Listening to Chen Mingyu's words, the Nanjing Imperial Court's current annual expenses are more than 20 million taels.This is almost two or three times more than that of the Chongzhen Dynasty.Of course, this is mainly because Zhao Ming maintained a 500,000-strong, central forbidden army, plus a treatment that was far better than that of the Chongzhen Dynasty.Now, the taxes of the Nanjing Imperial Court are about 20 million a year.The development of maritime trade has reached a bottleneck, and the tax payment of the city has not increased significantly in the past two years.That is to say, the balance of the Nanjing imperial court is just balanced, and even every year due to emergencies, resulting in a fiscal deficit.If this is the case, Zhao Ming wants to fight, wants to open mines and roads, and opens free schools, but it will be difficult to achieve because the household department has no budget.This is unacceptable to Zhao Ming, who wants to do great things.Therefore, it is necessary to make money, lots and lots of money.Before that, the main sources of taxes in the Ming Dynasty were only three aspects, one was the field tax, the second was the salt tax, and the third was the commercial tax.The fields of the Ming Dynasty, like those of previous dynasties, were gradually concentrated in the hands of a few people from the early dispersion.In the more than 280 years of the dynasty, the situation of land annexation can be imagined, most of the land of the entire Ming Dynasty was in the hands of the gentry and the vassal king, and the gentry and landlords colluded with the government to evade taxes, and the prince's domain did not have to pay taxes at all.In the Ming Dynasty, the land of the whole country totaled about 7 billion mu, and theoretically the imperial court alone had about 20 million taels of silver, but in the early years of Chongzhen, the income of the field was less than 3 million taels.Now that the Ming Dynasty has lost half of its land, the income of the Nanjing court is only more than 4 million taels, which is still the result of the Han Dynasty's inventory of Zhejiang and Susong's Changtian acres.The other income is the salt tax, which was previously second only to the field tax, with a few hundred thousand taels.Before Zhao Ming, the commercial tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty ranked after the field tax and salt tax, and there was almost no income to speak of.Nowadays, the commercial tax occupies the lion's share of the taxes of the Nanjing Imperial Court, which can provide taxes of about 13 million per year, followed by land taxes and finally salt taxes.Zhao Ming wanted to increase the income of the Nanjing Imperial Court, roughly from these three aspects.However, to increase the commercial tax, the need for more prosperous commerce, and now the Ming Dynasty's overseas trade, has fallen into a bottleneck, there is no significant growth, so to raise the commercial tax, can only be the Ming Dynasty underdeveloped states and counties, investment, but this requires investment, and it takes time, can only be used as a long-term strategy, in the short term not only will not increase taxes, but need to invest money, resulting in a fiscal deficit.If the acres of land can be cleared, Nanjing's income can be increased, but Zhao Ming does not plan to do it again now.The fields are mainly in the hands of the vassal kings and the great gentry, and the acres of land are cleared and taxes are collected, which is too touching and will offend the entire gentry class, as well as the power of the clan, which is not conducive to Zhao Ming's rule.Therefore, commercial taxes and land taxes cannot be counted on for the time being.The only way to do that is to start with the salt tax and other aspects.Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, salt and iron have been an important source of income for the country.When Zhao Ming ruled the Han Kingdom before, he mainly ate the salt of Lianghuai, and Azige's invasion of Jiangbei caused heavy losses to the Lianghuai salt industry.Nowadays, the price of salt in China has increased several times, and the rectification of the national salt industry can not help but increase the income of the government, and at the same time, it can also make the people afford to eat salt.Zhao Ming's idea was to establish many state-owned companies controlled by the imperial court, control salt, iron and other resources, carry out monopoly monopolies, and use the land and natural resources controlled by the imperial court to allow the imperial court and local governments to set up companies to increase the imperial court's income.This not only enables the imperial court to control the lifeblood of the economy, but also increases the income of the imperial court, regulates prices, and prevents profiteers from exploiting the people.If these companies were