When Yang Yao and Dai Chengsi were discussing how to develop Taiwan, Zheng Hong was transferred back to Tokyo to be the prefect of Kaifeng.
This ignorant little fat man has now turned into an ignorant fat man.
Before he got too hot in Kaifeng, he requested to set up an exchange in Kaifeng.
This thing was established by father and son in six major shipping companies, and has never been introduced to the mainland market.
Zheng Yuanyi was helping to refill the wine. Zhu Ming picked up the wine glass and asked, "Why do you have this idea?"
Zheng Hong said: "I have seen the Guangzhou Shipping Company's exchange. When I returned to Beijing, I found that the Kaifeng market has been monopolized by the merger and acquisition house, so I requested the establishment of an exchange to break this monopoly."
"You are very brave." Zhu Ming smiled.
Zheng Hong also laughed: "If it weren't for last year's big case, I wouldn't dare to mention this kind of thing. Although I haven't read many books, I have asked people about it. The reason why the former Song Dynasty king Xianggong was dismissed was because of this."
Wang Anshi's reform was met with collective opposition from vested interests.
The content of the reform that has attracted the most opposition is not the average land tax. Measures such as checking acres of land and adjusting agricultural taxes may seem to have a broad impact. In fact, the local gentry are scattered and can be suppressed by sending a few cruel officials.
The direct reason for Wang Anshi's dismissal as prime minister was that the combination of "Market Change Law" and "Exemption from Service Money" offended the royal family members, important officials in the court, and the big businessmen who colluded with them.
The result was market chaos across the country, and even greater chaos in Tokyo. Even the supply of supplies to the imperial family had problems.
Relatives of the emperor and dignitaries in the court were among the biggest "victims" of the reform. Relatives that the emperor had access to, including the Queen Mother, complained all day long that Wang Anshi had caused chaos in the world.
The specific details are as follows:
Governments across the country collect a lot of taxes in kind, including grain, cloth, wood, etc., which must be sold to merchants and turned into money. Or if the government needs any materials, merchants must supply them. Or if there are activities that need to be carried out, merchants must provide them.
Goods in service.
Merchants provided bulk cargo, supplied goods, and served the government, collectively referred to as "Kepi".
The distribution of science and technology is completed by the commercial guild as a unit. For example, if it is related to cloth, it will be handled by the cloth merchants.
A guild, often headed by a large wholesaler, joins forces with other wholesalers to monopolize regional trade. Retailers purchase goods from wholesalers and are exploited and oppressed by wholesalers.
In order to facilitate transactions between the government and merchants, local governments inquired once every ten days to obtain the latest market prices of various commodities. Local governments quoted prices to the court once a month so that the central government could control the latest market prices across the country.
However, whether it is a ten-day price or a monthly price, it is definitely different from the specific price.
When dealing with government departments, big businessmen will go to the department for profitable transactions. If the business is definitely losing money, small and medium-sized businessmen will be assigned to the department.
In addition, large businessmen join forces to monopolize the market and drive up prices through hoarding, which leads to the bankruptcy of small and medium-sized businessmen every year and causes economic losses to the central court and local governments.
Wang Anshi tried to solve the problem through the Market Law, which turned big businessmen from joining forces to monopolize the market, and the government took control of the market. When big businessmen deliberately lowered prices and refused to accept goods, the government directly took delivery of the goods, and then shipped them in bulk to retailers at low interest rates.
Lending money to small and medium-sized businessmen for business operations.
When officials implemented the market transaction laws, they corrupted the market and made the market more chaotic. Big businessmen joined forces with the powerful to add fuel to the flames, and the government's scientific management was in a mess.
The situation of small and medium-sized businessmen has become even more difficult!
Wang Anshi also introduced the exemption of service money to patch up, that is, businessmen who do not want to submit to the government can choose to pay directly to avoid the service.
The combination of market changes and the exemption of labor payment has had a huge impact on the royal family, the dignitaries in the court, and wealthy businessmen, which is tantamount to digging out the lifeblood of their fortunes. The opposition caused by it is countless times greater than the average land tax.
, and eventually Wang Anshi resigned and returned home.
But the real reason for the failure was that Wang Anshi took the wrong path.
There is a problem with wealthy businessmen monopolizing the market, but it is not a problem for the government to directly monopolize the market? Wang Anshi's remedial measure is to increase the wages of officials to prevent them from making money through market transactions.
As a result, officials passed the market transaction law and intensified their efforts to harm small and medium-sized businessmen.
Most of the excuses used by the opposition to attack the Market Change Law actually exist!
This problem cannot be solved, at least not by Wang Anshi, because it requires a bigger knife.
During the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, Cai Jing picked up the Market Change Law and the levy-free money. However, the Market Change Law was quickly abolished, and the levy-free money was inconveniently preserved because it was beneficial to big merchants.
The later Yuan and Ming dynasties continued the Song Dynasty's Kepi system.
One of the slogans of Li Zicheng's rebellion was "buy equally and sell equally". He wanted to abolish the Ming Dynasty's scientific system.
In the end, Kebu was abolished in the Qing Dynasty, but the important prerequisite for its abolition was that the degree of "monetization" of taxation and the market was high enough.
The Ming Dynasty founded by Zhu Guoxiang and Ju Ming also collected a large amount of in-kind taxes.
For example, when a merchant transports a ship of timber, whether it is the tolls on the way or the transaction tax on the shipment to the place of sale, he needs to deduct a large amount of goods to offset the tax. Because the price of the goods is fluctuating, copper coins are not easy to transport and carry, so extracting physical goods as tax can actually
Prevent officials from harming merchants and embezzling business taxes.
