It was late at night, but the light was still on in a study room in the backyard of the Governor's Mansion.
After finishing the day's scenes and social activities, Yan Liqiang sat in the study, concentrating on the people, fields, treasury silver, treasury grain, taxes, military equipment, and official account books that Wang Jianbei left for him.
That was the wealth of Qiyun County. As the governor of Qiyun County, the first thing Yan Liqiang did when he took office was to understand his own wealth.
After watching for an unknown amount of time, Yan Liqiang stretched lazily in his chair, feeling a little thirsty. He took the teacup on the table and took a sip, only to find that the tea in the cup had gone completely cold. Hu Haihe had replaced the hot tea for him several times before, but Yan Liqiang had forgotten to drink it. When he really wanted to drink it, the tea was already filled with the coolness of the night.
"Ah, sir, let me make you a pot of hot tea..." The sound of Yan Liqiang drinking tea suddenly woke up Hu Haihe who was still guarding the door of the study. Hu Haihe came over and hurriedly wanted to change the tea for Yan Liqiang.
"No, I'm not that expensive. This herbal tea is quite thirst-quenching!" Yan Liqiang drank all the water in the cup in one breath, then put the cup down and waved to Hu Haihe, "By the way, what time is it now?"
"It's past midnight!"
"I have nothing to do tonight, go to sleep, I'll watch for a while!"
"How can it be that my subordinates go to bed before the master does? Do you want a midnight snack? I'll ask the kitchen to make some."
"It's late, don't bother anyone, I'm not hungry!"
Hu Haihe shook his head, then took Yan Liqiang's teacup and went to heat tea for Yan Liqiang.
Looking at Hu Haihe's back, Yan Liqiang shook his head and smiled, and said nothing more.
The cold tea had a special, slightly astringent taste lingering in the mouth. This taste reminded Yan Liqiang of the days when he worked overtime in the company in his previous life and made bids all night long. He remembered that it was also like this when he led a few subordinates to make bids in his previous life. They buried their heads in their desks under the lamps every night, drinking cold tea. When they were hungry, they would just make a pack of instant noodles. Sometimes when there was no water, they would just sprinkle the dry seasoning packets on the instant noodles and eat them dry!
I wonder what expressions those friends I knew in my previous life would have if they knew what I look like now. If I could go back in this state, it would be easy for me to become an athlete and make money. I could break all kinds of records and win medals. I could start as a track and field athlete, and then I could do high jump, weightlifting, archery, swimming, and then become a boxer, hahahaha… Thinking about his previous life, Yan Liqiang was distracted for a moment, then he came to his senses and continued to look through the ledgers in his hands carefully.
The more he read those ledgers, the more data of the entire Qiyun County slowly settled in Yan Liqiang's mind, allowing Yan Liqiang to slowly grasp the overall situation of the entire county.
Qiyun County has an area of about 35,000 square kilometers and a population of 2.47 million. In addition to Pingxi City, it also has 14 counties and 158 townships (including various villages and towns). In addition to the military personnel at all levels in the county, there are 1,184 officials, clerks, messengers, and clerks who eat public food. There are currently 7 battalions of officers and soldiers in the county, with a total of 21,877 people...
It has to be said that Wang Jianbei still gave face to Yan Liqiang. Under normal circumstances, when officials were handed over to each other, there would be almost no money or grain left in the county's silver and granaries. However, in those account books, Yan Liqiang saw that Wang Jianbei had left more than 170,000 taels of silver for himself, and there were 250,000 shi of various grains in the county's official warehouses.
What surprised Yan Liqiang the most was that the armory under the Governor's Office was full of arrows, swords, spears and other equipment, which could arm an army of 70,000 people. This was beyond Yan Liqiang's expectations. After carefully looking at the account books, Yan Liqiang discovered that the reason why the armory of Qiyun County was full of various military equipment was thanks to Wei Wuji who was captured before. Although the Han Empire's plan to march west to the Gulang grassland was aborted, before the army set out, the court and the transportation office allocated a large amount of military equipment and supplies from all over the northwest to supplement the armory of Pingxi County as a supplement and reserve for the army. Now that the army is withdrawing, the supplementary military equipment and supplies have been retained, and in the end they benefited from it.
The previous data and information were fine, everything was clear at a glance, but when Yan Liqiang saw the tax ledgers of Qiyun County, he suddenly felt dizzy. The taxes of the Han Empire were varied and diverse, which really opened Yan Liqiang's eyes. If you think that the so-called taxes are just paying taxes, then you have imagined the world to be too simple.
In fact, in the government's account books, taxes and levies are completely separate and are not the same thing at all. In fact, there is only one kind of tax in this world, which is the capitation tax, or the head tax. Qiyun County is a border county, and in border counties, levies refer to the materials of the people in the county that can be requisitioned for military activities and military purposes; the property tax paid by the family unit is called diao; the grain collected based on the acreage of land is called rent; the levy based on military service and labor is called yi; other temporary financial expenditures such as bridge and road construction are called donations, and other special business industries, such as salt, iron, fishery, etc. are called ke; the levy set up at important checkpoints is called li...
In the previous life, paying taxes was just paying money, but in this world, taxes are collected from everything, money, food, labor, materials, all kinds of things, it is astonishing...
Because the affairs of the blacksmith shop had always been managed by Yan Dechang and Zhou Tiezhu, Yan Liqiang had not been involved in the operation of the blacksmith shop until he looked at the county's account books. He then found out how much tax he and his father Yan Dechang had to pay. Since Yan Liqiang was seven years old, he had to pay the head tax. His family ran a blacksmith shop, and there was also an iron tax. The corvée was done by his father who paid money to get rid of the disaster and hired someone to take care of it. In addition, the fields in his family also had to pay rent...
I won’t talk about all that. The most fucked up thing is that in the Han Empire, Han people had to pay head taxes and various taxes, while foreigners like the Seven Shatu Tribes didn’t have to pay any taxes. They didn’t have to pay head taxes, land rents, or corvée labor. Even the collection of customs duties was difficult to collect because of the existence of the Huai’en Order...
Yan Liqiang felt that the taxation of the Han Empire was a big problem. There were too many types and too many categories. However, he was faced with a tangled mess. He wanted to change it, but he didn't know where to start. From the accounts, even with all these taxes, the fiscal revenue and expenditure of the entire Qiyun County was just barely a surplus. In the fifteenth year of Yuanping in the Han Empire, the fiscal surplus of the entire Qiyun County was less than 80,000 taels of silver. Most of the 80,000 taels of silver had to be handed over...
Qiyun County is like this, and I guess other counties are not much better. Even though this business is huge, with a state or a county at a time, there is really not much money when it comes to money.
No wonder his eyes light up when Qian Lei Sitong is mentioned, he is really afraid of being poor.
It was already four o'clock in the morning when he finished reading those account books. After closing the last account book, Yan Liqiang suddenly realized what he lacked most at the moment - talent!
(End of this chapter)