No, absolutely not. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

When Zhu Youxiao heard Xu Guangqi's words clearly, it was like a categorical refusal. These are his ways to get money, although now he has the income of salt and iron, and he also has the Tiangong firm to sell goods in various places, but what he wants to raise is the army of the whole country, not to mention the high-cost central field army, just the local city defense army, calculated as 50,000 in a province, and at least 650,000 in the thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty, which is not counting the increase in Liaodong Korea.

What's more, he also wants to raise ten army field armies, and the two together will be at least 1.2 million or more. Zhu Youxiao's army does not have the problem of deductions and empty salaries, so the military salary is lower, but in the army, there is no need for any expenses, so it is basically pure income.

Now the initial salary of the field army has been raised, which is two taels of silver, but there is still no salary in the first year of enlistment. The city defense army is half of the field army, and the subsequent increase in salary by rank is the same, but it is there in the first year of entry.

Today, in the field army, the earliest soldiers who joined the army have already been paid three taels of silver this year. However, even if the minimum military salary expenditure is calculated, he will have to spend more than 1 million taels of silver every month in the future, not including a series of expenses such as military uniforms, food, garrison construction, and officers' salaries.

In this way, it is best to ask for two million taels, and in a year, it is best to ask for twenty-four million, and now, the sales of his salt have only just reached this amount, but he has a lot of other expenses, such as the salary of the inner government, the investment in various researches, and the expenses of the palace.

There are places to spend money everywhere, so as soon as he heard Xu Guangqi's method of letting go of cement, wine, and glass and letting others do it, he subconsciously wanted to refuse.

However, what he said later made him stunned for a moment, and then fell silent.

Zhu Youxiao understood what Xu Guangqi meant, this was an exchange, a naked exchange of interests. But as he said, if you want to do anything in this world, how can you not pay. If you want to make money, you have to pay labor, if you want knowledge, you have to spend time studying, and he wants to divide the fields equally, exempt from agricultural taxes, how can the emperor who is the largest emperor in history not pay any price.

Zhu Youxiao came from later generations, and judging from the education he received, the emperor was nominally sacred, but this sacredness was very fragile in the face of interests.

If you say that you can exempt agricultural taxes, as long as you have financial support, then it is not a big deal, after all, there are too many shady scenes, and it is far better to exempt yourself from taxes than to lift the lid. As long as there is a little propaganda to let the peasants know that they will not have to pay taxes in the future, both the landlords and the common people will certainly be applauded.

But this is not the case with the equal division of the field, from top to bottom, there is no one who will support him, it is completely his own strength, gambling on the prestige since this period of time, and pushing it hard.

Maybe the people will support it, but as long as they get it, they won't stand up. His enemies were the landlords, the gentry, and the bureaucrats.

Although he promised the officials that they would be able to contract the land management, after a while, they also realized that it was just a carrot hanging in front of the donkey, out of reach. There was simply not enough land to be divided, and after it was distributed to the peasants, they simply did not have that much land to contract.

Even if there were, it wouldn't be the turn of the officials below.

Therefore, officials at all levels, large and small, will have subtle thoughts, and will not be so active, which is also the reason why the progress of equalizing the land is hindered. Xu Guangqi was forced to gather his cronies with several other cabinet bigwigs and gather in Hebei to vigorously promote the implementation of land reform.

This is a dangerous move, it is very dangerous to expose his strength under the emperor's nose, Xu Guangqi also took the initiative to take such a responsibility because he knew Zhu Youxiao's personality, and several other pavilion elders also supported a little.

The atmosphere in the audience was silent, Zhu Youxiao's eyes were scattered, obviously entering contemplation, and Xu Guangqi did not say a word, he believed that with His Majesty's old ministers and wisdom, he would definitely be able to figure out his good intentions.

Of course, this is not that he sells off the guanzi and makes a fool of himself, but many things that he wants to understand more profoundly than others can explain.

From Xu Guangqi's words, Zhu Youxiao thought a lot, thought of his own desires, thought of the risks Xu Guangqi took, and thought of the reform of the Celestial Empire in later generations.

The same was true of those in power at that time, who gave up a large amount of state-owned assets and fed a group of people in exchange for the untying and take-off of the economy.

Now, it's time to make such a choice?

Zhu Youxiao was in a trance, but he didn't expect that he had come to this point. Divide the land equally, the people will definitely support, but the difficulties and obstacles are not understood by the people, just like the reform of later generations, the central government has been shouting how long the house price has been lowering, it is not going down.

The resistance in the middle can not be explained clearly in one sentence or two.

However, the situation he is facing now is a little different, at the beginning the Celestial Empire was surrounded by enemies on all sides, the external environment was not good, too rough means could not be used, and it was necessary to cooperate with foreign countries, and it was always necessary to take care of some images, and the economic counterattack in later generations was much more complicated than now, and the central government could not control the overall situation.

