Winter is approaching, and the New Year is approaching.
As the weather gets colder, the ground in the south of the Yangtze River is gradually covered with a layer of ice and snow.
The thick snow froze everything, and also liberated the people in Chu State who had been busy for a year from their busyness and enjoyed a moment of peace.
However, the people below were free, but the officials in the imperial government became busy.
At the end of the year, as usual, the imperial court will conduct a summary of all government affairs for the year, calculate the year's revenue and expenditure, the gains and losses of various achievements, and then evaluate and reward officials based on their performance...
There are simply too many to mention.
The above is only relevant to the central court. At the same time, local officials at the county level, prefecture level and above also need to send officials to the capital to pay tribute to the great dynasty and report on the results of local work.
At the end of the year, a large number of local government officials rushed into Baling City. While making the court busier, it also added a bit of prosperity to Baling.
Under this background, even if Lu Yuan had become a monarch who let go of government affairs and came to the throne, he could not completely ignore it and had to get busy.
Fortunately, his main job is not to do statistical evaluations, but to take time out to read the memorials, listen to the reports of Cui Changqing and other ministers, and at the same time provide overall guidance for some major national affairs.
After a large number of trivial matters were handled by Cui Changqing and others, his work was not too busy.
Just setting aside one or two hours every day is enough.
However, as the various statistical evaluations at the end of the year are gradually completed, Lu Yuan must personally take charge of the work matters for the coming year and the long-term strategic planning for the future. These important matters cannot be completely let go.
Therefore, after waiting for the Winter Solstice Dynasty and accepting the audience with local officials and court officials, Lu Yuan convened Cui Changqing and other ministers to discuss strategic planning for next year and the following years.
Tai Chi Hall, side room.
Cui Changqing and several chief officials of the Sixth Department gathered together. Lu Yuan sat next to him, giving instructions to several ministers.
"It has been two years since I conquered the southwestern barbarians in the fourth year of Shenwu and established Qianzhong County.
When Qianzhong County was first established, Gu decided on the strategy of immigrating to the border and developing the southwest.
However, in the past two years, even if they continue to migrate refugees, recruit landless people from the country, exile criminals, station troops, and use various methods and policies, only more than 400,000 people have immigrated to central Guizhou.
In central Guizhou, Yi people still account for the majority.
This won't work. "
Lu Yuan looked at the ministers and said in a serious tone: "In the southwest, our Chu State has three vassal states: Kunhai, Chili, and Jianchuan. These are the barriers to our Chu State and the minions that control the southwest.
As for Qianzhong County, this is my Da Chu's tool to control these three protruding minions.
If you want to overwhelm these Fang Kingdoms and continue to operate the southwest, the strength of Qianzhong County must continue to be developed.
This area needs more people, more fertile fields to be cultivated, and more food to be produced, so that it can be used as a logistics base to continuously provide assistance to the management of the southwest.
Next year, or even the year after, and the year after that, my country, Chu, should not use troops again. This is a rare opportunity for self-cultivation.
Therefore, the imperial court, I want you to continue to migrate at least 150,000 people to Qianzhong County within the next three years.
In this way, there were more than 600,000 Chu people in Qianzhong County, so they could barely assimilate the local Yi people and initially develop this county into a key area in the southwest.
And Nishikawa.
Xichuan County was formerly the seven prefectures of Xichuan and Hanzhong, with a vast territory and sparsely populated areas. In some prefectures and counties, there are only tens of thousands of people in each prefecture, and only thousands of people in the front line, which is not as large as the number of people in one county and one township in Dongting.
How can we manage and develop Xichuan when the household registration is so expensive and scarce?
The Xichuan Plain has fertile soil, no less fertile than the Dongting and Jianghan Plains, and is equivalent to the title of the Land of Abundance.
Originally, Xichuan County could feed three to four million people on this plain.
But now Xichuan's newly expanded seven mansions add up to only 600,000. Even if we include the original three prefectures of Chu State, the household registration is only about 1.5 million, which is only one-third of the number in Xichuan County's heyday.
Therefore, in order to develop the Xichuan Plain and make it become another money and grain producing area in our country after Jianghan and Dongting Plains, it is necessary to immigrate to Xichuan, especially to prefectures and counties located on the Xichuan Plain.
The three prefectures of Yuzhong, Linjiang and Wushan in Xichuan County are overcrowded. In recent years, a large number of people have become landless and their livelihoods are difficult.
There are also many such people in Xiangyang and Dongting counties.
The imperial court cooperated with local officials to make statistics. From these three prefectures and two counties, at least 500,000 people were recruited and moved to the new seven prefectures in Xichuan County for the development of Xichuan.
