Gongse money was not an original creation of the Tang Dynasty, but began in the Northern Wei Dynasty and flourished in the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
In the Tang Dynasty, all the capitals of the capital and prefectures and counties had public land for public and private expenses. Later, when the expenses were insufficient, public land was set up to lend money and collect interest.
Wu Huaiyu's background as a money catcher was something that many aristocrats ridiculed him for, but Wu Huaiyu didn't pay much attention to this, unlike some officials whose background as a foreign official became a shameful blemish on their lives, and he would be discouraged if he mentioned it.
For example, Zhang Xuansu, the imperial censor, started his career as a county lieutenant in the Sui Dynasty. However, the county lieutenant had previously served as a legal officer in Jingcheng, and before that, he had been an official in the Ministry of Punishment and was not a low-ranking official.
Today's minister of Dali Temple, Sun Fujia, was still the number one scholar during the Wude period, but he served as a county magistrate for ten thousand years in the Sui Dynasty, and before that, he was also a minor official in the local area.
This thing is like letting future generations know that a woman once went into the sea and later became a good person, but it would be embarrassing if she was mentioned in public.
"His Majesty,"
Wu Huaiyu stood up and answered, "I have been studying and saw that Su Xiaoci, the minister of the Ministry of Industry of the Sui Dynasty, gave an admonishment to Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, saying that the public money was loaned for profit-seeking purposes, annoying the people, and corrupting customs. He made a special request to the imperial court to restrict public money.
use.
Later, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty issued an edict prohibiting the lending of public money to collect interest, but allowed public money to be traded in the market."
After hearing this, Li Shimin asked, "Is there still such a thing?"
"This policy was indeed implemented during the Kaihuang reign, but later during the Daye reign, lending and interest collection were allowed." Zuopu Shefang Xuanling said to the emperor.
"What was the effect? Why did Emperor Yang return to his former self?" the emperor asked.
"Because it is easy to lend and collect interest, and you can get double the interest rate without complicated operations," Huaiyu told the emperor. Compared with making money from trading, it is naturally much simpler. After all, in many cases, public money is already equivalent to rationing, and it is directly
For wealthy households, it doesn't matter whether you need it or not, as long as you pay interest on time.
This is where public money disturbs the people. First, the government often forcibly lends it to wealthy households. Second, there is a prescribed amount of public money, but in order to collect more interest, the government often spends more money on loans and collects interest. This capital already has
The public funds of the yamen also include the private funds of the officials, and even the private funds obtained by the money-catching officials. Therefore, often the capital of a yamen public house may only be a few hundred guan, but the actual amount released is thousands or even thousands of guan.
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In the end, those who bear the burden are the wealthy households and even ordinary people. When the money cannot be paid, the money-catching magistrate will use the name of the yamen to arrest them and force them to pay debts. In the end, the reputation and credibility of the court and officials will be lost.
Another problem is, of course, that the Qian Ling Shi received special promotions by catching money. Since Li Shimin became emperor, just the Qian Ling Shi of Chang'an, in less than two years, more than 600 people have been promoted for catching money.
In contrast, many other officials, even those who came from the imperial examination, have a harder time getting elected.
Although the money-grabbing order requires the children of high-ranking officials, local yamen often choose businessmen or people from the market to serve in order to ensure the profits from lending the public money. This ensures the profits from the public money, but it also makes the Tang Dynasty
The ranks of officials in China are not so pure. After all, industrial and commercial and criminal officials are not allowed to serve as officials.
There are indeed advantages and disadvantages to the matter of seizing money from public servants, and there are also many disadvantages, especially the bad reputation that was eventually borne by the court, while the advantages were taken by officials and some powerful local merchants.
"Is it possible to use public money to trade in the market?" the emperor asked.
"If officials are allowed to enter the market and participate in business operations, I am afraid it will disturb the people even more." Fang Xuanling said bluntly.
Li Shimin had a severe headache. He couldn't do this or that, but the court didn't have money. Since he became emperor, many officials had complained that official salaries were low and hoped that the court would increase them. Li Shimin also wanted to increase them, but where would the money come from.
