Great Warriors of Sui and Tang Dynasties

Chapter 1254

On Jiuzhou Pool, Luo Cheng and Wei Zheng are boating in the pool.

A pot of clear tea with an attractive aroma.

Holding the teacup, the emperor looked at the stretched leaves in the tea, "This small piece of tea can now bring 800 million yuan in tax revenue to the Qin court every year, which is really amazing. And this porcelain is also a sought-after commodity in the trade. My Ministry of Internal Affairs has established many tea houses and porcelain kilns all over the world, and through the cultivation of tea, making porcelain and selling it, it has made tens of millions of profits."

Wei Zheng also looked down at the tea and teacup in his hand, "In the south, tea is mostly grown on the mountains, and it does not occupy the farmland of the people. It can increase the income of the people, increase the tax for the court, and increase the income of the internal treasury for your majesty. It is indeed a good thing. Especially those The nomads are more dependent on tea than the people in the Central Plains, if they don’t drink it for a day, they will tasteless, and if they don’t drink it for a month, they will get sick.”

The sales of tea are getting higher and higher, and it has become a very sought-after commodity in foreign trade, and the supply exceeds the demand.Nowadays, more and more tea trees are planted, various tea species have been developed, and there are more and more processing methods, such as black tea, green tea, white tea, yellow tea, dark tea and so on.Expensive teas, such as Wuyishan Dahongpao, West Lake Longjing, Anxi Tieguanyin, Dongting Lake Biluochun, Lushan Yunwu, Junshan Yinzhen and other teas that were popularized by the emperor, are called expensive.

Especially the top grade among them is more expensive than gold. The tea leaves are packaged in tea flakes, tea bricks, loose tea and so on. Forty thousand, one tael of Junshan silver needles and two taels of gold, but although the price is expensive, there is no market for it, and ordinary people can't buy it at all.

The lowest price is the black tea bricks sold on the grasslands. These teas are made from the worst tea leaves, and some are even called knife tea. The stems, leaves, and even branches are cut off, and then processed into tea bricks. The cheapest of this kind of tea bricks costs [-] yuan a catty.

And this [-] qian is only the price of the tea garden, which has not been taxed yet, and the tea tax is now [-] taels and [-] taels.Merchants changed hands and trafficked them layer by layer, and finally shipped them to the grasslands, where the price has doubled several times.

This kind of low-grade black tea costs [-] yuan for the cheap ones, and [-] yuan for the expensive ones.

And better tea costs more than thirty or forty wen to thousands of wen per catty. As for more high-end tea, it is hard to find a tea, no matter how high the price is, people will want it.

Nowadays, the imperial court's control over tea is getting stronger and stronger, and the monopoly system is directly implemented, and the tea government is like the salt government.

What is implemented is that the government collects and sells the tea, and the common people grow tea, which can only be sold and purchased by the tea office of the imperial court. Different kinds of tea have different purchase prices.

After the tea leaves are received by the government, the tea merchants come to buy them again. The tea merchants have to pay taxes first when buying tea, that is, they first get the tea Yin, which is the proof of tax payment. They sell and sell.

Although the tea merchants obtained the tea, they only paid the special tea tax. Therefore, they still had to pay the city tax and customs duties in the process of trafficking.

Of course, there are powerful royal tea merchants like the Royal Ministry of Internal Affairs, who not only have a large number of tea gardens of their own, but also have a large number of highly skilled tea processing workshops. After the tea is processed in their hands, with the royal signboard, it can add a lot of value. .

The salt tax has been reduced, but the tax on tea and wine has been greatly increased, and now there are even sugar taxes, taxes on vehicles, horses, boats, etc.

"In the financial budget formulated last year, several million yuan was originally set aside as a backup, but now there are still a few months before the Chinese New Year, but the imperial treasury has already been in a serious deficit. This Jinghu water conservancy is a bottomless pit, and we will have to invest millions every year in the future. It can even be tens of millions of people."

