Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1465 The Last Farce ([-])
"You see it that way?"

Liu Yu still maintained a smiling expression, and asked a question.

Li Yan did not hesitate either, nodded and said: "Guo Gong often said that the cornerstone of the world is matter. The world is matter. Although I don't understand the meaning of it, I also know that when considering problems, we must consider the existing material facts. above."

"If we say that the Celestial Dynasty is bounded by Hami, there is no fertile land in the Western Regions, let alone the Seven Rivers west of Ili."

"If we say that the Celestial Dynasty is bounded by the Liaohe River, there are no fertile soils such as pine and black rivers."

"If we say that the Celestial Dynasty is bounded by the East China Sea, there are no such wastelands as Nanyang, Nanyang, Xinkuwu, and Fusang."

"Then, if the material conditions are the same as the current material conditions?"

"Obviously, since the Duke said that the world is material, it must be said that the biggest problem in Kyushu today is the increase in population. That’s when the per capita grain is 1 catties a day.”

"As for one and a half catties of grain per person per day, no matter what happens, big things will happen. If there is any trouble, if there is any natural disaster, flood or drought, it will be a matter of the world."

"Yes, if it is admitted that this is the biggest problem in Kyushu, whoever can solve this problem is qualified to discuss the new 'biggest problem'."

"And to solve this problem, there are nothing more than two ideas."

"Either, the yield per mu has increased. The emperor's father called 'Wang Xieyan, the common people's home'. That is, water pumps and saltpeter fertilizers flew into thousands of households."

"Or, Fusang, Nandayang, Yili Qihe, and north of Songliao, there are still billions of mu of arable land. Even if the yield per mu is not increased, the people will be a family of five and a field of one hundred mu. The so-called per capita It’s okay to have 800 catties of grain.”

"And these two problems, in my opinion, are actually one problem."

"It's all about developing business."

"It's nothing more than that the former is thinking about making saltpeter fertilizers and water pumps."

"The latter is thinking about building railways and steamships."

"If there is a 'Grand Canal Without Water', it will go from Shaanxi to Gansu directly to Yili Seven Rivers with ten thousand hectares of high-quality fields; The big ship that crossed the ocean for less than two months set sail from Shandong to Fusang for cultivation, and when it went, it took people and came back with grain..."

"Then, at the very least, the biggest problems facing Kyushu today, the problems of overpopulation and food shortage, can be solved."

"Either, the small-scale farmer's cultivation, convenient transportation, and family relocation are not comparable to the migration route of taking the west entrance and crossing the Guandong at this time, which takes a year and a half."

"Either, following the example of the Duke of Liao's soybean business, capital opened the way, and enclosing land to reclaim wasteland, it is necessary to pay for the population. If there are no people to work for him, he will enclose the land. How can he make a profit?"

"What's more, if there is a disaster in Henan and Hubei. The food in the Northeast, Western Regions, and Fusang can be mobilized quickly by the Grand Canal without water and steamers that don't need sails, and there will be no major incidents to help the people."

"Only by solving this problem first, can we be qualified to talk about more problems and let the rest of the problems become problems."

"And now..."

"Is there any land in Yili? Yes. Is there any land along the Heilongjiang River? Yes. There is land in Fusang? Yes. However, the transportation is so inconvenient that capital is not willing to invest there, let alone send people there to cultivate."

"So, we still need to develop industry, develop transportation, and develop infrastructure."

"However, infrastructure, railways, iron smelting, etc., require large investments and low returns. With this money, it is better to buy land and collect rent, or to speculate, or to open a pawnshop to lend usury..."

"Therefore, the problem is that we have to find a way to let money and capital go to these industries with large investments and low returns."

"If they refuse to run up here, they must run to the cultivated land."

"Then, we must find a way to lure them to run up here. If the lure is useless, then use bayonets, cannons, decrees, land equalization, and forced redemption of the principal to make industrial bonds to force them to go. Run up here."

"I bet the future that 20 years later, the land north of Songliao, the Western Regions, Fusang, and the Southern Ocean will be valuable with the development of transportation tools."

