Anti-Qing: Starting from the Jintian Uprising

Chapter 255 Year-end Summary
This year, with Li Yi's policy support and resource investment, Foshan Arsenal has achieved rapid development.

Not only has the scale of the arsenal expanded, but its production capacity has also achieved leapfrog development.

Take the production capacity of breech-loading rifles as an example. Last year, the production capacity of breech-loading rifles at Foshan Arsenal was only 4,000 per month.

But this year, the production capacity has been expanded to 7200 units per month.

It has almost doubled!
The progress is quite encouraging.

Liang Ming continued to report.

"Among them, the production capacity of paper shell fixed ammunition used in breech-loading rifles has been expanded from one million rounds per month to four million rounds per month."

"The production capacity of breech-loading metal explosive bombs of various calibers has been expanded from more than 1,000 rounds per month to 8,000 rounds per month."

"In addition, the production capacity of rockets, grenades and other related weapons has also increased."

Li Yi continued to look through the report, his face clearly showing a thoughtful expression.

After reading the report and listening to Liang Ming's presentation, Li Yi turned his head to look at Wang Fu and asked.

"Director Wang, please come and report on the current military equipment of our various units."

Upon hearing this, Wang Fu's expression immediately froze and he handed the report in his hand to Li Yi.

Then he began to report.

"Your Majesty, based on the current known statistics from the Armory Department."

"There are currently four divisions in our army that have completed the full replacement of rear-mounted rifles. They are the Guards Division, the First Division, the Second Division, the Fifth Division, and these units."

"Except for these four divisions, the 3rd and 4th divisions have a breech-loading rifle equipment rate of 70 percent."

"The equipment rate of the 6th, 7th, and 8th divisions has reached 50%, which means there is almost one gun for every two people."

"The remaining units have breech-loading rifles at a rate of about 5 to 10 percent."

The reason why he didn't change his clothes completely was certainly not because Li Yi didn't want to.

But the current production capacity increase speed of Foshan Arsenal still cannot keep up with the speed of Tang Army's military expansion.

Moreover, in order to maximize the firepower advantage of the breech-loading rifle, Li Yi always gave priority to re-equipping the elite troops.

The rest of the troops changed their equipment first, while the rest continued to use a mixture of muzzle-loading rifles and cold weapons.

For those newly formed recruits, the equipment rate is five to ten percent.

This can't be called equipment.

At most, it can be regarded as training equipment issued to them so that they can first become familiar with the use of breech-loading rifles to facilitate subsequent large-scale replacement.

After hearing this, Li Yi just nodded slightly.

Then he continued to ask.

"What about the equipment rates of breech-loading artillery and the first-year heavy machine gun?"

Wang Fu recalled for a moment and then said.

"In reply to your Majesty, regarding the equipment of breech-loading artillery, our army has already concentrated on forming two breech-loading artillery regiments and a breech-loading artillery battalion."

"There is a Type 50 field artillery regiment, a Type 75 field artillery regiment, and a Type 100 howitzer battalion."

"Among them, most of the Type 50 and Type 75 field guns can only be used as infantry support firepower."

"The Type 100 howitzer is a heavy firepower that can be used for attacking strongholds."

"In addition, the remaining artillery units of our army are still equipped with mainly front-loading artillery."

It is obvious that the Foshan Arsenal of the Tang Dynasty has once again successfully achieved a technological breakthrough and developed a larger caliber breech-loading artillery.

This Type 100 howitzer is their latest achievement.

Now it has begun mass production to equip the army!

After talking about breech-loading artillery, Wang Fu also reported on the equipment situation of the Yuannian heavy machine gun.

"And the Yuannian heavy machine guns have been transferred to the regiment level. Generally speaking, a regiment is equipped with a machine gun platoon, which is composed of three machine gun squads, and each squad has one machine gun."

Li Yi nodded slightly and then gave instructions.

"In the next period of time, the Ordnance Department should give priority to replenishing the weapons for the various units in the Guangdong-Guangxi War Zone."

"As for the Huguang War Zone and the Jiangnan War Zone, we can put them aside for now."

The reason why Li Yi said this is very simple.

Because he knew that if the foreign expeditionary force attacked next time, Guangzhou would be the first to be hit.

As the first line to meet the enemy, Li Yi would naturally strengthen the armaments of the garrison in Guangzhou as much as possible to prepare for the next battle.

As for Huguang and Jiangnan, there is no urgency at the moment and they can be discussed later.

Upon hearing this, Wang Fu immediately clasped his fists in response to show that he understood.

Afterwards, Li Yi waved his hand to signal Wang Fu and the other man to leave.

After the two left, leaders of various departments under the General Staff, including the Operations Department, Logistics Department, Military Law Department, and Personnel Department, took turns to come and report to Li Yi.

Li Yi received them one by one and listened to their reports.

In general, the various departments under the General Staff have done a good job this year.

Li Yi encouraged them one by one.

The next people to come to the audience were the relevant personnel from the Ministry of the Interior. Song Zhengqin, director of the Taxation Department, was the first to come in to report.

Li Yi nodded and motioned Song Zhengqin to take a seat, then asked.

"Mr. Song, how is the tax revenue of our Tang Dynasty this year?"

As he spoke, Song Zhengqin handed over this year's summary report from the Taxation Commissioner, and then responded.

