Chapter 304 The First Eight-Year Plan

Zhao Jun and Fan Zhongyan discussed the content of the new policy for several days, but the matter of sending troops to Vietnam's Li Dynasty was raised at the regular meeting of Chongzheng Hall in the afternoon that day.

The destruction of the Li Dynasty was not just to take their land, but had many demands.

First of all, it can deter the southwest, like Southeast Asia, when Vietnam was still very powerful, especially during the Li Yue period.

Although the Li Yue Dynasty only occupied northern Vietnam, the Li family conquered the city in the south, Dali in the north, Zhenla in the west, and the Song Dynasty in the east. It can be said that they were fighting on all sides.

Moreover, before Song Shenzong's Xining War, Li Yue was always on the victor's side.

For example, in the fifth year of Shuntian period, Li Taizu fought against Jin Huabu of Dali, beheading more than 10,000 people and capturing a large number of soldiers and horses.

In the third year of Ming Dynasty, Li Taizong fought a battle with the Champa Kingdom on the south bank of Wupu River. The Champa king was killed in the battle. More than 30,000 troops died in the battle, more than 5,000 were captured, and 60 war elephants died.

Moreover, the Vietnamese army entered Foshan, the capital of the Champa Kingdom, and plundered the palace before returning, which led to the end of the Eighth Dynasty of Champa and almost destroyed the Champa Kingdom.

As for the outbreak of war between Chenla and Zhenla, there were few wars, but the "History of the Song Dynasty" records that Chenla was harassed by Li Yue all year round, and the people on the border were miserable. Therefore, during the Xining War, both Chenla and Champa sent troops to help the Song Dynasty.

It was precisely the Li Yue Dynasty that made enemies on all sides at that time, but was able to win on all sides, which gave them the confidence and ambition to invade the southwestern border of the Song Dynasty from time to time, and even attempt to get involved in Guangxi and Guangdong of the Song Dynasty.

So if the Song Dynasty wiped out Li Yue, then according to the fact that Li Yue conquered several small Southeast Asian countries, and the Song Dynasty destroyed Li Yue, which showed the strong situation of the Song Dynasty, I am afraid that these small Southeast Asian countries will soon follow the Great Song Dynasty The Song Dynasty is the main one, which also facilitates the Song Dynasty's layout in Southeast Asia.

Secondly, Vietnam has an outlet to the sea. For a long time in the future, the Song Dynasty will make plans for the planting of rubber trees and cinchona trees. Then it is logical to control the entire Southeast Asia region such as Indonesia, Philippines, and Malaysia through the outlets of Vietnam and Guangdong.

These places are not only rich in grain production and mineral resources, but are also suitable for growing rubber, cinchona trees, fruits, and even oil and natural gas. In the future, they will bring a steady stream of countless resource wealth to the Song Dynasty.

Therefore, based on many considerations and if there happens to be such an excuse, it is imperative to eliminate the Vietnamese Li Dynasty.

In the Chongzheng Hall, a charcoal fire was lit.

Although spring has begun in January, the weather is still cold, the snow has not melted for a few days, and the cold wind can bite into the neck.

However, Fan Zhongyan was sweating profusely. People who have never eaten chili peppers really cannot withstand the spicy attack.

Zhao Zhen saw him wiping the sweat from his forehead from time to time and wondered: "What is Mr. Xiwen?"

"Chili. Very spicy."

Fan Zhongyan still has a burning taste in his mouth.

"Is it so spicy? I'll try it next time."

Zhao Zhen was extremely curious.

Zhao Jun smiled and said: "Then next time I will pack a copy for the official family."

"Let's get down to business."

Lao Fan said.

Since King Lu Yijian and the others were not present, Zhao Jun controlled the rhythm.

He asked Li Di and Jiang Tang to report on last year's situation.

At the end, he said: "The harvest last year was still great. The country has become much richer and stronger, and it finally looks like a prosperous age."

"However, we should not be too arrogant and complacent. We defeated Li Yuanhao at the end of last year. Although we greatly promoted our national prestige and Gaoli and Dali immediately came to celebrate, the Liao Kingdom will definitely not give up."

