Overlord!

Chapter 353: Raising One Hundred Thousand Troops

Yongchang County is very big, so big that it is beyond the imagination of ordinary people. This county is even larger than the entire Yunnan Province in later generations, and many places have penetrated deep into Myanmar.

Of course, the reason why I say this is because there is actually no concept of borders today.

Tan Qixiang is 99% responsible for the misunderstanding of feudal territory by later generations.

The territory that Sun Quan could rule was actually very small, just around eight cities with only 20,000 to 30,000 people.

But the territory that Sun Quan can control is huge! From the south of Buwei, thousands of miles away, it was his territory. All the foreign races that can be contacted here, one by one, must pay tribute to him every year.

Although the tribute may not be much, it is only a few hundred pieces of animal skins, a few thousand pieces of wood or a load of charcoal.

But the key is that these people did surrender to the Yongchang Palace. During the war, Le Jin directly mobilized soldiers from six or seven nearby tribes to participate in the war as auxiliary troops.

The majority of these tribes sent more than a thousand troops, and the smaller ones sent dozens of troops. They could also follow Sun Quan's expansion of territory and gain profits.

The captives, cauldrons, pots, etc. harvested from the tribes they defeated together would also be distributed to each tribe.

Sun Quan's tactics are undoubtedly outstanding. His Yongchang palace is both the local ruler and the leader of the largest alliance among the barbarians, so his rule is relatively strong.

There is no doubt that most of the businesses in the Song Dynasty are dominated by foreigners, and Silla maids are a feature that already exists today.

Once these 8,000 troops march in, the outcome needless to say, they will plow the court, sweep the holes, and kill them all. No one knows how many tribes will be slaughtered in one fell swoop.

In the third year of Kaiyuan, with snow falling in the twelfth lunar month, Zhaoming Palace finally turned its attention to this northwest land.

The Song army was definitely not affectionate towards foreigners. When they conquered a tribe, all men and women who were taller than a wheel were executed. Boys who were lower than a wheel were castrated and sent to Jiankang to serve as eunuchs. Girls were treated as slaves and maidservants, and there were many pleasure boats and boats in Jiankang, which attracted scholars and merchants to spend huge sums of money.

The year before last, the Song army defeated Wuhuan and killed more than 180,000 people. At the same time, they also harvested more than a million cattle, sheep, etc., and immediately brought Hebei and Qingzhou to the front line. Farming became prosperous, and the price of meat was temporarily low.

That is, there are only 50,000 households in nearly twenty counties.

In the Han Dynasty, a pig was worth more than 300 yuan, but in the Song Dynasty, a sheep was only more than 400 yuan. The price of meat can be said to be cheap.

Of course, his success was also related to the reinforcements from the Song Army in the rear. In addition to the three thousand troops stationed in Dianchi Lake, there were more than five thousand troops commanded by Xu Shu in Jiangzhou.

Every year, a large number of beautiful women among the prisoners of war were sent to Jiankang.

The rise of many industrial countries is backed by this kind of capital raised by women. For example, Xiaori and Xiaosilla, both of whom rose up after World War II, relied on women selling their bodies to raise massive amounts of capital in the early stages. Thus came primitive accumulation.

The snow-covered scenery and the magnificent vermilion palace together constitute the classic Song Dynasty aesthetics.

And because it was so close to the Third Secretary, this was the ruling center of the Song Dynasty, so these pleasure boats, brothels, and brothels had to pay a huge amount of taxes every year.

Fifty thousand households seems like a lot. But you must know that this includes the population of Qinchuan, 800 miles away, as well as the entire population of Liangzhou, northern Hanzhong and western Bingzhou!

Hundreds of thousands of sheep are in the Central Plains. It is definitely impossible to raise them for a long time. They are slaughtered one by one.

Everyone knew that if a large-scale barbarian rebellion broke out in Yongchang, these eight thousand Song troops would definitely not sit idly by and ignore it.

However, Hebei's population of more than 3 million seems very small, and it is already ten times that of Kansai.

In this regard, the Song Dynasty was very similar to the Tang Dynasty. They both relied on foreign wars to capture a large number of prisoners, thus making the country prosperous for a while.

Because the total registered population of Kansai is only 300,000, and the number of households is more than 50,000.

Don't look down on this kind of brothel business, it is one of the most profitable businesses!

Of course, this is also related to the sharp decline in the population of Hebei. There are only more than three million people in Hebei, so the price of meat is naturally not high.

Most of them are in the Sanfu area, with a county population of 3,000 to 4,000 households, while the smaller ones, such as Jincheng and Tianshui, only have 500 households.

Sun Ce was wrapped in a vermilion fox fur coat, leaning against the heater, looking with awe-inspiring eyes at the northwest land hanging on the palace wall.

The territory of the Song Dynasty has now been painted with a vermilion background. Only the thousands of miles of rivers and mountains to the west of Chang'an are still painted in black.

