Chapter 1372: Wealth for Military Use

Chapter 1372: Wealth for Military Use

Since Dugu Xin quelled the Liangzhou rebellion and opened up the Hexi Corridor during the Datong period of the Western Wei Dynasty, the trade exchanges between the Guanzhong regime and the Western Regions have started again and developed rapidly. Sifang City, located in Tianshui, was established under such a background.

Li Tai's original intention of creating Sifang City was just to get a share of the Silk Road trade, and to use it to tie the interests of the Longyou tyrants to his own and strengthen the connection between them.

In the years to come, Sifang City also fully played such a role. This shopping city became more and more prosperous and lively, and became the largest and most important trade center in Longyou.

As for Li Tai's relationship with the Longyou tyrants, it was naturally very close. He took away thousands of Longyou warriors in Longyou. These people have always been the most core and elite armed forces under his command. Now most of them have grown into middle and lower-level sergeants and generals, becoming the backbone of the Fubing system, and a small number of them have directly become local earls sitting in prefectures and counties.

Sifang City is a public-private joint management model. Generally, the Tianshui prefect serves as the city lord, and the county chief and two township leaders recommended by the people serve as deputy city lords to be responsible for the daily management of the mall. This is the management model created by Li Tai in the past, and it has been in operation until now.

The current Tianshui prefect is named Yan Zheng, who was rescued from the temple when Li Tai came to Longyou. Later, he was accepted as a disciple. Now he is in his thirties and his official position has been transferred many times. He jumped from a helpless temple slave to the Tianshui prefect who was a herdsman in his hometown.

Yan Zheng knew that the Supreme would come to understand the current business situation of Sifang City, so he spent a lot of effort to organize and summarize all the relevant information. When he entered the court, he brought several boxes of books and pictures. He lowered his head a little embarrassedly and said, "All the money and goods in and out of Sifang City must be recorded in books. Although I have sorted them out with my assistants several times, the number of books has not decreased much. This is just a large archive, and the specific details still need to be checked in the warehouse."

Sifang City involves a large amount of money and goods transactions. Every transaction and the money and goods entering and leaving the warehouse must be recorded. The accumulation naturally forms a huge mountain of documents, and the paper consumed every year alone is thousands of pounds. For this reason, Sifang City has also specially prepared several warehouses to store relevant documents, but they can only keep the books and documents of the last two to three years. The rest can only be destroyed after verification.

Although Sifang City reports its business overview to the court every quarter, the specific business situation can only be seen intuitively after on-site inspection. Li Tai motioned Yan Zheng and others to sit down, and he picked up a copy of the general description and read it carefully.

Sifang City is a comprehensive commercial city, integrating warehousing, logistics, trading, finance and other functions. It is not a simple commercial city or logistics port.

This city has many profit channels, such as leasing, transportation, information trading and lending. With the prosperity of Longyou's trade, Sifang City's profits are also increasing year by year. Now it has only entered the third quarter of this year, and the accumulated profits of Sifang City have reached more than 1.8 million strings.

One string of money is 1,000 coins. According to the current prices, a piece of silk costs between 350 and 400 coins, and a stone of grain costs only more than 200 coins. Of course, this is the price in Guanzhong. The price in Longyou is higher, and many materials do not support such a large exchange. If forced to exchange, the depreciation generated by the transaction alone is a very exaggerated proportion.

But even if the price differences in different regions are taken into account, this income is really considerable. It should be noted that in the history of the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the annual tea tax was only 200,000 to 300,000 strings of money. Now, the profit of the Sifang City alone is more than 1.8 million strings of money in half a year, and the annual profit is expected to be more than 3 million strings of money, which is equivalent to the tea tax for ten years. It can be seen that the profit is so high that it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a golden rooster that lays eggs.

About one-sixth of the annual profit of 3 million strings of money will be paid to the government as the business tax and transaction tax for past goods. The remaining 2.5 million strings of money will be distributed according to the ratio of 30% to 70% between officials and civilians, of which 30% will be paid to the prefectures and counties in Longyou, and the remaining 70% will be shared by the people involved in the operation.

