People in the Song Dynasty were lawless

Chapter 490: The size of the Song Dynasty has increased seven or eight times

The Song Dynasty initially used the October and February system for statistical data.

That is to say, in December of each year, the data from the previous January to October will be compiled.

Wait until February of next year to submit the data for November and December of last year.

The reason for this arrangement is that there are too many holidays and vacations at the end of the year and in January in the Song Dynasty.

There are sixty days in total in two months, and more than forty of them are holidays alone.

Unless all departments are asked to give up their holidays and work overtime every day, it would be impossible to complete so much data statistics.

After all, a large part of the Statistics Department’s data comes from other departments’ internal statistics, and the Statistics Department is only responsible for summarizing and reviewing.

Therefore, initially October and February were planned separately.

However, this has obvious disadvantages. The closer it gets to November, the busier each department becomes. With ten full months of data, the workload is enormous and it often takes until December to get everything done.

On the contrary, after the January holiday, each department can quickly submit data in February. After all, it is only two months of data, so the workload is very small.

Therefore, in order to alleviate the problem of heavy workload at the end of the year, data statistics were changed to a half-year system.

That means submitting data from November last year to April next year, a total of six months, in May. At the end of the year, submit data from May to October, a total of six months.

This way the workload can be evenly distributed and staff in each department will not be so busy and exhausted at the end of the year.

At this moment in the room, there were many data documents on Zhao Jun's desk.

The other prime ministers also gathered around.

The United States experienced rapid development in the 1930s and 1940s. President Roosevelt at the time attached great importance to data and even regarded data as a criterion for governing the country.

Although it was later proved that data cannot represent everything, it is still one of the important references.

Therefore, the Song Dynasty now also attaches great importance to data. After the data is submitted every year, it can be used to analyze the policy results of this year and the future development direction.

Zhao Jun took the most important steel data report first, and the other prime ministers also took some data to read.

Soon Zhao Jun nodded with satisfaction and said, "Yes, from November last year to April this year, in half a year, our steel production capacity has exceeded 2 million tons. This is a good result."

"In the sixth year of the Qingli reign, we planned to produce one million tons of steel annually within five years. In the tenth year of the Qingli reign, we completed the target one year ahead of schedule. In the eleventh year, we produced more than two million tons annually. This year, I'm afraid this number will double again. In the second half of the year, we may be able to push for five million tons."

"Well, the steady doubling of growth every year is already a very good progress. Now the national steel industry is on the right track. The next step is to continue to expand production capacity and devote most of our energy to construction."

"I'm just worried that we might be overreaching. Our current economic model still relies on domestic and foreign trade. If domestic and foreign trade can't keep up and we have less money, we'll have to follow the old path of the Russian bear."

Yan Shu expressed his concerns. After all, he had served as an envoy of the Three Departments and as the Minister of Revenue before, and had been in charge of the purse strings. He naturally understood that money was still a big problem now.

Now the Song Dynasty was actually doing well, because it had defeated the Liao Dynasty and suppressed the silver turtle Japan. It could grab a large amount of gold, silver and copper from overseas every year, and it used copper coins made in the Song Dynasty to trade.

The currencies of neighboring countries have now become copper coins of the Song Dynasty, just like the US dollar has become a global currency in later generations. All kinds of raw materials will only flow into the Song Dynasty in exchange for foreign gold, silver, copper and other spices, wood, medicinal materials and other items.

But now the Song Dynasty had to face a new situation, that is, it had expanded too much and its annual fiscal expenditure had exceeded 200 million guan. Apart from fixed military expenses and official expenses, most of the money was used for public construction investment.

For example, investing in education, building roads, scientific research, establishing welfare homes, developing industry, and even spending money to buy food on the market every year to stabilize food prices in order to prevent food prices from being too low.

It can be said that every penny of the Song Dynasty is now spent wisely.

The problem was that all the money was spent every year, and sometimes there was even a fiscal deficit. The court had to borrow national debt to continue spending, which often made the prime ministers afraid that Zhao Jun would take too big a step and get into trouble.

After all, if there is an unexpected increase in fiscal revenue in a certain year, resulting in a huge loss, the court may suddenly fall into the dilemma of being short of money.

By then, there will be so many places across the country that need to spend money, and so many projects that are spending money. If we cannot guarantee normal commercial tax revenue, we will have no choice but to follow the old path of the Russian bear and use agriculture to subsidize industry, and then the farmers will be the ones who suffer.

However, just when Zhao Jun was about to persuade Yan Shu that there were no such coincidences in the world, and suddenly the Song Dynasty's commerce suffered serious losses, Fan Zhongyan smiled and said, "Don't worry, look at the foreign taxes in the first half of this year."

"Oh?"

Yan Shu came over curiously and asked, "How much?"

"Thirty-seven million strings of cash."

Fan Zhongyan flicked the document in his hand and said, "Among them, Guangzhou alone has 6 million strings of cash. It is estimated that Guangzhou will receive at least 12 million strings of cash this year."

