The forbidden army has been dispatched for a long time, and before that, the imperial court has also issued several rewards, which add up to less than five yuan per soldier.

The Northern Expedition is a great expedition that has not been seen in a century, the prime ministers of the two governments as a whole, and the three divisions coordinate the financial endowment of money and food.

The money was spent like water, and soon it was impossible to pay for it.

Then use the inner treasury of the Son of Heaven, and then come down and have to distribute money and grain.

Although the forbidden army has more than 300,000 people, but there are nearly 500,000 people including the Xiang army, and the money per soldier per month is several millions.

Even so, it can only reward the forbidden army more and the box army less, of course the box army has complaints, but the court is also unimpressed. Those box troops, can only defend the fort, pretend to be on the arrow tower, usually transport grain and grass like the people, repair the barracks and roads, in fact, it is the work of the people, they are much stronger than the people, the people are free to levy to serve, food can only ensure not starvation, the box army has the money and food given by the state, but it is much stronger than the people, they can't go into battle to fight, want to reward, but it is really lard lost.

"This time it is a money ...... pulled out of the teeth" The people present are the top civil officials and generals, Zhang Bangwen did not hide it, he also received a secret letter, and he wanted to cooperate with Chen Changde, and he must move Li Guorui and Yue Zhi and others.

As for Liu Guoding, Mai Jidao, Li Youde and others, they don't have to think too much, these people are pure military generals, although they are in charge of the army, in fact, most of them are based on the position of Li Guorui and Yue Zhi, and it is not difficult for them to change.

"I want to tell the truth," Zhang Bangwen said in a deep voice: "The imperial court really can't hold on, now the summer tax has not been collected, and seventy percent of the money and grain have been apportioned. With a large army gathered, food and grass are ready, and the armament is sufficient, if you don't fight with the enemy, and after you run out of money and food, you will be defeated without a fight, Lord Li, Captain Yue, think about it, is it too unwilling? ”

Yue Zhi was a little unconvinced, and said: "The country earns hundreds of millions of dollars a year, why is it like this? ”

"It's true that the annual income is 100 million guan, but the north is invaded once every few years, resettles the displaced people, repairs the destroyed cities, re-establishes the defeated forbidden army, and builds armor and weapons, which time is not destroyed dozens of states and counties, millions of people are displaced, which time does not cost tens of millions of dollars?" Zhang Bangwen smiled bitterly: "We have tried our best to be frugal, to be honest, many displaced people are roughly settled, and there are still more than 100,000 displaced people in Beijing, all of whom are from various military states on Hebei Road, and we have no money and food to settle them." The north is ruined, the military disaster and the drought, over the years, can only reach out to the south, the south also has bandits and pirates for the trouble, industry and commerce have been reduced a lot, to be honest, to maintain the current tax has been regarded as the remnants of the people, but there is no way, every time the forbidden army is lost, the personnel and weapons must be replenished, the city must also be repaired, this money is very distressed. The taxes of this dynasty, raising 600,000 forbidden troops and millions of van troops, a year alone for maintenance expenses accounted for seventy percent of the taxes, but also had to support hundreds of thousands of officials and generals, as well as thousands of eunuchs and sons of heaven in the inner court, fortunately the clan nobles of this dynasty are limited, that is, they are drawn from the official village, unless they are admitted to the Jinshi as an official to receive the official salary, the expenses of the clan nobles are extremely frugal, and it is also a good system established by Taizu, if not, we would have been unable to hold it for a long time. I'll tell you the truth here, over the years, if there is no invasion by Hu Qi, we can still offset the wealth and no deficit. Every time Hu Qi enters the country, we have to lose more or less, and the next year we have to add some miscellaneous taxes to make up for the shortfall. Now all roads are called