Yes, among the profits generated by Sifang City, the people will take the bulk of the profits. This may seem a bit incredible, but it is clear as long as you look at the shareholding ratio, because the major shareholder of Sifang City is the current supreme. Among the remaining profits after deducting various expenses, the profits belonging to the supreme are 50%.

According to the current profit scale of Sifang City, Li Tai can collect more than 900,000 strings of dividends every year and deposit them into his own treasury, and the rest will be shared by other shareholders.

Such a profit distribution model was established as early as the Datong period when Sifang City was just established, and it has continued to this day. Although the proportion of shareholding has changed, most of the participants have made a lot of profit, far exceeding the previous investment, and some people have even become rich because of it.

Li Tai formulated such a distribution model in order to bypass the interference from local government. After all, not long after the establishment of Sifang City, Yuwen Dao replaced Dugu Xin to govern Longyou. Li Tai's interests were no longer protected by the Longyou government, and he would even be targeted and suppressed. Therefore, at that time, bypassing the supervision of the government to distribute the interests of Sifang City was also conducive to preserving his interests and influence in Longyou.

In the early years, before he entered Guanzhong, the conflict between Shannan and Bafu became increasingly prominent. Director Yuwen, who was in charge of Longyou at that time, mainly used it to check and balance him.

At that time, Li Tai further reduced his shareholding ratio in Sifang City, giving half of his share plus 50% of the shares of other Longyou tycoons to Director Yuwen, making his presence in it more hidden and ensuring that Director Yuwen did not interfere with the operation of Sifang City, allowing the mall to develop smoothly until now.

Of course, Director Yuwen's non-interference in Sifang City has also benefited his descendants a lot. Although with his death and the overthrow of the Yuwen family's hegemony, his family's shareholding ratio has been reduced repeatedly, but so far, he can get money from Sifang City every year. Earning dividends worth tens of thousands of yuan is also a very generous income.

In the past few years, some people have suggested to Li Tai that they should kick Yuwen Dao's descendants out of the shareholder list of Sifang City, but Li Tai rejected them all. There is no need to break a rule that has been operating stably for many years. Moreover, the descendants of Director Yu Wen are also relatively low-key, so this legacy of their ancestors might as well be preserved a little.

But this time Li Tai came to Longyou with the intention of carrying out a thorough rectification of Sifang City, making systematic changes from the operating model to the distribution of benefits.

There are inherent problems with the distribution of interests in Sifang City. As the maker of this set of rules, Li Tai is naturally aware of this. In the past, it was to circumvent the surveillance and control of the government, but now there is no such need. Instead, more powerful guidance and control from the government is needed.

For him, the one million yuan dividend is just that, and it is not worth it to affect his decision-making judgment. Instead, it is much more important to guide and use these interests in a more reasonable way than simply amassing wealth.

Second, Sifang City's position in Longyou's business environment is becoming more and more important, which also makes this city have extraordinary strategic value. If used properly, it will also be of great significance to the military and political development of Longyou, and it is no longer just Limited to business profits.

"Recently, we will take stock of the personnel in Sifang City and wait for the envoys from the DPRK to come here to take over. From now on, the Sifang City affairs will be supervised by the special envoys, and the county government no longer needs to supervise them."

After Li Tai looked through the accounting books, he spoke to everyone present again.

After Yan Zheng and others heard this, their expressions changed. He first responded respectfully, and then couldn't help lowering his head and said: "Is it because the servant is not doing well, that's why the Lord has to send an envoy here?" To treat?”

Sifang City's business is becoming more and more developed, so much so that the entire Tianshui County-related political affairs are now centered around this mall. Once the management rights are taken away, nothing will be left in the county government, and both administrative and financial rights will be sharply reduced. .

"The reason why this city was established in the old years was to help the villagers and promote commerce. I hope that everyone who crosses the border will benefit from it and that our family and the country will be able to benefit from it. But now the operation of this city is only for profit and goes against the original intention. The counselors didn’t realize anything, they only saw profit, which is really disappointing!”

Li Tai knew that this matter was related to the power struggle between the central government and the local governments. As an emperor, he naturally hoped to transfer power to the central government as much as possible without affecting local administration and people's livelihood, so he grimaced and snorted. road.

