I want to be emperor

Chapter 276 500 Million Military Expenditures
Since the implementation of a complete military-political separation and the adoption of a fiscal budget system last year.

All kinds of munitions factories affiliated to the Ministry of Industry were completely separated from the military.

In this way, the arsenal and other munitions factories under the Great Chu Empire also purchased raw materials from the former Ministry of Commerce and allocated them to each factory, and the Finance Department directly allocated money and grain to each factory to pay wages, and produced various munitions After the direct supply of the military.

It has become an arsenal that needs to obtain funds from the military by selling weapons and equipment and other products, and then use these funds to purchase various raw materials and pay wages to workers, and use profits to expand scale or research and develop and upgrade technology.

Only in special cases, the Ministry of Industry will inject funds into some factories to support their expansion or research and development.

Although the settlement between the military and various factories is now directly through reconciliation, instead of directly holding money for transactions.

Everyone checks the books, and then the financial department will settle the bill for you directly... To put it bluntly, it is a process.

In the past, everyone actually reconciled the ledger, but at that time it was the physical ledger, but now it is the financial ledger.

After all, these arsenals, in the final analysis, are still government-run enterprises of the empire, and their own existence is to support the war, so it doesn't matter whether they directly take the real thing or reconcile accounts, it is actually the same thing.

The significance of this move is purely to cooperate with the Ministry of Finance to try out the fiscal budget system, and to cooperate with the Ministry of Taxation on corporate taxation...

As for the change itself, it's not that big.

In the past, the Ministry of Finance allocated the money directly to the Ministry of Commerce and Trade and the Ministry of Industry. The Ministry of Commerce purchased raw materials, the Ministry of Industry was responsible for production, and the military directly took weapons and equipment.

Now, the Ministry of Finance allocates money to the military first, and the military then uses it to purchase materials, and then the factories spend the money on their own or ask the Ministry of Commerce and Trade to purchase raw materials and pay wages.

The procedure has changed, but the money is still the same.

But now what Luo Zhixue wants is such a set of procedures. With such a set of procedures, at least on the surface, the arsenal and the military are separated, and each implements a separate financial system to completely realize the separation of military and government.

Instead of the same as in the past, the military itself does not know how much military expenditure is, and at the same time, the arsenal in the rear may not answer you if you need something.

Often what is produced by the arsenal, the military can only take what.

And this is obviously not conducive to army building and combat.

After all, there is still a gap between what the rear arsenal is willing to produce and what the military needs in actual combat.

At the same time, this can also allow the military to be more flexible and use military expenditure independently.

Military spending is limited.

Even if it is the current central financial expenditure of the Great Chu Empire, more than 80.00% of five or more are military expenditures, but this figure is still limited.

These military expenditures were all obtained from the taxation department, finance department and other personnel of the Great Chu Empire who tried their best to confiscate their families and exterminate their families, and collected taxes and fines.

Well, add all kinds of confiscations during the war.

And a lot of the money here is a one-time income, the kind that is gone when it is used up.

Although there are a lot of taxes on continuous income, they are nothing compared to the current huge expenditure of the Great Chu Empire.

If it really relied on taxation, the finances of the Great Chu Empire would have gone bankrupt long ago.

Under such circumstances, the financial department's restrictions on various funds, even military expenditures, are relatively rigid.

After all, there is only so much money in the national treasury now. If you fail to get a large amount of floating money before spending it all, the finances will go bankrupt in minutes...

Therefore, in the second year of Chengshun, on the first day of the implementation of the financial budget, the conventional military budget was restricted to only 500 million taels of silver.

The Ministry of Finance has already announced that the treasury inventory and the estimated central tax revenue for this year are only so small. Except for the 300 million taels of emergency funds designated by His Majesty, 80.00% of the remaining available funds have been used. For military expenses.

If you military want more, yes, go for it!
When we get the money, we can have a good discussion about the mess later, oh no, the amount of temporary war expenses...

After this year's conventional military spending is restricted, even if it can still be seized in the process of continuous expansion, the military itself estimates that life will not be too sad.

But in the end, it is directly in charge of the country, and the military must plan carefully how to use these military expenditures to expand the army and maintain the war.

For this reason, at the end of last year, many bigwigs in the military had already discussed together, and finalized the regular expenditure budget for this year according to the various expenditures of last year.

Among the various expenditure budgets, the money used to purchase weapons and equipment only accounts for a small part of the military's funds, and most of the military's funds are actually spent on personnel, mules and horses.

