Zhu Cixiang didn't ask any more questions. The financial report was just on the table. Read it yourself!
At one glance, he knew that he had encountered something troublesome again!
The fiscal surplus of 6.55 million taels is real! There was not even a tael of silver, and the accounts were kept very conservatively, with a large amount of "war preparations", "disaster relief preparations" and "major construction preparations" being made.
If all these preparations are put back, last year's fiscal surplus would even be as high as more than 16.5 million taels.
And this surplus amount is not only shockingly high, but also exceeds the total tax revenue of the Chongzhen court in the past 20 years!
Nowadays, the Ming court's financial income is divided into two types: "tax money" and "tax grain".
Among them, the court's tax revenue mainly consists of salt tax, customs tax, internal tax, local tax sharing, North and South Ocean tax packages, seigniorage of the two banks, and interest income from the bank deposits of the two banks.
The largest item among them is the salt tax. Because the salt industry in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shandong and other places were successively contracted, the total tax package of the salt industry exceeded 9 million taels in the 20th year of Chongzhen, becoming the absolute majority of the court's tax revenue. Big head.
The customs tax and the North and South Ocean tax package could have generated millions of taels of revenue. However, due to the large number of people in the southeastern Ming Dynasty under Zhu Cixang's rule and the shortage of food, these two taxes collected as much food as possible. Last year, the tax paid from these two taxes was only Around 1 million taels.
Internal tariffs and local commercial tax sharing are both projects that are subject to scholar-officials' treatment! Because of the "Punitive Incident", Emperor Zhu Da's control over the local area has reached a new level, so the total amount of internal customs duties and local commercial taxes recorded last year exceeded 2 million taels.
The silver income generated by the two banks' seigniorage tax and the two banks' bank deposit interest income is about 1.3 million taels.
In other words, the total silver income of the Ming court in the 20 years of Chongzhen was 13.3 million taels...another number that could drive Chongzhen Mingjun crazy!
Of course, this number is still a little less than the historical silver income in the early years of Shunzhi and when the Qing Dynasty first took over the Central Plains.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty could receive more than 21 million taels of silver a year!
In the early years of Shunzhi, the Qing Dynasty did not unify China, and due to the massacre policy adopted during the Ming and Qing wars, the total number of people in the country was smaller than the population of Nanming today. Moreover, because the forty-year tug-of-war with the Zheng Ming regime had just begun, Southeast maritime trade and industry and commerce were in decline, and there were not many tariffs and commercial taxes collected.
Under such circumstances, the Qing Dynasty could still receive 21 million taels of silver, which shows how capable they are of amassing money.
However, Zhu Cixiang's ability to make money is not weak. Although the silver he received last year was only 13.3 million, which was less than the 21 million in the early years of the Qing Dynasty in history.
However, the Southern Ming court under Zhu Cixiang also received more than 55 million shi in rice grain revenue in the 20th year of Chongzhen!
This number far exceeds the more than 5.6 million stone rice, wheat beans and more than 2.9 million bunches of fodder in the early years of Shunzhi.
The 55 million shi of rice grains are mainly composed of three major items: military land lease, land redemption rice, and customs grain (including North and South Yang tax packages).
The military land lease comes from more than 80 million acres of military land managed by the Military Tun Division. The actual storage of more than 35 million shi is an absolute bulk.
Thanks to Li Zicheng, Zhu Cihong also received a lot of rice for land redemption from Hubei last year, with the total amount reaching more than 16 million shi.
In addition, Zhu Cixi also received more than 3 million shi in customs and grain taxes through the four major customs offices of Guangzhou Customs, Quanzhou Customs, Ningbo Customs, and Shanghai Customs, as well as the governor's office of Nanbeiyang.
The fiscal surplus of 6.55 million taels and various preparations of almost 10 million taels handed over by Chen Rui were all obtained by selling the grain stocks in Yingtian warehouse and Wuhan warehouse!
Of course, the 55 million shi of grain collected by the Ming Dynasty could not be left to mold in the warehouse. Part of it had to be spent and sold.
For example, it is used for relief of northern refugees and disaster relief, for labor costs of various major projects, for military rations and horse administration, for raising financial funds, for stabilizing food prices...
