When Qian Dingming's words came out, everyone knew what they meant, but since they wanted to talk about the finances of the imperial court, then the Eight Banners was an unavoidable topic. It's just that Lord Futai himself is a flag man, which makes everyone feel that it is not easy to speak.

"The Eight Banners are the foundation of the country, and the imperial court will support them with money and grain, which is also what it should be." Guan Zhuofan saw that everyone didn't speak, and said with a smile, "It's just the number, not the rest." ”

In other words, we should only talk about what the current situation is, and not about the quality of the system. With this set tone, several people were relieved, and they spoke much more freely.

"The Eight Banners Force, with a strong half of the Yi to defend the Beijing Division, and a small half to garrison the world, since I set the Dingding, this is the situation." The first to speak was still Qian Dingming. As for the powerhouse Yunyun, it's all wrong, so I have to say it. "The number of flag soldiers, at the peak, was 270,000, and the current number is about 220,000."

After the Qing court entered Beijing, half of the entire Eight Banners armed forces were slightly stronger to garrison the Beijing Division, called the Beijing Division Eight Banners, and the remaining half of the troops were distributed in a fan-shaped manner to the important cities and water and land passes of the provinces directly under the country, which was called the Eight Banners of Garrison.

These 200,000 soldiers are called flag soldiers. According to the system of the Qing court, the rest of the Manchurian population became vassals dependent on the banner soldiers.

This system is very strange.

The first is that the flag bearer does not have to pay taxes.

The second is that the bannermen are forbidden to engage in any other profession except as soldiers. As a result, the banner people other than the banner soldiers have become a parasitic population of "no soldiers, no farmers, no workers, and no merchants".

"The imperial court's annual expenditure, military expenses accounted for the lion's share, even in peacetime. It also costs 30 million taels a year. Qian Dingming said cautiously. Inside. The flag camp will occupy about 60 percent, 18 million taels, of which 15 million will be spent on soldiers' salaries, horses, and silver alone. ”

Soldiers' salaries, horses, and silver are roughly the meaning of salaries, and arms and equipment are not included. In other words, the imperial court now spends fifteen million taels of silver every year. to raise these 220,000 bannermen who have almost completely lost their combat effectiveness, as well as the bannermen who depend on them for survival.

The dependency is determined by that system. At first, the imperial court selected soldiers from the banner people, and each household selected one of the two dings, called "picking armor", and the one who picked it was the person wearing armor, who became the official flag soldier and had a share of money and food. And this money and food is not spent by yourself. Rather, it was to be used to feed the other Ding, because according to the laws of the imperial court. The other Ding, from now on, can only be idle at home, idle, and not engaged in production.

Later, the population multiplied, and the two Ding Pick One could not be carried out, and gradually changed to three Ding to one, four Ding to one, so that seven or eight Ding could pick one soldier.

In this way, relying on one person's food and salary, it is often necessary to feed five or six or even a dozen people, and the embarrassment of ordinary banner people can be imagined. These banner people, not necessarily born lazy, could actually work to support their families, but they were tied hand and foot by the laws of the imperial court, and after a long time, they really changed from "not allowed to do" to "can't do it". And the flag soldiers have to worry about their family's livelihood, how can they have the heart to train and fight well? The last time Xu Geng came, he told Guan Zhuofan a related story.

That time, it was the alcohol king who was ordered to manage the Shenji Battalion. One of the infantry cadets was late and was routinely punished with whipping. The guards unfastened his clothes, only to find a large pile of small antiques falling from him.

King Alcohol was surprised: "You tell me something about it today, what's going on?" ”

"The prince is on top," replied the military academy crying, "there are ten people in the family, and they only have five taels of silver a month, and they can't eat enough, so they have to take some small antiques from the antique shop and sell them in the market to support the family." This morning coincides with the Longfu temple meeting, so I am late for the exercise, and I ask the prince for mercy! ”

When I inquired, it was indeed the truth, but I was embarrassed to hit him with twenty whips, so Zuihou had to let him go.

As for the difficulty of making a living, the situation of the Eight Banners of the Beijing Division is a little stronger, and among the Eight Banners stationed in the Eight Banners, there are not a few banner people who die of cold and starvation every year, so that the phenomenon of "fleeing the flag" has been born -- the poor banner people would rather give up their identities and flee without a trace, just to be able to find a way to live for themselves.

These things were known to Guan Zhuofan, and he was quite emotional. Qian Dingming didn't know what he was thinking, and he had already reported the new expenses.

