In the late autumn of the thirty-eighth year of Xuanping, the autumn wind was already bleak in Jinling City. In the Xuanwu Lake in the royal garden, Li Xuan, wearing a long-sleeved coat, was walking on the lake embankment.
Following behind were several important officials of the empire and their entourage.
Xuanwu Lake is the largest lake in Jinling City. However, since the Huangceku was established on the island on the lake during the Hongwu Period of the Ming Dynasty, this place has become a restricted area. From then on, no ordinary people can enter the area. Of course, in fact, this place
In fact, it was very desolate, with few human traces, and there were not as many people as there were later.
After the Tang Dynasty moved its capital to Jinling City, Xuanwu Lake was still a restricted area because the Tang Dynasty also used this place as the location of Huangceku...
Later, when the Tang Dynasty Palace was built, Xuanwu Lake was simply included as part of the royal garden.
During the long construction process of the Tang Dynasty Palace, except for the many traditional style halls that were initially built on the site of the Ming Palace to hold large-scale ceremonies, other Datang Palace buildings basically did not follow the traditional palace architecture.
style, but built in the manner of gardens with different styles.
At the same time, Li Xuan was also afraid of death and did not want to put the palace too close to ordinary residential areas, so he expropriated all the places around the palace, especially the Northeast District, and then connected it to Xuanwu Lake.
Subsequently, the entire above-mentioned area belongs to the palace area.
Therefore, the scope of the Imperial Palace of the Tang Dynasty is very wide. It is not just the small area where the main hall is located. It is only the traditional main hall area of the imperial palace. It is usually only used when major court meetings or various major ceremonies are held.
run over
On weekdays, the Holy Emperor Li Xuan doesn't even go there. The scope of his daily activities is actually in the Zhongyuan in the northeast of the palace, which is 2.5 kilometers long and 1.7 kilometers wide. There are not many grand buildings in it.
The buildings are mainly gardens, and there are courtyards of various styles, regardless of the traditional Jiangnan garden style, the northern style, or the Western style, or Tang style architecture, New Tang Feng architecture, etc.
The western area of Zhongyuan is the core administrative area composed of office buildings of core institutions such as the Hanlin Academy, the Privy Council, the Naval Command, and the Imperial Study Room.
Later, Xuanwu Lake, which was originally a restricted area, was also repaired, and many of the imperial books inside were rearranged and moved for leisure viewing.
Xuanwu Lake has also transformed from a restricted area into a garden.
This formed the current extremely large palace area, which consists of Xuanwu Lake, the main hall of the palace, the Zhongyuan, and the core administrative area.
The circumference of the palace wall alone is eighteen kilometers, and part of the palace wall was actually built on the basis of the Nanjing City Wall in the pre-Ming Dynasty.
The longest length from north to south is six kilometers, and the widest width is five kilometers.
But this is not a standard rectangle, it is actually composed of several large areas.
The shore of Xuanwu Lake where Li Xuan is walking now is actually not the main lake of Xuanwu Lake, but the middle lake within the scope of Zhongyuan.
Li Xuan walked in front, while Chen Lifu followed a step behind. At the same time, he explained to Li Xuan the Ministry of Commerce's production capacity adjustment plan for the domestic manufacturing industry.
"Based on many surveys and studies, we believe that not only the steel industry needs to adjust its production capacity, but many other basic industries also need to adjust. Whether it is coal or chemicals, etc., there are certain problems!"
"The main problem is that companies are currently in a state of blind expansion, and they are overly optimistic about the market growth rate in a few years."
"Like the steel industry, there are big problems in the coal industry. Coal has been in short supply since 20 years ago. The private market demand is extremely huge, and the demand for coal in manufacturing and transportation is also growing day by day!"
"As a result, major coal companies have been committed to expanding production. Thirty years later, after many new generation machinery and equipment were used in mineral development, the growth rate of coal production capacity accelerated rapidly. This year alone, our coal production capacity is expected to be
It has increased by more than 20% compared with last year, and the total output has reached 100 million tons. And it will be even more next year."
"We can still consume 100 million tons of coal, and we can still digest it even up to 200 million tons, but if it is more, it will be more difficult to digest relying on the local market!"
"And basic industries such as steel and coal have driven too many related industries. Once there are problems in these basic industries, it will have a major impact on the empire's economy!"
Li Xuan didn't feel too surprised when he heard Chen Lifu's report. He had expected overcapacity.
More importantly, despite the fact that the Tang Empire was the most powerful country in the world and its people's lives were much better than those in other countries, if you compare them with those of later generations, your living standards are much worse.
Poor living standards mean they don’t have much money, and their spending power is not very good.
If the consumption power is not very good, the goods that can be consumed are limited, and businesses produce too many goods but cannot sell them. This is overcapacity.
After years of hard work, the current Tang Empire has finally eliminated child labor and solved the problem of low wages for female workers by setting minimum wage standards and limiting the maximum working hours.
This year, Chen Lifu once again proposed that the minimum wage cannot remain unchanged and must match the economic development of the empire. Therefore, the minimum wage standard was adjusted again this year, increasing by 10% on the original basis.
But even so, the lives of the workers, landless farmers and other lower-class people are still relatively difficult, and they are still struggling to have enough food and clothing.
People can't even eat enough, so they naturally have no money for consumption. Without money for consumption, products naturally cannot be sold.
This is also the reason why millions of people from the empire immigrate overseas every year.
Life is too hard at home. It would be great to go overseas. As long as you work hard and work hard, your life will definitely be better than living at home.
Li Xuan thought for a moment, and then said to Chen Lifu next to him: "With regard to overcapacity, we must not only guide enterprises to invest rationally, but on the other hand, we must also expand domestic demand!"
"In terms of guiding rational investment, we still need to start with state-owned and imperial-owned enterprises. It is not easy for other ordinary enterprises to interfere directly. However, we can guide it through some policies at that time!"
With the current economic structure of the Tang Empire, even if it pursues free trade, the government basically does not interfere with the market behavior between enterprises. However, the Empire's Ministry of State-owned Enterprises directly controls a large number of enterprises affiliated to the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, and the Imperial Assets Department also controls a large number of enterprises.
The royal asset enterprises, the two combined, can directly affect more than 30% of the industrial and commercial output value of the entire empire.
Therefore, all economic policies of the Tang Empire were basically regulated through state-owned and imperial-owned enterprises, rather than directly issuing administrative orders.
Just like adjusting steel production capacity before, the Datang Empire did not directly allow private enterprises to invest in the steel industry. What the Datang Empire did was actually very simple. On the one hand, it directly adjusted the investment quotas of state-owned and imperial-owned steel companies.
On the other hand, it is to raise the threshold, and it is also an indirect threshold, such as canceling various preferential subsidies and introducing some restrictive laws, the most important of which is the Environmental Protection Law.
Through the Environmental Protection Law, Datang officials have guided a large number of enterprises to adjust production capacity.