Chapter 1039 The way forward
Chapter 1039 The way forward
On the twentieth of the winter month, Shao Xun first moved into Guangcheng Palace, which was just a stone's throw away from Suyu Palace.
"Three key points!" He stretched out his hands and said, "First, first survey the twenty counties of the land. The population is gradually increasing, the people are becoming more prosperous, and the changes are great. You can first select one or two eloquent people from Chen County, Puyang and other places to explain in detail."
The beauties Cui and Zheng stood on the left and right, taking off Shao Xun's clothes.
Concubine Wang Huifeng sat aside and listened quietly.
This is to let Wang Yan find someone privately to control the situation. How can you hold a meeting without someone to help you?
"Second, 'The world is not in trouble because of lack of wealth, but because of lack of people to share it.' The Nine Provinces have just been settled, and everything is starting to happen. But the world is definitely richer than this. If we can manage and allocate it well, everyone will benefit."
Wang Huifeng nodded slightly, indicating that she was listening.
Shao Xun's clothes were gradually taken off, but Wang Huifeng's expression and eyes hardly changed, as if in her eyes, none of this mattered.
Cui Qing'e and Zheng Yingtao's eyes flickered and their pretty faces blushed.
"Third, when manors were everywhere, even if there was commerce, many of them were sluggish. Now the situation in the north has changed. From now on, more and more people will buy goods, and commerce will surely flourish. The secret of commerce lies in exchanging what you have for what you don't have. To facilitate commerce, I have a strategy."
Wang Huifeng nodded, stood up and prepared to write it down and think about it before talking to his father in private.
She left quickly, and when she came out of the hot spring, she only heard the sound of water splashing...
On the twenty-second day of the winter month, the Bixiao Palace was already full of people. As the discussion reached its middle stage, the atmosphere became increasingly heated.
"How can you say it's useless?" Guanqiu Lu laughed and said, "For example, the Xianbei tribes, some of them had bad harvests and not enough grass, so they started killing livestock in the fall, which caused heavy losses. By the next year, there were not enough livestock, and the milk production was not abundant, so the people had nothing to eat. But if someone bought their livestock and gave them grain, then the merchants would benefit, and the herders would also benefit. Isn't it the best of both worlds?"
Wang Yan, who was sitting high up in the chair, heard this and said, "Some people say, 'A gentleman is concerned with righteousness, while a villain is concerned with profit.' What do the Confucian scholars think?"
Guanqiu Lu stood up and bowed, saying, "During the Han Dynasty, Sang Hongyang said, 'If people can manage their families and maintain their lives through farming, then Shun would not have made pottery and Yi Yin would not have been a chef.' Today, the northern land is vast and sparsely populated, but some people still don't have enough to eat. Why? Because the farming tools are not complete, the oxen are not ready, and the skills are not refined. If merchants sell oxen and tools everywhere, the people will benefit greatly. This is the righteousness of a gentleman, so why talk about the benefit of a villain?"
Guanqiu Lu meant that if a person only needed to farm to support his family, then Shun would not have become a potter and Yi Yin would not have become a chef.
In many places, agricultural production is extremely backward, and there is a shortage of agricultural tools and oxen. If there are merchants selling them, it will definitely promote agricultural production.
Merchants play a positive role in this process. Suppressing commerce in order to promote agriculture is completely a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They also come up with a lot of excuses which is totally nonsense.
"The wild silkworms in Xuancheng produce cocoons for a distance of 300 miles. This is the cotton that the northern people use to keep out the cold." Guanqiu Lu continued, "If no one buys and distributes it equally, the people in the north will still suffer from the cold, and the people in Xuancheng will still be poor."
"The oranges and grapefruits from the south of the Yangtze River are loved by the northerners. If no one buys and resells them, the northerners will not be able to eat them. The southerners will destroy the oranges and grapefruits and let them rot in the fields. Is this enriching the country and the people?"
"The fine wood of Jiangzhou is needed for the floating bridges of Heyang and Pujin..."
"Yangzhou's nanmu is what you need to send off your deceased loved ones..."
Guanqiu Lu said a lot in one breath.
The central idea can be translated into the terms of later generations as follows: If there is no commercial exchange and no commodity economy, it will be impossible to mobilize people's enthusiasm and make them devote themselves to production. The total amount of commodity wealth in a region will be extremely limited, and naturally, the level of productivity will not be improved.
There is nothing wrong with this.
Because of the manor economy at that time, commercial circulation was not very developed. Just like the wild silkworms in Huainan and Xuancheng, there were also wild silkworms in Qingzhou, but because of the same circulation reasons, this wealth was accumulated in the local area. Once it was accumulated, it was allowed to rot and could not be exchanged, so the value of this wealth was greatly reduced.
Ordinary households in Yuzhou pay three kilograms of cotton per year. These three kilograms of cotton are collected from the broken silk threads that fall during silk reeling and weaving, and may not be enough.
If you can pick up wild silkworm cocoons, it will be no problem to collect three pounds. Can't you use the extra silk to make a quilt? It will save you from shivering in the winter without a quilt.
Yuzhou also has all kinds of wealth that Qingzhou lacks. The two sides can share what they have and their living standards can be improved. This is the meaning of business.
"Fortunately, you were born in the current dynasty. If you were born in the Later Han Dynasty, you would probably be scolded by the wise and good people and would disappear from the world." Wang Yan said with a smile.
His wife, Guo, was doing very well in business. Although Wang Yan did not like it, he was somewhat influenced by her and was not so opposed to doing business.
And what he said was obviously an attempt to guide the conversation.
Most of those present are wealthy families or businessmen who have businessmen either themselves or in their families, so naturally they will not have any objections.