"In addition to the salaries and horses of the regular banner soldiers, the money and food for raising the soldiers every year is about three million. In addition, the pension for the orphans and widows under the umbrella will also cost millions of silver. “

The so-called "raising soldiers" is not a soldier who really wants to fight, but in order to alleviate the unbearable predicament of some banner households, and to give a name and reward "half armor" of money and food. For example, Guan Zhuofan himself is a "man in armor", and his second brother Zhuoren is a "nurturing soldier", which is naturally their dead ghost father, who cheated and got back the quota.

Guan Zhuofan was silent, and added the numbers Qian Dingming said one by one, almost reaching 20 million.

To put it bluntly, the current Eight Banners has completely turned into a huge social relief organization, and the state spends 20 million taels of silver every year, inexplicably raising millions of people who can neither fight nor be allowed to produce, and live on subsistence allowances every year. And the thousands of miles of fertile land outside the gate are left there in vain.

He clenched his fists again.

The Eight Banners are not wasted, and China would rather have a bright future?

*

*

It seems that the imperial court has no money, and even if it has money, it must be used to raise the Eight Banners first, and how much can be left to do foreign affairs? No wonder King Gong had to open a Tongwen Museum first.

This is the case with the imperial court, so what about Jiangsu? This belonged to Qian Yunqiu, who belonged to the Yamen of the Domain, to report.

The general surname Qian is also generally proficient in numbers, and Qian Yunqiu is also like a river when he talks about it.

As one of the pillars of the imperial court's wealth, Jiangsu's revenue and expenditure structure is also similar to that of the imperial court. From the perspective of income, it is still dominated by land endowments, salt taxes, donations, and miscellaneous endowments, plus two emerging incomes, namely centigold and tariffs. Li Jin has Jin Yulin present, and Yang Fang is present with the tariff, so Qian Yunqiu only talks about the first four items.

"If it is a normal year, the silver alone can collect 3.4 million taels, including 960,000 taels in Suzhou Prefecture, 770,000 taels in Songjiang Prefecture, 730,000 taels in Changzhou Prefecture, 450,000 taels in Taicang Prefecture, and 420,000 taels in Zhenjiang Prefecture." Qian Yunqiu wrenched his fingers and said, "The miscellaneous endowment is about one and a half of the regular items, and there are about 500,000 taels. ”

Diding silver is Tian Fu, and when added to the miscellaneous endowments, the total is 3.9 million taels.

And the "donation" of selling the official beard also has a lot of income, but compared with the field endowment, it is still a small head, about 300,000 taels a year.

"That's four and two hundred thousand." Guan Zhuofan, who has been in charge of the Yamen of the Domain, roughly remembers these figures, and he can't figure out the number, only the salt tax, "The two Huai salt are assigned to the world, I don't know how much can I get for the salt class?" ”

The salt class is another major source of finance, second only to Tian Fu, but it is also one of the many drawbacks, and when he was still in the office of the feudal department, he intended to rectify it. Now that the war in Jiangsu has almost ended, he is quite looking forward to this income.

"What the marshal said is right, the two Huai salt endowments are admittedly not decimals, but the big head is not in our hands." Qian Yunqiu's words, first poured a basin of cold water, "The salt warehouses of the salt field are mostly in Yangzhou, Tongzhou, Taizhou, and Haizhou, so there is a saying that Yangzhou salt merchants are rich in the world." These places, which were under the jurisdiction of the Jiangning Domain, were all under the rule of Zeng's army. ”

This refers to Zeng Guofan, the governor who had the power to manage the army, so it is also called "the army".

"Hmm," Guan Zhuofan was slightly disappointed, "so how many are there?" ”

"It's about 30% of people's lives, 600,000 taels." Qian Yunqiu reported the number, and added one more sentence, "However, the salt class was originally under the exclusive management of the household department, and even the salt introduction had to be sent from the household department. I plan for the marshal, even if I have expectations, I can't be too high, and I can count them in half. ”

600,000 yuan has to be halved, that is, there are only 300,000 taels of silver, which is too little, what is enough? Guan Zhuofan was disappointed and ruthless.

"There are more than that," he said, shaking his head, "and everyone knows the evils of salt. Those salt administrations, inspectors, salt ambassadors and so on, colluded with the salt merchants, up and down, just they and the salt merchants ate it, I think there are even more than a few 300,000. This time, I have to put things in order! ”

As soon as these words were said, several people in the audience looked at each other, and their faces changed color together.

*(To be continued......)