In absolute terms, the annual income of the Ming Dynasty court has been rising over the years. When Gao Gongqi returned to the court, the annual income of the imperial court was only 3.08 million (he only arrived in Beijing at the end of the year, so Xu Jie should be responsible for this).
In the first year when Gong took charge, the annual income of the imperial court increased by more than 200,000 taels (the first assistant was still Li Chunfang).
The following year, that is, the sixth year of Longqing when Gao Gong was officially the chief minister in charge of national affairs, the annual income of the imperial court rose directly to 3.84 million taels, which was a direct increase of about 500,000 taels compared with the fifth year of Longqing - you must know that at this time, Beijing had not yet
The increase in annual income is almost entirely a reflection of Gao Gong's own abilities.
Needless to say, there was a mess in the last years of Jiajing. It is a well-known fact. As a result, the years of Longqing era were all about paying off debts. The year when Xu Jie left the throne, the balance of payments was not yet achieved (before Gao Gong left the throne, he had already launched some
Measures), but the debt has been reduced a lot.
It was not until the end of the sixth year of Longqing that the Ming court basically paid off its debts in the hands of Gao Gong (mainly by repaying previous years' arrears), and there was a surplus of about 180,000 taels, which was really gratifying.
Entering the Wanli period, Gao Gong was in power for six years, and Jinghua also slowly took shape during this period. Northern Xinjiang was opened, the coast was opened to the sea, Jinghua Trading Company started border trade, and Jinghua Private Port opened ocean trade. The two aspects of trade no longer
Limited to one or two "pilots".
In northern Xinjiang, in addition to Zhangjiakou and other commercial customs that have always been used as trade gateways, Gaogong has almost fully opened the gateways suitable for trade along the Tumut, Ordos, and Qinghai Tumut borders, with a total of forty-seven horse markets and private markets.
.
On the coast, in addition to the earliest Fujian Yuegang, from north to south are Gaizhou (Yingkou), Yongping (Kaiping), Tianjin, Laizhou (the location of the North Plant of Jinghua Shipyard), Songjiang (Shanghai County), Ningbo, Quanzhou
, private ports were built in Guangzhou, and a large number of coastal smugglers began to gradually give up smuggling and enter the port to do business legally.
In the year of Gao Gong's death, the Ming Dynasty's annual income had reached 5.4 million taels (there was still about 400,000 taels of income that was not recorded in the accounts, due to a problem with the measurement standards at the time, and was given directly to the imperial family by Jinghua).
In the four years since Guo Pu was in power, land trade had not changed much. However, after Gao Pangshi went to Guangxi, Jinghua opened the Yunnan-Tibet trade route, which slightly increased the annual income.
Maritime trade further developed, and six major ports were opened from north to south: Jinzhou (later Dalian), Jiaozhou (later Qingdao), Haizhou (later Lianyungang), Hangzhou, Leizhou, and Qinzhou.
In addition, during the Guo Pu era, the land clearing work that had begun during the Gao Gong era was basically completed, and the advancement of the One Whip Method was also basically completed. Overall, by the time Guo Pu took the initiative to become an official, the annual income of the imperial court had reached 6.8 million.
About two.
In the subsequent Zhang Siwei era, land and sea trade did not expand much further, but he focused on increasing the court's revenue on internal reforms.
Its two biggest achievements are that it promoted the collection of commercial taxes from north to south, breaking the long-term pattern of southern merchant gangs not paying commercial taxes (or paying very little, such as Jiangnan tea taxes totaling four taels of silver, pfft).
Second, he made a good start in reforming the salt affairs of the Ming Dynasty, and took the initiative to express his intention to support the salt affairs reform to Gao pragmatism. This is especially rare because the Zhang family in Puzhou itself is one of the top salt merchants in the Ming Dynasty.
It almost monopolizes Changlu Salt Field, the largest sea salt base in the north.
Although Zhang Siwei's time in power was too short and he had to return to his hometown Dingyou before his specific plan for salt reform was launched, Gao Pragmatic was impressed by his attitude of daring to take action on himself.
However, the problem of salt affairs is really a chronic problem, and Gao Pragmatic does not dare to apply one-size-fits-all - look at how many salt envoys were established in the Ming Dynasty, and you will know how big the problem is. You must know that each of these "transportation salt envoys"
"Salt Envoys" are all high-ranking officials from the third rank!
Since ancient times, it has been easy to establish officials but difficult to remove them. Therefore, Gao Pragmatic had to join forces with the emperor to build a new salt farm in the special military-controlled area-Liaodong area. He planned to use commercial impact as a means to forcibly disrupt the domestic salt industry.
The structure will then be comprehensively reformed.
So far, the salt affairs problem still exists, and it seems that it will continue to exist for at least a few more years. However, although the Liaonan Saltworks has not been able to completely disrupt the national salt affairs pattern, it has brought the emperor thirty or forty dollars a year.
