Zhao Bing was not unwilling to launch a large-scale northern expedition. One battle would determine the world, but he had many unscrupulous actions. This was not only his own opinion. Many ministers and knowledgeable people in the court believed that the time had not come. Whenever the situation was tense, Yingjie Yan even entered the palace several times to advise him not to believe in others' words, not to act rashly, and not to take risks because of a moment of excitement. And he was not a confused person, and he knew the dangers in it. It was not the time for the Northern Expedition.

First of all, from a political perspective, since the recovery of Jiangnan, Zhao Bing carried out a large-scale suppression of rebel officials and those who were affiliated with the enemy, including many scholars. This made the Jiangnan scholars think that he was too cruel and harsh on the scholars, and thus became dissatisfied. Then there was Chen Yizhong's case of rebellion, and a large number of Jiangnan scholars were suppressed, which involved some officials in the court. Later, he suppressed the Jiangnan bureaucratic families by marrying the Wu family, which led to Jiangnan scholars being very angry with him.

So the political situation in Jiangnan now seems calm, but it is full of dangers. After returning to Jiangnan, the people who have experienced many years of war were determined and unwilling to launch large-scale wars. In this dangerous political environment, how can war be fought? War cannot be separated from politics. In the face of this dangerous political situation, how can the war continue?

Next is economic considerations, war requires economic security. "A hundred thousand troops will cost a thousand gold a day." "The army will be destroyed without supplies, if there is no food, if there is no accumulation, if there is no accumulation." Economic difficulties are also an extremely important reason for the difficulty in carrying out large-scale military operations.

The current military expenditure is large. The current imperial guards have a force of 400,000. According to the three liters of grain per person and the 50 cents of food, it requires 12,000 shi of food. Based on the current price of 800 shi per stone, the total of two items is nearly 30,000 shi, which is only a large or low, because the food expenses of officers and navy troops are higher than those of ordinary soldiers, and this item alone reaches 11 million shi per year.

Another thing is clothing and equipment. Soldiers should not go to the battlefield with bare butts and empty hands! Equipment does not need to be replaced every year, but each person has two sets of military uniforms in summer and winter, and boots and hats. Even if each set is conservative, it costs about five jin of money, which is eight million jin a year. Although weapons do not need to be updated every year, training also requires losses, which requires constant maintenance and consuming ammunition, which is also a considerable expense.

In addition, the salary of officers and soldiers is now implemented, and the salary is to be paid. Considering the current living standards, a family of three requires six guan a month to maintain a living, so Zhao Bing sets the salary of newly enlisted soldiers at six guan a month. As their years of service increase, they can get up to twelve guan by seven years of retirement. And officers will also increase with the promotion of their positions. The lowest starting salary of the team is ten guan, and the highest Privy Councilor can reach three hundred guan, so the annual salary expenditure is at least four million guan.

However, these are only the most basic expenses. Every major festival and national event is rewarded, wartime subsidies are required for combat. Injury, sacrifice must be given, and subsidies must be given for retirement. These are just caps, and the annual expenses are as high as 20 million jin. In addition, weapons and equipment renewal are also large, and reserves are needed to prepare for wartime losses. Before this year has been completed, Zhao Bing has invested more than 5 million jin in military weapons supervision.

In addition to the imperial guards, there are nearly 200,000 Xiang troops. Although their treatment and weapons and equipment are less than that of the imperial guards, they are not a small number. In order to prevent the incident of Quanzhou troops from recurring the incident of the remnant of the country and the surrender of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhao Bing also listed the needs of the Xiang troops as supplied by the court rather than being borne by the garrison's prefecture, and the annual expenses are about tens of millions of qians.

So now, it is to maintain an army of this size. The court spends about 40 million yuan each year. Some people will say that they will spend so much money when they are idle. Why not send troops to fight? It is nothing more than adding the cost of transporting food and grass (mainly the cost of levying civilians and livestock) and rewarding the army. Maybe they can make a profit.

For those who have this idea, Zhao Bing can only say that his head was kicked by the donkey, and no one could stay out of the matter in the war. In peacetime, the additional consumption of the army was nothing more than the renewal of ammunition and equipment required for training. However, when fighting, the consumption of materials did not increase exponentially, but increased geometrically linearly, and casualties were inevitable, and the corresponding expenses for pensions and treatments would also increase.

