After broadcasting the ancient times live, I handed the system over to the state.

"How many? How many tons?" Zhu Yuanzhang thought he had misheard.

The sky screen always seems to possess some magical power, enabling people with different accents and those who cannot read to understand what Miss Zhu is saying on it. As a result, many people are learning Mandarin and recognizing characters through the sky screen.

They also had a vague idea of ​​how many units there were.

Even though the sky screen doesn't let them know, over the years, the bullet comments on the sky screen have always appeared from time to time to remind them.

They clearly understood how much a ton was.

It's tens of millions of tons now!

And it's not just iron, but also crude steel, pig iron, steel products...

Zhu Yuanzhang didn't know what these were for, but he knew it was an astronomical figure!

In the sixth year of the Hongwu reign, the three ironworks in the south—Jinxian, Xingguo, and Huangmei—each produced more than 500 tons of iron, while there were only thirteen ironworks in the entire country!

Some iron smelting plants may not even have a production capacity of 500 tons!

It's astonishing how much production there is in later generations. In the sixth year of the Hongwu reign, the total national iron production was approximately 0.45 million tons, just a fraction of what was produced in later generations.

Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang's shock was immediately apparent on his face.

Zhu Zhanji was also dizzy when he heard this number. Tens of millions of tons of output, and that was only one aspect!

No wonder Miss Zhu said there would be a surplus that could be used to lay railways. Isn't that just too much?

Do you really need this much iron for war? You wouldn't need this much to make iron pots either, let alone farm tools?

By the way, later generations all used that kind of machine, and I wonder how much iron that kind of machine would require?

But it probably wouldn't be tens of millions of tons, and this is only the statistics for key enterprises for one month. Over a year, wouldn't that be hundreds of millions of tons?

There are also some micro-enterprises... that should be the term, as micro-enterprises have not been statistically analyzed.

Zhu Zhanji felt a little dizzy. Just as Miss Zhu said, agriculture can stabilize society, so what else can these people do besides agriculture to accelerate development?

The railway alone was enough to astound Zhu Zhanji and other ancient people under the sky, but then again, it was only a part of the infrastructure!

And what about water and electricity... They had seen it before. In Miss Zhu's dormitory, water would come out when you turned on the tap, and electricity would come out when you pressed the switch, making the night as bright as day.

Hydropower is also part of national infrastructure, and every household has access to water and electricity, which means 1.4 billion people!

It's not necessarily 1.4 billion households; there are also many office spaces. In any case, it seems like an absolutely impossible thing for the ancients to achieve.

(Ming Dynasty, Zhu Zhanji: Are all these expenses paid by the state? Won't the state be unable to make ends meet in the long run? Just like what Miss Zhu said about the Ming Dynasty's finances? And how can so many people and so much energy be used to build railways and highways in so many places?)

This is incomprehensible to many people in ancient times. They stopped collecting agricultural taxes and only collected taxes on industry and commerce. How much tax could that be? And yet they still wanted to build such a large-scale project, even though it could make more people rich.

For the ruling class, including Zhu Zhanji and Zhu Yuanzhang, it was like directly handing out hard-earned money.

“Father, do you think building a railway should also be considered part of industry and commerce?” Zhu Biao responded quickly.

"Does this kind of project really collect its own taxes?" Zhu Yuanzhang was only vaguely aware of the question, but the more vaguely he understood, the more he wanted to find out.

Zhu Qinggu saw Zhu Zhanji asking questions one after another, and a few beads of sweat appeared on her back. These people really were persistent in getting to the bottom of things.

It seems I need to improve my knowledge base, otherwise I won't even know where to search on Baidu.

She still knows.

She had only typed one word when the interface jumped ahead of her, and she knew it was thanks to the system.

'Thank you,' she thought to herself.

The system instantly transformed into a little sprite on the desktop, a cute kitten she had downloaded earlier, which jumped around on the desktop, guiding her.

So cute (*?▽?*)~

"This involves rather detailed taxation, but our tax system is quite complex and involves a very large system. I'll look up some professional information later and share it with everyone when I have time," Zhu Qinggu frankly admitted his shortcomings.

There's a lot to say about taxes in a short time.

"The government's investment in infrastructure is calculated. At the beginning of this year, we roughly budgeted which funds would be used for which areas. Infrastructure has always been within the fiscal budget. This is the government's annual allocation, as well as government funds. These funds are usually used for specific public projects, such as infrastructure."

“Special bonds are also used to raise funds, and these are generally used for specific projects.”

"There are also non-recurring incomes such as national asset returns, or international cooperation and loans."

"Many projects, such as issuing bonds, are trusted because they have strong national credit, like the Ming Dynasty Treasure Notes..." Zhu Qinggu muttered for a moment, "but they have lost official credit and have become increasingly worthless due to various reasons."

Zhu Yuanzhang's face darkened. "Our Great Ming Treasure Notes are still good stuff!"

Zhu Biao noticed a few keywords: national credit and bonds... Suddenly, as if realizing something, he asked, "Does Miss Zhu know that we are asking her questions?"

Previously, any statements they made that involved their identities would be reviewed, and some would not be approved.

After trying it a couple more times, they figured it out.

It seems that this restriction... has disappeared now?

Moreover, it seems that Zhu Qinggu was talking to them, otherwise he wouldn't have mentioned the Great Ming Treasure Note.

There are so many clever people under the sky; they realized it immediately!

The restrictions on their statements identifying themselves have been lifted, but statements involving personal attacks or ill intentions towards Zhu Qinggu will still not be approved.

Immediately, many colored bullet comments with parentheses appeared on the screen, and some clever people guessed that Zhu Qinggu knew about them!

They themselves didn't know that this sky screen could connect to all dynasties, and they were quite surprised when they found out. Zhu Qinggu, the anchor, was the last to find out, but he didn't seem particularly surprised.

Ancient times naturally also had fiscal budgets, which existed as early as the Spring and Autumn Period. The Book of Rites records that the ancients arranged the amount of expenditure based on the amount of fiscal revenue in order to ensure a balance between fiscal revenue and expenditure.

But there are always things that exceed their expectations, such as disasters.