Now the Second Army, which is in charge of the Anqing War, is a little lacking in strength, but it is only 40,000 people, and these 40,000 people cannot all be used to conquer Anqing, and a part of the troops must be left to suppress in Jiangxi and the western regions of Jiangnan, and a part of the troops need to be divided to fight in Fengyang Mansion to besiege Anqing, and the troops used to besiege Anqing are only about 20,000 people when they are full.

Not only is the strength of the Anqing front line insufficient, but also the troops in Huguang and Sichuan, and the strength of the First Army has been weakened many times, and now it can only maintain a balance of power on the Hunan front line, with a total strength of only more than 40,000 people, and Zhang Yue's department on the opposite side is 100,000 to say the least.

Moreover, Zhang Yue's superintendent and Huguang Lianjun and other armies, almost all of which are new-style armies, are directly copied from the Datang Army in all aspects, and they have fought with the Datang Army for many years.

This Ming army has always been a big problem for the Tang Dynasty, and if it wants to attack Huguang in the future, the strength will definitely be strengthened.

In addition, with the expansion of the Tang Dynasty's ruling area, especially the occupation of Jiangnan, and now the occupation of part of Jiangbei, if nothing else, the entire Jiangbei and even Huguang will be under the rule of the Tang Dynasty.

And to maintain the rule, the army is indispensable, without the pressure of the army, those careerists rebel every minute to show you!

But now there are only so many troops in the Tang Army, what if you can't squeeze out the extra troops?

What else can I do, expand the army!

It is now November of the fifth year of Xuanping, and it will not be long before it is the sixth year of Xuanping, and according to the estimate of the Ministry of Taxation, the fiscal revenue of Xuanping in the sixth year will be doubled.

The Ministry of Taxation estimates that next year's fiscal revenue will reach 40 million taels of silver!

Among them, agricultural tax and commercial tax will still occupy the absolute majority, reaching nearly 30 million, and the remaining 5 million will be special taxes such as customs duties, salt taxes, and tea taxes.

As for the hidden income, that is, the income from the seizure of war booty and the seizure of homes, this part of the income cannot be determined, so it has always been not included in the budget, and it is basically spent flexibly after getting it.

According to the financial budget of 40 million taels of silver, Li Xuan plans to position the military budget of the Ming army at 30 million!

And in these 30 million miles, the army will occupy the absolute majority, the navy side will take at most two or three million, the guards will be even less, and the army side will at least monopolize the military expenditure of 25 million taels of silver!

Planning so much military spending is naturally used to expand the army and fight!

The largest expenditure of the army's military expenditure is combat expenses, and the maintenance of troops is quite small

The same infantry division can spend millions or even two million taels of silver on a month of fighting on the front line, and there is no upper limit to this, depending on whether the fighting is frequent and how much ammunition and ordnance are consumed.

But if it is only stationed in the rear, the cost is fixed, and it is relatively small, mainly the cost of personnel salaries, food, training, ordnance replenishment, etc., basically an infantry division, the cost of a month is about 100,000 taels of silver.

In a year's time, counting the usual expenses such as peacetime exercises, small-scale counterinsurgency, and defense transfer, it is about 1.5 million taels of silver a year!

If it was mixed into a regiment, the expenditure would be about one-third of that of the infantry division, and it would cost about 500,000 taels of silver a year.

Of course, the above-mentioned expenses do not include the settling-in expenses and ordnance procurement expenses of soldiers during the founding of the army, and this part of the expenses is relatively large, basically equivalent to the maintenance costs for one year.

Theoretically speaking, even if the army has a budget of 25 million next year, it can only maintain about 16 infantry divisions without fighting, and now the Datang Army already has nine infantry divisions and 12 mixed regiments, which is roughly equivalent to 13 infantry divisions.

However, the military expenditure of the Tang Dynasty Wang's division has never been more than the military budget set at the beginning of the year, and it is often used to increase the temporary military expenditure, for example, in the fifth year of Xuanping, Li Xuan gave the army an additional war expenditure of about 5 million taels of silver in addition to the rated military expenditure.

And next year, it is estimated that it will be about the same pace!

And even if the money is really not enough, but the army cannot be expanded, what a joke!

If you have money, you have to expand the army, if you don't have money, you have to expand the army, if you don't expand the army, what will he Li Xuan use to conquer the city and expand the territory, and if he doesn't have the land, he will take the money to raise the army!

So, after the Ninth Infantry Division, Li Xuan issued the latest directive, ordering the army to prepare for the establishment of the 10th Infantry Division, the 11th Infantry Division, the 13th Mixed Regiment, and the 13th and 4th Mixed Regiment.

At the same time, the scale of the Guards Army was expanded, and three new Guards Infantry Battalions were expanded, so that the Guards Infantry Battalion was expanded to nine, and on this basis, the Guards Infantry Regiment was formally organized, and each Guards Infantry Regiment will have three infantry battalions, in addition to a battalion artillery team, a reconnaissance cavalry team, and a baggage battalion, with a total strength of 4,000 people.

It will become the 1st Guards Corps, the 2nd Guards Infantry Regiment, and the 3rd Guards Infantry Regiment, and together with the Guards Artillery Regiment, the Guards Baggage Regiment, the Guards Engineer Battalion, and the Guards Cavalry Battalion, the total strength will increase to 15,000 men, which is equivalent to an infantry division of the Army.

