Chapter 641: Your Majesty, the Great Ming Is Making Money

In early February of the first year of Hongxing of the Great Ming, the Hongxing Emperor of the Great Ming, Zhu Cilang, had already left Crouching Tiger Mountain City in Jinan and arrived at Dengzhou on the shores of the Bohai Sea.

Because the war situation in Shandong was not going well, Zhu Cilang had moved the capital of the reorganized Shandong Province from Jinan to Dengzhou. Dengzhou was not only far from the front lines but also a port city on the coast, and for the past four years Su Guansheng and Shen Tingyang had been developing it as the Great Ming's base of operations in the north.

So when Zhu Cilang arrived, what he saw was a seaside city completely transformed, impregnable as a fortress of metal, and thriving in commerce, crafts, and fishing.

Moreover, Su Guansheng and Shen Tingyang had very efficiently built a small but exquisite Penglai Palace for Dong'e, the Heshuo Princess of the Great Qing, who might arrive in Dengzhou at any time.

Dong'e had not yet come, but Zhu Cilang had moved into this palace on Danya Mountain with Ning Xiangyu and Fei Zhen'e — a palace that seemed like a fairyland on earth.

It was in this very palace that Zhu Cilang received three pieces of good news in succession.

Three blessings arriving at once again!

The first blessing was, of course, Wu Sangui's defection to the rightful side!

Although Wu Sangui was notorious in history, Zhu Cilang did not care about history in the slightest. He had been waiting for Wu Sangui to switch sides as eagerly as one waits for the stars and the moon.

If Wu Sangui did not defect soon, Zhu Cilang's New Army cavalry could simply be disbanded!

In last year's war, the greatest loss on Zhu Cilang's side was not actually personnel, nor even dead equipment like cannons and firelocks — it was horses!

The folded-ear horses at the Fengyang horse farm had only now accumulated to three hundred head. What use was that?

Meanwhile, the total number of warhorses lost or retired (warhorses grow old and fall ill!) across the various units of the New Army amounted to more than 2,000. And the warhorse reserves of the Shandong Army, the Huaibei Army, and the Xuhai Army had also decreased by roughly 3,000.

The two combined came to 5,000.

If one counted the loss of draft horses as well (some retired warhorses could serve as draft horses, but draft horses, because of their heavy burdens, easily died of exhaustion or disease), a single year of war could cost the Ming armies — not counting the forces in the southwest, Sichuan, Shanxi, and elsewhere — 10,000 warhorses and draft horses.

Historically, northern expeditions from the south were always extremely difficult, and this was in fact related to the shortage of horses. The shortage of horses not only affected combat at the front but also created difficulties for transport in the rear.

Because the cost of horse-drawn carts was far lower than ox-drawn or man-drawn carts. If oxen and men were substituted for horses, then the "delivery rate" of grain and fodder — that is, the proportion of grain that could reach its destination after deducting transport consumption, relative to the grain sent out — would drop sharply.

Taking thousand-kilometer relay transport as the standard, horse carts could achieve a delivery rate of ten percent, ox carts only five percent, and man-drawn carts would have a negative delivery rate!

If a relay transport system could not be established (which required setting up transport stations along the route and carefully calculating losses), the delivery rate would be even lower. Therefore, the supply lines that man-drawn and ox-drawn carts could support would also be shorter.

Thus, for the Ming army to operate beyond the support of the canal system in the northern expedition, a certain number of horses was absolutely essential.

Just look at how the northern expedition armies of the Northern and Southern Dynasties sometimes even had to dig canals on the spot to transport grain, and you will know how painful the horse shortage was — and in the Northern and Southern Dynasties they did not even have horse-drawn artillery!

So Wu Sangui's defection, bringing with him the horse-producing lands of Shaanxi and Gansu, was without question a gift of coal in the snow for Zhu Cilang!

The second piece of good news was that Ning Xiangyu and Fei Zhen'e, who had accompanied Zhu Cilang on the northern expedition, were both pregnant. Together with Zheng Chagu, who was about to give birth, the great Emperor Zhu had three chances to gain a son.

As for the third blessing, it was brought by Chen Rui, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue!

The Great Ming was making money!

Last year — that is, the twentieth year of Chongzhen — the Great Ming dynasty had finally achieved profitability "after deducting non-recurring gains and losses."

The so-called "deducting non-recurring items" naturally meant the profit-and-loss situation after excluding one-time gains such as property confiscations.

Of course, because it was wartime, war expenditures were recurring expenses.

In other words, despite spending a large sum of military funds on the northern expedition, the Great Ming dynasty had still achieved a profit last year.

This was a tremendous piece of good news!

"Your Majesty, these are the account books of the Ministry of Revenue. The accounts were all kept according to the rules you established, and the Censorate was asked to send personnel to audit them. They are essentially without error."

