Since the implementation of a complete separation of military and political affairs and the adoption of a fiscal budget system last year.
Various munitions factories under the Ministry of Industry were completely separated from the military.
As a result, the arsenal and other munitions factories under the Great Chu Empire purchased raw materials from the former Ministry of Commerce and Trade and allocated them to each factory. The Finance Department directly allocated money and grain to each factory to pay wages and produce various military supplies. Later supplied directly to the military.
To become an arsenal, you need to obtain funds from the military by selling weapons and equipment and other products, and then use these funds to purchase various raw materials and pay wages to workers, and use the profits for scale expansion or R&D and technology upgrades.
Only under special circumstances will the Ministry of Industry inject funds into some factories to support their expansion or research and development.
Although the settlements between the military and various factories are now directly through reconciliation, rather than directly carrying out transactions with money.
Everyone will pair up the ledger, and then the finance department will settle the settlement directly for you... To put it bluntly, it's just a process.
In fact, everyone used to reconcile ledgers, but at that time, they reconciled physical ledgers, but now they reconcile financial ledgers.
After all, these arsenals are, in the final analysis, government-run enterprises of the empire. Their purpose of existence is to support the war. Therefore, regardless of whether they take physical objects directly or reconcile accounts, it is actually the same thing.
The significance of this move is purely to cooperate with the Finance Department in trying out the fiscal budget system, and to cooperate with the Tax Department in corporate taxation...
As for the change itself, it’s actually not big.
In the past, the Ministry of Finance allocated the money directly to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of Industry. The Ministry of Commerce and Trade purchased raw materials, the Ministry of Industry was responsible for production, and the military directly obtained weapons and equipment.
Now, it has become the case that the Ministry of Finance first allocates the money to the military, which then uses it to purchase materials, and then each factory spends its own money or asks the Ministry of Commerce and Trade to purchase raw materials and pay wages.
The procedures have changed, but the money is still there.
But now what Luo Zhixue wants is such a set of procedures. With such a set of procedures, at least on the surface, the arsenal and the military are separated, and each implements a separate financial system to completely realize the separation of military and political affairs.
Instead of being like before, the military itself doesn't know how much the military expenditures are, and at the same time, the arsenal behind the scenes may not pay attention to you when it needs something.
Often the military can only take whatever is produced in the arsenal.
And this is obviously not conducive to military construction and combat.
After all, there is still a gap between what the rear arsenal is willing to produce and what the military needs in actual combat.
At the same time, this will also allow the military to be more flexible and use military spending independently.
Military spending is limited.
Even though more than 85% of the current central fiscal expenditures of the Great Chu Empire are military expenditures, this number is still limited.
These military expenses were obtained by the taxation department, finance department and other personnel of the Great Chu Empire who worked hard to confiscate families, exterminate clans, and collect taxes and fines.
Well, you have to add in the various confiscations during the war.
And a lot of the money here is a one-time income that will be gone once it is used up.
Although there is a lot of tax revenue from ongoing income, it is nothing compared to the current huge expenditure of the Chu Empire.
If it really relied on taxation, the Dachu Empire's finances would have gone bankrupt long ago.
Under such circumstances, the Ministry of Finance has strict restrictions on various funds, even military expenditures.
After all, there is only so much money in the treasury now. If we don’t get a lot of extra money before it is spent, the finance will go bankrupt in minutes...
Therefore, in the second year of Chengshun, on the first day of implementation of the fiscal budget, the regular military budget was severely limited to only fifteen million taels of silver.
The Ministry of Finance has already announced that the national treasury inventory and the expected central tax revenue for this year are only so far. In addition to the 3 million taels of emergency funds designated by His Majesty, the remaining available funds are 8%. Ten capitals have been spent on military expenditures.
If your military wants more, you can go attack the city and capture the territory!
After we get the money, we can discuss this issue later, oh, no, the amount of temporary war expenses...
After this year's regular military expenditures are capped to death, the military itself estimates that life will not be too difficult even if it can still be seized during the subsequent continued expansion.
But after all, it is directly in charge. The military must plan carefully how to use these military expenditures to expand the army and maintain the war.
For this reason, at the end of last year, many big shots within the military had already discussed together and finalized this year's regular spending budget based on last year's expenditures.
Among various expenditure budgets, the money used to purchase weapons and equipment actually only accounts for a small part of the military's funds. Most of the military's funds are actually spent on personnel and horses.
Personnel expenses include food supplies, clothing and other daily necessities for the soldiers, pocket money subsidies for the soldiers, salaries of the officers, food, drink and chewing for the mules and horses, etc.
