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In spring, we offer sacrifices to heaven and earth and encourage farmers to cultivate mulberry trees.

However, God was unfavorable, and when it was time for farmers to plant rice, there was only a light rain in Jinling Prefecture. The situation in Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and Hunan is similar. This year's spring drought has been confirmed, so it is slightly better than last year.

In another time and space, this would have been the fourth year of Shunzhi.

During the Shunzhi period, there were many disasters. Historical records record that there were frequent floods and droughts, frequent earthquakes, winter thunder and spring snow, and meteorites and rain.

In this regard, following the advice of civil officials, Emperor Shunzhi repeatedly issued edicts against himself.

Before the Lantern Festival was over, this year's first batch of immigrants, totaling 80,000 people, moved to the north from several southern provinces.

Under the propaganda of the imperial court, things have been going well in the north in recent years. In addition, taxes are completely exempted in the first year of immigration, and taxes are halved in the next three years. These have made the people who are relatively poor feel excited, and more and more people are voluntarily signing up to move north.

"Luting posted a notice!"

In Nanjing City, passers-by yelled, and nearby people rushed to check.

A scholar shook his head and said: "Since March 1st, the Maqun Racecourse has been open to the public. Those who want to learn riding skills or have fun riding horses can go to the racecourse and pay money to enter. All fees are charged according to the hour..."

The people all found it strange that it was a royal racecourse and they could actually pay to play.

Zhu Yuanzhang built many horse farms in Zijin Mountain, especially the horse farms with the largest area. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, they had been occupied as cultivated land.

Now, the farmers near Maqun have been collectively relocated to Hebei, and the Maqun horse farm has been completely restored. In addition, a school ground for the imperial guards was set up in the racecourse, and the palace guards took turns going out of the city to practice.

Normally, one-fifth of the racecourse is open to the public, and you can enter and play after paying a ticket. You can rent horses by paying more, or even hire jockeys to teach riding skills. Of course, the hiring fee is certainly not cheap. Only when the emperor came to the racecourse, the racecourse was cleared and closed three days in advance.

The large area of ​​mountain forest to the west of the racecourse has been designated as a royal hunting ground and is open to the public for half a month every autumn. You also have to pay money to enter for hunting.

The vast tracts of mountain forest to the west of the hunting grounds, including the Meiling Palace and Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, have all been transformed into royal gardens for royal members to go to the mountains to escape the summer heat.

Court meeting.

Zhao Han smiled and said to the ministers: "Are you slandering me for building a large-scale construction project?"

"I don't dare!" The officials quickly denied.

Zhao Han said: “In years of natural disasters, we must provide work-based relief. Initially, Guanlou (official dormitories) and Yilou (affordable housing) were built in Nanjing City, which gave a large number of unemployed people jobs. Waiting for Guanlou and Yilou After the building was completed, the Forbidden City was repaired, and at the same time, immigrants continued to migrate north, so that there would no longer be unemployed people in Nanjing. In recent years, natural disasters have continued, and the water conservancy projects around Nanjing have been almost fully repaired through work-for-relief."

Zhao Han glanced at the ministers: "According to the induction of heaven and man, it is caused by my lack of virtue. I will not issue such a sinful edict. I consider myself a virtuous king. God may also want to test me. , there is another spring drought this year. The horse farm has been built, and after the spring plowing, hunting grounds and gardens will be built in Zijin Mountain. This is also a work-for-relief project, providing multiple livelihoods for nearby farmers. The hunting grounds and gardens are enough to build for several years. Don’t worry. , all the money comes from internal funds, and no money from the national treasury will be used."

"Your Majesty is wise!" the ministers shouted.

In fact, many people are slandering, saying that the emperor's internal funds are used to pay for it, but this year the royal family's expenses have increased again, and Emperor Zhao personally decided to increase it to 1.5 million taels per year.

This number has reached the royal expenses of the Hongzhi Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhao Han smiled and said, "Fei Chun, tell me, how much was the national treasury revenue last year?"

The annual income of the previous year cannot be truly counted until the end of February of the following year.

Fei Chun immediately stood up, raised his hands and said: "Last year's national treasury revenue, excluding local taxes retained, was more than 25.57 million taels in silver."

