Daming Military Empire

Chapter 63
Looking forward, looking forward, August finally arrived, and the Ministry of Household Affairs began to organize officials from the Qing Dynasty to go to the provinces to supervise the taxation. In half a month, the taxes and taxes from various places will be collected one after another, and finally the money will be used.

Life without money is really tough. Zhu Cijiong can hardly do anything in the past two months. He can only devote all his thoughts to the trial production of a new type of flintlock gun to pass the time.

Xu Guangqi and Bi Maokang and other cronies have gradually reached the level of engineers after several years of training. No matter what equipment, as long as Zhu Cijiong gives the general idea, they can make it soon.However, the new type of flintlock gun does not mean that it can be made after it is made. The performance of the weapon generally depends on the high-precision parts.

The first is the barrel. Although the accuracy of the rifling does not affect the acceleration of the bullet when it is ejected from the chamber, if the rifling is slightly flawed, the bullet will be offset after ejecting from the chamber. That is to say, as long as the rifling is engraved, the range can reach 500 meters. The above, but the accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Even if the bullet is ejected from the chamber, even if it is only offset by one millimeter, it will be offset by about one meter after 100 meters, and it will be offset by more than five meters after 300 meters. Can you still hit it after five meters?
This problem has troubled Zhu Cijiong and the others for a while. The bridging bed seems simple, but the riflings pulled out are very different. Zhu Cijiong got angry and used a grinder to grind all the parts of the breeching machine to solve this problem.

Then there is the bullet, although it is just a simple cylinder with a taper in the front, if the cone at the front end and the cylinder at the rear end are slightly out of center, the bullet will fly around after being ejected from the chamber.

Everyone has been thinking about this problem for a long time. This time, it was Song Yingxing who made a special turning tool to make the bullet into shape with one knife. This problem was solved.

Finally, there is the detachable medicine chamber, which requires the highest accuracy, and even if there is even a slight difference in the connection between it and the barrel and the flintlock device, there will be air leakage and pressure release, and the air leakage and compression will shorten the shooting range. Not to mention, it is easy to hurt the soldiers' eyes.The air leak mentioned here is not an air leak, but a spark leak. If you accidentally spray it in your eyes, it will be strange if you don’t spray it.

This problem is even more troublesome. The medicine room is not a regular shape, and it needs to go through many processes to process it. In the end, everyone converted all the machine tools in all processes into special machine tools to solve the problem.

It will be almost August until the prototype of the new flintlock gun is successfully produced, and now Zhu Cijiong is waiting for the tax increase to be in place.

He estimated that this time about 500 million taels of taxes could be raised, of which the rent of farmland could be increased by about 500 million taels, and the commodity transaction tax could be increased by about 1000 million taels.

He has already planned how to use the 500 million taels. First, he needs to prepare sweet potato seedlings for the relocated victims, which will cost at least 200 million taels; then Liaodong has to make up for the military expenses, which is more than 400 million taels. ; and the peasant rebel army in Shaanxi and Shanxi is also going to suppress it. It is not enough to suppress a few people, at least 300, and it will take more than 400 million troops to mobilize the guards in various places; in the end, there are 10 million left Two or so Zhu Cijiong plans to expand the Beijing camp to [-] people, each equipped with new types of flintlock guns and grenades. Although the [-] troops cannot clean up Huang Taiji, it is still not a problem to sweep the peasant uprising army.

It's that old saying again: ideals are beautiful, but reality is cruel. When the Ministry of Household Affairs reported the tax situation, Zhu Cijiong was instantly stunned.

The newly added taxes only collected more than 900 million taels, which could guarantee the seedlings for the relocation of the victims and the military expenses of Liaodong.

What's going on here?Zhu Cijiong summoned Daozong, Minister of the Household Department, to the Imperial Study Room to question him carefully.

The rent of farmland is normal. Excluding the provinces affected by the disaster, the newly added rent has collected a total of more than 500 million taels. This transaction tax is not normal. few!

Zhu Cijiong was about to go crazy on the spot, what is your household department doing to eat, there are more than 1 million people in Ming Dynasty, don’t you buy anything all year round?Salt always has to be eaten, right?Clothes always have to be worn, right?These two add up to an average of three or four taels per person a year, right?This is a transaction volume of 1000 billion, [-] million yuan in taxes, and more than [-] million yuan in taxes for these two things alone. Can't you figure it out?
Before he could speak, Lai Daozong had already submitted a list. Zhu Cijiong saw that this was the list of transaction taxes paid by the provinces.Shanxi ranked first, and paid nearly 100 million taels of tax silver. The next No. 2 to No. 12 ranked from more than 50 taels to more than 20 taels, which is quite normal.

The last three are not normal. The three provinces of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, and Fujian have only paid a total of more than 20 taels of transaction tax!

Zhu Cijiong instantly felt like he was being tricked, did he really think I was younger?Those are the three wealthiest provinces in Ming Dynasty, with a population of nearly 6000 million, not to mention other people can buy more than this number of clothes!

Calculated based on the most basic rice price, the price of rice in Daming is about one tael of silver and one stone of rice, and one stone of rice is about fifty catties. In Zhu Cijiong's previous life, the price of rice was about two yuan per catty, that is to say, converted into modern purchasing power, A tael of silver is roughly equivalent to about 100 yuan.In the era when he lived, clothes cost more than 100 or more than two hundred pieces, and the worst clothes cost tens of dollars a piece. That is to say, 6000 million people spent hundreds of millions of taels of silver a year to buy a piece of clothing. The tax is more than 300 million taels, and now they have only paid a total of more than 20 taels. Don't they have to bare their buttocks all year round!
The combined transaction tax of the three richest provinces is not as high as that of the poorest province. This is simply an insult to people's IQ. Zhu Cijiong was furious on the spot. He slapped the list on the table and said angrily: "Nanzhili A total of more than 20 taels were handed over from the three provinces of China, Zhejiang, and Fujian, do you think I am an idiot?"

Lai Daozong lay down on the ground in fright, and kowtowed repeatedly: "The emperor calms down, the emperor calms down."

By the way, why is Daozong so timid?He is a veteran of the three dynasties, he is the Minister of the Household Department, and a cabinet scholar. How could he be so afraid of an eight-year-old child?

Of course he wouldn't be afraid if it was another child. The problem is that this child is the current emperor. None of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty is a good stubble. Let alone you are the minister of the household department. Yes, this is not unusual in Daming, do you think he is not afraid?

Of course Zhu Cijiong didn't want to drag him out and chop him up, he was just angry at being treated like a monkey.Seeing Lai Daozong like this, he couldn't help but feel soft. After all, he is a first-rank official in the dynasty and he is a lot older, so he shouldn't hurt his self-esteem too much.

So, Zhu Cijiong calmed down his anger, and asked helplessly: "Tell me, what is going on?"

When Daozong saw that the emperor had really appeased his anger, he came back to his senses and argued: "The taxes and taxes of these three provinces have always been collected by the Nanjing household department, and I don't know what's going on!"

Zhu Cijiong was taken aback when he heard the words. It turned out that this incident had nothing to do with Daozong. He got angry with someone for no reason, and he was so embarrassed that he didn't know what to do.

He pretended to ponder for a while, then resentfully said: "Well, I see, you can go down."

(End of this chapter)