"In fact, as long as it can facilitate the transportation of people and food, the so-called 'principal to be repaid' is not a problem at all. The billions of acres of cultivated land in the northeast of Fusang, once they have commercial value, can be sold casually. Can't even pay this principal?"

"Even if there is no money at that time. After 20 years, those country gentry and landowners will take the bonds to buy the land to ask for the principal, and the court will give them ten times the land in Fusang. Don't they like it?"

"It's just that the current problem is just like the emigration policy of the Duke of Fusang. The value of the land in Fusang is now entirely determined by the imperial court, not its proper price value."

"And I bet that 20 years from now, due to the development of steamships and railways, the land price in Fusang will not need to be forced by the imperial court, and the price can still be sold. At that time, just get hundreds of millions of acres of land as the 'principal' , to pay the squire who was forced to buy, wouldn't they be happy?"

Speaking of this, Li Yan glanced at Liu Yu with a smile, and said with a smile: "Isn't the government's policy of emigrating to Fusang also a gamble?"

"I was gambling, Fusang really has gold and silver. So [good luck], after five years, the Duke won the 'gamble'. Before that, the Duke was not looking for gold and silver at all, but the bubble company The money will be used for resettlement and reclamation and for the resettlement of the Yellow River.”

"Since the Duke has won the bet."

"So, let me ask the Duke, because I put everything on the transportation and logistics developer, can I win the bet 20 years from now?"

The atmosphere suddenly became tense.

Even if Li Yan said this with a smile, it was a bit like a joke, asking about a "gamble".

However, behind these jokes, there is quite a heavy weight.

The traditional celestial dynasty has come to this point, with the celestial dynasty and the dynasty itself as the main body. The biggest problem facing the dynasty now, as Li Yan said, is that the biggest problem of the dynasty is to continue. Even if there is no exploitation or corrupt officials, the food It's not enough to eat.

Solving the problem of "theoretically per capita grain possession" will not lead to large-scale uprisings is a major event before this traditional dynasty.

That's why Liu Yu's impression of "extraordinary skills and ingenuity" in science and technology is not based on ingenious pocket watches or Jenny machines that may have appeared.

Instead, the slag-removing saltpetre fertilizer of the "soil", the steam-powered water lifter, and the "Daxiangrui" with a yield of several hundred catties per mu were produced in the Xiyuan Emperor's personal plowing field.

The subject here is the feudal dynasty.

That is to say, it goes back to the problem that the Real School satirized the Yan-Li School—the average household has 50 mu of high-grade farmland and 150 mu of low-grade farmland. arithmetic?Have you ever counted how many people and how much land there is in the world?With just one mouth, 50 mu of high-grade farmland and 150 mu of low-grade farmland per household?

But now, the more realistic problem is that Dashun does not have "wormholes", nor "portal gates", and does not even have such convenient shipping conditions as the Mediterranean Sea.

This makes North America and Australia have land?
Have.

Is there a billion acres?
Not only do they exist, but there are more than one billion mu or billions of mu.

But the problem is.

The rich don't want to go, because his money can go there, and his tools, cattle and horses can go there.

But there is no way to transfer the social conditions and population size of Dashun to Fusang.

And those who have no money can't go, can't afford to go.

Because... because I really can't afford to go.

Including, Liu Yu's immigration policy in Fusang relies on "finding ways to make capital profitable", "If capital does not know how to be profitable, then I will find a way to find profitable directions for you, dig gold, expose Salt, grow cotton in the Central Valley of California and sell it to South America, brew wine in the Prairie Province and sell it to the French to trade with the Indians for furs and ginseng to sell back to Dashun", etc., etc.

On the east coast of North America, indentured slaves and slavery can be practiced.

It relies on the European market, the triangular trade, and the most basic point-the Atlantic Ocean is much narrower than the fucking Pacific Ocean.

The distance from Europe to the Caribbean island group to the east coast of North America.

It is about the same distance as the group of businessmen in Dashun, who went to Bangjia to buy tin, and then went back to Suzhou, Wuxi and other places.In fact, after the mid-Qing Dynasty in history, the "dead money" and "burning ingots" in Jiangnan basically used Nanyang tin.

