Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1431 The Antidote

Knowing that "technical industrial products" are good and hoping that these technological industrial products can fly into the homes of ordinary people is not understanding industrialization.

Just like Zhao Yi knows that it is good to repair the Yellow River, and even dredging the north and south rivers in turn. This does not mean that he understands the problem of the Yellow River.

God said light is good, so let there be light.

This logic is not realistic logic.

Even, the key to its anti-reality lies in the process between "being good" and "getting this good", which is avoided.Or, condense it into a miracle, regardless of how to get it.

Most of the scriptures follow this logic.

The emperor's understanding of Liu Yu's so-called "the world is material" is still stuck in the matter of "the contradiction between man and land continues to intensify, and if the yield per mu is not increased, there will be not enough food to eat."

In other words, at most, it can be understood to the extent that "even if the three generations are restored, the five emperors are reborn, and the civil and military descends, even if the master does not have to float in the sea, the problem of population increase and food shortage will still not be solved."

But the emperor didn't understand that the saying that the world is material led to a series of thinking about society, social relations and other issues behind it.

However, after all, the emperor of Dashun can still understand part of Dashun's social state.

After talking about the issue of small farmers, the emperor did not continue to delve into the issue of small farmers, but instead said: "But anyway, the matter of currency reform is imperative."

"There are many reasons for the poverty of small farmers. It may be corrupt officials, or carnival of subordinate staff, or extra labor, or businessmen's oppression... all kinds of things, but there are various reasons for the poverty of small farmers, and money is one of them."

"Many local officials have complained that the exchange of money and silver has caused hardships for the people; moreover, it is necessary to charge more for copper coins and exchange them for silver; there are also things such as fire waste and transportation of silver. These are quite unfavorable to small farmers."

"It's just that if the currency is changed... the silver from Songsu and other places will be linked to the gold and silver mines in Europa, India, and even Fusang Southern Ocean. If these gold and silver flow into the interior, land prices will soar, cultivated land will be annexed, and even loans to the world will be used for business Control the story..."

The emperor shook his head, obviously worried about this matter.

Using business to control Mongolia was Liu Yu's suggestion to the emperor after the Northern Expedition to Rakshasa and the settlement of Junggar.After all these years, let's put it this way, if we sell all the cattle and sheep in Mongolia, whether we can pay off the current debts is another matter.

And if it is done in the private sector, Songsu's capital will pour into the mainland in large quantities, even if it does not buy land, but only lends money, it will be a desperate thing.

Smallholder economies are vulnerable.

Some places like Dashun are mixed with three mu of land per capita, making them even more vulnerable.

Wang Jinggong's young crop law is impossible to implement.Because even in later generations, big banks don’t like to lend to small farmers, because lending out basically means bad debts.And the imperial court's lending to small farmers who are extremely fragile and completely bankrupt at the slightest sign of trouble...is even more nonsense.And those who have the ability not to go bankrupt... In this year and month, in this broken feudal society, those who have the ability not to go bankrupt, how can they need business loans?

Britain, France, the Netherlands and other countries have a lot of "debt prisons" and a lot of "debt slaves".

Did Dashun really build a bunch of debt prisons, relying on the labor of "debt slaves" to pay for it?If this kind of thing is done, the world will be turned against.

Therefore, whether it is Daming or Dashun, the legal maximum annual interest rate is 30.00%[-], but tricks like thirteen returns among the common people are not forbidden at all.

Even if we don’t talk about anything else, just consider it according to the pure and fundamental capitalist financial industry thinking: the risk of lending to small farmers is so great, the interest rate will naturally be high.The greater the risk, the higher the interest, which is the standard market logic of financial capital.

In the situation where "money squeezes out other gods and declares that they are the only true god", the big businessmen in Songsu and other pioneering areas now see the gentry in the interior as people who are closer to gods. This is simply a new era. The "Visible Saint".

Although Dashun still has a certain social awareness of "scholar, farmer, businessman and businessman".

But in fact.

Don't talk about Dashun.

It was during the Qing Dynasty that scholars went to Yangzhou to play, and they were amazed that the scholars in Yangzhou had to curry favor with businessmen.When a man of fame and fame meets a big businessman, he still has to say "I went to your house to pay homage to you yesterday, but you are not here, did your housekeeper tell you?" in such a humble tone.

Scholars, farmers, businessmen... just talk about it, poor tenant farmers, can they really tell big businessmen that my social status is higher than yours?Just talk.

The emperor was worried that once the currency reform was carried out, the advantages of the first-mover areas, especially the currency advantages, would quickly cause great problems in the internal smallholder economy.

However, what the emperor said must be changed, and it makes sense.

Under the advanced system, the issue of copper and silver exchange is indeed a mountain that weighs on small farmers.

Even after the Opium War in the Qing Dynasty, the exchange of copper and silver could directly affect foreign trade, so that British and French merchants discovered the huge fluctuations in sales of "foreign cloth" caused by the copper-silver exchange ratio.

Small peasants cannot produce silver.

The collected copper coins are exchanged into silver to pay taxes. In this, merchants suffer from a wave of poor exchange, officials suffer from a wave of fire loss, and local governments suffer from a wave of extra money, making small farmers extremely vulnerable to the issue of copper and silver exchange.

This incident, in North America, also had a similar situation: Britain required North America to pay taxes in silver instead of banknotes; banknotes could still be used in North America, but the exchange of banknotes and silver was subject to market regulation... This directly led to North American craftsmen joined the anti-British ranks.

