Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1073 The Afterimage of the Evil Dragon ([-])

Lin Min didn't completely deny this idea, nor did he completely disapprove of some things in it.

But on some fundamental issues, he is opposed.

After reading this article to his confidantes and staff, his confidantes laughed and said: "In the past, Zhen Chen said that Yuan Ke said that the ban on salt was beneficial to the people, and Yuan Ke believed it. Therefore, Wang Fuzhi's words: the great trouble of the king, don't worry about it." It’s even better to have the heart of benefiting the people, but petty capitalists use it to practice their own selfishness. Fu Chen said this, not because of his own desires, but because he was bribed by rich businessmen and wealthy people. It hurts the country and hurts the people. Illness, Xi Xie?"

"The most important thing for those who formulate policies is to have the heart of benefiting the people, but the villain uses this heart of benefiting the people to do the bad things they want to do. Jiang Zhai's words are still in my ears, and this discussion is really ridiculous. !"

Undoubtedly, Lin Min was very supportive of the staff's evaluation.

Since his staff can skillfully quote some of Wang Fuzhi's historical arguments, it is obvious that Lin Min is inclined to Wang Fuzhi's side in some thoughts.

The reform of the salt administration seems to be just a reform, but in fact, it should be regarded as a manifestation of the ideological confrontation in the past hundred years since the Ming Dynasty fell and the Shunxing Dynasty flourished.

There are many things involved here.

As far as the reform of the salt administration is concerned, there are actually five factions in the DPRK, China and academic circles.

These five factions each have their own ideas.

The faction here is a factional debate of pure economic thought after removing interest entanglements.

The first is to think that the salt ban itself is wrong, and that the imperial government’s salt ban is harmful to the people, and that all kinds of bans on mountains and rivers should be completely abolished, and development can be completely free.

This faction had great influence in the late Ming Dynasty.

It's so big that some local officials, out of conscience and belief in this truth, don't care much about some private salt dealers at all.

Moreover, some private salt dealers also feel that they are righteous, and when they start selling, they are justified.

This includes both sales and production.

The second is that it is wrong for merchants to participate in the salt industry, and the salt industry should be fully government-run and any merchant participation should be cancelled.

Purchased by the imperial court, transported by the imperial court, and sold by the imperial court, all the benefits of mountains and seas can be obtained.

Of course, another question needs to be raised here, that is, what did the court do with the money?The imperial court should get the money to reduce the burden on the peasants. Instead of collecting so much tax from the land, it should use full-scale government-run industry and commerce to maintain tax revenue.

The third point of view is basically the point of view given by the students that Lin Min saw.

The general idea is that the problem of the salt industry lies in the fact that merchants have participated in the production of salt.Businessmen should be excluded from the production process, and other systems are fine.

The fourth point of view is the point of view of Lin Min and other DPRK-China salt government reformers.

Their views are basically derived from the reflections of Wang Fuzhi and other great Confucians in the late Ming Dynasty on the issue of salt administration in the Ming Dynasty.

On the issue of whether to completely lift the salt ban, Wang Fuzhi believed that "relaxing the salt ban to allow the people to harvest it will only benefit the wealthy people of one side, and it is no doubt that it is a barbarian government if it does not know how to save the peasants."

In other words, the salt ban cannot be completely lifted, which actually includes the mining ban, that is, the mining ban cannot be completely lifted.

The overall idea is to use salt and mining interests to maintain the stability of the farmers and maintain the operation of an empire.Based on agriculture, maintain the small peasant economy as much as possible.

But at the same time, on the sales side, sales should be liberalized, and merchants should carry out transportation and sales.

That is to say, the production end should be strictly controlled, but the sales end should be fully marketized.

The imperial court wants to increase the ban on salt and prohibit others from mining private salt.But when it comes to sales, the salt introduction system is completely abolished, allowing merchants to sell wherever they want.

The so-called "what is lacking and tends to, the winner will get it, the blunt will blame himself for his clumsiness, and there is nothing to complain about."However, there is no punishment for smugglers, and there is no reason to fight for robbers.It is in the people, here is the lack of money to increase the price, and the other has arrived, and I am afraid that the enemy will not come first, and the harm of being expensive will also be eliminated.]

