I want to be emperor

Chapter 388 Han Pot and Ten Million Salt Tax

For example, the Army, Navy, and Guards are arguing over the distribution of military expenses. For example, the Guards are very strong. Although they only have two divisions, they have to pay 500 million in one go. Military expenses of two silver coins.

The navy also said that building warships is very expensive, recruiting and training sailors, and building ports, etc. It also said that at least 600 million taels of military expenditure is needed to barely maintain the situation...

In the end, Brother Lu chuckled and said directly that you are all scumbags, and you still want to spend millions of dollars in military expenditures, so go ahead and dream.

In the end, the Navy only took 200 million... The Guards only took 200 million.

But within a few days, the military expenses of Luo Zhixue and the Guards were directly transferred to royal funds, and it was clarified that all subsequent expenses of the Guards would not be paid from regular military expenses, but supported by royal funds.

The status of the Guards is too special, and it is impossible for Luo Zhixue to let the Guards and the Army compete for military expenses.

On the whole, most of the military expenditure is still taken away from the Army.

As for the funds of the various ministries of the interior, most of the funds were taken away by the Ministry of Taxation, followed by the Ministry of Industry, and then the Ministry of Civil Affairs in charge of relief, and there were not many other departments.

This is mainly due to the heavy tasks of the tax department, and they also have a lot of employees. In the newly occupied area, among the officials in a mansion, the tax officials may account for more than half of all local officials in the early stage.

The other is the armed tax police. This tax patrol is a serious armed organization, the kind equipped with guns, and the total number is quite large.

At present, the taxation department of the Great Chu Empire has an armed tax police team in each province. These armed tax policemen are stationed in prefectural cities, traffic arteries and other places according to the tax situation of each place.

In Jiangnan Province alone, the number of armed tax police reached more than 4000, equipped with four field guns of two and a half catties, a thousand muskets, other swords, spears, and even mules and horses.

If you bring them all together, this is definitely a mixed brigade!

This is just an armed tax policeman, the kind that can forcibly attack a powerful landlord's manor.

In fact, in the tax authorities, every prefecture and every county will also be responsible for ordinary tax investigations and law enforcement. Ordinary tax police, that is, tax police.

Then there are ordinary tax workers who do administrative work.

Adding up all these things, there are tens of thousands of tax officials in Jiangnan Province alone.

The tax department has a lot of people and needs a lot of money.

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The Ministry of Industry, this is the big financial expenditure of the Great Chu Empire. As long as it is to build several industrial bases and invest in the construction of various factories, it is only a Dangtu industrial base. The cost of leveling, building roads, digging sewers and other infrastructure.

Then there are expenditures for investing in the construction of a series of factories such as Dangtu Ironworks, Dangtu Mine, Dangtu Wharf, Dangtu Arsenal, and Dangtu Machinery Factory.

The Ministry of Industry has already invested 10,000+ taels in this broken place last year, and Chengshun’s investment in the next three years will be even greater, at least 50 taels, and will continue to invest next year.

On the whole, a Dangtu Industrial Zone will cost the Ministry of Industry at least two or three million taels in three or four years.

However, the Ministry of Industry does not rely entirely on the funds allocated by the government to live on. The various enterprises under the Ministry of Industry also have profits. For example, although the profits of each arsenal are not high, they are still there, which is enough to meet the expansion and R & D of each arsenal. demanded.

There are also factories such as Hantian Textile Factory, Daye Iron Works, and Hantian Machinery Factory. In addition to supplying military products, their products are actually supplied to civilians, and the profits they get are not low.

For example, Hantian Textile Factory made a lot of money last year. In addition to continuously expanding its own branch factories, it also handed over a net profit of nearly 10 taels to the Ministry of Industry.

There is also the Hantian Machinery Factory. Although the core function of the factory is to provide various machinery and equipment for government-run enterprises, the managers are flexible and easy to use. They take advantage of the local iron and steel industry in Daye, plus their machinery factory With its own equipment advantages, it has developed a large-scale production and sales of various civil iron products.

Including sewing needles, all kinds of farm implements, cooking utensils.

For comparison with iron pans, a typical iron product, the iron pans produced by Hantian Machinery Factory are compared with other iron pans in the contemporary Ming Dynasty market.

In terms of quality, it is better than Huaiguo and Wuxi Guoguo, and inferior to Foshan's Cantonese Guoguo, which is generally in the middle of the two.

In terms of price, it is basically the same as Huaiguo and other iron pans. A two-foot-diameter iron pan costs about six cents and five cents, but it is far cheaper than Guangguo. Five cents.

In terms of craftsmanship, there is nothing to say about Huaiguo, they are just ordinary goods.

