"The county guard, the money and food in the county are already stretched!"

At the end of March, as soon as Heifu finished his vacation and went to work in the county government again, he entered the door when Cao Peng, who was in charge of finance, began to complain to him.

Jin Bu Cao is the department in charge of finance in Qinguo County, Cao Peng's name is Ku Cheng, since Heifu first met with him, this person has a bitter face, every time Heifu wants to do something, let the finance pay, the bitter face is even more ugly.

The bitter gourd crossed his fingers and said one by one: "After the county guard took office, he first built a school room, gave scholarships to the disciples who excelled in the exam, and repaired public toilets in various places, so as to prepare for the promotion of the method of composting and manure next year, as well as building paper mills, water wheels, water spines and many other matters...... Junjun, you've only been in office for two months, but you've done more than the five years you have been in the county guard combined! ”

Hefu couldn't laugh when he heard this, when did he do something wrong.

Bitter and said: "That's it, now we have to repair roads, build palaces, build docks, and build ships, Junjun, do you think that the county's gold and cloth money and grain will not be used up?" ”

Listening to this guy's words, he really wanted to cut most of Heifu's plan in half!

Hefu was overwhelmed by him, but his attitude was still resolute:

"The money for the palace is from the Shaofu, and Xianyang has agreed that Jiaodong can transfer the Yantie Shanze city tax that should have been delivered to the Shaofu to build the palace. As for the wharf and the vessels, this is a long-term plan and cannot be delayed. ”

Roads and palaces, this is to prepare for Qin Shi Huang's summer and autumn tour of the east, that is, Mo, Zhifu (fú), Chengshan, at least three, right? This must be repaired, at a cost of about 3 million yuan, and the widening and repair of the road will also cost 2 million yuan.

In Heifu's mind, the two streets of Linzizhuang and Yue can get a rent of 5 million in a month...... No matter how bad Jiaodong is, a year's city tax can reach this number, right?

As for the wharf and boats, it is one of Heifu's ideas: to open up the road from Jimo City to Jiaozhou Bay, and to prepare for the future development there, and to build Jiaozhou Bay, which is still barren at present, into a new fishing port, this plan will cost about 1.5 million yuan......

The bitter burden raised his neck, and he let it go: "Jiaodong is not rich, even if the county guard kills me now, the subordinates will not be able to come up with more money!" ”

Heifu was also angry, and called Chen Ping on the spot and asked him to take someone to check Jin Bucao's account.

I don't know if I don't check, I was shocked when I checked it, the bitter complaint is really not fake, and there is only 5 million money left on the financial books of Jiaodong County! Of these, another 3 million are intended to be handed over to the Shaofu.

So after all, Hefu only has two million dollars to use......

The Qin Dynasty had its own system, and the central finance was divided into Sosu Neishi and Shaofu, which were in charge of public finance and royal finance respectively.

The income from the salt and iron monopoly, as well as the industrial and commercial taxes, the checkpoint tax, and the money paid by children aged 7-14 must be handed over to the Shaofu.

The money and grain were collected by the local government, and two-thirds were reserved for the county finances, and the remaining one-third was given to Sosu Neishi and Shaofu respectively.

The northern land where Heifu stayed was a poor county, and he couldn't make ends meet, and the central government had to subsidize a large amount of money and grain every year to pay the salaries of the soldiers.

Jiaodong is different, there are benefits of mountains and seas, a large population, placed in the whole world, it is also a developed area, the finance should be rich and flowing, it should not be difficult to this extent!

Heifu calculated, although he has tossed a lot in the past two months, he has only used two or three million, right? How could there be such a big hole.

"Could it be that someone is corrupt!?"

But the bitter burden is also from Guanzhong, the resume is innocent, when Chen Ping checked the accounts, he didn't find any problems, and the bitter burden even found out every expenditure this year one by one, and it was full of Heifu's case.

"Jiaodong is far from being as wealthy as the county guard imagined."

The bitter burden clarified the truth: "It stands to reason that there are 130,000 households in Jiaodong, even if each household only pays 10 acres of land rent, there are more than 2 million stone of grain, which is 60 million!" But in fact, the land rent was only one million stones, and two-thirds of them were given to the captain of Sosu, and only 300,000 stones were left in the county. ”

This is a big problem, and Heifu guessed the reason: "The reason why the land rent is so small is because of the hidden fields and hidden households?" ”

"Yes!"

He slapped his hands bitterly and said: "The county guard should know that in winter, His Majesty has an edict to order the head of the Kanto Qiantou to come from the real field. ”

"Why be self-actual? The reason for this is that in many places, the government can't go out of the county seat at all, and can only control the surrounding areas of the county, and the farther countryside can't take care of it at all! ”

The black man's head, the language barrier, the hostility of the Qiantou, and the cover of the big clan officials are all the reasons why it is difficult for the Qin Dynasty to reach the bottom in the Kanto region like the Kansai and Nanjun.

It was difficult for the imperial power to go to the countryside, and even so, it became impossible for the government to come forward and measure the actual number of acres of land in each household. In order to collect some taxes, I can only take a step back and let Qianshou report consciously.

People are seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages, and the Jiaodong people bullied the Qin officials and could not go deep into the township, so they reported 100 acres of land to 50 acres, and 50 acres to 30 acres to escape heavy rent.

As a result, the annual rent collected is not as large as expected. And in the process of collecting rents layer by layer, who knows how much the local tycoons and township officials have exploited from it? In the end, all the sins were blamed on the heads of Qin officials, which led to the hatred of Qin by the whole people......

