Han’s Son is Not a Slave

In Guangdong, Zhou Shixiang, who was busy integrating forces to prepare for the westward, suddenly found that his money seemed to be insufficient.

For a long time, the Taiping Army has implemented the public treasury system, which stipulates that gold and silver, silk and silk, treasures, grain, salt, **** and meat seized in battles must be handed over to the public treasury, and then the public treasury will allocate it according to the needs of officers, soldiers and families. Give. This system guaranteed the living needs of officers and soldiers who joined the Taiping Army and their families, and also attracted a large number of poor people to join the Taiping Army.

At the beginning, Zhou Shixiang vigorously promoted the slogan "everyone has food to eat, everyone has meat to eat, and everyone has clothes to wear" in Luoding, and the public treasury system is the guarantee of this slogan. The public treasury system, based entirely on the principles of selfless wealth and equal distribution, played a positive role at the beginning of the Taiping Army's establishment. However, with the continuous military victories of the Taiping Army, the number of cities and towns occupied increased, and the source of wealth also changed. Abundant, coupled with the addition of a large number of soldiers, the public treasury system was naturally impacted and destroyed.

People are all selfish. Those poor people who had nothing in the past suddenly have their own income and a certain position in the Taiping Army, and they will inevitably start to accumulate their own private wealth. The composition of the Taiping Army is inherently complex, with bandits and conscripts accounting for as many as 60%. It is basically impossible to expect these officers and soldiers who joined the Taiping Army either to survive or to make a fortune to strictly enforce the seizure and confiscation, and strictly self-discipline. to things. Therefore, when Zhou Shixiang established Laosi Town, he began to determine the salaries of officers and soldiers, in order to determine the income of officers and soldiers, to ensure that officers and soldiers have enough income to support themselves and their families. In this way, on the one hand, the hearts of the officers and soldiers are united, and on the other hand, the looting and massacre of the city because of money are avoided to the greatest extent.

Zhou Shixiang, who returned to Guangzhou after the Chaohui War, did not forget the officers and soldiers who were killed and disabled. He set a high pension to compensate the families of the officers and soldiers who died in the war, and stipulated that the deceased were called "martyrs". The males of the martyr's family, if they are adults, if they join the army and directly choose their salaries, they can also be given priority when they are promoted; Underage children can study in the Junior Soldier Camp. After graduation, the outstanding ones are promoted to the military training workshop for further studies. After they have completed their studies, they can join the army starting from the corps commander and the Anjun envoy. Those who cannot be promoted to military training workshops are arranged by local officials, or work in county government offices, or work in township and village government offices. In short, Zhou Shixiang repeatedly emphasized that the treatment of the families of the martyrs must be guaranteed. Even if everyone is hungry, they must save money and food to support the children of the martyrs and their parents.

Zhou Shixiang also paid special attention to the disabled, and stipulated that the slightly injured should be paid disability pension and arranged to serve in various townships and village offices. The loyalty of the employees of the village office to the Taiping Army. For the seriously injured who could not take care of themselves, the Invalides was specially built in Xiangshan, and special personnel were arranged to take care of them. This amount, including personnel expenses, was a special expense for the military commander's office, and was not borne by the local government.

"Only when there are no worries, the soldiers will move forward bravely. If we are stingy and we can't save any money, how can we make the soldiers willing to work for us."

"Qian Congjunjun's mansion, not going anywhere, this is not that this commander wants to reduce the burden on the local area, but to let the tens of thousands of soldiers in the Taiping Army know that this commander is their strongest and biggest backing! It doesn't matter if you die in battle, parents His wife and children, Ben Shuai, raised them for them, and told their children to be promising in the future. Don't be afraid if you are injured or disabled. Ben Shuai is raising them. It's okay to be lame and broken arms. As long as we Taiping Army, no one dares to look down on them!"