The huge profit of 10,000 taels became another achievement that Gao Pragmatic recognized from the emperor.
In fact, the income of three to four hundred thousand taels a year is not an exaggeration. The emperor and Gao Pragmatic implemented a 50-50 split in the Liaonan Salt Farm (there are special circumstances in Liaodong, that is, the land under military control is considered the emperor's land, so the emperor used the salt farm land as a shareholding
), which actually means that the annual profit of the salt farm is more than 700,000 taels.
Is it an exaggeration to say that a salt farm with an income of more than 700,000 taels is an exaggeration? It is not an exaggeration, because the average annual income of the Changlu Salt Farm, which belongs to the Zhang family in Puzhou, is as high as more than 3 million taels. Of course, even when Zhang Siwei was in power, the income of the salt farm was
There is also a large portion that requires additional expenditures for up-and-down management. This may be one of the reasons why Zhang Siwei, at the level of the chief minister of the imperial court, believes that salt affairs must be reformed.
The real income of the Liaonan Saltworks is of course more than 700,000 taels. In fact, Gao Pragmatism has been mainly expanding the saltworks, but the work in the saltworks has its own particularities. There were no cheap rubber rain boots in this era, and it was impossible for ordinary saltworkers to wear leather boots.
(Besides, the leather cannot withstand the heavy salt brine for long), so I always work barefoot.
It is self-evident that soaking bare feet in heavy salt brine is harmful to the human body, so people all over the country are actually very miserable. This phenomenon is almost accustomed to people of this era, but Gao Pragmatic is a modern person after all, and he feels that it is so serious
Work that is harmful to the human body cannot last for many years, so a benevolent policy has been implemented in the Liaonan Saltworks: a rotation system.
Specifically, a salt worker only works in the salt field for one year, and is responsible for farming (opening up wasteland to plant Hokkaido rice or corn) for the next two years. After two years, he goes to work in the salt field for one year, and so on.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! For this reason, the expansion of Liaonan Saltworks is very expensive. It actually also functions as a farm, and the manpower required is far more than other saltworks across the country (but other
The system of the salt farm is different. The salt farm owners are not responsible for the specific production arrangements. They only purchase the salt from salt households for sale under the salt law privileges).
It is precisely because of the high cost of expansion that the share of revenue is less. However, Gao pragmatically believes that this situation will improve soon, because when the rice and corn harvests in Hokkaido come up, there may be large profits.
In this matter, the emperor's support is very important, because the farm land in the salt field relies on the "face" of the royal family-the land reclamation under the holy will not only enjoys the three-year tax exemption policy set by Gao Jingshi in Liaodong, but also enjoys the land reclamation after the land reclamation.
The tax rate is also very low.
Originally, if these farms were calculated as imperial estates, they would not need to pay taxes at all, but Gao Pragmatic was very disgusted with the situation of not paying taxes. At that time, he also persuaded the emperor to "return" a large number of imperial estates near the capital to the farmers (installment redemption system)
), so the current salt farm is also operated according to this.
To a certain extent, these farms have become "collective land", and the ownership belongs to the salt farm. Since the emperor and Gao Pragmatic hold half of the shares of the salt farm, the salt farm itself pays half of the land tax - Gao Pragmatic does not need to pay in the first place.
Land tax, but he had "set an example" very early on and announced that he would pay taxes in full on his fields.
Although Gao Pragmatic doesn't like to buy land, he is indeed allocated fields in the Gao family. When buying mines in various places, since some of the valleys located between several mountain tops cannot be listed separately, he can only
Buy together.
In this way, because he bought so many mines, he actually became a big landowner now, but the land was very scattered, scattered everywhere, and it was as broken as a small country in the Holy Roman Empire at that time.
At the end of the Zhang Siwei era, when Shen Shixing came to power, Jinghua was already the industrial giant of the Ming Dynasty. At this time, because southern Xinjiang and the Ming Dynasty had actually opened up trade (Jinghua was a "domestic enterprise" of the Ming Dynasty and had the right to trade directly, so
The southern Xinjiang region is actually commercially equivalent to the mainland of the Ming Dynasty), which has led to a significant increase in trade between the two sides.
Since the volume of trade has increased significantly, tariffs and customs tax revenue have also increased dramatically. This is also the reason why Gao Pragmatic mentioned at a gathering of the Practical School that the two tariffs have now increased thirty times from the "hundreds of thousands" in the past. That is,
It is said that the total land and sea tariffs now exceed 3 million taels.
At this time, the normal annual income across the country has increased to about 8.3 million taels. After Gao Pragmatic led the power resumption of the Ministry of Household Affairs this year, the income intercepted by local government offices has been much less, and a lot of income that was concealed in the past has also been collected by households.
The revenue collected by the Ministry of Household Affairs has increased a lot and is expected to reach or approach tens of millions.
And Gao Pragmatic is not worried that local government officials will starve to death, because he has proposed a method for local government offices to "generate income" several years before. This method is difficult to say and easy to say: local officials should vigorously promote the development of commerce and trade.
