Yun Zheng, who met Xiao Zhiqiong again in Suzhou, could never have expected that far away in the center of the Luoyang imperial court, a hurricane sweeping the world had begun to form after the first butterfly flapped its wings.
Emperor Wanchang Lin You came to the cabinet today. He was looking down and listening expressionlessly to Qiu Linjiang and Gu Heng arguing over the new law.
Spring rain is as precious as oil, but this year there are signs of severe drought all over the world, especially in Shandong and Jianghuai areas.
Just before the early court meeting, Prime Minister Shen said, "Shandong has suffered a disaster and the country's supplies are insufficient. I am begging for relatives in the suburbs this year (for the emperor's suburban sacrifice), but the officials in the capital will not give gold or silk." In this regard, the Right Prime Minister Gu Heng agreed, believing that disaster relief should be used sparingly and should come from the nobles. Starting from the time when officials and ministers are close to each other, you can listen to the officials in the capital saying their respective gifts.
But Qiu Linjiang expressed his disdain at that time, saying: "The national supply is insufficient and it is not an urgent matter today."
Although Gu Heng didn't want to compete with him when he was at his peak, as the right prime minister, he was contradicted by Qiu Linjiang, a new cabinet minister. Naturally, he felt embarrassed and asked: "What if the country's supplies are insufficient?" Isn’t it really an urgent matter? Master Qiu’s words are quite strange.”
Qiu Linjiang was not panicked and said calmly: "The reason why the state is insufficient is because there are no people who are good at managing money."
Gu Heng dismissed this: "Master Qiu's so-called people who are good at managing money are just amassing people's wealth to use up the people's wealth, while people who are poor are 'stealing' (rebellion). Isn't this a good thing?"
Qiu Linjiang shook his head and said: "But there are people who are good at managing money, who can make the people not taxed, but the country can use it enough."
After hearing this, Gu Heng felt a little funny and raised his eyebrows: "How can this be true in the world? The money and everything created by heaven and earth are not in the people, but the officials try to rob them from the people. It is worse than increasing taxes. This is actually what happened back then. The rhetoric used by Sang Hongyang and others to deceive Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty."
It's wonderful for two people to fight back and forth, but the people who really understand the situation of the imperial court are silent. Why? Because these are not the key. To talk about the key, we have to start with the reason for the imperial court's "insufficient state resources"
Was the Wei Dynasty rich? Did it have money? The answer is definitely rich, and there was money. The question lies in whose hands the money was and where it was spent.
At the beginning of the founding of the Wei Dynasty, Taizu said: "The only thing that can benefit hundreds of generations is to raise soldiers. In bad years, there will be rebellion against the people but no soldiers; in unlucky years, there will be rebellion, but there will be no rebellion against the people." That is to say, in times of famine, recruiting hungry people as soldiers can prevent hungry people from revolting; in normal years, even if there is an army revolting, the people will not participate. Therefore, a system of raising soldiers from state finance was established. This group of people were raised. , later became known as military household
This system was indeed good in the short term, but over time, it became a complete mess. Once the common people were recruited as soldiers, they were imported into the government and military status. Those who signed up for the military status were not allowed to do business, live as farmers, and were not allowed to leave the country regardless of birth, old age, illness or death. The people, their wives and children all had to rely on the government for food. Therefore, the barracks were filled with old, weak, sick and disabled soldiers. Once a war started, how could they go to the battlefield? So, a large number of strong soldiers were recruited. This is how it started from the founding of the People's Republic of China. It has been close to two hundred years now. Based on today's military strength of the Wei Dynasty, the country has a total of 210 guards, 1,176,000 people officially established - well, plus the newly established 36 Guards New Army, 201,600 people in the country's regular army are close to one 1.4 million people
To maintain these regular troops, they naturally have to spend money. The annual military pay and rations for the soldiers are equivalent to 30 guan per person. Converted based on the "purchasing power" calculated by Yunzheng, 30 guan is about less than 20,000 yuan today. Yuan is the cost of supporting a whole family for a year. If you are not rich, you are not considered a new army. The original 1.2 million people in the regular army will spend a huge military salary of 35 million yuan every year.