The expansion of the Guards is reasonable, because in the future, the Guards will not only defend Jinling City, but also be the main force in guarding Jiangnan.

Among the other new units, the 10th Infantry Division and the 11th Infantry Division will work together with the 9th Infantry Division to form the Fourth Army of the Tang Army, which will become a new mobile force of the Tang Army and also serve as a reserve.

The 13th Mixed Regiment, like most of the mixed regiments, will become a garrison force, scheduled to be stationed in Yangzhou and Tongzhou.

The 14th mixed regiment is intended to be used to strengthen the Second Army, but it is estimated that it will also be stationed in the Jiangxi area in the future.

After such an expansion, the Tang Dynasty will have tens of thousands of more troops, although it will cause great pressure on the finances, but there is no motivation without pressure.

Li Xuan is expanding the army and training in the rear, and the war in the north has not stopped, and he is still preparing for the battles of Anqing and Huguang, this situation seems to be very good, but the money is also spent like flowing water, and the financial pressure of the entire Datang is extremely great!

As a tax inspector, Chen Lifu felt the financial pressure more deeply than outsiders, because the upper authorities urged him to end the affairs of Ningguo Mansion as soon as possible, and then prepare to go to Songjiang Mansion, a major tax area.

Chen Lifu has been in Ningguo Mansion for a few months, the situation here is the same as other prefectures and counties in the south of the Yangtze River, the situation is not optimistic, tax evasion is serious, of course, what makes Chen Lifu feel more difficult is that the local tax system is simply terrible, full of all kinds of scum, and this kind of thing, that Chen Lifu can not bear.

After arriving at Ning Guofu, he did not immediately set out to strictly investigate tax evasion, but immediately rectified the local tax system, and after killing more than a dozen tax officials, he reformed some green-skinned hooligans and other scum who had mixed into the tax revolution team in the early chaotic period.

After the tax system was initially rectified, he began to strictly investigate tax evasion.

And the result was not much of a surprise, under his leadership, more than a dozen gentry in Ningguo Mansion with the most serious tax evasion were exterminated!

And this is also what made Chen Lifu's reputation rise sharply, not to mention the three places of Chizhou Mansion, Dezhou, and Ningguo Mansion that he brought with him, even other places in the south of the Yangtze River have already begun to spread his name Chen Lifu.

Of course, most of them are not good words, there are those who say that he is an executioner, and there are also those who say that he is a tiger, and in the Jiangnan gentry and scholar group, he is basically equated with traitorous ministers.

And now the children of the gentry in Jiangnan, many of them have also entered the Tang Dynasty as officials, so there are a lot of excerpts to impeach him, but this kind of impeachment is useless, within the Ministry of Taxation, the adults above are quite satisfied with Chen Lifu's work performance, it is said that even the squire of the Ministry of Taxation, Shangshu, these bigwigs, are already satisfied with Chen Lifu, a young tax cadre, said to give full play to the enthusiasm of young officials who dare to fight, and give them a broader space to play!

This is almost a direct promotion for Chen Lifu!

Chen Lifu knows all this!

Shilin's insults, he didn't hear them, and he didn't refute them, because he really couldn't refute them, because even he himself despised his current behavior very much in his heart, and sometimes he would stay awake all night, and as soon as he closed his eyes, he would see the gentry who died tragically under his hands!

At this time, he can only keep telling himself that he is enduring humiliation, and one day, the world will know his good intentions!

Although he strictly investigates tax evasion, it is to win the appreciation of his superiors, so that he can climb to a higher position, and then he can better display his ambitions and pull the Tang Dynasty, which has seriously deviated from the direction, back to the right path!

And in this process, he also tried his best to do what he could, such as rectifying the tax system!

If he only strictly investigated tax evasion and evasion, he would not be guilty of rectifying the local tax system, and those scum would collect taxes more efficiently, but why did he still do this, it was not for the sake of the local people.

After dealing with the affairs of Ningguofu, he returned to Jinling City to report on his work, and when he left Ningguofu, the local gentry celebrated, this Shilin scum, the shame of the Jiangnan gentry, finally got out of Ningguofu!

And when he left Jinling City again and went to Songjiang Mansion, although Chen Lifu was still a tax inspector, his grade was promoted to the sixth grade!

In less than a year, he has been promoted two levels in a row, and among the many former Ming Zhishi and demoted officials who just entered the Datang officialdom at the beginning of the year, it can be regarded as an outlier!

Chen Lifu took an official boat from Jinling City to Songjiang Mansion down the river, on the boat, he had already begun to study the tax situation in Songjiang Mansion, and after seeing it, he stood at the bow of the boat, with a sad face, the situation in Songjiang Mansion was more serious than he expected, and this time, I don't know how many gentry's heads have to be cut off to be able to complete the task assigned by the boss!

Chen Lifu's ship has not yet docked at the Shanghai wharf, and the people in Songjiang Mansion are already panicked, and the shadow of the famous tree of the people, Chen Lifu makes the local gentry roll everywhere he goes, and the great prestige created in the two provinces and one state has already spread all over the gentry class in Songjiang Mansion!