Valley Emperor

The Guards need to be stationed in several strategically important towns in the country. The existing strength is definitely not enough, so it has to expand the army. However, the expansion of the army is simple. You can expand the army when the funds are in place.

The Guards are expanding their army, and this is not for foreign expeditions, but because the empire's foreign strategy has led to a large expansion of the army, forcing the Guards to follow the expansion in order to maintain a strategic balance.

It has to be said that it is also an internal conflict within the Tang Empire, and it is also a deliberate internal conflict created by Li Xuan.

But this kind of internal restraint is necessary for a big country!

There are no factions or struggles in a big country, it is simply unimaginable, even abnormal. On the contrary, there are factions and struggles, which is normal and can make people feel at ease.

If the courtiers in the Tang Empire did not fight each other, then Li Xuan would have to worry that they were conspiring to overthrow him.

In order to maintain the balance of domestic military power, the Guards should expand the army, but the expansion of the army requires money. Therefore, in the fiscal expenditure budget for the 22nd year of Xuanping, the military expenditure of the Guards is a lot more, which makes it originally a military expenditure. And the bickering Army and Navy sensed danger.

Then, one by one, they went to Li Xuan and cried, saying that the army was in difficulty, the navy was even more difficult, and the generals and soldiers in the army could not have enough to eat.

You know, what kind of transportation strategy the cabinet is working on, and what subsidy plan for trains and ships has been developed to stimulate the rapid development of domestic trains and ships, all of them are crying every day to improve next year's expenses.

The Datang Empire's fiscal expenditure budget will never be enough, no matter how much this year's fiscal expenditure budget is, but in the end, the expenditure budget compiled by various departments will always exceed the budget.

Because there are so many places where the Tang Empire spends money, even in places where no money is spent, those ministers will come up with a lot of plans that require money in order to compete for funds.

In this case, no matter how much the fiscal revenue is, it will never be enough to spend.

However, Li Xuan also knew that his subordinates often cried and cheated money when they had nothing to do, so he never gave what should be given and what should not have been given.

Over the years, Li Xuan has controlled the funds of various ministries, and then used the balance of fiscal revenue to repay the huge national debt, and finally paid off the national debt completely last year.

After we no longer have to repay the national debt, the financial situation is also a lot easier. After all, in the past few years, the principal and interest of the annual repayment of the national debt has increased from more than 10 million yuan. In the early days of the reunification, in order to develop armament and infrastructure, In addition, the creditworthiness of government bonds at that time was not good, and few people bought them. In order to attract people to buy government bonds, the issuance of government bonds at that time was relatively ruthless, the amount was large, and the interest rate was high.

In the early days of the reunification, some of the five-year treasury bonds issued in order to raise funds had an annual interest rate of more than 20%. Basically, it would be doubled back after five years!

The high interest rate of the early treasury bonds also caused the subsequent financial burden of Datang to issue new bonds to repay the old debts and pay high interest every year.

In the past ten years or so, the total interest on treasury bonds spent by Datang has actually exceeded the total principal of treasury bonds.

From the early days of the founding of the country to the 20th year of Xuanping, Datang Finance issued a total of about 80 million yuan in various types of government bonds.

And these accumulated 80 million yuan of national debt, the total interest generated has already exceeded 100 million yuan!

The annual repayment of the interest and principal of the national debt is a heavy burden on the finances!

If it weren't for the heavy financial retaliation caused by the national debt, Li Xuan would not have gritted his teeth and insisted on repaying the principal and interest of the national debt every year in the past ten years, no matter what, and at the same time tried not to borrow as much as possible. National debt.

Fortunately, thanks to the rapid development of industry and commerce in the empire, and the good recovery of agriculture, the fiscal revenue is getting higher and higher. In the 21st year of Xuanping, the fiscal revenue has exceeded 190 million yuan.

If there is no accident, next year, that is, in the 22nd year of Xuanping, it will not be a problem for the fiscal revenue to break through the 200 million mark!

Under the circumstance that the fiscal revenue is getting higher and higher, it is possible to continue to repay the national debt under the condition of initially meeting the domestic development needs. Now we have finally paid back more than 80 million yuan in the principal of the national debt and more than 100 million yuan in interest on the national debt Done.

After paying off the national debt, Li Xuan felt that the financial situation of the empire has improved a lot, so he can do other things. After all, after paying off the national debt, at least tens of millions of funds can be freed up every year.

However, even if the money is a little more, those courtiers all know that there is more money now, and each and every one of them is a lion, and this requires money, and that also requires money.

And Li Xuan's method has always been to throw the bones out, let them bite the dog, and sit firmly on the Diaoyutai!

This is also the reason for the fierce quarrel between the cabinet and the military, the various cabinet ministries, the army and the navy, and other agencies at the annual budget expenditure meeting for funding.

If Li Xuan directly set a plan for the allocation of financial expenditure budgets, then everyone would not have to quarrel, no matter how much, just use it.

However, Li Xuan has never personally determined it. After giving a total amount, let each department quarrel on their own.

