The film and television world begins with the battle for the throne in Kowloon

Chapter 1100: Massive Wealth

"People work hard all year round, and they will probably encounter good years, normal years, and bad years."

"It goes without saying that in years of disaster, food production is reduced and people are living in poverty. This is a disaster for the entire country. However, in normal years, when taxation is normal, people hand over most of their annual income, leaving only a small part for themselves to make a living."

"Logically, in good years, the grain yield is extremely high, and the people should be able to have enough to eat, but the reality is that this is not the case?"

Li Xiang asked in surprise: "Why, Father, is it because the court will increase taxes and collect more grain?"

"No, the court's annual tax revenue is fixed and does not fluctuate depending on the harvest season, because the court's expenses are fixed."

Li Yan's words that the tax rate does not fluctuate depending on the weather of the year shocked Li Xiang. Doesn't this mean that taxes must still be collected even in years of disaster?

It is hard to imagine that the people had to deal with the court's extortion and heavy taxation when the food in their fields was sharply reduced or even completely wiped out. No wonder conflicts of varying scales broke out in various places every year of disaster. What's worse, the people even stormed the county government office and raised the flag of rebellion.

Li Xiang was a simple-minded man and he clearly felt that something was wrong. He opened his mouth in fear with a very complicated expression, but in the end he did not ask.

Although he was simple-minded, he knew that there might be many unknown secrets hidden in it. Out of caution, he just moved his eyes and swallowed the words that were about to come out of his mouth.

When Li Yan saw this scene, he showed obvious admiration. If Li Xiang was speechless, it meant that his knowledge was still too shallow. Not to mention solving such a complicated problem, it was impossible for him to even see the question. Li Yan would not say the following words.

Now that he is aware of the problem, would he still consider whether he should ask about it?

This means that after this period of training, he has begun to think about complex problems and his thinking has entered the second level.

So Li Yan said without hesitation: "I know what you want to ask. The people have already had no food to eat after the disaster. Why do the court and the local governments still collect taxes? Isn't this forcing the people to live?"

"The problem here is also very complicated. The tax revenue from the imperial court is not much, and it only accounts for a small part. Even if there is a disaster year, the people can still cope with it. The bulk of it is the various incomes of the local county government, including the maintenance of the operation of grassroots management."

"Of course, there are public and private reasons. If there is a reasonable reason, it can naturally be extended infinitely. Reasonable and unreasonable reasons can all be packaged together."

"They come up with all sorts of excuses, and all forms of levies are imposed on the people in the name of taxation. Even if the court issues an order to exempt the area from taxes, it will only reduce 30%, and the other 70% cannot be avoided."

"what"

Li Xiang asked in surprise: "There are so many. I thought they were all from the court."

"Maintaining grassroots management is the fundamental issue for the stability of the entire society. I will not tell you the answer to this question. You need to bring the question and find out for yourself. If necessary, you can go incognito and visit the county government offices near Chang'an to find out for yourself."

Li Yan's face was extremely heavy. He knew, of course, that some people just wanted to make it impossible for the people to survive, forcing them to sell the land they depended on for survival, in order to annex the land and turn the people into their tenants, enslaving them for generations.

A huge disaster for ordinary people is precisely a rare opportunity for some people to grow stronger.

Mr. Lu Xun talked about the thousands of years of feudal history. He saw that it was just two people "eating each other", and there was a reason for that.

In this era, people are a kind of resource, a fixed resource that can be used to continuously extract money. You think they only value the land. In fact, they not only want the land, but also the people. They will not only break the bones but also suck the marrow. In the end, they can be used as fertilizer after they die.

He couldn't tell Li Xiang about these bloody realities, because they were beyond the ability of Li Xiang to bear now. And they were not something that the children who had just grown up could understand, because otherwise they would be disappointed with the world and regret coming here.

Why does everyone yearn for childhood and miss the past? Because the adult world is so heavy that it is suffocating.

Li Yan said with a serious expression: "What I want to tell you is one of the reasons why the people are still in poverty in years of plenty?"

"Every year after the court collects tax grain, the people will take out the excess grain and sell it in the market to increase their income. But grain is a very seasonal thing, and the people cannot keep it for a long time, so they have to sell it in the autumn of a good year."

"A large amount of grain entering the market in a short period of time will inevitably lead to a drop in prices, which is why they cannot increase their income. Major grain merchants will also take this opportunity to lower prices and buy grain from the people at the cheapest price."

Li Xiang thought about the food he had worked so hard to grow, and how he was being sold at a low price. He was very unwilling to do so: "Father, why don't they sell it later, or transport it to other places that are short of food and sell it at a high price?"

"No, because in other places, most likely from the south to the north, individual people simply don't have the ability to do so. In addition, they also need to sell the food urgently to buy various supplies for life, and they simply can't wait."

