In the Tang Empire, which was completely in the age of steam, its technological development was no longer the development of a single aspect, but the development of an entire system. Its overall development was based on a complete industrial system.
The integration of heavy machinery, light industry, chemical industry, shipbuilding and other aspects of the industrial system was the basis for Datang's global dominance.
The steel steam battleships and rifled guns that the natives saw were just external manifestations.
But to be honest, there are not many natives who can see all this clearly. Even among the Tatars, there are only a few who can see through it. As for Spain, England and other European countries that are currently clinging to the Tang Dynasty, they are even less able to see through it. Yes, because they are not even as motivated as the Tatars.
After all, the Tatars still knew how to secretly learn the Tang Dynasty's technology in various ways. If they couldn't learn it secretly, they would spend money to poach people.
As for Spain and other countries, they basically don't have the will, and if they have the will, they don't have the strength.
As a princess of the Kingdom of Spain, Elizabeth has received Tang culture and etiquette education since she was ten years old, but she still doesn't know much.
She had never even seen a Tang Dynasty steamship with her own eyes, so when she saw the New Atlantic anchored near the coastline in Cadiz, she was dumbfounded like all the natives who saw a Tang Dynasty steamship for the first time. I almost couldn't believe that the ships I saw actually existed.
In fact, not only Elizabeth, but also many Spanish natives who had lived in Cadiz for a long time and had seen many Tang Dynasty steamships were stunned when they saw this huge and almost suffocating 10,000-ton luxury liner.
They had seen many steamships from the Tang Dynasty before, but most of the Tang steamships they saw were only ships of a few hundred tons or more than a thousand tons.
Because such small-tonnage ships are the most numerous, they are widely used to carry out offshore and inland routes, as well as long-distance routes. The European branch of Feng Aerospace Company in Ceuta operates in Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. Among the more than ten ships, most are ships of about one thousand tons and mainly carry out coastal routes.
Occasionally, ships of three to four thousand tons come, most of which are ocean liners or ocean freighters from China. However, ships of this tonnage usually go straight to Ceuta and do not go to other ports in Europe.
The main reason is that Cadiz Port, like most of the other colonial ports of the Tang Dynasty in Europe, is a small port and has no maintenance capabilities. Even the port facilities of many ports cannot berth these large-tonnage ships.
Therefore, although there are many luxury passenger ships of thousands of tons or even 10,000 tons traveling to Europe, these ships do not go to Cadiz or other European ports. They all go directly to Ceuta, and then directly return to South Africa or to New Zealand in North America. of Nangang.
Therefore, for many Spaniards in Cadiz, it was their first time to see such a huge ship!
"It's almost unbelievable, how was such a huge ship built?" When Elizabeth saw the New Atlantic, she also exclaimed: "Shall we take this ship to Jinling tomorrow?"
The old lady sent by the Palace Affairs Department next to me said: "I would like to inform you, this is the New Atlantic built by Hong Kong Dingsheng Shipyard. Tomorrow we will take the New Atlantic and return to Jinling!"
Another old woman next to her also interjected: "I heard that building such a large passenger ship is very troublesome and expensive. I heard that each of these 10,000-ton passenger ships costs hundreds of thousands of yuan!"
Hundreds of thousands more!
Although she didn't know the exact number of hundreds of thousands, this number also scared Elizabeth.
Although she is a woman, she is not a woman who knows nothing. On the contrary, after she was determined to go to the Tang Dynasty for marriage before she was ten years old, she received education from many tutors, including tutors sent by the Tang Dynasty and others.
They are Spanish court teachers.
In terms of cultural literacy, it is actually not bad.
So she understands the concept of hundreds of thousands of constant dollars better than ordinary people!
For example, her dowry. In order to reflect the majesty of the kingdom and the importance attached to the marriage between Tang and West, the dowry given by Philip II to Elizabeth was quite generous.
Looking across Europe, the amount is jaw-dropping.
Leaving aside the colony of the Principality of Chile, and just talking about other dowries, they are worth at least 250,000 constant dollars.
And this number is enough to make all countries in contemporary Europe drop their jaws. Even the Kingdom of Spain itself not only started saving money on food and clothing a few years ago in order to collect this dowry, but Philip II even misappropriated part of the military expenditure.
.
This two hundred and fifty thousand hengyuan is hard-earned.
But this 250,000 yuan is not enough to purchase the steam unit on the Atlantic!
Zooming in to the entire Kingdom of Spain, since the Kingdom of Spain is still an aristocratic feudal system, its royal income and the kingdom’s financial income can be roughly equated.
Therefore, it is meaningless to discuss the fiscal revenue of contemporary European countries, because they do not have this concept at all.
So when we talk about it, we usually talk about royal income. And among the royal income of the Kingdom of Spain, direct income from the territory is part of it. Colonial income such as direct mining of gold and silver and profits from overseas trade of the royal fleet is part of it. Tariffs and other taxes, such as wine taxes, are part of it.
, salt tax and even special war tax are part of it.
However, when all these are added up, it only amounts to a few million constant dollars a year!
And this is based on the fact that Spanish taxes have increased significantly in the past ten years, especially tariffs, which have grown extremely fast. At the same time, many taxes enacted by the Tang Dynasty have also greatly improved the Spanish royal family's finances.
In other words, the Spanish royal family only earns a few million dollars a year, but their war expenses exceed this amount.
In fact, according to the view of the Tax Department of the Tang Dynasty, the Spaniards have a large population in the mainland and control a large area of American colonies. The maritime trade is not bad. If the tax work is done well, I dare not say that there will be more, but once
It is definitely possible to make 20 million yuan a year.
Not to mention anything else, just for the large amount of goods that the Tang Dynasty imported into Spain every year, the import tariffs collected on them would amount to a huge sum.
It's a pity that the Spaniards are destined to be unable to collect so much tax.
Not every country can establish a complete tax system and have sufficient capacity to collect taxes like the Tang Dynasty.
The tax system of the Kingdom of Spain is not even as good as that of the Tatars. The Tatars can still collect 20 to 30 million yuan in real money or in kind a year.
But the income of the Spanish royal family is compared with that of the Tang Dynasty...
Well, there’s no comparison!
The fiscal revenue budget for the 38th year of Emperor Xuanping of the Tang Dynasty was 420 million.