Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1212 Unified Market and Local Interests
The prince felt that he already had a general idea, and felt that his father would probably think that he had some ideas.

But in fact, the emperor asked the prince to ask Liu Yu for advice. After consulting for a long time, the prince still didn't understand what was going on.

In Dashun at this time, with the monetization of silver and the formation of a unified national market, the essence of the dispute is actually a dispute between production and commerce.

The gentry class in Dashun is similar to adhering to the thinking of commercial capital.

Cultivated land is the most valuable, safest, least affected by war, and the highest return investment product in Dashun.

What many gentry said is clear enough. After the war, even if the dynasty changes, the land of the Zhang family will still belong to the Zhang family, and the land of the Li family will still belong to the Li family. It will always preserve its value and be least affected by any economic fluctuations. This is the final investment direction.

Liu Yu told the prince about the dispute between the end and the end, and the average loss. The prince seemed to understand, but in fact he still didn't understand what Liu Yu really meant-if you really believe in "the end and the end", then you should Strip off the commercial speculative properties of inland land as much as possible.

The two favorite investments of Dashun gentry are land purchase and loan sharking.They say "Follow the basics and suppress the last", but in fact they are more "last" than anyone else, because the "basic" of virtuous literature is production.

The invisible hand of Dashun is too powerful—this invisible hand is usury and land merger and rent collection, which is the investment direction with the highest yield and highest return—so a visible hand is needed, The surplus from agricultural production should be invested in water conservancy construction, transportation development, farmland renovation, and expansion of cultivated land instead of usury or land acquisition.

The question is, under the shadow of the invisible hand, how many gentry and landowners have invested their accumulated capital in water conservancy construction and farmland improvement under the high return rate of buying land, collecting rent and lending usury?

This is the true meaning of the principle of "focusing on the basics and restraining the end" that Liu Yu wanted to tell the prince, based on the material and social foundations of Dashun.

Don't ask for a sword, just use the population, arable land, land ownership, tax system, and the popularity of animal power machinery in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties to set the reality of Dashun.

Han Feizi had a very poisonous mouth back then, so he created an idiom for this situation, called "waiting for the rabbit".

If you want capital to invest in land improvement and water conservancy projects, in addition to special means, if you rely on invisible hands, there is another way.

That is to increase the value of the yield per mu, relying on the high return of certain economic crops, which is higher than the rent and interest, so that capital will choose to improve the land and promote production to obtain more benefits.

But this is no longer possible in the mainland of Dashun.Because Liu Yu put all the production places of valuable raw material crops and commercial grain bases in the Northeast, Southeast Asia, and subsequent India.

The income from opening plantations in Nanyang or cultivating soybeans in the Northeast is already higher than buying land in Songsu and collecting rents, so Dashun’s money-to-money ratio has not been a problem in recent years.

A large amount of hot money, accumulated capital, and trade surplus silver actually went to Southeast Asia and the Northeast for infrastructure construction. Relying on a large amount of output, there was no silver inflation and price revolution, which ensured Dashun's "exchange rate" "It is still extremely beneficial to export-although everyone is using silver, and even the silver may come from the same mine in South America, and may even be dug by the same South American Indian, but in fact there are still silver on both sides. exchange rate.When Hume was in a debate with the free trade faction, he made a fuss about this "exchange rate" issue.

So, in fact, when the problem comes to this, even if the prince really understands the "begin and the end" problem, or goes a step further and basically understands these things.

That didn't work either.

Because the resulting solution, with all the people living on this land as the main body, cannot be done by the prince or the emperor, and will definitely try to prevent it.

Even if the main body deduced from this is not all the people in this land, but only the bourgeoisie in Dashun, then neither the crown prince nor the emperor will accept their line, and they will definitely try their best to stop it.

Lao Ma said that the real task of the bourgeoisie is to establish a world market (at least an outline) and production based on this market.

If the whole people are not considered.

It is only said that if Dashun is a country where the bourgeoisie is the ruling class at this time, then the next step is obviously to open up the domestic market, cancel domestic taxes and local protectionism in various provinces, and take the internal market after obtaining the external market. to establish the outline of the world market; to implement the state-owned land and differential land rent system, which is the purest capitalist land system that Lenin evaluated Mr. Sun Yat-sen, so as to facilitate the use of capital for production activities relying on land as the means of production .

And this is not the final solution, just a bourgeois solution.

For this alone, whether it is the emperor or the prince, can you support it?

Even if one understands that the future of the nation-state is like this, will the emperor, prince, landlord bureaucrat, gentry, etc., do it?They assume that they are loyal to the monarch and patriotic, but when they are told that in the new era, the real love of the nation-state is to abolish their feudal privileges, the privileges of the gentry, the reduction of rent and interest, and even the nationalization of land. Hesitantly chose to raise the butcher knife.

