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Through understanding that Zhen Qianxian Li Huang is very good at doing business, there are many shops in the capital, there are many industries in various places, and almost all the industries that make money are involved, such as salt, iron, tea, wine and silk, etc., and even trade cattle, sheep and horses with herdsmen in the city, and the annual profit is as much as hundreds of thousands.

"What is this, King Tan, King Di...... And King Ying, what is the big thing about the industry they operate privately? King Tan monopolized the well salt of Bashu, and has a coinage furnace, with an annual income of more than 300,000 yuan, and King Di has tens of thousands of looms in the south of the Yangtze River, millions of silk horses every year, and millions of profits a year. ”

Zhen Qian blinked his lips and felt his heartbeat hard, oh my God! The Li Tang clan had already controlled the economic lifeline of the imperial court, which made it impossible for the small people to live at all.

Although I knew that most of the Li Tang clan was deprived of political power by Li Longji, I never thought that these princes and county kings had extended their hands to the people, using the power in their hands to compete with the people for profit, and this was not the oligarchic economy of the Tang Dynasty? It is no wonder that the economy began to decline after Tang Kaiyuan, and there was a large-scale land annexation during the Tianbao period, so that even if there was no An Lushan rebellion, the displaced people from all over the country would rise up, which was the real reason for the fall of the Tang Dynasty.

Li Huang didn't say it, Zhen Qian really didn't know a lot of things, it seemed that these things that came out of his mouth were not secrets, I'm afraid even Li Longji knew it!

Whether there is a reason for Li Longji's deliberate indulgence, Zhen Qian does not know.

Suddenly, I felt that Li Longji was like a company manager who was about to go bankrupt, although he knew it, he was still unwilling to go through the account books full of deficits, and he didn't know whether he was powerless to return to the sky, or he couldn't bear to disillusion in his heart.

Zhen Qian warmed up the wine, poured a glass for Li Huang and Fujiwara Shuxiong, and asked while Li Huang was on the rise: "There are border generals outside who control heavy troops, and important ministers of the internal clan who are doing business in private, doesn't the emperor notice it?" ”

Li Huang drank a glass of wine, I don't know if it was the effect of the warm kang, or if the alcohol stimulated his face to become rosy, "The border troubles are continuous, the government military system has long been eroded, there is no equalization in the world, and the conscription system is inevitable, do you know?" The treasury has long been empty, and the annual tax revenue is only more than 20 million guan of money, more than 198o million stones of millet, 74o thousand horses of silk and more than 1.85 million tuns (each tun is two), and the expenditure has been as high as more than 4 million guan. ”

Like a certain radio station in later generations, the newspaper is also full of some painless news, if Li Huang doesn't say it, he really doesn't know that the tax revenue of the Tang Dynasty is so pitiful.

The cultivated land is constant in a certain period, and the total amount of wealth is also fixed, but the population has grown rapidly from two or three million households in the early Tang Dynasty to more than nine million households in the Tianbao period, and the state has mastered a large amount of ownerless wasteland in the early Tang Dynasty, and the implementation of the policy of "the cultivator has his land" has alleviated social contradictions, and the land can only be cultivated and cannot be bought and sold. Landless peasants fled to other places one after another, and a large number of displaced people appeared. During the Tang Suzong period, there were less than 2 million households left, a decrease of three-quarters, and "more than half of the households in the world have escaped."

In the early Tang Dynasty, the government military system was implemented, and soldiers worked in agriculture in their spare time and joined the army in wartime. However, with the annexation of land and the destruction of the land equalization system, the peasants fled, and the army lost its source, so the government military system was changed to a conscription system. The government paid for the recruitment of soldiers, and the military became professional, which led to the expansion of the power of the garrisons in various places, who combined military, political, economic, and financial powers. The contradictions between the central and local governments became increasingly acute, and the arrogance and arbitrariness of the localities greatly weakened the power of the centralized power and belittled the majesty of the imperial court. Politically and militarily, the Tang Dynasty changed from the original layout of internal emphasis and external light to a situation of internal and external importance. In the midst of the crisis, the regime of the Tang Dynasty was actually a foreign power and a cadre in the middle, and there was a danger of being subverted at any time.

Later generations commented that the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion had its historical inevitability, and Zhen Qian agreed very much with this.

Zhen Qian had nothing to say, and drank a glass of wine gloomily, maybe from the perspective of later generations, the finances of the Tang Dynasty were not a big problem at all, but economic reform would inevitably touch the interests of the elites, did Li Longji have this ambition? Is the court a capable minister who has the power to turn the tide? None of them! So what can you do?

Although he is a bystander, he deeply loves this era, an era that haunts the dreams of future generations, in this era, there is not only the spirit of forging ahead, but also the pleasure of arrogance. There are not only the songs of long-term hatred and tragedy that have been sung through the ages, but also the Anshi Rebellion that ended the prosperous era of the Tang Dynasty. It's a dizzying, suffocating and sighing time. And all the prosperity and all the tragedies of this era are inseparable from Tang Xuanzong.

Whether it is prosperous or declining, its results and responsibilities do not lie with any one individual, there is necessity in accidents, and there is accident in necessity. It should be said that many things are the result of the behavior of society as a whole, and society as a whole should be held responsible. Of course, we must also admit that no matter how perfect the system of the Tang Dynasty is, it is also a society ruled by one person. In a society governed by man, the personal character and personal ability of the ruler will of course have a huge impact on the fate of the country and the nation.

So when all the glory and dreams, all the prosperity and loneliness, are settled in the curtain of history, looking back at the vicissitudes of life thousands of years ago, we can't help but sigh, is the tragedy really inevitable?

"Zhen Lang...... What are you thinking? ”

Li Huang suddenly looked at Zhen Qian, and thought that he was feeling the tax revenue of the imperial court, "Actually, it's nothing, it's just two ways to reduce expenses, reduce the army, and open up sources and reduce expenditures, so you don't need to worry too much!" ”

Can you not be worried? It's easy to say, how to throttle, Li Longji's rewards are getting richer and richer, and the ministers are arrogant and comfortable with pleasure, so don't they play the piano to the cow when they throttle?

As for open source, before the Tang Dynasty, there was no salt tax, tea tax, no prohibition of alcohol, and the burden of the people under the regulation of rent was very light, as long as there was no war, the life of ordinary farmers was stable and rich. Open source is nothing more than a tax increase, but salt, iron, tea, wine, etc. are all controlled by the ministers of the clan, and they want to dig a piece of meat from them to make up for the finances, and the backlash is tantamount to seeking skin with the tiger, which is any change in history shows a truth, it is not that no one sees the current maladministration, but that no one dares to raise this butcher knife to the ministers of the clan.

Zhen Qian smiled self-deprecatingly, he was soft-spoken, even if he was in a high position, what could he do, could he be the enemy of all the ministers in the court? If it had been a decade or two earlier, I might have wanted to try it myself, but now...... The Anshi Rebellion is just around the corner, the more likely it is to explode, there is not much time left for yourself, and the mantis arm can only be broken in the end, this is not your own survival principle!

The best way to eliminate the Anshi Rebellion is money, with money, the imperial court can recruit troops by itself, can eliminate the military power in the hands of border generals, and draw salaries from the bottom of the kettle once and for all, which is also the only feasible way.

(End of chapter)