That is to say, if it is completely market-oriented, the place is expensive, and the merchants will definitely rush to sell it later, for fear of being slow; while the people in that place want to hoard goods, and just about to raise prices, goods from other places arrive again. Ju Qi was afraid that he would not be able to sell it, so he quickly lowered the price, so the problem of price increase was also solved.

Lin Min and other reformers of the salt administration are considered to have learned from Wang Fuzhi's point of view, so the direction of their reforms did not consider the production side from the beginning, but only the sales side.

It is necessary to implement a comprehensive ticket law to replace the salt introduction system, thinking that as long as this is changed, all problems will be solved.

The fifth point of view is the point of view of Liu Yu's school.

Liu Yu’s point of view, using what Liu Yu and Lin Min discussed at the beginning, means that as long as the production capacity has not yet reached the state where the car can start at the beginning of the month and arrive at the end of the month, then the pure market Control, that is brain pumping.

To engage in a pure ballot method is to trust the conscience of businessmen too much, and to underestimate the speculative instinct of businessmen, and to underestimate the speed of silver inflow and capital accumulation and monopoly that began in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

【What is lacking, go for it, the winner will get it, the blunt will blame himself, and there is nothing to complain about】, which is applicable to a country with a length and width of more than a thousand miles, at least at this time it is not applicable to a country with a vastness of tens of thousands of miles.

Therefore, Liu Yu said that the quotation method and the vote method are all tinkering.The only meaningful reform that does not count as tinkering is building large salt farms to boost salt production.

This can be regarded as a reform in the true sense of progress, not tinkering.

On the sales side, we must not only believe in the resource allocation capabilities of capital, but also beware of capital disruption and hindrance to the market.

Therefore, it is necessary to carry out a comprehensive salt administration reform, boost Sichuan Salt, Shanxi Salt, Changlu Salt, Fujian-Guangdong Salt, and Yunnan Salt, and establish a comprehensive salt industry head office to coordinate management and control.

Relying on the production progress in various places to alleviate many problems caused by logistics and transportation.

The problem of logistics and transportation is now unsolvable.Then we can only use our brains on the production side, so that each salt-producing area can radiate a reasonable range. The Salt Industry Corporation established by the state regulates taxation and stabilizes prices according to the production cost of salt; , The means of explicit and implicit quotations ensure that salt can reach most of the country and be sold.

These five views on salt administration are different.

The difference between Liu Yu and Lin Min lies mainly in "whether the focus of the reform of the salt administration is to reclaim wasteland in Huainan".

In other words, in Liu Yu’s eyes, the most important thing about the reform of the salt administration lies in the land reclamation in Huainan, and the most important thing in the land reclamation in Huainan is to support capital to grow cotton, laying a solid foundation for Dashun’s Mexican cotton replacement plan.If this cannot be achieved, then the reform of the salt administration is meaningless.

In Lin Min's eyes, the salt administration reform focused on salt, Huainan reclamation, and cotton planting were actually a by-product of the salt administration reform.When there is a conflict between the two, the reform of the Baoyan Administration on the sales side can give up the additional option of cultivating wasteland and growing cotton.

As for the rest, there is actually not much difference between the two.

Lin Min definitely opposed the approach in this article, because Lin Min's reform plan did not consider production issues at the beginning, but only considered the reform of the salt introduction law in the salt area.

Since he didn't consider the production side at the beginning, after seeing Liu Yu's production method in a large-scale sun-dried salt farm, and comparing it with Huainan's original method of digging pits, burning ash, pouring brine and boiling salt, he naturally preferred Liu Yu's method.

As for whether there is something he approves of in this suggestion about the salt administration, there must be some.

Apart from those fantasies, what Lin Min mainly recognized was the issue of currency.

That is to say, “In order to prevent these salt households from being exploited by merchants, the imperial court should take the initiative to undertake the task of collecting salt, and at the same time give them a certain amount of rice and grain to ensure that the livelihood of salt households will not be affected by fluctuations in grain prices.”

This should be considered a very, very influential speculation that began in the late Ming Dynasty.

It should be said that it began in the middle and late Ming Dynasty and continued until the first year of Dashun Weixin.

That is, the relationship between money, copper coins, silver, and materials.