Hefu asked again: "What about the salt industry?" ”

Ku Cheng said: "The ancients had clouds, Fu Chu had the gold of Ru Han, Qi had the salt of Quzhan, and Yan had the cooking of Liaodong, and the Three Kingdoms were rich in this way." The salt of this canal exhibition is in Jiaodong! Where the water flows into the sea. ”

"It is said that at the peak of the day, Qi people boiled the sea as salt, and they could get 200,000 stones a year! Among them, 100,000 stones are in Jiaodong! ”

Heifu calculated, more than 100,000 stone salt is not a small amount, Jiaodong per capita one stone of salt, can not eat at all, most of it can be exported, converted into money, there are more than 20 million, is the bulk of Jiaodong's finances.

But the bitter burden told Heifu an astonishing fact: "In the five years of establishing the county in Jiaodong, although the salt and iron were collected by the government, the result is that the salt produced every year is getting less and less every year, and now it is only 50,000 stones......

As a result, the income of the salt industry has also plummeted, and the reasons for this are that the salt and iron government has become a state-owned enterprise, and the salt workers have lost their enthusiasm and can get by.

The second is that there are serious coastal bandits, and the anti-Qin forces have frequent activities, which have affected the operation of the salt works.

Third, on the long coastline of Jiaodong, there are still many nobles and salt dealers engaged in the boiling and selling of illicit salt! These people hook officials inside and robbers outside, which is also a stubborn disease in Jiaodong.

Field rent, salt tax, and the two main sources of Jiaodong's finances were all intercepted, and it is not surprising that the government treasury has no money and no grain.

After clarifying the whole thing, Heifu groaned, although he had now dealt with the intellectuals and stabilized the peasants near the county town, it was still too early to master the whole county.

This is not something that can be solved by a few inventions, but there is a problem with the entire administrative structure, not only in Jiaodong, but also in more than 20 counties in Kanto......

The rule of the Qin Dynasty in the east was like a high-rise building without a solid foundation, which could be burned and collapsed with a single fire, and even implicated the originally solid west.

"How difficult it is to govern Jiaodong......"

For a while, Heifu even regretted it a little, knowing that this was the case, it was better to stay in a blank Helan to farm and fight Rong Di easily.

But then he picked himself up again, and there were still years before the edifice would collapse, and he had to give it a try, both for his country and for himself.

After that, Heifu began to calculate with Chen Ping: "The problem that the government power is difficult to go to the countryside, and when the first batch of public school disciples come out in a few months, they will definitely take it county by county!" “

After solving this matter, the people Yintian could not be controlled for the time being. It is necessary to concentrate efforts and start with the hidden households attached to the fields, and use this as an excuse to uproot them. ”

"Then march from the inland to the sea, crack down on illegal salt, firmly control the salt industry in your hands, and finally even build a ship to go to sea, sweep away the bandits, seize the island where they are entrenched, and Fujiaodong's evil wave!"

This is what Heff decided to do during his tenure, and it was hellish difficulty.

"If I want to do this, first of all, I need an armed force that can be tough with Zhutian, and it is obviously not enough to rely on the county soldiers alone."

So, they went back to the original question: money!

Heifu came to him again and asked him what was the fastest way to get money if the government was in dire need of money.

Bitter tilted his head and thought about it, and spit out three words: "Collect money." ”

But Heifu shook his head: "This method is tantamount to drinking a donkey to quench your thirst!" ”

He heard Chen Ping say that in Weidi, some families were strangled to death because they couldn't pay their children's mouths.

It stands to reason that a person's 23 yuan a year doesn't seem to be much, as for strangling his own child to death?

But the actual situation is not so simple, and the annual land rent is different, the Qin Dynasty's mouth money, is allowed to the local vision of the situation, can be added many times, three times down, the amount has already been several times the regulations, is a very heavy burden for the Qin Dynasty.

Heifu tossed for a long time to recruit the Confucian scholars in Jiaodong and stabilize the peasants near the county town.

So he rejected the idea and asked Chen Ping to find a map of the whole county and check it county by county.

Heifu is looking for a place, a famous name in later generations, and Heifu also knows that it is in Jiaodong, but he doesn't know where it is.

"Zhaoyuan...... Where is Zhaoyuan? ”

Heifu remembers that when he was in school in his previous life, there was a classmate from Zhaoyuan, Shandong, who always bragged about how good their gold mines were, and said that Yantai accounted for 5 of the top ten gold mines in China, including 3 in Laizhou and 2 in Zhaoyuan!

The bull brags a lot, and Heifu remembers it.

"If you can find this gold mine, everything will be solved......"

Heifu's eyes swept around Huang County, Ye County, and Xuan County in the north of the Jiaodong Peninsula.

"The county guard is looking for ...... Gold mine? At this time, the bitter burden whispered.

Heifu looked at the bitter burden, and at this moment, his bitter gourd face was not so ugly.

"You know?"

"In the southwest of Huang County, there is a township named Qucheng, Qucheng has a mountain, it is rumored that the mountain produces gold, and the locals often dig in the stream, but the quantity is scarce......"

He sighed secretly in his heart, is this county guard crazy for money, they all began to rush to the doctor, Qi State has not heard of any big gold mines since ancient times, otherwise Guan Zhong would not have to go to great lengths to exchange gold from Chu State......

Heifu was overjoyed when he heard this, and ordered Chen Ping: "Immediately let people collect rumors of gold withdrawals from all over the world, and then find a few Yin and Yang Fangshi who know how to look at the mountains and rivers and find the pulse!" ”

He paced indoors for a while, and then called the thief Cao Cao Shen: "Go and call Liu Ji, who has just returned from Chengshan, and say that the county guard has an important errand to send him to do!" ”