As soon as these words came out, there was an uproar in the palace. The Ming Dynasty had never been so wealthy before.

Local taxes, mainly agricultural taxes and industrial and commercial taxes, can retain 40% at the provincial, prefecture, prefecture and county levels, and the remaining 60% will be handed over to the central government. However, from special taxes such as customs duties, salt tax, tea tax, and tobacco tax, 20% of the revenue goes to the local government, and the rest is handed over to the central government, and the royal budget is also taken from this.

Excluding local interceptions, the central government can still collect more than 25 million taels in taxes, mainly due to the rapid growth of industrial and commercial taxes and customs duties.

Moreover, several provinces in the north and southwest are still exempting or exempting land taxes. The other provinces do not exploit the people too hard, otherwise they can harvest more. When the whole country regains its vitality in the future, the annual income will definitely exceed 30 million taels.

We must know that in another time and space, the annual income of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties exceeded 20 million taels during the Shunzhi period, and it was around 30 million taels during the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties.

The Qing Dynasty was able to collect so many taxes simply because it did not care about the life and death of the people. Do you believe that the Qing Dynasty continued to collect three taxes?

When the Manchus first entered the customs, they pretended to be exempted from three additional paychecks. As the resistance in the south became fierce, the Manchu Qing Dynasty's military expenditure was insufficient, so they resumed the Liao's salary, but changed the name from "Liao's salary" to "Nine Liyin".

Although it has been said that training rates are exempted, until the early years of Kangxi, many places continued to collect them. In the last years of Shunzhi alone, the annual additional training salary reached more than 5 million taels of silver.

Nearly 90% of the Shunzhi Dynasty's 20 million two-year-old income came from farmers' grain taxes and additional taxes.

Only 60% of Zhao Han's annual income of 25 million taels comes from agricultural taxes. After all, many provinces are still in the food tax exemption period, and local officials cannot collect more even if they want.

"Today's court meeting, why not discuss business." Zhao Han said.

Song Yingxing was the first to say: "Your Majesty, agriculture is the foundation and business is the last. This is an eternal principle. It is because businessmen pursue profit. The more money they gather, the more they can control the market, and the wealth of the small people is exploited by them. Therefore, the emphasis on agriculture and suppression of business must be made a national policy, and merchants must not be allowed to run rampant throughout the country."

When the ministers heard this, they all said yes.

Song Yingxing added: "However, the world cannot be without business. Strong business does not necessarily mean a strong country, and weak business will inevitably lead to a weak country. In the pre-Ming dynasty, the decline of commerce began in the Wanli period. The government and the public took and took away merchants. They even imposed unreasonable taxes and detained the families of merchants. Many families were ruined and died when merchants were exploited. As a result, the circulation of goods was inconvenient, and prices in the city increased day by day. In the end, it was the common people who suffered."

During the Ming Dynasty, business reached its peak during the Wanli period, but began to decline in the middle and late Wanli years.

On the one hand, the import of silver from the Americas has decreased, and on the other hand, businessmen are not treated as human beings. From the emperor to the local officials, and later to the generals and bandits, they turned to businessmen for money when they ran out of money. Business in the Ming Dynasty was far inferior to that of the Jiajing period.

At the same time, big businessmen collude with the powerful to pass the losses on to the small people, and even become richer through power-for-money transactions. As for small and medium-sized businessmen, countless people have gone bankrupt.

Wu Yingji has been promoted to the Secretary of the Ministry of Household Affairs. He went on to say: "What Song Diange said is absolutely true. There is no stability without farming, no prosperity without industry, and no wealth without business. Xunzi divided the people of the world into four categories: scholars, farmers, industry and merchants. Farmers use their best efforts. Jia Yi inspects the fields and uses all the wealth, and the hundreds of workers use their skill to make all the equipment. If it can be done to this extent, the country will be forever solid, the country will be rich and the people will be strong."

Qian Qianyi suddenly appeared: "This is the debate between justice and benefit. Confucius said, wealth and honor are what people want. Poverty and lowliness are what people hate. Everyone pursues wealth. Among all industries, business is the only one. To get rich suddenly. If everyone goes into business, who will farm the land? Therefore, we must focus on agriculture and suppress business. For businessmen, they should make profits with justice and not seek ill-gotten gains. After making profits, businessmen should also gamble By giving alms to others, you can achieve both justice and benefit."

