoard and disrupt the market. It's wrong to annex and buy land. It's wrong to raise slaves. These are river embankments, and the water of merchants' desires cannot be allowed to overflow. This flood must still be
Leading outwards and opening up the sea is one strategy. So much cloth is woven every year and so much porcelain is burned every year, all of which must be sold by merchants. Not only sold domestically, but also sold overseas. In this way, business will become more prosperous, and industry will become more prosperous.
If it is prosperous, the people's livelihood will be more."
"We must also beware of converting rice into mulberry and rice into cotton. The mulberry fields and cotton fields in the south of the Yangtze River cannot continue to expand. How to restrain them? Mulberry fields and cotton fields are taxed more, and farmers know what to grow more profitably, so they will naturally follow the rules..."
Zhao Han talked a lot about how to restrict and guide business, and all the officials in the court knew that it would never be the same as before.
Haven’t you seen commercial taxes and tariffs increasing year by year?
With so much money entering the treasury, the emperor and cabinet ministers will definitely jump up if anyone dares to suppress merchants again.
The meeting dispersed and Zhao Han went back to work.
Soon I saw Li Banghua's memorial. The content was very simple: control the number of troops and reduce the navy.
Including the cavalry division, the Datong Army has a total of seventeen divisions. Counting the navy, navy and important port coast guard, the regular army of the new Datong Dynasty has a total of 200,000.
This may not seem like much, but military expenditures are huge, because military rations have not increased, but military pay has been rising. The most ordinary soldiers receive a certain amount of military rations per month (including food and accommodation), and one tael of military pay per month, and are also given free of charge in summer and autumn.
Clothes. Starting from non-commissioned officers, military pay has been rising.
There are also patrol inspection departments in various places, similar to the armed police, with a total of nearly 100,000 people, especially the three southwest provinces with the largest number.
There are also a large number of police forces in major cities across the country, which Li Banghua regards as the army. At least, the police guarding city gates and walls can certainly be regarded as the army.
Therefore, Li Banghua suggested that the army should not be expanded any more and it would be best if one or two troops could be eliminated.
The Datong Navy should be cut back even more. There are no serious enemies in the country. How about raising so many inland naval forces?
Zhao Han thought carefully and decided to temporarily abolish half of the navy. As for the armed police force of the inspection department, it will be abolished as appropriate depending on the local security situation.
The laid-off soldiers immigrated to the north with their wives and children. They must be resettled well, and each veteran can get two acres more good land than ordinary immigrants. I will provide you with the fastest update, 605 [annual income of 25 million taels]