Wei Zheng is also a little worried about the court's finances. Although the court's ability to raise money is quite strong, its ability to spend money is even stronger.

"Fortunately, this year's use of troops in the Western Regions, Western Mountains, and Jinghu Lake has not lost any money, and has made some profits. Otherwise, the pressure will be even greater."

When Cheng Yaojin used troops in Anxi, he wiped out Shunishi and Qiuci at once, and the Shunishi tribe was slaughtered, but most of their millions of livestock fell into the pockets of the imperial court, including a large number of horses and weapons. etc. In addition, there are also a lot of tribal property such as tents. These are not small numbers.

"Taipu Temple has successively sold most of the cattle, horses, sheep, camels, etc., especially the hundreds of thousands of horses, which is a huge sum of money."

Horses have always been precious, even in a herdsman's family. A herdsman's family may raise hundreds of sheep and dozens of cows, but they will never have many horses. Horses consume too much and it is difficult to raise them.

"However, in comparison, it is still more profitable to destroy the Kucha country. Although tens of thousands of Kucha people were killed, the remaining hundreds of thousands of Kucha people were reduced to slaves. This is worth more than tens of millions. In addition, the city , fields, houses, shops, gold and silver, livestock, etc. are also abundant.”

A powerful country in the Western Regions was directly wiped out without much loss from the war.

Before, the imperial court had not included these in the treasury revenue. First, it had not been sorted out, and second, the money was still reserved for him.

After all, war income is not regular income, and it does not come every year.

"The Kucha slaves are all sold, and some of them are used to reward the lieutenants, so that the court no longer has to spend money to reward them. In addition, everything in the Kucha Kingdom can be sold, such as fields, houses, shops, livestock, etc. Wait, you can sell them, and transfer the proceeds from the sale to the state treasury."

"Wei Zheng, I think this battle in Anxi is a good idea. You see, in this battle, only the local garrison in Anxi was dispatched, and the imperial court did not have much additional military expenditure. Even the rewards and pensions afterwards were all captured from the war. So, this is a business that makes money without losing money, and now that the imperial court is spending a lot, I really want to do a few more votes like this."

Wei Zheng hastily reminded the emperor, "The Battle of Anxi is just an exception. Wars often only result in losses but not profits. Just like last year's Northwest War, the imperial court mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops and millions of militias and civilians. In the end, it cost tens of millions. The treasury is gone."

"It was different at the beginning, but now such opponents are gone after all. I am going to send more troops to Su Dingfang, give him greater freedom of movement, and let him launch more offensives against the Qiang people in the Western Mountains, especially the Qiang people. Those arrogant and disobedient Wanghua, be more ruthless, and have an autumn offensive!"

Luo Cheng tasted the sweetness of the war, Cheng Yaojin Anxi battle, annihilated a country and a tribe, and the income was even equivalent to the normal tax of the court for two or three years, but the expenditure was almost negligible.

"Your Majesty, be careful."

"I think it's time to act. Now that Anxi is stable, and while Tubo is still in civil strife, if we don't clean up the Qiangs in the Western Mountains at this time, I'm afraid there will be no such good opportunity when we turn around. We will use troops to sweep the Western Mountains at this time. It can also cooperate with Cunxiao and Du Fuwei in Yunnan."

The Qiang people in the Western Mountains are very poor, and the mountains and rivers are poor. These Qiang people are not nomadic, they like to build blockhouses, but Luo Cheng still thinks that they should be fought, and even if the Qiangs are poor, it is still very valuable to capture Qiang as slaves, and Qiang Although people have little property, their cattle, sheep, and horses are also very valuable.

As long as Su Anfang followed the previous style of play, the court would have no reason to lose money.

Luo Cheng never had a good impression of those Western Qiang who refused to accept Wanghua, and he didn't regard them as any people at all. Only naturalized barbarians with the household registration of the Great Qin can be regarded as Qin people, and the rest are just barbarians, so they don't count. people.

(End of this chapter)