Chapter 494 Annual Summary

Due to the intervention of the Holy Radiance Empire and the Kingdom of Harland, the civil war in the Kingdom of Delon has been going on for a year and a half. Now both sides have strong supporters behind them, and it is impossible to tell the winner in a short period of time, and they have fallen into a stalemate.

However, King Anton has already begun to promote reforms, and his stamina is far greater than that of the rebels.

Judging from the balance of power between the two sides, King Anton already controls a population of 14 million, while the rebels only control a population of about 6 million. There is a huge gap in fiscal revenue between the two sides. If it continues to be consumed for a long time, the rebels will most likely not be their opponents.

After all, without profit, Richard would not sell his blood to support Duke Marcel and other nobles.

Time has now entered the dawn calendar year 3284.

After more than thirty years of development, not counting the red moon plane, the total population of the Harland Kingdom has already exceeded 30 million.

The first is the native population. After two years of vigorous immigration, the population has reached 21 million. Among them, 18.5 million were free people and 2.8 million were indentured servants.

The cultivated land in the local area has basically been allocated to the four major provinces of Heihe, Central, Annes, and Vera. Unable to allocate public land. If the next generation of farmers wants to maintain a better life, in addition to migrating to border areas to reclaim wasteland, they can only find ways to develop in cities.

Otherwise, in two or three generations, the average cultivated land will decline rapidly, and living standards will also plummet. There is a huge difference in the quality of life between five acres of land per capita and one acre of land per capita.

The land in the four provinces of Heihe has been distributed, and most of the cultivated land in the two major provinces of Eagle and Grotta has also been allocated.

The above six major provinces have basically been successfully developed, and the government no longer allows the reclamation of wasteland in principle.

In principle, indentured slaves purchased by the government are not allowed to be assigned to the six major provinces.

Rex Province is densely populated and will not accept foreign slaves to divide the land. Richard also has to find a way to move the excess population to the east coast and Puliland.

Now if you want to be a farmer and divide the land, you have to go to Pulilan to reclaim wasteland on the east coast. Reclamation is extremely difficult. Only indentured servants are willing to do this kind of life.

There are 18.5 million free people in the Harland Kingdom, and the income from agricultural taxes alone has exceeded 6.2 million. Adding in tariffs, business income tax, and real estate tax, the locally generated tax revenue is close to 10 million.

In addition to taxes, the Harland Kingdom's finances also include profits handed over by state-owned enterprises.

The first is the steel industry. With the commissioning of the Rikers Steel Plant, Harland Steel's steel output has exceeded 500,000 tons.

Because of the iron ore monopoly system, although the state-owned steel plants in the territory have suffered from big business problems and devoured a lot of profits, the fourteen steel companies in the Harland Kingdom still turned in profits of 600,000 gold coins this year.

After years of development, the internal relationships of major steel companies have become entangled, production efficiency has dropped a lot, and a large amount of profits have been swallowed up. Because major steel plants are riddled with problems, Richard has secretly made up his mind to abandon the steel franchise and support private capital in entering the steel industry.

Odaye, Immorton, and Rand took the lead and united more than 30 small businessmen to form an investment consortium. They spent a huge sum of 100,000 gold coins to obtain the exploration rights in the southern part of the East Coast Province. As long as iron ore is discovered, this consortium will invest in building steel plants to compete with state-owned enterprises.

The entry of private capital will greatly impact the profits of state-owned enterprises.

For example, in the flour manufacturing industry that Richard liberalized, factories run by capitalists such as Odaye and Immorton have won the competition and have a market share of more than 70%. Although the Harland Kingdom's market has expanded several times, the state-owned factories can only turn over hundreds of thousands of gold coins in profit, which is only equivalent to the level ten years ago.

However, from private flour processing factories such as Odaye, the Harland Kingdom can receive 300,000 gold coins in tax revenue. In terms of government revenue, efficiency is improving.

After the entry of private capital, they continued to compete with state-owned factories, and the surge in production capacity caused the price of flour to become lower and lower. This overall reduced industry profits and greatly improved the living standards of the people of the Kingdom of Harland.

In addition, private capital investment and the introduction of the patent bill also promoted technological progress and produced higher quality flour.

After ten years of piloting, Richard decided to slowly relax market restrictions and continue to support private capital.

The steel industry will be liberalized this year, and mechanical processing will be liberalized next year. Coal, textiles, soap, chemicals, real estate, and glass are all on Richard's open list.