"so smart?"

"I remember that Guangzhou made less than a million guan a year before the Jingyou era."

"It was the past, but the growth this year is really great. Last year, Guangzhou only had about 50 million guan. How come it has increased so much this year? I'm afraid it's almost %?"

"That's because we hadn't built a port in Puluozhong last year. Now our ships are everywhere along the entire route in the South China Sea every day."

As several prime ministers spoke, Wen Yanbo cleverly thought of a main reason.

Zhao Jun also laughed and said, "Yes, that should be the effect of the new order I issued two years ago. Before that, we did not build a port in Pu Luozhong, and the navy of the Song Dynasty had not yet radiated to the Strait of Malacca, so it was meaningless to issue this order at that time, because we could not guarantee the safety of the entire South China Sea route. However, after we built a port in the Strait of Malacca last year, we spent a lot of effort to operate and maintain the route and combat pirates in the South China Sea. It is estimated that most foreign businessmen have registered local companies in Guangzhou and started to pay taxes to the Song Dynasty."

The Song Dynasty's industry and commerce implemented a registered company system, and all transactions and sales were subject to tax.

However, the current tax rate is a phased tax, which is very friendly to small and medium-sized companies and handicraftsmen. The tax rate is very low, often below 5%.

The tax rate for large companies is relatively high, generally above 10% of net profit.

Some can even reach 15% depending on the main business. If there are no local policy benefits, the maximum may be between 20% and 25%.

of course.

It is still much lighter than the previous heavy taxes and levies of more than 30%.

Maritime trade is different.

It turns out that the import and export taxes for the Song Dynasty’s maritime trade were all 10%, that is, if you sold goods to foreign merchants, the court would impose a 10% export tax on you.

When foreign merchants sold goods to the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty Maritime Customs would collect a 10% tariff.

Export taxes are aimed at domestic sellers of goods. Even if you are a ship owner doing business at sea, as long as you sell goods abroad, you will be taxed.

Tariffs are imposed on inbound goods. Even if you are a merchant in the Song Dynasty and you buy goods from abroad and want to sell them in the Song Dynasty, you still have to pay tariffs.

But this undoubtedly leaves a lot of room for maneuver.

For example, the most classic one is to evade taxes by falsely reporting prices.

Because the tariff tax is based on the cost price that foreign companies pay for goods in the country where the goods are produced.

Otherwise, if taxes are collected based on the final selling price, the cost will be increased infinitely, which will directly cause the price of such goods to collapse.

The simplest example is that if the purchase price of a pound of tea at the place of production is 20 wen per pound, then the cost of transporting it to the destination is 30 wen per pound.

To break even, you have to sell it at least at 50 wen per catty. To make a profit, you have to sell it at 51 wen or more. How much profit you make depends on market price fluctuations, but you must sell it at 51 wen or more to make a profit.

If the Song Dynasty collected a 51% tax based on the selling price of 10 wen, then the cost for the merchants would become 56.1 wen, and they would actually lose 6.1 wen per jin, which is obviously impossible.

Therefore, merchants must increase the cost to 56.2 coins per catty.

Later, in order to increase trade volume, Zhao Jun lowered the export tax to 5%.

In this case, the tariff is 10% and the export tax is 5%.

There is no such thing as import tax.

Because import taxes are borne by domestic merchants who import, there is no such thing as import taxes for foreign merchants.

Then it would be easy for foreign businessmen to make a fortune by coming to the Song Dynasty to do business.

For example, if the price of a certain commodity in one's own country is 10 wen per jin, but when it is reported to the Song Dynasty, it becomes 5 wen per jin. If it is 2500 jin, that is wen, and the customs duty only needs to be wen.

But when this kind of commodity arrived in the Song Dynasty, its value would at least triple or quadruple. Even after being sold in the Song Dynasty, commercial taxes still had to be paid, but it was very cost-effective.

Since there are no import taxes, foreign businessmen can sell their goods directly locally. Also, because they do not have registered companies in the Song Dynasty, they generally choose to sell to local distributors, where the prices are slightly lower, and they also enjoy lower tax rates for foreign businessmen.

After all, the imperial court needed to impose low taxes on foreign merchants to attract them. In addition, due to various messy information gaps and considering the huge risks of maritime trade, the tax rate for foreign merchants was much lower than that for domestic merchants.

For example, for goods worth 15 guan, domestic merchants may have to pay about 6% tax, while foreign merchants only need to pay 9-% of the total value of the goods.

关税说是5%，但最多也就是售卖价后的1-2%，大头是在本国出售后5-8%的外商税率。

In addition, since the export tax was reduced to 5%, foreign merchants who purchased goods from the Song Dynasty and sold them back to their own country only had to pay 5% tax, because the buyer did not need to pay tax. The tax was generally included in the price of the goods and paid by the seller.

In this way, foreign merchants only need to pay about 6-9% tax when selling foreign goods to the Song Dynasty, and no more than 10% at most, while they only need to pay 5% when selling Song Dynasty goods abroad.

