Chastity Layman 2

Chapter 106

Even if war is a threat to everyone, war donations are still dissatisfied.

Even those rich and powerful landlords from aristocratic families are unwilling to pay this money.After all, no one's money comes from the wind.

But as Li Shimin said, war is ultimately a competition of strength, the so-called tactics and strategies are trivial, and the final comparison of war is money, food, materials, personnel, soldiers and horses.

Li Xuandao objected to the war donation, because the war donation was actually a kind of forced plunder by the imperial government to those powerful landlords, and he was born in the Li family of Longxi, and he was the representative of the family.

Wei Zheng also opposed the war donation. Although Wei Zheng had been a Taoist priest, a rebel, and attached to many forces, he still insisted that he was a scholar and a member of the noble family, so he always stood on the position of the noble family. Consider things.

Both Chang Shi and Sima opposed him, and Qin Lang felt that it was really not easy for him to be the governor, and he was restrained everywhere.

"The emperor does not send hungry soldiers, do you want everyone to fight hungry?"

Qin Lang has never been that kind of harsh boss. What he advocates is that if you want to be the boss, you have to take good care of your brothers.

Tens of thousands of people in Youzhou are now guarding the border with him, he can't let people not even fill their stomachs.

Although it is said that the soldiers of Tang Dynasty are all sons of good families, and they choose the sons of powerful landlords to serve as them. After they all arrived at the garrison barracks, they had to continue to bring their own dry food, which was unrealistic.

But the governor's mansion has no money or food.

Li Xuandao and Wei Zheng, the long history Sima, are also clever women who can't cook without rice, and the two of them directly showed Qin Lang their family background.

"It was only a few years since the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, and the land of Hebei was settled in Xinping. The officials in the capital still have monthly salaries, but in border areas like Youzhou, the imperial court doesn't even pay salaries." Wei Zheng told Qin Lang.

The so-called salary refers to the monthly salary, which is copper coins and is issued once a month.Lu, referring to Lumi, is issued once a year.

Those who entered the court and became officials in Beijing received better treatment. Their Lumi can be distributed on time. This is the main income of the officials. After the rice is issued, they will sell some. The monthly salary is copper coins, but the amount is not much, which can be regarded as supplementary income. .In addition, Beijing officials also have income from working fields, and enjoy a certain amount of rent income from millet according to their official functions.

But magistrates are not treated so well.

First of all, in the early Tang Dynasty, local officials had no salary, not even salary.But the local officials also had to eat and support their families, so the solution given by the court was to allocate more land for work, and use the land rent income to offset their salary. Some more fields were selected as public farms, and the public money was used to lend usury to collect interest for office expenses and official welfare bonuses. The land rent of the public farms was used for food and expenses in the yamen cafeteria, and the rest was also distributed to officials. of.

The imperial court even thought of this way to offset the salaries of local officials, so it is known that there is no surplus food in the local government treasury.

The Tang Dynasty was based on the land equalization system, the government military system, and the tax system was based on rent and mediocrity. Taxes were levied on the basis of Ding, and each Ding was rented for two shi for a year, and then two zhangs of silk were twisted, and three taels of cotton were used as adjustments. Free labor for 20 years a year sky.

In addition, there is no tax, what kind of industrial and commercial tax, Guanjin city tax, salt and iron mine tax, etc., did not exist at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty. These are all inherited from the tax system of the Sui Dynasty, and there is no industrial and commercial tax , Unsalted tea, wine, ore iron tax, etc.

The Tax Adjustment Law is very simple and crude, basically a kind of poll tax.

After all the taxes and taxes are collected, they must be turned over to the national treasury, and there is almost no surplus in the local government. Therefore, the local government in the early Tang Dynasty had no income to speak of.

Except for a little gray income, everyone's life is equally tight, and the local treasury is equally empty.

The rent, tax, land tax and grain collected by the imperial court are handed over layer by layer, and finally stored in various transfer warehouses and stored in large warehouses.

Local officials had no power over these granaries. Even in the event of a famine, they had to report to the imperial court for approval before opening them. Otherwise, opening the granaries without authorization would be a death penalty.

In the Sui Dynasty, Hebei was a good place. The endless plains were very suitable for farming. Especially with the opening of the Grand Canal, Youzhou was directly connected to Luoyang, and the ditch was connected to Guanzhong and Jiangnan, making commercial development and dense population along both sides of the canal.

It is a pity that during the three expeditions to Liaodong at the end of the Sui Dynasty, Hebei was the most affected area. In the chaos at the end of the Sui Dynasty, Hebei was also the area where the war was most serious.

However, Qin Lang believes that in Hebei today, ordinary people's lives are difficult, but those powerful landlords still have a good life, especially those famous families. As soon as the war stops, they will live incomparably well again.

But both Li Xuandao and Wei Zheng opposed the war donation, thinking it was unreasonable robbery.

Famous families, powerful landlords, and even those barbarians attached to them all lay on the court to suck blood, but when it came to a critical moment, they didn't pull out a hair, what a hell.

Back in Youzhou City, Qin Lang was worried about his toothache.

Fortunately, the cattle and sheep money and food donated by Li Jinxing and his son can still support it for a while.

But it's not a problem to just stare at a sheep and gather its wool.

Ah Huang brought in a pot of fish carp for Qin Lang, which was sea fish sashimi.

