The Guards want to station troops in several strategic towns in the country. The existing troops are definitely not enough, so they have to expand the army. However, expanding the army is simple. You can expand the army whenever the funds are available. Everything just needs to be done step by step.
The Guards are expanding their troops, and this is not for the sake of foreign campaigns, but because the empire's foreign strategy has led to a major expansion of the army, forcing the Guards to follow suit in order to maintain strategic balance.
It has to be said that this can be regarded as an internal strife within the Tang Empire, and it was an internal strife deliberately caused by Li Xuan.
But this kind of internal containment is necessary for a big country!
It is simply unimaginable and even abnormal for a big country to have no factions or struggles. On the contrary, it is normal for there to be factions and struggles, and it can make people feel at ease.
If the ministers in the Tang Empire did not fight with each other, then Li Xuan would have to worry that they were plotting to overthrow him.
In order to maintain the balance of domestic military power, the Guards must expand, but military expansion requires money. Therefore, in the fiscal expenditure budget for the 22nd year of Xuanping, the military expenditures of the Guards have increased a lot, which has made the military expenditures originally
The quarreling army and navy sensed danger.
Then one after another they ran to Li Xuan and cried, saying that the army was in difficulty, the navy was even more in difficulty, and the lieutenants and officers in the army had no enough to eat. They were afraid that if they cried too late, the money would be taken away by the cabinet.
You know, what kind of transportation strategy is the cabinet working on? What's more, it has also come up with some train and ship subsidy programs to stimulate the rapid development of domestic trains and ships. Everyone is crying and shouting every day to increase next year's production.
Funding.
The Tang Empire's fiscal expenditure budget was never enough. No matter how much the fiscal expenditure budget was for the year, in the end the expenditure budget compiled by each department would always exceed the expenditure.
Because there were so many places where the Tang Empire spent money, even in places where no money was spent, the ministers would come up with a lot of plans that required money in order to compete for funds.
In this case, no matter how much the fiscal revenue is, it will never be enough.
However, Li Xuan also knew that the ministers below him often cried out for money and defrauded them of funds when they had nothing to do, so he gave what should be given and never gave what should not be given.
Over the years, Li Xuan has controlled the funding of various ministries, and then used the surplus of fiscal revenue to repay the huge national debt. It was not easy to completely pay off the national debt last year.
Since there is no need to repay the national debt, the financial situation has become much easier. After all, in the past few years, the total amount of principal and interest to repay the national debt has basically increased from more than 10 million every year. In the early days of unification, in order to develop armaments and infrastructure,
In addition, the creditworthiness of national debt at that time was not good, and few people bought it. In order to attract people to buy national debt, the issuance of national debt at that time was relatively ruthless, with large amounts and high interest rates.
In the early days of unification, some five-year treasury bonds issued to raise funds could even have an annual interest rate of more than 20%. Basically, they would be repaid double after five years!
The interest rates on early national debt were too high, which also caused Datang's finances to be overwhelmed later, and they had to issue new bonds to repay old debts and pay high interest every year.
In just over a dozen years, the total interest on national debt incurred by Datang's fiscal expenditure actually exceeded the total principal amount of national debt.
From the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China to the 20th year of Xuanping, Datang Finance issued a total of about 80 million yuan in various types of government bonds. After the 20th year of Xuanping, the Tang Dynasty did not continue to issue government bonds.
And the total interest generated by these treasury bonds totaling 80 million yuan has exceeded 100 million yuan!
Repaying the interest and principal of the national debt every year puts a heavy burden on the finances!
If it were not for the national debt that has caused the finance to bear heavy retaliation, Li Xuan would not have gritted his teeth and insisted on repaying the principal and interest of the national debt every year in the past ten years.
The national debt is up.
Fortunately, thanks to the rapid development of industry and commerce in the empire and the good recovery of agriculture, the fiscal revenue is getting higher and higher. In the 21st year of Xuanping, the fiscal revenue has exceeded 190 million yuan.
If nothing unexpected happens, next year, the 22nd year of Xuanping, it will not be a problem for fiscal revenue to exceed the 200 million mark!
With fiscal revenue getting higher and higher, we can continue to repay the national debt while initially meeting domestic development needs. Now we have finally repaid the cumulative principal of more than 80 million national debt and more than 100 million yuan in interest.
It's over.
After paying off the national debt, Li Xuancai felt that the empire's financial situation had improved a lot, and he could do other things. After all, after paying off the national debt, he would be able to free up at least tens of millions of funds every year.
However, even if there is more money, the ministers all know that there is more money now, and all of them are like lions. They need money for this and money for that.
Li Xuan's method has always been to throw the bones out and let them fight, while he sits firmly on the Diaoyutai!
This is also the reason why almost all agencies, including the cabinet and the military, cabinet ministries, and the army and navy, have fierce quarrels over funds at the annual budget expenditure meeting.
If Li Xuan directly decided on the budget allocation plan for fiscal expenditure, then everyone would not have to argue. No matter how much it is, just use it.
However, Li Xuan never confirmed it himself. He insisted on giving a total amount and let each department argue among themselves.
