I want to be emperor

Chapter 317 Bankruptcy Without War
Luo Zhixue said: "For such a large expenditure, it is definitely not enough to rely solely on the taxes collected from southern Chu, northern Chu, a prefecture in Henan and other sporadic places controlled by our country."

In this regard, Xu Zhixian nodded slightly. Although he is a soldier, he also knows the basic situation of the financial side.

Although Huguang is an important area of ​​grain production, the folk industry and commerce are very average.

In this way, the empire's taxation in the Huguang area is mainly based on agricultural taxes.

In terms of commercial tax, it is not too much. As far as this is concerned, it actually depends on the commercial tax contributed by the factories under the Ministry of Industry and the exclusive salt tax.

Since the financial independence of each factory, the factories and commercial firms under the Ministry of Industry have to pay taxes in accordance with the tax law. Even if it seems that this kind of tax payment is left-handed and right-handed, the rules of paying taxes cannot be broken, so you still have to go through it again, so that's it. Taxes on industry are generated.

It's just that in order to support the defense industry, the tax rate of the defense industry is relatively low, and the total amount collected is not too much.

The second is the salt profit and tax paid by the officially franchised Great Chu Empire Salt Company. This salt tax income is real income, and it is a lot of money.

The above two parts also constitute the main source of business tax for the Great Chu Empire.

As for other than the official industry, there are not many pure private business taxes. After all, Huguang is different from Jiangnan. There are not so many traditional handicraft industries, and the economic structure is still biased towards traditional agriculture.

Under such circumstances, the tax revenue collected by the entire Great Chu Empire from Huguang is only about tens of millions (the tax revenue that goes into the national treasury does not include part of the tax revenue reserved for local finance).

This amount of fiscal revenue is less than one-third of the current expenditure of the Great Chu Empire.

In other words, relying on taxation, even with the addition of the exclusive salt business and tax contributions from official enterprises, it would not be able to support the Great Chu Empire.

So how did the huge expenditure of the Great Chu Empire be supported?
Naturally, it relied on the assets of hostile forces and personnel that were constantly confiscated during the South and North Wars.

The taxation department of the Great Chu Empire, taxation is only one of their businesses, and another major business is house raids...

All kinds of vassal kings, dignitaries, big gentry who resisted taxes, and big gentry who resisted taxes were all the targets of their ransacking.

Most of the money in the treasury of the Great Chu Empire was stolen from homes.

But the income from house raids is a one-time income. Now that the Great Chu Empire has money in its pocket, it does not mean that there will be money next year.

After all, even if tens of millions were confiscated, it would not be able to withstand the financial expenditure of the Great Chu Empire of more than 3000 million a year for several years!

It would be good if it lasted for a year or two. If there was any more, then all the gentry under the rule would have to be killed and ransacked...

But this is obviously unrealistic.

As far as the current financial situation of the Great Chu Empire is concerned, if the Eastward Campaign is postponed until next year, by the first half of next year, the Great Chu Empire's finances may seem to be barely sustainable, but in fact it is already at the end of its battle.

If you are not careful, you will go bankrupt directly.

If the eastward advance is postponed, and the offensive is not smooth, the war will be delayed for several months, and the finances will go bankrupt in minutes.

In such a situation, Luo Zhixue would naturally not wait until next year to launch the eastward fortification, which would put the finances of the Great Chu Empire in a very dangerous situation.

Luo Zhixue would never do this unless it was absolutely necessary.

For today's Great Chu Empire, in order to maintain its own financial operations, Jiangnan must be taken down, and it is necessary to directly launch a war while there is still some money in its pocket.

Only in this way can Jiangnan be captured as soon as possible, and rely on the wealthy Jiangnan to maintain its own financial operations, so as not to bankrupt the empire's finances.

Lay down Jiangnan to grab money, this is not a joke, but a real slogan.

As long as Jiangnan is taken down, even if you don’t make money by confiscating those big gentry families, just collect taxes honestly, in the case of northern Jiangxi, Jiangnan, and northern Zhejiang, you can get 3000 million yuan a year at least.

Then through the official franchised salt business, it is estimated that they can make several million more.

At the same time, the Jiangnan area will become the sales place for many factories under the Ministry of Industry of the Great Chu Empire.

The factories under the Ministry of Industry, in addition to the arsenal, have a bunch of factories whose products can be oriented to the people, or are simply oriented to the people.

For example, Hantian Iron Works and Hantian Machinery Factory, many of their products are for the private sector.

Except for some of the iron materials produced by Hantian Iron Works, most of them are supplied to civilians, otherwise, relying on pure military supplies would not be able to digest the huge production capacity of Hantian Iron Works.

After taking down Jiangnan and other places, the iron materials from Hantian Ironworks can be directly imported into Jiangnan, or turned into other iron products and imported into Jiangnan.

These iron products are all kinds of iron products of the Agricultural Machinery Factory under Hantian Machinery Factory, including iron pots, hoes, rakes, sickles, kitchen knives, woodcutters, saws, sewing needles and other iron products used in folk life and production.

Hantian Machinery Factory has a large number of hydraulic machinery, and can manufacture all kinds of high-demand parts for military needs, not to mention these civilian products. The various civilian iron products produced are not only of good quality, but also cheap.

In the past six months, all kinds of iron products produced by Hantian Machinery Factory have not only sold well in the interior of Huguang, but also merchants from other places, especially Jiangxi and South Zhili, have sneaked here to purchase a batch and transport them back to sell.

