Chapter 490 The Size of the Song Dynasty Has Increased Seven or Eight Times

The initial statistics of the Song Dynasty were based on the October and February system.

That is, the data from January to October will be collected in December of each year.

In February of the following year, the data from November and December of the previous year will be submitted.

The reason for this arrangement is that there are too many holidays and vacations at the end of the year and in January in the Song Dynasty.

There are a total of 60 days in two months, and there are more than 40 days of holidays alone.

Unless each department is asked to give up vacations and work overtime every day, it is impossible to complete so much data statistics.

After all, a large part of the data of the Statistics Department comes from the internal statistics of other departments, and the Statistics Department is only responsible for summarizing and reviewing.

Therefore, October and February were coordinated separately at the beginning.

However, the disadvantages of this are also obvious. The closer it gets to November, the busier each department will be. The workload of ten months of data is very large, and it often takes December to complete it completely.

On the contrary, after the January holiday, each department can quickly submit the data in February. After all, the workload is very small for two months of data.

So in order to alleviate the problem of heavy workload at the end of the year, data statistics were changed to a half-year system.

That is, in May, data from November last year to April next year, a total of six months, will be submitted. At the end of the year, data from May to October will be submitted.

In this way, the workload can be evenly distributed, and the staff of each department will not be overwhelmed at the end of the year.

At this moment, there are many data documents on Zhao Jun's desk.

The other prime ministers also gathered around.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the United States was a period of rapid development. At that time, President Roosevelt attached great importance to data and even regarded data as a standard for governing the country.

Although it was later proved that data cannot represent everything, data is still one of the important references.

Therefore, the Song Dynasty now also attaches great importance to data. After the data is submitted every year, it can analyze the policy results of this year and the direction of future development.

Zhao Jun first took the most important steel data report, and the other prime ministers also took some data to read.

Soon Zhao Jun nodded with satisfaction and said, "Yes, from November last year to April this year, in half a year, our steel production capacity has exceeded 2 million tons. This is a good result."

"From the sixth year of Qingli, we planned to produce one million tons of steel annually within five years. In the tenth year of Qingli, we completed it one year ahead of schedule. In the eleventh year, we produced more than 2 million tons annually. This year, this number is likely to double again. In the second half of the year, we may be able to rush to 5 million tons."

"Well, the steady doubling of growth every year is already a very good progress. Now the national steel industry is on the right track. The next step is to continue to expand production capacity and devote our main energy to construction."

"I am afraid that the road will be too big? Our current economic model still relies on domestic and foreign trade. If domestic and foreign trade cannot keep up, and if there is less money, we will have to follow the old path of the bear."

Yan Shu expressed his concerns. After all, he used to be a three-division envoy and a minister of the Ministry of Revenue. He naturally understood that money is still a big problem now.

Now the Song Dynasty is actually doing well, because it has defeated the Liao Dynasty and suppressed the silver turtle Japan. It can grab a large amount of gold, silver and copper from overseas every year, and it uses copper coins made by the Song Dynasty to trade.

The currencies of neighboring countries have now become Song Dynasty copper coins, just like the US dollar has become a global currency in later generations. All kinds of raw materials will only flow into the Song Dynasty in exchange for foreign gold, silver, copper and other spices, wood, medicinal materials and other items.

But now the Song Dynasty has to face a new situation, that is, the road is too wide, and the annual fiscal expenditure has exceeded 200 million guan. In addition to fixed military expenses and official expenses, most of the money is used for public construction investment.

For example, investing in education, building roads, scientific research, establishing welfare homes, developing industry, and even in order to prevent grain prices from being too low, every year, you have to spend money on buying grain on the market to stabilize grain prices.

It can be said that every penny of the Song Dynasty is now spent on the blade.

The problem is that every year the money is spent cleanly, and sometimes there is even a fiscal deficit. The court borrows national debt to continue spending, which often makes the prime ministers afraid that Zhao Jun will take too big a step and get into trouble.

After all, if there is an unexpected fiscal revenue in a certain year and there is a huge loss, the court may suddenly fall into the dilemma of lack of money.

At that time, there are so many places across the country that need to spend money, and so many projects are spending money. If the normal income from commercial taxes cannot be guaranteed, the only way is to follow the old path of the bear and use agriculture to subsidize industry. At that time, the farmers will still suffer.

However, just when Zhao Jun was about to persuade Yan Shu that there were no coincidences in the world, and suddenly the Song Dynasty's trade suffered serious losses, Fan Zhongyan smiled and said, "Don't worry, look at the foreign taxes in the first half of this year."

"Oh?"

Yan Shu curiously leaned over and said, "How much?"

"37 million guan."

Fan Zhongyan flicked the official document in his hand and said, "Among them, Guangzhou alone has 6 million guan, and it is estimated that Guangzhou will get at least 12 million guan this year."

"So much?"

"I remember that Guangzhou only had less than 1 million guan a year before the Jingyou period."