"The only thing they hope for is a higher grain price, which is the only way to solve the problems of thousands of households. I cannot set grain prices from a legal perspective to protect the people, so I can only find another way and use the East Factory to help the people."

As soon as the voice fell, Li Xiang asked in surprise: "Father, can the East Factory do what the court can't do?" "Of course it can, you forget that the East Factory itself is a large grain merchant under the official management of the court."

Li Yan explained, "Food is the most important thing for the people. Originally, under the arrangement of your grandfather, the East Factory had many grain teams. In order to manage grain, they even built grain warehouses in Jiangnan, the two lakes, and Bashu to store the purchased grain."

"During the harvest season, grain in the north cost about 10 to 15 wen per dou, while in Jiangnan, the two lakes, and Sichuan, it cost 5 or 6 wen per dou. When it was the cheapest, a dou of rice cost only 3 qian."

"I want you to focus on grain procurement. In the name of the East Factory, purchase grain in a protective manner and raise the grain prices in these places according to local conditions. Raise them to the highest level so that you can subsidize the people and increase their income."

"Yes, Father, I will obey your order."

Upon hearing this, Li Xiang immediately agreed, but then asked, "Father, if we buy at the highest price, the people will definitely sell their grain to us, and the amount will increase dozens of times, which will cost a lot of extra money."

"Secondly, our granary may not be able to accommodate it."

"These are not problems. If the granary is not enough, we can ask the Jinyiwei to work with the local government to recruit laborers and rebuild it. We can collect as much grain as possible."

Li Yan said decisively: "You don't have to worry about the money. The Asset Management Bureau is raising a large amount of funds to expand the scale of the East Factory. In the expansion of various industries, you can focus on grain and expand grain procurement first."

Li Yan might lack other things, but the thing he lacks the least is money.

Now the Tang Dynasty only knew that Yingzhou produced a large amount of silver, but they did not know that where there were silver mines, there would be no shortage of gold mines. Li Yan sent people to explore the northern part of Yingzhou and finally found two large-scale gold mines, which were mined secretly.

He could produce 200,000 taels of gold every month, but he only took in and never gave out. Over the years, the amount of gold contributed to him by Yingzhou alone was more than 20 million taels.

In addition, Li Yan continued to extort money from the Tang Dynasty and the aristocratic families.

Li Yan roughly calculated that the amount of gold stored in his private space over the past ten years on the grassland was more than 30 million taels, and the amount of silver was as much as 300 million taels. This result surprised Li Yan.

If Li Shimin knew about this, he would probably be even more shocked.

The current treasury of the Tang Dynasty has an annual income of more than 50 million strings of silver. Although the Tang Dynasty has been peaceful for many years and copper coins are issued in large quantities, the amount of silver that flows into the Tang Dynasty every year is also extremely astonishing because the Turks have developed the silver mines in Yingzhou.

Coupled with the prosperity of trade and the accumulation of materials every year, a delicate balance was reached, and one copper coin could still be exchanged for one tael of silver.

On the contrary, because of Li Yan's love and collection of gold, the amount of gold on the market has not increased, but has decreased day by day, and the official exchange rate is still maintained at one tael of gold to ten taels of silver.

But in the black market, the exchange rate of gold and silver reached more than one to three.

In other words, the gold in Li Yan's private space, if exchanged at the official rate of one to ten, would be worth three hundred million taels of silver, plus silver.

The total was 600 million taels, twelve times the revenue of the Tang Dynasty’s treasury.

If the black market is included, the value of gold will double, which is 24 times the income of the Tang Dynasty treasury. Previously, Li Yan gave his clone 100 million taels of silver as a deposit to maintain the Turkic Khanate. Now the gold and silver in Li Yan's private space is still 22 times the annual income of the Tang Dynasty treasury.

It is no exaggeration to say that Li Yan is the richest man in the world. Even those aristocratic families who are rich enough to rival a country are far inferior to him.

It was with such strong capital that Li Yan dared to issue the Tang Dynasty Treasure Notes.

The nobles thought that they had another way to play the game with the imperial power. Once the situation became urgent, they could drain the finances of the Tang Dynasty by running a currency run.

But they don't know that Li Yan has a huge amount of wealth to support him. With a limit of more than 1.1 billion and a total amount of currency of only 200 to 300 million, he can definitely start a currency war with the nobles and make them bankrupt.

Of course, the gold and silver in Li Yan's private space are unclean from a certain perspective and cannot be directly circulated in the market, so they need to be cleaned. However, Li Yan himself is the emperor and represents the court. On the other hand, most of them are hard currencies such as gold and silver.

In other words, if all of it is taken out at once, it will impact the market, causing large fluctuations in prices, causing violent turmoil and unrest among the people.

Li Yan didn't move and just kept it as a trump card.

The wealth plundered by the Turks from overseas wars was originally intended to subsidize the people and enhance the happiness index of the people in the Tang Dynasty.
(End of this chapter)