People in the Song Dynasty were lawless

Chapter 339 New plan for the sixth year of Qingli
At the end of January in the sixth year of Qingli, Yelu Zongzhen also got the news.

Hearing that the Song Dynasty had a sharp weapon that could travel thousands of miles made him feel horrified, and he was silent for a long time without speaking.

Whether it was for him or Li Yuanhao, there was obviously not much time left for them.

The only good news is that the Song Dynasty seems to have no intention of turning against Xia Liao at all. At the end of the year, not only did they send envoys to the Song Dynasty, but the Song Dynasty also responded to them.

For this reason, Yelu Zong really remembered that at the beginning of the month, he asked the envoy of the Song Dynasty, saying that the Song Dynasty only has less than 100,000 troops stationed in Hebei, so he is not afraid of the Liao cavalry?

At that time, the envoy from the Song Dynasty just smiled and did not answer directly. Instead, he said that the Song Dynasty upheld the friendly relationship with the Liao Kingdom and would not send heavy troops to guard it.

Now it seems.

This sentence is obviously just a polite statement.

Maybe it's because they don't need to send heavy troops to Hebei anymore.

In February, Li Yuanhao's envoy also arrived in Zhongjing.

Zhao Jun smiled.

This festival began in the Tang Dynasty and was also the later Dragon Raise Its Head.

Therefore, including foreign trade, the actual revenue from commercial tax last year was 6500 million guan, and agricultural tax was 1680 million guan, totaling 8180 million guan.

After the conversation between the two parties, Yelu Zongzhen decided to go to Yunnei Prefecture, which later became Baotou City, in the name of Xishou in March.

Everyone was curious.

In recent years, he hasn't told any jokes about the Song Dynasty for a long time.

"What?"

"This is last year's GDP report submitted by the Ministry of Statistics this year, this is last year's tax report submitted by the Ministry of Finance, this is last year's business report submitted by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and this is last year's agricultural report submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture."

"This is a good result. If we count the gross domestic product, the total agricultural value is about 4 million guan, the total commercial tax value is about 16.2 billion guan, and the total foreign trade value is 4.9 million guan. Last year, the total value was 25.1 billion guan, which was 22.3 billion guan the year before. It has increased by 12%.”

After making a joke, Zhao Jun also flipped through these official documents.

Last year's total fiscal revenue was the highest in recent years, reaching 1.3925 million yuan.

Yan Shu put the official statistics submitted by various departments this morning on the desk, looked around, and said with a smile: "I just took a quick look, and the growth is very gratifying."

Among them, agricultural taxes did not fall but rose after allotment of land, from 2400 million guan in the fourth year of Qingli to 3973 million guan. Commercial tax increased by 700 million guan to 6506 million guan, and foreign trade increased by 300 million guan to 3446 million guan.

But in fact, about 30% of commercial and agricultural taxes are retained locally for large-scale infrastructure construction, and about 20% of foreign trade taxes are retained at major ports for local expenditures.

The rest of the people were on duty in turns. During the Lantern Festival, it was Jiang Tang and Cai Qi, so they had to make up for a few days off after the Lantern Festival.

In the fourth year of Qingli, the agricultural tax was 2400 million guan, the commercial tax was 5800 million guan, and the foreign trade tax was 3100 million guan. The total should be 1.13 million guan.

After all, later generations did not have a holiday on New Year's Eve, but the Song Dynasty not only had a holiday, but also had many holidays.

This is why Lu Yijian said last year that fiscal revenue might exceed 100 million.

And just when the two brothers were on good terms between Xixia and Liao, the Song Dynasty was still carrying out their own plans and changes in an orderly manner.

The current situation can no longer be solved by sending envoys to communicate with each other. Discussions must be conducted in person.

"No need."

It is said that he is hunting in the west, but actually he is going to the Liao-Xia border to have an alliance with Li Yuanhao.

"I need a big Song joke to encourage me."

The seven-day holiday for the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month has just ended, and I have only had a few days to go to work in the Constitutional Yuan.

If local interceptions are removed this year, the revenue of the imperial treasury will officially exceed 1.00921 million yuan, reaching million yuan.

Zhao Jun said.

At this moment, many prime ministers were present in the room except Jiang Tang and Cai Qi.

It’s really easy to be lazy this year.

In February of the sixth year of Qingli, all the data for last year had been released, and preparations for this year's plan were about to begin at the beginning of the year.

When the time was almost up, all official documents from various ministries were reported, and everyone went to the conference room for a meeting.

"You still need to work hard. Compared with our future generations, I only have one thing to say."

In particular, Zhao Guangyi's jokes seem too wordy if they talk too much, and there is really nothing to say.