Tired of eating beef and mutton in Yanzhou, it’s good to eat some seafood when you come back. It’s not easy to eat this kind of seafood in this season. Although Youzhou is actually close to the sea, the Sanggan River, Lushui River, and Juma River are in the southeast of Youzhou. The water that gathers the Hutuo River flows into the Bohai Sea near Tianjin in later generations.

Fishermen catch fresh sea fish from the sea, and send them to Youzhou from the canal in ice cubes stored in winter, so they are still fresh.

However, this is only the way of eating by noble families. Most of the catches are actually dried fish immediately after being caught, and then shipped to the mainland for sale. Most of the people, even those in Youzhou, have never seen it in their entire lives. For fresh sea fish, even some people are only dozens of miles away from the sea.

Qin Lang still likes sea fish sashimi. In fact, he prefers oysters and prawns. It's a pity that Tang people don't seem to be interested in these meatless things.

Sea fish slices are safe to eat, unlike the Yellow River big carp sashimi that people in Guanzhong like to eat, Qin Lang doesn't dare to eat that stuff, always worried that there will be parasites.

"Sanlang, the batch we brought last time has already been sold, and it is very popular with Hebei people. Damn, I thought it would make a lot of money to sell it twice, but I found out here There are still people robbing, and there are fewer goods to bring, and less to bring."

Ah Huang sat there sighing.

"Is it so easy to sell?"

"That's natural, especially now that there are rumors everywhere that the Turkic people are going to fight over. There are even fewer caravans on this road. There are fewer goods coming from Chang'an, so the prices will naturally be high."

Qin Lang felt that this was also reasonable. He picked up a piece of sashimi and dipped it in the minced garlic. There was no wasabi and no chili, so he made a simple dipping sauce, ginger and garlic, and a little dogwood water. It's not bad to eat with dipping, mainly because the sashimi is very fresh.

"It's a pity that we don't have enough goods. Even if we triple the amount, we don't have much money, or we can use it as military funds for a while." Qin Lang said.

Ah Huang leaned over and said in a low voice, "Sanlang, I found a good deal. If it is done well, it can make a lot of money."

"Oh, talk about it."

"In recent years, there have been frequent wars on the northern border, so the imperial court has sealed off border mirrors and shut down the market. But you also know that barbarians outside the Great Wall have always liked our Central Plains goods, not to mention tea, salt, wine and cloth, and Iron materials, etc. are also extremely needed, and now that we close the border market, these barbarians will have no channels to trade."

What A Huang was talking about was actually smuggling. When Luo Yi controlled Youzhou before, he directly opened a border market and traded with Turkic people, Xi people, Khitan people, Tiele people, etc., and he could earn a lot of money every year for his business. military capital.

Later, when Li Yuan took over Youzhou and shut down the market, Wang Junkuo cooperated with Li Jinxing to smuggle them secretly and made a lot of money.

The Hu people outside the Great Wall need all kinds of handmade goods from the Central Plains, as well as salt, tea, wine, iron, etc., and the Central Plains also need cattle, sheep, horses and various furs from the Central Plains.

"I have heard a lot of shocking news these days. Those Hebei merchants purchased iron kettles from Youzhou, each for less than [-] yuan, transported them across the Great Wall, and sold them to tribes in the grasslands outside the Great Wall. Each can sell for several thousand yuan. In Youzhou, you can buy wooden bowls for ten renminbi each, and if you pass the customs, it costs sixty or seventy renminbi each.

Those Hu people didn't have copper coins to pay the bills, so they paid with cattle and horses, which only cost three pennies per horse, and transported the horses back to Youzhou, one horse can be sold for ten or twenty pennies. "

"A piece of tea cake can be exchanged for a horse, and a cloth of more than twenty feet can be exchanged for a cow."

And if the ox and horse are transported to Luoyang, Chang'an and other places, a cow can be worth at least seven or eight thousand yuan, and a horse can be worth about ten guan. If it can be used as a horse for war horses, it can often be sold for twenty or thirty guan.

"Many merchants even give those herdsmen credit first, agreeing to repay with cattle and horses, and the interest is usury."

At the turn of spring and summer, before the harvest of livestock products, these merchants dispatched caravans and convoys to sell all kinds of daily necessities and department stores, and even gave them credit directly.When it comes to autumn and winter, they will come to collect the bills, and often increase the price of the goods, and lower the prices of the herdsmen's livestock and furs, plus interest, and make a lot of money.

For some treacherous merchants, the interest on credit can even reach more than ten times the principal.

But for those Hu people outside the Great Wall, they don’t know the cost price of Central Plains commercial goods, and they don’t have any other trading channels, especially after the Central Plains court closed the border and stopped the mutual market.

"Sanlang, those guys who smuggle through customs and trade in the grassland outside the Great Wall are basically the caravans of those famous families and powerful landlords. I don't know how much they can earn in a year."

The goods purchased from the Central Plains are very cheap, and sold there are extremely expensive, and then they are converted into cattle and sheep, and the price is lowered, but the price is extremely high when shipped back to the Central Plains. Coupled with the high interest rate, it is indeed a super profitable business with huge profits. The key is that these guys make so much money without paying any taxes, such as customs duties, transaction taxes, stamp duties, deed taxes, and other things. pocket.

Qin Lang's eyes turned red when he heard that.

"Damn, we're here to guard the frontier and defend the land, we're working hard, and we're drinking dew, but those dog slaves took the opportunity to make a lot of money, and they made a lot of money."

Ah Huang excitedly said, "So let's also organize people to smuggle and trade?"

Qin Lang looked at Ah Huang contemptuously, we still use smuggling?

(End of this chapter)