Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 538

Since the advent of high-pragmatic cement, Daming has gradually accepted cement as a new building material. In the past few years, from the perspective of the imperial court, cement has been widely used in projects such as the renovation of the Datong side wall and the renovation of the Jibei side wall.The same is true for river engineering. For several consecutive years, a large amount of cement has been purchased to strengthen key river sections and newly dug river sections.

According to what Wei Xuezeng and Gao Wushi confessed, this year alone, Hegong spent 27 taels of cement to purchase cement. This year, Hegong’s total imperial appropriation was only 71 taels, and the cost of purchasing cement accounted for 38 taels. The ratio reached as much as [-]%.

This makes it easy to understand that Wei Xuezeng came to Gao Wushi to discuss credit matters for this reason- Wei Xuezeng, Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, and Pan Jixun, President of Hehe, were both promoted by Gao Gong. They may dare to postpone the payment of other funds, but for Jinghua Cement’s Without the consent of Gao Yushi, they would not dare to postpone the payment at will, which would affect internal unity too much.

However, since it is internal, there is also an advantage relatively speaking, that is, it can be discussed in private, so there is Wei Xuezeng's trip today.

Gao Wushi knew that the cement sold by Jinghua Cement Plant was actually quite expensive, and he did not lower the price himself in this regard just because he wanted to "support national construction".Gao's pragmatic way of thinking has always been to hope that the Ming court would establish an effective and feasible new financial system that would be able to complete various national projects within the scope of normal commercial operations, rather than someone Gao learning from the beginning to the end.

He said that he is willing to pay taxes. This is from his heart, because in his opinion, paying taxes is a matter of course. Without a good business environment provided by the state, how can businessmen obtain good profit margins?For example, once the country is in turmoil, some businessmen may be able to make a fortune, but more businessmen must go bankrupt. This is the impact of the business environment.

But paying taxes belongs to taxes, and normal business practices should not be distorted—of course, in Daming, there are too many things that are distorted, but this one is not bad.For example, in the history of the three major campaigns of Wanli, many people in later generations know that the Ministry of Household Affairs did not invest much money in those three battles, and it was mainly supported by the internal funds of Emperor Wanli.

In fact, isn't it reasonable for the Ministry of Households to pay military expenses for this kind of war at the national level?

There are also various tax exemptions due to disasters in the middle and late stages of Wanli, and the exemption is also paid for by internal funds. Wanli even had to issue an edict to warn the Ministry of Households "don't rely solely on internal funds."

This is actually a typical distortion of the financial system: the local government refuses to collect taxes - the Ministry of Households has no money, so it refuses to pay - the emperor subsidizes the state with domestic funds - there is no money in the internal funds, so the middle officials are widely sent to collect mining taxes (businessmen) taxation)—the local officials scolded the emperor for being greedy for money——the emperor criticized the Ministry of Household Affairs for not doing anything and continued to collect mining taxes——the localities became more unwilling to pay taxes.

This cycle goes on and on, and the situation gets worse and worse. Local officials feel that the emperor is greedy, and the emperor thinks that these officials are useless. As a result, the overall situation of the whole country is getting worse and worse, and the emperor is becoming more and more disliked by these officials.

In the final analysis, the key is that officials feel that the world belongs to the emperor. Even if the court is short of money, if it is not enough, the emperor will have to pay for it.But the emperor thinks that you only know that there will be tax cuts here, there will be tax cuts, and the household department will be so poor that mice won’t go there. Once something happens to the country, no one can afford it, so I have to pay for it myself?Could it be that I can use spells to produce real gold and silver out of nothing?That's fine, you guys just leave the tax collection alone, I will send my slaves to collect it myself!
When the eunuchs arrived at the place, in addition to definitely completing the tasks assigned by the emperor, of course they also had to earn a "hard fee" themselves, so it was common to squeeze the place.At this time, coupled with the cold eyes of the local government and even secretly instigated it, why is it so strange that there is a riot against the mine supervisor in the local area?
To put it bluntly, there are only eight words: selfishness, no separation of rights and responsibilities.Selfishness mainly refers to officials, and Wanli himself—and his ancestors—can be blamed for not separating powers and responsibilities.For so many years in the Ming Dynasty, no emperor felt that there was a problem with this financial system and that it should be reformed!