The government cannot keep these taxes in kind in warehouses all the time. They must be sold to merchants and turned into money.
Realization must be based on the market price, and the monthly price obtained by the central government every month and the ten-day price obtained by local governments every ten days are different from the real market price.
If there is no scientific coordination, there will be too much room for collusion between government and businessmen!
…
The father and son have been steadily reforming this matter since the founding of the People's Republic of China.
First, for materials related to the national economy and people's livelihood, the scientific distribution system will continue to be used.
Second, the rest of the goods are auctioned.
Third, follow Wang Anshi’s method of exempting people from labor service.
Fourth, gradually increase the issuance of banknotes.
The ultimate goal is to completely monetize the commodity tax and use paper money to solve the problem of physical points.
After the bulk commodities are monetized, the remaining physical items will no longer need to be allocated, and the allocation system will naturally be completely abolished.
However, it cannot solve the problem of wealthy businessmen joining forces to monopolize and manipulate the market.
Now Fatty Zheng has provided a plan, which is to set up an exchange in Kaifeng. Although it cannot completely solve the monopoly, it can make the market more transparent and increase the monopoly costs of those wealthy businessmen.
Zheng Hong said: "I was an official in Guangdong before, and the Guangzhou Shipping Company's exchange was well run."
"During the pre-Song Dynasty, goods transported inland to Guangzhou were controlled by a few large merchants. If ships wanted to purchase goods, they had to look at the merchants' faces. However, goods transported to Guangzhou from overseas were monopolized by the imperial court, and finally were monopolized by merchants in the capital.
Control.
"After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, sea goods were no longer sold by officials, resulting in both land and sea goods being controlled by the Guangzhou trade heads."
"But with the Shipping Exchange, how much land cargo is going to sea and how much sea cargo has entered the port can be clearly checked at the exchange. Those wealthy merchants in Guangzhou can no longer control the goods. If they want to lower the price, they can't
The goods will be received by merchants from Fujian and Zhejiang."
"Furthermore, this exchange is different from the market affairs of the previous Song Dynasty, because the government will not interfere in the trading."
Ju Ming said with a smile: "The establishment of exchanges in the six major shipping companies is just to facilitate the collection of tariffs. I didn't expect that there would be such an unexpected gain."
Zheng Hong said: "Not only that, the exchange also makes it more convenient for merchants to buy and sell. For example, land merchants sell cargo orders on the exchange in advance, and maritime merchants take the cargo orders and pay the down payment in advance. After the next trade wind arrives, both parties
, the agreed transaction can be completed quickly. It can avoid the goods being stuck in the warehouse for a long time, and also avoid not being able to find the goods you want temporarily. "
Since the emergence of exchanges, futures will definitely be born. How to avoid risks can be solved by merchants themselves.
Ju Ming asked: "Is there anyone who specializes in reselling the bill of goods to make a profit?"
"Yes." Zheng Hong nodded and said.
Look, there are already people speculating on futures.
Ju Ming felt that banknotes could be issued in the six major cities.
Zheng Hong said: "Kaifeng is at the foot of the emperor, the country was first established, and the court's prestige is extremely high. Naturally, merchants will not live in such strange settlements that the people in the city cannot afford coal and freeze to death. But merchants dare not do anything big.
, but often play small things. I looked through the official price inquiry documents of Kaifeng Prefecture last year, and found that there are businessmen who took advantage of the nationwide investigation of major cases to join forces to manipulate prices in Kaifeng Prefecture to make profits."
"Haha." Zhu Ming smiled.
Last year, several merchants who took the opportunity to manipulate prices in the capital had their homes confiscated.
Of course, the reason why their homes were confiscated was because they were involved in a major corruption case.
After several companies were severely punished, prices in Tokyo quickly stabilized. Because the government seized a lot of inventory and auctioned it directly to middle and low-level merchants (retailers).
Zheng Hong said: "Goods from all directions are transported to the capital. The merchants are manipulated by the business leaders, and the small and medium-sized merchants are also manipulated by the business leaders. They eat what goes up and down, and deliberately disrupt prices. It is impossible for the government to control them all the time.
, and often cannot be managed. I believe that an exchange can be opened in Tokyo. This is equivalent to a market transaction where the government only collects taxes but does not participate in transactions. It not only circumvents the shortcomings of Wang Xianggong's market transaction, but also obtains
The benefits of market transactions.”
Zhu Ming shook his head: "The exchange is not a panacea. Once the wealthy businessmen figure it out, they can control prices through purchase and sale orders. Of course, this will greatly increase their costs. They will not be able to operate as easily as before, and the government will handle it
It’s also more convenient to get up.”
"That's enough." Zheng Hong said.
Ju Ming praised and said: "I didn't expect that over the years in this place, you have become more and more advanced."
Zheng Hong smiled and said: "Although I am not good at reading, I have always been good at business. These are related to business."
Ju Ming said: "I asked the cabinet and the six ministries to discuss and cooperate with the exchange to carry out commercial tax reform. It will be piloted in Kaifeng first, and the deficiencies will be checked and filled before being promoted to inland large cities. It does not need to be promoted in all provinces across the country like Wang Anshi's Municipal Affairs Bureau.
It can only be promoted in a few big cities. Your suggestions this time are excellent. Keep reading, learning and doing more, and there is hope for the position of Minister of the Ministry of Revenue."
