When some people in Japan were preparing to send envoys to the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty to learn from the advanced experience of feudalism from the Chinese Empire. Chen Dexing, who had reinvigorated China's feudal society, was preparing to ascend the throne as emperor.

His accession to the throne this time can be said to have opened a new chapter in China's feudal society and the beginning of a new era! So it must be quite solemn, but you can't learn from Zhao Kuangyin to be so-so, and just do things with a yellow robe.

Therefore, Chen Dexing made a lot of preparations before ascending the throne and becoming emperor.

The first is, of course, to turn the Ming into a real empire! The previous Ming Dynasty or Northern Ming Dynasty was not so much a country as a powerful separatist regime. As a country, the systems are extremely imperfect. Before Chen Dexing became emperor, all this must be perfected.

What needed to be perfected immediately was the administrative division of the Ming Empire. Before the Great War in the Central Plains, the Ming Kingdom was a secessionist regime with a small territory and population. There are only three levels of administrative districts, including prefecture capitals, counties, cities, and townships.

Now that the Ming Dynasty is already a large country with the Central Plains and a population of more than 10 million, it is natural to establish an administrative region with a larger jurisdiction. After much research and measures, Tran Tak Hing decided to adopt the title he was accustomed to in later generations, and named the administrative districts above the state capital "provinces".

Eleven provinces have been established, including Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi, Shaanxi, Liaodong, Liaoxi, Liaozhong, Liaobei, Fujian (currently only Taiwan, Penghu, Quanzhou), and Zhejiang (currently only Zhoushan Islands).

In addition, there are two palaces directly under the imperial court of Yanjing and Mingdu. There are also two satrapies of Haedong and Hakko - the former includes Ganghwa Island, Jeju Island, Jindo Island, Geoje Island, and Busan Port, as well as Ezo Island and Kusao Island (Sakhalin Island), which are also theoretically under the jurisdiction of this Haedong Governorate, but it is only a map to open up the territory. The current Ming Dynasty is busy competing for hegemony in the Central Plains, and he doesn't have much spare energy to take care of the territory where there is not much oil and water.

The Governor's Office of the Straits is now Temasek Island. Palembang Concession. Recently, it has also seized a piece of land on the Malacca Peninsula across the sea from Temasek Island and built a castle. Named Strait City. In addition, the Nanyang Fleet continued to explore the large and small islands around the Straits Settlements during this period, and all the "ownerless" islands were planted with the sun and moon flags, which can be regarded as the sacred and inviolable territory of the Ming Dynasty. In addition, he also sent people to the west coast of Bo Ni Island (Borneo), built a wooden fort, and named it "Dagang City" - because it is across the sea from Palembang, it is called Dagang. It means that it should be developed as prosperous as Palembang, but this matter is just to think about now, because the Strait Governor's Office has no money to develop it.

The recent ban on maritime trade in the Southern Song Dynasty led to a sluggish streak, although rampant smuggling allowed it to continue. But it still made the Strait Governor's Mansion and the entire Ming Dynasty's finances strained for the first time in history.

……

Yanjing City in June has ushered in the rainy season. The torrential rain connected the streets of Yanjing, and unlike the cities of the Great Song Dynasty with good drainage systems, the Yanjing City built by the Jurchen Dynasty was so-so and cut corners everywhere, and the drainage system if it ever existed. That has long since ceased to work, and the city is full of sewage. There are also few pedestrians on the streets, only garbage whipped up by the strong wind flying around.

The whole city seemed empty and quiet. Only occasionally a few wear hats. The people, drenched like chickens in soup, walked the streets of Yanjing with difficulty.

A horse-drawn carriage with the insignia of the Chief Secretary of Administration passed through a pool of sewage. The coachman was dressed in a robe. Vigorously control the horses that were a little irritated by the rainstorm. The carriage was followed by several knights dressed in robes and carrying horizontal swords.

Sitting in the car was the Chief Secretary for Administration Huang Zhishen, who had an ugly face, as Chen Dexing's friend and "logistics minister". Huang Zhishen has never let Chen Dexing worry about money.

But today, in the midst of this bad weather with torrential downpours. When Chen Dexing was about to ascend the throne and become emperor, Huang Zhishen's mood was worse than the weather. The victory of the Central Plains War seems to be a sign that the Ming Dynasty's finances have turned from good to bad!

The newly seized territory is in ruins everywhere, and it is said that it is a hundred ruins waiting to be rebuilt, but in fact, it is not known how to rise? The land where tens of millions of people once lived, now has a population of only about 10 million, and after war, the land is barren, the heroes are strong, and the people's livelihood is even more miserable. Everywhere there is a need for the Chief Secretary to throw money to appease the relief. The provincial governors and yamen of the eleven provinces are to be established -- Chen Dexing calls the governor of a province under him the governor of the province, or the governor of a certain province, and the provincial governor and the provincial governor yamen are not elected by the provincial council, but are appointed by the imperial court, and the local autonomy of the Ming Dynasty is currently only in the state capital. Among them, seven provinces, including Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, Hebei, western Liaoning, central Liaoning, and northern Liaoning, will also establish a large number of prefecture capitals, counties, and city yamen.

