A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 416 Your Majesty, I Have No Money
"Your Majesty, there is no money."

"very?"

"The national treasury is empty, the court has no money, and this battle cannot be fought now."

Wu Huaiyu spoke bluntly.

······
Li Shimin was silent, he didn't expect Wu Huaiyu's objection was because of this.Fang Xuanling didn't speak out against it just now, but he didn't support it either. In fact, as the Prime Minister, he knew the family background of the imperial court.

Of course, Wu Huaiyu stood up and said that he had no money to oppose the war, and that was his duty.

His current official position is, Dr. Jin Ziguanglu travels to Yongzhou, concurrently serves as Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Pan Duzhi, examines and governs books and serves as Yushi, Duke Yi seals [-] households, adds the title of Champion General, and is a bachelor of Chongxian Hall , Shangzhu Guowu Huaiyu.

In this long list of official titles, there are ranks, positions, honors, titles, titles, and general titles. Of course, the most important ones are Yongzhou Biejia, Minister of Civil Affairs, Judgment Branch, and School Secretary Censor.

Among them, although the rank of Judgment Duzhi, Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, is not high, he has great powers, which is equivalent to Wu Huaiyu being the current Minister of Finance of the Tang Empire.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs of Datang, to put it bluntly, is roughly equivalent to the combination of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Land Bureau, and even the Central Bank and the State Administration of Taxation. Manage the finances of the entire country.

Duzhi Director, Guan Duzhi Langzhong, was originally in charge of this.

But now the emperor asked Wu Huaiyu to also serve as the minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and he also specialized in judging and judging, high-ranking officials and low-ranking officials.Asking the assistant minister to judge Du Zhisi is actually tantamount to seizing the power of Du Zhi Lang.

Wu Huaiyu was specially appointed to judge the entire country's finances.

There is a doctor who specially appointed a servant to judge. It's not that the emperor doesn't trust the doctor, but it was temporarily set up for the issuance of bonds and coordination of disaster relief. But Du Zhisi really needs him for all affairs now. The assistant minister who specializes in judging the expenditure signed and reviewed it.

Judging Duzhi is a temporary errand. In fact, it can be sentenced even if it is not an official of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, but it must be a high-ranking official. long.

In order to facilitate his leadership, Li Shimin appointed him as a deputy minister.

Originally, this leading group was only temporary, but Li Shimin continued to add tasks to Wu Huaiyu, letting him almost completely manage the affairs of the Duzhi Division, and everything related to the state's finances had to go through his hands.

The emperor trusts you and burdens you, and you can't complain.

Wu Huaiyu was in his position, so of course he had to find a job. Anyway, after he had a deep understanding of Datang's finances, he was quite surprised.

too poor.

Not only poor, but also chaotic.

The entire country's finances have no system at all. They have been patched one after another on the basis of the Sui Dynasty, and they have been borrowed from east to west.

In fact, just one statistic shows how chaotic Tang Chu's finances were.

When the Sui Dynasty prospered, there were nearly 900 million households and a population of nearly 5000 million. It has been ten years since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, and the population and land are still unclear. There is only one general figure, which is that the households are nearly 200 million. .

From 900 million to 200 million households, the war at the end of the Sui Dynasty destroyed 700 million households?
But the problem is that there was only a few years of chaos at the end of the Sui Dynasty. In the seventh year of Daye, Liaodong was conquered.

Later, the unification war between Li and Tang lasted for about five years, and they were basically unified. Therefore, at the turn of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the period of turmoil was quite short.

It is impossible to lose [-]% to [-]% of the population in the past ten years.

The actual situation is just the chaos and inefficiency of the administration of the Tang Dynasty, so until now, the real census of the household registration population and land records has not been completed.

Of course, this is not all a bad thing, and there are some advantages, that is, since the end of the Sui Dynasty, many ordinary people have been able to avoid taxation and labor, and have a chance to breathe. Can't go down.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that the imperial court deliberately turned a blind eye. At the beginning of the founding of the country, the main goal of Li Yuan and the imperial court was to unify the world, and everything else was secondary. Things like clearing up fields and registering population are not so strict.

Because landlords and tyrants took the opportunity to annex and occupy many fields, and also took the opportunity to turn many refugees into their tenants and even slaves. The world is not unified. If the imperial court starts to check their fields and population, it will push them to the opposite side to go.

Think back to Sui Ping Nan Chen, and then immediately conducted a population and land census of the entire Jiangnan.

Li Yuan is a person from that era, so his policy is not to touch this.

The advantage is that it does not touch their interests and can gain their support, but the disadvantages are also obvious, that is, Datang implements the system of rent and mediocrity, with the population as the basis of tax collection, and the collection is mainly land output.

However, the population has changed from nearly 900 million households to less than 200 million households, and the national tax revenue has also been reduced by more than [-]%.

If taxes cannot be collected, the national finances will have no money.

How to do?
Salad.

At the beginning of the founding of the Tang Dynasty, officials did not even have salaries, and local officials did not have Lumi, so they directly collected land for rent.The Beijing officials later gave Lumi, but it was very little, and they were often in arrears, and there was no monthly salary. Later, when the conditions were better, it was slowly increased.