During the war, people were recruited to transport food and grass, but they did not bring their own dry food to work for you for nothing. Not only did they have to exempt taxes, but they also had to provide food. They also had to eat. Each trip only had to consume two-thirds of the food. Moreover, due to the difficult journey, the dead of illness was almost the same as soldiers, and the court also needed to pay for the pension.

These are still money spent on the surface, including invisible consumption. Generally, if a soldier fights in front, the rear needs several times more than his civilians to provide guarantees, and the mobilization of young and strong people is also 100,000. This will inevitably affect the agricultural production in the rear, resulting in the abandonment of land, and the country's taxes are in no way possible. It can be said that there is no gain. However, these are still based on the victory of the battle. If they are defeated, hehe... the country will basically go bankrupt!

Later generations all said that the Song Dynasty was the happiest era for scholars, but this happiness was based on rich income. Compared with previous dynasties, the salary of the Song Dynasty was quite generous.

For the first-rank prime minister, during the Renzong period, he had a monthly salary of 300 guan, including millet, 100 stones, silk, silk, cotton, and several other miscellaneous expenses, including food, food, pole, charcoal, salt and other miscellaneous expenses, as well as other subsidies, which were converted into many other types of salary. During festivals, royal sacrifices can also be rewarded, including gold, silver, silk, satin, etc., which were quite generous in cash, sometimes higher than the annual salary. Especially for the suburban sacrifices once every three years, the reward scale will have a great impact on the national finance and the economy of officials.

Of course, there are a few officials who have the title of prime minister after all, and there are only a few people in office, so the country can still afford it. But even local officials with low ranks usually have a monthly salary of 40 or 50 stag, some silk, servants' clothing, etc., and there are government subsidies to local officials for their remuneration. This part of the land is still tax-free, and to "responsible for their integrity" to prevent corruption and abuse of power. In fact, it is actually a disguised promotion of integrity and silver. From this point of view, it is more than enough to compare with the superiors and is enough to live a very comfortable life.

However, the treatment is also divided into levels, and the gap between senior officials of the fifth rank and lower-level civil servants is very huge. From the county magistrate to the county magistrate, the salary is about ten to twenty-five stagnant, five to ten stagnant, and a few stagnant land, but there is no chance of other rewards as subsidies. This is because Zhao Bing took into account the hard work and complicated affairs of the lower-level officials, but he will still be a little struggling in his life.

Some people will definitely say that ordinary people can live well with two or three chunks of money per month, and officials are not rich, they are just complaining without any reason. In fact, from Zhao Bing, most officials are still very difficult to live, and of course they are relatively better than ordinary people. The reason is that it is related to the prevalence of the imperial examination and the family system.

After the rise of the imperial examination, the family politics turned to bureaucratic politics, and a large number of scholars from poor backgrounds entered the official career. Before the Song Dynasty, most officials came from aristocratic families and had family backgrounds, and did not need to consider their salary to support their families. The family members of officials in the Song Dynasty were different from now, and officials generally had poor families and had heavy burdens. Now, they are basically mainly small families. Even if parents of both parties are included, each family has only ten people at most. The concept of gathering clans in the Song Dynasty is relatively popular.

Because those who passed the imperial examinations were relatively prominent in the big family and could enjoy various preferential treatments from the government, such as exemption from service, reduction of land rent paid by the official household, and other benefits, so other people in the same clan were more inclined to live with him. For example, officials before the Song Dynasty were second-generation officials and third-generation officials, and did not expect to live a salary. Officials in the Song Dynasty were phoenix men. They earned money alone and spent together with their family. Even if their income was not high, they could not withstand so many people.

However, these are all official officials of the same grade, and there are still people below to do things. This is the clerk. Their number is basically ten to one compared with the number of official officials. The number is extremely large. They also have to support their families and live a life. There is no good thing in the world that allows horses to run away and not let horses eat grass. Of course, they also have to pay salaries, otherwise who will run errands for you.

