Chapter 642: Made Money, Sold the Grain!

Zhu Cilang didn't bother asking any more questions — the financial report was sitting right there on the desk; he could read it himself!

One look, and he knew he'd run into another matter that was going to give him a headache!

The 6.55 million taels of fiscal surplus was real! There wasn't a single tael of silver padding in it, and the accounts had been kept very conservatively, with large provisions set aside for "war preparations," "disaster relief preparations," and "grand construction preparations."

If all those provisions were written back, last year's fiscal surplus would actually have been as high as over 16.5 million taels.

And this surplus figure was not only jaw-droppingly high, it even exceeded the total tax silver the court had booked in the twentieth year of Chongzhen!

The Great Ming court's fiscal revenue was now divided into two categories: "tax silver" and "tax grain."

Of these, the court's tax silver revenue was mainly composed of the salt tax, maritime customs duties, internal customs duties, local tax shares, the North and South Seas tax farms, the two banks' coinage tax, and the interest income from the two banks' silver deposits.

The largest item among them was the salt tax, because the salt industries of Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shandong, and other places had been contracted out one after another, pushing the total salt tax farm revenue past 9 million taels in the twentieth year of Chongzhen and making it the absolute lion's share of the court's tax silver income.

The maritime customs duties and the North and South Seas tax farms could originally have brought in several million taels as well, but because the southeast under Zhu Cilang's rule had many people and tight grain supplies, these two taxes collected grain wherever possible — last year the tax silver remitted from these two taxes was only around 1 million taels.

The internal customs duties and local commercial tax shares were both items that took aim at the scholar-officials! Because of the "punitive expedition incident," the Great Emperor Zhu's control over the localities had climbed another step, so last year the total internal customs duties and local commercial tax shares booked exceeded 2 million taels.

The silver income produced by the two banks' coinage tax and the interest income from the two banks' silver deposits combined came to roughly 1.3 million taels.

In other words, in the twentieth year of Chongzhen the Great Ming court's total silver income was 13.3 million taels — another figure that could drive the wise sovereign Chongzhen mad with rage!

Of course, this figure was still a bit less than the silver income in the early Shunzhi years in history, when the Great Qing had just entered the Central Plains.

At that time, the Great Qing could collect over 21 million taels of silver in a single year!

In the early Shunzhi years, the Great Qing had not yet unified China, and because of the massacre policies adopted during the Ming-Qing wars, the total population of the country was smaller than the population the Southern Ming now possessed. Moreover, because the forty-year seesaw war with the Zheng Ming regime had only just begun, the southeast's maritime trade and industry were withered, so not much in the way of customs or commercial taxes could be collected either.

Under such circumstances, the Great Qing could still collect 21 million taels of silver — which shows just how great their talent for extortion was.

But Zhu Cilang's ability to rake in money was not weak either. Last year the silver he got his hands on was only 13.3 million, less than the 21 million of the early Qing in history.

But the Southern Ming court under Zhu Cilang's rule had also taken in over 55 million shi of rice and grain in the twentieth year of Chongzhen!

This figure far exceeded the early Shunzhi years' 5.6 million-plus shi of rice, wheat, and beans plus 2.9 million-plus bundles of fodder.

And this 55 million shi of rice and grain was mainly composed of three major items: military field rent, field-redemption rice, and customs grain tax (including the North and South Seas tax farms).

The military field rent came from over 80 million mu of military fields under the Military Farms Bureau's management, with over 35 million shi actually entered into the granaries — the absolute lion's share.

Thanks to Li Zicheng, last year Zhu Cilang also obtained a good deal of field-redemption rice from Huguang, with the total reaching over 16 million shi.

In addition, Zhu Cilang had received over 3 million shi of customs grain tax through the four great maritime customs houses of Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai, as well as through the Governor-General's offices of the North and South Seas.

And the 6.55 million taels of fiscal surplus that Chen Rui handed over, along with nearly 10 million taels in various provisions, had all been obtained by selling off the stored grain in the Yingtian and Wuhan granaries!

The 55 million shi of grain collected by the Great Ming court certainly couldn't be left to molder in the warehouses — a portion of it was always meant to be disbursed and sold.

For example, it was used to relieve refugees from the north and for disaster relief, for the labor costs of various grand construction projects, for military rations and horse administration, for raising fiscal funds, and for stabilizing grain prices.

Of these, relief, grand construction, military rations, horse administration, and raising fiscal funds had all been budgeted in advance, so they couldn't possibly produce a surplus of several million taels — because of the "Crown Prince begs for food" incident, the Great Ming court now paid close attention to food security and would rather store grain than silver.