This immigration is also limited to three years and must be completed within a time limit.
In this way, immigrating to Xichuan and Qianzhong counties will be our first important national policy in Dachu in the next three years.
Do you understand? "
Lu Yuan asked as his eyes swept over Cui Changqing and the others.
Or he nodded repeatedly and echoed: "I understand."
The imperial court has been working on immigration, and it has been a national policy for a long time.
Now that Lu Yuan has brought it up, he is just restating it and officially making it a national policy for the imperial court.
Cui Changqing and others understand the importance of it, so it doesn't mean anything.
"Um."
Seeing that all the ministers nodded in agreement, Lu Yuan nodded and did not say anything more in this regard, but continued: "Now the Chu State's local prefecture and county soldiers, the Central Forbidden Army, and the three naval forces are continuously expanding their armies. .As of now, the total number of soldiers and horses in the country is 382,000.
These many soldiers and horses require more than 27 million taels of silver a year in military expenditure alone.
If there is a war, it can even reach 30 million taels of silver.
At the same time, the basic expenses of local government and the central court also require about five million taels of silver a year.
There is also an ongoing immigration project, which also requires one million to two million taels of silver each year.
The current fiscal revenue of the imperial court, including the annual tribute of 3 million taels of silver from Nanhai Kingdom, is only 20 million, 300 taels of silver a year.
Calculated in this way, there will be a deficit of about 10 million taels of silver every year.
Although he conquered the southwest alone, he was defeated by many barbarians. More than 50 million taels of money were seized. Some time ago, Master Huang Xuan plundered Jianchuan and made a fortune of more than 20 million taels of silver.
With 70 million taels of silver in the way, it can only last for seven years at most.
Seven years later, when all the accumulated wealth is used up, the court will face the dilemma of having no money to use.
Therefore, how to increase revenue and reduce expenditure as much as possible within these seven years to balance the revenue and expenditure is now the top priority.
If you have any ideas, please tell me now. "
Speaking of this, Lu Yuan also had a headache.
Ever since he started the army, the problem of money and food has been the biggest difficulty that has troubled him.
Even in the early days, in order to obtain military funds, he even deceived Danding Dao and made himself a formidable enemy.
Then, with the transition from Changsha State to Chu State, the balance of payments was finally achieved in the past two years, and the finances finally did not have to make ends meet.
But now, with the development of Xichuan and Qianzhong counties, and the large-scale military expansion of Chu State, the fiscal revenue that had just reached the balance line was instantly broken, and continued to develop towards annual deficits.
And the size of the deficit seems to be getting larger and larger.
Lu Yuan was naturally worried about this situation.
Therefore, in today's strategic planning meeting for the next three years, this matter was brought up as a key issue.
The purpose is to pool our wisdom and use the wisdom of everyone to find a way to solve this difficulty.
"Your Majesty, we, the chief officials of the three provinces and six departments, have discussed this matter for a long time, and have formulated several solutions to this matter."
Faced with Lu Yuan's concerns and after hearing the inquiry, Cui Changqing, as the left prime minister, naturally stood up and saluted Lu Yuan, and then said: "To solve the fiscal deficit, there are only two ways to increase revenue and reduce expenditure.
In terms of cost-saving, the military is now constantly increasing troops, building ordnance, and building warships. This is related to the fundamentals of national defense and cannot be saved at all.
As for the imperial government, in order to stabilize the newly expanded areas, they are constantly selecting new officials to govern the local areas, and this cannot be omitted.
On the other hand, immigration matters. Nowadays, immigrants to Qianzhong and Xichuan counties cost nearly two million taels of money and food every year, which is a lot of money.
But it is also the same. As the king said before, within three years, a total of 650,000 people will migrate to Xichuan and Qianzhong counties.
When these people finish migrating, the annual expenditure of two million taels of silver will naturally be saved.
This reduced the deficit of two million taels of silver.
This is about saving money.
The rest is open source.
According to the first national policy formulated by the king, people were moved to Xichuan and Qianzhong counties successively. After hundreds of thousands of people arrived in the two counties, the two counties would naturally be developed.
At that time, the three million people in the two counties will be able to provide an annual tax revenue of 10 million taels after a few years of governance.
This alone is enough to smooth out the deficit. "
Cui Changqing was obviously quite confident when he said this.
At the beginning, when the Chu State had only three counties, 17 prefectures, and 5.7 million people, its annual tax revenue could reach 20 million.
Now the Chu State has become four counties and thirty-four prefectures, with more than eight million people, the territory has doubled, and the population has increased by nearly one-half.
As long as such a large market is fully developed, it will be more than enough to increase the annual income tax by ten million taels.