From the end of the Ming Dynasty, the previous over-imprisonment, the collapse of the grassroots in the later period, and the influx of silver, the development of the commodity economy, and the emergence of many great Confucianists who are called Enlightenment thinkers by later generations.

As for the currency issue, their ideas are basically the same.

Many of these thoughts come from the fact that I always take too big steps, and then I go back to take small steps. It is difficult to learn to walk normally.

In the first year of Weixin, Emperor Dashun finally figured out a problem after spending the previous 20 years: that is, money is not wealth, and those grains, iron utensils, cattle, horses, and salt are the real wealth.

But the premise of this idea is to affirm the role of money, and then extend it.

Otherwise, the North Korean side has long been thinking about banning copper coins, thinking that bartering is the right way, so could it be said that their understanding was earlier than that of Dashun?
Obviously not.

It took Dashun 20 years to make the upper management understand the problem, which was an exploration of the nature of wealth under the premise of affirming the development of the commodity economy that began in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

And North Korea is directly thinking about banning currency and bartering, especially in the history of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the ban on sea migration made North Korea act as a second-hand dealer to tinker with some precious metals from Japan, which delayed the idea of ​​​​bartering; and Dashun directly forced North Korea to think about the idea of ​​bartering for a long time. The premise of this idea is not a redefinition and thinking after development, but a retrogression under purely reactionary and retro considerations.

A series of reflections from the end of the Ming Dynasty were actually based on the reaction to the situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty and Neo-Confucianism and psychology.

I don't talk about academic and ideological issues, just talk about currency issues.

The reason why Lin Min supports it is to exchange grain for some salt instead of all currency, which can be regarded as the mainstream thinking of Dashun.

Liu Yu's idea is not the mainstream, and even the truth that the emperor pondered is not the mainstream, but the mainstream thought is "the millet produces gold and dies, the people prosper through benevolence".

From the end of the Ming Dynasty to the century since the founding of Dashun, the mainstream of the ideological world has always been "anti-silver, anti-paper money, and support tax in kind".

This idea, of course, makes sense.

There are no gold and silver mines here in Dashun. The state uses silver for taxation, but copper coins are used for private transactions. The only input channel for silver is overseas trade. If you look for gold and silver mines everywhere, you can’t find Potosi-level ones. Reality.

Anti-paper money... Anti-paper money is due to the fact that the strides are too big, and it is ridiculous. There is no need to elaborate on the things inside, and I will not mention what the paper money of the previous dynasty is.

Anti-silver, anti-banknotes, support tax in kind, many prestigious Confucian scholars think so.

Gu Yanwu objected, Wang Fuzhi objected, and Tang Zhen also objected.

The reasons for the opposition are basically traceable.

[The ancients said that wealth is only found in grains; as for market transactions, there are turtles, shellfish, money, and knives and cloth coins.Afterwards, the third grade of gold is also focused on money.Later, money was used exclusively, and pearls, jade, turtles, shellfish, silver, and tin were used for utensils, not coins.Since the Ming Dynasty, silver has been used exclusively.As for today, silver is getting less and less, and it is not enough for the world.Those who produce a thousand pieces of gold often do not see the two baht for ten months; the grain is cheap and the meat cannot be eaten, the cloth and silk are cheap and cannot be clothed, and those who sell the grain, meat and cloth are also dead without food and clothing, because there is little silver.]

That is, too little silver, deflationary, limiting market prosperity.

Therefore, if you take too many steps, it is easy to pull the egg, so here it is.

This set of theories was also expounded by John Law, who created the Mississippi Bubble, in his "On Currency and Trade--Proposals for Supplying Currency to the Country".

It is said that increasing the currency in circulation is beneficial to the national economy without any harm.However, the quantity of silver is limited and there are many defects. To increase currency, we can only resort to other methods other than silver coins.The issue of banknotes by the state can alleviate this problem.

Then he created the European financial market bubble explosion in 1720.

It is basically a similar problem, in France and here are completely different situations.

On Dashun's side, Meng Yuan and Daming had already played with the banknotes, and they collapsed.Then, as a currency, silver did fall into the predicament of deflation, which made thinkers in the late Ming Dynasty question silver and currency itself.