to start, the Nanjing court would be able to make a lot of money just by selling its shares, enough for the court to invest in, and to start a war of unification.On the fifteenth day of the first month, just after the Shangyuan Festival, Zhao Ming left Nanjing and went to Jiangbei.At this time, the climate in Jiangbei was still cold, and when Zhao Ming arrived, it happened to be snowing heavily.Heavy snow covered the fields and cities, and the entire Jiangbei became a snow-capped world, and the earth was covered in silver, and it was extremely enchanting.On this day, at noon, a group of cavalry rushed to the north along the canal, and the person at the head was the regent Zhao Ming.From Chen Mingyu's mouth, he learned that the gentry in Jiangnan were buying the fields in Jiangbei at a low price, taking the opportunity to plunder the wealth of the people, and Zhao Ming had to come to Jiangbei in person to check.However, the sale of land is a civil freedom, and as long as it is not forced to buy and sell, it is difficult for the Nanjing court to intervene.What Zhao Ming can do is to hurry up and raise the price of the land, so that the people will not sell it cheaply.Nowadays, the Ming treasury is empty, and the relief to Jiangbei, in addition to the distribution of materials and food by the imperial court, is more dependent on the people of Jiangbei themselves to rebuild their homes.If the land is sold cheaply, the people of Jiangbei will not get much money, and the pressure on the imperial court will be great.Only when the price of land is reasonable and the people of Jiangbei get a considerable income from land sales can the pressure on the imperial court be relieved.At this time, Zhao Ming led a group of subordinates, as well as gentry and businessmen, to Jiangbei and galloped across the endless wilderness.These people all came to visit Zhao Ming during the New Year, and Zhao Ming ordered someone to secretly write down the gentry and businessmen who might be useful.They were mainly based in the southern Zhili Huizhou Prefecture, as well as the merchants and gentry in northern Jiangxi.At this time, Zhao Ming galloped for a while, and Lerma stood on the wilderness, and the horsewhip pointed at the vast land, "After the Qing army went south, this area was all barren.Nowadays, the population of Jiangbei has decreased sharply, and there is a shortage of labor, so all the land in the isolated Beijiang River has been harvested, and then a cotton village and a workshop have been set up to build this piece into a cotton planting and cotton spinning center. ”The maritime trade and silk weaving industry have always been monopolized by the maritime merchants of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, as well as the gentry and clans.Seeing them make a fortune, businessmen in other parts of the Ming Dynasty naturally wanted to intervene.However, they have never been able to compete with Jiangsu, Zhejiang and maritime merchants who have formed a monopoly and almost completely mastered the upstream and downstream industries.The gentry of Jiangsu and Zhejiang owned patches of land, which were used to grow cotton and mulberry seedlings, to provide raw materials for the gentry and merchants of Jiangsu and Zhejiang for production, and then transported overseas by maritime merchants.Watching the gentry and businessmen of Jiangsu and Zhejiang make money, these businessmen are really envious.In the past, they were not under the rule of Zhao Ming, and they could not get along, so they could only watch the maritime merchants of Jiangsu and Zhejiang make a fortune, but now they are all children of the Nanjing court, so they hope to get a piece of the pie.On the New Year, these people visited Zhao Ming and heard that the regent was raising shares, so they all contributed some money to buy some shares.This was originally a move to ask for directions, but I didn't want to just after the New Year, so the regent invited everyone to come to Jiangbei to inspect and hold a general meeting of shareholders.Chen Mingyu, a university scholar, said, "There are more than 3 million mu of cultivated land in Jiangbei, and Jianghuai Cotton now controls 200,000 mu of ownerless land.With 200,000 mu alone, you can harvest 700,000 taels a year.Excluding costs, the net profit is at least 300,000 taels. ”After hearing this, many businessmen and gentry couldn't help but be speechless, no wonder the gentry and businessmen in Jiangsu and Zhejiang made money.The land in the north of the Yangtze River is not as good as that in the south of the Yangtze River, but the income per mu is nearly three taels, which is twice as much as growing grain.This is still the raw material, and as we all know, the cost after processing is the big one.For a while, everyone was a little excited.Zhao Ming raised his horsewhip, "Go to Huai'an and talk about it!"
”()