Zhao Jun looked at everyone and continued: "They will definitely find a way to develop muskets, so our next task is to continue to maintain the first-mover advantage and carry out large-scale integration at home and abroad. Otherwise, once the military falls behind the Liao Kingdom, it will still be There will be danger."

"Can't we defeat the Liao Kingdom now?"

Zhao Zhen said worriedly.

"It is possible to win, but it is difficult to win. Injure the enemy a thousand times and injure yourself eight hundred."

Zhao Jun explained: "There is a mole in our army. The Liao Kingdom obtained the cannons sold by the mole and copied them. The current situation is similar to that of the late Ming Dynasty and Hou Jin Dynasty. It's just that we are stronger than the late Ming Dynasty, and the Liao Kingdom is also Stronger than Hou Jin.”

"Then if we start the war immediately before they have developed muskets, can we win a decisive victory over them?"

Zhao Zhen asked.

"What a courageous decision."

Zhao Jun laughed.

"Really? I also feel very courageous. This is going to war with the Liao Kingdom."

Zhao Zhen was surprised and then felt complacent.

"When the time comes when we start a tug-of-war with the Liao Kingdom, prices will rise and the economy will collapse. Even if we win in the end, the Song Dynasty will be in danger of imminent destruction."

Zhao Jun bluffed and frightened Zhao Zhen to death.

He quickly asked: "Why?"

"Because muskets are only effective in field battles. They have deployed so many artillery in many cities like Yanyun. Their range is almost the same as ours. They also have the advantage of city walls. How can we fight?"

Zhao Jun spread his hands and said: "Our artillery is not in a situation of absolute crushing. Artillery siege warfare is of little use. At most, it will be a protracted siege."

"Does that mean that once a fight breaks out, there will be no winner in a short period of time?"

Li Di asked.

"Yes."

Zhao Jun nodded: "Not only will we not be able to tell the winner, our casualties will be very high. Therefore, science and technology must advance and be implemented to the end in order to continue to suppress the Liao Kingdom."

In fact, the artillery of the Song Dynasty now far exceeds that of the Liao Kingdom in terms of range and power. All it takes is to replace ordinary gunpowder with granular gunpowder.

But Zhao Jun would not tell the truth, and would only coax and deceive Zhao Zhen.

And he blamed the Song Dynasty army for the Liao's current possession of artillery, but in fact he could also vaguely guess that the army's corruption might cause the Liao to obtain artillery technology in the future, allowing the Liao to also possess the great weapon of artillery.

However, Zhao Jun was unable to stop him when he arrived, and he could not attack the army when fighting was needed. Secondly, it was vaguely intentional, engaging in an arms race with the Liao State, consuming the strength of the Liao State and increasing the national power of the Song Dynasty.

The third and most important point is that improving the military capabilities of the Liao State to a certain extent can also make Zhao Zhen and the Constitutional Yuan full of a sense of crisis, so that they can always be led by Zhao Jun.

In general, this set of rhetoric is actually the tone used by the West in later generations to exaggerate the threat of the big bear.

In fact, with the capabilities of the Big Bear, it is already difficult to break through NATO. However, the Western media needs to deceive the public and increase the sense of crisis to achieve their own goals.

Zhao Jun has also grown a lot over the years, and he understands that politics is far from being as simple as imagined. If he wants to completely take power and achieve his deep-seated thoughts in the future, he must not say it out loud, but use various means to drive him. Like it is now.

really.

When Zhao Zhen heard that their military advantage over the Liao Kingdom was not as great as imagined, he immediately stopped and said worriedly: "Then what should we do?"

"We need a period of peace and rapid development, and this period is just right."

Zhao Jun said: "This year our fleet has made sufficient preparations. We spent more than three million yuan on this trip, three times the amount of the previous year. There should be no problem in bringing rubber and cinchona back next year. "

"After the arrival of rubber and cinchona, steam engine power provided strong productivity. It first solved domestic demand and then expanded externally, gradually forming a powerful and dominant empire in East Asia."

"Of course, we are still far away from that point. I estimate that it will take decades just to solve domestic demand. It will take less than 30 years to build major infrastructure, including roads and railways."

"So we have to think about starting to prepare for future developments."

He looked around to set the tone and said, "I'm going to make an eight-year plan. Everyone should listen and share their thoughts."

"Eight-year plan?"