Connecticut could grow grain and raise cattle to sell to sugar plantations on Caribbean islands; southern states could grow tobacco to sell to Europe.

Dashun is on the west coast of North America. What kind of stuff can be sold back to Dashun to form a complete trade cycle?Make capital profitable, willing to engage in contract slaves to cultivate land?
This has always been a big problem on top of Dashun's head after years of reform.

Fortunately, relying on gold from Jinzhou, silver from Yinzhou, fur from the Great Plains, and ginseng from the Great Lakes, Liu Yu found a breakthrough point.

However, how many immigrants can this amount of trade support?
Historically, an important reason for the outbreak of the European and American financial crisis in North America in 1857 was that the gold on the west coast was dug too fast, which made a large number of railways "unprofitable"-at first, everyone thought that this gold and silver could not be dug. It was over, so that a large amount of European capital went to the Americas to repair the railways. As a result, gold was dug very quickly, and the bond stocks of the railways plummeted by 80% in an instant.

In Dashun, when talking about free trade and Saint-Simonism's "inducing" capital to flow to industries that are beneficial to the development of the whole society under private ownership", we have to talk about a problem that was deliberately avoided by the previous British free trade school. The problem.

That is to say, the problem that Hume said "the sea is a natural tariff, otherwise the whole of Europe will use Chinese products".

Seduce, how to seduce?

To the north of the Songliao watershed, there are thousands of miles of fertile soil, suitable for growing soybeans.Now, northern Jiangsu, Japan, Shandong, etc. all urgently need soybeans to fertilize their fields, and urgently need to use photosynthesis to transfer phosphorus, nitrogen, potassium and other substances in the northeast to cotton fields in northern Jiangsu, rice fields in Japan, and tobacco fields in Shandong through soybeans.

For soybeans, there must be no shortage of sales and markets.

The question is, is the fertile soil north of the Songliao watershed free of charge, free of taxation, and free of capital?
Assuming that soybeans are grown on the bank of Heilongjiang and transported to northern Jiangsu, how much will it cost?How much does it cost to transport soybeans from the banks of the Heilongjiang River, climb across the Songliao watershed, and then enter the Liaohe River system?
Dashun went to the Western Regions to transport grain from the Central Plains to the Western Regions, and the freight was close to 20 times the original price of the grain.

Without the Liaohe River system, even Liaodong's soybean industry relying on the Sulu market would not be able to develop.

With such a reality, how to lure capital to make profits and invest where it should be invested?

Not to mention Fusang.

Now this sailing ship sets sail from Weihai, takes the most mature Manila galleon route, runs back and forth, and is designated for one year.

I ran to Fusang to plant soybeans, and transported them back to northern Jiangsu by sailing boat...One ship can only hold about 1000 tons, or 8 stones. 1 taels of silver.

After going back and forth for more than a year, the sailors ate and drank, and the waves were dangerous. Go and go, how much money can you have left?I have a 1000-ton galleon and a capital with a one-year turnover period. If I use this money to buy land, collect rent, or open a pawn shop to lend money, then I have this ship and this capital, and I will travel to Southeast Asia and India. Make some money, right?

He even said that I would just hang up and give up. How much money would I make by investing the 1 taels of silver in national bonds and buying war bonds?

I'm sick. In this day and age, I ran to Fusang to open a farm, hired people to immigrate there, and then became an agricultural capitalist?Co-author I am doing charity here?
Liu Yu’s logic for immigrating to Fusang at this time is “contract long-term workers for seven years, and after seven years, it will cost 50 taels of land. As long as the food and drink are deducted, and the wages of 50 taels of silver for the long-term workers in seven years are deducted, The rest of the surplus value, digging for gold, can't even squeeze out this little surplus value?"

Going to Jinzhou to dig for gold, if you are a long-term worker with a seven-year contract, you can't even create a total value of 500 taels, what kind of "San Francisco" is it?

Therefore, Li Yan's thinking is much simpler.

Since, the problem is "the rich are not willing to go, and the poor are not able to go".

