This undoubtedly means that Emperor Zhu Youxiao's imperial power has a stronger guarantee.
But for the entire Ming Empire, the standing army needed was naturally more than 100,000.
In order to be able to expand eastward and westward while conquering the north and south in the future, the mobile forces of the land and water armies, the defensive forces, and the internal guards must add up to a million elite troops.
Even now, there are hundreds of thousands of frontier troops on various frontiers, plus soldiers from various camps and guards, guarding everywhere.
Zhu Youxiao hoped that after his 100,000 pro-army troops were trained in the future, these border troops, as well as the soldiers in various camps and guards, would be more thoroughly nationalized, so that the soldiers and generals would be separated, and both soldiers and generals would belong to the country. Instead of having private soldiers, only generals' private soldiers, that is, servants, have combat effectiveness.
However, the biggest challenge in doing so is not the opposition of military generals, but the issue of money.
Because the generals of the Ming Dynasty were different from the vassal towns of the Tang Dynasty, they did not have a lot of financial income.
Most of the land owned by these generals is located in the northern border towns, and the output is not large. It is difficult to feed a large family. Naturally, the income from the land cannot support so many servants who need to eat and drink every day.
Therefore, the main income of these generals still relies on withholding military pay and empty pay.
In addition, although the servants they have are capable of fighting, they are not large in number, so it is difficult to threaten the court.
And because there are too many generals and their power is dispersed, the court can also check and balance them separately.
This is why the Li family in Liaodong, the Li Chengliang family, is so powerful in Liaodong, and Li Rubai and Li Ruzhen can be taken to the capital by the imperial court to be punished.
The complete difficulty of controlling the generals of the Ming Dynasty had to wait until after the Chongzhen period in history.
Therefore, as long as Zhu Youxiao has enough money, he can pay enough military pay and give enough silver rewards. In addition, he can give military generals enough legitimate income so that they don't have to take the risk of being stripped of their skins and deprived of their military pay, or even eating empty pay. Soldiers who are not generals and servants can become good warriors.
Even the current infantrymen of the guards dared to charge the cavalry with spears when the army had sufficient pay in the early days of the country.
"But now the annual revenue of the imperial treasury has been mainly used for people's livelihood, education, construction, research and development of various skills, manufacturing of new equipment, and promotion of new crops. Although it will not make ends meet, coupled with Japan's compensation, the treasury can still be maintained There are more than 10 million in reserves, which are reserved for unexpected needs, such as disaster relief and so on. Therefore, after reorganizing the Beijing camp, we immediately reformed the guard system and camp system to raise millions of elite soldiers belonging to the country. With the current The revenue from the treasury is still not enough, please tell me clearly!"
Therefore, Fang Congzhe raised financial difficulties when Zhu Youxiao proposed reforming the military system.
"We still need to develop financial resources! The imperial court needs to raise more soldiers, and in the future, it will launch a war to completely eradicate the Hu problem. All of these will require more money!"
Zhu Youxiao nodded and thought to himself.
For a moment, Zhu Youxiao thought of raising business taxes.
With the current business scale of the Ming Dynasty, once the commercial tax is raised, it will definitely bring a large amount of tax revenue to the court.
But among those who are doing business today, those who are of a moderate scale and can pay considerable business taxes are all from a background, and many of them are even the emperor's own.
Therefore, if Zhu Youxiao wants to raise business taxes across the country, there will undoubtedly be huge opposition.
But now for Zhu Youxiao, apart from raising business taxes, there are not many other better ways to increase the court's annual tax revenue.
All the homes that should be raided were raided.
No one dares to go against him as the emperor now. In addition, the number of homes he can raid is limited, and as the emperor, naturally he cannot just ignore the rules and raid homes at will.
The income from land tax after clearing the land has reached its limit.
As for external income, they also borrowed grain and paid compensation, but these were all one-time. Only trade continued to allow Ming Dynasty to earn profits from outside.
However, if commercial taxes are not raised and the sea is not fully opened to the sea, the revenue the court can obtain through foreign trade will only be limited to profit sharing from government-owned industries and part of the tariff revenue.
"The annual revenue of the national treasury must continue to grow. We cannot just muddle along and indulge in pleasure just because the current annual revenue has far exceeded that of the previous dynasty! Do you have any good ideas for increasing the annual revenue in the future?"
Zhu Youxiao therefore asked his important ministers.
As an emperor with real power, he naturally cannot express his own ideas first, otherwise most officials will obey his ideas against their will.
After all, every one of the elders and ministers present who are not extremely shrewd have the ability to observe people's emotions and make decisions based on the situation.
Therefore, Zhu Youxiao asked first.
"In my opinion, the privileges and exemptions of the gentry should be abolished, and the officials and gentry should be paid as one and the same."
At this time, Fang Congzhe replied first.
He knows the emperor he has been with for six years better than anyone else.
Fang Congzhe knew that his Majesty was a restless master.
He was determined to innovate and had great ambitions. He not only wanted the country to become stronger and stronger, but also wanted to make the people richer and richer. In this way, the government had to have more and more income without increasing the burden on the people.
Therefore, Fang Congzhe had long thought about how to provide the emperor with a solution to increase fiscal revenue.
The solution is for the officials and the gentry to receive food from one body.
It's not about raising business taxes.
Fang Congzhe naturally knew that raising commercial taxes would bring more tax revenue to the court without affecting the common people.
But Fang Congzhe didn't do that.
It's not that he is selfish and unwilling to raise business taxes for his own benefit.
Because of the benefits the emperor gave him, even if the business tax changed from thirty taxes to one to three taxes to one, it would not affect the wealth of his family.
Fang Congzhe did not mention the commercial tax because he also knew how difficult it would be to raise commercial taxes across the country and how much turmoil it would cause. After all, all the powerful and gentry in the world, whether they were civil servants or military generals, relied on Businesses with low tax rates make a lot of money, and ordinary people, many of whom have made their fortunes thanks to low business taxes, are getting richer and richer. If business taxes are suddenly raised, there will be huge opposition.
Fang Congzhe doesn't dare to take this risk now, because he is afraid that it will mess up the country.
Therefore, Fang Congzhe proposed that officials and gentry should be paid as one, and the privileges of the powerful and gentry should be completely abolished.
In Fang Congzhe's view, this would be much less resistant than raising business taxes. After all, this would not affect the interests of ordinary people and the powerful gentry who rely on business.
Moreover, Fang Congzhe felt that it was better for the court to collect as much grain as possible than to collect more money.
Because if the grain in the hands of the imperial court is further manipulated through the Grain Industry Bureau, it can also produce more profits. After all, Ming's products are more popular than before, and therefore more silver flows into Ming, making the silver price continue. As a result, grain prices are still rising, and it is obviously more cost-effective to hold grain than to hold silver.
After Zhu Youxiao heard Fang Congzhe's proposal, he did not express his position. He only asked other ministers: "What do you think, the officials and gentry will receive food together?"
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