"It was the past, but this year's growth is really great. Last year, Guangzhou seemed to have only about 8 million guan. How come it has increased so much this year? I'm afraid it will increase by 50%?"

"That's because we didn't build a port in Puluozhong last year. Now our ships are on the entire route of the South China Sea every day."

As the prime ministers spoke, Wen Yanbo cleverly thought of a main reason.

Zhao Jun also laughed and said: "Yes, that should be the new order I issued two years ago. Before that, we did not build a port in Pu Luozhong, and the navy of the Song Dynasty had not yet radiated to the Strait of Malacca. So it was not very meaningful to issue this order at that time, because we could not guarantee the safety of the entire South China Sea route. But after we built a port in the Strait of Malacca last year, we spent a lot of effort to operate and maintain the route and crack down on South China Sea pirates. It is estimated that most foreign businessmen have registered local companies in Guangzhou and started to pay taxes for the Song Dynasty."

The Song Dynasty's industry and commerce implemented a registered company system, and all transactions and sales were taxed.

However, the current tax rate is a phased tax, which is very friendly to small and medium-sized companies and handicrafts. The tax rate is very low, often below 5%.

The tax rate for large companies is relatively high, basically more than 10% of net profit.

Even depending on the main business, some can reach 15%. If there is no local policy preference, the highest may be between 20%-25%.

Of course.

It is still much lighter than the previous 30% or more of heavy taxes and levies.

Maritime trade is different.

Originally, the import and export tax of the Song Dynasty's maritime trade was 10%, that is, if you sold goods to foreign merchants, the court would collect 10% of your export tax.

When foreign merchants sold goods to the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty's Maritime Customs would collect 10% of the tariff.

The export tax is aimed at domestic sellers of goods. Even if you are a ship owner doing business at sea, as long as you sell goods abroad, you will be taxed.

The tariff is aimed at inbound goods.

Even if you are a merchant in the Song Dynasty, you have to pay tariffs when you buy things from abroad and sell them to the Song Dynasty.

But this undoubtedly leaves a lot of room for manipulation.

For example, the most classic one is to evade taxes by falsely reporting prices.

Because the tariff is the cost purchase price of foreign merchants in the country where the goods are produced.

Otherwise, if the tax is collected according to the final selling price, the cost will be infinitely increased, which will directly cause the price of such goods to collapse.

The simplest example is that if the purchase price of a pound of tea in the place of production is 20 wen per pound, then the cost of transporting it to the destination is 30 wen per pound.

To break even, you have to sell at least 50 wen per catty, and to make money, you have to sell at least 51 wen. As for how much you can make, it is subject to market price fluctuations, but you must sell at least 51 wen to make money.

If the Song Dynasty charges a 10% tax on a selling price of 51 wen, then for merchants, the cost becomes 56.1 wen, and they will lose 6.1 wen per catty, which is obviously impossible.

So merchants must increase the cost to 56.2 wen per catty.

Later, in order to increase trade volume, Zhao Jun lowered the export tax to 5%.

In this way, the tariff is 10% and the export tax is 5%.

And there is no such thing as import tax.

Because the import tax is borne by the importing domestic merchants, there is no such thing as import tax for foreign merchants.

Then foreign merchants can easily make a lot of money when they come to the Song Dynasty to do business.

For example, the price of a certain commodity in their own country is 10 wen per catty, and it becomes 5 wen per catty when it is reported to the Song Dynasty. If it is 10,000 catties, it is 50,000 wen, and the tariff only needs to be 2,500 wen.

But when this kind of goods arrive in the Song Dynasty, the value will at least triple or quadruple. Even if they are sold in the Song Dynasty, they still have to pay commercial taxes, but it is very cost-saving.

Because there is no import tax, foreign merchants can sell the goods directly in the local area. Because they do not register companies in the Song Dynasty, they generally choose to sell to local dealers at a slightly lower price and enjoy a lower tax rate for foreign merchants.

After all, the court needs to impose low taxes on foreign merchants to attract foreign merchants. In addition, there are all kinds of messy information gaps, and considering the huge risks of maritime trade, the tax rate for foreign merchants is much lower than that of domestic merchants.

For example, for goods worth 100,000 guan, domestic merchants may have to pay about 15% tax, while foreign merchants only need to pay 6-9% of the total value of the goods.

The tariff is said to be 5%, but at most it is 1-2% after the selling price. The bulk of the tax rate for foreign merchants is 5-8% after the sale in the country.

In addition, since the export tax was reduced to 5%, foreign merchants who purchased goods from the Song Dynasty and sold them back to their own country only had to pay 5% tax, because the buyer did not need to pay tax. The tax was generally included in the price of the goods and paid by the seller.

In this way, foreign merchants only had to pay about 6-9% tax to sell foreign goods to the Song Dynasty, and no more than 10% at most, while they only had to pay 5% to sell Song Dynasty goods abroad.

