In China's traditional dynasties, except for the Song Dynasty, which was more special, the fiscal revenue of other dynasties depended on agricultural taxes without exception, which is the fundamental reason why traditional dynasties attached great importance to agricultural taxes.

However, this tradition was changed in the nineteen-fifties when the outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion caused financial difficulties for the Qing court, which began to implement a large-scale system of centijin in order to raise military expenses.

This began a period of large-scale collection of commercial taxes, and during the Yu Shengjun era, Lin Zhe relied on the income of the centijin and the trade area to maintain the army.

When Lin Zhe established the Chinese Empire, then the industrial and commercial tax was the bulk of the army, and Lin Zhe was able to start with the small land of southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang and swept the world, and then unified China, and the industrial and commercial tax from northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu can be said to have played a decisive role.

After the reunification of China, although the proportion of industrial and commercial tax began to decline from an absolute position due to the rapid expansion of total fiscal revenue, it still occupied a major position.

At the same time, considering that the tax collected from agriculture is a relatively fixed type of tax, and it is difficult to have a large increase in a short period of time, the agricultural tax revenue increased significantly between 1857 and 1860, but this increase was due to the expansion of the territory of the Chinese army and the eventual unification of China.

After the unification of China, the agricultural tax that can be collected has been determined, although there are still some subsequent increases, but the overall scale is not large, and after entering 1864, the agricultural tax has basically stabilized, and the annual increase is limited.

But why is the empire's annual revenue still able to maintain an increase of about 10%?

This is because the increase in the empire's fiscal revenue is mainly due to the increase in industrial and commercial taxes and customs duties!

Over the years. With the further support of the empire for the development of industry and commerce, the domestic industry of the empire was led by the two major industries of raw silk and cotton spinning. In turn, it will stimulate steel, coal, chemical, machinery, shipbuilding and other industries, supplemented by traditional tea exports. porcelain exports, etc.

The industrial and commercial development of the empire was very rapid!

In 1864, China's machine factories produced a total of 300,000 bales of raw silk, of which more than 250,000 bales were exported, and according to the average export price of 400 yuan per bag, raw silk alone created an export value of 100 million yuan.

In addition, there is a considerable amount of earth silk that has not been counted.

As an emerging industry, the development of the machine cotton spinning industry in recent years can be described as earth-shaking in 1864. About 20 million pieces of woven fabric are produced in China. As for cotton yarn, there is even more, because the cotton yarn produced by many domestic yarn mills is sold directly to inland areas, and local women buy it and weave it themselves.

Another evidence of the rapid development of the cotton industry is that in 1860 the empire imported only 400,000 quintals of cotton, but by 1864 the number of imported cotton had increased dramatically to 1.8 million quintals.

However, the number of imported cotton fabrics, including cotton yarn and cotton cloth, has been declining year after year, from hundreds of thousands of quintals around 1858 to 20,000 quintals in 1864.

The rise of the cotton spinning industry. According to the estimation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the domestic cotton output in 1864 had exceeded 10 million quintals, and the number of cotton farmers in the cotton production areas was about 5 million. There are as many as 30 million farmers who also grow cotton.

Unlike the strong absorption capacity of the raw silk industry, which can earn hundreds of millions or more of gold and other precious metal foreign exchange for the empire every year, the development of the cotton spinning industry does not seem to be as lofty as the raw silk industry on the surface. However, the driving capacity for the economy is far greater than that of the raw silk industry.

In addition to the textile industry, which can quickly stimulate economic development, some heavy industry industries are said to be in output value. It is not as good as light industry in terms of tax contributions, but it is still an important part of the empire's industry. And it is indispensable.

Steel and coal, which represented the indicators of industrial development in the nineteenth century, have developed rapidly in recent years.

In 1864, the empire's three major steel mills, as well as a number of smaller steel mills, combined produced about 30,000 tons of raw steel and about 500,000 tons of pig iron.

Although coal developed rapidly, it was limited by time factors, so the coal production in 1864 was only about six million tons, which was far from meeting the huge demand for coal in the empire, and a large amount of coal was imported every year, especially high-quality coal, mainly from Vietnam and Australia, and in 1864, the empire imported about 500,000 tons of coal to Vietnam, and most of them were high-quality anthracite.

By comparison, Britain's production of raw steel was about 300,000 tons, pig iron was about 5 million tons, and coal production was about 100 million tons.

Compared with other countries, such as France, their raw steel production is about 60,000 tons, pig iron production is about 1 million tons, and coal production is about 10 million tons, which is about twice the output of the Empire.

For its part, Prussia produced about 80,000 tons of raw steel, about a million tons of pig iron, and about 30 million tons of coal.

Compared with many great powers, it is naturally incomparable with Britain, and there is also a big gap with France and Prussia, and compared with Austria, Tsarist Russia, and Italy, although some are not comparable, they are barely too bad.

It can be seen that the empire has barely squeezed into the ranks of third-rate industrial countries after nearly ten years of industrialization, and of course, this is still a little short of the complete industrial revolution.

The main reason is that much of the development of the empire is superficial, and the industrial output value is more dependent on light industry, that is, the primary processing of agricultural products.

And some high-end manufacturing, especially machinery and equipment is still a very big gap, although there is a Longfeng machinery company in China, but the current industrial development process in the empire, still need to buy a large number of machinery and equipment every year.

In recent years, the empire has imported the most not cotton or woolen wool, but the machinery and equipment needed to build various factories!

The biggest factor causing the lack of high-end manufacturing in the empire is not because there is no money to invest, but because there is no large number of high-end talents.

The empire's new education system has only been implemented for less than ten years, and the early years were all in the trial stage, and only in these two years have they become more popular, but there are still relatively few high-end institutions, which have not cultivated many high-end talents.

The lack of talent is the fundamental obstacle that leads the empire to enter the high-end manufacturing industry, which can be seen from the fact that the empire has recruited a large number of high-end talents from foreign countries every year over the years, and even welcomed and encouraged foreigners with high-end skills to join the empire's nationality, and the empire's lack of high-end talents is very serious.

However, it takes time to cultivate this talent, and it is impossible to cultivate a large number of high-end talents without twenty or thirty years of hard work, so even if there is a lack of it, there is no good way.

Of course, the lack of high-end manufacturing does not mean that the industrial development of the empire is slow and backward!

Relying on the textile industry as the leader, the industrial output value of the empire has risen year after year, and the development of industry has naturally brought more commercial taxes.

Today, in 1865, the tax revenue contributed by the industrial and commercial industry has become the largest tax in China, accounting for almost half of the central fiscal revenue, and in this case, the Ministry of Finance tried to reform the industrial and commercial tax, which can be said to be a little careless will cause violent turmoil, which is why so many officials hope that the Ministry of Finance will be cautious and cautious, and even slow down the reform of industrial and commercial tax. (To be continued.) )