However, the expenditure does not end there. In addition to these regular troops, there are also ordinary military households. Because there is military land, there is no need to worry about the rations of military households, but they also have to be paid. Of course, their military pay is much less than that of the regular army, which is about 100 per year.
Five to eight guan, which is equivalent to about 5,000 yuan today. The only thing the court can be thankful for is that there are nearly 7 million military households in the country. The court only needs to bear about 4 million, and the remaining marshals in the four major border towns are responsible for themselves.
However, this expenditure amounted to another 32 million yuan!
And the most terrifying thing is that this huge military expenditure of 67 million dollars is only needed to support troops on weekdays, and does not include wartime logistics support, transportation, rewards, organizational mobilization, attrition, management, etc...
This is military pay, and there is another big expense, which is official salary.
The system of separating officials, positions, and dispatches designed during the Taizu period was combined with the official selection system such as imperial examination, favor, and recommendation, and a large number of redundant officials evolved. Anyone who knows the inside story of the imperial court knows that there are officials and positions.
The people who are not dispatched account for 7% and more than 80% of the total number of officials. This means that among all the officials in the empire, 7% and more than 80% are idle and redundant officials. In order to arrange these, they have
With officials, posts and new officials continuing to come in every year, the empire racked its brains to invent new jobs and official positions, so there was another very classic adjective called "stacked bed and house". These stacked, set-up houses
The combination of redundant officials and the empire's generous high salary system gave birth to the splendid economic and cultural flower of the Wei Empire, and at the same time cost tens of millions in salary. Detailed accounts from the Ministry of Households show that before Emperor Wanchang ascended the throne,
There are 25,000 official officials in the imperial court, and those who can't find the exact number, it is estimated to be around 20,000 to 300,000, and the annual salary required is at least 12 million yuan.
Among them, taking the prime minister and the elder as an example: their salary income includes: regular salary, which is equivalent to the basic salary; additional payment, which is equivalent to the seniority or seniority salary; salary, which is equivalent to the salary for the position; clothing gift, which is equivalent to the clothing subsidy
; Tea, wine and cooking materials are equivalent to a food subsidy; fodder is equivalent to a transportation subsidy; fuel charcoal is equivalent to a heating subsidy; there are also food and clothing for seventy people, which is equivalent to a security and prestige subsidy. The total number is about 10,000
Guanqian is equivalent to the income of 10,000 acres of land, which is equivalent to about 6.6 million yuan today. You must know that although there are only seven people in the cabinet, there are far more than seven or eight people who enjoy the treatment of prime minister. Taizu Rongma
After a lifetime, military generals are treated the highest, and the salary of a commander-in-chief is even about one-third higher than that of a prime minister. However, those who hold the actual position of commander-in-chief and those who enjoy the treatment of commander-in-chief are even better than those who have the title of commander-in-chief.
There are many more people in the prime minister's position. The other four border town commanders can each receive a salary of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan from the court in their personal capacity every year.
Therefore, two items, military pay and official salary, accounted for a huge sum of 80 million yuan. The other item was the customary expenditure of the imperial courts in ancient and modern times: sacrificing sacrifices to heaven and earth and ancestors. Don't think that this amount of money is very small.
, it costs at least four to five million dollars a year.
However, the annual income of the imperial court only hovered between 80 million and 100 million guan. In addition to the above-mentioned expenses, the imperial court had to do something every year? In this case, it is natural that "shortage of national funds" often occurs.
But although the imperial court is poor, it does not mean that the highnesses who appear in the court every day, and the adults are also poor, especially His Majesty, who is above the throne. He is rich - not oily - just like the oil tycoons in the Middle East in later generations.
The royal family's palace, mines, official kilns, various workshops and even shipyards, etc., can be said to be countless industries. For example, Princess Lin Yuyan of Huai'an can actually be regarded as controlling the export of official kiln products for Emperor Wanchang.
