Pan Lixuan looked back and saw an officer wearing a school officer's uniform next to him, Pan Lixuan didn't know much about the generals of the army, and could only see from the rank that he was an army colonel.

Seeing that the people of the military showed such a dissatisfied look at the Ministry of Finance, Pan Lixuan also smiled in his heart, although the people of the Ministry of Finance dragged tens of thousands of yuan of royal contributions from the Finance Department and refused to give, but the military expenses owed to the military side were even more, I heard that there were millions of yuan, some time ago, taking advantage of the great victory in Yangzhou, the military found the Ministry of Finance and asked to pull out the arrears of military expenses, but the Ministry of Finance only gave 30,000 yuan, not even a fraction of it.

So it's no wonder that people on the military side don't have a good face for the officials of the Ministry of Finance.

Tai Zhupan, the co-director of the Ministry of Finance, who was scolded by Pan Lixuan and the military as an iron rooster, also complained to Lin Zhe with a bitter face at this time:

"Although we still have some silver in the national treasury, it is really difficult to maintain this year's military spending!"

The reason why Tai Zhupan, the co-director of the Ministry of Finance, was summoned by Lin Zhe was because of the arrears of military expenses.

Since the beginning of the year, the military is preparing to cross the river and the Northern Expedition, for the Northern Expedition military expansion and reorganization of the army, hoarding materials are costly, for this reason the military asked for up to 5 million yuan to expand the army and reorganize the military expenses, although the Ministry of Finance said that there is still some money, but the new empire everywhere needs to spend money, the previous maintenance of the existing troops of the funds is very reluctant, now the military has a big expansion, the inevitable is the emergence of financial loopholes, although the Ministry of Finance tried its best to make money, but only gave the military less than 1.5 million yuan, Many generals on the military side were extremely dissatisfied.

However, the Ministry of Finance also suffers from the Ministry of Finance, and since the establishment of the Grand Marshal's Mansion last year and the establishment of a unified Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Finance has been burdened with all the expenses of the empire.

More and more military expenses need to be spent here, and the salaries of many officials in the imperial territory also need to be paid by the Ministry of Finance, and then there are all kinds of miscellaneous expenses, such as in order to restore agricultural production in southern Jiangsu and southern Anhui, a large amount of money is needed to buy grain, seeds, agricultural tools, etc., and it is also necessary to give porridge to relief those refugees who have been injured by the war, and then it is necessary to rebuild the city of Nanjing and other cities that have been severely destroyed.

When the military attacked Yangzhou, they didn't care about whether it would destroy the city, whether it would displace the people in the city, and the Qing army burned the entire Yangzhou city to the ground, so that hundreds of people were living on the streets.

In order to relieve the people in Yangzhou, rebuild necessary public facilities, and build simple shelters for refugees, the Ministry of Finance had to allocate a huge amount of 500,000 yuan for post-war aftermath expenses.

Fortunately, after the military conquered Yangzhou City, they also seized a large number of booty, including a large amount of grain, gold and silver goods, with a total value of more than one million yuan, in addition to artillery, guns and swords.

It's just that those military rations were directly detained by the military as military rations, and the gold and silver and other property handed over to the Ministry of Finance were only passed, and they were not hot, but they were taken away by the military for 300,000 yuan as military expenses, and then it was the aftermath of Yangzhou.

Lin Zhe listened to Tai Zhupan's complaints, and was also a little depressed, according to reason, his Chinese empire occupies Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu and other rich areas, there should be no shortage of money, but there will be more and more places where money is needed, last year spent tens of thousands of taels of silver, but now they are hundreds of thousands of millions of smashed, the more you earn, the more you spend, it seems that there will never be enough money to use.

Looking at the report brought by Tai Zhupan, there is a budget for this year's fiscal revenue expected by the Ministry of Finance, and then there is an expenditure budget, and when the two are compared, the gap is as high as 5 million yuan.

At present, the only areas controlled by the Chinese Empire are Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu. However, Jiangbei, northern Fujian, and southern Anhui have just been defeated, and they can only be regarded as military control, and their financial contribution is limited.

According to the region, the business zone can contribute about 10 million yuan to the central government, in addition to the business zone, the southern Jiangsu region can contribute about 25 million yuan to the central government, Zhejiang can contribute about 10 million yuan, and the customs of Shanghai and Ningbo can contribute about 10 million yuan.

The total amount mentioned above is about 45 million yen, and according to the type of tax, the industrial and commercial industries occupy the lion's share.

Just a place with an independent administrative system of business and trade areas, its income of 10 million yuan is completely from the industrial and commercial tax, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces add up to about 8 million, in addition to salt tea also has about 10 million, customs also have about 10 million. And how many fields are in southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang? Southern Jiangsu is only 8 million, and Zhejiang is even more than 3 million.

The proportion of industrial and commercial and agricultural taxes was greatly reversed, which was not before the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the Qing court began to implement the tax system, and after the establishment of the Chinese Empire, the integration of tax contributions into various industrial and commercial taxes, and further increased the collection of commercial taxes, so that in the nascent Chinese Empire, its industrial and commercial tax revenue has occupied the absolute main position.

In the past, Tian Fu, which was regarded as the foundation of the feudal dynasty, was relegated to a secondary position.

