As far as financial management is concerned, Gao Pragmatic has already proven that he is unparalleled in this dynasty, but this year is no better than in the past because there are so many places to spend money, and every one of them is a big sum of money. Let’s take a look at some of the big things you’ll be spending money on this year:
First, North Korea was newly attached, and after eight years of war, it was completely in ruins. Since the Ming Dynasty has accepted North Korea's attachment, it must prove one thing: North Korea's surrender to the Ming Dynasty is far better than in the past. What does this require? Of course, we need to stabilize the people and prosper the industry.
Peace and prosperity for the people cannot be achieved by shouting a few slogans and dispatching a few officials. This requires a large investment of real money. Although Gao Pragmatic had made some plans for North Korea's future industrial development as early as during the war, the specific implementation was also inseparable from money, and any investment would take a certain amount of time to be completed, eventually generating benefits and beginning to have an impact on the social economy. The forward cycle works.
North Korea currently has several big problems. First of all, all roads have been beaten to pieces, many fields have been abandoned, and part of them has become ownerless land. The newly installed North Korean governor had to redistribute these fields in the style of "the way of heaven, make up for the excess of damage and make up for the deficiency".
Specifically, it is to grant land to those who live the most difficult life, and even find opportunities to convict the former North Korean noble officials and confiscate some land to landless peasants, so as to avoid causing social unrest.
However, redistributing fields cannot solve this year's problem. After all, agriculture has a fixed farming and harvesting period, and before that, seeds need to be obtained. Last year, it was so confusing that the seeds were obviously insufficient and needed. This year it was raised from within the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, the imperial court must first find a way to feed the subjects of North Korea who will inevitably be short of food this year. However, the disaster in the Ming Dynasty is also serious, and there is no surplus food to relieve North Korea. In this way, we can still only rely on food from southern Xinjiang for emergency relief. Although there were floods and wind disasters in southern Xinjiang, the harvest was still good due to the small population and geographical advantages. However, Jinghua was a business group after all, and it could not operate at a loss, so the Ming court also had to spend money to buy grain.
However, the imperial court did not have so much cash. Therefore, under Gao Pragmatic's hint, North Korean governor Zhang George contacted North Korean Governor Gu Yangqian and North Korean Commander-in-Chief Qi Jin. The three officials jointly submitted a petition to the court, requesting the court to approve the "transfer" between North Korea and Beijing. Land for food.”
To put it simply, Jinghua is responsible for supplying sufficient grain, and the grain will be discounted and used directly to buy North Korean land - including but not limited to mines, salt fields, ports, urban land, etc., but the land will not be sold.
The requirement not to sell the land was actually not a request made by North Korea's top three members, but rather a request made by Gao Pragmatism on his own initiative. This is in line with Gao pragmatic's habit in the Ming Dynasty - he basically does not buy land. The reason is very simple: for a business giant like Jinghua, buying land is the most likely to attract attention from the Ming Dynasty and the public, and once there is any public opinion, it is often not a good thing.
Fortunately, Gao Pragmatic has no shortage of domestic land, or he has never been interested in buying land in the Ming Dynasty - farming is indeed the safest business in agricultural society, but in fact, the cost-effectiveness of doing so is extremely low. It is an industry that believes that "travelers will only make a fortune out of this if they have lost their minds".
Over the years, Jinghua has purchased very few fields in Daming, and the few it has are of a "scientific research nature", which is used to test new species, such as drought-tolerant rice, corn, potatoes, etc. Of course, scientific research does not mean that there is no income at all, so these lands later also provide high-quality seeds for the above-mentioned products, which can be regarded as repaying some of the money.
With the clause "North Korea does not sell land", the imperial court's criticism of this memorial can almost be ignored. For most officials of the Ming Dynasty, they would still consider the so-called long-term peace and stability of North Korea when they have free time. For example, North Korea has insufficient fields. If a large number of fields are bought by Jinghua, if North Korea is short of food in the future, will Jinghua hoard it? ah? Even if Jinghua has never done this kind of thing in the past, what if it happens?
There is no need to worry now. Jinghua does not buy land. It is still only interested in mines, salt fields, ports and urban land as in the past. These are so-called "commercial lands." Although the court officials now know more or less that these lands are very profitable, they also know that making money from these lands requires upfront investment, and people with insufficient capital will do it anyway. No, and after completion, you can still pay commercial taxes, which is a win-win situation, and there is nothing wrong with it.
However, North Korea still needs many things that the court can allocate money to do, such as renovating fields, building roads, rebuilding water conservancy, repairing cities, etc. There is something these living Jinghua can do to help - no one knows what Jinghua Infrastructure is capable of, but they will never do it in vain. Whether they are supplying cement or directly responsible for the project, they all have to collect money.
Even if Gao Pragmatic tries his best to make arrangements, such as asking North Korea to provide work-for-relief services, etc., in the end it will still cost more than 900,000 taels of silver - this is this year, next year and even in the next few years, the amount will also vary. investment.
Secondly, the country has been severely affected by disasters this year, whether it is locusts, floods, ice disasters, etc., so money must be invested. Jinghua can only provide some help in food supplies, refugee immigration, etc., and it can only make a small amount of money. It can't be free.
All in all, the court had to spend more than one million taels of silver on this matter. This money generates almost no income and can only be counted as "maintenance of stability". To a certain extent, it is a waste.