General Zhou Yu, who was sitting next to him, was filled with murderous intent. He waved his arms heavily and said fiercely: "The messenger came to report that Ma Chao killed the county magistrate of Lantian again last month. This is the fourth time he has killed court officials this year! Lantian has already Near Jingzhou, if we don't punish it, it will grow even more and the Ming Dynasty will dare to plunder Nanyang!"

After listening to Zhou Yu's words, it will be clear how daring Ma Chao is.

The magistrate of Lantian County was already the fourth court official killed by Ma Chao, Han Sui and others this year.

Ma Chao had previously killed You Fufeng Gong Cao, the Yan Commander and the City Commander Si Commander, and robbed more than 3,000 stones of imperial salt and more than 10,000 coins.

This loss of money is actually not much for the court, but the nature of this is extremely bad!

Even if the court officials failed to enforce the law strictly and violated the law, how could it be Ma Chao's turn to kill without permission?

Every time Ma Chao killed an official, he was provoking Jiankang's authority.

This was not the first time he had done this. In fact, in the third year of Kaiyuan, more than ten court officials in Kansai had died.

So much so that when the officials of the imperial court heard that they had been sent to Kansai, they all wrote suicide notes in advance, as if they were going to a wolf's den or a tiger's den.

It's just that the imperial treasury was empty before, so both Sun Ce and Shangshutai deliberately suppressed all this. As long as Ma Chao did not rebel and maintained the stability of the imperial court, the imperial court would tolerate his behavior even if it was excessive.

But now that the imperial court had summoned Zhou Yu to Jiankang, it was obvious that it did not intend to tolerate Ma Chao's increasingly excessive behavior.

So after Zhou Yu made an impassioned speech filled with righteous indignation, Sun Ce looked at the Third Secretary Bu Zhi and asked: "Prime Minister, how much wealth does Taicang have now?"

Bu Zhi immediately raised his hand and replied: "Your Majesty, after the tax collection in the third year of Kaiyuan, the imperial court still has 8 million yuan of money and 400,000 catties of gold."

Sun Ce frowned and asked: "When the country was first established, there were seven million yuan in the treasury. How could it be that after three years of rest and recuperation, the treasury only increased by one million yuan?"

You must know that this is not just a matter of accumulating balances in the treasury.

What's more important is that as the number of people and land registrations continues to increase, the country's official tax revenue increases every year, reaching new highs repeatedly.

This must be inevitable. With the peace of the world, the imperial court's control over the north, Bashu, and the Central Plains has continued to increase. It has thoroughly investigated hidden households and reclaimed wasteland. More and more land can be taxed by the country, and tax collection will definitely increase sharply every day.

Even if there are large-scale mergers, the number of acres must have continued to rise during this period. The Song Dynasty had previously counted just over 500 million acres of land. Compared with the Han Dynasty's peak of more than 800 million acres, there was still a gap of 300 million acres.

The regular tax rate should never be reduced at this time.

At the same time, due to the increase in household tax and residence tax, the scale of these two taxes is also increasing day by day.

I won’t mention the mansion tax. This tax cannot be hidden under any circumstances. Because the imperial court only levied residence tax within the city. If the Song Dynasty court could not control the scale of only a thousand counties and less than 2,000 cities in the world, then Sun Ce would have lost the world.

Even in places like Jiaozhou and Yongchang, the area that the Han Dynasty could control also included areas near the city.

As for household tax, this is another key point levied by the state.

The tax system of the Song Dynasty divided all households in the world into three classes according to their assets, and each class was further divided into upper, middle and lower classes. Those with a thousand acres of land or ten servants and a thousand-year-old family must pay household tax. 1500 Wen for a middle-lower household, 2000 Wen for a middle-middle household, and 2500 Wen for an upper-middle household.

If the household has more than 10,000 yuan of wealth or has more than 1,000 servants, the assets will be used as the basis for tax calculation. Calculate one by one. Princes and officials also pay taxes.

Assets are divided into households, that is, upper and lower households, upper and middle households, and upper and upper households, and they are all taxed according to their assets. Calculated one by one, that is, 1000 yuan is levied for every 120 yuan.

This tax rate is not high, and it was already like this during the Han Dynasty.

But after the amount collected is huge, the household tax will also become huge. A wealthy family with a huge wealth will have to pay a tax of 1,200 yuan!

This makes it possible that the national official tax alone can collect nearly 10 million yuan every year, not counting the millions of money from the Shibo Division and the City Wei Division.

If you include the income from various government-run workshops and royal servants, Song Ting's current annual fiscal revenue should be close to 20 million yuan, or at least 167 million yuan.

This figure is already extremely impressive. During the peak period of the Northern Song Dynasty, the income was only 100 million guan, but in ordinary times, it was only between 60 million and 80 million guan.

Nowadays, although Song Ting only has 16 to 20 million guan, the army it maintains is also small.

Under Sun Ce's rule, there was no problem of redundant troops. Now the country's army is about the same as when the Northern Song Dynasty was founded, about 200,000 troops. There is still a huge gap between the millions of forbidden troops.