Bitterly, everyone gritted their teeth to support it, just because they had to wait for the success of the Northern Expedition to build the city, the north would not be invaded by the Hu cavalry, and the imperial court would not have a deficit, so that the taxes could be gradually reduced and the current situation could be maintained. In fact, when you look at the early Tang Dynasty, the government military system is indeed good, but in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the government army also collapsed. In the past few years, the financial endowment has not been able to support it, and quite a few people have proposed that they want to use the government and military system to fight the enemy, but in fact, it is impossible to do it. You have to count the fields first, calculate the endowment, and then pick up troops from the people's neutral mansion, but the government army in the early Tang Dynasty is from the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the folk martial arts are strong, and the scholars are all from the noble family of Guanlong, and the Han government army that has been fighting for more than a hundred years has been fought for a hundred years by the Guanlong family, so that there is the martial arts of the beginning of the Sui and Tang dynasties. We don't have so many martial arts families, and we don't have the people who have been fighting with the Hu people for a hundred years, what else are we talking about? If there is no government army, it can only recruit soldiers, or establish a feudal town, and now the imperial court can only use taxes to support the current pattern, and the only way to break the situation is the war in front of you...... In fact, as the deputy envoy of the privy council, Lord Li should have seen these things more clearly than the lower officials......"

"No, I don't know much about taxes." Li Guorui's face sank like water, he always knew that the imperial court's financial resources were tight, but after Zhang Bangwen's explanation in front of him, he knew that even if it was a competition for national strength, Great Wei might not necessarily win.

Such a huge country is now in a situation full of holes.

The main reason is that the cost of raising troops is too much, so Zhang Bangwen mentioned the government army system in the Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang dynasties.

Before the government military system, the Qin State raised soldiers by awarding military merits, so as to save daily military salaries, the Qin army was conscripted from the peasants, and the Han army was also, the standing army of the Han Dynasty was only tens of thousands of people, when there was a large expedition, the soldiers of the counties were recruited, and then the northern army was dispatched from Chang'an, if a large-scale cavalry was dispatched, it was to increase the intensity of mobilization from the border counties, and at the same time the imperial court paid the cost of weapons and horses, because the scale of the war against the Xiongnu was huge, and it was protracted, and the accumulation of two generations of Wenjing and the people rested, However, it was consumed by the Han Wu in the Northern Expedition, which shows that the war between the farming people and the nomads is really inherently unequal.

At the end of the Han Dynasty, it was to hide soldiers in the counties, in fact, it was already a state of exhaustive military force, thousands of miles of white bones were exposed in the wilderness, and the whole people were in a war that was more fierce than the Warring States.

It didn't take long for the Jin Dynasty to unify the Three Kingdoms, and then the Hu people went south and entered the early period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

Then there is the Northern Wei Dynasty's rent adjustment system and the government military system, this tax system and military system, which has influenced China for hundreds of years, or even millennia, and the tax system of Ming Taizu and the guard system of raising soldiers are also in the same vein as the Northern Wei Dynasty.

The recruitment system of the Great Wei Dynasty is actually stronger than that of the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, and I don't know how strong it is compared to the chaotic military system of the Ming Dynasty.

It's a pity that the current Great Wei can no longer afford the heavy burden of military spending.

Now it is a vicious circle, because the Donghu iron cavalry continues to strike, resulting in the ruins of the northern region, the aftermath will require a lot of money and food consumption, the natural disasters in the north continue and the military disasters are linked, it costs money to defend and repair, as well as army scheduling, every big war costs millions of yuan, or even tens of millions, it is really a burden that the Great Wei finances cannot afford, and the monarchs and ministers of the Great Wei are really to the point where they can't be provoked.

The industry and commerce in the south are shrinking, pirates and bandits are raging, but the imperial court can only take care of the north, after all, the south is a chronic disease and fatal, but it is not an emergency. In the north, it is an emergency, a serious illness, a dangerous disease, and the slightest carelessness is a situation in which the country is overturned, and it is really impossible to be careless.