Personnel expenses include food supplies, quilts, and other daily necessities for soldiers, pocket money subsidies for soldiers, salaries for officers, food and drink for mules and horses, etc.

This is a real big expense!
According to the current treatment of the Great Chu Empire Army, officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers cost about three taels of silver per month on average.

It doesn't look like much, basically the salary of some elite recruits of the contemporary Ming army.

But you have to know that the money of the Great Chu Empire was actually spent on the soldiers, and the Ming army said that they were paid three taels of silver per month, but how much they can get is unknown. , some were deducted, some were greedy, and some were in arrears. On average, if you can get two taels of silver a month, you will be very happy.

Today, the main division of the Great Chu Empire Army has eight divisions, one cavalry brigade, three artillery regiments, and three temporary mixed battalions. Although the above-mentioned seventh and eighth divisions are not yet full, their strength still reaches 9. .

The army also has about [-] garrison troops.

The navy also has a scale of more than 5000 people.

Finally, there are more than 3000 guards who do not belong to the army or the navy, but directly belong to the royal family.

The above-mentioned total force reached 18 people.

Just the daily expenses of these 18 people need at least 55 silver per month.

After one year, it is 660 million taels of silver!
This is just personnel expenses!
Not counting mules and horses, mules and horses eat more!
The Great Chu Empire Army has a large number of mules and horses.

Taking the artillery unit as an example, the field artillery unit of the Great Chu Empire Army has always paid great attention to mobility. In Zhang Malin's words: Field artillery that cannot run is a pile of scrap copper and rotten iron!
Therefore, the artillery formation of the Great Chu Empire Army pays great attention to maneuverability, so a four-door nine-jin field artillery post has a very luxurious rated establishment!

In addition to four nine-pound cannons, this artillery post also has eight four-wheel heavy ammunition vehicles, thirteen two-wheel trailers, one ordinary transport vehicle, and one repair vehicle.

So don't think that there are only four cannons alone. In order to support these four cannons in combat, there are more than 20 other vehicles.

In order to maintain the operation of this artillery post, about 100 people and [-] horses are needed.

(Don't ask me why I need so many men and horses, you have to ask, ask the US military during the Civil War...the artillery battery of six twelve-pound guns needs 150 men and 150 horses, and they are all on board Good tall draft horse.)
And mules and horses cost a lot!

If you want a horse to maintain its combat effectiveness without losing sight of it, so that it does not eat grass all day long... then it needs to supply about five kilograms of hay and more than six kilograms of grain every day.

More than people can eat!

Therefore, whether it is the Great Chu Empire Army or other armies, the main expenditure of the field artillery force is not the price of the artillery itself or the price of ammunition, but the cost of the horses!

This also led to the fact that most of the artillery units in the Chu army actually lacked mules and horses.

Even for the first division with the best treatment, among the three nine-pound field artillery posts, the three posts originally needed 250 horses, but now there are only more than [-] horses, and there is still a shortage of [-] horses.

The first division was like this, not to mention other troops. Many artillery post horses could not even reach half of the rating, and many supplies and even ammunition needed soldiers or civilians to help transport them with carts.

This is why there is a serious shortage of artillery in all units of the Great Chu Empire Army. Although the establishment has been formulated, each main division said that it needs forty or fifty field artillery, but in fact there are only two divisions. The artillery unit is fully staffed, and the other divisions are seriously short.

On the one hand, the production capacity of artillery has not yet been raised, and on the other hand, there are not so many horses for pulling cannons, and even if there are so many, they cannot afford to support them...

Well, the various establishments of the Great Chu Empire Army have always been done in the direction of large and complete, but in actual operation, it is rarely possible to achieve a full staff.

This is also a very common situation in war years.

However, there is a serious shortage of mules and horses, but the total number of mules and horses kept by the Chu army is still very large!
Just raising these mules and horses would cost about 15 taels a month during the marching period.

Although during the non-combat period, you can save some expenses by grazing, but you can't save too much, because the Chu army and the Ming army are in a state of war, and the main forces will definitely have to move frequently next year, so many times it is impossible. Grazing mules and horses can only rely on their own food supply.

In addition, mules and horses will continue to be lost during combat. It is normal for an artillery company to replace all mules and horses within three years. These worn-out mules and horses also need to continue to purchase mules and horses to replenish them.

In this way, just the item of mules and horses will cost more than 200 million a year.

What level can be raised above this depends on how intense the battle is, how much the loss of mules and horses is, and how much time is spent on grazing.

However, 200 million is absolutely indispensable.

(End of this chapter)