He didn't mean to make excuses when he said this. In fact, there were indeed quite a few problems in Sifang City's business operations. Although the prosperity of commerce had greatly increased revenue, the real profit growth point was not in commerce operations, but in lending.

Any business operation will inevitably have the need for capital borrowing. Sifangcheng has played a certain financial role from the beginning, but with the development of commerce, the scale of lending is also increasing day by day.

Originally, it was the local powerful wealthy households and temples that were responsible for this function, but the establishment of Sifang City was to blend the two together. Nowadays, there is a tendency to monopolize loan sharking in Longyou, and one-third of Sifang City's profits are It was generated by the loan business, which shows how prosperous this industry is, and this also surprised Li Tai.

Although the growth in profits is very gratifying, Li Tai knows that the game of making money only looks good, but in the end it is a dead end. Especially in the Middle Ages, a society that did not have the support of strong productive forces, any financial tricks that were divorced from reality would only lead to an even more ugly death!

In his vision, the future Sifang City should be a complex that takes into account various functions such as finance and trade, industrial production, and military assistance. To put it more bluntly, the Sifang City complex should be used to support certain military operations. action, and does not rule out the option of obtaining benefits through military colonization.

Li Tai knew very well that with the development of social productivity, a new round of land annexation would inevitably occur. As this process unfolds, and the territory of the Tang Empire continues to expand, the scope of military use becomes wider. The military system based on the equalization of land will inevitably collapse and perish. Recruitment of soldiers and the mercenary force of the Hu people will also become more important. The cost-effective way has entered the stage of history.

If you want to delay this process as much as possible, you need to find new sources of profit for the soldiers outside of the land equalization system. Pure military plunder is extremely risky and not very sustainable.

But if it is commerce combined with military colonization, then there is a lot of room for experimentation. Especially in the management strategy of the Western Regions, the traditional approach of farming and establishing Jisi rule has various shortcomings. As the meeting point between the Eastern and Western Continents, the Western Region itself has huge commercial and trade interests that can be exploited. Moreover, many countries in the Western Region are not very strong individually, making it convenient to establish a colonial system.

Li Tai took back the management rights of Sifang City this time, in addition to being dissatisfied with the current operating status of Sifang City, he also wanted to use it as a carrier for this attempt.

Sifang City does not directly participate in military operations, but has excellent logistics and material distribution capabilities. If this is converted to military use to a certain extent, it will undoubtedly greatly enhance the war endurance of the Tang army, and can launch larger-scale and longer-distance military operations in Longyou, Hexi and even the Western Regions.

After the military occupation of these areas, Sifang City can be responsible for the distribution of spoils, the development and utilization of local resources, and even join in the administrative management of conquered territories.

In other words, if you are tired of staying in the Tang Dynasty, and have some spare money in your hands, and want to have a taste of being a master, you can invest a sum of money in the development plan of Sifang City. When the Tang army opens up a new territory in the Western Regions, you can be given an oasis and a part of the people, so that you can establish a state in the Western Regions, and the Tang army will continue to provide military protection.

At that time, the soldiers guarding the border will no longer have to worry about the few hectares of land in Guanzhong that were lost this autumn. The large and small states in the Western Regions will become their new crops, and they can collect protection fees regularly.

Of course, this is just a very simple model conception. There will be various differences and variables in the actual implementation process. The final result may be very different from the initial expectation, but this can be adjusted in the process.

From Li Tai's point of view, no matter what the final result is, as long as the influence of the Han people in the Western Regions can be strengthened and continued, it is actually a success.

As for the powerful households who participated in the operation of Sifang City, Li Tai also gave them two choices. First of all, the future operation and profit distribution of Sifang City must be recovered. The shares held by these people will be repurchased by the court in the next three to five years.

As for the way of repurchase, either directly give three to five years of dividends to ensure that their interests have a certain continuation period. Either give industrial investment in Shannan, Jiangdong and other inland areas, or follow the pioneering pace of the Tang army to continue to move towards the Western Regions.

In short, if you have confidence in the future policy implementation of the court, then sit tight and move on. If you have little confidence in this, then buy out and get off the bus, and cut ties once and for all.