As for the brown sugar trade, private capitalists can no longer compete with Harland’s brown sugar plantations. Planting brown sugar trees not only requires a large area of ​​land, but also requires the support of a magical plantation. The threshold for entry is actually very high. This year's brown sugar production has reached 48,000 tons, bringing Harland a profit of 340,000 gold coins.

Since two years ago, the brown sugar plantation has sold ripened brown sugar saplings to mountain people in the four provinces of Grotta, Eagle, East Coast and Priland.

After careful calculation, planting brown sugar trees, a cash crop, is five times more profitable than growing food.

Even if there is no production in the first two years, brown sugar trees can be planted in barren mountainous areas, which is still very cost-effective for farmers.

The core reason why Richard sells brown sugar saplings to mountain people is to tilt resources towards mountainous areas and help alleviate economic poverty in mountainous areas. Now there are nearly 8,000 households and 40,000 to 50,000 poor people in mountainous areas who have benefited from this policy.

Of course, the highest profit this year is from arms sales. If converted into gold coins, the profit from arms sales would exceed 3.5 million gold coins, but Harland used this profit to buy back 800,000 people.

Because of the outbreak of war, the pharmaceutical business also brought a lot of profits to the Harland Territory. Now the Harland Medical Department has developed a variety of new drugs. Despite the restrictions on materials, it was still able to pay 500,000 gold coins in profit to the country last year.

The output of coal has increased to 3 million tons, and last year it paid 300,000 gold coins in profit to the territory.

In addition to the profits paid by state-owned enterprises in various industries such as wine, flour, textiles, soap, machinery, real estate, glass, and perfume, the local fiscal revenue of the Harland Kingdom reached 13 million gold coins, more than twice the level of the kingdoms such as Ryan and Grant.

After two years of development, not only did the local fiscal revenue increase greatly, but the development speed of the Rex Province in the south was even more amazing.

With the recovery of production, the Rex Province paid 1.8 million gold coins in field tax alone. In addition to commodity transit tax, tariffs, and real estate tax, the Rex Province collected 400,000 taxes. The factory invested two years ago began to make a profit and paid 200,000 gold coins last year. Overall, the fiscal revenue last year was as high as 2.4 million gold coins.

The fiscal revenue of 2.4 million gold coins is normally equivalent to three duchies.

Although the fiscal revenue is not low, the per capita tax borne by Rex is about one-third of the level of the mainland. Of course, the actual living standard of Rex Province is far less prosperous than that of the mainland.

More than 95% of the 11 million people in Rex Province are serfs, who can only maintain a very low standard of living. The remaining hundreds of thousands of free people are generally not very wealthy, and their consumption capacity is not as good as that of the mainland province. Due to the low industrial capacity, the Kingdom of Harland actually exploits the residents of this province very severely.

Although the morale of the East Coast Kingdom has eased slightly compared to a few years ago, the people of Rex Province are still in dire straits.

In the mainland of the Kingdom of Harland, 88% are free people. If it were not for the 1.7 million people who migrated from the Delong Kingdom in the war, there would be almost no contract servants in the mainland. After years of development in the mainland, although the policy is the same as that of the Rex Province, the proportion of taxes borne by the people is actually very light.

The 18.5 million free people in the local area have formed the largest consumer market in the Dawn Plane. Even the Holy Glorious Empire with a population of one billion cannot match the consumer population of Harland Territory.

Finally, there is the territory of the Red Moon Plane. Although this territory is the largest in area, the Harland Kingdom does not value it. In recent years, it has been a tributary rule. It can be said that the imperial power does not extend below the county.

The bureaucrats sent by the Harland Kingdom can only extend their tentacles to larger castles.

The governance of local villages is basically entrusted to the indigenous powerful and tax farmers.

Of course, the so-called local powerful and indigenous tax farmers are also the class supported by the Harland Kingdom. Most of them are family members of officers and soldiers and surrendered nobles.

Although there are more than 6 million registered citizens in the Red Moon Plane, the tax revenue is not high. As of last year, only 700,000 gold coins were collected, which is far from enough to cover the local garrison expenses.

In addition to the above three territories, the Harland family also has a dukedom and an earldom in the Grant Kingdom.

Among them, the dukedom directly managed by William has 1.8 million people and reorganized 50,000 troops. The population of the Earldom of Philip is 1.2 million, with only 10,000 local garrisons left.

The income of the Dukedom of William is not high, and the finances are not enough to support the army. The Earldom of Philip has breathed a sigh of relief and can coordinate 200,000 gold coins for the Dukedom of William every year.

