Chapter 58： tax

After a period of military expansion, Wu Changqing now has 20,000 troops.

This number is actually very small. Liu Liangzuo occupies a Changzhou and can raise an army of 60,000 to 70,000, while Wu Changqing occupies a large area of ​​Wusong. According to Liu Liangzuo's method, it is no problem to raise an army of 100,000.

However, Wu Changqing did not do this. God knows how many people would be killed.

After expanding the army to 20,000, Wu Changqing also began to consider how to collect taxes. Relying on the little money obtained by hacking homes can support the army for two or three months, but that is not a long-term solution after all, and it is not a stable source of financial resources.

You can't find a few big households to search their homes every time you run out of money, so that other big households dare to stay in Suzhou. If those wealthy businessmen run away with their assets, then the social system of Suzhou City will also collapse.

Businessmen, most of them are indeed not good things, but a society really cannot lack them.

In addition to raising the army, he also needs to pay the officials on the site. It is impossible to expect the Ming court to allocate funds. Now, whether it is King Lu or King Tang, all of them are poor and want to be pants.

They both have official ranks and titles, but they don't have any money.

His monthly military expenditures and administrative expenditures add up to about 300,000 yuan. And once a war starts, the military expenditure may cost one million taels a month.

The wounded soldiers need treatment, the soldiers who died need compensation, and the consumption of food and ordnance, these are bottomless pits.

"Mr. Gu, how much money do we have in the warehouse now?"

Wu Changqing asked.

“It’s only 700,000 taels. If there is no war, it’s okay. Once a war or some natural disaster occurs, the money is completely insufficient. Moreover, if we want to continue to expand the number of Mongolian schools and open colleges, we still need to prepare one million. Two or so."

Gu Yanwu said.

"What about taxes, how much is Wu Song's tax in a month here?"

Wu Changqing asked.

"Because we did not set up a card to collect li, nor did we increase taxes, the current tax revenue is very low, less than one hundred thousand taels a month. General, now we have completely controlled Wu Song, and we can adopt more aggressive tax policies. Those merchants can't afford to make waves."

Before Wu Changqing's control of the locality was not stable enough, and there was a strong enemy of the Qing court, so they did not dare to increase business taxes rashly for fear of causing resistance from businessmen and causing social unrest.

However, now the Qing army has no strength to attack them, and their strength has expanded to 20,000, and they have enough ability to deter those Xiaoxiao.

In this case, taxation can actually be increased appropriately.

Only one hundred thousand a month?

This number makes Wu Changqing speechless, it is too few.

As for Gu Yanwu's increase in business tax, Wu Changqing also agreed that the business tax will be increased sooner or later, otherwise their regime will not be able to continue.

"In order to avoid those people's resentment, start with my shop and Chen's business."

Wu Changqing said that he played a trick here.

On the surface, first increase taxes on my family and my in-laws’ businesses, but it seems to be quite unselfish. But in fact, the truth is that even if the Wu family and Chen family's taxes are not collected, the money earned by the two families is directly used by Wu Changqing and invested in the army.

Taxes are now collected in a different way and handed over to the army, and the result is the same.

For other businessmen, it is completely different, because the money they make now is their own. And if the tax was increased, they would have to pay extra to Wu Changqing to raise the army.

This kind of trick may not be easy to deceive those shrewd businessmen, but in the eyes of the people, Wu Changqing is very fair and unselfish and can get the support of the people.

These years, the officials who collected taxes and used their own businesses first have long since disappeared. Wu Changqing's move can obviously buy a lot of people's hearts.

"This is naturally better."

Gu Yanwu said that he admired Wu Changqing's willingness to put all his family property into the army.

In this era, few military officers or civil servants would do this. They were all relying on power to make money, and no one would post money inside.

The reason for this situation is actually very simple. When someone becomes an official or leads a soldier, they are rushing to get promoted and make a fortune. The life and death of the country has nothing to do with them.

And Wu Changqing is running to dominate the world, in his eyes this world is already his own. As long as the unified world becomes the emperor, then the wealth of the entire world belongs to him.

Afterwards, Gu Yanwu took out his preliminary business tax plan, Wu Changqing took a look at it, and put forward his own suggestions for amendments in some places.

Commercial tax cannot be set arbitrarily, otherwise it will cause social unrest.

For example, if the tax on food and salt is too high, businessmen can only increase prices if they can't make money, and if the people cannot afford it, they can only starve to death or die of illness.

If merchants are not allowed to increase prices, merchants will not do this business if they cannot make money, and the people will still starve to death or die of illness.

If local businessmen’s taxes are too high to compare their products with those of foreigners, they will lose their competitiveness. If the taxes on foreigners’ goods are set too high, foreigners will not come if they are unprofitable, leading to economic recession.

From ancient times to the present, and from now on, those in power know in their hearts that businessmen are not good things, but they have nothing to do with them.

After formulating a large number of detailed tax rates, Gu Yanwu estimated that in the future, the tax revenue of Wusong will reach about 500,000 taels per month.

This is pretty good. When Chongzhen was in power, the whole country could only collect four or five million taels.

"You find someone to set up a special tax inspection team. Those who dare to evade tax and resist tax will be fined. Those who fail to change after repeated instruction will directly copy their homes, and the owner of the family will beheaded to show the public."

Wu Changqing said that if he didn't make a move, he would have to be cruel enough to make those businessmen afraid of resistance.

If they don't be tough when they resist, they will probably join forces to fight tax collectively, and that will be troublesome.

The best way is to be very tough at the beginning, seize one or two typical homes, and kill chickens and monkeys.

"Should we recruit some more officials? We are now seriously understaffed."

Gu Yanwu said, in fact, after receiving a large number of demotions, there is not much shortage of administrative officials. However, Wu Changqing has not declared allegiance to the Ming court, leading to some things that could have been handed over to the Ming court. They now have to do it themselves, such as collecting taxes, counting the population, treating disaster victims, and assessing officials.

This requires the addition of many new administrative officials, but they are not central to the court and cannot directly appoint officials.

In short, because they are not an independent regime in name, but in reality they are an independent regime, which will cause a series of troubles.

"Yes, it doesn't have to be recognized by the court anyway. We can appoint them an official position first. As for the future, let's talk about it later, let this institution operate normally."

Wu Changqing said, he almost said that he was going to rebel. After all, with Wu Changqing's current status, he is really not qualified to appoint those civilian officials.

Gu Yanwu was quite helpless when he heard this, he didn't know how things would develop in the future. In short, he can only count one step at a time. The address of the latest chapter of the aircraft carrier I built in Daming: https://www.novelhall.com/book/149212.htmlI built the full text of the aircraft carrier in Daming to read the address: https://www.novelhall.com/read/149212/I built the aircraft carrier txt download address in Daming: https://www.novelhall.com/down/149212.htmlI read it on the mobile phone built by Daming: https://m.novelhall.com/read/149212/In order to facilitate the next reading, you can click \"Favorites\" below to record this (Chapter 58 Tax) reading record, and open the bookshelf next time You can see it! If you like "I Build an Aircraft Carrier in Daming", please recommend this book to your friends (QQ, blog, WeChat, etc.) ,Thank you for your support! ! (www.novelhall.com)