This is a real big expense!
According to the current treatment of the Da Chu Empire Army, on average, officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers cost about three taels of silver per person per month.
It doesn't look like much, but it's basically the same as the salary of some of the elite recruits of the contemporary Ming army.
But you have to know that the money from the Dachu Empire was actually spent on the soldiers. The Ming army said it was three taels of silver per month as salary, but how much they could get is unknown. , some were deducted, some were greedy, and some were in arrears. On average, I could only get two taels of silver a month and it would be a good thing.
Today, the main divisions of the Chu Empire Army include eight divisions, one cavalry brigade, three mortar artillery regiments, and three temporary mixed battalions. Although the above-mentioned seventh and eighth divisions are not yet full, their strength still reaches 90,000. .
The army also has about 70,000 garrison troops.
The navy also has a size of more than 5,000 people.
Finally, there are more than 13,000 Guardsmen who do not belong to the army or navy, but directly belong to the royal family.
The total strength of the above-mentioned troops reached 180,000.
Just the daily expenses of these 180,000 people require at least 550,000 silver each month.
That’s 6.6 million taels of silver in one year!
This is just personnel expenses!
Not counting mules and horses, mules and horses eat more!
The army of the Da Chu Empire had a large number of mules and horses.
Take the artillery unit as an example. The field artillery unit of the Dachu Empire Army has always paid great attention to mobility. In Zhang Malin's words: a field artillery that cannot run is just a pile of scrap metal!
Therefore, the artillery organization of the Da Chu Empire Army attaches great importance to maneuverability. Therefore, the rated organization of a four-door nine-pound field artillery post is very luxurious!
In addition to four nine-pound artillery pieces, this artillery post also owns eight four-wheeled heavy ammunition trucks, 13 two-wheeled trailers, one ordinary transport vehicle, and one repair vehicle.
So don't think that there are only four solitary artillery pieces. In order to support these four artillery pieces, there are more than twenty other various vehicles.
In order to maintain the operation of this artillery post, approximately one hundred men and one hundred horses were needed.
(Don’t ask me why I need so many people and horses. You have to ask, ask the U.S. Army during the Civil War... Their artillery battery of six twelve-pound cannons required 150 people and 150 horses. The horses are all fine and tall draft horses.)
And mules and horses cost a lot of money!
If you want a horse to maintain its fighting ability and not eat grass all day long... then you need to supply about five kilograms of hay and more than six kilograms of grain every day.
That’s more than a human can eat!
Therefore, whether it is the Da Chu Empire Army or other armies, the main expenditure of the field artillery unit is not the price of the artillery itself or the price of ammunition, but the cost of horses!
This also resulted in the fact that most of the artillery units in the Chu army actually lacked mules and horses.
Even the first division, which is the best paid, has three nine-pound field artillery posts. The three posts originally needed 300 horses, but now they only have more than 250 horses, and there is still a shortage of 50 horses. .
This is true for the First Division, not to mention other units. The horses at many artillery posts do not even reach half of the rated number. Many supplies and even ammunition need to be transported by soldiers or civilians with the help of carts.
This is also the reason why there is a serious shortage of artillery in all units of the Chu Empire Army. Although the establishment has been formulated, each main division said it needs forty or fifty field artillery, but in fact there are only two divisions. The artillery unit is fully staffed, while other divisions are seriously short of staff.
On the one hand, the artillery production capacity has not been raised yet, and on the other hand, there are not so many horses for pulling cannons. Even if there were so many, they would not be able to raise them...
Well, the various establishments of the Chu Empire Army have always been made in a large and comprehensive direction, but in actual operations it is rarely possible to achieve full strength.
This was also a very common situation during the war years.
However, although there is a serious shortage of mules and horses, the total number of mules and horses retained by the Chu army is still very large!
Just raising these mules and horses would cost about 150,000 taels per month during the march and combat.
Although you can save some expenses by grazing during non-combat periods, you can't save much because the Chu army and the Ming army are at war. By next year, the main forces will definitely have to move frequently, so many times it is impossible to For grazing mules and horses, they can only rely on their own supply of grain and grass.
In addition, mules and horses will continue to be lost during combat. It is normal for an artillery company to replace all mules and horses within three years. These lost mules and horses also need to be continuously purchased to replenish mules and horses.
In this way, the mules and horses alone will cost more than two million a year.
What level you can reach above this depends on how intense the battle is, how much damage is done to the mules and horses, and how much time is spent grazing.
However, two million is absolutely indispensable.