From the winter solstice to the Lantern Festival next year, there are several festivals in between, including Zhao Kuangyin's father's memorial day, Zhao Zhen's mother's birthday and Zhao Hengtian's celebration, adding up to thirty-three days.

First, there is nothing to satirize, and second, the stock of jokes in the Song Dynasty is running out.

Since two prime ministers were required to be on duty during the holidays, Zhao Zhen sympathized with the old ministers and exempted several elderly ministers such as Zhang Shixun, Li Di, Lu Yijian, Wang Zeng, etc. from being on duty.

February 2nd, Zhonghe Festival.

From the beginning of December to the end of January, half of the two months are on vacation, so there is very little time to work, and it is difficult to avoid being lazy.

Lu Yijian looked at Zhao Zhen and said with an old smile: "In this situation, what does Hanlong think of the Song Dynasty's performance last year?"

The sky is bright and clear today, and there is a lazy atmosphere in the Zhizhiyuan.

But now this holiday is not an important holiday, and there will be no holiday, so everyone should go to work.

Everyone waved their hands, this thing can easily make people’s blood pressure high.

Zhao Jun took out a writing brush and calculated it with a formula on the paper. The GDP was growing at an annual rate of 12%, which was already an exaggeration.

But after he put down his pen, he continued: "However, this tax rate fluctuation is only a rough estimate. After all, the increase in agricultural taxes last year was due to the increase in farmers' income. I started to kill pigs and bleed them for the landlords, which made the landlords pay at least 8% more." Tax, so the total value should not be that high, probably around 24 billion yuan."

"That's good too."

"Yeah, I remember Han Long said that it would be great if many countries in the future can grow by single digits every year."

"I am still very satisfied with this growth rate."

Everyone said.

Nowadays, data is king, and Zhao Jun also takes data into consideration.

Although GDP does not fully represent a country's development, it does represent most of the development speed. Looking at last year's data alone, the three growth rates are particularly obvious, especially agricultural taxes.

However, Zhao Jun knew what was going on with the increase in agricultural taxes. This result was entirely due to the distribution of taxes to landowners by apportioning farmers into their acres.

If at a normal age, an increase from 2400 million guan to 2800 million guan would be considered good. However, after the landowners own a large amount of land across the country, they pay twice as much tax as before. Naturally, the increase will be significant.

"Last year's level of development would have been very good in ancient times, but our goal is not to improve society in ancient times, but to look forward and progress toward the industrial age."

Zhao Jun pondered for a moment, then thought about it and said: "The Statistics Department did not count the domestic steel production last year. This was my oversight. This item must be added in the future, so that the steel level of a country can be measured."

“Although policies were liberalized last year and steel plants and cement plants were set up across the country, from finding resources to selecting locations, as well as building roads and rivers, steel plants and cement plants in most places across the country may still be in the construction stage. It has not been officially put into production.

Yan Shu said: "So our current steel plant output still mainly relies on Wu'an Iron and Steel and other existing smelters. It should not be difficult to compile this data. I will talk to Wu Yu later and ask him to send someone to check. .”

"Ah."

Zhao Jun said: "These steel plants should get on the right track this year. The focus of the Constitutional Yuan should be adjusted this year to start the era of large-scale steelmaking. I want Da Song's steel production to reach 90% of the world's steel production within five years." % or above, allowing the Song Dynasty to officially enter the first stage of the industrial revolution."

"what?"

Everyone was dumbfounded.

Song Shou said hoarsely: "Is this possible? Doesn't it mean that the Song Dynasty's annual steel output will be more than a hundred times what it was before?"

"How is it impossible?"

Zhao Jun said with a smile: "After Britain's first industrial revolution, in 1850, steel production was 250 million tons per year, accounting for half of the world's steel production. At that time, the world's productivity had improved a lot, but the world's annual output was only five Million tons. At this time, the world's annual output is probably less than tons."

This is not an exaggeration, it is a fact.

Some people on the Internet later said that steel production reached 15 tons during the Yuanfeng period of the Song Dynasty. But this is actually false news fabricated by fans of the Song Dynasty. According to the actual records in the "History of the Song Dynasty", the annual output should be about more than tons.

You must know that according to the research of later archaeologist Mr. Li Jinghua, the total steel production during the entire Western Han Dynasty was only more than 40,000 tons.

Until the emergence of the method of frying steel in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and then the method of pouring steel in the Tang Dynasty, the annual output only reached more than 3,000 tons. Even if the Song Dynasty had black technology, it would not be exaggerated to the level of annual output of 150,000 tons.