Of course, Dashun's copper coins are not the same as North American banknotes.However, since silver is used for tax payment and large-scale trade, in terms of currency attributes, the situation of copper coins and North American banknotes is also similar.It is nothing more than that copper coins themselves are a kind of semi-precious metal. In addition to the assigned currency, they also have the attribute of "copper".

Of course, the currency reform that the emperor is talking about now, from the perspective of historical reforms, is close to "returning fire consumption to the public".

Because, "fire consumption" is not just the melting of broken silver into silver, but also the issue of collecting copper coins but handing over the silver.

As for the "fire consumption" problem, there are two ways to solve it.

One: Increase taxes, do not allow local governments to apportion, let the central government increase taxes, legalize apportionment, but stipulate specific amounts.

Two: To solve the problem of "fire consumption" itself, if there is no fire consumption, then wouldn't the problem of fire consumption be solved? Of course, it is only a technical solution, which cannot stop local apportionment and tax increases, but at least it will not happen The name "fire consumption" is gone.In essence, there is not much difference in changing the name of fire consumption in the local area; but in terms of technical name, there is indeed no fire consumption.

As for Dashun, of course, it can only solve the problem of fire consumption technically.

Because, to solve the problem of fire consumption in essence, regardless of the issues of human nature and official governance, it is necessary to go to war, completely change the tax expenditure logic of the Dashun Dynasty, and solve the tax distribution between the central and local governments.

Even if the conflict between the central government and the local government is ignored, it is simply nonsense that Dashun changes the tax and expenditure system, and the local government uses the money to go to the national treasury, and it is impossible to fully complete it.Because, according to the idealized Ming and Dashun system, the localities basically have no money and basically can't do anything, but the reality requires them to do something.

Therefore, Dashun can and can only choose one of these two ideas on the issue of "fire consumption".

Or, illegal fire consumption, legalized.

Or, solve the problem of fire consumption itself, that is, the exchange of copper and silver.

That is to say, change the relationship between copper coins and silver as two kinds of currencies, or even be regarded as domestic currency and foreign currency, and carry out the unification of currencies.Copper coins can be issued, but the copper coins have to be silver coins, which are fixed-amount coins, not foreign currency exchanges.

I haven't heard of a black market for exchanging small coins for large amounts of money.

As for foreign currency exchange, there must be a black market price. The imperial court stipulates that thousands of coins can be exchanged for one, so it is impossible for the imperial court to set the same price as the market price.

Simply abolishing the two and changing the yuan is just collecting seigniorage.

The further step of abolishing the two and changing the yuan is to convert copper coins into secondary coins, silver standard or gold and silver double standard. This is a reform that solves the burden on small farmers in addition to seigniorage.

This is like, Dashun collects taxes and collects foreign currency; while the common people use local currency for daily life.The local currency must be converted into foreign currency to pay taxes. At the very least, those who hold foreign currency must make a lot of money.

Even if tax collection is not considered, it is said to collect tea, goose feathers, pig bristles, peanuts, soybeans, cotton, rapeseed... Generally speaking, what small farmers get is copper coins.The discrepancy is so large that in the period after the Opium War in history, some compradors denominated in silver were theoretically flat-based businesses, but they did it very vigorously because of the issue of copper-silver exchange.

The emperor believed that the currency reform should be changed.

Regardless of whether it is true or not, at least it can be regarded as a reform to solve the "fire loss", and in theory it can be regarded as reducing the pressure on small farmers.

But at the same time, the emperor's worries were not unreasonable.A large amount of currency in the first-developed areas will pour into the mainland, into the mainland that lacks silver.

Why did Dashun's currency reform have to be delayed until now?

Why do you have to finish the first battle and start digging gold in Fusang to change?

Because, if it is not delayed until now, and the gold, silver and precious metals in Dashun are not enough to support the economic aggregate of Dashun at this time.

Dashun is not Japan, and there is no mountain of gold and silver.But even Japan, which has mountains of gold and silver, experienced large-scale deflation before and after Arai Shiraishi's reforms.

Of course, Dashun is not a North Korean country, so it is so suffocating that it is thinking about abolishing currency and bartering, because it cannot issue money by itself, and there is insufficient precious metals, and it is not like Daming that can rely on exports to make a surplus and monetize silver.

And where is Dashun's gold and silver concentrated?

In a sense, the feudal dynasties, including the Manchu Qing Dynasty, collected taxes and fought wars, which can be regarded as a kind of "currency transfer".This currency transfer, the rise of Shaanxi merchants controlled the economic lifeline of Sichuan, so that pawnshops opened up to the situation where Sichuan people angrily smashed Shaanxi people had a great relationship with the Northwest War.The silver in the south of the Yangtze River flowed into the northwest through taxation, which increased the currency in the northwest and provided the basis for the rise of merchants in Shaanxi.

However, how much tax can Dashun collect in a year?How much of the tax collected can be transferred to the mainland?Especially with the basic completion of land reform, the complete end of the war in the Western Regions, and the basic abolition of canal repairs, even if Dashun is taxed and spent, the taxed silver does not flow to the inland, but to the Northeast and Southeast Asia where food is produced. , around Gyeonggi where the army is produced and raised, Songsu where the cloth is produced, and Bohai where the ordnance is produced.

In other words, Dashun once had no conditions to carry out currency reform.Because the total amount of precious metals is insufficient, and the economic scale of Dashun is too far behind.

But now, Dashun has the conditions to carry out currency reform, because the total amount of gold and silver in Dashun has increased too much compared to before.However, most of the gold and silver added to the conditions for currency reform are actually concentrated in the advanced areas.Even more specifically, most of them are concentrated in the Songsu area.

Then, the emperor's worries were not unfounded.

(End of this chapter)