Chapter 1441 Disagreement (VII)

This is not just a radical or conservative issue in terms of the direction of the general policy.

It is a "double-edged sword" issue in industry and commerce, especially in the development of commerce.

Dashun's administrative capacity of ruling but not governing, and its almost nonexistent grassroots control capacity, the merchants, that is really capable of playing tricks.

In addition to merchants, there are also local forces.

For example, the grain transportation industry in Hubei.

[The rice boat owners were moored at the dock, and in the second half of the night, the local water row came here to steal rice. They sold it cheaply along the way to make a profit. The amount missing was filled with sand and gravel, which was called "turning the warehouse"]

Another example:

[In Luojiadun, Wuchang, there are thousands of local vagrants who specialize in the "sand and gravel" business. They sieve the sand and gravel with a large sieve. The large and flat ones are mixed with broad beans; the small and round ones are mixed with mung beans; the white stone sand is mixed with rice; the yellow stone sand is mixed with sesame bones. All of them trade with the "flip warehouse" people]

Another example:

[The grain store acts as an intermediary, preventing buyers and sellers from meeting each other, and they monopolize the market and buy grain at a low price. Rice and grain merchants are forced to sell at a low price because they have to pay rent for the warehouse if they store the grains, and even if they don't sell the grains, there is often a risk of "fire". The grain store buys low and sells high, and threatens to burn the ship...]

Another example:

[The Songsu merchants who export sesame to Southeast Asia, Japan and other countries divide the business with the Chu merchants. For example, sesame in Hubei is not only exported, but also needed locally. Many merchants also use "futures" methods. The Songsu merchant agreed with the A merchant to buy the A sesame at a high price, and told the A merchant not to tell the B merchant; and then had a secret talk with the B merchant, telling the B merchant not to tell the A merchant... As a result, the Chu merchants thought they made a lot of money, and sold all the sesame originally set for others to the Songsu merchant, thinking that the amount they lacked, A thought they could get from B, B thought they could get from A... In the end, when the delivery was made, there was no goods to deliver, so they had to borrow from the Songsu merchant, and within two years, the Songsu merchant controlled the bulk pricing power of Chu sesame. 】

In general, if you want business, you will get everything in business.

Cheating, fraud, loan debt collection, futures trading, hoarding, futures delivery... These things have been played in the developed areas for decades. When they run to Hubei and meet local merchants in Hubei, it is just like cheating fools.

In the countryside, the problems brought by business are even more fucked up.

Whether small farmers grow grain or cotton, they need to sell these things.

Only after selling them can we pay taxes, rent, buy salt, repay debts, etc.

Later generations can say "If you think it's cheap now, then sell it later."

But now, this is bullshit.

Before the grain is stored in the warehouse, debt collectors, rent collectors, and tax collectors are flying in like flies seeing blood.

If we have the financial ability to store things for a few months, how can we owe debts, owe money, and have no money to pay rent and taxes?

And if we need to repay debts, pay money, pay rent, and pay taxes, how can we store these agricultural products for a few months before selling them?

Merchants, gentry, and gentry who have transformed into commercial operators have really come up with many tricks.

Even some gentry proudly said after drinking: "As long as I keep this batch of grain at home for three months and then sell it, I can earn half of the cost."

As for the local "per capita grain ownership" issue, what does it have to do with me? Sell it along the river. If the price in other counties or provincial capitals is high, I will sell it in the provincial capital. In a market economy, the silver you get can be spent in the Western Regions, the Northeast, the Southwest, Songsu, or even India.

The food problem was already serious.

The serious food problem forced the locals to build fields around the lake, which accelerated the ecological collapse and made floods and droughts more frequent.

The deepening of commerce, along with the introduction of Sichuan salt into Chu, the tea, sesame, and raw silk needed for foreign trade, and the sale of cotton cloth to Sichuan because Sichuan was not suitable for growing cotton, etc., has led to an increase in the area of ​​cash crops, which has further aggravated the food problem.

Again, the same thing.

Does Dashun have food?

Yes.

Even the food in Nanyang, Ezo, Northeast China, Fuso and other places cannot be eaten up.

But does Hubei lack food?

Yes.

Even if the merchants do not control it, in fact, Hubei at this time is still a certain distance away from the annual per capita food consumption of 450 kilograms - you say that if you calculate it, a person needs to eat more than one kilogram of food a day, is it that much? In fact, for these working people, there is no oil, sugar, fat, or meat in their stomachs. More than a pound of grain does not make them feel full at all.

Now, the performance of the "double-edged sword" of commerce in Hubei can be said to be constantly showing the side of why we should "emphasize agriculture and neglect commerce", and it is still bleeding.

Should we restrict commerce, speculation, etc.?

No restrictions, or want to restrict but not have the ability, the result is that the Songsu merchants, with their strong capital, killed the local merchants in Hubei in two years and controlled the pricing power of sesame. This is just a little bit of futures operation.