And once Jiangnan can be captured, the crude iron materials of Hantian Ironworks and various iron products of Hantian Machinery Factory will be able to open up and flock to the Jiangnan area, thereby reaping huge orders and profits.

This will inevitably bring huge taxes and profits to the Great Chu Empire.

The local taxes in Jiangnan and the huge market in Jiangnan can bring incomparably rich income to the finances of the Great Chu Empire.

In other words, even if you don't copy that, as long as you win the Pan-Jiangnan area, you can completely solve the financial dilemma of the Great Chu Empire.

So even if it is for money, Luo Zhixue will launch the eastward campaign in the second half of the year.

It is impossible for the king of heaven and Lao Tzu to stop the eastward advance of the Chu army!
If you get in, the future is bright, the foundation of the empire is completely stable, and there is hope for the unification of China in the future.

If they can't get in, they will be completely dragged down by the pressure of their own huge military expenses. Before the Ming army comes to attack, the Chu army itself will collapse!
Although it is said that the Chu army can also adopt the method of cutting expenditure to reduce the budget and balance the financial revenue and expenditure, this will undoubtedly interrupt the strong upward momentum of the Great Chu Empire.

When it was still in the period of the Funiu Mountain Baoxiangying in the early days, the Chu army basically set a tone: that is the mode of walking and sitting bandits.

Instead of rogue mode.

And since it is a bandit mode, it cannot be called a bandit anymore. You have to treat yourself as a serious ruling regime.

As a ruling regime, you must have an army capable of conscripting and fighting well, and you must be able to govern the region and feed the common people.

Only in this way can you suppress internal strife internally and continue to expand externally.

But in this way, it was tantamount to putting oneself on the bright side, and even attracted the attention of the Ming Dynasty to the greatest extent, which in turn caused the Ming Dynasty to continue to encircle and suppress with increasing intensity.

This will continue to force the Great Chu Empire to expand its army, improve the treatment of soldiers in all aspects, and improve the level of equipment, especially the level of guns and armor.

And these are all gold swallowing beasts!

In order for the common people to have enough food, it is necessary to restore the people's livelihood, and the restoration of the people's livelihood is not just a matter of talking about it, it is necessary to use real money to provide relief and repair various water conservancy infrastructures.

If there hadn't been two or three million taels of silver thrown down, the people's livelihood would have collapsed in the Huguang area, which was persecuted by officers and soldiers and thieves in the early years, and then affected by the war between the Chu army and the puppet Ming army.

Sprinkle money to restore people's livelihood after the war. This is the reason why the Great Chu Empire has controlled Northern Chu. So far, there has been no large-scale famine in Northern Chu.

Without famine, there would naturally be no refugees, no living soil for the rogue model led by Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng and others.

Only in this way can northern Chu regain its stability, and then become the aid of the Great Chu Empire in its foreign wars.

Otherwise, it will become like Shaanxi and Henan, and it will not bring any help to the Ming Dynasty, but a heavy burden.

Money is needed for food, let alone military expansion and war.

People's livelihood and the army, no matter which item saves money, will cause huge problems within the Great Chu Empire, fail in foreign wars, and even lose the possibility of continued development.

And this is not allowed by Luo Zhixue.

Since throttling can't be done, we can only open source.

The internal tax potential is basically like this now, and it cannot be improved on a large scale in a short period of time, so it can only turn its attention to the outside, to the south of the Yangtze River.

----

In the second year of Chengshun of the Great Chu Empire, on the third day of July, Lieutenant General Xu Zhixian, the head of the Imperial Staff Department, led dozens of generals and staff officers from various ministries, and under the escort of the naval fleet, they arrived at Fuchi Town on the eastern front by boat.

And this place is also the headquarters of the First Army. Lieutenant General Li Chengtong, the commander of the First Army, personally went to the pier to welcome Xu Zhixian and his party.

However, Xu Zhixian and the others did not stay in Fuchi Town. After a hasty inspection of part of the local combat readiness that day, they went to the forefront of Ruichang City the next day under the escort of the [-]st Cavalry Brigade.

Ruichang City is the county seat of Ruichang County under the Jiujiang Prefecture. This county is not too big, and the city walls are not too thick.

This county is just a very ordinary small county in the Huaxia region.

It is precisely because this is just an ordinary county that when the Chu army marched eastward last year, it was able to take the city with an eastward detachment of thousands of people.

After waiting for the main force of the Chu army to advance eastward one after another, and wanted to further take down Jiujiang Fucheng, that is, when Dehua, the Ming army had already stationed heavy troops in Jiujiang City, and even the Hongyi artillery was pulled to the top of the city.

The follow-up strategic goal of the Chu army was the southern line of Chu, so the fighting on the eastern front was suspended, and the two armies gradually formed a confrontation, and this confrontation became more and more serious as the two sides continued to increase their troops.

Around Ruichang and Fuchi towns where the Chu army was stationed, the Chu army deployed about 2 troops.

Around the four cities of Dehua, De'an, Hukou, and Xingzi in Jiujiang Prefecture, the Ming army deployed more than 5 troops, and there was also a navy from Jiangnan and coastal areas to help.

Among the [-] Ming troops, several thousand were the 'Anlu New Standard Army' created by Shi Kefa, and there was also a professional cavalry force of hundreds of men.

And the core city of the entire defense line, that is, Jiujiang/Dehua City, has deployed more than 3 troops, [-] Hongyi artillery, and Anlu's new standard army is also here!

The overall defensive strength of the city far exceeds that of Linxiang or Changsha during the Southern Chu Campaign!

(End of this chapter)