Daming: I help my wife be the empress

Chapter 542 Finance is still the main internal affairs issue of Ming Dynasty

Summoned Shen Tingyang, and after some countermeasures, Aimee Zhu decreed to appoint Shen Tingyang as Minister of the Ministry of Commerce.

And the State-owned Bureau was changed to the State-owned Department, which is one of the subordinate agencies of the Ministry of Commerce.

The Department of State-owned Assets Management under the former Ministry of Finance was also transferred to the Ministry of Commerce—this institution is specialized in dealing with inherent assets confiscated by the imperial court, such as real estate and shops.Of course, fields are not included in this list.

In addition, the Business Coordination Department and the Maritime Trade Department were also established, and their functions can be known by their names.

After all, it is a newly established department. For the time being, there are only these four subordinate organizations. Officials still have to be recruited slowly. Officials even need to be trained by themselves. Subordinate organizations can also add, delete, and modify according to the situation in the future.

In fact, even such a Ministry of Commerce with only four affiliated organizations is probably enough for Shen Tingyang to work for a long time.

Because the Ministry of Commerce is not like the first six departments, everything has experience to follow.On the contrary, the affairs of the Ministry of Commerce have to be explored slowly, and there is no rush...

It was already noon when Shen Tingyang finished playing and retreated.

Aunt Zhu went back to the old house in Zhulin to have lunch.

During the meal, Hao Guangming remembered the affairs of the Eight Shanxi Merchants, and said, "I heard that the Eight Shanxi Merchants are very rich. I wonder how much you can find this time."

Aunt Zhu laughed and said, "The eight traitors were successfully arrested today, but it will probably take some time before their properties are found and counted."

"The Ming court shouldn't be short of money now, right?" Hao Guangming asked.

"My lord watches me deal with state affairs every day, so you still don't know about Daming's financial situation?
Although there are tens of millions of taels of silver in the national treasury, my Ming Dynasty now requires upwards of 4000 million taels of military pay every year.

Including other military expenditures, the military expenditure alone is conservatively estimated to be about 8000 million taels per year. If there is a major war, the military expenditure may exceed [-] million. "

Speaking of this, she is already a generation of female emperors, and Zhu Wei, who was called the Holy Lord of Zhongxing by Daming, also showed a look of helplessness.

Hao Guangming mainly didn't bother to think about it. Hearing what Aimee Zhu said at this time, he understood it in his heart.

Today, the new army of the Ming Dynasty under the control of Auntie Zhu is as many as 80. If the old-style official army that has not been reorganized in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan is added, the army that the imperial court will have to support will definitely be more than 100 million.

This number sounds exaggerated, but compared to a huge empire like Ming Dynasty, it is actually quite small.

Because compared with the previous dynasties of China, the Ming Dynasty still ruled many incomplete areas, such as the Western Regions, Qinghai, Uzang and other places.

With such a large territory, there must be enough troops to occupy it.

It should be noted that even in the Great Xia Kingdom to which Hao Guangming belonged, the technology is so advanced, and there are more than 200 million soldiers in the army.

The cost of ruling in ancient times was higher. To maintain the territorial integrity and social stability of the country, more troops would be needed.

In terms of military pay, taking the new army as an example, the average annual salary of a million soldiers can be 40 taels, which means that each person is more than three taels a month-this is actually not very high at the moment.

Calculated in this way, doesn't the military salary alone need 4000 million taels a year?
And to maintain the combat effectiveness of soldiers, their armor and weapons must be maintained or even replaced if they are damaged?
Nowadays, the proportion of musketeers in the march is getting higher and higher, and the artillery in all ministries has also increased.

Musketeers and artillery need some training to maintain combat effectiveness even if there is no war. Even if they don't train with live ammunition every time, they still need to consume supplies, right?
If there is a big battle, the consumption of guns and ammunition, bows and arrows, food and grass and other materials will be an astronomical figure.

Therefore, even though Auntie Zhu had stolen a lot of money during the past half a year since she took the throne, Daming's finances were still not rich, and she even felt a little stretched.

After all, the restoration of people's livelihood in the northern provinces now requires a certain amount of funding from the imperial court.

In addition, Zhang Guowei was ordered to repair the rivers in Jiangbei to prepare for changing the mouth of the Yellow River in the future, and he has been spending money.It's just asking the court for money one by one, which is not so obvious.

Finally, the implementation of three-year primary school compulsory education in the three prefectures also required funding from the imperial court.It's just that the scale is small at present, and the money used is not much.

In the future, compulsory education will be promoted, and it will also become a terrifying gold swallowing beast...

Therefore, after talking about financial issues with Hao Guangming, Zhu Yu couldn't help sighing: "Although I hate Fan Yongdou and other traitorous Shanxi merchants, at this time, I hope that they have indeed made a lot of money by smuggling before, so that the court can conduct more inspections." Some silver here."

Concubine Zhu who had been cooking beside her suddenly said at this moment: "Is sister short of money again? Concubine can bring goods to Daming to sell money to help sister."

Seeing Concubine Zhu's serious expression, Concubine Zhu and Hao Guangming both laughed.

Aunt Zhu said, "It's not that my sister is short of money, it's that Daming is short of money."

"Isn't it the same?" Aimee Zhu asked puzzledly.

"Of course it's different." Auntie Zhu wanted to explain, but felt that it was more difficult to explain to Auntie Zhu now, so she said, "You will understand when you grow up."

In fact, Aimee Zhu is not short of money personally - the money she has accumulated in her family has now exceeded [-] million.

It's just that most of them were obtained incidentally during the food crisis in April and May, when she sold the "treasures" of later generations in exchange for food. The profit obtained from the factory invested in her own name.

If the Ming court's finances were really in dire straits, she would of course take out her internal funds to help.

But the Ming court must not rely on her internal funds to make up for the financial shortfall, it must find a way to solve it by itself.

In fact, with the end of the Northern Expedition, the troubles of bandits in various places were quickly quelled by the new army, and gradually restored stability. Coupled with the implementation of the New Deal, local finances and taxes can be released to the central government normally, which has increased a lot of income for the treasury. .

There have been several raids and big harvests as a supplement. At present, the government's finances can still be barely maintained.

Of course, it was only barely maintained, otherwise Auntie Zhu would not have discussed business prosperity with Shen Tingyang.

···
Considering that the financial issue is already the main internal affairs issue that Daming needs to face, after lunch, Auntie Zhu didn't go to Daming's side, nor did she take a lunch break, but chatted with Hao Guangming about it.

"If Daming wants to solve the financial problem, the fastest and most direct method at present should be to use the state-owned factories to make money? Besides these factories, what other factories do you think are suitable for Daming?"

Hao Guangming was sitting opposite the desk where Auntie Zhu usually worked in the main room.

Hearing this, he took out a piece of paper and wrote with a pen while talking.

"Actually, the arms business is the fastest and most profitable way to set up a factory, but now the new army of Ming Dynasty is not fully equipped with arms and equipment, and the surrounding small countries have not yet served their guests, so it is definitely impossible to smuggle arms out.

Therefore, if Daming wants to open a factory to make money, he has to go to the people's livelihood, taking money from the pockets and cellars of the rich folk. "

Having said this, Hao Guangming stopped.

Because he thought of many money-gathering routines in cross-line novels, such as opening a bank, creating stocks, and so on.

But he himself didn't know much about these things, so he didn't dare to bring them up lightly, because the bank and stock affairs might cause big troubles.

　Second more.

　　Good night~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)