Then, if I reduce the "logistics cost and freight", won't this solve the problem?

I built a railway from Shaanxi to Ili, I built a railway from Henan to Heilongjiang, and I built a transport fleet that only takes a month or two to cross the Pacific Ocean...

Then won't this problem be solved?

Once the railway to Ili is repaired, cotton will be planted directly in the Ili River Valley. At the Shaanxi Dry Cotton Textile Factory, no one is willing to pay for reclamation and cotton planting in Ili, and hire landless refugees to grow cotton there?
After the railway or canal that crosses the Songliao watershed is repaired, soybeans are grown there and transported to Yingkou. Is no one willing to pay for reclamation, plant soybeans, and hire landless refugees to grow soybeans there?
Even the idea of ​​"agricultural industrial army" mentioned by Nasan in "On the Elimination of Poverty" can also be used?
Nasan’s idea is that there are 1 million mu of “wasteland” in mainland France, which is “valuable and its products can participate in market circulation”.

Well, France is that big, and Dashun is much bigger.

With the development of new means of transportation and infrastructure, can it be regarded as a kind of "land shrinking technique"?

Use railways and steamships as the "land shrinking technique".

After taking the conditions conceived by Nasan and blessing them with the fairy method of "Shrinking the Earth", how about transferring those conditions to Dashun?

British classical political economy, as well as the free trade faction, were arguing with the British mercantilism faction.

On the one hand, the social existence and shipping conditions in Europe made them pay little attention to the concept of transportation costs, at least they didn’t pay much attention to it—speaking of Wu Dalang’s related jokes, do we need to deliberately emphasize Wu Dalang’s height?Isn't this a condition that does not need to be considered the same as the sun rising from the east?

On the other hand, in view of the question raised by Hume and other early anti-free trade groups that "Oriental handicrafts have advanced technology and the purchasing power of Eastern silver is stronger", they deliberately avoided Hume's rhetorical question: Without the sea as a natural tariff, from Sweden to Spain, All use Chinese products.Until one day, the per capita wealth in Europe will be the same as that in China.

The former is inadvertently overlooked.

The latter is a major issue of right and wrong, which must be avoided.

Even Adam Smith has no solution to this problem, and the solution he gave is completely anti-invisible: First, China should give up the shipping industry and let the most profitable shipping industry be done by Europe, while Invest capital in agriculture and industry; Second, the UK will act as a trade middleman between the East and the West, that is, the UK will control the shipping of the East-West trade.

This sentence, that is, "Let the most profitable shipping industry be done by Europe, and invest capital in agriculture and industry" is not wrong.

Rather, what is the profit and rate of return of trade between the East and the West, does Adam Smith really not know?Since we are talking about the invisible hand, how can this invisible hand prevent capital from going to the east-west trade in the shipping industry, but to agriculture and industry?
Second, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" in 1759 and "The Wealth of Nations" in 1776. At this point in time, what level are you in the UK?What mu yield?What is the level of the cotton textile industry, dare to condescend to say that the East is inferior to Europe in terms of industry and agriculture?If you dared to liberalize free trade in 1776, even if China fell asleep, fell asleep, and was taken out of another dimension from the world, the cotton textile industry in Mumbai, Surat, and Dhaka could overwhelm the whole of Europe. Death, don't you know?

Do you really think that it is the advanced industrial productivity of Great Britain that kills the Indian handicraft industry?It is clearly the bayonets, warships, and tariffs under the administrative power of the East India Company, as well as the cannons and warships that can maintain this administrative power.

Therefore, under the current situation of Dashun, it is impossible for Li Yan to "reflect" on why Dashun's agricultural yield per mu is not as good as that of Europe, and why Dashun's cotton textile industry is not as good as Europe's people. What about existence?
On the contrary, in view of the premature formation of a "domestic unified market" here, and the fact that Shaanxi did not impose a 200% tariff on Jiangsu silk, and northern Jiangsu did not impose a 200% tariff on Liaodong soybeans to counter Liaodong tussah silk.