Zhao Zhen wondered: "Why eight years? Didn't we talk about a five-year plan before?"

"Five years is more than enough to achieve future productivity, but this was in ancient times. Eight years is too short. It may not be possible to complete it within ten years."

Zhao Jun shook his head.

"Okay, let's talk about it, eldest grandson."

Zhao Zhen said.

"The first thing is infrastructure."

Zhao Jun looked at Fan Zhongyan, Yan Shu, Song Shou, Cai Qi, Jiang Tang, Zhang Shixun, Jia Changchao and others on the field, and slowly said: "In the next ten years, I will build all aspects of roads, bridges, water canals, and canals." Everywhere in Song Dynasty has entered the construction stage.”

"It's not a small expense."

Cai Qi frowned and said: "With comprehensive construction, the court is afraid it will cost who knows how much money every year."

"The budget is definitely very high, and we will let the Ministry of Finance calculate it at that time."

Zhao Jun said: "But now that our military has been restructured, the defense budget has been reduced by more than half. Coupled with the reduction in redundancy, we can save 30 million yuan every year. This money should be enough."

The money in the Song Dynasty was not a penny, and the purchasing power was still quite amazing. At this time, the price of food in the Song Dynasty was getting increasingly low. It only cost about 210 yuan per shi. The usual money was 770 yuan, which could buy almost 3.6 shi, which is equivalent to 349.2 Kilograms of rice wheat.

According to the price of 2 yuan per kilogram of rice in later generations, it was almost equal to 1,400 yuan, and the purchasing power of one penny was about 1.8 yuan.

Looking at it this way, 30 million yuan is equivalent to 42 billion, which is a very huge price.

It’s just that productivity is different, so it’s still difficult to compare.

After all, in the Song Dynasty, there was 35 yuan per pound of pork, so it would be impossible for later generations to have 63 yuan per pound of pork. Therefore, this comparison is limited to necessities for basic survival, such as rice prices, wheat prices, salt prices, cooking oil prices, etc.

But generally speaking, there is no problem with the Song Dynasty's consistent money to meet the basic needs of a commoner for a year. Even if it recruits 300,000 people to build the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, based on the basic salary of 120 wen per day, plus other expenses, After one year, it only cost 20 million yuan.

What's more, the overall project of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was basically completed during the Sui and Tang Dynasties. The Song Dynasty did not need to build a new canal connecting Beijing to Hangzhou like the Yuan Dynasty. It only needed to build a few more canals from other important economic areas to Bianliang. , the amount of work is much less.

Therefore, in summary, the 30 million yuan of the Song Dynasty court was enough to hire 500,000 civilians to work every day for 365 days.

Moreover, in the Song Dynasty, local and national finances were separated. About 30% of taxes were withheld by local governments every year for development. In addition, local wages may not be as high as Bianliang, and the expenses are not that large. Supported by the state, local governments Hosting, building roads and canals, etc., is another local financial investment.

By then, the number of people employed by the government every year will reach millions, and the court will also stipulate that only poor tenants must be hired. Those who have fixed jobs, own farmers with fields, or those on the poverty line will not Hire.

Within the next ten years, all landowners and tenants in the Song Dynasty will be cleared out and become workers or tenants of the imperial court. Then the land recovery is basically a certainty.

However, Zhao Jun did not talk about the deep-seated plans here, but only talked about the superficial plans, that is, large-scale infrastructure construction.

As for the idea that large-scale infrastructure construction is to snatch people from landowners and then reclaim the land, he plans to hide it and complete it as a hidden mission, and cannot tell everyone openly.

Otherwise, if word spreads and the landowners know about the court's insidious plan, they will naturally find ways to avoid it, which will not be good.

"Well, having too much money is not a good thing. It must be spent."

Everyone agrees on this.

In recent years, the fiscal revenue of the Song Dynasty has generally been on a downward trend.

Because starting from the second year of Qingli, the national burden has been greatly reduced. Whether it is commercial tax or agricultural tax, the collection has been much less.

But with the expansion of trade, taxes have also increased year by year, and now they have risen to more than 80 million yuan.

And with the increase in trade throughput, it is only a matter of time before this number exceeds 100 million in the next two to three years.

Sounds like a good thing.