The fiscal expenditure budget for next year, the 22nd year of Xuanping, totals 190 million, because the fiscal revenue budget is about 200 million, but according to tradition, part of it will be withheld as emergency funds. This part may
Whether it is used for disaster relief, war expenses, or other things, it will not be included in the fiscal expenditure budget.
The emergency funds withheld next year are 10 million, which leaves only 190 million for various departments to compete for.
From this 190 million yuan, the royal family's expenses were first deducted, and then the minimum administrative expenses of each department were also deducted.
Because the above are all basic funds, which cannot be reduced, if they are really cut, then the salaries of soldiers, officials, government employees and other people who rely on the government will not be able to secure their salaries.
Therefore, this part has never been a target of competition, because everyone is not a simple person and can also investigate. Therefore, the necessary funds used by each department are also transparent, and there is no way to compete.
The focus of their fight is the remaining portion after deducting the royal family's funding and the minimum funding for each department, and the remaining portion is quite large, as much as 60 million.
There are many agencies that are looking at these 60 million, such as the Ministry of Industry. Their water conservancy project has not been completed yet, and they are still working on some transportation strategy, preparing to build railways, official roads, and dredge rivers. Everything here and that
They are all gold-eating behemoths, so they can get 30 million with just one mouthful, so they cut the money in half.
However, the officials of the Ministry of Rites are not easy to mess with. The Education Department under them has always been a big spender and spends a lot of education funds every year. In the past two years, the core work of the Ministry of Rites has been to improve domestic basic education and basic technical education.
Basic education is naturally primary education. If we want to popularize primary education to more people, in addition to building more government-run primary schools, we must also reduce tuition fees, books and miscellaneous fees, etc. Otherwise, the vast number of children from poor families will
I can't afford to go to school at all, even just primary school.
Basic technical education refers to technical secondary schools.
The education policy of the Ministry of Rites has always followed the steps of the Holy Emperor. The Holy Emperor said that primary school education should be popularized, so they launched universal primary school education.
Sheng Tianzi said that they would build a number of first-class universities, but they only built seven first-class comprehensive universities. In line with the word "several" that Sheng Tianzi said, there would not be just a few, nor more than a dozen.
The Emperor Sheng said that primary vocational education should be vigorously established so that the majority of college students could have a skill, so they did not hesitate to open secondary technical schools in various places, similar to technical secondary schools in later generations.
This kind of college is different from the previous technical colleges, because the previous technical schools were higher technical schools, and the students were recruited from preparatory schools. Although they were similar to junior colleges in later generations, they actually belonged to the higher education category of the empire.
Within the country, the total number of colleges and universities in various places is actually no more than that of ordinary universities.
Colleges and universities, in the Tang Empire, both belonged to the category of higher education. As for higher education, the phalanx of the Tang Empire has always been an elite education, which should be more elite than too many.
Today's secondary technical colleges recruit students from middle school students, and their courses are very practical courses because their purpose is to cultivate various technical talents.
Basically, the education policy of the Tang Empire closely followed the plan formulated by the Holy Emperor Li Xuan, which was to popularize basic education, cultivate a large number of basic talents of all types, especially in science and engineering, and select a small group of elites.
Cultivate high-level talents.
This model can be called pyramid education, or elite education!
Under this model, the vast majority of ordinary people can only go to middle school or even elementary school, and then go home to farm or work in factories. They lack education and play the role of farmers and workers in the empire.
And because these people have not received advanced education, they will not be like those intellectuals who think about rebellion every day. They will honestly farm and work in factories to contribute to the empire.
A small number of ordinary people can complete technical secondary schools. These people will become the backbone of the entire society. They have professional knowledge and are qualified for middle and low-level technical and management jobs.
However, they still lack some of the vision that comes with receiving higher education!
If there are a small number of people who go to college or ordinary universities, these people will become the main group of the empire's superstructure.
Next, there will be a very small number of prestigious college students who have attended prestigious universities and elites who have received comprehensive higher education. They will form the top small group in the pyramid of the Datang Empire.
In this education system, because there are not too many talents receiving higher education, in order to avoid a gap in society for such professional talents, technical secondary schools appeared.
The construction of a large number of technical secondary schools in the past two years is also one of the most important tasks of the Ministry of Rites.
Moreover, the Ministry of Rites is engaged in education, and the slogans shouted out are very loud, saying that educating people for a hundred years, for the prosperity of the empire, this education cannot be left behind, and then they say that eight million yuan is needed for the special project
Funding!
Seeing the people in the cabinet shamelessly talking about big plans, the generals of the army and navy couldn't help it. The general of the navy directly slapped an extremely heavy file on the table, which read "Datang Navy"
Global Strategy's first five-year development plan'.
Then I saw this person saying: "Our navy doesn't care how much money you need to do what you do, and we can't control it. However, the funds required for the five-year development plan personally approved by the Holy Emperor must be retained by the navy!"
But soon the army general on the side showed a trace of ridicule: "Didn't your navy just receive special shipbuilding funds last year? You asked for funds twice for the same plan. Is your navy so shameless?"