Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 374 Control the situation

Picking up the teacup, he drank the tea and wiped his mouth. Li Jing continued, "Do you know that after these two measures of mine, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and other places can be said to be of one mind, and the construction of water conservancy projects is very fast. Surprisingly, if it were not for winter, I estimate that at least half of the project could be completed. However, when the next spring begins, the completion of the project will not be a big problem, and spring plowing should not be delayed. With these water conservancy facilities, even if there is still a severe drought in the coming year, at least it can be completed. If there is some harvest, the burden on the court will be greatly reduced.

If God opens his eyes and there is a good harvest in the coming year, I guarantee that most common people will be able to eat.

Now that the common people can eat, will they rebel against the bandits?Don't the rogues want to live a peaceful life?At that time, there will only be a paper order, and the bandits will not suppress themselves. "

Song Yingxing and the others couldn't help nodding when they heard the words.

After pondering for a while, Song Yingxing suddenly asked: "My Lord has built so many water conservancy projects, I'm afraid I can't get them without three or five million taels of silver, but I heard that the tax revenue in various places is not going well, so I don't know how the Lord can raise so much money." Silver taels?"

Li Jing sighed and said, "Why don't people tell me to steal the old man's house? The money was copied from the house. If I didn't have this money, I wouldn't dare to have such a large amount of money."

After a pause, Li Jing continued: "A total of nearly 1000 million taels of silver have been confiscated in the raids on corrupt officials in the past few months, of which more than 300 million taels were spent on military pay. I gave 100 million taels of silver to Sun Chuanting to form a navy. The emperor went to Shanxi to inspect the disaster relief, and I allocated 90 taels of silver. I allocated 100 million taels each to build water conservancy projects in Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan, and nearly 100 million taels of silver were spent on raising food for disaster relief. Officials are distributing salaries, and the 1000 million taels of silver have been spent.”

Song Yingxing couldn't help but click his tongue secretly when he heard Li Jing said that he spent 1000 million taels of silver in less than half a year.

Shaking his head slightly, Li Jing continued: "But we can't always live by ransacking our homes, right? Ransacking our homes is just a means to punish corrupt officials. If we want the country to operate in the right way, we have to rely on taxes.

However, there are not many sources of taxation in our Ming Dynasty, mainly relying on land tax and salt tax, and commercial tax is almost negligible. Since most of the taxes collected by the imperial court are grain, when we distribute salaries to officials, we can only give grain.

This is obviously not possible. Sooner or later the country will run into chaos. Once there is a large-scale drought, the country will struggle if it cannot harvest food. "

Zhu Youjian couldn't help but nodded slightly after hearing this.

Gently patted Zhu Youjian's hand, Li Jing continued: "If we want to change this situation from happening again, we must change the existing tax system, and we cannot completely rely on land tax.

In fact, everyone knows that our Ming Dynasty is not without money, it is only the imperial court that has no money.

So where is the money?I can tell you that it is all in the hands of those wealthy businessmen.I am now transferring the land tax to the business tax.

However, the existing business tax alone is not enough. To increase the source of tax revenue, we must rely on foreign trade. Only by selling the materials we produce to foreign countries can we get more money.If we want to strengthen foreign trade, we have to produce more materials, and the best way to produce more materials is to build more factories. "

"Now I finally understand why you can support [-] troops with only Pingyang Prefecture, because you have built many factories in Pingyang Prefecture, and the materials produced in the factories are sold to other places, so the money from other places flows into When you get to Pingyang Mansion, after you have money, you will raise more and more troops, and finally reach [-] people." Zhu Youjian said suddenly.

Li Jing smiled and shook his head, "It's not my army, it's our Ming's army."

Zhu Youjian nodded silently.

Smiling, Li Jing continued: "Actually, many factories in Pingyang Prefecture can only be regarded as manual workshops, not real factories. A real factory should rely on machinery to work, rather than relying entirely on manpower.

But due to technical limitations, Pingyang government can only do that.But now it’s all right, we finally have someone who understands technology, and we will produce according to the method taught by Mr. Song in the future. "

Song Yingxing laughed when he heard the words: "The Duke of the State values ​​the subordinates so much, so what else can the subordinates say, and what they need to do, the Duke of the State just orders."

Li Jing nodded lightly: "Mr. Song will be busy in the future, agriculture, industry, and all production technology matters, I will use you."

"Hehe, no problem, I will do more while my bones are still young." Song Yingxing laughed.

"Mr. Song, you must not obey your old age. You must learn from Mr. Zixian. Mr. Zixian is almost [-], and he is still staring at the Academy of Sciences all day long." Li Jing laughed.

Song Yingxing waved his hands again and again after hearing this: "Your official can't compare to Mr. Xu, but don't worry, my lord, the next official will set an example for Mr. Xu."

Li Jing smiled and nodded.

Looking up at the window behind Zhu Youjian, Li Jing frowned suddenly: "What time is it?"

Wang Chengen smiled wryly when he heard the words: "Every time the commander-in-chief talks about things, he forgets the time. Just now the watchman outside has been beating a drum for two o'clock (a drum is a watch, and the first watch is from 24 to 48 in the evening. It is divided into five points, each point is separated by [-] minutes, and one or two points is equivalent to [-]:[-] in the evening).

Li Jingwen looked at Zhu Youjian with a wry smile and said, "It turns out that it's so late that the emperor has delayed the worship of the Stove Lord. Well, let's go."

"When you go back home, there's no one there. What are you going to do when you go back? You can go back after eating with me." Zhu Youjian said hastily.