"Mr. Yi Guo, you are the minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Fendu Zhi, and you are in charge of the national finance. Isn't there any other good way to increase fiscal revenue besides issuing bonds?"
The cost-cutting suggestions Wei Zheng mentioned are good, but they are not easy to implement under the current circumstances.
And it has to be done step by step, and there are limits to what can be done to save money.
The best way is to open source.
But without running water, how to open source?
"Your Majesty, I also feel that it is not a long-term strategy to hand over the public money to the Qian Ling Shi and lend it to the public. The various departments in the capital have nearly a thousand Qian Ling Shi, and there are more than 300 prefectures and more than 1,500 counties in the local area.
He has his own money-grabbing order to lend money, and the total number must be tens of thousands of people."
Although local officials who make money to make history are not real officials, they often have no identity as outsiders. At most, they have the status of an unofficial scribe or something like that. If they are good at catching money, they cannot be directly appointed to the official position, but they can do it.
Officer, you can go up as well.
The history of Ten Thousand Money-catching Orders is surprising upon hearing it.
Since Li Shimin became emperor, more than 600 people have been awarded officials because of the money-catching order in Chang'an alone.
You must know that there are only more than 2,000 officials in various departments in Chang'an. Wei Zheng said that there are too many, so he should cut off 1,500.
Last year, 7,000 people were selected, but in the end, only 6,000 positions were available, and 1,000 candidates were unsuccessful.
Although Wu Huaiyu knew that if the order to capture money was cancelled, tens of thousands of people would be offended, but since he was the minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, he still had to find a way to deal with the problem.
Professional things must be left to professional people. This can be seen by what kind of industrial and commercial companies are chosen by various yamen now. When you go to the market to catch money, you are not stupid. You know that if a nerd catches money, he will definitely not be able to get his money back.
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"Your Majesty, I have an immature idea to set up branch offices in the capital and various provinces, appoint branch envoys, collect the money currently in the hands of various yamen, and return it to the branch offices, use it as capital, and give it to the branch offices.
Used to buy and operate to make a profit.”
Wei Zheng asked, "I just said that we would streamline personnel and merge agencies. Now you want to set up a new government office?"
Wang Gui then asked, "How to ensure that the operation of Zhidusi Hemai will not disturb the people, and why not just let the money-grabbing officials of each government directly change lending to Hemai management?"
"Your Majesty, the Hemai business I am talking about is not an ordinary market transaction, but a nationwide mobilization that utilizes some of the official's special crops.
For example, there is a certain local product in a state in the south of the Yangtze River, but due to limited road traffic, market information, etc., their freight cannot be shipped, no one buys it, and the price is too low to sell it. Then the court can integrate the information and build channels.
We can, like granaries, establish transshipment warehouses and distribution markets at major water and land transportation hubs across the country, purchase and transship these local products from various places, and then distribute and sell them, so that the goods can be distributed all over the world, and the profits will come from them."
Merchants do not produce goods in the first place, but are transporters of goods. Their essence is to buy low and sell high, and exchange what they have.
Those who produce goods are artisan farmers.
"The imperial court can also take advantage of the market. For example, in good years, the price of grain will fall, but the price of grain will also hurt farmers. So when the price of grain falls in good years, we can purchase grain from the people at a price higher than the market price. In this way
It can also ensure farmers’ income,ωωw..net
Then the grain is stored in various transfer warehouses. When there is a disaster, or the price of grain is too high in some places, the grain can be transported there and sold at a price slightly lower than the market price. This will not only solve the food shortage, but also protect the people.
, no need to eat high-priced food.
The imperial court can also benefit from it."
What Wu Huaiyu mentioned, buying and selling, has been one of the basic fiscal policies since the Tang and Song Dynasties. Even government-run handicraft workshops made high-end products such as porcelain, silk, etc., as well as overseas trade. Foreign merchants did not care about the goods coming in by sea.
, or for goods coming in through land passes, a physical tax is levied first, and then some are purchased according to demand and shipped back to the capital or the mainland market, and you can make a profit.
Anyway, if you really want to make money from business, there are many ways.