So, on the core basis of "the prosperity of the world is for profit, and the world's hustle and bustle is for profit".

On the basis of small estate ownership and more radical private ownership than in Europe.

Li Yan had to turn his attention to infrastructure, logistics, and transportation.

It is self-reflection.

It is also a historical itinerary - because the matter of the waste of water to transform the sea is a fresh sample, and it is also the most influential change that everyone has seen in the past two or three decades of Dashun's reform: the decline of Yangzhou, the collapse of Northwest Shandong, and the great development of coastal areas .

Other places are easy to say.

And Yangzhou, which used to be "wrapping a hundred thousand guan and riding a crane down to Yangzhou", has been reformed by Liu Yu and turned into this appearance. This has greatly shocked the elites of Dashun.

It can be said that in the past 30 to [-] years, watching the decline of Yangzhou, I have really witnessed the changes of what is called "the vicissitudes of life".

Under such a historical itinerary, the elites in Dashun had to think about economic issues in terms of logistics, infrastructure, canals, shipping, and transportation costs.

Both are cities, but the "influence" is different.Yangzhou's decadence, the feudal dynasty after the completion of the Grand Canal, makes people think to the extent that it is not comparable to other places.It also really allowed the elites of Dashun to personally experience the "vicissitudes of life" in the past 30 to [-] years. The shock was greater than that of the experimental railway and the black smoke steam engine.

Dashun has its own national conditions here.

For example, if Liu Yu gave the emperor a pocket watch, the emperor would think it was a lot of fun; but if he gave the emperor a handful of fertilizer, the emperor would exclaim that the power of science and technology is so great.

same.

Liu Yu talked about free trade, mercantilism, trade surplus, and trade deficit in Dashun for a long time. What did everyone think?

What is a trade deficit?

How could there be a trade deficit?
Why did Lao Tzu want to think about a mercantilism that is not used at all, to prevent the outflow of silver?Isn't this fucking unfounded and idle worry?
But once water transportation was cut off, the economic belt from Yangzhou to West Shandong was abolished, and once the transportation cost advantage of sea transportation appeared, everyone suddenly realized that the world is really material. It wasn’t that the people in the west of Shandong were smarter or better at business than those in the east coast of Shandong. ; It is not that people in Yangzhou have more economic vision than other places.

Co-authoring this world is material, right?Isn't it because the west of Shandong is the hometown of Confucius and Mencius, so the local economy is far more developed than the coast of east Shandong?

Social existence determines social consciousness.

It is impossible for you to figure out mercantilism or free trade with foreign trade as the thinking point on the basis of a society with no silver outflow at all.It is even more impossible to write a book and criticize the imperial court for protectionism under the existence of a domestic unified market that is based on comparative and absolute advantages.

This is the national condition of Dashun, and it is also the historical journey of Dashun's economics, especially the historical journey under the shock of witnessing the vicissitudes of life for 20 years.

The economics of Dashun are racking their brains to solve what Liu Yu said, "the poor can't afford to go, the capital doesn't want to go, the conflict between people and land in Kyushu is huge, and there are billions of acres of wasteland outside the sea area where no one lives." Ken" problem.

This is also the fundamental difference between Dashun's radicals and conservatives since its development.

The poor can't afford to go, and the capital doesn't want to go.

Faced with this problem, the radicals are "equalizing the land, collecting taxes, the imperial court controls the capital, people control the capital and have to go if they don't, instead of capital controlling people, they just don't go to the western regions and northeast to Fusang to reclaim wasteland because there is no profit."

The Radical School merged with the Confucian Revival School, Wang Tian School, and Zhou Li School.

Conservatives, there are many of them.

Li Yan's "development of means of transportation will reduce transportation costs and make it more profitable to sell for [-] miles, so that capital will take the initiative to reclaim wasteland, plant and relocate people to absorb labor", which is one of the factions.

It's just that "mandatory redemption, the land cannot be traded for 20 years, the redemption fee is used as the 'industrial principal', and industrial bonds are forced to the landlords and squires to force the squires to invest in industry and infrastructure" is just another branch of the conservatives.

(End of this chapter)