Even if the development of Xichuan and Qianzhong counties is good, the annual tax increase will be more than 10 million taels of silver, and raising another two to three million taels of silver will not be a problem.
In the early days of the founding of the Chu State, it had a capable team of bureaucracy, as well as the talents of the ministers in the court, and the wisdom of the monarch.
Cui Changqing had this confidence, and within five or six years, he developed these two counties to the extent he said.
Lu Yuan couldn't help but be moved after hearing what he said: "If this is true, then our great Chu will not be short of money and food when it sends troops abroad."
Cui Changqing smiled, and then continued: "That's not all. In addition to the development and governance of Qianzhong and Xichuan counties, there are several other ways to open the source.
Qianzhong County is mountainous and contains many mineral deposits.
I looked through the classics and found that in the history books of Yangzhou dynasties, there were records mentioning that the barbarians in the southwest were rich in gold, silver, copper and other minerals.
After the king established Qianzhong County, I also sent officials and craftsmen to Qianzhong County to inspect and search for it.
After some exploration, I found a lot.
In Qianzhong County alone, there were mines originally opened by the Yi countries, including one gold mine, three silver mines, and seven copper mines. The combined value of the gold, silver, and copper produced every year was no less than two million taels of silver.
The mining technology of the Yi people is backward. If the more advanced mining technology of Dachu is used in these eleven gold, silver and copper mines, the output can at least be doubled, reaching an annual output of four million taels of silver.
In addition, there should be other unexplored mineral resources in Qianzhong County. If you search carefully, you should still gain a lot.
And as long as I find one, it will be enough for me and increase my income by hundreds of thousands of taels of silver every year.
Yichen predicted that as long as the existing mines were technologically innovated and new veins were developed, Dachu would be able to increase its income by at least five million taels of silver every year before those veins were exhausted.
If more minerals are discovered later, the annual income will be even higher, even if it reaches 10 million taels of silver, it is not impossible.
The only concern is that mining requires a large number of manpower, and there are many casualties. Originally, the Yi people mined every year, and thousands of people died as a result.
I know that even if technology improves, the casualties will not be small. Hundreds or even thousands of casualties a year are unavoidable.
In this case, it will become a problem for Qianzhong County, which already has a sparse population. "
At this point, Cui Changqing also frowned.
Qianzhong County had a small population to begin with, but now even after continuous immigration, and even counting the Yi people from the newly developed Huichuan and Jianchang Prefectures, the combined population is just over one million.
With such a small number of people, just developing Qianzhong County was not enough for Chu State.
If we continue to develop mines, we will not only occupy tens of thousands of miners, but also reduce the manpower in the development area.
Moreover, a thousand people die every year, and this loss is definitely not small.
With Chu's national strength, it is inevitable to feel heartache for this.
However, after hearing Cui Changqing's concerns, Lu Yuan laughed, waved his hand and said: "You don't have to worry about the miners, you can find your own solution.
In the spring of this year, I crossed the Lu River to fight alone and captured the Yi Kingdom of Huichuan.
In this battle alone, 50,000 barbarian troops were defeated and more than 30,000 prisoners of war were captured.
After that, they successively pacified Huichuan, subdued the Daochanghe Kingdom, and captured more than 10,000 people.
Altogether, there were 50,000 prisoners of war.
When Huang Xuanzhenren's army attacked Jianchuan, in addition to plundering 30 Yi women and children and sending them abroad, they also captured nearly 70,000 Yi prisoners of war.
Adding all this together, there were no fewer than 120,000 Yi prisoners in central Guizhou.
These are all men, and they are all excellent laborers.
It was useless at first, so I asked them to build roads in various places in central Guizhou. After a few months, they were quite successful, and they had connected the main roads between various prefectures.
Since there is demand for mining in Qianzhong County, Gu can allocate 50,000 and send these people directly into the mines.
The rest was left to continue building roads.
Nowadays, although the main roads between the prefectures in central Guizhou County are connected, the roads in local counties and towns are still dilapidated and in urgent need of repairs.
When they finish building the road, they can take them to the mine at any time.
There are also more than 60,000 prisoners in Xichuan County, and they are also building roads and cities.
These are also available manpower.
With these people here, not to mention 1,000 people die every year in the mines, even 10,000 people die. "
In the previous World War II in Southwest China and Xichuan, Lu Yuan achieved great victories, capturing more than 180,000 barbarian soldiers in total.
Based on the policy he implemented in the central Guizhou area, which was originally intended to reduce the number of local barbarians, it was naturally impossible to release these prisoners of war back.
And killing them directly would be too wasteful.
After all, he is an adult, or nearly adult man, and he is a valuable labor force in this era.
So after thinking about it, he just started building projects everywhere as a free coolie.