Li Jing shook his head lightly: "I am in the palace, how can the guards guarding the palace gate dare to rest? I guess they are not sure how to blame me at this moment. For those who celebrate the New Year, let them relax too."

"You care about your subordinates, but you can't hang me here, right? You haven't finished talking about letting me build a factory just now. If you leave, can I sleep tonight?" Zhu Youjian said dissatisfied.

"Didn't I tell you to build a brick and tile factory and a ceramics factory? How to do it, you can just ask Mr. Song. If you ask me, I won't do it either!" Li Jing smiled wryly.

Zhu Youjian stared at Li Jing and said, "Just these two factories? Don't you tell me to build a few more? Two factories, even if you make more money, it's not interesting to earn a hundred thousand taels of silver a year. what!"

"Two factories earn 10 taels of silver a year, you think it's too little?" Li Jing asked in surprise.

"What do you think? After all, I am the emperor. If I build a factory and earn 60 or [-] yuan a year, it would be so embarrassing to spread the word!" Zhu Youjian exclaimed.

Li Jing was speechless for a while, and after a while he said: "Alright then, I'll think about a few more factories for you."

"Don't think about it, I know you must have other ideas, if you don't tell me, I won't let you out of the palace today." Zhu Youjian said relentlessly.

"Aren't you a rascal? I have to do all the deals I think of together with you? Can't I keep two for myself?" Li Jing laughed.

Zhu Youjian heard this and clapped his hands and laughed loudly: "Look, look, there is really a good deal and you didn't tell me, Chengen, lock the door, or he won't open the door today."

Wang Chengen looked at Li Jing with a smile and said, "Marshal, the emperor is impatient. It seems that you can't do it if you don't say it today."

Li Jing shook his head and smiled wryly: "You all want to lock me in the palace, how dare I not say it? Well, if it's Chinese New Year, I'll treat it as a New Year gift to the emperor, so that the emperor will be very happy."

After finishing speaking, Li Jing turned his head to look at Song Yingxing and Tu Shaoying and said, "Since the emperor wants to stay, let's stay and disturb the emperor."

Seeing Zhu Youjian and Li Jingwan talking like family and friends, Song Yingxing and Tu Shaoying were stunned for a while, but when Li Jing asked them to have dinner together in the palace, they woke up and hurriedly got up and said: "Don't dare, I'm an official!" My family is probably still waiting for the next official to go back, so we won't be eating in the palace."

Seeing the terrified expressions of the two, Li Jing smiled and shook his head.Knowing that these two people were a little flattered when they entered the palace for the first time, and leaving them to eat with the emperor in the palace, I'm afraid these two people really couldn't bear it.

Besides, the two of them were called into the palace right after they entered Beijing. The family members would definitely be worried whether they would offend the emperor with inappropriate words. It can be said that the longer they stayed in the palace, the more worried the family members would be about whether they were Nothing happened.

Thinking of this, Li Jingjing nodded and said: "Alright, you two go back first, settle down at home in the next few days, and we will make plans in the future."

"Thank you, Grand Master (Marshal)" Song Yingxing and Tu Shaoying hurriedly said.

Li Jing waved his hand and asked Wang Chengen to arrange for the little eunuch to send them out of the palace.

After Song Yingxing and Tu Shaoying left, Zhu Youjian took Wang Chengen to Fengxian Hall to offer sacrifices, leaving only Li Jing, Luo Yangxing and Xiao Wu in the East Nuan Pavilion.

After pouring a cup of tea for Luo Yangxing and raising his hand as a signal, Li Jing asked, "How about Jiangxi? Can Liu Erling hold back?"

Luo Yangxing picked up his teacup and replied, "Commander, Jiangxi officials are working together to collect taxes vigorously. General Liu has completely controlled the situation in Jiangxi."

"Don't speak good words for Liu Erlen, if you see something wrong, tell me quickly, so that I can remind Liu Erlen." Li Jing looked at Luo Yangxing intently and said.

Luo Yangxing hastily put down his teacup and clasped his fists together, saying: "Everything my subordinate said is true, I absolutely dare not lie to the commander in chief."

Hearing this, Li Jing nodded lightly, took a sip from his teacup, pointed at Luo Yangxing's teacup, and said, "I trust you, so don't be restrained."

Sighing, Li Jing continued: "Er Leng is actually not suitable to be a magistrate, but in the current situation, Jiangxi really needs someone like Liu Er Leng to sit in town. In addition, Jiangxi is very far from Fujian. Soon, if we really want to use troops against Zheng Zhilong, Liu Erleng's troops are ready to use. Yongchao has come to Jiangxi this time, did he tell Liu Erleng the purpose of going to Fujian?"

Luo Yangxing nodded: "Master Zong didn't want to say it at first, but General Liu kept asking, Master Zong had to tell General Liu."

Li Jing smiled, tapped Luo Yangxing with his hand and said: "Liu Erlen will only ask one question at most, he will never ask, he won't use his brain to guess what I want to do, and if Yongchao guesses that I arrange Liu Erlen The intention of sitting in Jiangxi reminded Liu Erleng to prepare early. You don’t need to cover up anything for Yongchao, I won’t blame Yongchao, this person is a talent, I think he can be appointed as the director of the intelligence bureau in the future.”

Luo Yangxing smiled awkwardly and said, "Nothing can be hidden from the eyes of the commander-in-chief."

Li Jing shook his head and said with a smile: "I didn't get any reports from anyone. Since I appointed you to do things, I will never send anyone to monitor you again. I can guess the truth only because I know Liu Er Leng."

Luo Yangxing nodded slightly upon hearing this.

(End of this chapter)