After the good news from Hedong reached Chang'an, Li Longji calmed down and finally gave up his plan to flee to Shu.
But soon, another bigger problem faced him, that is, the Tang treasury was out of money. However, the new Hedong Jiedushi Guo Ziyi and Fanyang Jiedushi Li Guangbi demanded an astronomical amount of money from the court. Even Ge Shuhan, who retreated to Tongguan, sent a messenger with a face to ask for money and silk to reward the soldiers.
Li Longji was even furious about this and cursed his brother Shu Han.
"Money, money, money, everyone comes to me for money. Do you think I have gold and silver?"
"Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi won the battle and asked me for a reward. Ge Shuhan, you slave, was obviously defeated. Most of the hundreds of thousands of elite troops on the right side of He Shuo were killed. How dare you ask for a reward? No, send them immediately. Go and tell Ge Shuhan that he wants a reward, but there is a jade seal, so why not exchange it for money and give it to his subordinates."
Just when Li Longji was scolding vigorously, a cold voice suddenly came from the air.
"What's the use of scolding people? Can An Lushan and the hundreds of thousands of rebels under his command be scolded to death?"
"No matter how harsh you scold him, An Lushan will not lose any of his hair. The top priority is to solve the financial problem."
The speaker was Lu Tianshi, and he said: "As the saying goes, once the war drums sound, there will be ten thousand taels of gold. Fighting is the most expensive thing. The reason why Anlushan's rebels are so good at fighting is because Anlushan gave them enough money and food, especially The Hu cavalry such as Xi, Khitan, and Shi Wei even received rewards that they could not even imagine."
"So, Ge Shuhan is not wrong."
"The elite soldiers of Longyou River Shuo San Town were defeated not because they could not fight, but because they had been fighting fiercely with Tubo for more than ten years. The soldiers were too exhausted. They were already aggrieved enough. If this time If you don’t give them adequate rewards, and even deduct food rations, do you believe they will open the city gate tomorrow and let the rebels pass through Tongguan? By then, you, Li Longji, won’t even have a chance to escape to Shu."
After being scolded, Li Longji could only cross his hands and sing.
A man is a heavenly master, but he is just a son of heaven, and he can only accept being scolded.
Master Lu Tian said: "Li Longji, have you never thought about solving financial problems?"
"Tianshi, how could I not have thought about this matter? In fact, I have been troubled by this matter since Yuji. However, it is really difficult to solve this matter." Li Longji cried bitterly.
What Li Longji said is true. The financial problem is really difficult to solve.
In fact, since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, the finances of the Tang Dynasty have never been tight.
Emperor Taizong's Zhenguan rule was known as ruling the world, but in fact the central government's finances were always tight.
Let’s just say that the main reason for the marriage between Princess Wencheng and Tubo was that the Tang Dynasty was too poor and had no money to fight.
Otherwise, with the famous generals of Taizong's dynasty, if they can provide enough money and food, they can destroy Tubo in minutes.
After all, Tubo was still very weak at that time, and the legendary Tubo general Lun Qinling might not have been born yet.
It was similar when Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty Li Zhi was in charge. When a disaster occurred in Guanzhong, the court was unable to provide relief. Even Li Zhi himself could only take his concubines to Luoyang for food.
Why did Li Zhi take his whole family to Luoyang to eat?
Because he couldn't even afford the freight to transport the grain to Chang'an.
The period when Wu Zetian was emperor was actually the period when the central finance of the Tang Dynasty was the most abundant.
As for the reason, Wu Zetian severely attacked the Guanlong nobles and Shandong families, and confiscated a large amount of wealth and land from these powerful families.
Unfortunately, Li Longji failed to continue this situation after he ascended the throne.
Li Longji can be considered a hero of his generation, but his political skills are still inferior to his grandmother. Even until his death, he could not stop the merger of the new imperial examination group and the high-ranking families, and eventually formed twenty-eight new top families. The high sect not only blocked the promotion channels for the children of poor families, but also completely blocked the central finance of the Tang Dynasty.
A large amount of land was concentrated in the hands of high-ranking families, and taxes could not be collected.
As a result, the central finance of the Tang Dynasty was increasingly depleted and it could not afford the military wages for recruiting soldiers in the border towns. Li Longji had no choice but to release the monster of the military governor of the feudal town, and finally opened the door to hell for the Tang Dynasty.
Lu Tianshi smiled and said, "Isn't this Enke's policy examination question about taxation?"
"Hey, I forgot about this. Isn't it time for Enke to be ranked this year?" Li Longji's eyes lit up and he said, "There may be a few outstanding ones among the hundreds of thousands of candidates who can solve the financial situation faced by Datang. .”
