Looking forward to it, looking forward to it, August has finally arrived, and the household department has begun to organize officials from various departments to go to the provinces to supervise taxes, and in another half a month, taxes will be collected one after another, and finally the money will be used.

The days without money are really difficult, Zhu Cijiong can hardly do anything in the past two months, he can only put all his thoughts on the trial production of a new flintlock pistol to pass the time.

Xu Guangqi and Bi Maokang and other cronies have gradually reached the level of engineers after several years of training, no matter what kind of equipment it is, as long as Zhu Cijiong tells the general meaning, they can quickly make it. However, the new flintlock pistol is not said to be made as soon as it is made, and the performance of the weapon is generally determined by high-precision parts, and the requirements for the accuracy of the parts of the new flintlock pistol have almost reached the limit of the processing capacity of this era.

First of all, the barrel, although the accuracy of the rifling does not affect the acceleration of the bullet out of the chamber, but if the rifling is slightly flawed, the bullet will form an offset after the chamber, that is to say, as long as the rifling is engraved on the range, how can it reach more than 500 meters, but the accuracy can not be guaranteed, the bullet is only offset by one millimeter, after one hundred meters will be deviated by about one meter, three hundred meters will be offset by more than five meters, how big is a person, after the deviation of five meters, is it still hit?

This problem bothered Zhu Cijiong and them for a while, the rifling bed seemed simple, but the rifling drawn out was very different, Zhu Cijiong was ruthless, and all the parts of the grinding machine were ground with a grinder before this problem was solved.

And then there's the bullet, don't look at just a simple cylindrical front car taper, if the front end of the cone and the rear end of the cylinder are a little different, the bullet is also flying everywhere after the chamber.

Everyone has been thinking about this problem for a long time, and this time it was Song Yingxing who made a special turning knife to solve the problem that the bullet can be formed with one knife.

Finally, there is the detachable medicine room, the accuracy of this medicine room is the highest, it and the barrel and flintlock device of the connection will leak air and pressure relief even the slightest, this air leakage and pressure reduction shortens the firing range, not to mention that it is easy to hurt the soldier's eyes. The air leakage here is not about air leakage, but spark leakage, if you accidentally spray it in your eyes, it is strange if you don't spray blind.

This problem is even more troublesome, the pharmacy is not a regular shape, it has to go through many processes to process, and finally everyone has all the machine tools in all the processes to be modified into special machine tools This problem can be solved.

It was almost August for the trial production of the new flintlock pistol to be successful, and now Zhu Cijiong is waiting for the increased taxes to be in place.

He estimated that this time he would be able to increase his taxes by about 15 million taels, of which the rent of farmland would increase by about 5 million taels, and the transaction tax on commodities would increase by about 10 million taels.

How to use these 15 million taels he had already planned, first of all, to prepare sweet potato seedlings for the displaced victims, at least it would cost more than 2 million taels; Then Liaodong's military expenses have to be made up, and this piece is more than 4 million taels; There are also peasant rebel armies in Shaanxi and Shanxi that will also be suppressed, and it is not enough to suppress a few people, at least 100,000, and the mobilization of troops in various garrisons will cost more than 3 million taels; In the end, there were about 4 million taels left, and Zhu Cijiong was ready to expand the Beijing camp to 100,000 people, each of whom was equipped with a new type of flintlock pistol and grenades.

It's the saying again: the ideal is beautiful, but the reality is cruel, when the household department reported the tax situation, Zhu Cijiong was instantly confused.

The new taxes were only collected by more than 9 million taels, which could also ensure the seedlings for the relocation of the disaster victims, the military expenses for Liaodong, and the funds for encircling and suppressing the peasant rebel army.

What's going on? Zhu Cijiong summoned the Hubu Shangshu to the Taoist Sect to the imperial study and asked carefully.

The rent of farmland is normal, except for the affected provinces, the new rent has been collected by a total of more than 5 million taels, and this transaction tax is not normal, and it has only collected a total of more than 4 million taels, which is less than the rent of farmland!

Zhu Cijiong was about to go crazy on the spot, what are you doing in the household to eat, there are more than 100 million people in the Ming Dynasty, don't you buy anything all year round? Salt is always to be eaten, right? Clothes always have to be worn, right? These two things add up to an average of three or four taels per person a year, right? This is the transaction volume of four or five billion, thirty taxes one, these two things alone can collect more than 10 million taels of taxes, can't you calculate this?

Before he could say anything, the Daoist Sect had already submitted a list, and Zhu Cijiong saw that this was a list of transaction taxes paid by various provinces. The first place turned out to be Shanxi, which paid nearly one million taels of silver, and the second to twelfth places ranged from more than 500,000 taels to more than 200,000 taels, which is quite normal.

The last three are not normal, the three provinces of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, and Fujian have only paid a total of more than 200,000 taels of transaction tax!

Zhu Cijiong instantly had a feeling of being tricked, is it really something less for me? Those are the three richest provinces in the Ming Dynasty, with a population of nearly 60 million, not to mention that no one else can buy more than this number of clothes!

According to the most basic rice price, the price of rice in the Ming Dynasty is about one tael of silver and one stone of rice, and one stone of rice is about fifty catties, and the price of rice in Zhu Cijiong's previous life was about two yuan a catty, that is to say, converted into modern purchasing power, one tael of silver is about equivalent to about one hundred yuan. At that time, he lived in an era where there were more than 100,200 pieces of clothes at every turn, and the worst clothes cost dozens of yuan a piece, that is to say, 60 million people spent hundreds of millions of taels of silver to buy a piece of clothing a year, and 30 taxes were more than 3 million taels, and now they only paid a total of more than 200,000 taels, do they have bare butts all year round!

The transaction tax of the three richest provinces together is not as much as one of the poorest provinces, which is simply an insult to people's IQ, Zhu Cijiong was angry on the spot, he slapped the list on the table, and said angrily: "The three provinces of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, and Fujian have only handed over more than 200,000 taels in total, am I an idiot?" ”

Lai Daozong was frightened and fell to the ground, kowtowed again and again: "The emperor is angry, the emperor is angry." ”

Anyway, why is the Dao Sect so daring? He is a veteran of the Three Dynasties, a scholar of the household department of the court, and a scholar of the cabinet, how can he be so afraid of an eight-year-old child?

If it's other children, of course he's not afraid, the problem is that this kid is the emperor today, none of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty are good at stubble, don't say that you are the head of the household, even if you are the head of the dynasty, the emperor will be dragged out and cut directly, this is not unusual in the Ming Dynasty at all, do you say he can not be afraid?

Of course, Zhu Cijiong didn't want to drag him out and cut him down, he was just angry that he was played as a monkey. Seeing the appearance of Daozong, he couldn't help but feel soft in his heart, after all, he was a member of the first rank of the dynasty, and he was a lot older, so he couldn't hurt his self-esteem too much.

So, Zhu Cijiong calmed down his anger and asked helplessly: "Tell me, what's going on?" ”

Coming to Daozong to see that the emperor was really angry, he came back to his senses and defended: "The taxes of these three provinces have always been collected by the household department of Nanjing, and Weichen doesn't know what's going on!" ”

Zhu Cijiong was stunned when he heard this, it turned out that this matter had nothing to do with the Taoist Sect, this was a fire with people for no reason, and he didn't know what to do if he was embarrassed.

He pretended to ponder for a while, and then said stupidly, "Well, I know, you can go down." ”