Three Kingdoms: I am Not an Ant Thief Chapter 701: Overheated Investment
Although with Pu Yuan's help, Zhuge Liang's sewing machine factory began to operate normally, at this time Zhuge Liang and the others no longer had the energy to pay attention to this.
After 10 days of grading, the results of all the candidates came out. Zhuge Liang and Huang Yueying were both admitted to the University of Mechanical Engineering, while Pu Yuan failed as expected.
Zhuge Liang comforted him and said, "Brother, I will start giving you extra lessons this year, and we will start from scratch next year."
Pu Yuan said with a carefree smile: "This is not something that was expected. There is no need to make up lessons, and I can't learn. I played in Jidu for two days and then went back."
Among them, many people who thought they would not pass the exam were crying with joy. They thought the exam was bad and they thought they would fail the exam, but they did not expect that this time not 1,000 people were admitted, but 3,000 people. Many people who originally failed the exam were admitted. Those who passed the exam unexpectedly passed the exam!
And what’s even more surprising is that Daqian will open a normal college and recruit 3,000 students, and these students will be selected from those who failed, which means that the number of places they can admit will increase from 1,000 to 6,000. people.
Candidates like Lu Su and Sun Quan escaped from death. Originally, they would not have been able to pass the exam based on their grades, but they did not expect that the enrollment volume suddenly increased by 6 times, allowing them to be admitted unexpectedly.
"Great, we can finally stay in Jidu" Sun Quan said excitedly, the huge pressure in his heart was relieved.
Lu Su smiled and said: "This time Su and Brother Gongjin have become classmates."
Zhou Yu smiled and said: "We will learn from each other in the future!"
His third brother, Sun Ling, was dejected. Like Sun Ce, he inherited Sun Jian's martial arts. He still preferred dancing with guns and sticks than studying essays, so he failed the exam as expected.
Sun Ce comforted him and said, "It's okay. You can go overseas to do business with your eldest brother. It's enough for Jidu Zhongmou to inherit the family business. We will go out to develop new family businesses."
Outside the examination room, there are both joys and sorrows! Those who have passed the exam have called friends to celebrate again, and those who have not passed the exam have to drink to drown their sorrows. The power of the exam economy is once again demonstrated in this city!
This batch of candidates will have to wait for admission in September!
Less than half of the Jingzhou scholars who came to the imperial capital this time were admitted to the University of Mechanical Engineering. Naturally, elite disciples like Xu Shu and Pang Tong were admitted one after another. They called their friends to celebrate. But many mediocre disciples only had Frustrated, he ran back to where he lived.
Sima Jing cheered him up and said, "I didn't pass the exam this time. Let's start from scratch next time. Anyway, this college has an exam every year."
After experiencing this failure, most of the disciples of noble families will start looking for a profession that is suitable for them to inherit their family business. After all, people still have to live, and continuing to live in the past will only make themselves more miserable.
Therefore, after the exam, many people set up factories and chambers of commerce in Jidu, and several or even a dozen factories and caravans appeared every day.
But at this time, Xu Wei had no time to pay attention to the repercussions of this exam. He also encountered his own troubles. Niu Gui led Daqian's senior management to find Xu Wei and asked for help.
It turns out that there is a problem with Daqian's economy. Prices in Daqian, which have been stable for more than ten years, have continued to increase since this year. The prices of basic materials such as cement and steel have more than doubled, and they are still rising, and even... This affected the price of meat and vegetables, which increased by 50%, which made the people of Daqian complain.
If Dagan Liangcao didn't have enough grain, the cloth production efficiency would be far beyond the needs of Dagan people, and it would become a ballast stone. I'm afraid the prices of grain and cloth would increase. By then, prices would Growth will become even more uncontrollable, and a nationwide inflation may occur!
To be honest, I have been reading books recently to catch up on updates, switch sources, read aloud with many sounds, and it can be used on both Android and Apple.]
Xu Wei was surprised: "How could it rise so fast?"
