Zhu Cijiong encouraged everyone to speak as always, whether what he said was right or not, he did not hesitate to praise it to show his praise, and everyone put forward some suggestions more or less under his guidance, some of which were very pertinent and some were a little unrealistic.

In fact, he did not expect everyone to be able to sort out the functions of the two departments, after all, these people did not have the experience of later generations, and they did not have a comprehensive understanding of what new things such as postal, telegraph, newspaper, railway, etc. could do.

After Qin Weiming finished his last speech with his encouragement, he nodded and concluded: "Everyone said very well, postal, telegraph, newspaper, railway, these things can indeed bring a lot of convenience to the people, so how can the two yamen, transportation and communication, bring all the convenience that everyone is talking about?" “

After that, Zhu Cijiong looked directly at Zhang Pu, and the meaning was obvious, that is, let him talk about his thoughts.

When Zhang Pu saw the emperor coming over, he had to bite the bullet and say: "Weichen feels that we must recruit many people first, because the matter is man-made." “

Zhu Cijiong nodded approvingly: "That's a good point, it does have to recruit a lot of people." “

After that, he looked at Wu Jianye again.

When Wu Jianye saw the emperor looking at it, he could only stubbornly say: "Weichen feels that it will cost a lot of money, such as trains, railways, telegraph machines, telegraph lines, and even everyone's money, these will cost a lot of money. “

Zhu Cijiong nodded again and approved: "That's right, it does cost a lot of money, so where does this money come from?" “

After that, he looked at Cheng Guoxiang again.

This can stump Cheng Guoxiang, the head of the household department, where did the household department get so much money, the annual military expenses can't be covered, and the emperor has to put money in it!

He hesitated for a moment, and said embarrassedly: "This, this, the emperor, you also know that the household department can't come up with so much money." “

Zhu Cijiong still nodded approvingly: "Well, that's right, the household department really can't come up with so much money, just a year's money is not a small amount." “

When everyone heard this, they were all dumbfounded, and the emperor praised the emperor if he couldn't get the money, what was going on?

Seeing everyone's expressions, Zhu Cijiong couldn't help touching his forehead, and said embarrassedly: "Zhong Ruo is telling the truth, the household department really doesn't have so much money, I will tell you how to solve this money problem today." “

The problem of money is more or less known to everyone here, the Ming Dynasty's taxes are not enough to support more than two million troops, if it weren't for the emperor to post money, not to mention the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Communications to recruit people to send money, even the existing officials of the court will not be able to send out, this is simply a big hole, what can the emperor do to plug it?

Zhu Cijiong sorted out his thoughts, and said slowly: "I haven't been thinking about the problem of the household department having no money for a day or two, it stands to reason that the Ming Dynasty is now far more than the beginning of the dynasty in terms of territory area and wealth, why was the Ming Dynasty able to feed more than two million troops at that time, and it could also ensure that the officials were paid, but now it can't even make up the military expenses of more than two million troops?" “

In fact, there is an objective reason for this problem, that is, the army's salaries and officials' salaries have risen, and they have more than doubled, but compared to the current wealth of the Ming Dynasty, the salaries and salaries have not risen too much, because everyone has money, and the front-line soldiers and officials of the court cannot be made poorer than ordinary people.

Zhu Cijiong did not expect anyone to answer, but continued: "If there is no money, it proves that the taxes collected by the household department are not enough, and the taxes are not enough for two reasons, one is the confiscation of the taxes that should be collected, and the other is that the taxes that should be generated are not generated in the places where the taxes should be generated. “

This seems to be a simple truth, but where are the taxes confiscated, and where are the taxes that should be generated?

Zhu Cijiong took a breath and continued: "I thought about it for a long time, and finally thought of it, the tax confiscation that should be collected is mainly the tax confiscation of several businesses in the royal family. “

When everyone heard this, they were stunned again, the emperor's own business has to pay taxes like ordinary businesses, this person here really hasn't thought about it, it's not that he can't think about it, but he won't think about it at all, he doesn't dare to think about it, the entire Ming Dynasty is the emperor's, and the emperor's business pays what taxes!

Seeing everyone's surprised expressions, Zhu Cijiong couldn't help but shake his head and said: "I know what everyone thinks, but I want to tell you that it's not right to think that way, the royal family business is also a business name, and it also does business like the business opened by ordinary people, and it doesn't pay taxes, not only does it not have benefits, but it also has many disadvantages." The biggest disadvantage is that unfair competition has been formed, and the profit of ordinary goods is only one or two percent, and the royal business does not have to pay this half percent of the tax, which is equivalent to half of the cost of being lower. If you can't compete, it will be difficult to develop, so no matter what industry in Daming is now, the royal family is the dominant business, and other businesses opened by ordinary people can't catch up, is this beneficial? Of course not, not only is there no benefit but also a big disadvantage, how many people are there in the royal family, how many ordinary people are in the Ming Dynasty, how many people are engaged in business, if all ordinary businesses are developed, the business will be thousands or even ten thousand times larger than the scale of the royal business, so how much more tax empowerment, have you calculated? “

When everyone heard this, they suddenly realized, indeed, if the private merchants are developed, then the Ming tax does not know how many times it will increase, and the extra money is not the emperor's, so calculated, why should the emperor use the royal business name to press the ordinary business name, it is indeed no benefit at all.

Now the person in charge of those royal firms finally knew why the emperor let them come, it turned out that the main reason was to let them pay taxes, and they would pay it, after all, most of the money of the royal firm was from the emperor, and the emperor was not distressed, what were they distressed about, the only thing they had to worry about was whether the royal firm would lose its advantage because of this, so that it could not compete with ordinary firms.

For this, they are actually not very worried, because the royal business names are all behemoths, and ordinary business names cannot fight, and they did use the advantage of not paying taxes to suppress the civilian business in price, not that they have no other means, but this method is the most convenient.

Even if they pay the same taxes, the heads of the royal firms here are confident that they can do better than ordinary firms, they can take advantage of too many advantages, not to mention the sales outlets throughout the Ming Dynasty and even the whole world, just the procurement system throughout the Ming Dynasty can allow them to enter all kinds of goods at the lowest price, which ordinary firms alone cannot compare, not to mention convenient logistics, huge contacts, strong capital, etc., just spend a little effort, you can be much stronger than ordinary firms, It's just that they haven't paid much attention to these aspects before.

In this way, paying taxes is really not bad for the royal business, at least they know how to use formal means to enhance their competitiveness.