And next year, the 22nd year of Xuanping's fiscal expenditure budget, the total amount is 190 million yuan, because the fiscal revenue budget is about 200 million yuan, but according to tradition, a part will be withheld as emergency funds. This part or Whether it is used for disaster relief, or as a war expense, or to do some other things, it will not be included in the fiscal expenditure budget.

The emergency fund withheld next year is 10 million yuan, so there is only 190 million yuan left for various departments to compete for.

And for the 190 million li, the royal family expenses were first deducted, and then the minimum administrative expenses of each department were also deducted.

Because the above are all basic funds, which are irreducible. If they really want to be reduced, then the salaries of soldiers, officials, government employees and other people who eat public food will be lost.

Therefore, this part has never been the target of competition, because everyone is not a simple person, and they can also investigate, so how much each department has to spend is transparent, and there is no way to compete.

The key point of their contention is the remaining part after deducting the royal family's expenses and the minimum expenses of various departments, and the remaining part is quite a lot, a full 60 million.

There are too many institutions that are staring at these 60 million, such as the Ministry of Industry, their water conservancy projects have not been completed, and they are still working on a transportation strategy, preparing to build railways, official roads, and dredging rivers, everything here, then They are all giant beasts of swallowing gold, so people have 30 million in one mouth, and directly cut the money in half.

However, the officials of the Ministry of Rites are not easy to mess with. The Department of Education, which is under them, has always been a big money hog, and spends a lot of money on education every year. The core work of the Ministry of Rites in the past two years has been to improve domestic basic education and basic technical education.

Basic education is naturally primary education. If we want to popularize primary education to a larger population, in addition to building more government-run primary schools, we must reduce tuition fees and book and miscellaneous fees. Otherwise, the majority of children from poor families, Can't afford to go to school at all, even primary school.

Basic technical education refers to technical secondary schools.

The education policy of the Ministry of Rites has always been closely following the steps of the Son of Heaven. The Son of Heaven said that primary school education should be popularized, so they would do it.

The Son of Heaven said that there would be a number of first-class universities, but they only established seven first-class comprehensive universities, in line with the word "several" that the Son of Heaven said. There will not be only a few, nor more than ten.

The Son of Heaven said that primary vocational education should be vigorously launched, so that the majority of students could have skills, and they did not hesitate to open secondary technical schools in various places, similar to the secondary schools of later generations.

This kind of college is different from the previous technical colleges, because the previous technical schools belonged to higher technical schools, and admissions were recruited from preparatory schools. Although they were similar to later colleges, they actually belonged to the higher education category of the empire. In addition, the colleges and universities in various places are not more than ordinary universities.

Colleges and universities, in the Datang Empire, belong to the category of higher education, and for higher education, the phalanx of the Datang Empire has always been an elite education, which should be refined rather than excessive.

The current secondary technical colleges recruit students from middle school students, and their courses are very practical courses, because their purpose is to cultivate all kinds of technical talents.

Basically, the education policy of the Datang Empire follows closely the plan formulated by the Holy Son of Heaven, Li Xuan, that is to popularize basic education, cultivate a large number of basic talents, especially basic talents in science and engineering, and select a small number of elites. Cultivate as senior talents.

This model can be called pyramid education, or elite education!

Under this model, most ordinary people go to middle school or even primary school at most, then they go home to farm or work in factories. They lack culture and play the role of farmers and workers in the empire. Moreover, because these people have not received advanced education, they will not be like those intellectuals who think about rebelling every day. They will be very honest in farming and entering factories to contribute to the empire.

A small number of ordinary people can finish secondary school, and these people will become the backbone of the entire society. They have professional knowledge and are competent for middle and low-level technical and management work.

However, they still lack some of the vision brought by higher education!

If there is a small part, if they go to college or ordinary university, these people will become the main group of the superstructure of the empire.

Then, there will be a very small number of famous college students who have attended famous schools and elites who have received comprehensive higher education. They will constitute a small group at the top of the pyramid of the Datang Empire.

Under this education system ~www.wuxiaspot.com~ Because there are not too many talents receiving higher education, in order to avoid the society creating a gap for such professional talents, there are technical secondary schools.

The construction of a large number of technical secondary schools in the past two years is also one of the most important tasks of the Ministry of Rites.

Moreover, the Ministry of Rites conducts education, and the slogans they shout are very loud, saying that educating people for a hundred years, for the prosperity of the empire, this education cannot be left behind. Expenses!

The people who looked at the cabinet shamelessly talked about big plans, and the generals of the army and navy couldn't help it. The generals of the navy directly patted a very heavy file on the table with the words 'Datang Navy Global Strategy's First Five-Year Development Plan'.

Then I saw this man: "How much money do you want and what to do? Our navy doesn't care, and we don't care, but the money needed for the five-year development plan approved by the Son of Heaven himself must be reserved for the navy!"

But soon the army general on the side showed a hint of sneer: "Didn't you just give your navy a special shipbuilding fund last year? Asking for the same plan twice, your navy is so shameless?"