Relying only on southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang, 45 million silver dollars were earned, a figure that is inconceivable to anyone, but this is the truth.

But if you think this budget income is incredible, then you will be even more surprised when you see the budget given by the finance department.

Including military spending, administrative spending, post-war reconstruction, and all kinds of messy expenditures, the Ministry of Finance gave a total of 50 million expenditures, which was 5 million more than the budget revenue.

Seeing so many budget deficits, Lin Zhe felt that his head was too big, and what was missing was not tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, but five million!

Look at the projects that want to find some cuts, but I can't find any projects that can be cut, not to mention military spending, it can't be less, it can't be less than the expansion of the army, even if the Manchus in the north know that tens of millions of dollars a year are smashed to maintain the war, so other aspects can not be paid, but the military spending cannot be less.

Others, such as post-war reconstruction, can not be less of relief refugees, we can't always watch the people go hungry, this soup soup is not strong, and if it is reduced, it is estimated that large-scale starvation will occur. Municipal reconstruction, private houses and the like can be delayed, and the city wall is not necessary, but government offices and necessary road repairs are indispensable.

In addition, the Meiji Restoration, which was on the other side, knew that education had to be run even if they were hungry, and they were planning to build a new education system, and the school was definitely going to be built.

There is also the salary of officials, although many officials have extra income, but quite a lot of middle and lower-level government employees, such as those ordinary clerks, are counting on salary to support their families, if you don't give it, why let people follow you.

As for the palace construction and the office buildings of the central institutions in Nanjing, these have been deducted as much as possible, and the palace is now only repairing the second half, mainly to repair a few western-style buildings, and the big project, that is, the main hall and the square in front of the palace, is still in the preliminary stage, and the Ministry of Finance has not given much budget, adding up to only a few hundred thousand, and the big head will have to be released later.

After flipping through it, there is nowhere to save money!

Looks like it's going to use the old book!

Now there are still more than 10 million stocks in the treasury, all of which have been saved in the past, and most of them have been seized, but some of this money is used less, and now the gap is filled, but what about next year? And the year after?

Lin Zhe shook his head and didn't think about the future, the money should be taken step by step, and next year if there is a lack of money, let's talk about it next year!

In the end, Lin Zhe had no choice but to take his own knife, first cut the construction cost of the palace by one-third, and then cut half of the royal family's donations this year.

Seeing that Lin Zhe cut these expenses by himself, Tai Zhupan next to him was moved, and called His Majesty Shengming, sympathetic to the people of Dawn.

Lin Zhe didn't want to have anything to do with him, this cut one-third of the construction cost of the palace, this palace is going to be repaired and I don't know if it's going to be the year of the monkey, he is also an ordinary person, when he designed the palace, he had great expectations, and now it's delayed again and again, it is estimated that he can't repair it in three or five years, and this mood is naturally not better.

After driving him out, Lin Zhe met several other people again, and two hours later, Pan Lixuan saw Lin Zhe.

As soon as Pan Lixuan came in, Lin Zhe first mentioned the matter of the royal family's donation, saying that the vacant part would be subsidized by the royal industry, although Pan Lixuan also had a bitter face, but to put it bluntly, this royal industry is Lin Zhe's private property, and people can use it how they like, so they can only do things according to the rules.

However, Pan Lixuan came to Lin Zhe today, not to talk about the royal family's donation, he came mainly to repay the royal family's property.

"Now that the Royal Bank has been formalized, there are branches in the existing major cities, and we are ready to continue to open branches to various counties in the next step, and strive to break through 100 branches within half a year!"

Lin Zhe said: "You look at the bank's affairs, how is the issuance of the new version of the currency?" Is the stall spread out? ”

Pan Lixuan said: "With the establishment of major branches, we have issued new versions of silver coins and copper coins, and the people love silver coins, but they are slightly resistant to copper coins, and the copper coins issued have begun to depreciate!" ”

Lin Zhe also expected this situation, because the silver coin is the same system as the foreign silver dollar, the public accepted it relatively quickly, but the copper coin, due to the copper content of the new version of the copper coin is somewhat insufficient, and the old version of the copper coin has begun to continue to depreciate, a copper coin with a denomination of one cent, the initial issue is to exchange for huàn ten small coins, but now the market can actually only exchange seven small coins.

After all, everyone is not stupid, the copper content of your copper dollar is only about the same as the copper content of the previous five small coins at most, but if you want to be ten small coins, people will definitely not want to, and now the reason why you can still maintain the exchange rate of seven small coins is because the new version of the copper dollar adopts a mechanism, the style is exquisite, the pattern is clear, and ordinary people prefer to receive, otherwise they would have fallen to five pieces a long time ago.

As for the depreciation of the copper dollar, even if it is depreciated to five small coins, the issuance of copper dollars is still profitable, but the money earned is a small amount of money, which is nothing in the eyes of the Chinese Empire, which already has tens of millions of years of income.

The main purpose of issuing a new version of the copper dollar is to reduce the use of copper and recycle those old copper coins, and the purpose of issuing silver coins is similar, mainly to recover those messy silver nuggets.

Recycling silver and copper, issuing a new version of silver coins, copper coins are mainly to unify the currency, for the future abolition of the two yuan to lay the foundation. (To be continued.) )