This time Enke did not set any restrictions, so the number of candidates who took the exam reached an astonishing number of more than 100,000.
For this reason, the Ministry of Rites had to temporarily rent out the entire Wubenfang, and all the buildings were used as examination rooms.
Just half a month after An Lushan rebelled, the Enke exam started. There were three exams in a row, a total of nine days, with one day of rest in between. After the exam, the exam papers were reviewed.
The entire examination process of Enke is basically similar to that of the Ming and Qing examinations.
Wei Jiansu, the Right Prime Minister who is the chief examiner, has been in Wubenfang with his two ministers of the Ministry of Rites, Gao Shi and Cen Shen, who are the deputy examiners, as well as dozens of minor officials from the Ministry of Rites and hundreds of transcribed histories from various yamen. He has been busy and has not been home for two full months. Calculating the time, Enke should be ranked first this year.
At that moment, Li Longji sent Gao Lishi to the Imperial College in Wubenfang.
By coincidence, the results actually came out, but they were just staged results.
Wei Jiansu, Gao Shi, and Cen Shen selected a thousand examination papers in total.
If nothing else goes wrong, most of the four hundred Jinshi places will come from these one thousand people. There will be a search and drop-off process later, but the possibility of being searched can be said to be very slim.
After Li Longji heard the news, he immediately ordered Wei Jiansu, Gao Shi, and Cen Shen to take this examination paper to Huaxelou. He wanted to personally participate in the subsequent evaluation of the examination papers.
The saint wants to personally participate in the evaluation and evaluation of papers, how dare Wei Jiansu disobey.
Wei Jiansu and Gao Cen came to Huahe Building with their examination papers.
After the emperor and his ministers met, Li Longji waved his hand and said: "I just want to participate in the review of policy papers. Wei Qing, please select those papers that can effectively help Datang solve its financial expenditure problems. Regardless of the quality of literary talent, the most important thing is It must be meaningful and the strategies proposed must be practical and feasible.”
According to Li Longji's request, Wei Jiansu and the others selected twenty.
Li Longji is very old and already suffers from presbyopia. He can no longer see clearly the contents of the examination paper at night.
So Gao Shi and Cen Shen were asked to read aloud: "Candidate Bingjiu, the two tax laws used to be in harmony with each other..."
"Candidate Ding 1998, salt law... Candidate A6, business tax theory... Candidate B 19th, salt and iron theory..."
Listening to Gao Shi and Cen Shen reading in turn, Li Longji became more and more happy, as if he had returned to his youth when he discussed state affairs with Zhang Jiuling and other ministers. It turned out that the financial problems of the Tang Dynasty were not completely unsolvable.
This year's Enke candidates came up with no fewer than twenty solutions.
Some propose to reform the Salt Law, some propose to impose commercial taxes, and some propose to implement the Two Taxes Law.
Of course, there are also more radical ones, which require a complete clearing of the country's cultivated land and then a unified taxation.
Li Longji particularly liked the treatise on business taxation. He asked Cen Shen to read it aloud again and asked Master Lu: "Master Lu, what do you think of this treatise on business taxation? Do you want to implement it?"
"Collecting commercial taxes is excellent, but once commercial taxes are levied, smuggling will inevitably occur. Just like the emergence of private salt dealers in the salt monopoly, there will be armed smuggling groups selling silk, porcelain, and even weapons. Not only Chang'an, but also The security of the entire Tang Dynasty will greatly deteriorate, and the demand from Wuhou and bad people will surge. You have to think about it, can the collected business taxes cover the surge in fiscal expenditures?"
In ancient times when the commodity economy was not developed enough, commercial taxes would do more harm than good.
Not only will the cost of public security and stability increase sharply, but it will also cause the decline of all industries.
Li Longji looked coldly and said, "This matter is not difficult to handle. We can set up a new yamen to specifically supervise commercial taxation."
Lu Tianshi said: "In the early days, this newly established yamen could indeed collect a considerable amount of commercial taxes for the court because of its streamlined organization and honest officials. However, as time goes by, this yamen will become bloated and the officials will begin to become bloated." Greed will inevitably lead to a strange phenomenon. Merchants who pay taxes honestly will have heavier and heavier tax burdens and will go bankrupt one after another. However, smugglers who evade taxes will collude with government officials, and they will be full of money, which will eventually lead to the decline of all industries. .”
"That will be a few decades later. At least for now, it can be used to open source for the imperial court."
Li Longji can no longer care about so much, so he should get through the difficulties at hand first.
