Chapter 826: The Emperor Who Can't Repair the Palace
At this meeting in front of the Ministry of Industry, Li Xuan also expected that the Ministry of Industry would raise various difficulties, which naturally included funding issues.
After all, the various factories built by the Ministry of Industry are almost all heavy-asset factories with huge investments, and because the various products produced are basically ordnance products, in order to ensure that enough military products can be purchased with limited military expenditures,
The price can't be too high either.
Although the military's purchase price will leave a certain amount of profit for the arsenal, and strictly speaking, this profit is not low, but this profit can satisfy the operation of the arsenal itself, so appropriate expansion is naturally possible.
But if you want to spare money to directly build another large-scale arsenal on a large scale, you will be unable to do so!
Therefore, Li Xuan expected that the Ministry of Industry would carry out a series of construction projects in the Jiangnan area. Funds must be very tight. It was reasonable to seek support from him, but he did not expect that the gap on the Ministry of Industry's side would be so big!
Two million taels!
This is the figure proposed by the Ministry of Industry. The two million taels of silver will not only be used to build a series of national defense-related enterprises starting in Jiangnan, but also be used to large-scale expansion of related national defense enterprises in Guangdong, Guangdong, Huguang, Jiangxi, and Fujian.
enterprise.
Because the Ministry of Industry has already planned a series of huge defense industry construction plans, preparing to build a large-scale arsenal and related supporting enterprises in every important area.
At the same time, in the Jiangnan region, a super-large arsenal and supporting enterprises will be built.
In this set of national defense construction plans prepared by the Ministry of Industry, several arsenals and related supporting factories in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions are directly integrated to prepare for the establishment of the South China Arms Company, the original Zhaoqing arsenal, Guangzhou arsenal, etc., and are all included in it for unified management.
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At the same time, various supporting enterprises are also integrated, and separate machinery companies, chemical companies, etc. are established.
After the integration, the South China Arms Company's output of firearms, artillery, and ammunition will reach more than 80% of the current total output of various types of ordnance in the Tang Dynasty.
This will be a huge military-industrial complex, involved in almost all ordnance products, and can even be said to be involved in all heavy industries that can be carried out currently.
At the same time in Huguang, the Ministry of Industry plans to continue to expand its scale and prepare to build a large arsenal and supporting factories here.
Guizhou, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and other provinces do not have big plans. They only have some ordnance repair shops and small ammunition factories.
In Jiangnan, and in the future Jiangbei region, the Ministry of Industry has ambitiously proposed a series of enterprises starting from Jiangnan, and these are all planned to be under the name of Jiangnan Arms Company.
To put it simply, the Ministry of Industry is preparing to integrate existing resources and prepare to build two huge weapons companies in South China and Jiangnan, and at the same time build a medium-sized weapons company in Huguang.
Two universities and one middle school, this is the plan of the Ministry of Industry!
To realize the defense industry layout planned by the Ministry of Industry, money is naturally indispensable.
Two million, this is the starting price from the Ministry of Industry!
To be honest, this number stumped Li Xuan.
You must know that the tax revenue of the Tang Dynasty this year is only more than 20 million. Although there are other miscellaneous incomes, even if included, it is only more than 30 million.
One of the expansion plans of the Ministry of Industry was to ask for two million, and Li Xuan had no way to spare it for them.
The tax revenue of 25 million yuan was already divided by the fiscal expenditure budget at the beginning of the year. Although Li Xuan still has several million in miscellaneous income, part of this money will eventually be used as "temporary war expenses."
Part of the nominal investment in the army is used to improve people's livelihood, provide disaster relief, etc., and then some should be reserved for emergencies.
The Ministry of Industry and Engineering can give them two million with just one mouthful, but Li Xuan can’t give it to them!
But he also knew that the Ministry of Industry was indeed short of money. Without this money, their huge national defense construction plan could not be carried out. In the end, Li Xuan proposed a compromise plan for them and asked them to ask the military for money!
Speaking of the richest people in the Tang Dynasty, they were naturally from the military, especially the Army, who were not short of money.
Of course, if you want the Army to directly pay the Ministry of Industry, that is impossible, but if you slightly increase the selling price of a few weapons, and ask the military not to default on the payment due, it will be so much that I dare not say, how many will it cost?
One hundred thousand can still be squeezed out.
Then Li Xuan also agreed. Even if there are financial difficulties, he will still support the Ministry of Industry. There is not much money in the treasury, but he can still get two or three hundred thousand.
Li Xuan estimated that with a two-pronged approach, he could solve the problem of 700,000 to 800,000 yuan!
With this money, it was enough for the Ministry of Industry to launch this plan. As for the two million, Li Xuan did not take it seriously. If the Ministry of Industry really wanted two million, they might not say it was two million, but
It's three million or even four million.