Guangguo, on the other hand, adopts a very unique red mold casting method, and the quality of the iron pan produced is very outstanding, and this thing is even used by the court.

But it is precisely because the industry of this thing is complicated and the quality is good, so the production capacity is not good.

The iron pot produced by Hantian Machinery Factory is widely used in many processes of water conservancy machinery and equipment, so the quality is highly stable and will not be too affected by the performance of skilled workers. Although there is no particularly complicated process , but still achieved high quality and high stability.

And after the combination of these three, it is also reflected in the market.

The iron pot produced by Hantian Machinery Factory is of high quality, and the price is only maintained at the price of ordinary iron pots, which is a typical example of high quality and low price.

Therefore, this kind of iron pot is not only sold locally, but has been sold to the Jiangnan area on a large scale before the Chu army moved eastward, and was even sold by some merchants through the canal to the north. '.

In the second year of Chengshun, Hantian Machinery Factory produced and sold 20 iron pots at one go, and the sales volume reached 12 taels of silver.

In addition to iron pots, Hantian Machinery Factory also produces iron products such as various agricultural tools and other cooking utensils on a large scale. The annual sales of all of them can be more than 50 taels of silver.

Of course, this is just sales, and its profit is not so much. After deducting various costs and expenses including tax payment, the profit is only about 10 taels.

That's right, even the Hantian Machinery Factory and even Hantian Armory, an enterprise affiliated to the Ministry of Industry, have to pay taxes according to the regulations.

The gross profits earned by so many factories under the Ministry of Industry, after deducting taxes and expenses for their own expansion or research and development, paid about 80 silver to the Ministry of Industry last year, and the money will be used by the Ministry of Industry to invest in other new industries. enterprise construction.

It is worth noting that this does not include two very special enterprises in the Great Chu Empire, namely the Great Chu Grain Corporation and the Great Chu Salt Corporation.

The grain company belonged directly to the Grain Storage Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in the early days, and later directly belonged to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, but its supervision is at the level of the second rank, which is at the same level as the governor and ministers.

However, considering that it is highly related to the business of the Grain Storage Department, the supervisor of the general grain company will also serve as the director of the Grain Storage Department. The entire operation method belongs to one team and two yamen.

It's just that this company basically doesn't make any profit. After all, what they do is mainly to stabilize food prices, not to make money.

Even if there is a small profit, it turns the profit into food reserves, and basically does not turn over the profit.

Dachu Salt Corporation, this one is quite special. If salt was a franchise in ancient times, it would be very profitable.

In the hands of the Great Chu Empire, it was no exception. In the two years of Chengshun alone, the Salt Company handed over a profit of more than 100 million taels.

The 100 million is just profit, not including the salt tax, which is collected by the tax department. The combined profit and tax will be even higher, estimated to reach 300 million taels of silver.

And this is because most of last year was a second-hand trafficker, because there were no coastal salt farms in the control area of ​​the Great Chu Empire at that time, and there were not too many mine salts and well salts. Therefore, most of the salt sold in the Great Chu Empire at that time It was purchased from salt merchants in the Xuhuai area.

At the same time, there were not many actual control areas of the Great Chu Empire last year. Even Chu Nan was conquered only last spring. As for Jiangxi and Jiangnan, it was after autumn and winter.

But this year, the profits paid by salt companies will surge sharply.

The salt company expects its net profit to increase to about 400 million taels, and the salt tax is estimated to increase to more than 500 million taels.

Adding up the two, the bottom line is 900 million. If you are lucky, you may even break through the [-] million mark.

This is mainly because of the large markets in Jiangxi and Jiangnan, as well as some salt farms in the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and will increase the construction of local salt farms.

After it gets on the right track, and continues to control more regions, and even unifies China, the annual profits and taxes contributed by this salt company will probably be tens of millions of taels.

Because the company is too important and too special, it is not under the jurisdiction of any department, but directly under the jurisdiction of the Government Affairs Council. The supervisor of the Great Chu Empire Salt Company is a second-rank senior official, the same level as the Shangshu.

Moreover, there is a formal appointment by imperial decree, so it is also called the Minister of Salt Affairs or the Governor of Salt Affairs among the people. When the supervisor of the salt affairs company writes official documents, he can come to such a sentence as "Supervise the handling of salt affairs by order", which is somewhat similar imperial envoy.

After all, the profits and taxes provided by the salt company have already accounted for more than 20.00% of the fiscal revenue of the Great Chu Empire. In the future, this proportion may be even higher.

Such a company cannot be viewed from the perspective of an ordinary government-run enterprise.

This thing is more powerful than a money printing machine, so it is impossible to belong to a separate department, and the political status of its supervision cannot be too low.

Luo Zhixue has always been very serious about money.

(End of this chapter)