Therefore, Jiankang's treasury should never lack wealth.

So Sun Ce couldn't help but look at Bu Zhi with a stern look. Could it be that the three envoys have become corrupt now?

The corruption issue of the three secretaries was something Sun Ce had always attached great importance to.

After the Yushitai was established, from the Yushi Zhongcheng Lu Fan down, they have been keeping a close eye on the three secretaries.

The first prime minister to establish authority and punish was Ji Xiang, and the first major case that resulted in numerous deaths was Tian Cao Yousi of Bazhong. It was precisely because Yushitai directly executed Tian Cao of Bazhong that he helped Lu Meng quickly It calmed down the war and calmed people's hearts.

Sun Ce felt that the three chief ministers probably didn't have the guts to engage in wanton corruption at this point in time.

Bu Zhi also immediately explained: "Your Majesty, the main reason for the limited increase in Jiankang's treasury is that the country has carried out large-scale construction projects in the past two years. In order to increase household taxes, buildings and cities have been built everywhere. At the same time, to facilitate industry and commerce, roads have been paved and built everywhere. Bridges and canals were dug. Only the line from Huang County to Huainan in Yuzhou in the Central Plains was opened for more than 200 miles, costing more than 3 million yuan."

"More importantly, the imperial court attaches great importance to water conservancy. This year, the government and wealthy businessmen opened water conservancy, built more than 4,000 lakes and ponds, and irrigated more than 100,000 hectares of ditches. The money awarded to the gentry amounted to more than 600,000 yuan. .”

The reward of 600,000 yuan seems extremely huge.

But this is definitely a good thing for the court, and the benefits far outweigh the expenses.

This reward is the farmland water conservancy law implemented before the founding of the Song Dynasty.

He ordered the meritorious officers of various states and counties to assess the county officials, mainly to reclaim waste fields, build water conservancy projects, and build embankments. All officials and people who are good at cultivating acres of land and cultivating crops, and who talk about the pros and cons of ponds, weirs, and ditches, and have great results, can be rewarded according to the utility. In addition, at the end of the year, rewards will be given to people who can build water conservancy and irrigation projects in various places and reclaim abandoned fields.

That is to say, all good men and women among the people who can build water conservancy projects with remarkable results will be rewarded.

The local people built ditches and water conservancy projects, but the imperial court only gave them a reward, which naturally saved money and effort.

Only this year, more than 100,000 hectares of land were irrigated by ditches.

Not to mention 600,000 yuan, if irrigation and water conservancy were built entirely by the government, even 6 million yuan may not be able to achieve this effect.

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, building water conservancy was undoubtedly good governance. Not to mention what happened in the early years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, even when Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, a large number of Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes were printed during the Hongwu period to promote the development of farmland water conservancy and promote water conservancy, which led to the rapid economic recovery and significant agricultural development in the early Ming Dynasty.

Basically, when the Ming Dynasty sent troops to quell the rebellion, they no longer had to worry about the problem of food and grass supplies.

So Bu Zhi said that all the money was spent on infrastructure, and Sun Ce nodded and agreed.

The Northern Song Dynasty built the city with prosperity, but outside of Tokyo, the infrastructure outside was almost nonexistent. Rural areas are extremely backward.

Sun Ce was determined to avoid making the same mistake again, so he vigorously built infrastructure, roads and bridges. These things always cost a lot of money.

There is still a financial balance of 8 million yuan, which makes the third minister very clean.

So Sun Ce thought for a moment and said, "Then mint a few more million coins. When I send troops to the northwest this time, I must fight to solve the border troubles in the northwest. The size of the army cannot be less than 100,000!"

After hearing Sun Ce's words, a flush of excitement appeared on Zhou Yu's elegant face.

No general can refuse the temptation of commanding 100,000 troops to wipe out the barbarians.

The imperial court deliberately recalled him, and its intention was very clear.

It was he who commanded the elite imperial army and put down the rebellions of Ma Chao and Han Sui in one fell swoop.

The Han Dynasty's 40,000 elite soldiers were unable to solve the border troubles, but the Song Dynasty's 100,000 troops were able to eliminate them in one fell swoop!

It can be said that with the scale of 100,000 cavalry, this counterinsurgency is guaranteed to win. As long as the general is a famous general and does not make huge mistakes, then Han, Ma and his like will inevitably suffer huge losses.

This is a feat that will leave a name in history. He will expand thousands of miles westward in one fell swoop, from Liangzhou to the desert, and thousands of miles of land will be conquered.

If he, Zhou Yu, can take on the role of head coach, he will definitely become a famous coach respected by future generations.

But when Zhou Yu was ambitious, Bu Zhi showed a troubled expression and said: "Your Majesty, Yousi has already minted more than two million coins this year, and he is really powerless to mint more coins. There are also insufficient reserves of copper, lead and other minerals."

(End of this chapter)