Chapter 774: Zheng Zhilong, Go Get Two Small Targets

After finishing the matter of the false accounts, the Zhu Emperor next began asking about the more genuine account problems.

"Old Father-in-law, if we are to open war in the sixth year of Hongxing, fight for at least ten years, and need an extra twenty million taels in military spending every year, can the finances bear it? At present, how much surplus do our finances have? How much potential is there to tap?"

Zhu Cilang did not dare imagine flattening the enemy in a few months. Yuan Chonghuan's proposed five-year pacification of Liaodong was, by later consensus, pure bragging!

The present Great Qing was far stronger than in the early years of Chongzhen. Wanting to crush them in a few months was sheer delirium. If the budget only provided for a few months and a few million taels, the war would certainly become impossible to sustain.

So Zhu Cilang's plan was to fight for ten years and spend at least two hundred million!

Two hundred million too much?

Heh. Historically, after the Great Qing entered the pass and transformed from a bandit gang into a central regime, every one of its wars was fought with mountains of gold and silver! Any war of the slightest scale cost tens of millions or even a hundred million taels. Suppressing the White Lotus in Sichuan and Hubei cost one or two hundred million. Was the Great Qing run by Dodo and Ajige not far more formidable than the White Lotus led by Wang Cong'er?

And do not assume silver was worthless in the Qianlong and Jiaqing years. Judged by the most basic rice price, the year-round rice price in Jiangnan during the Qianlong era was only 1.5 or 1.6 taels of silver per shi. A little dearer than the rice price in the fourth year of Hongxing, but compared with the last years of Chongzhen it was perhaps even cheaper!

Therefore, if the Great Ming was to resolve the "eastern barbarian problem" and the "roving bandit problem," it had first to resolve the fiscal problem. Fiscal revenue had to be raised from the ten-million level to the hundred-million level before it would be possible to support a war of rolling over the eastern barbarians and the roving bandits!

Of course, if Zhu Cilang could imitate the Shun and establish a truly effective land-based military service system, he could use ten-million-level revenue to topple both the Qing and the Shun.

But an excessive population and a booming industry and commerce would deal a severe blow to a land-based military service system — to implement such a system, one could not stop officers and soldiers from putting their land to productive use. Small and middling landlords holding only a few dozen or a hundred-odd mu of land, if they had no other source of income, would mostly turn to working it.

Running a farm is in fact also doing business. That is soldiers engaging in commerce!

You cannot on one hand have soldiers use the income from working their land to cover the costs of soldiering and fighting, and on the other strictly forbid soldiers from engaging in commerce.

So all the court could do was suppress commerce!

Because the more developed industry, commerce, and rich-peasant economy became, the more opportunities and challenges officers and soldiers who had received land would face.

Whether their ventures succeeded or failed, it would affect their enthusiasm for soldiering and fighting!

If their ventures succeeded and they became rich, they naturally would not want to serve. If their ventures failed and they went bankrupt in debt, they naturally could not afford military service either.

Moreover, many officers and soldiers could not control their spending — the more developed commerce and industry became, the more places there were to spend money! And the more fraudulent investment schemes there were!

Thus many officers and soldiers who had received merit fields from Zhu Cilang a few years earlier had now "long-leased" their land out, then squandered the lump-sum rent they received, or lost it all by putting it into some other business.

That was why states in history that implemented land-based military service often pursued policies of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce!

The mighty Qin "founded the state on farming and war." The early Tang enforced a strict market-ward system, even forbidding officials from entering the Eastern and Western Markets! And the Great Ming's own Taizu Emperor imposed a maritime ban and strictly restricted population movement to suppress commerce! The neighboring Tokugawa shogunate not only banned maritime trade, it even banned large carts!

But Zhu Cilang had no way to suppress the industry and commerce of the southeast — the population was too large. If he did not vigorously develop industry and commerce and pursue colonization abroad (colonization must be founded on industry and commerce, otherwise the state could not bear the expense), chaos was certain.

And once industry and commerce had developed greatly, the possibility of the Zhu Emperor implementing a land-based military service system was completely sealed off.