Having traveled for more than twenty days, the travel-worn Minister of Revenue Chen Rui pointed at the thick stack of account books, grinning from ear to ear.

Chen Rui smiled: "This is the first year since the Shenmiao era that our Great Ming has truly achieved a surplus! This subject's Ministry of Revenue does not dare claim credit — everything is due to Your Majesty's skill in management!"

Skill in fleecing, more like?

Zhu Cilang thought with ill intent: In the eyes of the gentry and scholars in the south, this emperor must be a black-hearted emperor even blacker than the Wanli Emperor.

"Master Chen, how much did we make?" Zhu Cilang asked with a smile.

Chen Rui held up five fingers and said with a smile: "Six million five hundred fifty thousand taels and more, all deposited in the accounts of the Maritime Merchants Bank and the Salt Merchants Bank."

"Six million five hundred fifty thousand taels? How could it be that much?" Zhu Cilang's brow furrowed slightly when he heard the figure. It was not that he disliked having too much money, but before leaving Huai'an he had reviewed the monthly financial statements every month and knew the Great Ming's "financial condition" like the back of his hand.

He not only reviewed the Ministry of Revenue's statements, but also the monthly reports of the Ministry of War's Military Farms Bureau, the Maritime Merchants Bank, the Salt Merchants Bank, the Yingtian Granary, and the Wuhan Granary (the two largest granaries under the Military Farms Bureau). These monthly reports were all prepared according to the methods in the "Treatise on Finance and Accounting" that Zhu Cilang had personally compiled. Every six months a semi-annual report was also issued, and every year an annual report. The semi-annual and annual reports were also subject to external audit.

Among these, the annual and semi-annual reports of the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of War, the Yingtian Granary, and the Wuhan Granary were audited under the auspices of the Censorate, with personnel sent by the Yingtian Imperial Merchants Guild to assist in the audit work.

The Maritime Merchants Bank and the Salt Merchants Bank, although not government offices, were responsible for managing state treasury funds and for issuing silver and copper coins on behalf of the state (authorized by the Ministry of Revenue, which collected seigniorage tax), so they too were subject to joint audits by the Censorate and the Imperial Merchants Guild — this time a joint audit, rather than the Imperial Merchants Guild assisting the Censorate. This was because the Imperial Merchants Guild itself was a major shareholder of the two great banks and naturally had the right to participate in management and account review.

The Yingtian Imperial Merchants Guild — one could tell from the name alone that it had serious backing! This guild was established by Zhu Cilang after the eunuch faction unrest in Yingtian. At that time, Zhu Cilang had distributed the confiscated gold, silver, land (farmland), and residences, but he had "swallowed" the open and hidden shares of shops and commercial firms confiscated from the Nanjing nobility and the four old Shanxi salt magnates of Yangzhou.

The Yingtian Imperial Merchants Guild was created to manage and dispose of these assets. Later, Zhu Cilang also placed his own shares in the Maritime Trading Company and the Salt Trading Company, as well as the land in Shanghai, into the Imperial Merchants Guild, and later still added the land of Wuhan Prefecture. Under Zhu Cilang's direction, the Imperial Merchants Guild gradually concentrated its investments in three major industries: finance, real estate, and military industry.

Finance, of course, meant the two great banks. After the market presence of the two banks gradually grew, the Imperial Merchants Guild continuously sought to increase its shareholding and now held more than one-third of the shares of the two banks.

Real estate was invested only in premium properties in the five first-tier cities of Nanjing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Suzhou, and Guangzhou — rent-only, never sold, held for the long term.

The financial and real estate assets owned by the Imperial Merchants Guild were, of course, all of the highest quality. With Zhu Cilang personally overseeing them, how could there be any mistake? With finance and real estate "earning money while lying down," he then ventured into military industry, a line of business that easily lost money, investing in the establishment of the Nanjing Arsenal, the Nanjing Shipyard, and the Daye Ironworks in Daye County and Xingguo Prefecture in Wuhan.

In addition, the Imperial Merchants Guild also established a Shanghai Commercial Academy. Zhu Cilang personally participated in compiling some of the teaching materials and also invited retired managers, bookkeepers, and shopkeepers from various imperial merchant houses to serve as teachers. Students who graduated from this academy could not only easily enter the major imperial merchant houses and the commercial firms under the Imperial Merchants Guild, but could also easily obtain a technical official post.

Now the accounts of the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of War, the Maritime Merchants Bank, the Salt Merchants Bank, the Yingtian Granary, and the Wuhan Granary were all kept by graduates of the Shanghai Commercial Academy, so Zhu Cilang could review all the accounts without any difficulty.

And according to his memory, as of August of last year, the Great Ming court's "net profit" had not exceeded one million taels. How could it have suddenly grown to 6.55 million taels in four months?

(End of Chapter)