Thirdly, Shen Yiguan also started to reach out for money. This guy was responsible for the preliminary preparations for the Taishan Zen Ceremony. In order to prevent the emperor from being scolded for "harming the people along the way" during his travels, Zhu Yijun warned him from the beginning, asking the court to pay as much as possible and not to entertain local officials. , things like giving gifts.
This idea was a good one, and it saved the emperor and the court from being scolded a lot. The scholars were quite appreciative of the emperor and Shen Guanyuan, but Gao Pragmatic was the only one who was unlucky - it would cost a lot of money.
Crucially, the budget for this kind of spending can fluctuate widely. If you want the emperor to be satisfied, you can spend millions of taels on it and nothing will happen; if you are reluctant to invest, the imperial chariot will be too shabby when the time comes, which will inevitably cause the emperor to be dissatisfied. Even though the emperor couldn't blame Gao Pragmatic openly because the idea was his own, he was inevitably unhappy in his heart and felt that it was not pompous and he had lost face.
For this kind of thing where it was impossible to have the best of both worlds, Gao Pragmatic had no good solution, so he could only bite the bullet and arrange another 1.5 million taels. Part of it is the expenses of the charioteer, his entourage, and the army, and part of it is the subsidy to the inns along the way. The inn station did not have to entertain such a large team before, and there were even charioteers among them. Therefore, the building needs to be expanded or repaired, and the food materials, utensils, etc. also need to be expanded. Arrange provision.
You must know that after their reception this time, it is unlikely that they will receive a team of this size again in the future, so it is impossible to force them to pay for the money themselves - remember Gao Pragmatic's "He Yi Lu Shu", right? The current post station is under a "contracting system", and the court cannot force these contractors to tighten their belts to welcome the imperial driver.
Fourth, after the war in Korea ended, all meritorious soldiers needed to be rewarded, which was also extremely expensive. The Korean War lasted for almost eight years. Even the Li family in Liaodong suffered heavy losses, not to mention the troops recruited from all over the country. What losses did not require money?
Those who have made meritorious service, those who died in battle, and those who were injured should be compensated for those who deserve to be comforted, treated for those who deserve to be treated, and rewarded for those who deserve to be rewarded. The rewards for generals are okay, but the Ming Dynasty was used to being stingy in this regard - just like Qi Jiguang back then, he would only receive "twenty taels of silver" after a "big victory". The key is the reward for the soldiers, that is the big deal.
The Japanese army's losses in Korea were not small, and they were much greater than in the original history. More than 80,000 heads were lost on the battlefield alone - which in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty soldiers were all worth a reward.
[Note: After the eight-year war in original history, it is generally believed that the Ming army lost about 30,000 people, the Korean army lost about 300,000 people, and the Japanese army lost about 140,000 people. There are differences in this book due to Gao Pragmatic's participation: the total losses of the Ming army remained unchanged, about 30,000; North Korea's losses were about 350,000, including the losses caused by the suppression of the rebellion; Japan's losses were about 200,000, Up to half of them were killed in action alone. ]
The Ming army always had a "price" for the heads that counted for military merit. The Japanese heads were not as expensive as the Mongolians, but they were not cheap either. One head cost ten taels of silver. This means that the head level obtained alone would cost more than 800,000 taels.
That's not all. After Gao Jingshi presided over the restructuring of the Beijing camp and created the Imperial Guard, the Ming army subsequently came up with the concept of "collective merit". Therefore, as long as they win in a battle, in addition to those who are punished for their mistakes, they will be recorded with merit, including special merit, There are six levels in total, from first-class, second-class, to fifth-class.
It is generally difficult to obtain special or first-class skills on a large scale for collective skills, and it is usually fifth- or sixth-class. There is no silver for the sixth class to record merit, and a few days of extra meals after the war can be spent. The fifth class can get half a tael of silver per person - don't look at it, it's only half a tael, you can't handle a large number of people. For example, if 50,000 troops were used in a battle, a collective fifth-level meritorious service would have 25,000 taels of silver.
Korea fought for eight years, and there were dozens of large and small battles. Those that did not win brilliantly were not counted as merit, but those that were counted as collective merit were more than 20 times, ranging in scale. In the end, Gao Pragmatic almost vomited blood when he calculated that the fifth-level collective skill alone would cost 750,000 taels.
All in all, in the final calculation, the various levels of rewards alone cost more than 2.3 million taels. Gao Yuanfu's previous statement that he had trouble sleeping and eating seems to be true. If it had been anyone else, this wouldn't be a problem anymore. He might as well just hang up and go into seclusion - I won't serve him anymore!
Fifth, this comes to the cost of Liu Wei's Western Expedition, the truly fatal battle of throwing coins.
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PS, 1: This chapter is from yesterday, 1K more updates, no more debt. Today's chapter should be updated in the middle of the night, or tomorrow morning if I fall asleep.
PS, 2: In the past two days, I have intensively studied various ethnic groups in northern Myanmar, including their formation history, current situation, this chaos, etc. However, it is not convenient to discuss the current situation, so I will not say more. You can guess the reason why you are interested. After all, this book also touches on the war in Myanmar... By the way, the area in northern Myanmar really belonged to China during the same period of this book and history.
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