Even now, officials' monthly salaries are actually not distributed by the state finance, but the money earned from lending and collecting interest from public money is used to provide salaries and subsidies to officials.

The three major expenditures of the national finances are palace expenditures, official salaries, and raising soldiers to fight wars.

The Tang Dynasty implemented the military system. When there is no war, there is no military expenditure. Anyway, they divide the land, and then they have to prepare their own clothing, food, equipment and horses to serve the country. Only when they go to war, the country is responsible for food, grass, equipment, and rewards. Compensate for these.

Officials spend less, and the number of official staff is very small, and most of them have no staff. If they don’t have staff, they don’t need to pay salaries.

The government's office expenses, etc., are even settled by the public funds.

Therefore, at the beginning of the founding of the Tang Dynasty, there was a great feature, that is, officials not only had to work, but also had to engage in sideline business, public land, job land lease, public money lending, and they had to earn wages for themselves.

The capitalist will cry when he hears this.

But that's how it's been over the years.

The public money alone is amazing. Every government office is trying to find a way to build a small treasury, engage in money lending, and make money to pay wages and benefits.

The entire Chang'an is now responsible for the history of the money-grabbing order for public money lending. There are as many as hundreds of people, and that is only formally compiled on the surface.

The two provinces under Zhongshumen have 170 history of money-grabbing orders, while the Ministry of Civil Affairs has the most history of money-grabbing orders, a total of [-].

Datang’s public money lending has actually gotten out of control, the interest rate is too high, almost 100% per year, and another is that it is not easy to release such a large amount of money every year and guarantee it back, so now all the yamen want to The method is to find those rich households and merchants, lend them money directly, and return the principal and interest when due.

Whether you need it or not, apportionment.

In fact, this is a kind of plundering of wealthy merchants.

In order to ensure the income of their own units, each yamen has a performance appraisal for the history of seizing money, and recruits the children of high-ranking officials with status. They have status backgrounds and can guarantee to lend out and get it back.

Zhuqian Lingshi's performance is good, and they can be promoted first. For their own small coffers, the vast majority of officials who are promoted now are these Zhuqian Lingshi, which makes other officials in Chang'an now The party members are very dissatisfied, their normal promotion channels have been blocked. In the history of the money arrest order in Chang'an last year, more than 600 people were granted the status of senior officials.

There are many problems.

Including public land and employment land, the extra burden on the common people is actually quite large.

These are all the results of the imperial court's lack of systematic finances.

Normally, it can barely support the operation with sewing and mending, but once there is a war, it will be a big hole.

This is the same as last year's severe drought in the Kanto region, where a large number of victims were affected, and the imperial court had no money and food relief, so it was best to use Huaiyu's method of issuing bonds to fill the holes.

The hole has just been filled, and the fiscal deficit has increased by a large sum. Now there is another war, and the Turks are still being conquered. There is no army of three or five routes, and at least one hundred thousand soldiers can be obtained. The military expenditure is very staggering. .

As soon as the cannon is fired, ten thousand taels of gold are paid, the soldiers and horses have not moved, and the food and grass go first.

Anyway, Wu Huaiyu knew that the imperial court was going to fight now, but they had no money or food at all.

"Your Majesty, the imperial court is really out of money and can't support the Turkic Northern Expedition at all. I suggest that we should wait another year or two." Wu Huaiyu said bluntly.

Li Shimin's enthusiasm was drowned out by a basin of cold water.

Qin Qiong insisted on asking for a fight, "Your Majesty, the opportunity is rare, and the opportunity is fleeting. If the Turks get through this difficulty and give them a breather, we will send troops to crusade again in the future, but it will be difficult. I am willing to take the lead in donating money and food for the war." Army, I would like to donate [-] bolts of silk." Qin Qiong also straightened up and donated [-] bolts of silk to fight the war, killing enemies for the country at his own expense.

Hou Junji even said bluntly, "Mr. Yi, the Ministry of Civil Affairs can issue some more bonds. The bonds issued last time for disaster relief raised a lot of money. Let's issue bonds to raise money again this time,"

Wu Huaiyu wanted to roll her eyes at him.

Wei Zheng stood up to help him refute, "Your Majesty, issuing bonds is borrowing money. Since it is borrowing money, it does not come out of thin air. It has to be repaid. In essence, it is living without money. The annual tax of the imperial court is so much. Now It is very dangerous to overdraft the subsequent taxes in advance.

If it was as simple as Hou Junji’s, you can borrow it casually, and how would you pay it back when it’s due?If not, what about the court's credit?
Moreover, even if the money is borrowed, it still belongs to the common people. If it is used for war, if it is not paid by then, what will the common people do if they encounter difficulties?
The war does not have to be fought, and it does not have to be fought now. A sage king will not ignore the life and death of his people. If the country has no money, then continue to rest and recuperate. If you die in the world, the lessons learned from the past are in front of you. Please think twice, Your Majesty. "

Li Shimin was utterly chilled.

"Is the country's finances so bad?" Li Shimin couldn't help but sigh. He was excited to discuss sending troops to destroy the Turks, but now he can only turn his head to discuss why Datang's finances are so poor.

"Erlang, you are now serving as Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Pan Duzhi, and in charge of the country's finances. Do you have any good strategies to change the current predicament?"

(End of this chapter)