Among them, relief, large-scale construction, military rations, horse administration and raising financial funds are all budgeted in advance, and it is impossible to generate a surplus of several million taels. Because of the "Prince Begging" incident, the Ming court is now highly concerned about food security and would rather save food. No silver deposits.
For this reason, the imperial court also spent huge sums of money to build the Yingtian Grain Depot and the Wuhan Grain Depot last year. The two major grain depots can store up to 20 million shi of rice!
If everything is full, Emperor Zhu can feel more at ease.
As for money, Zhu Cixiang is not worried at all - if he doesn't have enough money, he can still issue bonds. He is an expert in this field! Since the 17th year of Chongzhen, preparations have been made step by step for the issuance of bonds.
The purpose of his establishment of Salt Merchant Bank and Maritime Merchant Bank was to form a financial market that could provide liquidity for treasury bonds - treasury bonds without liquidity must have high interest rates and short maturities!
Now that there is so much silver in the accounts of the Ming Dynasty (more than 10 million taels of silver are deposited in the two major banks), it must be from selling grain!
"Has the price of rice in the southeast increased again?" Zhu Cixiang asked, "How much savings do you have now? Can you survive the spring famine?"
He didn't want to beg for food again... and where to beg? Last time the begging army arrived in Guangdong, where can they go? Going to Annan Country to beg for food?
Okay, now that we are in heaven, we have to go abroad to beg for food...
"It has calmed down!" Chen Rui frowned, "When I left Nanjing, the price of brown rice was about one or two and five yuan per stone..."
Not cheap! Nanjing’s brown rice should be sold for one tael of silver!
"As for the stored grain," Chen Rui said, "there are still more than 8 million shi in the Yingtian and Wuhan warehouses... These can be used to stabilize grain prices and relieve famines. There is also a reserve of military rations, about 1,000 shi. More than three million stones."
There are still more than 21 million stones... It looks like a lot, but in fact it is not much at all!
Because the land rent of the Juntunsi and the land redemption rice in Hubei were all collected in the autumn. More than 51 million shi of rice were collected at that time. Only a short time ago, 30 million shi of rice were gone... Although the rations of rice for the 16 generals' mansions were (Mainly distributed to resettled refugees and new officers and soldiers in training), military rations for the troops stationed in the villages, and relief rice allocated to various northern refugee gathering places, were all distributed before the new year.
But adding these aspects together, it won’t cost as much as 30 million stones!
"How much did you sell?" Zhu Cixiang asked.
"More than 8 million shi of brown rice were sold." Chen Rui said, "Because the grain reserves are accounted for at a discount of one or two taels, so if the 8 million shi are released, there will be a surplus of more than 6 million taels..."
You are whitewashing the report! Zhu Cihong said in his heart: I have seen too many profits made by accountants like you...
"With the 8 million stone missing, can it be stable this spring and summer?"
"This..." Chen Rui frowned, "This depends on the situation in Shandong. Last year, the harvest in Southeast and Huguang was good, and the price of grain was stable until November. But I didn't expect that November In September and December, a large number of Shandong refugees went south, and the price of food on the market suddenly skyrocketed. I had no choice but to sell off the stored food immediately, and finally suppressed it. If the situation in Shandong can be stabilized, there will be so much fertile land on the east bank of the canal. If the land can be cultivated, food prices will not be too high. Otherwise..."
It turned out that Dorgon was to blame for this matter!
Zhu Cixiang's face turned slightly livid because he discovered another weakness of the Ming Dynasty - the tight supply of grain in the southeast and the huge fluctuations in grain prices caused by the free trade of grain!
Fortunately, Dorgon didn't make a big move into Huainan last year! Otherwise, so many people in Huainan would have to run away, and the price of food in Jiangnan would not rise to the sky? Nowadays, many people in the southeast eat "commercial grain", including refugees from the north, citizens in industrial and commercial towns in the south of the Yangtze River, and many farmers who have switched to cash crops and need to buy rice for food.
If food prices soar to the sky, will there be chaos in the Southeast?
Just when Zhu Cixiang was dripping with cold sweat, Yan Yingyuan suddenly came in from outside in a hurry, bowed and said: "Your Majesty, urgent military report!"
"What happened?" Zhu Cixiang became nervous for a moment, but especially when Dorgon went south...the price of rice in the southeast cannot rise anymore!
Yan Yingyuan smiled and said: "Dorgon retreated from Qufu!"