This is obviously unreasonable.

However, the Song Dynasty court had no solution.

It’s not that Zhao Jun doesn’t want to increase the tax rate on foreign investors.

However, information is not well developed these days, and foreign investors have a huge advantage in information gap.

Second, the risks of maritime trade are indeed very high. No matter how high the tax rate is for domestic merchants, it is still very safe.

However, there are many shipwrecks of foreign merchants. Countless Song Dynasty shipwrecks have been discovered and salvaged in Quanzhou, Guangzhou and other places in later generations, not to mention on the vast ocean.

So it can be said that this money was earned by foreign businessmen at the cost of their lives, and we should not be jealous of it.

However, Zhao Jun still found a way to squeeze some money out of them.

It's just collecting protection money.

The process was just like what Tan Wenxue saw on the sea with the dragon flags of the Song Dynasty everywhere.

The Song Dynasty has now expanded its naval influence to the Strait of Malacca, with the naval forces from Hainan Island, Guangxi and Guangdong, as well as the Jinghai Navy, conducting continuous patrols to protect trade routes.

If there is the dragon flag of the Song Dynasty on a merchant ship and it is confirmed that the ship has a company registered in the Song Dynasty, it can be protected by the navy and prevent the emergence of pirates.

There are actually not so many benefits to registering a company in Song Dynasty. You will not be able to enjoy the benefits of foreign investors. It needs to be under the jurisdiction of the local Industrial and Commercial Bureau, and all accounts must be disclosed to the Bureau. It is difficult to profit from the information gap.

Basically, doing so will only cause foreign merchants to lose up to 10% additional commercial taxes per trip based on the price of the goods, and at least 5%. The total tax rate is already close to that of Song Dynasty's own merchants.

However, when sea routes are very mature, there are only two risks: one is encountering a storm or running aground and causing the ship to sink, and the other is encountering pirates.

The Song Dynasty directly helped foreign businessmen eliminate one of the risks, which was equivalent to protecting their lives and allowing them to sail safely.

Isn't this worth paying a little more tax?
"Well, Hanlong's move is still a safe one. Back then, the annual revenue of so many ports in the country did not exceed 8 million guan. Now, the foreign trade in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangzhou, Quanzhou and other places alone is equivalent to the annual tax revenue of the Song Dynasty."

Yan Shu looked at the data in his hand, smiled and shook his head, saying: "Now I think money is just a number. Who would have thought that this maritime trade could grow exponentially? In the past ten years, it has grown seven or eight times."

"It is a good thing that the proportion of foreign trade is increasing year by year. This proves that we have enough domestic productivity to provide to the outside world, and also proves that the influence of the Song Dynasty is becoming more and more far-reaching."

Zhao Jun said: "Of course, all of this is inseparable from our exploration of the world. If we had not stationed troops in Goryeo, Japan, Yue Dynasty, Mayi, and Puluo, and if we had not recovered the Western Regions, who knows how many people would have taken advantage of the price difference and how many people would have blocked the trade routes."

"Yes, the amount of silver and gold mined in Japan has increased greatly in recent years. After the recovery of the Western Regions, the trade volume between Middle Eastern merchants and the Western Regions has increased greatly. We stationed troops in Puluo to protect Arab merchants and stimulate their enthusiasm for business."

"I have domestic trade data in my hand. In the first half of this year, there were 10 million guan. It seems that this year's commercial tax has increased by at least % compared to last year."

"In the ninth year of the Qingli reign, our annual tax revenue was 2 million guan, in the tenth year it was 2 million, and in the eleventh year it was 2 million. This year, maritime trade has grown a lot, and commercial trade has also grown by 2%. Is it possible that by the end of the year it will exceed 5 million guan?"

"It is very likely. During the period of rapid development, GDP and tax revenues can grow by more than 10% or even 20% each year. I remember watching the news when I was a kid, I think I was 6 years old, that was in 06. my country's tax revenues were only 3.7 trillion yuan, but the next year they became 4.9 trillion yuan, a direct increase of 32%. It can be seen that when entering a period of rapid industrial development, no matter what data is, it will be a leap forward. You must get used to it in the future."

"We're not used to it yet, we're not used to it yet. Come a few more times and we'll get used to it."

Everyone laughed from ear to ear.

Every year when the data comes out, it is the happiest time for them.

Who would have thought that the Song Dynasty, whose fiscal revenue did not exceed 3 million guan a year more than ten years ago and was as low as or million guan, would now have fiscal revenue of million guan?

Moreover, this is the result of a significant reduction in agricultural and commercial taxes. If calculated based on the previous tax rates, the GDP would probably have increased seven or eight times!
This means that the overall economic size of the Song Dynasty is seven or eight times that of the Song Dynasty. And the territory of the Song Dynasty has also increased by more than 400 million square kilometers.

And this is just what happened in just sixteen years!

(End of this chapter)