Chapter 340 April

In late spring in March, when the sky clears up after the rain, the countryside may still be filled with the fragrance of earth, the mountains and forests may be swaying with fallen red and new green, and even in the cities, there may be an air of mist and rain washing away the dust.

But a city is a city after all, and although Tokyo has never recovered to its heyday, it is still likely to be the largest city in the world today.

Therefore, after the rain, Tokyo City quickly returned to its noisy and bustling state.

This clamor and agitation became even more obvious as April arrived. When the people of the city were discussing the news of the expansion of the army, Emperor Zhao once again received two pieces of bad news, one obvious and one hidden:

The obvious one was actually something that had been expected, so it is not worth being sad about; the hidden one, although somewhat unexpected, is difficult to talk about because it is a hidden thing.

To be more specific, the so-called bad news was that the Minister of Revenue Lin Jingmo had finally submitted a rough financial proposal to Emperor Zhao. The Ministry of Revenue compared the population and took the various tax data of the Shenzong Dynasty as a reference, and the various data of the prosperous and prosperous period as the theoretical upper limit. According to the speed of central fiscal recovery in the previous few years, it gave a conclusion that is extremely complicated to explain in detail, but extremely simple to summarize - assuming a three-year period, that is, the Northern Expedition in the tenth year of Jianyan, the court will have a gap of at least 30 million strings of military funds and millions of stones of grain.

And if it were five years, then theoretically we might be able to complete sufficient preparations for the Northern Expedition.

This article has hundreds of thousands of words and uses many tables that have only become popular in recent years. It is almost like a book-length article. It is very convincing, but also cruel.

Because here, we have tried our best to take into account everything that can be calculated.

For example, Qianzhou in the west of Jiangnan was a recognized commercial and tax-intensive prefecture because of its mines and porcelain, as well as many Miao villages that served as potential consumers. From the reign of Emperor Shenzong to before the Jingkang Rebellion, it could provide the court with nearly 50,000 guan of commercial taxes each year. However, after the Jingkang Rebellion, Qianzhou was in chaos, and the 50,000 guan of direct income was gone.

After Yue Fei pacified Qianzhou, the commercial tax of Qianzhou quickly recovered to more than 20,000 strings of cash in the previous year.

In this regard, the Ministry of Revenue believed that the commercial tax in Qianzhou would most likely return to the level of more than 30,000 strings of cash next year, and would reach 40,000 strings of cash the year after.

But that's all.

In the short term, Qianzhou's commercial tax will remain at 40,000 guan and will no longer increase. It is impossible to maintain a stable supply of 50,000 guan as in the previous decades.

The reason is very simple. Based on the corresponding land tax, the Ministry of Revenue inferred that a part of the consumer population in Qianzhou had been lost. Not only that, there was a Qili Town in the east of Qianzhou City, and there was a ceramic kiln in the town, which was a top-notch kiln... At that time, this Qili Town could directly pay thousands of guan of taxes every year, so the court set up an institution similar to the tax office here!

And now, after years of troubles caused by the Qian bandits, Qili Town still exists, but this porcelain kiln has been discontinued for several years. Even though it has started to fire again, the recovery speed is extremely slow due to the collapse of trade routes, the drastic shrinkage of the luxury goods market and so on... In the next few years, this Qili Town may only be able to provide a few hundred strings of cash.

Therefore, the final conclusion given by the Ministry of Revenue is that the total commercial tax of Qianzhou in the next three years will be between 100,000 and 110,000 strings of cash.

In fact, the commercial tax in Qianzhou can give us a glimpse of the big picture and help us understand the current financial problems of the Song Dynasty - the foundation is still there, but the upper limit has been greatly reduced due to population decline and the occupation of the two rivers. At the same time, the war has caused serious damage to the economic system, and it will take time to return to the theoretical upper limit.

There are many similar details in this Ministry of Revenue proposal.

For example, if a silver mine in Shaowu County, Fujian Province, is gradually drying up, the annual amount will be reduced by 300 guan.

And a trading town outside Hangzhou completely disappeared in the previous military chaos, and there is currently no sign of reconstruction... All kinds of records opened Emperor Zhao's eyes.

Zhao Jiu even learned some other strange knowledge from this proposal - for example, Suzhou's tax revenue was much lower than Hangzhou these days. The reason was that there were many swamps outside Suzhou, which restricted the development of the town. Tax revenue had not increased much for decades, but Hangzhou's population and number of markets had been rising continuously.

In short, this proposal was so detailed and so convincing that everyone understood that Lin Jingmo was definitely well prepared. Jiancai's suggestion was most likely from him, and he probably started preparing for this major project as soon as he returned last winter.

Emperor Zhao had to accept this, but having to accept it also meant that Zhao Jiu had to face the huge hole of at least 30 million guan.

Yes, of course it is the minimum, because the proposal of the Ministry of Revenue is ultimately an idealized model, all calculated based on theoretical sustainable recovery, and does not take into account the additional expenditure caused by disasters or calamities, nor does it take into account the consumption of small-scale battles that break out in the middle.

Therefore, assuming that Emperor Zhao wanted to launch a Northern Expedition in three years, he would have to obtain an additional 30 million strings of cash within three years in addition to the normal national finances!

Just more, no less.

Speaking of this, we have to mention another piece of bad news. Zhang Jun sent a secret letter to Emperor Zhao - his fleet went to Japan first, then to Goryeo, and after a long journey, it finally returned to Dengzhou, but only shipped a quarter of the goods.

The reason was simple. The fleet was too large, and there was an obviously armed ship, so the effect backfired and the Japanese felt they were facing a formidable enemy... Especially after the fleet sold two ships of cargo at Hakata Port in Kyushu and tried to move further east, the Japanese were obviously irritated and actually sent a large number of inland sea ships to follow and monitor. Ports everywhere also stopped trading with the fleet and only cautiously provided normal supplies in consideration of the Zhao Song royal flag.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!