Zheng Sen and Qian Chuyao's marriage will not be mentioned for the time being.

The time will soon be in September of the first year of Daming Zhongxing, and the autumn harvest is about to begin.

This is the second and last tax of the year, and according to last year's practice, the autumn tax can collect about 4 million taels of silver, excluding the salaries of officials and the salaries of officers and men, and in the end there should be more than one million taels of silver left.

Don't think that this million taels of silver is this year's surplus, how is it possible!

This million taels of silver must be supported until next summer's harvest, which is actually far from enough.

"After a big war, I'm so poor that I can't even open the pot!" Zhu Cihong sighed slightly, there are too many dead and wounded soldiers in the Xuzhou War, and tens of millions of taels of silver have been spent on the pension, which has been greatly overspent, resulting in all the taxes this year being filled in to be enough, but how to support the summer harvest next year is a serious problem, is it possible to have a salary arrears like the previous Emperor Chongzhen?

Zhu Cihong shook his head helplessly, it is definitely not okay to owe money and owe money, if you really want to do that, it is to lift a stone and shoot yourself in the foot, which will greatly weaken the centripetal force that was finally condensed, which is too bad for Daming.

"The next step of reform must start with taxation, and the sea ban must also be opened in a way, and the treasury must be gradually enriched!"

Zhu Cihong was silent and thoughtful.

Whether it is the successive dynasties or the current several reforms, there is no doubt that there will be a certain degree of confusion.

Zhu Cihong knew very well that the next step of tax reform, according to his current vision, once unfolded, would inevitably affect the interests of many gentry and powerful, and would cause even greater chaos.

After all, this time is different from the past, the relationship is very important, don't look at those squires who usually support the Ming Dynasty, but that is under the premise that the Ming Dynasty has not harmed their interests, if the policies introduced by the Ming Dynasty are contrary to their interests, they are likely to unite, and the Ming Dynasty will be eaten by these squires and heroes if they don't get it right, causing unpredictable consequences.

The powerful power of a single squire may be insignificant compared to the entire Ming Dynasty, but once they are all united, the power will be very large, so big that it can threaten the foundation of the Ming Dynasty.

However, although Zhu Cihong is very aware of this, he is not afraid, because the squires are stronger than the people in the world, and they always account for a very small minority, and the reform may damage the interests of the squires and the strong, but the benefits are thousands of times that of the ordinary people.

Zhu Cihong believed that in the early stage of reform, there might be some turmoil due to the dissatisfaction of the squires and heroes, but as long as they could win the support of tens of millions of ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty, they would definitely be able to forcibly suppress those squires. Therefore, for the sake of the Ming Dynasty and the interests of those thousands of ordinary people, Zhu Cihong will prepare for the next step of reform according to the plan without hesitation no matter what. After all, the current opportunity is too rare, full of fresh defeat, will not be able to go south in a few years, Li Zicheng lost his family, Zhang Xianzhong was blocked by Qin Liangyu in Sichuan and could not get out, if the Ming Dynasty does not carry out reform now, there may be no chance in the next ten years.

At this moment, although Daming only controls half of the south of the Yangtze River, Zhu Cihong is very clear that if he wants to carry out reforms, the more the situation in the region, the easier it is to control, and the easier it is to succeed in reform.

At that time, once the Northern Expedition begins, it will inevitably be devastated.

"To carry out further reforms, the strength of the Ying Long Army must be restored first!" Zhu Cihong thought firmly.

To ensure the smooth progress of the reform, strong military strength support is necessary, Zhu Cihong considered, since the remaining more than one million taels of silver can not support next year's summer harvest no matter what, then first take it out to restore the strength of the six armies of the Ying Long Army, and restore the strength of each army of the Ying Long Army to 20,000 people, this is his most descendant strength, if someone really takes the opportunity to make trouble during the next reform, the Ying Long Army can be swept away with the momentum of thunder.

After all, as long as the reform is successful, the silver taels invested can be recovered within a month or two, and even the same as the collapse of the Donglin Party back then, it is not necessary to make the treasury full at one time.

Thinking of this, the corners of Zhu Cihong's mouth hooked up a trace of bloodthirsty ruthlessness.

Zhu Cihong pondered silently for a while, and suddenly commanded the eunuch Zhao Dequan:

"Li Yan, the secretary of the Ministry of Propaganda, is not short of money to come to see me!"

"Yes!"