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In the Battle of Chaohui, the Taiping Army suffered 8,890 casualties, including 4,620 casualties. When Zhou Shixiang was still in Huizhou, the pensions for the dead were counted and prepared by the Guangdong Commissioner and the Military Commander's Office together. After Zhou Shixiang returned to Guangzhou, the part of the disability pension was also counted. At the same time, the rewards of meritorious soldiers in the Battle of Chaohui were also counted. Zhou Shixiang spent two days checking them one by one, and after confirming that it was correct, he approved the distribution.

In addition to pensions, disability funds, and rewards, Zhou Shixiang also gave rewards to the people who transported grain and the masons who built the fort.

Zhou Shixiang believed that the war was not just a matter of the army. The people paid more than the army, and the army was rewarded for winning, so the people should also benefit. Zhou Shixiang called this "war dividend".

"If we win, the people will benefit. You said, will they be more motivated to support us? Will they expect us to win? Will they support us with all their strength? If we go out to fight every time, the people will Give us a master and food, but you can't get anything, what do you think they will think?"

Zhou Shixiang decided to distribute the war dividends to the common people. The people in Chaozhou and Huizhou did not get the dividends, but the people in Guangzhou got the most of it. Especially in the Xiangshan area, almost everyone got the war dividends from the Taiping Army.

The amount of this dividend depends on whether the household has children to join the army, the area of ​​​​cultivated land, the amount of grain paid, and the amount of labor. This bonus is not simply given to gold, silver and copper coins, but also to cloth, meat, rice, salt and oil instead. In practice, Xiangshan County also distributes the remaining land as dividends instead of silver coins, which has been unanimously supported by the people of Xiangshan.

Pensions, disability payments, bounties, and various expenditures, plus the war dividends for the common people, add up to an astronomical figure. Even if the Taiping Army gained the wealth of the entire city in Guangzhou, plus two palaces and a governor's palace, the money aspect immediately became tense.

After a large amount of silver money flowed into the hands of officers, soldiers and civilians from the Taiping army treasury, soon, a new problem appeared, that is, price inflation. The gold and silver that flowed out were basically concentrated in Guangzhou Prefecture, and there were more than 500,000 people in Guangzhou Prefecture. Now that millions of taels of silver and copper coins are circulating in the market, rising prices are bound to happen.

Zhou Shixiang was a human being ~www.NovelMTL.com~ How could he not know this truth, he decided to recycle gold and silver to curb the soaring prices, and by the way, reformed the public treasury to make the public treasury more suitable for the current situation. After much deliberation, Zhou Shixiang decided to change the public treasury into a silver treasury, and established the Guangdong Silver Treasury Head Office in Guangzhou, with three branches in Guangzhou, Chaozhou and Huizhou. The counties and Sanzhou under the jurisdiction of the three prefectures will set up sub-branches, and below the sub-branches, there will be exchange offices, which will be built in the township offices.

Guangdong Yinku Head Office is directly under the direct control of the Junshuaifu, and is managed by the Ministry of Household of the Junshuaifu. After the establishment of the Bank's Head Office, Zhou Shixiang ordered Duke Xiang of Song to start issuing military tickets. The denomination of military tickets refers to later generations of RMB, and is divided into three denominations: cents, horns, and yuan, which are two cents, five cents, one cent, two cents, and five cents; one yuan, five cents. Yuan, ten yuan, twenty yuan, fifty yuan, the highest denomination is one hundred yuan.

Two cents are equivalent to two wen copper plates, and five cents are equivalent to five wen copper plates. The cents and horns refer to the copper coins currently circulating in the market, and the yuan refers to silver. One yuan is one tael of silver, and one hundred yuan is one hundred taels of silver. And one tael of gold can be exchanged for 10 yuan military ticket in the public treasury, that is, one tael of gold is fixed at the exchange of ten taels of silver.

The exchange of gold and silver is definitely floating, and the profit in the middle is also huge, but it is not what Zhou Shixiang wants to consider now. What he has to do now is to promote the popularity of military tickets, so that military tickets can be circulated first in the area controlled by the Taiping Army, and they are absolutely The strength of the military guarantees the value of the military ticket, and then the exchange rate issue is considered. (To be continued.)