Restrictions...

Restrictions, relying only on administrative orders, will play a big job like the prince, and issue a "rice ban" order, which will cause a lot of noise and the whole world will laugh at it.

Restrictions are not that administrative means cannot be used, but Dashun's administrative efficiency and organizational ability are simply not capable of this.

Liu Yu previously carried out salt administration reforms and redistributed salt areas, killing those big salt merchants.

Of course it relied on administrative means.

But more importantly, he built a large-scale salt field, and his ultimate goal was to kill the big salt merchants who had occupied the salt industry since the 45th year of Wanli. He wanted to carry out "official transportation and business sales", eliminate the commercial monopoly of production and hoarding, and support those small and medium-sized merchants who walked the last mile in the streets and alleys.

He relied on the "commodities" provided by the huge productivity development of large-scale salt fields and steam brine extraction, which made the big merchants at that time almost desperate-didn't you buy low and sell high, and hoard goods at a high price? The price of salt here keeps falling, I want to see how much you can eat? If you have the ability and you have a lot of money, eat up the underground well salt in southern Sichuan and the seawater in the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea.

Regarding the food problem, is it possible for Dashun to use similar means?

In theory, yes.

Pingliang Law.

In reality, no chance.

It was hard for Dashun to get salt. Liu Yu struggled for so long before the reform was successful and prepared for a long time.

With Dashun's administrative ability, it still wants to play Pingliang Law? Salt and grain are not the same thing. Whether it is consumption, storage warehouses, transportation, or problems to be solved, they are an order of magnitude different.

There are two ways to implement the Pingliang Law.

Either, a major reform is carried out to solve the financial problems of the "central" and "local" that have been problematic since the reform of replacing the in-kind tax with the silver tax in the mid-Ming Dynasty, or since the early Ming Dynasty.

Local governments cancel some silver taxes and return them to collect in-kind taxes, such as grain. Local warehouses must have grain to implement the Pingliang Law.

And collecting in-kind taxes will bring new problems.

Storage costs, corruption, reselling, fire dragons burning warehouses...

In addition, grain cannot fly to the warehouse by itself, which goes back to the issue of the reform of the grain transport: if grain cannot fly to the warehouse, does it have to be transported by labor? Can the amount of silver transported be the same as the amount of grain transported?

And labor service is equivalent to "robbing the poor to help the rich."

Do gentry do labor service?

Who will be the last one to do the labor service?

The clerks hold the labor service rights, so won’t they have another carnival? If you are asked to do the labor service, your family will be destroyed; if you don’t do the labor service, you will be paid.

Or, develop productivity, especially transportation power.

The inland has no advantage in shipping, so we should vigorously carry out large-scale infrastructure.

Build canals.

Build steamships.

Build railways.

And so on.

It is of practical significance to achieve the “per capita grain ownership” mentioned by Liu Yu; to achieve that the grain in Northeast China can appear in Hubei within a month...

And this involves another issue.

For example, Liu Yu’s reform of shipping is based on the registration of merchant ships of monopoly companies and the fulfillment of imposed obligations by merchant ships. In essence, it is to let the sea merchants share the cost of training sailors, navy, shipbuilding, and transportation of materials in emergency situations in Dashun.

For example, merchant ships for trade with Japan.

The profits are extremely high, because Dashun granted them the monopoly rights and the Japanese shogunate also wanted to obtain the monopoly tariffs, so both sides fought against smuggling together to ensure the monopoly.

Therefore, Liu Yu said that you must fulfill the obligations of registering merchant ships, requisitioning in wartime, training sailors, forcibly placing trainee officers, and transporting military supplies when necessary.

These obligations are very heavy.

Historically, Spain did this and collapsed.

Dashun relied on its own monopoly dumping effect as a commodity producer and productivity progress to make these merchants bear heavy "obligations" and still be happy.

This is also the basis for Dashun to participate in World War I.

Otherwise, the logistics, sailors, and sea vessels for cross-ocean operations all depend on Dashun's finances to support professional military transport ships, which can directly drag down Dashun's finances.

And the food problem in Hubei.

River ships are different from sea ships.

Even if small steamships are put into practical use, the most cost-effective ones are now used in upstream transportation on the Yangtze River.

Dashun is not a controlled economy.

It has not even reached the level of mercantilism of the Song Dynasty.

The ability to control various commodities is not that strong, let alone the level of government-run everything.

In this case, how to do it?

If you want to be able to use food from Southeast Asia and other places to stabilize the grain prices in Hubei at any time, you need to have a strong upstream transportation capacity of the Yangtze River.

And the strong upstream transportation capacity of the Yangtze River is based on economy, trade, and commerce.

Salt and the like can be done this way because the transportation volume is not too large. At most, you can maintain a special salt transport fleet and bring back some tea, raw silk, and Jiangxi porcelain from Poyang Lake. That's enough to maintain operation.

Bulk commodities...