To that end, the court had spent enormous sums last year to build the Yingtian Granary and the Wuhan Granary, and the two great granaries could store up to 20 million shi of rice!

If both were filled to capacity, Emperor Zhu would be able to rest a little easier.

As for silver and the like, Zhu Cilang wasn't worried at all — if there wasn't enough to spend, he could issue bonds; he was an expert in that area! From the seventeenth year of Chongzhen onward, he had been preparing step by step for the issuance of bonds.

His purpose in establishing the Salt Merchants Bank and the Maritime Merchants Bank was to form a financial market that could provide liquidity for national debt — national debt without liquidity was bound to carry high interest rates and short maturities!

Now that the Great Ming court's books showed so much silver (the silver deposited in the two great banks already exceeded ten million taels), it had to be the proceeds from selling grain!

"Has the price of rice in the southeast risen again?" Zhu Cilang asked. "How much stock is left now? Can we get through the spring famine?"

He really didn't want to go begging for food again. And where would he go to beg? Last time the begging army had gone all the way to Guangdong — where else could they go? Go beg for food in the Kingdom of Annam?

Wonderful — a grand Celestial Dynasty of the highest order, reduced to begging for food abroad.

"It's already been stabilized!" Chen Rui said with a frown. "When this subject left Nanjing, the price of brown rice was around one tael five qian per shi."

That's not cheap at all! Brown rice in Nanjing ought to sell for one tael of silver!

"As for stored grain," Chen Rui said, "the Yingtian and Wuhan granaries still hold over eight million shi. All of it can be used to stabilize grain prices and relieve famine. Military rations are stored separately, at roughly over thirteen million shi."

Over twenty-one million shi in total — it looks like a lot, but in truth it's not much at all!

Because the Military Farms Bureau's land rent and the Huguang field-redemption rice were both collected in autumn, when over 51 million shi of rice was taken in. It hasn't been long at all, and 30 million shi is already gone — although the ration rice of the sixteen General's Offices (mainly issued to resettled refugees and to New Army officers and soldiers in training), the military rations of the various garrisoned armies, and the relief rice allocated to the various gathering places for northern refugees were all distributed in a concentrated manner before the New Year.

But even adding up all these aspects, it still wouldn't use up as much as 30 million shi!

"How much was sold?" Zhu Cilang pressed.

"Over 8 million shi of brown rice was sold." Chen Rui said, "Because the stored grain was all booked at one tael per shi as a silver equivalent, releasing 8 million shi produced a surplus of over 6 million taels."

You're window-dressing the statements! Zhu Cilang thought to himself: I've seen far too many profits cooked up by accountants like you.

"Then with 8 million shi gone, can things hold steady this spring and summer?"

"That..." Chen Rui's brow furrowed. "That will depend on the situation in Shandong. Last year the harvests in the southeast and Huguang were good, and grain prices stayed stable all the way to the eleventh month. But unexpectedly, in the eleventh and twelfth months large numbers of Shandong refugees came south, and grain prices on the market shot up at once. This subject and the others had no choice but to sell off stored grain immediately, and in the end we managed to press it back down. If the situation in Shandong can stabilize, and all that fertile land on the east bank of the canal can be opened up for cultivation, grain prices won't go too high. Otherwise..."

So this matter was actually Dorgon's fault!

Zhu Cilang's face had already turned faintly ashen, because he had discovered yet another soft spot of the Great Ming — the tight grain supply in the southeast and the wild fluctuations in grain prices caused by free grain trading!

Fortunately, Dorgon had not invaded Huainan in force last year! Otherwise all those people in Huainan would have had to flee, and grain prices in Jiangnan would have soared to the heavens. Nowadays a great many people in the southeast ate "commercial grain" — not only the refugees from the north and the townspeople in Jiangnan's industrial and commercial cities, but also many farmers who, having switched to cash crops, also needed to buy rice to eat.

If grain prices went through the roof, wouldn't the southeast fall into chaos?

Just as Zhu Cilang was drenched in cold sweat, Yan Yingyuan suddenly came hurrying in from outside, saluted, and said: "Your Majesty, urgent military report!"

"What's happened?" Zhu Cilang tensed up at once. Don't tell me Dorgon has marched south — grain prices in the southeast can't afford to rise any further!

Yan Yingyuan said with a smile: "Dorgon has withdrawn from Qufu!"

(End of Chapter)