Asking for prices all over the place and paying back the money on arrival is naturally applicable to obtaining funds.
Judging from the smiles on the faces of the people from the Ministry of Works when they left, they were probably satisfied with the answer given by Li Xuan!
In fact, Li Xuan still underestimated the faces of those in the Ministry of Industry!
It is true that the entire huge national defense construction plan requires two million, but this two million is not a one-time investment, but will be invested in at least two years.
Moreover, although the profits of national defense-related enterprises under the Ministry of Industry are relatively low, several textile companies under the Ministry of Industry, Zhaoqing Machinery Company, Foshan Iron Works and other factories for civilian products are all huge profits, and these profits can be used
to support national defense construction.
Therefore, the bottom line of the people at the Ministry of Industry at the beginning was that it would be enough to ask Li Xuan to help solve the problem for about 500,000 taels. They would be able to find a way to solve the remaining shortfall of several hundred thousand taels this year by themselves.
But they didn't expect that Li Xuan directly solved the gap of at least 800,000 taels of silver for them, although most of it had to be taken out from the military.
But since Li Xuan's instructions were there, they just raised the price. If the military didn't agree, they just moved out of Li Xuan.
No, people from the Army and Navy soon came to complain to Li Xuan, saying that the military expenditure was not sufficient in the first place, and now the Ministry of Industry has raised the price. The cost of purchasing ordnance has immediately increased by hundreds of thousands.
This will affect the current military's Northern Expedition plan.
Li Xuan pretended not to know about this 1
Besides, this year's military expenditures are so huge, and the military has not fought any large-scale battles this year, and it has not spent much war expenditures at all. Most of these military expenditures have been turned into guns, ammunition, and equipment, and they have been hoarded.
stand up.
Therefore, the gap of several hundred thousand taels of silver is nothing to the military, and it can be solved by overcoming one or two.
Of course, people in the military are not so easy to dismiss. In order to dismiss them, Li Xuan said that he would make certain compensation to the military in next year's military budget.
With next year's compensation, Li Xuan finally got over the matter, and the military people were just happy with it. What a joke, His Majesty personally decided to increase the price of ordnance, and even the specific ratio of the price increase was stipulated.
Once this is done, it is impossible for them to object.
But the crying child has milk to drink. If you don't complain to Li Xuan, your Majesty might think that the military has too much money to spend.
Nowadays, the military, whether it is the army or the navy, spends a lot of money!
The Navy has a series of warship construction plans and many military port construction plans, which are very expensive.
Not to mention the Army. Just to reorganize the existing main forces into standard establishments, the Army spent a lot of military expenditures. At the same time, the Army also expanded a main division and a mixed regiment. These all cost money.
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At the same time, the Army is still hoarding a large amount of ammunition in preparation for the Northern Expedition.
No matter whether it is the army or the navy, no matter how much money we have now, it is not enough.
As the head of the family, Li Xuan naturally has to control military expenditures and the funds of various cabinet ministries from a coordinating perspective. Otherwise, no matter how much money is spent, it will not be enough.
The Tang Dynasty's fiscal revenue is not small, but the money spent is even greater. Anyway, now Li Xuan has no money to even repair the palace. After the Ming Palace built by Zhu Yuanzhang was taken over by the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty has been
They all wanted to repair it. They had a plan at the end of last year, and then they tried to start construction, but after getting started, there was no progress.
Why Mao, no money!
The limited repair funds have been spent on the Imperial Courtyard. As for the Grand Palace, it is still in tatters. Sometimes Li Xuan even thinks about building a new palace next to it, I guess.
The cost of new construction is not much more than that of repair.
The cost of repairing the palace is huge, and Li Xuan is not an old woman like Cixi who dares to directly embezzle military funds in order to live better. Anyway, the current residence of the imperial family is not bad. The palace issue will be taken slowly. Anyway, it will be completed in three to five years.
Don't expect it to be fixed.
In order to solve the problem of financial shortage, Li Xuan, on the one hand, asked the tax department to do a good job in tax collection, and on the other hand, he was also preparing to find a solution from the Royal Bank.
When Li Xuan established the Royal Bank, he planned to use the Royal Bank to raise funds. However, he never did this because the risk of doing so was still relatively high. If he failed to do so, it would seriously damage the Royal Bank and even the Royal Bank.
The credit of the Tang Dynasty.
So Li Xuan has always been cautious about this.
But now, when various departments have successively proposed various large-scale plans and funds are tight, Li Xuan is also preparing to use Royal Bank to solve the financial gap.
The first is to issue treasury bonds, which the Tang Dynasty has actually done. When paying salaries to middle- and senior-level officials, they used a model of issuing part of the cash and part of the treasury bonds.
But now, Li Xuan is preparing to publicly issue government bonds to raise more funds!