So whoever understands people

We all know that the imperial court is forced to tilt its forces to the north, and it has to be. For the thousands of ordinary people in the south, what they see is that they bear heavy taxes, resist pirates and bandits, and the imperial court collects a huge amount of taxes, but they do not care about the south, and it is inevitable that the resentment will grow day by day, and there are many thieves, and it has to be said that it is also inseparable from the heavy burden.

Li Guorui is also one of the governors, and he is also in the highest perspective of the world's affairs, but he is not good at financial affairs. The imperial court set up various transfer envoys directly under the jurisdiction of the three divisions, which was to unify the financial endowments of various roads, prefectures, states, armies, and counties, and to return the financial power of the envoys at the end of the Tang Dynasty to the center. If the pacification envoy is strong, the transfer envoy will inevitably have to listen to his dispatch in matters of wealth, but he will only have to hand over the fixed amount of taxes to the imperial court, and the rest of the local financial affairs can be decided by the pacification envoy himself.

Li Guorui did not care much about financial affairs, when he was in office, the selection of generals, training troops, preparing war horses, and filling the arsenal were the most important things, and it was under his promotion and leadership that the imperial court would have a great victory over Donghu in the first two years.

"It's not just that there's not enough copper." Zhang Bangwen sighed and continued: "The grain storage is less than seven million stones, and now we can only wait for the New Year's grain." ”

In Jingbei and Jingnan, as well as Jiangxi, Fujian, including Liangzhejiang and Jiangnan Dongdao, these major southern grain-producing areas, the Great Wei also retained the taxation law of rent adjustment in addition to the two tax laws, and twice in summer and autumn, while collecting the two taxes, it was also collecting grain in kind.

Of course, the northwest, southwest, the Central Plains, Shandong, these places also have to levy grain, but the amount is far from being comparable with the south.

The annual requisition of grain, including a large number of straw bundles, is the additional income in addition to the cash money, the total amount of grain is between 1,100 and 2 million stones, these grain income and the late Tang Dynasty did not levy two taxes before the rent is about the same, and then the Tang Dynasty abolished the rent, changed to two taxes to levy money, but soon the war and peasant uprisings destroyed a large area of taxation, and the late Tang Dynasty law was corrupted, and the two taxes were collected and then levied in kind, including various miscellaneous taxes, that is, the taxation method of today's Great Wei.

More than 10 million stone grain, which seems to be a lot, but the forbidden army in the north consumes more than 10 million stone a year, and part of the military food is purchased in the garrison place, and part is allocated by the three divisions of the imperial court.

In fact, the grain storage capacity of the Great Wei Dynasty, because of the rent adjustment was declared abandoned after all, and the two tax laws were changed, and the collection of physical grain, including cotton, hemp, silk, and silk, was actually far less than that of the Sui and Tang dynasties.

The difference between the amount of grain requisitioned and the grain depot between the two and the grain storage is quite obvious.

When Emperor Wen of Sui, the emperor was known as Shengming benevolent, in fact, Emperor Wen's technique of gathering was quite clever, at that time the Sui room built large granaries everywhere, the granaries established by the Sui Dynasty, the storage capacity was amazing, from Emperor Wen of Sui to Emperor Yang of Sui, six large granaries were established, and the reserves of any one exceeded the current Tongzhou warehouse.

Li Guorui's face was solemn, Zhang Bangwen let out a sigh, retreated to his seat and sat up straight with a straight face, at this point, there is really no need to say more.

Whether it is Chen Changde's threat, the responsibility to bear after abandoning the army, and the consequences of his own possible beheading, the fear of harming his family, and the responsibility of delaying the war, which will give the northern rogues a chance, and even the responsibility of the Great Wei Dingge...... These things pressed on Li Guorui's head like a mountain.

After half a ring, Li Guorui Fang said to Chen Changde: "Chen Qimen is not an observer, and he has no duty to supervise the army, but I want to ask you for one thing, if you agree, I will mobilize the main force of the army to move forward, if not, I will write a speech now, and wait for He Badger to come and take over, but it depends on whether the court thinks that it is my responsibility to change the commander before the battle, or is the princes of the court too taken for granted?" ”