Chapter 2045: advise

  Chapter 2045 Persuasion

  The salaries of ordinary soldiers can be saved for ten or five years.

  If you get injured again, you can't go to the battlefield, you can only do logistics, and the salary will be even lower.

Emperor Xuanming's face sank like water: "Each year, the imperial court pays at least five or six million taels to each army. Just one frontier soldier and one soldier spend no more than ten taels a year, and the three hundred thousand soldiers in the Northland are not enough. Halfway through!"

   "It really doesn't make sense."

  Chu Heng did not refute this statement. He has been in the Ministry of Households for two years and has a good understanding of the treasury. In the past two years, the annual fiscal revenue of the imperial court is about 20 million taels.

  If it weren't for this, spending a quarter on military pay, it can already be seen that Emperor Xuanming attached great importance to the army.

  And this fiscal revenue has not counted food and cloth and other real objects.

   is a pure tax.

  However, although there have been high-yield rice and potatoes and other high-yield grains discovered by Ye Muyu in the past two years, and taxes have been raised, the plague and floods last year consumed a lot of expenses.

   Even this year's treasury is not full.

   This is why Emperor Xuanming was more cautious in dealing with the Beirong issue, and was very angry after being betrayed by King Huainan.

   If not prepared well, there might be a raging war in the north, and the imperial court will not have enough military support. Even if they win, the entire Great Chu will be greatly injured.

  Emperor Xuanming has been working hard for so many years, and finally let Da Chu usher in a prosperous age, and began to gradually become stronger. He would not like to see Da Chu fall under his hands.

"Your Majesty, there is a saying that the soldiers come first with courtesy first." Chu Heng slowly drew out his opinion: "In my view, not only are the soldiers' salaries reduced, but some officials' salaries are actually also reduced. On the face of it, not some graft."

  Emperor Xuanming's anger has not dissipated, but he is also willing to listen to Chu Heng talk about related solutions. Compared with complaining about the status quo, he wants to solve Shen Ke's court.

"The increase in the salary mentioned by the minister is actually a comprehensive consideration of human feelings. The minister wrote a book, which compared the daily expenses of a local official, such as food, clothing, use, and cost. , Food and clothing are the most basic, if you have a family of six, you need to protect these three aspects, the monthly cost is about seven taels, if you add the support of servants, a higher level of life, about ten taels."

"These are based on the premise that officials do not have any personal relationships. In fact, even if the minister does not say anything, the emperor knows that human relationships are unavoidable for everyone. It is as big as treating guests to dinner, as small as giving gifts at banquets, and the monthly expenses It’s almost two to three taels, which means that the minimum monthly household expenditure of a local county magistrate is around thirteen taels.”

"Now the county magistrate's salary is on the 11th of January, and the food is 60 catties, which has reached the basic food and clothing." Chu Heng calculated the account, and seeing that Emperor Xuanming did not show any impatient expression, he was silent for a while before raising his head. Point out the insidiousness in this: "That is to say, the salaries of local officials today are mostly just enough to support their families. If you are a little rich, you will be tight."

"The officialdom is a big dyeing vat, and gift-giving has become the norm. For promotion, gifts are naturally expensive, but obviously the salary is not enough to support gifts. If you want to get money, you are forced to do something that does not meet the regulations. thing."

  Even though Chu Heng had spoken very conservatively, he did not explicitly mention corruption and bribery.

  (end of this chapter)