Chapter 55 4. Military spending

Huo Qubing fought in the Qilian Mountains, made meritorious deeds alone, and became a marquis alone.There are three other soldiers in the army. Zhang Qian will be executed if he misses the time.However, although Li Guang lost more than half of his troops, he killed more with less, atoned for his crimes, and finally saved his reputation. The battle at Qilian Mountain was beyond the imagination of the Xiongnu Shanyu.However, the Xiongnu Shanyu moved to Mobei because he listened to Zhao Xin's advice.Therefore, in the Battle of Monan, he had more energy than he wanted, and could only watch Hunxie King defect to the Han Dynasty.

Of course, the Xiongnu Chanyu did not eat for nothing.120 BC, autumn.The Huns suddenly retaliated.Tens of thousands of Xiongnu cavalry attacked Youbeiping and Dingxiang in two directions, killing and looting more than a thousand people. This year, Liu Che was like a tiger lying on the slope, staring at the enemy down the mountain, but he didn't move at all. The reason why Liu Che didn't move was because he wanted to play hard, so he played hard. And if you want to play a bit ruthless, you must brew strength. That's right, Liu Che has been recharging his energy this year.To be honest, he just ran out of money and was trying to find ways to raise military expenses.

Before that, Liu Che raised a sum of money by selling his nobles.Now Jue is almost sold out, there is nothing to sell.So, he could only think of other ideas.At this time, someone thought of a way to find money for Liu Che. The person who advised Liu Che was Da Si Nong Zheng Zhuang.His method is to keep an eye on those rich people in the Han Dynasty. At this time, the chief finance officer of the Han Dynasty was Zheng Zhuang, the great sinong.Zheng Zhuang was the coward who used to be in the debate between Dou Ying and Tian Fu. He almost didn't get pulled out by Liu Che and beheaded. Having said that, Zheng Zhuang is not easy.Over the years, Liu Che burned money like burning trees in the front, and Zheng Zhuang moved money like firewood in the rear.But after moving for so many years, he suddenly discovered that Liu Che still wanted to burn money, but he had no money to move.

If you have no money to move, you have to develop channels to move money.Zheng Zhuang discovered that there were two types of people who were richer in the Han Dynasty at that time.One is the mine owner and the other is the salt merchant. For a long time, because the government has not managed the mines and salt fields, the mine owners and salt owners have worked hard and made a fortune.So these people all became rich and powerful in the Han Dynasty. What made Zheng Zhuang depressed was not that the boss got rich.But they got rich, and when they saw the country burn a lot of money to fight the Xiongnu, they didn't see them donate a penny.Seriously, this is too outrageous.

Of course, not all bosses are unkind and unrighteous for the sake of wealth.One person donated his property.It was this person who set an example and inspired Liu Che to take money from the rich. The person who donated money is named Bu Shi.Bu Shi, a native of Henan, made a living by farming and animal husbandry in his early years.It has a younger brother, and the younger brother has grown up, and the two separated.Bu Shi distributed all the fields in the family to his younger brother, and drove a hundred sheep to the mountains to graze.In the blink of an eye, more than ten years have passed.The Bu-style flock reproduced geometrically, and there were more than a thousand sheep without knowing it.

Because of the large number of sheep, Bu Shi became the last one to get rich.However, at this time, his younger brother's management was not good, and he had been reduced to a dilapidated household.So, Bu Shi gave several sheep to his younger brother.He decided to sell half of the remaining sheep and donate them to the country. At that time, no one gave money for no reason.It was not easy to make money in those days. If you didn't plan to do something, it really wouldn't make sense.After Bu Shi's desire to donate money spread, Liu Che sent someone to ask him, seeing that you want to donate so much money, do you want to be an official?

Guess how Bu Shi answered?People are really noble, not a fake show.He replied like this: I have been herding sheep for a living since I was a child, and I don't know much about books.improper. At this moment, the messenger was puzzled.Continue to ask: Is there any grievance in your family, do you want to ask His Majesty?Unexpectedly, Bu Shi smiled, and replied: I am very popular, and I have no enmity or grudge with others, so where is the grievance? At this time, the messenger was even more puzzled.Then I asked him: Then what are you trying to achieve by donating money? Bu Shi replied honestly: The country spent a lot of money fighting the Xiongnu.I just want to donate some money and do my best.that is it.