"The emperor once said, 'The world is not in trouble because of lack of wealth, but because of lack of people to share it.' How true this is!" Wang Yan continued, "The brocade, satin, lacquer and silk of Shu, the tendons and feathers of fine horses in Helong, the cattle and sheep in the grasslands, the fish, salt, nanmu and zelkova in Yangzhou, the medicinal materials, bones and elephants in Jingxiang... these goods are very cheap in their place of origin, but expensive in Henan. If there is a benefit from trade, both sides will be happy and each will benefit. This wealth - needs to be shared by merchants."
Pu Gu was sitting below and was amazed when he heard Wang Yan's words.
Don't laugh when I say this, it was the first time he knew that the world was so big, and that the customs and goods in different places were so different. He had seen Sichuan brocade before, and it was very expensive, and even he didn't have much at home.
Southern lacquer is also an indispensable item for home life if you are pursuing a relatively luxurious life.
I heard that the rich people in the Central Plains used nanmu as coffins? The coffins of the emperors, empresses and ministers were originally called "zigong", right? Death is like life, this kind of posthumous treatment has never been enjoyed by his ancestors.
and also……
After all, the grassland is just a corner of the world!
Pu Gu sighed repeatedly when he heard this, thinking that compared to the court in Daliang, the court in Pingcheng was simply inferior and looked completely different.
"Everyone." After Wang Yan finished speaking, Hua Yingzhi stood up and said, "Just as the Prime Minister said, there are endless wealth in the world, waiting for merchants to circulate and workers to complete. The emperor is magnanimous and does not compete with the people for profit. He only waits for you to build boats and drive cattle and horses to go far and deep, transport goods, and facilitate the people. The wealth like mountains and seas is there, waiting for you to divide it. Scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans are all the foundation of the country. Each has his own specialty and each is in his position. That's all."
“Scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans are all the foundational people of a country.” This was Guanzi’s thought in the pre-Qin period. Does it still hold true today?
Honestly, not as good as it was then.
Since the Western Han Dynasty, the status of merchants has been high and low at times. After more than a hundred years of rigid development of Confucian theology in the Later Han Dynasty, the status of merchants has been degraded.
Why should the king talk about profit? There is also benevolence and righteousness.
If we govern the country with justice, why bother talking about profit?
This set of things was once very popular and became politically correct.
However, since the end of the Han Dynasty, Confucian thought has completely collapsed, and now is an ideologically barbaric era.
You can talk about all kinds of theories, including those about gods, ghosts, and monsters. If you can make your stories interesting and coherent, you can become famous.
Don’t you see that Bao Liang, who teaches the art of “corpse transformation”, has thousands of disciples and his theory is widely spread. What else can you say?
Of course, Confucianism has not died out and still has its own territory. Strictly speaking, nowadays, a hundred flowers bloom and everything can be discussed. There is no mainstream ideology that suppresses other doctrines, and there is no systematic religious or theological thought.
As for metaphysics, it is a hodgepodge in itself. No one can clearly explain what metaphysics is. It is so mysterious.
The scholars at this time did not shy away from talking about profit.
The Wang family of Taiyuan, one of the world's top aristocratic families, even drill out the pits when selling apricots, for fear that others would take the apricots home to plant and compete with them. This is simply money-obsessed.
This is Wang Yifu, the man in front of us. His old wife, Guo, not only does business, but also drives the servants out to pick up manure.
This is just a sampling of the examples.
Simply put, there are no ideological shackles that suppress the development of industry and commerce. It is just that the social form of the manor economy reduces the demand for commerce and prevents it from developing.
For businessmen, this is a bleak era, but at the same time it is an incomparably good era, it all depends on how you understand it.
After Hua Yingzhi finished speaking, Wang Yan glanced at everyone and said, "The emperor once said, 'Tolerance is for the sake of the country,' but it does not mean to demand without giving back. The land in the north must be measured. The emperor knows your suffering, so he will compensate you with the profits from business. You can tell each other about his painstaking efforts."
"Some people say that doing business is profitable, but it can also lead to losses. That's true, and there's no need to hide it. If you're afraid of risks, just stay at home. No one will come to force you. Once Jiangnan is pacified, you can pack up your tools, take your servants and go south. From now on, whether you live in the manor and indulge in wine and women, or live in seclusion and study, no one will care about you."
"The trend is like this, we cannot go against it. The way forward is here, you should think carefully about it. If you have any questions, you can ask each other for advice and have a wide debate. The emperor is a wise king, he will not block the way for speech, just speak frankly, at least to eliminate all your worries."
After saying this, Wang Yan withdrew his gaze, picked up the tea bowl, and sipped it.
Everyone was whispering and talking.
In fact, by this time, the framework had already been set, that is, the North must be measured, no matter who can stop it. And the compensation for you is the southern manor and the profit from business.
You can run a manor only, or you can run a manor and business at the same time, there is no problem.
But since the imperial court has held this forum today, it is intended to guide you to engage in business more often. Don't just be content with a small fortune, as if the world is yours with the manor in your hands, and you can hide in it for the rest of your life and never come out again.
The imperial court hopes that you will have some ambition to expand and strengthen your business in the south, capture the natives or drive them away, and develop this wild land bit by bit.
You are members of the nobility, powerful people, wealthy businessmen, or even a combination of all three. You are not blank businessmen without political protection. Local officials have many concerns when they want to control you. Don't worry that the property you have worked so hard to build will be taken away by the county magistrate overnight.
In fact, the county magistrate is more afraid of you!
Having said this, I have said all.
Wang Yan soon disappeared and let the Minister of Finance Xun Chuo take charge of the matter, allowing them to discuss it for a few days.
(Today is another three chapters. I have paid back the monthly votes at the end of last month. I would like to ask for more votes. Thank you.)
(End of this chapter)