At present, Zhao Bing has always been vigilant about the harm of redundant officials. There are only a thousand officials in the court at present, about ten thousand officials at local levels, and within 100,000 clerks. It seems that there are many, but compared with the 400,000,000 regular officials, 200,000, and 300,000 clerks in the Song Dynasty in the past, it is a huge expense. But even so, the annual salary expenditure is about tens of millions of chunks. This is still a relatively young team, and there will be a resignation in the future. It is also a huge expense to support unemployed officials.

Another big part of the expenses is the royal family. At present, Zhao Bing is routinely chasing, and his wife dares not marry too much, and his relatives dares to recognize him too much. He even goes out with light cars. However, maintaining the entire royal family's storefront and normal operation, the expenses are also worth millions. In the future, poor relatives come to ask for a seal, and then the money will be spent like flowing water.

In addition, the country not only raises soldiers, officials and emperors, but also maintains the operation of the entire country. It costs money to build water conservancy, build bridges and roads, disaster relief, and pensions for poverty. This money is not a small amount in a year. Last year, Zhao Bing spent a large-scale restoration of cities along the river and consolidates border defenses. He estimated that these expenses would not be less than tens of millions of chunks in normal years.

Therefore, to maintain the normal operation of the state machinery, a minimum of 40 million jin of fiscal revenue per year is required. How much does the imperial court have in one year? You should know that the territory occupied by Zhao Bing is not as good as the one in the early days of the southward transition, and the two areas were missing from the two Huai and Sichuan areas. These two places have always been important sources of taxation for the imperial court. In addition, when the Jiangnan regained the tax, they were exempted from taxes from many places, so he estimated that the income of the regular tax was about 5 million jin, which was far from maintaining the operation of the imperial court.

The main part of the income is tea, salt, wine, smelting, defrauded goods, and commercial taxes. Zhao Bing estimated that it could be around 30 million yuan. He felt that there was still potential to be tapped, because at the highest time of the Southern Song Dynasty, the commercial tax reached 60 million yuan. Of course, this was based on the heavy taxes. Therefore, to achieve this amount, we must further develop industry and commerce and expand tax channels.

Another important source of taxes is the tariffs of the Maritime Bureau. With Zhao Bing's strong support, the sea trade has flourished again. He estimated that the tariff income of each port's revenue throughout the year could reach 10 million yuan. In addition, the income of about 2 million yuan was about 2 million yuan. The sum of several items was about 60 million yuan, and it could barely achieve balance of income and expenditure. However, this year, the two local wars started, and the fiscal balance would be broken, and the deficit was basically a foregone conclusion. The court would definitely throw the holes to Zhao Bing and pay the bill by the inner warehouse. So whether the Song Dynasty could have a surplus depends on how much money he had left.

This time, Zhao Bing used troops to Jiangbei, and wanted to seize Sichuan and Shu and Yangzhou, and was not an act of impulse, but also had deep considerations. We all know that strategic buffer zones are generally divided in border areas. Using this area as a flexible defense zone that delays the enemy's attack and provides us with time to prepare for the counter-offensive. Even if it is originally a fertile field, the possible development is completely out of consideration.

Because from the perspective that these areas will eventually become combat areas, any measure to resume production will be uneconomical. To give a realistic example, looking at the development history of Fujian in the current coastal economic circle, we can understand how the economic development of strategic frontier areas has slowed down under the threat of possible war. At present, Suzhou-Hangzhou, Taihu District, Changshu, and Wuxi are important food and tax areas, so the war cannot be burned to these areas, so it is necessary to ensure the security of this economic belt through counterattacks, which means that it is necessary to fight.

Therefore, the strength of the Song Dynasty is far from enough to support a long-term war, and they insist on increasing taxes to extract from the people. They bear taxes that exceed their ability to bear every year, and they have to accept conscripts and labor service at any time, or even join the army to join the war. Can they bear it? If the people have difficulties in survival, will they still have the will to support the war? As a "government", if they ignore the lives of the people, can the people not rebel?

Similarly, all income is used to pay for war expenses, so what should the government do if the government’s administrative expenses are done? What should the salary of the bureaucrats after retirement? What should the salary of the current officials? Without money, can this "government" exist? Zhao Bing, the "government", must not ignore its own political survival issues. By then, it is not only the government that goes bankrupt, but the Song Dynasty may no longer belong to the Zhao family.
Chapter completed!