Building roads is only one of them.
Later, he planned to use these prisoners to build water conservancy projects, build city walls, and farm fields to grow grain...
Nowadays, the two counties of Qianzhong and Xichuan are in ruins and waiting to be revitalized. Especially Qianzhong County is a wasteland.
The manpower required to develop these two counties is simply incalculable.
Some of these difficulties have to be filled with human lives.
Since people are all going to die, instead of killing the Chu people who can become the base, it is better to simply use these prisoners of war as waste.
Use their hard work and blood to create the prosperity of central Guizhou and Xichuan.
Since Cui Changqing wants to open a mine, he can just allocate some of the excess prisoners of war and use them to open up revenue for Chu State and obtain more financial revenue.
This is considered valuable and is not a waste of food.
"If this can be done, then there will be no worries about the mining in central Guizhou."
Cui Changqing couldn't help but be overjoyed when he heard Lu Yuan's words, and felt relieved.
After solving this issue, he talked about the next open source method.
“In addition to normal taxes and mining, on top of the tribute from the vassal state, I, Da Chu, can also gain a lot of benefits.
The three kingdoms of Chili, Kunhai, and Jianchuan are all my great vassal states of Chu, and they are my subjects.
In our Chu State, local prefectures, prefectures, and counties all collect taxes and submit them to the court.
The Nanwai vassals have not yet surrendered to Chu, and they also need to pay an annual tribute of three million taels of silver and two million shi of grain.
Since the three southwest kingdoms have surrendered, they will naturally have to pay tribute as usual.
In my opinion, the king can set up a custom. According to the current population of the three southwest countries, each prefecture should pay a silver contribution ranging from 100,000 to 300,000, so that they can contribute to the state every year.
In this way, the fifteen prefectures of the Three Kingdoms in the Southwest can collect two to three million taels of silver in tribute alone every year. In the future, when they develop, it is not a problem to even reach four to five million taels of silver.
This is also a big income.
The above method of increasing revenue and reducing expenditure is the strategy I came up with after brainstorming.
According to the implementation of the above national policies, after three years, two million taels of silver will be saved in expenditures, and more than 10 million taels of silver will be generated, and the accounts will be smoothed out by 12 million taels of silver.
In other words, by the ninth year of Shenwu, the Chu State's annual revenue would reach a balance of four million taels of silver.
Six years later, in the twelfth year of Shenwu, Chu State's capital was expected to reach 20 million taels of silver, reaching an annual balance of 12 million taels of silver.
With this kind of wealth, let alone the 382,000 soldiers and horses now.
Even if another 200,000 soldiers were recruited, Da Chu's finances could support it.
And if we can really have 600,000 troops, then our Chu army will be able to truly rival Zhou, Liang, Ning and other great powers, and become a true hegemonic country.
At that time, the army will be sent eastward, along the river, to attack Ningguo and unify Yangzhou, which will be just around the corner. "
Cui Changqing's face was slightly flushed and he spoke in an extremely excited tone.
Although six years later, he was no longer alive.
But as soon as I think about such great achievements, they are slowly realized in my own hands. The ambitions in your heart will also be realized.
I couldn't contain my excitement.
Even Lu Yuan was shocked when he heard that after six years, Chu State could actually have an annual surplus of twelve million taels of silver.
Because this means that when the potential of Chu State is fully developed, the annual income can reach 42 million taels of silver a year.
This kind of income is no less than that of Ningguo, which controls the thirty-eight mansions of five counties in Jiangdong.
Because according to the reports from the Imperial City's Foreign Affairs Bureau, and from the rumors revealed by the ministers in Jinling, Ning Guo's current annual income is only more than 5,200 taels of silver.
Compared with what Cui Changqing described at this time, Chu State would have 42 million taels of silver a year six years later, which was only a shortfall of 10 million taels.
This difference is not big.
How not to cheer him up?
'And after six years, Brother Sun will definitely be innate, and my second Yellow Turban Warrior clone will be able to be refined. At that time, Chu State will have two more innate combat powers, plus 600,000 soldiers and horses.
At that time, perhaps as Cui Changqing said, he could directly march eastward, attack Ningguo, and unify Yangzhou. '
Lu Yuan thought like this in his mind, and then he couldn't help laughing when he saw Cui Changqing and other important ministers looking forward to the future and showing great pride.
"Cui Qing is right. With such national strength, why worry about Ningguo? If Yangzhou is not destroyed, Yangzhou will not be unified!"
The bold words immediately echoed in the room.
The ministers nearby were affected by this, and they also said: "The king is so sage, he will surely conquer the Ning Kingdom and unify the world. Congratulations to the Great Chu! Congratulations to the King!"