With only 30% of the profits, Yun Zheng was so rich that he was stunned. Then you can imagine how much astonishing income the emperor himself, who owns so many industries, will have in his inner treasury every year.
What about wealthy families like the Shen family and the Gu family? First, they have been aristocratic for hundreds of years. They have accumulated almost countless properties, mountains and forests, stores in big cities, and even silk workshops, tea houses, etc. over the years. Which family?
Not very rich? Only their own family head and a few core members know how big their net worth is.
As for the warlord family headed by the Yun family, in addition to the above-mentioned industries, there are also industries related to military industry such as iron workshops. The Yun family even owns several large horse farms that are unique in the Wei Dynasty. In addition, four other families
There are also military households and military fields. Military fields were originally considered the property of the imperial court, but after the Xiaochengwang Rebellion, they gradually became the private property of the families in the border towns. Military fields were originally relatively good farmland, and the area was also large, and each family owned it.
The military households farmed in the military fields, and the aristocratic families were not responsible for their daily rations, but also had to pay a portion of the surplus grain according to the family head as the army's rations. When the farming was slack, the aristocratic families would arrange some other work for them.
These things do not calculate wages in detail, but pay them on a monthly basis, which is about five to eight dollars a year (of course there are differences between men, women, old and young) as mentioned above. As for their labor income, sorry,
That is the income of the aristocratic family, so based on this calculation, the aristocratic family members and warlords should also be rich.
So after all, from the emperor to the warlords, officials at all levels, landowners and big businessmen, all of these people are wealthy owners, while the poor ones can only be the court and ordinary people.
It’s not that Yun Zheng is unaware of the situation in the court, he is just too aware that he is completely powerless on this matter. He is very clear about Qiu Linjiang’s new law. If Yun Zheng could know about the debate that just happened in the court, he would even definitely agree with Qiu Linjiang’s new law.
Linjiang's opinion is because Qiu Linjiang's opinion is, at least in theory, completely correct. There are many ways to increase fiscal revenue without increasing taxes. How could Yunzheng, a "latecomer", not know those methods that have long been the foundation of modern economics?
Methods proven by theory and practice? Speeding up capital turnover, improving production conditions to increase production, etc. all fall into this category. In fact, the green seedling method promoted by Qiu Linjiang is also a similar and very clever method. In fact, the green seedling method is not Qiu Linjiang.
Linjiang was the first to use this method. At the beginning, local officials in Shandong were the first to use this method to support local agricultural production. When Qiu Linjiang was the county magistrate, he tried it and found that the effect was quite good and was well received by the people, so he started to use it in his jurisdiction.
Widespread application
In fact, loan sharking was prevalent in the countryside of the Wei Dynasty. Compound interest was actually a more common interest rate. In fact, it had become a form of bankruptcy for farmers and land annexation. The harm to the Wei Empire was self-evident. Therefore, Qiu Linjiang advocated that in
When there is a shortage of crops, the government lends money to farmers at an interest rate of 20% for half a year. The loan will be repaid with interest immediately after harvest. Since this loan uses young crops in the fields as a credit guarantee, it is called the green crop method.
From Yunzheng's point of view, the 20% interest rate for the past six months can undoubtedly be regarded as usury in future generations. However, in the current Wei Dynasty, this is only equivalent to one-third or even one-fifth of today's usury.
Therefore, using this method to support farmers and mulberry trees should be a matter of great merit. When Yun Zheng first heard about this matter, he was already surprised that Qiu Linjiang actually knew that credit loans could be used to stimulate economic growth; when
When production increases the circulation of goods, even if the same tax rate is used, the result of increasing fiscal revenue in the accelerated turnover state is really surprising to Yunzheng, a time-traveling young man who insists on "system first"
Qiulinjiang's other economic-related reforms, such as the establishment of three regulations departments, the farmland water conservancy law, the equalization law, the market change law and the exemption of money, the square field equalization tax law, the horse protection law, etc., their basic economic ideas are generally derived from
This attempt to use financial regulation to manage the country has never been proposed in any other place in the world in its depth and breadth. It cannot be said to be unadvanced.