, and use commercial taxes as a means to increase revenue.
The commercial tax at the current stage of the Ming Dynasty is divided into two parts, one is the national commercial tax and the other is the local commercial tax, but the system between the two has not been determined yet - Gao Pragmatic originally planned to learn from the "tax sharing system" of the later Red Dynasty.
"It is still under planning, so the current Daming commercial tax is settled according to a 50-50 split between the Ministry of Household Affairs and the local government.
Generally speaking, this approach is also in line with Gao Pragmatic's consistent reform thinking: focusing on benefit guidance rather than relying on administrative pressure.
Administrative pressure is certainly an indispensable means at certain times, but Gao Pragmatic has always firmly believed that unilateral pressure does not exist, and any pressure will inevitably lead to a backlash, so it is necessary to be guided by interests at all times and
Focus on the latter. Otherwise, once the administrative pressure ends - no matter what the reason is, there will inevitably be a counterattack by the suppressed party.
The annual minimum guarantee is 8.3 million taels, and this year it may even reach tens of millions. With such financial strength, Gao Pragmatic is still very hesitant about the increase in expenditure of this 450,000 taels. Why?
Because with the increase in income, various expenses of the Ming Dynasty also increased year by year.
Several major projects mentioned many times before, such as the "buyout" of the clan, the construction of imperial mausoleums, war preparation storage, border consolidation (reinforcement of the Great Wall and new forts, fortification of key areas, etc.), official salary reform (abolition of commemorative services)
, unified issuance of silver), etc., all of them are big money eaters.
Twenty years ago, it can be said that no project could have been completed by the imperial court at that time - after the death of Emperor Longqing, Gao Gong actually decided to let him "live" in the house that his father built for his grandfather.
The mausoleum? Given Gao Gong's feelings for Long Qing, he had to make such an expedient measure. Why else could it be if it wasn't because the court had no money?
However, now, the imperial court has become powerful enough to handle a number of major events at the same time.
After twenty years of reform, the biggest change is two words: prosperity and strength!
Be rich and strong, be rich and strong, only when you are rich can you become strong!
Krypton gold is always the last word.
However, after all, the reform of the Practical School has only been twenty years old. There are still sequelae after spending too much money on krypton. For example, everyone feels that they need krypton gold to be stronger. This will test the balance of Gao Pragmatic, the Minister of Household Affairs.
.
With so many major things to be done, the cost is naturally huge, otherwise the Northwest Rebellion would not have been forced out before. Now that Gao Pragmatic is in charge of finance, although he has established a large household department, the financial strength of the household department has been further strengthened, but he has just been
Approved some projects to increase the budget.
What's more, in addition to these large projects, the "national-level disaster relief" work that Gao Pragmatic attached great importance to before is also actively promoted. However, now the disasters in Ming Dynasty are also increasing year by year, and the financial budget has to be increased accordingly. Even for this reason
We also have to prepare an extra amount of money for disaster relief work in case of major natural disasters.
There is a big problem with the 450,000 taels of silver that the Ministry of War has to spend now, that is, it is not a one-time expenditure as a reward, but a regular increase in military pay. In other words, after it is approved this year,
In the future, an additional 450,000 taels will be spent every year.
This is a bit harsh, and Gao Pragmatic cannot help but hesitate.
But Gao Pragmatic agrees with the reasons given by the Ministry of War. He knows the situation of the border troops better than most courtiers. He has even led the border troops to fight several battles. The treatment of the nine-border border troops is genuine.
It's so bad that many military households are having trouble supporting their families.
Especially when the rebellion in the northwest was put down before, he felt that the root cause of the chaos was that the military households in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region were too poor. A slight delay in the payment of military pay could cause chaos under the control of caring people. From this perspective,
, it is indeed necessary to improve the treatment of border troops.
The Ministry of War only cares about the affairs of the Ministry of War. They don't care how to get money. They only want money, so the solution of the matter must be pragmatic.
Gao Jingshi pondered for a long time. Although he didn't say no, Liang Menglong and the three ministers were getting more and more nervous. Gao Situ usually made decisions very quickly. He didn't say anything for so long. It must be because the difficulties were really great. See
Come on...it's probably out of the question.
However, just when Liang Menglong was about to give up, Gao Pragmatic suddenly spoke.
He finally sighed and said: "I really can't give out the money for the time being. I think I can only think of other ways... Do you think it is feasible to directly distribute food?"
Liang Menglong was stunned and replied: "Of course it is feasible to distribute grain, but where does it come from? Since the implementation of the One Whip Law, the grain collected by the court has become less and less. The reserves of granaries in various places need to be purchased from the private sector with money. This issue
Where do we start talking about food?”
Gao pragmatic shook his head gently and said: "I will think of something about the food, but it will take a few days before I can give you an accurate letter. Please forgive me."
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