Most of the emperors before Wanli did not realize that it was a terrible thing not to raise taxes. In Wanli, he actually "progressed" a little bit and realized the importance of money to the country, because no matter what you do, All have to have money.It's just that he didn't think of a way from the system, he could only rely on "shameless" to make money to subsidize this dilapidated financial system.

What is the extent of Wanli's "greedy" in history?Some merchants dared to wear bright yellow clothes, and when an official reported to Wanli, Wanli actually said: as long as they pay the money.

Gao Yushi simply doesn't know how to evaluate it. Is this a big heart, or is there nothing more sad than heart death?In order to make money to subsidize the country, even such a major event that could be regarded as treason in other eras is only a matter of money in the eyes of Wanli!

Of course, at least Wei Xuezeng has not yet discussed with him the use of cement for free, but only hopes to delay the payment time, which is still negotiable.

"Wei Butang, in fact, whether it is Jinghua Cement Plant or other industries of Jinghua, the specific business is rarely involved. But in business, business belongs to business, delayed payment or credit... It doesn't mean that it must not be allowed. , but whether the cement plant will affect the start of construction due to the lack of funds is not clear for the time being, so specific matters need to be discussed in detail.”

This is the proper meaning of the question. Wei Xuezeng is not a hot-blooded young man, he will not understand the meaning, and he will not demand high pragmatism to break the family for the country.He nodded slightly, and said: "Of course I understand what Qiuzhen said, but I have another suggestion, I wonder if Qiuzhen would like to listen to it?"

Gao Wushi smiled and said, "I would like to hear the high theory."

"It's not a high-level theory." Wei Xuezeng waved his hand and said, "Originally when the port was opened last time, whether it was Tianjin in the north, or Ningbo, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou in the south, the official ports were all opened by the imperial court. Although Tianjin Port is now Because of Qiuzhen’s large investment, a situation has now been formed where Jinghua’s private port is the mainstay, and the court’s official port is supplemented, but the official port always exists.”

Gao Wushi's heart moved, but he didn't show it, but asked with a little surprise: "That's right, so what?"

"Those official ports are all built by the Ministry of Industry, and the property rights are also attached to the Ministry of Industry." Wei Xuezeng really mentioned Gao Wushi's heart-pounding point: "The Ministry of Industry means that these official ports can barely keep their capital in the hands of the Ministry of Industry, or even The Three Ports in the South are actually still losing money, so it’s better to just sell them... I don’t know if Qiuzhen is willing to take over?”

Gao Pragmatism knows that what Wei Xuezeng said "the three southern ports still lose money" does not mean that the opening of the port itself loses money. The problem is that the introduction tax and import and export taxes are not the revenue of the Ministry of Industry. What the Ministry of Industry can get is only a simple port. operating income.But where will the Ministry of Industry operate what ports?
Driven by highly pragmatic private ports, Tianjin Port has formed some economies of scale, so the Ministry of Industry can barely maintain its capital, while it is popular in the south that everyone has their own small ports-here I want to add an explanation The opening of the port in this period is not basically a huge main port as in later generations, but that many private individuals can build their own wharves and call it a port.

For example, when Quanzhou opened a port, there are dozens of private ports, and most of them only have one or two docks.

With such a dispersion, it is naturally difficult to form a scale effect, so that Guangang will also be stained.

Although he was very excited, Gao Yushi still pretended to be embarrassed when talking about business, "Since Wei Butang also said that the three ports in the south are losing money, you still offer this to Wansheng as an exchange?"

Who knows that Wei Xuezeng shook his head and said: "It's true to lose money in the hands of the Ministry of Industry, but how can you lose money in Qiuzhen's hands? Qiuzhen, although I don't know how to do business, I still have this kind of self-confidence. The construction cost of these three official ports is more than 25 taels, plus the Tianjin official port, the total construction cost is close to 40 taels. Although it has been a few years now, it should be no problem to estimate 35 taels? Please forgive me a little more, I Let the four major official ports be packaged and sold to you, you will be exempted from this year’s cement payment for Hegong, and you will make up 10 taels for the Ministry of Industry, what do you think?"

　I don't know why, after the keyboard came back, a few keys didn't seem to work very well...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)