The fiscal revenue of the Northern Song Dynasty was actually very generous. Taking the ten years of Xining as an example, the revenue that year was 57 million guan, shi, bolt, liang (guan is money, stone is grain, bolt is cloth, liang is silver).

), if you give Chongzhen this kind of income, I am afraid it will make him happy to death, so there is no need to worry.

However, the financial expenditures in the Northern Song Dynasty also remained high. These expenditures were mainly divided into: military expenditures, official salary expenditures, annual coin expenditures, farmland water conservancy expenditures, royal expenditures and other expenditures.

The first is military expenditure. Military expenditure is usually divided into military expenses and equipment expenses. The Song Dynasty had Khitan in the north and Dangxiang in the northwest. It had to gather heavy troops in Hebei and Shaanxi for defense. In addition, the Song Dynasty recruited strong refugees to serve as Xiang army whenever there was a disaster.

This practice not only reduced the threat of refugee rebellion, but also allowed the Song Dynasty to have more and more soldiers.

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. During peacetime, the military expenditure of the Song Dynasty accounted for half of the fiscal expenditure. If there is a war, it will be terrible.

So I went straight to Qi Cheng.

Then there is the official salary expenditure. The Song Dynasty officials were famous for their large number and good treatment. The Song Dynasty's annual expenditure on this aspect was about 3 million yuan.

It seems that the expenditure of annual coins is not very much. Now it is only 200,000 taels of silver and 300,000 pieces of silk every year. However, this amount of money is really embarrassing.

Expenditures on farmland water conservancy vary from year to year. Because Kaifeng was built on the edge of the Yellow River, the Yellow River water conservancy has become the focus of the imperial court. It often costs tens or millions of dollars to spend on it. Add in the water conservancy expenditures in other places.

More.

Royal expenses include daily expenses, palace repairs and mausoleum construction, sacrificial expenses, and royal family expenses. This number is not easy to find, but judging from the fact that Shenzong spent 700,000 yuan to marry a princess, this number is by no means small.

.

With a yearly income of nearly 60 million guan, military expenditures were first cut by more than half, leaving only more than 20 million guan. After excluding salary expenditures, farmland water conservancy, royal expenses, etc., the Song Dynasty really had few left a year.

Money, the Song Dynasty had experienced fiscal deficits many times before where annual revenue could not cover expenditures.

Once, even the reward money that should be paid to the imperial army after the death of the late emperor could not be transferred, which made the imperial army almost mutiny. Under such circumstances, it was really not easy to raise a large amount of money to promote new seeds and build a fire gun factory.

Otherwise, Wang Anshi wouldn't want to reform, but he couldn't raise the money for a while, but Shen Long had many solutions, "This matter is not difficult, I just don't know if Jiefu is willing."

Did it."

Could it be that Taoist Shen can turn stone into gold? Wang Anshi asked quickly, "What can I do, Mr. Shen?"

"What is money? Copper coins are money, but silver and gold are not money?" Shen Long asked, he really had a way to get a large amount of gold and silver.

"Of course it's money." Wang Anshi replied decisively. Thinking about the history books that Shen Long had given him, Wang Anshi had an idea and guessed what Shen Long was thinking. "Could it be that the Taoist priest knew that there were gold and silver mines there?"

?”

"Yes, but it's not within the territory of the Song Dynasty, so I asked Jiefu if he was willing to do it." Shen Long said with a smile. In fact, the mines within the territory of the Song Dynasty are not gold 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 Yuanfeng period, Zhaoyuan produced ten thousand taels of gold every year, accounting for more than 90% of the country's gold output.

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

"The Japanese country has a lot of gold and silver, among which Sado Gold Mountain and Iwami Silver Mountain have the largest reserves. However, the Japanese don't know it yet. Iwami Silver Mountain is on the main island of Japan, which is a bit difficult to handle at the moment, but Sado Gold Mountain is an offshore island outside Japan. The island was a place where Japanese prisoners were exiled and was not taken seriously by the Japanese. If the Song Dynasty could use this island to mine gold, what would a mere firearms factory mean?" Su Song came back from the Liao Kingdom and learned how to do it. Crafting a matchlock gun also takes time, just in time for gold mining.

What are you afraid of if you don’t have money? If you don’t have money, just rob or cheat. If you don’t even dare to rob or cheat money, how can you talk about reforms to strengthen the country? Shen Long deliberately took this opportunity to encourage Wang Anshi.

As for whether the influx of large amounts of precious metals into the Song Dynasty would cause inflation, he was not too worried. With the size of the economy of the Song Dynasty, the gold from Sado Jinshan could be completely absorbed.

"The Japanese country has always admired the Song Dynasty and has no disrespect for the Song Dynasty. If they attack the Japanese country just for a little gold and silver, it seems... it seems..." Wang Anshi was still a little unable to turn around and cross the hurdle in his heart.

"If not, what will Jiefu do? Should he raise taxes to squeeze the people, or go to fight with Sima Guang and Wen Yanbo to steal food from the tiger's mouth?" Shen Long said with a smile.

"The Song Dynasty and the Japanese country are separated by vast oceans. If you want to lead an army to attack the Japanese country, you must have a navy. However, in the Song Dynasty, we have not reorganized the navy for many years since the prince of Jiyang led his army to destroy the Southern Tang Dynasty. I am afraid that we are not able to do it. "Wang Shao has less integrity than Wang Anshi. He has already begun to think about how to attack the Japanese country.

"Navy is not a big deal. I also have the fastest and strongest sea-going ship in the world." How about we go directly to the treasure ship and go to Galen? I have ship models here, and the craftsmen can dismantle the ship models and make replicas.

"And we may not necessarily want to fight in this matter." Those European colonists were not only good at fighting, they were also good at deception and bribery.

"The Japanese admired the splendor of the Song Dynasty for a long time, but the Japanese court had no direct relationship with the Song Dynasty." At this time, there was no formal diplomatic trade, and it was limited to private trade. Song merchants mostly traveled to Hakata to do business 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 that the Japanese admire very much to the Japanese country. Whether it is leasing or buying, we can find a way to capture Sado Island. While mining gold and silver, we can use the gold and silver to build warships, firearms, etc. After the army grows stronger, Japan will not be able to regret it even if it wants to!" Shen Long said.

"Moreover, if you want to conquer the Sixteenth Prefecture of Yanyun in the future, the navy can also go north from Dengzhou and go straight to the land of Youyan, but it will not be easier than going up and east from Hebei and Shanxi to attack the city?" What if the navy is only used to attack the city? It would be a waste to bully Japan.
Chapter completed!