Therefore, after the great "land distribution" upon first arriving in Jiangnan (which had been unavoidable — without it there would have been no base of support), Zhu Cilang's military-political line returned to state mercenaries. Land grants served only as a supplementary reward, not as a substitute for military expenditure.

"Your Majesty," Zheng Zhilong's dark face showed a trace of difficulty, "these past two years the court's annual revenue has been above a hundred million. The grain and money that should be collected have all been collected. Collecting much more will not be easy.

At present the court can carry over a surplus of more than ten million every year, and the court's reserves amount to fifty or sixty million. But those are all disaster-relief grain and cannot be lightly touched. If for the next ten years an extra twenty million in military spending is required every year, there will still be a gap of ten million. And if we want a little margin, we must set aside fifteen million taels! I fear this will require issuing debt certificates."

"Can they be sold?" Zhu Cilang asked, though he already knew the answer.

Zheng Zhilong had long had a plan in mind. After a moment's thought, he nodded and said: "Issuing debt is no problem. The only problem is the interest. If the annual rate is five or six percent, not many will be willing to buy. If it is to be amortized..."

"The annual rate will be six percent at most," Zhu Cilang said, knowing well the harm of usury and naturally unwilling to fall into it. "Borrow fifteen million a year, issue a hundred and fifty million over ten years. No amortization."

"That..." Zheng Zhilong paused. "Actually, it is not that they cannot be sold!"

"How would you sell them?"

Zheng Zhilong said: "We cannot apportion them by quota, but we can bundle them."

"Hahaha, We knew you would have a way!" Zhu Cilang laughed. "Bundled with what? Land in the treaty ports? Empty official titles? Mining and logging rights? Or government student places in the capital academy?"

So you had it all thought out, and you still asked me...

Zheng Zhilong could only smile and say: "Your Majesty is sagacious... This subject's thinking is that all sorts of combinations are possible. Now every trade in the realm is flourishing, and there are many rich men with idle money or large stores of grain. The court need only find a way to dig out a little of this dead money. But they may not necessarily want to make money with money, so we can only attract them with other benefits.

Court titles, capital academy places... perhaps also primary and middle school places, can all be bundled with debt certificates."

Treaty-port land and mining and logging rights were for profit; empty official posts could buy peace of mind — these mainly attracted ordinary merchant and landowning families.

School places, on the other hand, were for attracting officials and ennobled families! The present primary schools, middle schools, and the capital academy did not merely provide elite education — they were also a circle! Inside were the children of many top power-holders. Who moving in circles of power would not want to squeeze in?

If you told someone like Luo Dagong, the Prefect of Songjiang, to spend a hundred or two hundred thousand on bonds, and then let his son or daughter be classmates with the Crown Prince and the Princess, would he be unwilling?

Of course, the Zhu Emperor's credibility had also been established. In the early years in Beijing, not one of the corrupt officials who donated money to "buy tickets" was ever investigated for the "ticket money" — for their corruption before the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Zhu Cilang uniformly did not pursue criminal liability. Apart from official fields and military fields they had seized, which had to be returned, everything else was left unquestioned.

Zhu Cilang smiled and reminded Zheng Zhilong: "There is one more thing to remember. The bundled debt certificates must be deposited immediately in the Maritime Merchant Bank and the Salt Merchant Bank, and they must not circulate. They can only be redeemed at maturity."

"Right, right," Zheng Zhilong nodded. "Otherwise the yield on debt certificates in the market will certainly rise, and then it will not be easy to issue more later."

Zhu Cilang said with a smile: "As long as Old Father-in-law can keep raising military funds for Us in a steady stream, this northern expedition will ultimately be brought to a successful conclusion. Even if our fighting is clumsy, we will win by outspending them. After all, the eastern barbarians' Eight Banners or Nine Banners are not without cost either. As long as they cannot seize any spoils, they will be dragged into poverty and ruin by us!"

With the command skills of his generals all rather unreliable, the Zhu Emperor still had this clumsy method of pitting national strength against the enemy!

Because the "base asset" of the northern Qing army was still land! When war itself ran at a loss, the output of the land could not cover the cost of a long war. In that case, the northern Qing's rank-and-file officers and soldiers would run deficits and even go bankrupt, and they would become like the Ming officers and soldiers before the seventeenth year of Chongzhen...

(End of Chapter)