Xu Wei also worked as a small vendor back then, so he naturally knew that ordinary people would always be hurt the most by such price increases! Therefore, he controlled prices in Daqian more strictly, even if later generations of experts said that a small amount of inflation would be beneficial. Economic development, but Xu Wei remains unmoved
He originally thought that after nailing down the prices of grain and cloth, prices in this world would not fluctuate much. After all, social development at this time was still relatively rudimentary. Controlling food and clothing could control prices, but he fell into this inflation. Tell Xu Wei that he overestimates economic operations.
After Liu Bei surrendered Jiaozhou, the world was officially unified, military expenditures decreased sharply, and governors and governors in various places focused their main energy on economic development.
The economic environment of Daqian was relatively loose compared to previous dynasties. Historically, the economy was able to develop rapidly due to rule by inaction. Not to mention that Daqian is now respected by everyone. When it is difficult to obtain military honors, the governors of various places The governors all pursue development through political achievements. If I want to achieve political achievements, of course I have to build big projects.
This requires building water canals, roads, and tracks, building large steel plants, machinery plants, large industrial parks, and large economic crop gardens.
And these projects all require money, and the amounts are quite large, ranging from hundreds of millions to more than a billion, billions or even tens of billions.
They proposed a large number of projects to develop the local economy to the Daqian court, but Xu Wei refused at that time.
Daqian cannot afford so many projects financially, not to mention that productivity cannot keep up. If we do so many projects at once, then the projects will need cement, steel, wood, coal and other raw materials needed for infrastructure construction. Fly into the sky.
Xu Wei has rich experience in this area. When I was watching TV when I was a child, the news often talked about overheating investment and the need to control the scale of investment. Failure to control the scale of investment means that prices will double or quadruple in the next year.
He originally thought that this would control the behavior of magistrates and governors from various places making large investments.
But Xu Wei did not expect that these prefects and governors were also trying to find ways to make money for development at the local level. First, Wang ** used the stock market to raise funds to build a water canal project that ran through the entire Jizhou and Youzhou!
Xu Wei felt that this was a reasonable way to raise funds through the stock market, so he did not interfere.
Then Yang Feng followed suit and tried to find ways to borrow money from big businessmen to raise funds, and started a swamp reconstruction project in Jingzhou!
Prefects and governors from other places followed suit and approached businessmen to raise funds to launch their own projects. Moreover, these projects seemed to have bright futures and attracted many big and wealthy businessmen.
In this way, large and small projects have been launched all over the country, and the one-sided pursuit of high-speed development has led to overheating of investment.
And because there are too many projects, the amount of basic building materials such as steel and cement required has increased sharply. In addition, now we are also building railways in Youzhou, which consumes a lot of steel, cement and wood, and the cancellation of a large number of projects has also led to various iron tools. The rise in demand for woodware and even cloth has resulted in overheating of investment across the country, driving up the prices of these basic commodities.
And because Daqian carried out a large number of projects, millions of people were recruited to carry out infrastructure construction in the process, resulting in an increase in the income of millions of households. These people began to buy various cloth and cloth on the market with their fingers. Food is used to improve the lives of families, and there may even be many families building new houses, which releases a large amount of purchasing power, which intensifies the price rise craze!
And now this problem has begun to spread to Jidu. When Niu Gui and the others found out, it had become a bit out of control. It can even be said that if Daqian did not have enough grain and cloth stocks as ballast, Inflation will become even more out of control.
And the thing that frightened Niu Gui the most was that when he found that something was wrong, he could go to the local government to calculate the funds needed for projects launched in various places. Only then was he horrified to find that in just over a year, the local prefectural governor, Overcoming his prime ministership, more than 100 billion projects have been launched. These are all projects financed with borrowed money. This means that the current local debt is twice as much as the debt of the court. Now the court and local governments have added The accumulated debt exceeds 150 billion, and the annual interest repayment alone costs between several billion and tens of billions.
This still depends on the interest on the debts owed by the prefects and governors. If it is only half the interest like the court, then it will only be 7.5 billion at most, but Niu Gui knows that it is impossible.
Their interest is definitely higher than that of the imperial court. If there is only 1 cent of interest, then more than 10 billion yuan of interest will have to be repaid every year. This is a figure that can completely collapse the imperial court of Daqian. After understanding the seriousness of the matter, Niu Gui When the senior officials of Daqian had no choice but to invite Xu Wei out of the laboratory!