The messenger had no choice but to go back and report Bu Shi's original words to Liu Che truthfully.At that time, Gong Sunhong, who cracked down on counterfeiting, was still alive.Liu Che communicated with him what Bu Shi meant.Who knows that Gongsun Hong saves the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain.He believes that this donation is not natural, and there must be some intentions, so don't agree, or you will fall into the trap of Xiaomin. Hearing what Gong Sunhong said, Liu Che had no choice but to send someone to reject Bu Shi. However, Bu Shi still has not given up his dream of donating money.After King Hunxie surrendered to the Han Dynasty, Liu Che apportioned the funds to the localities.At this time, Bu Shi donated 200,000 yuan to the Henan prefect to help the urgent need.Unexpectedly, the news of Bu Shi's donation spread to Chang'an.

Liu Che was really short of money this time, so of course he praised Bu Shi for his enthusiasm for national public welfare undertakings.Therefore, he worshiped Bu Shi as Zhonglang, and called on the rich people in the world to learn from Bu Shi, don't be stingy, and donate more. The slogan was shouted loudly, but there were very few responders.Now, Liu Che was in a hurry. Zheng Zhuang was also in a hurry.Zheng Zhuang was in charge of the money, and if he had no money to burn for the emperor, he was of course anxious.Therefore, Zheng Zhuang proposed a strategy to Liu Che, saying: If the bosses don't donate money, it is better to take private enterprises such as mines and salt cooking into the state.

Zheng Zhuang's move was very vicious, since he couldn't afford to appeal, he had no choice but to forcefully grab the money.At this time, Zheng Zhuang recommended two rich bosses to Liu Che.One is Dongguo Xianyang and the other is Kongzhi.The former is a native of Qi who gets rich by cooking salt; the latter is a smelting king of Nanyang who got rich first. Immediately, Liu Che summoned the above two people and worshiped them as Da Nong Cheng, in charge of salt and iron affairs. In fact, it was not these two, nor Zheng Zhuang, who promoted the salt and iron system, collected commercial taxes, and managed the finances of the Han Dynasty in an orderly manner.But another financial expert, this person is Sang Hongyang.

The strange thing is that Sang Hongyang, a first-class financial expert and minister, whether it is Sima Qian or Ban Gu, is reluctant to give him a biography.Therefore, we know about Sang Hongyang, we can only piece together from "Historical Records" and "Hanshu".His resume is roughly as follows: Sang Hongyang, the son of a Luoyang merchant.As the saying goes, those who are close to ink are black, and those who are close to vermilion are red.Influenced by the business culture of his family, the young Sang Hongyang has been good at calculating since he was a child. When Sang Hongyang was thirteen years old, he entered the palace as a servant.This is a kind of retinue officer.Under normal circumstances, rich people or very talented people have the opportunity to get this job.If the guess is correct, it should be a good job bought by his father with money. When Sang Hongyang was thirty-four years old, Liu Che asked him to assist Dongguo Xianyang and Kongji in their work.Therefore, with the support of the emperor and the joint efforts of his colleagues, Sang Hongyang initially did the following two major things: one is to collect commercial taxes; the other is to implement the state-owned system of salt and iron. The commercial tax is levied, which are calculated and reported.The so-called calculation means that all industrial and commercial persons must truthfully report the amount of their property to the government.The tax is calculated on the basis of two draws (one draw is 1,000 coins, and the other is 200 coins); small businesses can reduce the tax by half.Anyone who rides in a carriage (except officials and soldiers) will be taxed once for one ride, two for carriages carrying goods, and one for boats over five feet long. The so-called denunciation means that those who do not report their property truthfully are encouraged to report. Those who are found to be true will be rewarded with half of the confiscated property, except that all of the accused’s property will be confiscated and they will be garrisoned at the border for one year. However, after the promulgation of the government's decree to levy commercial tax, it immediately met with stubborn resistance from businessmen.They used various methods to transfer and hide property, and did not report or underreport the amount of their property.In fact, the tricks of the industrialists and businessmen had already been seen by someone in advance. This person is Zhang Tang, the imperial historian. Zhang Tang is a legal expert, and Sang Hongyang is an expert in financial management.However, if Sang Hongyang wanted to charge more money, he had to rely on Zhang Tang.Because Zhang Tang knows better than him how to use the law to block the way for industrial and commercial people to evade taxes. Sure enough, Zhang Tang participated in taxation and related policies to prevent tax evasion, and even the implementation of the state-owned system of salt and iron.As for the folk business owners, they heard that Zhang Tang cut off their money, and they all hated him. It's none of Liu Che's business that Zhang Tang is hated.In any case, his military expenditure was finally resolved.Now, Liu Che is going to make another big fortune. Soon, the money-burning plan was on the national agenda.