Therefore, according to the "History of the Song Dynasty", it is normal for the Song Dynasty to produce more than 10,000 tons per year.

At that time, the Song Dynasty was already the country with the highest economy, technology, culture and productivity in the world. Even the Song Dynasty only produced more than 10,000 tons of steel annually. It is unknown whether the other countries in the world could produce 50,000 tons of steel combined.

Therefore, once steel plants are established across the country, the goal will only be achieved if the steel production reaches one million tons per year.

Even if one million tons per year is only a fraction compared to our annual output of 10 billion tons in later generations, during the Song Dynasty, it was really not nonsense to be the first in the world within five years and account for more than 90% of the steel production.

"Well"

Everyone looked at each other and then understood what industrial society is.

Once industrialization begins, the gap between any previous data and the industrial era will be countless times.

"After the industrialization era, steel production first increased, and then steel was used in various industries, driving the development of other industries."

Zhao Jun said: "Railways, factories, and shipyards are the major players in the steam engine and steel industries. In the final analysis, industrial development is inseparable from food, clothing, housing, and transportation. So the top priority next year is to increase steel production and promote national investment promotion. , matters related to opening various factories.”

"Ah."

Everyone took pen and paper to record it.

After several rounds of Qingli New Deal reforms, the country's shortcomings are slowly being eliminated.

Although there are still some affected areas, they are much better.

The main focus of development now should indeed be on the production of the industrial revolution.

"The steel plant on South Beijing Road has been under construction since the year before last and was officially put into operation at the end of last year. They want the court to allocate more funds and they want to build their own railway."

Li Di said.

"It's a good thing that local governments have subjective initiative. I will send someone to inspect this matter. If there are no problems, I will approve it."

"Ok."

"Speaking of which, since we have entered industrialization, it is time for us to establish a new department."

Zhao Jun pondered for a moment, and then said: "Let's start establishing the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Railways this year. In the future, such matters will be coordinated by the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Railways. Otherwise, if everything at the local level has to wait for the approval of the Constitutional Yuan, it will be too inefficient. Slow down."

There will definitely be more and more things like this in the future.

The Constitutional Yuan only has such a small number of manpower, and its main focus must be on national development strategies. We cannot apply for reports locally and ask for their approval, but there should be direct departments under the jurisdiction.

"Then let me prepare for the construction of these two departments. Although I am a little older, I still want to use my spare energy for the country."

Lu Yijian didn't want to let go of the opportunity to seize power.

Zhao Jun glanced at it and said: "Prime Minister Wang is also a pillar of the country. This matter will be left to Prime Minister Lu and Prime Minister Wang to coordinate together."

He didn't want Lu Yijian to be mixed with more sand.

Since Lu Yijian was in charge of human affairs in the past, there were quite a few of his disciples and former officials in more than fifty departments in the Song Dynasty. Although basically once Mr. Lu died, most of his power would be lost when Cha Liang left.

However, the second son of Lu Yijian, Lu Gongbi, was already the transfer envoy of Hebei Road, and the third son, Lu Gongzu, was already a Zhizhigao, and he was promoted very quickly.

Lao Lutou was not using his remaining energy, he was obviously trying to pave the way for his son.

"Ah."

Lao Lutou just responded without objecting.

In the current situation, it would be good to have some power. After all, his health is getting worse and worse, and no one knows how long he can live.

"Then today's meeting will be like this. Next, let each ministry plan their own development plans for this year and submit them to the Constitutional Yuan for approval. The income is getting higher and higher, but there are still a lot of fixed expenses, and money still needs to be spent wisely. That’s all.”

Zhao Jun stood up and dismissed the meeting.

Despite last year’s fiscal revenue of 100 million, the Ministry of Education built schools and promoted the teaching system. When the Ministry of Industry builds canals and roads, as well as local water conservancy and road construction, the court spends a lot of money.

In addition to official salaries and military expenditures, the annual fixed expenditure is still 50 to 60 million yuan, and the remaining half can be used for other investment in construction.

But even this is quite good. At least it is better than the previous five-sixths of the Song Dynasty's fiscal investment in military expenditures. The remaining one-sixth was taken up by official salaries and other redundant expenditures. The country had no construction funds at all. Completely stop eating.

At present, the Constitutional Yuan has issued instructions in the new year, requiring each department to submit its own department's plan for this year, such as how many teachers the Ministry of Education will recruit and how many schools will be built this year, how many canals and roads will be built by the Ministry of Industry, etc.

After the plan is submitted and there are no problems, the Constitutional Yuan will ask the Ministry of Finance to appropriate funds as funding.

As such.

In the sixth year of Qingli, the Song Dynasty was in full swing again.

(End of this chapter)