Every yamen needs the Chief Secretary to set aside a sum of money for start-up expenses. Except for the four wealthy provinces of Hebei, Liaodong, Zhejiang, and Fujian, and Shandong, which was temporarily under the full control of Li Yanguo (Li Yanguo served as the governor of Shandong Province). The remaining six provinces, dozens of prefecture capitals, and hundreds of counties and cities below will also need subsidies from the Administrative Department for at least five consecutive years before it is possible to achieve a level of revenue and expenditure.

In addition, military spending also skyrocketed after the Central Plains War. The first is the reward after the victory - land can be obtained for free, but due to the sparse population of the Northland, a large number of Shijug Granges are given, and for a long time they are only abandoned. In order to reclaim these granges as soon as possible, and to let the hard-working soldiers under his command get some benefits, the reward of cash is still indispensable. The more than 100,000 Ming troops (including the feudal army) who participated in the battle received a total of more than 10 million yuan! Coupled with the various expenses of military operations, as well as the expenses of buying the powerful in the north, the Central Plains War spent almost 20 million yuan on the army, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it was a victory smashed with money.

Fortunately, before the Central Plains War, Jia Rudao and Pu Shougeng had a late appointment turmoil, which made Chen Dexing's Tiandaozhuang make a lot of money. This flying wealth was not left on the books of Tiandaozhuang, and it was proposed as military expenses to support the Central Plains War.

If there was no money, Huang Zhishen's head would have been ten times bigger!

But now that the windfall has been spent, the cost of the whole army after the Central Plains War will have to be figured out by the Chief Secretary of Administration.

The so-called reorganization of the army is the expansion of the Ming Army. The Ming Army planned to expand into four armies, plus twelve prefectures (including ten provincial-level prefectures and two Kyoto prefectures) and two governors' offices. The Governor's Mansion is a military-level organ, with a staffing of at least tens of thousands, which is equivalent to an expansion of 120,000 at once! The cost of recruitment, training, equipment, and the establishment of yamen at all levels alone is an expenditure of several million yuan! In the future, the extra 120,000 people had to be paid and fed, and of course money had to be paid to support their military operations in the local area (mainly to suppress bandits and suppress the lawless).

As soon as these millions are out, the chief secretary will be shy in his pocket, and most of his savings will be spent. On Tiandaozhuang's account, the deposit belonging to the administrative secretary is less than 8 million!

This money should not only cover the enthronement ceremony of Chen Dexing, but also set aside a part as a special fee to deal with possible disasters or wars at any time. Finances can only be described as stretched.

And the Southern Song Dynasty came to add chaos at this time and imposed a sea ban! Although the execution ability of the Southern Song Dynasty court is very problematic, the leaders of the following group training will not really ban the sea for their own interests. But this ban inevitably turned into a cost - the seaports of Lin'an Mansion and Qingyuan Mansion were under the nose of the Southern Song Dynasty court, and they could be banned.

The handicrafts of Lin'an Mansion and Qingyuan Mansion can only be transported to other ports over long distances, not to mention the taxes and fees at the checkpoints along the way, and when they arrive at the localities, they have to pay a lot of money to settle all kinds of yamen and regimental training leaders.

What's even more hateful is that spending money is not necessarily useful in many cases! The profits of the sea trade are too large, and the leaders of the regimental training who control the seaport and the forces behind them all have the idea of monopoly -- the goods entering the port can only be sold to them, and the goods that want to be bought must also pass through them.

As a result, the profits of the maritime merchants suddenly plummeted, and they all complained bitterly, and even jointly wrote to Chen Dexing asking for tax reductions -- they really could not afford to pay more than 10 million yuan a year in various taxes to the Chen Ming court.

Huang Zhishen is a maritime merchant in his own family, how can he not know that this demand for tax reduction is reasonable? But the problem is that the expenditure of more than 10 million yuan has been set a long time ago. Now Daming's financial revenue and expenditure have just been balanced, and there is no longer as generous as when the plate was not bigger a few years ago.

The plate is big, the expenses are also large, but the income is simply not able to keep up. Under the collation of Huang Zhishen, the central tax of the Ming Dynasty is related to taxes, ship taxes, mining taxes, salt taxes, wine taxes, tea taxes, plus a gentry donation (selling gentry status). The land tax and the city tax are both local taxes, and all the exempt money is apportioned into the field tax and the city tax, and no longer be collected separately. In addition, wealthy commercial markets such as Mingdu, Tanggu, Jianghua, Shenjiamen, Quanzhou, and Palembang Concession also had to pay tribute to the administrative secretary.

But there is no doubt that the most important income of the Ming Dynasty is customs duties and ship taxes, deducting these two, the annual income of the Ming Dynasty is about three or four million. In addition, the dividends of the Ordnance Bureau under the jurisdiction of the Military Affairs Department and the Nanfen Iron Company, Mingdu Shipping Company, and Tanggu Shipping Company held by the Military Affairs Department are at most 6 million yuan......

If the customs duties and ship taxes are halved, the finances of the Ming Dynasty will immediately fall into crisis!

At this moment, the carriage shook suddenly, and then the neighing of the horses was heard, and then it stopped. Huang Zhishen also woke up from his thoughts, and a personal voice came from his ears: "Official, you have arrived at Zhaoming Palace." (To be continued......)