But the only requirement is that it must be professional, and it must be the kind of unified dispatching. It cannot be like the current public money, and the yamen does its own work. That way it will not be effective, the income will not be high, and it will not be positive.
function.
It must be a unified dispatch for large markets across the country.
The court not only had to make money, but also had other positive orientations, such as helping the circulation of goods, the deployment of daily necessities such as grain and cloth, and stabilizing market prices, etc. These were all very important.
Of course, in addition to buying and selling, there is actually another way to make money, which is to discuss and sell, that is, to sell exclusively.
For example, for salt tea, those who mine salt and sell tea are now allowed to pay no additional taxes. They only collect taxes when ordinary commodities are circulated.
However, salt was an official business during the Han Dynasty. Starting from the middle and late Tang Dynasty, it became one of the most important financial revenues of the central dynasty.
Of course, the high salt tax and salt monopoly actually transfer the tax to the common people. Therefore, some people say that the salt tax is actually a poll tax. After all, it is something that everyone needs to eat.
However, if you add some taxes appropriately or engage in some exclusive sales, it is also one of the ways to solve financial difficulties.
In the democratic system, the government collects the salt from the merchants and sells it. In terms of salt, the court only needs to supervise the production of salt and put all the salt into warehouses. The merchants still leave the salt to the merchants. They just take the salt from the official salt warehouse and pay a small salt tax at the same time.
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As long as the salt tax and price are well controlled, although illegal salt will occur, the price difference will not be too large, and the illegal salt will not be too severe.
You can't cost a penny, and if you increase the price by one hundred thousand, everyone will take the risk.
Wu Huaiyu hopes to integrate official resources and pool the current capital of the company. The ten branches of the world will set up branch offices, which will be unified under the leadership of the branch office in the court. He will select some officials who are good at managing money, and then recruit some businessmen or others from now on.
Selected people were selected from the history of the money-catching order, and transshipment warehouses were established in various places. They took the capital and bought and sold.
In the future, if you have sufficient capital, you can also get involved in areas such as mining minerals.
The key point is to make one plus one greater than two, and be more positive, instead of having so many disadvantages of public money now.
"Zhidusi, transshipment warehouse, buying and selling, salt tax, tea tax..." Li Shimin read these words, and his heart moved.
He felt that although Wu Huaiyu had a background in money-catching history, his brain was indeed very useful, just like the way he had used bonds to directly convert a lot of money for him.
Some expectations.
Li Shimin also knew the many shortcomings of the Qianzhi Order, but there was really no expedient solution.
He considered canceling it when he came to the throne, but what about the government office expenses? Where would the official salary and daily rations come from?
Previously, some officials gave Li Shimin a plan, saying that they would simply select 7,000 wealthy households from all over the world and designate them as subordinates.
To put it bluntly, there are 7,000 of you, the Chosen Sons, who were given the status of a junior scholar. You were originally supposed to work as attendants for officials, but now you are giving them money. This is called substituting tuition.
After paying the money, there is no need to perform other services.
The money was collected by the imperial court and distributed to various government officials.
In essence, it is no different from the money-catching order. In the past, 50,000 yuan was given back to the capital, but now it is given nothing. You pay a sum of money every year, which is actually a kind of plunder from the rich.
Of course, Xu Shi is even more ruthless. He won't give you the capital, so he won't let you have another chance to lend money. It's really not that disturbing to the people, just these 7,000 sheep.
But this kind of policy obviously has huge problems. Seven thousand households can afford it in a short period of time. If this happens every year, who can afford it? Moreover, the money is fixed and it will definitely not be enough in the future.
Li Shimin thought about it and decided to stop the money-grabbing order first. On the one hand, he set up branch offices and envoys in each province, built transfer warehouses, and allocated funds to buy capital. On the other hand, he selected seven thousand households from all the states in the world to get the money. The tuition fees are collected according to the anti-correlation regulations, but they are replaced every three years, and the officials' salaries are directly released from the financial system.
It is safer to try the two methods together. If Wu Huaiyu's plan does not work, it will not affect the income of all officials in the world.
Scholars, farmers, merchants, and officials assist the emperor in governing the world. Of course, they must be guaranteed first.
