Luo Zhixiang originally refuted Yang Wu loudly only when he was excited, but at this time, seeing that Yang Wu's face was not good-looking, he immediately reacted that some of his behaviors were a little disrespectful, and he couldn't help but be a little worried, for fear of causing Yang Wu to be angry. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Fortunately, although Yang Wu was pondering, there was no sign of anger, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Yang Wu is not a person who can't listen to opinions, especially when Luo Zhixiang's opinions are not unreasonable.

He knew that this era was not the era of the development of the financial industry in the later generations, and in this era of extremely backward productive forces, it was very necessary to ensure a certain amount of financial surplus and government treasury savings, which was not only more secure, but also the only way to achieve a long-term solution.

Of course, although Yang Wu accepted Luo Zhixiang's point of view and no longer insisted on his previous decision, he did not give up his plan to improve the treatment of the soldiers.

Since the main problem restricting him from improving the remuneration of his soldiers is the lack of fiscal revenue, then he should find a way to increase fiscal revenue.

When Yang Wu went on his first Northern Expedition, he ordered some salt farmers to experiment with the method of drying salt in seawater.

Later, some of those salt farmers found effective methods, and Yang Wu immediately fulfilled his promise and gave those people rich rewards.

With the new method of drying salt, the output of salt farms has increased significantly, and the two Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other regions have been included in the governance of Wu, and the people in these areas also need to eat salt, which makes the salt income increase significantly.

In addition, with the completion of the weir project, the new seawall has effectively reduced the annual losses caused by the tide, which indirectly increases income.

Yang Wu took the opportunity to rectify the salt industry, reducing the price of official salt on the one hand, and vigorously cracking down on illegal salt on the other, which made the salt profit income rise sharply.

However, now in the area of salt profit, there is obviously not much room for improvement, so we must think of other ways.

"Luo Shangshu, what is the best way to expand tax revenue now?" After a while, Yang Wu suddenly asked, but Luo Zhixiang was startled.

Luo Zhixiang hurriedly stabilized his mood and frowned: "King, there are two best ways to increase taxes, one is to try to increase the population, reclaim wasteland, and develop agriculture. ”

"The second way is to develop trade, especially overseas! However, neither of these will be effective in a short period of time. ”

Yang Wu couldn't help but nod his head again and again when he heard this, these two points one focuses on agriculture and the other focuses on business, both of which are the only way to develop the economy.

Especially the development of overseas trade, this Yang Wu has actually thought about it for a long time, but it has not been implemented for the time being.

At present, the best maritime trade port in this era is naturally Quanzhou, which was occupied by Wang Shenzhi.

In this era, the main objects of maritime trade were naturally Nanyang, Tianzhu, Dashi and other places, and Japan and the Korean Peninsula are now very backward and are not the main objects of maritime trade.

Therefore, Quanzhou relies on its excellent geographical location, and was the most prosperous port in the world throughout the Song and Yuan dynasties.

Yang Wu planned to establish a city in Quanzhou to develop maritime trade after occupying Fujian.

It's just that these two points are indeed as Luo Zhixiang said, it is difficult to be effective in a short period of time, and now what Yang Wu needs is a method that can be effective in a short period of time.

"If the king wants to increase his income in a short period of time, there is also a good way, and it is relatively simple to implement, that is, to directly rob those big households!" Luo Zhixiang obviously thought of Yang Wu's thoughts, and said suddenly.

Yang Wu was taken aback by his words, "Robbing a big family? How can this work? As the lord of the state of Wu alone, how could he make a free way to rob his own subjects? This must not be done! ”

After so many years of development, there are naturally many wealthy families.

If Yang Wu robbed them directly, he would naturally be able to get a windfall in a short period of time, but doing so would come at the cost of losing the hearts of the people.

This kind of practice of killing chickens and taking eggs, Yang Wu naturally will not do it.

Luo Zhixiang said with a smile: "Naturally, the minister didn't let the king rob those ordinary people. However, in our country, there are many large households, they do not produce at all, as long as they eat fasting and chant scriptures all day long, they occupy a lot of land, and they do not pay taxes, and the most important thing is that they still have a lot of people to worship them! With such people, why should the king rob them? ”

"You mean the monks in the temples?" Yang Wu's eyes lit up, and he suddenly came to his senses.

"Exactly! King, now in the territory of my Wu country, temples are overflowing and lack of management, not only are there many drawbacks, but also the misconduct of monks and nuns, and they must be strictly rectified; More importantly, too many temples made a large number of monks and nuns not produce, and the superstition was too much, which caused the harm of insufficient taxation and a shortage of forced labor; In addition, there is too little money in the market today, which hinders trade, and the copper used to shape Buddha statues in temples consumes too much, so if it can be used to mint money, it can greatly alleviate the shortage of money in the market! Luo Zhixiang hurriedly persuaded.