After listening to Niu Gui's introduction, Xu Wei felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity. This is not something that often happens in later generations. The economy is either hot or cold, like a roller coaster. It will be better to wait until the millennium before it feels a little more stable. !
The reasons for this cannot be said to be exactly the same, but they can only be said to be exactly the same. Isn't this a repetition of history?
Xu Wei thought for a while and said: "To solve the current problems of the court, the first is to control the debt and the infrastructure construction of local governments so that they do not borrow money. The second is to put in enough goods to control the rise in prices."
Xu Wei thought for a while and asked: "Who lent them 100 billion? I can't believe that the people in Daqian actually have 100 billion in liquidity?"
This is what Xu Wei finds strangest. You can't just borrow the money if you want. There has to be a place where the money is available.
With such a huge number, even the merchants in Daqian did not have so much money. The merchants in Daqian were completely different from those in the Han Dynasty.
Most of the merchants in the Han Dynasty were engaged in business, and their main business was buying and selling. The goods they purchased were also obtained from the noble families, so they had more money in their hands.
Most of the businessmen in Daqian are involved in industrial investment. Their property is machinery and factories. Their total assets may reach this figure, but their circulating funds are definitely not that much.
In Daqian, the only thing that can control so much money is money. This is because the war in this world has just ended, and the people have a strong sense of worry and are used to saving money to ensure their future life.
Therefore, in recent years, Daqian's industry has developed greatly, and workers' incomes have increased rapidly. However, in addition to using a small amount of money to improve their own lives, these workers have saved all the remaining money. This is the source of the money shop's huge funds.
But Sun Qing of the money shop has been warned by Xu Wei. They are two separate systems from the local government. They are not in charge of each other. He is not allowed to lend money to the local government at will. If there is a problem with the money, he will I have to settle the score with Sun Qing.
There is no way that the credibility of credit currency in this era is too low. If there is a run problem, it is impossible for him to use banknotes to deal with it. Instead, he has to use real money and materials to exchange, so if there is a problem with the money shop, it will be huge. Problem.
So when Xu Wei looked at Sun Qing, Sun Qing immediately shook his head and said: "This is not a loan from our money shop, and there is not so much funds to borrow locally."
Does he know the seriousness of this problem? He cannot bear the blame.
At this time, Xiangkai said helplessly: "Most of the money from the ruling family belongs to the Jiangnan gentry. Although the ruling party confiscated their land and Wubao, they kept the money in their hands. After thousands of years of accumulation, they have now lost their livelihood, the land. At the same time, in order to ensure the safety of my family, I loaned a large amount of money to the governors and governors of these places for construction!"
Xu Wei said angrily: "What is this? Collecting protection fees? They regard us as a ranger gang! No wonder Sun Qing reported that the money shop has completed the task of collecting 100 tons of gold. I thought at first It’s because the output of Treasure Island has increased, but I didn’t expect that this is the coffin board for the powerful nobles of the Han Dynasty!”
To translate this into modern terms, it is a dynamic social gang! This is considered paying protection fees.
Niu Gui smiled bitterly and said: "This is not the first time this has happened. When the stock exchange was first established, there were many powerful nobles in the Han Dynasty who secretly bought stocks and bonds from us. Even earlier. , in order to resettle the refugees, we issued bonds in Youzhou and Jizhou, and guaranteed to the powerful gentry in Hebei that even if their homes were confiscated, these bonds would not be included."
"That's why we, the powerful nobles of the Han Dynasty, like the bonds we issue the most. They are easy to carry, have good reputation, and are safe and secure."
Xu Wei was left speechless. At first, their bonds were equivalent to protection fees for mutants, but now local governments are following suit.
Xu Wei said helplessly: "Aren't they afraid of losing everything?"
Niu Gui said helplessly: "Except for a few projects, they came to the stock exchange market to find bonds, and the rest were mortgaged by that project. If they can't repay the debt, they can only mortgage these projects to these businessmen, like the railway track, etc." It’s easy to handle. The worst they can do is let them charge fees for decades, but if it’s like mortgaging the plantation.”
Xu Wei heard this and sneered: "No wonder they dare to borrow money!"