But now it's different, after defeating the Jurchens, the security around the Ming Dynasty is incomparable, and after the formation of the naval fleet, coastal defense is also there, not to mention impregnable, but I don't want to be like before, the enemy can come if he wants, and leave if he wants.

And the domestic economy, to put it bluntly, in fact, the Ming Dynasty does not have any economy now, and even the germ of capitalism that later generations talked about was only adopted in coastal areas such as Nanzhili, and it was also because of maritime trade.

Now the rise of the maritime trade economy, silver has been flowing into China, now even if there is no volume of more than a billion taels, but there are still hundreds of millions, otherwise the Qing Dynasty was defeated, how could it be possible to afford the compensation of 200 million taels of silver in the Japanese country.

It's just that the landlords and gentry in all parts of the country have the opportunity to use this silver.

Perhaps, I can use this money to build a road.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao's eyes lit up in vain.

He didn't know much about the economy, but he had heard and witnessed the rapid economic development brought about by real estate in later generations. With the large investment of the central government in road construction, the consumption and supply of raw materials were driven, and the landlords and gentry were lured to take out their own silver deposits from the cellars, set up factories, and supply cement, bricks, gravel and other raw materials, and the people also obtained a channel to increase their income.

Under such a flow of money, the manpower and material resources driven by it are unimaginable, especially during the period, the habit of paying taxes can also be cultivated by merchants, and when they taste the sweetness of business, they will not cling to the land, but turn to pursue greater profits.

The growth of capital is absolutely irresistible to these old rich men in the Ming Dynasty. If you want to do business, the Ministry of Commerce can't get around, and the land can't get around, and if you don't hand over the land, it's impossible to get the quota for the supply of cement and glass.

"Cement. I can take out the glass, but the palace wine can't! After being silent for a long time, Zhu Youxiao said hoarsely. As soon as he spoke, both of them were stunned, but they didn't expect that it would be so big for a while.

Without waiting for Xu Guangqi to react, Zhu Youxiao told him in detail what he had just said, because he himself did not understand economics, so he said it very plainly, but Xu Guangqi deserved to be a master of learning things in this era, even in this case, he also understood what the emperor meant.

"It's just that, Your Majesty, where does this money come from, if you want to achieve the situation that Your Majesty said, you must have a very large amount of investment, at least a million taels of silver in each province." Xu Guangqi smiled bitterly, "The Ministry of Finance doesn't have so much money, now it's only one million taels, which is enough for the Beijing officials to distribute for months, and there is really no money left over for anything else, and the old minister also plans to borrow five million from His Majesty's Inner Mansion." ”

As he spoke, he pulled out his recital from below and handed it to Zhu Youxiao. Zhu Youxiao looked at Xu Guangqi with some incredulity, in the Ming Dynasty, there had never been a courtier who asked the emperor for money, only the emperor took money from the household department.

Xu Guangqi's old face turned red, and he was a little embarrassed to be looked at by the emperor, he may have opened a certain precedent of the Ming Dynasty and took money from the hands of the Ming Emperor's group of deducted coins, and it is very likely to succeed. After all, tax exemption has achieved the prestige of the emperor, but it has suffered the Ming government, and there is no rice to cook.

"The money is coming from cement and glass. Tomorrow, the emperor will invest 30 million taels of silver in various places to build roads, build schools, yamen, prisons, etc., and then due to transportation problems, he now wants to produce cement locally, and now seeks suppliers. Zhu Youxiao said, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but flash a treacherous smile, that is the smile of the profiteer when he sees that there is a fat sheep to slaughter, "When the time comes, there will be an auction in Jingshi." ”

"But Your Majesty, where did we get the 30 million taels of silver to invest!" Xu Guangqi asked with wide eyes, he didn't hear the latter words clearly, but he heard the 30 million taels of silver clearly.

"The cabinet doesn't have it, don't I have it?" Zhu Youxiao said disdainfully, but then he thought about it, his cowhide was a little exaggerated, and he immediately changed his words, "Of course, I don't have it, but this investment is not a one-time investment to come up with so much money, besides, isn't the money from this cement auction just an investment." ”

Xu Guangqi's brain was almost confused when he was turned by the emperor, and the whole person was worried for a while, happy for a while, up and down, like a roller coaster. It wasn't until he finally listened to it that he completely understood what Zhu Youxiao meant.

"Your Majesty, this is a white wolf with empty gloves!" He sighed.

"Hey, hey!" Zhu Youxiao smiled and said nothing.

"However, the auction of cement and glass alone may not be enough for 30 million taels." In turn, he was worried, he knew the difference between cement roads and loess roads, not to mention maintenance, just the service life and convenience, it was a world of difference.

What's more, with the cement road, large four-wheeled or even six-wheeled eight-wheeled carriages can pass, this kind of fast transportation, whether used in military transportation or economic exchanges, is a great artifact. This is good governance, great good governance, and its importance can be compared with the construction of the Grand Canal by Emperor Yang of Sui.