Chapter 490: If You Don’t Have Money, Go Grab It

The financial revenue of the Northern Song Dynasty was actually very rich. Taking the ten years of Xining as an example, the income of that year was 57 million guan, stone, horse, and tael (guan is money, stone is grain, horse is cloth, and liang is silver. ), if you give Chongzhen these incomes, I am afraid that he will be happy to death, so there is no need to worry.

However, the financial expenditures of the Northern Song Dynasty also remained high, and these expenditures were mainly divided into: military expenditures, official salary expenditures, annual currency expenditures, farmland water conservancy expenditures, royal family expenditures, and other expenditures.

The first is military expenses. Military expenses are usually divided into military maintenance expenses and equipment expenses. In the Song Dynasty, there were Khitans in the north and Dangxiang in the northwest. They had to gather heavy troops in Hebei and Shaanxi for defense. In addition, the Song Dynasty recruited elite refugees to serve as the Xiang army every time there was a disaster. Of course, this reduced the threat of rebellion by refugees, and it also increased the number of soldiers in Song Dynasty.

It costs money to raise soldiers, and it also costs money to buy equipment for them. If there is a war on the border, the cost will be even more. In Taiping, the military expenditure of the Song Dynasty accounted for half of the fiscal expenditure. If there is a war, it will be terrible. Just go straight to Qicheng.

Then there is the salary expenditure of officials. The large number of officials in the Song Dynasty is famous for their good treatment. The annual expenditure of Song Guang in this area is about 3 million.

From this point of view, the annual coin expenditure is not very much, and now there are only 200,000 taels of silver and 300,000 pieces of silk every year, but the money given is really aggrieved.

The expenditure on farmland water conservancy varies from year to year. Because Kaifeng is built on the edge of the Yellow River, the Yellow River water conservancy has become the focus of the court's attention, and tens of millions of dollars will be spent on it. more.

The royal family's expenses include four aspects: daily expenses, palace repairs and mausoleum construction, sacrificial expenses, and clan expenses. .

With a yearly income of nearly 60 million guan, more than half of the military expenditure will be cut first, leaving only more than 20 million guan. After deducting salary expenditure, farmland water conservancy, and royal family expenses, there are really not many left in the Song Dynasty. Money, the Song Dynasty had experienced fiscal deficits many times before that the annual income could not cover the expenditure.

Once, even the reward money that the former emperor should have given to the imperial army could not be moved out, which made the imperial army almost mutiny. Under such circumstances, it is really not easy to raise a large sum of money to promote new seeds and build a gun factory.

Otherwise, Wang Anshi would not want to reform the law, but he can't come up with money for a while, but Shen Long has a solution, "It's not difficult, but I don't know if Jiefu is willing or not." did it."

Could it be possible that Daoist Shen can turn stones into gold? Wang Anshi asked hastily, "Dare to ask what can I do?"

"What is money? Copper coins are money,

Is silver and gold considered money? "Shen Long asked back, he really has a way to get a lot of gold and silver.

"Of course it's money." Wang Anshi replied resolutely, and thinking about the history books that Shen Long had given him, Wang Anshi had a flash of inspiration, and felt that he had guessed Shen Long's thoughts, "Doesn't the Taoist know that there are gold mines and silver mines there?" ?”

"Of course, but it's not in the territory of the Song Dynasty, so I asked Jiefu if he would like to do it." Shen Long said with a smile. In fact, the mines in the territory of the Song Dynasty are not gold mines or silver mines, such as the Zhaoyuan Gold Mine in Shandong. At this time, someone from the imperial court was already mining gold there. By the time of Yuanfeng, Zhaoyuan produced 10,000 taels of gold every year, accounting for more than 90% of the country's gold production.

But this is far from the mining limit of the Zhaoyuan gold mines. The gold mines in Zhaoyuan were mined from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, and then from the Ming Dynasty to modern times, and they are still not exhausted; but since there are gold mines in foreign countries, why should we mine our own?

"There are a lot of gold and silver in Japan, among which Sado Gold Mountain and Iwami Silver Mountain have the largest reserves, but the Japanese don't know it yet. Iwami Silver Mountain is on the main island of Wa Kingdom, and it is still a bit difficult to handle. Sado Gold Mountain is a piece of gold outside Japan. The island is the place where the Japanese exiled prisoners, and they are not valued by the Japanese; if the Song Dynasty can take this island to mine gold, what is a mere firearms factory?" Su Song came back from Liao, and then learned how to Crafting an arquebus also takes time, which happens to be used to mine gold.

What are you afraid of without money? If you don't have money, just go for it, just go for it, just go for it, don't even dare to steal money to cheat money, what are you talking about to reform and strengthen the country? Shen Long deliberately took this opportunity to encourage Wang Anshi.

As for whether the influx of precious metals into the Song Dynasty would cause inflation, he was not too worried. With the economic size of the Song Dynasty, the gold in Sado Gold Mountain could be completely absorbed.

"The Wa Kingdom has always admired my Great Song Dynasty, and has no disrespect for my Great Song Dynasty. If it is just a little gold and silver to attack the Wa Kingdom, it seems...it seems..." Wang Anshi was still a little bit hesitant to turn around for a while, and he couldn't get over the hurdle in his heart.

"If not, what should Jiefu do? Should he raise taxes to squeeze the people, or go to compete with Sima Guang and Wen Yanbo?" Shen Long sneered.

"The Great Song Dynasty and the Wa Kingdom are separated by vast oceans, and if you want to lead an army to attack the Wa Kingdom, you must have a navy; it's just that my Great Song Dynasty has not rectified the navy for many years since the king of Jiyang County led the army to destroy the Southern Tang Dynasty, and I am afraid that I am powerless. "Wang Shao has less integrity than Wang Anshi, and he has already begun to think about how to attack the Japanese kingdom.

"Navy is a trivial matter. I also have the fastest and strongest sea ship style in the world." How about we go directly to the treasure ship and Galen? I have ship models here, and craftsmen can imitate them by taking apart the ship models.

"And you don't necessarily want to fight for this matter." The European colonists didn't just know how to fight, they were also good at cheating and buying.

"The Japanese admired the elegance of the Great Song Dynasty for a long time, but the imperial court of the Japanese country has no direct relationship with our Great Song Dynasty." At this time, there was no formal diplomatic trade, and it was limited to private trade. Song merchants traveled to Hakata to trade with Echizen Tsuruga, It was not until the Southern Song Dynasty that the two sides established formal diplomatic relations.

"Therefore, we can send a few envoys whom the Japanese people admire very much to the country of Wa, no matter whether it is leased or purchased, find a way to take Sado Island, mine gold and silver, and use the gold and silver to build warships, firearms, etc. After the teacher grows up, even if the Wa Kingdom wants to go back on its word!" Shen Long said.

"Furthermore, if you want to subdue the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun in the future, the navy can go north from Dengzhou and go straight to the land of Youyan, but it is not as easy as going from Hebei and Shanxi to the east and attacking the city all the way?" If the navy is only used It would be too wasteful to bully the Wa country.

Wang Shao couldn't help but start imagining the scene of tens of thousands of firecrackers suddenly coming to the mouth of Youyan and killing Khitan by surprise. Wang Yu seemed to be very moved, but Wang Anshi remained silent.