Although the monks in the monasteries generally consider themselves monks, in fact they are in constant contact with the world, and there are very few real monks.

In war-torn years, when many ordinary people were unable to survive, the number of monks in the temple tended to expand dramatically.

Not only that, the number of temples and the degree of luxury, often there will be a great increase, especially in Jiangxi, when Zhong Chuan was very fond of Buddhism, when he was alive, he vigorously built temples, so that the number of temples in Jiangxi is very large, and monks are everywhere.

If Yang Wu does something to these temples, he can get a lot of benefits, one can get a lot of land gold and silver, which is the most direct harvest; secondly, those bronze statues can also be used to mint copper coins to make up for the lack of money today; As for the third, let a large number of monks return to the laity, which can obtain a large number of labor in a short period of time.

In addition, because temples often enjoy the privilege of not paying taxes, many people will attach their properties to temples, which indirectly enables many people to avoid taxes.

It can be said that reducing the number of monasteries is really beneficial to today's Wu State, and it is no wonder that there have been many things to destroy Buddha in the past dynasties.

Of course, the stakes are too great to be taken lightly.

In addition, Yang Wu was not stupid enough to destroy all the temples, and he would still leave some of them in the future.

As for which temples can be left and which should be demolished, these are not decided in a short period of time.

So Yang Wu finally said: "Okay, this matter has its own opinion, you don't have to ask." However, in any case, the matter of raising the remuneration of the soldiers must be carried out immediately and without delay. As for the problem of insufficient tax revenue, Lone will quickly find a way to solve it! ”

Under Yang Wu's resolute insistence, Luo Zhixiang could only agree in the end.

Of course, this resolution is very important, and naturally it is impossible to make a hasty decision like this, and at least it needs the support of some other cabinet members.

A few days later, after discussion and approval in the cabinet, Yang Wu officially issued an order, announcing that the treatment of soldiers of the forbidden army would be increased, and the monthly rations of ordinary soldiers would be increased from the current 100 catties to 200 catties; The salaries of the remaining officers at all levels have also been improved, as appropriate.

After the decree was issued, all the soldiers of the forbidden army cheered and their morale soared.

……

When Yang Wu issued an order to increase the treatment of soldiers, in Wenzhou City, Zhang Kezong asked the herald in front of him a little strangely.

"Why did the king suddenly ask me to go to Jinling to report on my work? Did you call me alone, or did you call someone else? ”

The messenger was an officer of the Yulin Army, he was only responsible for coming to Wenzhou to give orders, and he didn't know anything else, so naturally he couldn't answer Zhang Kezong's question.

Although Zhang Kezong didn't get the answer he wanted, he didn't care.

"Since the king has an order, this official will naturally follow it! It's just that I don't know if the king said when he would arrive in Jinling? ”

"This, Zhang Yuanjun arrived as soon as possible, the king should have something important, Zhang Yuanjun must not delay!"

What the messenger didn't know was that when he was talking to Zhang Kezong, the deputy envoy on the side was listening nervously to their conversation, especially to Zhang Kezong's expression.

However, after observing for a while, he didn't see anything unusual from Zhang Kezong's expression, everything seemed so natural.

This deputy envoy is naturally the secret agent of Changjiandu, responsible for arresting Zhao Kuangning and others after Zhang Kezong left Wenzhou.

Zhang Kezong's expression was frank, but the secret agent was puzzled and surprised, and he wondered if he had made a mistake before.

A day later, Zhang Kezong arranged the affairs of Wenzhou, and then set off to the north, preparing to return to Jinling.

In the city of Wenzhou, with the cooperation of the generals of the forbidden army stationed in Wenzhou, the secret agents of the Long Sword Capital quickly dispatched and captured Zhao Kuangning and others, including those Fujian secret agents, in one fell swoop.

After some review, the identities of those Fujianese were immediately determined, and the fact that Zhao Kuangning and Wang Yanjun colluded was also confirmed.

However, as to whether Zhang Kezong was in collusion with them, the results of the review were relieved by several secret agents of Changjian Capital.

According to Wang Yanjun's secret agents, they were all sent by Wang Yanjun, the second son of Wang Shenzhi, to come to Wenzhou in the name of ordinary maritime merchants.

However, during this period, Zhang Kezong did not know where to learn about their maritime identities, so he took the initiative to contact them through Zhao Kuangning, hoping to buy some items from overseas.

As for Zhao Kuangning, after this person was captured, he refused to speak, and no matter how the interrogators interrogated, in the end, he couldn't ask anything useful.

Although this result could not completely clear Zhang Kezong's suspicion, it greatly reduced the possibility of his betrayal.