Despite this, the Dukedom of William still has more expenses than income. Last year, the Rex Province of the Kingdom of Harland supported the Dukedom of William with 100,000 gold coins, so that William did not cut his army.

Excluding the internal territory of the Kingdom of Grant, the Kingdom of Harland had a total fiscal revenue of 16.3 million last year, of which the land tax revenue was 8.46 million, accounting for about 52% of the total fiscal revenue. The profits and taxes paid by state-owned enterprises accounted for 48% of the total fiscal revenue.

Overall, the Kingdom of Harland has implemented a light tax policy in industry and commerce, and the overall burden is only about 8%.

In fact, with the competitiveness of the industry and commerce of the Kingdom of Harland, the tax rate can be set at about 30%. But Richard does not want to increase the burden on the people and does not like inflation, so he did not change the tax rate.

Moreover, with the current fiscal revenue of the Kingdom of Harland, it can easily suppress its competitors. The situation is not so bad that Richard needs to resort to war and increase fiscal revenue on a large scale to expand the army.

According to last year's data, the income of Harland Kingdom in gold coins has tripled that of Grant Kingdom. The income in magic crystals has also reached 140,000, which is about nine times higher than that of Grant Kingdom.

Grant Kingdom is already a regional power in the eastern countries, but compared with Harland Kingdom, it is not an opponent of the same level.

From the perspective of national strength, except for a slightly insufficient population, Harland Kingdom has gone far ahead.

Compared with a few years ago, although the fiscal revenue of Harland Kingdom has increased significantly, the expenditure has also increased a lot. Although it cannot be said that the income is not enough, there is not much fiscal surplus every year.

In the past two years, Harland Kingdom has continued to slowly expand its army, and the total force has reached 310,000. Among them, the garrison in the Red Moon Plane has expanded to 100,000, the garrison in Rex Province has expanded to 60,000, and the garrison in the mainland is 150,000.

In addition, the Earl of Philip has left 10,000 local troops, and the Duke of William also has 50,000 troops. Of course, these 60,000 troops rely on local finances and the Kingdom of Harland does not need to pay too much. In the past few years, only 300,000 or 400,000 gold coins were coordinated, and last year it was reduced to 100,000.

For an army of 310,000, the annual military pay alone is 3.6 million, and the logistics cost is 700,000 per year.

The money needed to expand the army by 40,000, manufacture and purchase weapons and equipment, adds up to nearly 3 million, which is evenly spread over two years, and 1.5 million per year.

In addition to the 250,000 gold coins of disability and death pensions in the military system each year, the annual cost of maintaining the army alone is as high as 6.05 million.

Of course, with the development of the economy, the proportion of military expenditure has been reduced a lot, only about 37% last year. Five or ten years ago, military expenditure would at least account for half of fiscal revenue.

In addition to military expenditure, government expenditure is as high as 3 million per year.

Last year, 600,000 gold coins were invested in medical and education, and more than one million gold coins were invested in scientific research institutes and magic research departments.

In addition, there was an infrastructure investment of about 2.6 million gold coins last year, and the fiscal surplus last year was about 3 million gold coins.

Richard will not keep the assets of 3 million gold coins in the vault. Only when the gold coins are circulated can they create income for the territory.

Because a sum of gold coins had been accumulated in the treasury, Richard and Roger discussed and decided to invest part of the surplus funds in banks to expand the bank's capital and part of it in industrial projects.

In more than 30 years, the economy has developed to such a scale. Although the Kingdom of Harland has discovered many minerals, the precious metal reserve grain is no longer enough.

Since 20 years ago, the speed of coinage has not kept up with the speed of economic development.

At that time, Richard began to promote the voucher system. After more than 20 years of preparation, Richard carefully maintained the credibility of paper money.

In the past ten years, with the extensive use of steam engines, the continuous advancement of mechanical processing technology, and the rapid development of papermaking and printing technology, the difficulty of counterfeiting has increased. The foundation for the large-scale promotion of paper money has been laid.

Since two years ago, the Kingdom of Harland has put a large amount of paper money into the market, and the exchange rate has been linked to physical gold to promote the gold standard system.

After nearly 20 years of preparation, the issuance of paper money did not cause turmoil in the market. Richard issued 3 million paper money the year before last and 4 million last year.

This year, Roger and Richard discussed and prepared to release money again, and the amount of banknotes put into the market will exceed five million.