"Your Majesty, this year's tax revenue of the Tang Dynasty, including customs duties, agricultural taxes, salt taxes, tea taxes, commercial taxes, coinage taxes and other taxes, has been about 923 million silver dollars and 756 million shi of grain so far this year."

"The total converted silver dollars is about 17 million silver dollars."

"Compared to last year's 10 million silver dollars, this is a significant increase."

Well, the reason for the growth is not because the Tang Dynasty had any tax reforms.

But it’s because of the addition of Hunan taxpayers!
Although the Tang Dynasty had taken over Hunan last year, Li Yi exempted Hunan from taxes for one year in order to win over the people.

It was not until this year that taxes were levied in Hunan.

Of course, there is definitely growth.

For example, with the development of industry and commerce, the customs tariffs of the Tang Dynasty increased from 137 million silver dollars last year to 215 million silver dollars this year.

This increase is nothing short of astonishing!

In addition, taxes such as commercial tax, tea tax, and seigniorage also increased.

Li Yi nodded slightly, then called Wu Xingbang, the Director of the Finance Department of the Tang Dynasty, to come and question him.

"Mr. Wu, how is the financial expenditure of our Tang Dynasty this year?"

Unlike the Tax Secretary who is in charge of collecting money, the Financial Secretary is in charge of spending money.

Li Yi has a general idea of ​​this year's fiscal expenditure, but he is not clear about the specific figures.

That's why we need to call people in for questioning.

Upon hearing this, Wu Xingbang spoke immediately.

"Your Majesty, last year the total fiscal expenditure of our Tang Dynasty was approximately 32 million silver dollars."

"Among them, military expenditures amounted to 1300 million silver dollars."

"Administrative expenses: 410 million silver dollars."

"Education expenditure: 700 million silver dollars."

"Propaganda expenses amounted to 70 silver dollars, construction expenses amounted to 500 million silver dollars, and disaster relief expenses amounted to 150 million silver dollars."

Here, military funding support not only includes military salaries and food for the army, but also allocations to arsenals, the purchase of bedding, the replacement of weapons, the rewards and exchanges for military merits, and even the construction of coastal defense batteries and city defense fortresses in various places. All of these must be included.

Therefore, although 1300 million silver dollars sounds like a lot, it is inevitably a bit stretched to use.

Administrative expenses include officials' salaries, annual rewards, government office repairs, etc.

Education expenditures are mainly used for supporting several universities in the Tang Dynasty, as well as recruiting and training teaching staff.

Nowadays, with the continuous annual financial investment from the imperial court, the education industry in the Tang Dynasty has entered the fast lane.

This year alone, four comprehensive universities and ten specialized technical training colleges were established.

Schools funded by private gentry and merchants also sprang up like mushrooms after a rain.

Needless to say, the publicity expenses are actually equivalent to the US$16 billion spent by the Eagle Sauce family.

It is not only used to support the development of Tang Dynasty's own newspapers, operas and other cultural propaganda industries.

It also includes dog food given to the literati in the Qing Dynasty.

Let those literati catch the dark history of the massacre carried out when the Manchus entered the Central Plains, the enclosure of land and the occupation of houses, the literary inquisition, as well as the three days and three nights that Xiaozhuang and Dorgon had to tell, the secret story of Bumbutai and Hong Chengchou, the love story between Yi and Xingzhen, the uncle and sister-in-law, and other gossip.

They made up stories, wrote pornographic books, copied tabloids, performed plays, and spread them among the people in an effort to destroy the image and prestige of the Qing court.

Of course, it’s not that dark. The Qing Dynasty was not clean to begin with, and these are just revelations at best.

Although the deterrent effect of literary inquisition in the Qing Dynasty was great.

But now it is no longer the reigns of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. With the Taiping Rebellion and the Tang Dynasty rising up one after another, the world was in chaos.

The Qing Dynasty was unable to take care of itself militarily, let alone cultural propaganda.

Want to continue the literary inquisition?
You have to have that ability!
Construction expenditures are basically used for building bridges and roads, constructing water conservancy projects, and building ports.

Well, the cost of laying telegraph lines was also included.

Not to mention the disaster relief expenses, there have been many natural disasters these days. Guangdong, Guangxi and Hunan both suffered locust plagues last year.

After all, the Tang Dynasty was the legitimate Han dynasty. How could it watch the people under its rule suffer from disasters and starve to death?

It is natural for the government to provide relief!
After listening to the report, Li Yi nodded slightly to show his satisfaction.

Although Datang's tax revenue this year was 17 million and its fiscal expenditure was 32 million, in Li Yi's opinion, the revenue and expenditure were still balanced.

Because, in addition to tax revenue, the Tang Dynasty’s current fiscal revenue also includes other parts.

Such as war spoils, income from state-owned industrial operations, etc.

Take the spoils of war as an example. This year, the Tang army marched west to capture Guilin and recovered the entire Guangxi Province. Then, they marched east to capture important cities such as Wuchang, Hanyang, Huangzhou, Jiujiang, Nanchang, Anqing, and Nanjing.

After the war, the Tang army confiscated the treasuries of prefectures and counties, liquidated the stubborn Qing bureaucrats and local tyrants with extremely bad reputations, and the proceeds from the confiscations were more than millions.
Among them, the spoils of war in Nanjing alone were enough to cover all the financial expenditures of the Tang Dynasty this year, and there was still a lot of surplus.

(End of this chapter)