If you want to reform, you should also get the support of some courtiers in advance, and this time may be two to three months later, at this time, Zhu Cihong didn't want to alarm too many people, so he only called Li Yan and Qian Buqian into the palace to discuss secretly.

Of course, there is a limit to this discussion, but it is only for them to know some of the contents of the reform first, so that they can be mentally prepared in the future.

"Weichen Li Yan, see the emperor, long live my emperor, long live long live!" Li Yan saluted Zhu Cihong with a solemn face.

"There is no shortage of money for Weichen, see the emperor, long live my emperor, long live long live!" There is no shortage of money, but he is flattering, and he can't wait to immediately step forward and hug Zhu Cihong's thigh and slap his ass.

"Let's get flat!" Zhu Cihong nodded and said with a smile.

These two people Zhu Cihong can be trusted, Li Yan does not belong to any squire, whether it is before or after taking refuge in the Ming Dynasty, he has always been wholeheartedly thinking about the people of the world.

There is no shortage of money, afraid of death, can see the situation clearly, when Liu Zeqing was Liu Zeqing's son-in-law in the past, although he was also one of the local squires, but Liu Zeqing was quickly hugged Zhu Cihong's thigh after being killed, in order to show his loyalty, he voluntarily became Zhu Cihong's spokesperson in the court, Zhu Cihong Any inconvenience to say directly in front of the Manchu Dynasty civil and military words were said by Qian Buxian's mouth, and Qian Buqian fought with the Manchu Dynasty civil and military every time, and unswervingly stood on Zhu Cihong's side, Almost all courtiers are eager to strangle to death, betraying Zhu Cihong is tantamount to digging his own grave, Qian Bu knows this, so Zhu Cihong is not worried that Qian Bu knows his idea in advance.

After retiring all the idle people present, Zhu Cihong told the two of them his ideas for the next step of reform.

First came the salt tax, and then the most important agricultural tax.

To say that salt, is an indispensable object for the people's life, want a healthy body, people have to ingest a certain amount of salt every day, there are more than 70 million people in the ten provinces in the south of the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty, and the amount of salt required every year is undoubtedly huge.

The salt tax was first nationalized during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and since then, the salt tax has accounted for a large part of the annual tax revenue of all dynasties, only ranking below the most important agricultural tax, and sometimes the salt tax can even account for one-third of the annual tax revenue of the imperial court.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the tax revenue of salt also accounted for nearly one-third of the annual tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty, and during the Yongle period, the total population of the Ming Dynasty did not add up to the ten provinces in the south of the Yangtze River and the Huaijiang River combined, but it could receive nearly seven million taels of salt tax every year.

Salt comes from the sea, inexhaustible, the current price of salt in Nanjing City is about 400 yuan a pound of salt, of course, because of the distance from the sea, the price of salt in each place is different, and the price of salt in some remote places is even ten times that of Nanjing City.

According to the need for each person to eat one gram of salt per day, the modern normal is six grams, considering that the ancient salt is expensive, only according to one-sixth of the modern calculation, the Ming Jiang, Huaijiang, Jiangnan and other ten provinces have a total of 70 million people, and more than 50 million catties of salt are needed every year.

Interests make people crazy, and the huge interests of the salt industry naturally make the officials, nobles, and squires involved in it collude with each other to resell illicit salt, and the disaster of illicit salt will cause the price of regular merchant salt to be higher than that of illicit salt, and there are fewer and fewer businessmen who pay salt tax to buy regular salt, which is a vicious circle.

As far as Zhu Cihong knows, the Ming Dynasty only collected hundreds of thousands of taels of salt tax last year, compared with the annual seven million taels in the Yongle period, it can be only one-tenth, this is because the total population of the Ming Dynasty during the Yongle period is less than the current ten provinces in the south of the Yangtze River, you can imagine how big the difference is, only the salt tax alone Ming lost at least nearly seven million taels of silver in the year.

Don't look at the price of private salt without paying taxes and think that the price of private salt will be cheaper than official salt, it may be in the early stage, but once the regular salt merchants are forced to death by them, these people will increase the price arbitrarily because of the interests of the people, which is why the salt in some remote places has even risen to the terrifying point of ten taels of silver a catty.

If the salt tax is to be rectified, it will probably focus on eradicating corrupt officials and salt merchants and other official and business groups along the coast, and some of the gentry will be involved, but it will only be limited to the coastal areas.

It's the agricultural tax, which is related to the interests of all the squires, even if Zhu Cihong is the emperor, he has to be careful and careful.

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