This is obviously unreasonable.

However, the Song Dynasty court had no choice.

Zhao Jun did not want to increase the tax rate on foreign merchants.

However, the first reason was that information was not well developed in these years, and foreign merchants had a huge information gap advantage.

Second, the risk of maritime trade was indeed very high. No matter how high the tax rate was for domestic merchants, it was very safe.

However, there were many shipwrecks of foreign merchants. There were countless Song Dynasty shipwrecks discovered and salvaged in Quanzhou, Guangzhou and other places in later generations, not to mention the vast ocean.

So it can be said that all this money was earned by foreign merchants with their lives, and they should not be jealous.

However, Zhao Jun still managed to squeeze some money out of them.

That is, collecting protection fees.

The process was just like the dragon flags of the Song Dynasty that Tan Wenxue saw all over the sea.

The Song Dynasty now expanded its naval sphere of influence to the Strait of Malacca, with the navy from Hainan Island, Guangxi and Guangdong and the Jinghai Army conducting continuous patrols to protect trade routes.

If there is a Dragon Flag of the Song Dynasty on a merchant ship and it is determined to be a company registered in the Song Dynasty, it can be protected by the navy to prevent the emergence of pirates.

In fact, there are not many benefits to registering a company in Da Song. In this way, you will not enjoy the dividends of foreign investors. It needs to be under the jurisdiction of the local industrial and commercial bureau. All accounts must be disclosed to the industrial and commercial bureau. It is difficult to profit from the information gap.

Basically, this will only allow foreign businessmen to lose up to 10% of additional commercial tax in one trip, and at least more than 5% based on the price of the goods. The total tax rate is already close to that of domestic merchants in the Song Dynasty.

However, when the sea route is very mature, there are only two risks. One is encountering a storm or hitting a reef and causing the ship to sink, and the other is encountering pirates.

Da Song directly helped foreign businessmen eliminate one of the risks, which was equivalent to protecting their lives and allowing them to navigate safely.

Isn’t this worth paying a little more tax?

"Well, Hanlong's move is pretty solid. Thinking back to those days, the annual income of so many ports across the country did not exceed 8 million yuan. Now, in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangzhou, Quanzhou and other places, the combined foreign trade in a year can exceed In the past, the Song Dynasty collected taxes. "

Yan Shu looked at the data in his hand, smiled and shook his head: "Now I think money is just a number. Who would have thought that this sea trade could grow exponentially? In more than ten years, it has actually grown seven or eight times." many."

"It is a good thing that the proportion of foreign trade is increasing year by year. This proves that we have enough domestic productivity to provide external products, and it also proves that the Song Dynasty's influence is becoming more and more far-reaching."

Zhao Jun said: "Of course, all of this is inseparable from our exploration of the world. If there were no troops stationed in Goryeo, Japan, Yue Dynasty, Mayi, and Puluozhong, and if the Western Region had not been recovered, there would be no one in the process. How many people profited from the price difference, and how many people blocked the trade channel. "

"Yes, Japan's mining volume of silver and gold has increased significantly in recent years. After regaining the Western Regions, the trade volume between Middle Eastern merchants and the Western Regions has increased significantly. We stationed troops in Puluo to protect Arab merchants and stimulate their enthusiasm for doing business."

"The data I have is domestic trade data. In the first half of this year, there were 130 million yuan. It seems that the commercial tax this year has increased by at least 10% compared to last year."

"In the ninth year of Qingli, our annual tax revenue was 200 million yuan, in ten years it was 220 million yuan, and in the eleventh year it was 250 million yuan. This year, sea trade has increased a lot, and commercial trade has also increased by 10%. Could it be that Is it expected to exceed 300 million yuan by the end of the year?”

"It's very possible. During the period of rapid development, GDP and tax revenue can grow by more than 10% or even more than 20% every year. I remember watching the news when I was a child. It seemed to be when I was 6 years old. That was when I watched the news in 2006. my country The tax revenue of only 3.7 trillion yuan will become 4.9 trillion yuan next year, a direct increase of 32%. It can be seen that in the period of rapid industrial development, no matter what the data is, it will be a leap forward, and you will have to get used to it in the future. "

"We're not used to it yet, we're not used to it yet. If we come here a few more times, we'll get used to it."

Everyone laughed from ear to ear.

Every year when the data comes up, it’s when they are happiest.

Who would have thought that more than ten years ago, the Song Dynasty's fiscal revenue, which had a maximum annual fiscal revenue of no more than 100 million guan and a low of 50 to 60 million guan, could now reach 300 million guan?

And this is the result of a large reduction in agricultural taxes and commercial taxes. If calculated according to the previous tax rates, I am afraid that the GDP has increased seven or eight times!

This means that the overall economic size of the Song Dynasty was seven or eight times that of the Song Dynasty. Moreover, the territory of the Song Dynasty also increased by more than 4 million square kilometers.

And this is just what happened in just sixteen years!