However...Yunzheng is still not optimistic about the prospects of this reform.
The reform plan that Gu Heng just rebuked Qiu Linjiang was exactly the same trick that Sang Hongyang used to deceive Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Comparing the two, we can indeed see that there are many similarities between the two.
Many people in later generations were particularly obsessed with the so-called heroic strategy of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in opening up new territories. They often ignored, intentionally or unintentionally, the emperor's extravagant desires and cruelty. In fact, if he had not devoted all his efforts to the country and the savings of several generations,
If he defeated the Xiongnu and indeed achieved great achievements in opening up new territories, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty Liu Che should actually be listed among the worst emperors in China.
In contrast, his grandfather, Emperor Wen of Han, can be called one of the best emperors in Chinese history. Emperor Wen of Han created a quiet and peaceful world with saint-like virtues and conduct, so much so that he looked back on that period two thousand years later.
The past events still make people feel a quiet and warm feeling like a spring breeze. Compared with him, his son Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty was less kind and generous, and more reckless and violent. Fortunately, he finally inherited his father's quietness and inaction and worked with the people.
As a result of the country's governing philosophy, after the governance of the two emperors Wen and Jing, the grain in the country's warehouses could no longer be stored and could only be piled in the open air in the yard; the treasury was filled with coins, and even the leather cords stringing the coins were rotten.
It was the grand occasion during the reign of Wenjing
It is a pity that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty had no ancestral style. With more than 40 years of foreign wars and nearly 50 years of internal mismanagement, he squandered all the wealth accumulated by his father and ancestors for generations. Then he began to reuse businessmen.
Sang Hongyang and others planned how to exploit the people and implement the so-called financial reform from inaction to action.
Sang Hongyang and his gang are really good at making money. They first implemented a set of state-monopolized business activities, nationalizing all the most profitable industries such as coin making, iron smelting, salt making, and selling liquor, and implemented monopoly; even for a time
They were planning to implement a national monopoly on fishing and shrimping in rivers, lakes, ponds, bays and oceans. Due to the immediate sharp drop in output and rising market prices, they had to give up. Then, Sang Hongyang implemented the equalization method and the standard method.
Instead, localities were ordered to change the tribute tax to local specialties and price them based on the local average price. The government ordered them to be transported to other designated areas and sold by the government at a high price to make profits higher than the general tribute tax. This practice was adopted by the Qiu Linjiang Reform.
It was copied in its entirety, and even the name remained unchanged; the equalization law refers to the establishment of equalization officials by the state in various places to monopolize the world's goods and prices, selling at high prices and buying at low prices, so that merchants cannot make profits and must go through the government to survive; Qiu Linjiang
The Market Change Law in the reform was born out of this. In addition, the calculation system and the suing system were also implemented. The suing system is to collect property taxes from businessmen, and the suing system is a system to crack down on businessmen who do not declare or declare taxes truthfully.
, stipulates that all the property mentioned above will be confiscated and sent to the army to guard the border for one year; anyone who reports the above two acts will be rewarded with half of the confiscated property.
After the introduction of the above fiscal policy, the following consequences quickly occurred: the national treasury was immediately filled; the vitality of the private economy shrank rapidly; the highly subjective reporting system and fiscal taxation behavior quickly created a large number of wealthy officials; finally, historical records say,
Most merchants and above are bankrupt. For Chinese people living in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, just think about the state-owned enterprises in the planned economy era and the later monopoly operation of China Telecom.
clear
From Yunzheng's point of view, only those bureaucrats who were born as small traders and were eager to please the emperor could come up with such a bad idea of killing the goose to obtain eggs and drinking poison to quench thirst. Note that in any era, if the state wants to rely on administrative power to compete with the people for commercial interests,
It is an easy thing, but it can always only be a short-term behavior. The prerequisite is that the government