Such a large transportation capacity means that Hubei's small peasant economy will collapse instantly.

This is not a problem in Hubei.

Rather, Hubei's family handicraft economy, especially the textile industry, is now developed on the basis of "Sichuan salt into Chu, Chu cloth into Sichuan".

Just talking about the textile industry and shipping industry, once the small steamer develops, it will involve the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of boatmen and river workers who transport along the river.

Although Hubei is located in the Jianghan Plain, it is constrained by the small peasant economy. In terms of cotton variety improvement, it is not as good as the large cotton fields after the enclosure of the Huai River and Huai River Grassland; in terms of fiber length, it is like the cotton in Java, India; in terms of yarn cost, it is far less than the cotton yarn shipped from India in Songsu area.

One of the problems that restricted the large national market before was logistics, reverse flow cost, and transportation cost.

Including Europe before, the problem that Hume said "the sea is a natural tariff, otherwise Europe is all made in China" is the same.

Once the transportation capacity is improved and business is allowed to continue to develop, large-scale grain transportation can be carried out. With this transportation capacity, Songsu and other regions, relying on the cost of cotton and cotton yarn, won’t they directly kill Hubei’s cotton textile industry?

Historically, the collapse of Hubei’s small peasant economy was the problem of the sub-port tax after the Second Raven.

Similarly, the early trade of the British East India Company in India also had such a tendency - [because the transportation cost is fixed, the company tends to transport high value-added goods. Cotton cloth is preferred to cotton yarn; cotton yarn is preferred to raw cotton].

The same is true for Yangtze River shipping.

Once it is released, Songsu and other advanced regions, relying on overseas raw material production and sea transportation advantages, their cotton cloth dare not be said to completely kill Hubei’s textile industry, but at least, [Sichuan salt enters Chu, Chu cloth enters Sichuan] The trade pattern will change.

And restrictions... For example, the sub-port tax is levied on Songsu cotton cloth and the tax exemption is imposed on Songsu cotton yarn.

This is actually not much different from the fact that the United Kingdom enacted the "Oriental Cotton Prohibition" to protect Lancashire's cotton textile industry, but exempted Indian raw cotton from tax, and passed the "Manchester Act" to allow Manchester cotton to circumvent the "Cotton Prohibition".

So, is this problem unsolvable?

No.

Learn from the United Kingdom.

Rely on strong national control measures and strong control policies.

Don't start with a unified national market.

Once the currency reform and transportation industry development are completed, it will be radical to the radical industrial and commercial policies that the prince played in Hubei, and establish a unified national market. It will really become a colonization of the underdeveloped regions by the developed regions.

It will be a big thing.

So, this requires governance skills.

Don't be too radical.

Being too radical will easily lead to the opposite, not to be afraid of anything else.

In theory, it is possible to stimulate Hubei's cotton textile industry by imposing "internal high taxes" on Songsu cotton cloth, but exempting overseas cotton yarn from tax, and following the story of Nantong - weaving but not spinning, all using finished yarn, primitive accumulation of local capital, and developing the textile industry by borrowing the markets of Hunan, Hubei and Sichuan.

In other words: After the prince messed up in Hubei, Dashun must take one step forward and two steps back, and stop implementing radical policies. If it implements radical policies a few more times, it may really bring about a comprehensive reactionary counterattack by the old forces.

It must rely on regulatory policies, and even rely on the bizarre anti-domestic market policy of "local customs duties", to gradually create a situation of "multiple blossoms and development in all provinces".

From the perspective of the bourgeoisie, is local customs duties reactionary?

It is extremely reactionary.

The task of the bourgeoisie is to create a world market, and before creating the world market, it must first create a unified domestic market.

Dashun wants to restrict the circulation of local commodities, how can this not be reactionary?

However, from a further perspective, in the case of Dashun, if it does not adopt the method of "one step forward and two steps back"; does not implement domestic customs duties, but implements regional restrictions...

The bourgeoisie may not have obtained the unified domestic market, and the textile workers, boatmen, and some local scholars in Hubei may recite a few poems on the spot and go to the Dabie Mountains nearby.

Reform is one thing.

Revolution is another.

Accelerationism is another.

The fetus of the new era is very fragile now. If we can reform and nurture it, it is better to nurture it first.

Although Liu Yu said that the reform of Dashun will eventually fail; the Dashun Dynasty will inevitably explode.

However, if it explodes now, it is easy to explode into a similar effect as Wang Mang's reform, and retreat. Now, it is to hold on for a year, and the little fetus of the new era will be stronger. When it explodes in the future, the new force will be more powerful to carry out the terror of revolution and quickly end the pain.

At least, it will hold on until the Yellow River channel is dug. Anyway, the radical industrial and commercial policies of the prince are definitely not feasible. They are pure blind, imitating the old ways. Moreover, the prince's will is not firm, and he has no unswerving industrial goal. This time, he has definitely shrunk from a radical to a conservative.