However, last year the Song Dynasty's army was reorganized, and Fan Zhongyan presided over the cleanup of redundant expenses, saving more than 20 million yuan in military expenses alone every year.

The redundant expenses mainly come from Zhao Zhen's palace expenses. In the past, one penny in Guangdong and Fujian could buy two hairy crabs, but Zhao Zhen's palace budget only had one thousand penny per crab.

Although the cost will increase due to freight considerations, it is extremely unreasonable to exaggerate it to two thousand times.

In the end, Fan Zhongyan uncovered a lot of huge corruption from the palace, and even implicated Wang Shouzhong. However, Wang Shouzhong was loyal after all, and he was greedy, so he was saved by Zhao Zhen.

Therefore, after the reform, the national treasury alone had more than 40 million yuan left last year. In addition to the previous accumulation, there are also the current annual profits from state-owned enterprises such as steel, textiles, and maritime trade to Zhao Zhen. The national treasury plus Zhao Zhennei Damn, there is still close to 200 million yuan.

Of course, not all of them are copper coins, there are gold, silver, jewelry, antique calligraphy and paintings, everything is valuable and rare.

But even if we only count copper coins, there are still 100 million yuan.

So much money thrown into the treasury will only rot and not realize its due value.

In later generations' national fiscal concepts, the healthiest fiscal expenditure is to have a certain proportion of fiscal deficit every year. Otherwise, insufficient consumption and overcapacity will lead to deflation and the economy will continue to decline and fall into a vicious cycle.

So too much money is actually a bad thing.

Zhao Jun has already told everyone about this. When they heard that Zhao Jun wanted to spend a lot of money, they had no objection.

Seeing that everyone agreed, Zhao Zhen nodded and said: "Well, that's good, we will start major infrastructure construction this year."

"In addition to major infrastructure projects, the taxation of wealthy landowners should also be mentioned. These people save their money or buy large amounts of land, which will only cause harm to the country."

Zhao Jun suggested: "Their tax rate should be increased, and the land sales and transaction tax should be increased to make them spend all the money. Otherwise, everyone will save money and not spend it, and the country will deflation, and it will be difficult to build productivity again." It’s useless.”

"Then mention it."

Zhao Zhen had no objection at all, and even eagerly asked: "How about the previous ratio?"

"As expected of a grandson, brother, you are more ruthless than me."

Zhao Jun sighed.

If in the Ming Dynasty, anyone from the emperor down to the ministers would have made a big fuss if they had raised taxes from wealthy landowners.

But not in the Song Dynasty.

Because the Song Dynasty has always been fair - no matter whether you are a rich landlord or a poor citizen, the court must empty your pockets.

Not to mention the common people, the landowners and wealthy households cannot bear the taxes that wipe out the land.

Therefore, raising taxes had little resistance in front of the emperor and ministers, since they had done so before.

"Any other plans?"

Zhao Zhen asked again.

He didn't care about the deep-seated issues of large-scale infrastructure construction and raising taxes. This kind of thing is not something that can be thought of by just thinking about it, but requires careful analysis. If Zhao Jun does not analyze it, none of them will consider the consequences.

"That is naturally for the future. Rubber and cinchona trees can only be planted in the tropics and subtropics. Southeast Asia is the best place."

Zhao Jun said: "I think we can attack Vietnam and eliminate the Li Yue Dynasty. We will occupy the Hanoi Plain and organize agricultural production there. In the future, rubber and cinchona trees will take root in Vietnam, Guangxi, Guangdong, Hainan and other places. can provide us with resources.”

"Why must we fight Vietnam?"

"Because we must occupy Vietnam and radiate to the entire Southeast Asia. The Song Dynasty's strategy should be to control Southeast Asia first, actively seek development, and expand maritime trade to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. I don't need to explain the importance of routes. "

"good!"

Zhao Zhen slapped the case and said: "I have long disliked Li Chao's wolfish ambition. Song Dynasty, please send troops to attack Vietnam."

"clear!"

Zhao Jun cupped his hands and laughed.

This time, both requirements were basically met, and there was little resistance. The new reform, the eight-year plan, was about to begin.

I have a cold and a fever, and I feel confused. I don’t know what I am writing. But then there will be new reforms and wars. I have taken medicine and hope to recover in the next two days.