Looking forward and looking forward, August finally arrived, and the Ministry of Revenue began to organize officials from various Qingguansi to go to various provinces to supervise tax revenue. In another half a month, taxes in various places will be collected one after another, and finally there will be money to use.

It's really hard to bear when you have no money. Zhu Cijiu can hardly do anything in the past two months. He can only focus on the trial production of the new flintlock rifle to pass the time.

After several years of training, Xu Guangqi and Bi Maokang and other close friends have gradually gained the level of engineers. No matter what equipment it is, as long as Zhu Cijiu says the general meaning, they can make it soon. However, the new flintlock rifle is not something that can be made by saying it. The performance of weapons is generally determined by high-precision parts. The new flintlock rifle's requirements for part accuracy almost reach the limit of machining capabilities in this era.

First of all, the barrel. Although the accuracy of the rifle does not affect the acceleration of the bullet when it is released, if the rifle is a little flawed, it will cause an offset after the bullet is released. That is to say, as long as the rifle is engraved, the range can reach more than 500 meters, but the accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Even if the bullet is only offset by one millimeter, it will deviate by about one meter after one hundred meters, and it will deviate by more than 300 meters. How big is a talent? Will it still hit after the offset by five meters?

This problem has troubled Zhu Cijing and the others for a while. The pulling bed seems simple, but the rifle drawn is very different. Zhu Cijing was so angry that he grinded all the parts of the pulling bed with a grinder to solve this problem.

Then there is the bullet. Don’t look at it just a simple cylindrical caliber in the front. If the cone at the front end and the cylinder at the rear end are slightly different, the bullet will fly everywhere after it is out of the bore.

Everyone has been thinking about this problem for a long time. This time, Song Yingxing made a special turning knife so that the bullet could be formed with one knife. The problem was solved.

Finally, there is a detachable medicine room. The accuracy requirements of this medicine room are the highest. Even if it is connected to the barrel and flintlock device, it will leak air and pressure relief. This leak air and pressure relief shorten the range and it will easily hurt the soldiers' eyes. The air leakage here is not about leaking air, but about sparks. If you accidentally spray it in your eyes, it will be strange if you don't spray it blindly.

This problem is even more troublesome. The medicine room is not a regular shape. It takes many processes to process it. In the end, everyone converted all the machine tools in all processes into special machines to solve the problem.

It was almost August when the sample of the new flintlock rifle was successfully trial-produced. Now Zhu Cijing is waiting for the tax increase to be in place.

He estimated that this time he would increase the tax by about 15 million taels, of which the rent of farmland would increase the income by about 5 million taels, and the transaction tax of commodities would increase the income by about 10 million taels.

He had planned how to use this 15 million taels long ago. First, it would cost at least 2 million taels to prepare sweet potato seeds for the migrant victims. Then the military expenditure in Liaodong would be supplemented, and this area would be more than 4 million taels; and the peasant uprising troops in Shaanxi and Shanxi would also go to suppress them. It would be impossible to use a little man to suppress them, at least 100,000, and mobilize the troops of the local garrisons to be more than 3 million taels; in the end, there were about 4 million taels left Zhu Cijing was preparing to expand the Beijing camp to 100,000 people, and each of them was equipped with a new flintlock rifle and grenade. Although this 100,000 army could not control Huang Taiji, it would be no problem to sweep the peasant uprising army.

Another saying is: Ideals are beautiful, reality is cruel. When the Ministry of Revenue reported the tax situation, Zhu Cijing was stunned in an instant.

The newly added taxes were only collected more than 9 million taels, which could ensure the seedlings of the disaster victims and the military expenditures in Liaodong. The funds for encirclement and suppression of peasant uprising troops were not enough, so there was no need to think about the expansion of the Beijing camp.

What's going on? Zhu Cijiu summoned the Minister of Revenue from Daozong to the Imperial Study Room and asked carefully.

The rent and tax on farmland are normal. Excluding the affected provinces, the newly added rent and tax amounts collected a total of more than 5 million taels. This transaction tax is abnormal. It has only collected more than 4 million taels in total, which is less than the rent and tax amount on farmland!

Zhu Cijing was about to get angry on the spot. What did your Ministry of Revenue do for food? There are more than 100 million people in the Ming Dynasty. Do you never buy anything all year round? Salt is always eaten? Clothes are always worn? These two things add up to at least 300 taels per year, right? This is the transaction volume of 400 million to 500 million taels, 30 taxes per year. These two things alone can charge more than 10 million taels of tax. Can't you calculate this?

Before he could speak, Lai Daozong had already submitted a list. Zhu Cijiu saw that this was the list of transaction taxes paid in various provinces. Shanxi ranked first, and he paid nearly one million taels of tax silver. The next second to twelfth places ranged from more than 500,000 taels to more than 200,000 taels, which is normal.

The last three are abnormal. The three provinces in Nanzhili, Zhejiang and Fujian have only paid a total of more than 200,000 taels of transaction tax!

Zhu Cijing felt like he was fooled in an instant. Do you really think I am not good at it? Those are the three richest provinces in the Ming Dynasty, with a population of nearly 60 million. Not to mention that one person buys more than this number of clothes!

Based on the most basic rice price, the rice price in the Ming Dynasty was about one tael of silver and one stone of rice, and one stone of rice was about fifty kilograms. In Zhu Cijing's previous life, the rice price was about two dollars per kilogram, which means that it was converted into modern purchasing power. One tael of silver was about one hundred yuan. In the era when he lived, clothes were always more than one hundred and two hundred yuan, and the worst clothes cost dozens of yuan each. That is to say, 60 million people would have to spend hundreds of millions of taels a year to buy a piece of clothes, and 30 taxes would be more than three million taels. Now they have only paid more than two hundred thousand taels in total. Are they bare their butts all year round?

The transaction taxes in the three richest provinces are not as high as the poorest provinces. This is simply an insult to people's IQ. Zhu Cijing was angry on the spot. He slapped the list on the table and said furiously: "The three provinces in Nanzhili, Zhejiang and Fujian have only paid more than 200,000 taels in total. Do you think I am an idiot?"

Lai Daozong was so scared that he lay on the ground, kowtowed repeatedly, "Don't calm down, the Emperor, calm down."

By the way, why is Daozong so brave? He is a veteran of the three dynasties, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue and the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet. How could he be so afraid of an eight-year-old child?

Of course he is not afraid if he is another child. The problem is that this child is the current emperor. None of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty are good at plagues. Not to mention that you are the Minister of Revenue, even if you are the chief minister of the dynasty, you will drag it out and chop it out. This is not unusual in the Ming Dynasty. How can he not be afraid?

Of course, Zhu Cijing didn't want to drag him out and chop him up. He was just angry and was fooled by others. Seeing how he came to Daozong, he couldn't help feeling soft. After all, he was a first-rank official in the dynasty and was old and could not hurt his self-esteem too much.

So Zhu Cijing calmed down his anger and asked helplessly: "Tell me, what's going on?"

When he came to Daozong to see that the emperor was really angry, he came back to his senses and defended himself: "The taxes of these three provinces have always been collected by the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue, and I don't know what's going on!"

Zhu Cijiu was stunned when he heard this. It turned out that this matter had nothing to do with Lai Daozong. He got angry with someone for no reason. He was embarrassed and didn't know what to do.
Chapter completed!