Reflecting on the monetization of silver and the collapse of banknotes, it eventually led to the reaction of the idea of ​​"the millet lives and the gold dies, and the people prosper through benevolence", which also triggered the discussion of "whether to re-impose tax in kind".

That is: Do you want to continue the policy of silver monetization, or do you want to continue the policy of taxing silver?
Do you want to go back to the Hongwu period and impose a true tax policy?Should rice, salt, cloth, and silk be taxed again instead of money?
This can be regarded as a major mainstream in the ideological world in the series of events that followed the Ming Dynasty’s fall and prosperity.

On the one hand, the stability and tenacity of the small peasant economy is second to none in the world.

On the other hand, with the development of the commodity economy, the seeds of a new era have emerged.

Both depressing the development of the bud, and depressing that the bud is not strong enough.

Therefore, along with a series of reflections on Xinxue and Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties, and a series of reflections on the chaos in the late Ming Dynasty, many radical schools, including the Taizhou School, collectively moved towards a reaction against the times after the death of some important figures.

After the death of the founders of the Taizhou School of Li Zhi, the Taizhou School moved towards the Confucian religious line of "spreading the six edicts with songs and ballads" and trying to merge the three religions.

Many theories of Confucianism in the Song Dynasty were completely destroyed by the "textual research" method initiated by Gu Yanwu.

Especially after the textual research and falsification of "Jinwen Shangshu and Guwen Shangshu". [People's hearts are at risk, Dao's mind is weak, only essence is only, and Yun Zhi is in the middle] After the sixteen-character heart biography was proved to be a "fake", many theories completely collapsed.

Whether these sixteen characters are true or false, and how important they are, is fatal to Neo Confucianism and Psychology.

It’s not that the sixteen characters themselves are wrong, or that the derived theories are wrong, but if this is false, then is the Confucianism explained by Neo-Confucianism still Confucianism?
Neo Confucianism has come to this point, and the problems caused by the "heart" have caused a sharp differentiation.

Some people have moved towards religious asceticism; others, such as Li Zhi, have come up with the idea that eating, drinking, and drinking is the law of nature.

This extreme differentiation stems from a major problem in the theory itself, which cannot be bridged internally.

So angry, Wang Fuzhi lashed out at Li Zhi, saying that Li Zhi's "Collection of Books" was a poisonous weed.When reading a book, you must not indulge in the content, you must use etiquette to restrain, to think about each word, think about the meaning of it, and guide it to yourself.

At the same time, it also includes the saying that ordinary people are animals, seeking food, clothing, spouse, and happiness. What is the difference between this and animals?The reason why people are human is to understand the principles of ethics, distinguish and analyze things, have a benevolent heart, and do things according to righteousness.Those who can't do these four points are no different from animals.The reason why the so-called common people are common people is that they are called beasts.

These are all reactionary to some radical ideas in the late Ming Dynasty under distorted differentiation.

This reaction to ideological emancipation is quite normal.something ingrained.

The resulting reaction to the concept of economy and governance is also normal.

Whether it is restoring the autonomous system of the large villages, returning to the feudal system, restoring the tax in kind, or restoring many systems in the early Ming Dynasty but modifying and banning the unhealthy parts... etc., these are all in Dashun Very, very marketable mainstream theory.

The best tool to destroy the reaction of etiquette and law is the all-round development of industry and commerce, and the rise of capitalism smashes all these sentiments.

However, the small peasant economy, which is extremely powerful and unparalleled on earth, is so stable that it cannot be destroyed for a while.

Under such circumstances, what you see all day long is capital eating people, businessmen drinking blood, currency fluctuations, and small farmers going bankrupt.

Including Lin Min, although they are generally opposed to this proposal for the reform of the salt administration, they still support the idea of ​​using some real objects instead of currency for barter exchange.

The idea is very straightforward.

If it is currency, it may be affected by price fluctuations, causing small salt households to go bankrupt, and then go to borrow money from merchants, be exploited by merchants, and eventually lead to Caodang being merged.

But if some goods are given to ensure the basic survival guarantee of being able to work, it will be very difficult for small salt households to go bankrupt.For small producers, as long as they are alive, that's all.

(End of this chapter)