Because I understand some of the truth in it.

And because he is the prince, his buttocks are very firm.

Therefore, when the emperor summoned the prince again a few days later and asked about the communication between the prince and Liu Yu, the answer given by the prince to the emperor, that is, his opinion, was a natural compromise.

The prince knew that after he finished asking Liu Yu, his father would definitely look for him again.

The emperor also knew that the prince should know, and would give himself a direction and an answer to what he was trying to do.

So the emperor went straight to the point and asked the prince, "I told you to ask Duke Xingguo. Listen to what happened. You may not listen to what happened. It doesn't matter what he told you."

"The point is, after you've listened, do you feel that besides what I'm going to tell you to supervise and understand the people's situation in a few days, what else do you want to do?"

The prince said what he had prepared, and replied: "I ask my father to allow me to select young talents and start Hankou Industry."

This answer was expected by the emperor.

It can be regarded as one of the few answers that the emperor thinks the prince might give that he thinks is okay.

What did Liu Yu and the prince say, the emperor didn't want to know the details.But basically, the emperor thinks he knows a lot about Liu Yu's thinking. Although most of the time he understands it randomly, the emperor still thinks he understands it.

Regarding the attempt proposed by the prince, the emperor did not first ask "why did you choose this place", nor did he ask "to what extent are you going to do it".

Instead, he asked two weird questions that the prince never expected.

"Since you want to establish Hankou, I think that this can be done, and there are many benefits. But before that, let me ask you a question, such as the cotton cloth in Songjiang."

"When the cotton cloth from Songjiang leaves the port of Songjiang, a tax will be levied. Then, if the cotton cloth from Songjiang goes to Hankou, will there be another tax?"

"This is one of them."

"Secondly, it is impossible to revitalize Hankou without capital."

"Are you going to raise the capital of Chu people? Or allow Songsu's capital to flow into Hankou? Or other methods? Or government-run? Or government-supervised and commercial-run? Or commercial-run taxation? Or what?"

These two questions sounded like a pain in the ass, and felt like nonsense.

However, in fact, the emperor felt that these two issues were very critical.

This is related to the taxation model in the Songsu area. Taking Songsu glass as an example, taxes are actually collected at the production end.The same is true for cotton cloth, which is equivalent to a tax on the production side.

Of course, the tax is not heavy, and if necessary, you can also choose to rebate to ensure competitiveness. Although it is basically not necessary at this time, it is theoretically possible.

From the perspective of the bourgeoisie, the question of whether to collect taxes in Hankou can actually be understood as "whether to support a unified domestic market."

From the perspective of bureaucratic achievements or the prince's desire to make meritorious service, there are actually two interpretations of the question of whether to collect taxes in Hankou again.

One is the experience gained by the emperor from Liu Yu's methods of dealing with Japan and North Korea: bureaucrats or feudal nobles are more inclined to levy tariffs and obtain income.The more taxes they pay, the more achievements they will make and the more taxes they will pay.

In other words, this is comprador thinking.

The other is the experience gained by the emperor from Britain and France: the development of local industry and commerce requires high tariffs on foreign goods.The cotton bans in England and France are the same.If the prince wants to revitalize Hankou's industry and commerce, then it is not impossible to impose additional "tariffs" to ensure the development of local industry and commerce.In case it hasn't started yet, it will be smashed by Songjiang cotton cloth first.

In other words, this is the idea of ​​developing local industries.But from a national perspective, this is the rise of local forces and provincial ruralism, which is probably not a good thing.

This thing is different from salt.

The idea of ​​the reform of the salt administration is to directly collect taxes on the production side, then establish a unified national market, remove the rest of the exorbitant taxes, and collect taxes at one time, which is common throughout the country.

But that's salt.

So it seemed that the emperor asked two trivial questions that sounded innocuous and nonsensical, which seemed to be trivial compared to the intricate "political and human harmony".

But in fact, the first question about whether to impose additional tariffs and whether Songsu's cotton textiles can enter Hankou is a very difficult question to answer, or a question that tests the prince's cognition of the route.

Although Liu Yu didn't talk about such details with the prince, after all, some ideas still gave the prince some inspiration, so he said: "I think this matter should be carefully looked at."

"Once upon a time, the Tai Shi Gong said: "The old things are cheap and expensive, and the expensive are cheap, and each persuades his career and enjoys his work. If the water is going down, day and night, day and night, they will come without calling, and the people will come out without asking. Isn't it true?" What the Tao conforms to, but the natural test evil?"

(End of this chapter)