Except for what Song Yingxing said is slightly reliable, the rest are very correct nonsense!

Zhao Han asked: "What Dr. Qian said is that we should use benevolence, justice and morality to restrain businessmen?"

"Of course." Qian Qianyi replied.

"But among the merchants in the world, how many are benevolent and righteous merchants?" Zhao Han asked with a smile.

Qian Qianyi said: "The less benevolent a businessman is, the more the court should educate him."

Zhao Han said: "What do Mr. Pang and Mr. Li think?"

Pang Chunlai said: "Don't let things go, and don't change orders overnight. Set rules for businessmen. It's best for them to abide by them. If they don't abide by them, they'll be severely punished!"

Li Banghua said: "Suppress big businessmen and treat small businessmen well."

"good!"

Zhao Han suddenly laughed and was very satisfied with Pang Chunlai and Li Banghua's speeches.

No need to talk about big principles, just tell me how to do it.

Zhao Han asked the officials to continue speaking. Everyone followed this meaning and ended up speaking less and less nutritiously.

Zhao Han concluded: "Listen to what Zhu Qing just said to suppress business, merchants are not allowed to wear silk or live in big houses. What's the use of this? Everyone wants fancy clothes and beautiful houses. The government must not violate human nature in its administration. Just like controlling water, don't blindly block it. Managing business is like controlling water. You should imitate Dayu and remember that blocking is worse than sparing. If merchants want to wear fancy clothes, let them wear them; if merchants want to live in beautiful houses, let them live in them. The desires of merchants will If it expands more and more, then we must dredge the river and guide the merchants to follow the court's instructions."

"It's wrong to hoard and disrupt the market. It's wrong to annex and buy land. It's still wrong to keep beautiful maids and slaves. These are river embankments, and the water of merchants' desires cannot be allowed to overflow. This flood must still be Leading outwards and opening up the sea is a strategy. So much cloth is woven every year and so much porcelain is burned every year, all of which must be sold by merchants. Not only sold domestically, but also sold overseas. In this way, the more prosperous the business is, the more prosperous the industry will be. If it is prosperous, people will have more livelihood."

"We must also beware of converting rice into mulberry and rice into cotton. Mulberry fields and cotton fields in the south of the Yangtze River cannot continue to expand. How to restrain them? Mulberry fields and cotton fields are taxed more, and farmers know what to grow more profitably, so they will naturally follow the rules..."

Zhao Han talked a lot about how to restrict and guide business, and all the ministers in the court knew that it would never be the same as before.

Haven’t you seen commercial taxes and tariffs increasing year by year?

With so much free money entering the treasury, the emperor and cabinet ministers will definitely jump up if anyone dares to suppress merchants blindly again.

The meeting dispersed and Zhao Han went back to work.

Soon I saw Li Banghua's memorial. The content was very simple: control the number of troops and reduce the navy.

Including the cavalry division, the Datong Army has a total of seventeen divisions. Counting the navy, navy and important port coast guards, the regular army of the new Datong Dynasty totaled 200,000.

This may not seem like much, but military expenditures are huge, because military rations have not increased, but military pay has been rising. The most ordinary soldiers receive a certain amount of military rations per month (including food and accommodation), one tael of military pay per month, and free clothing in summer and autumn. Starting from non-commissioned officers, military pay has been rising.

There are also patrol inspection departments in various places, similar to the armed police, with a total of nearly 100,000 people, especially the three southwest provinces with the largest number.

There are also a large number of police forces in major cities across the country, which Li Banghua also regards as the army. At the very least, the policemen guarding city gates and walls can certainly be considered an army.

Therefore, Li Banghua suggested that the army should not be expanded and it would be best if one or two troops could be eliminated.

The Datong Navy should be trimmed more. There is no big enemy in the country. How about raising so many inland naval forces?

Zhao Han thought carefully and decided to temporarily lay off half of the navy. As for the armed police force of the Inspection Department, it will be abolished as appropriate depending on the local security situation.

The laid-off soldiers immigrated to the north with their wives and children. The resettlement must be easy, and each veteran can be allocated two acres of good land than ordinary immigrants.