Xinshun 1730

Chapter 998 The Visible Hand

After the tragic Sichuan-Shanxi-Hubei tug-of-war in the late Ming Dynasty, the population of Sichuan dropped sharply, so that there appeared the kind of "like a peach garden" that the emperor said to Liu Yu before.

It can be seen from the point of not drowning the baby girl at this time.And later generations have learned a text, the mother of the marshal also drowned the child and the marshal is from Sichuan, obviously it is unreliable to talk about morality and customs regardless of the economic foundation, I can only say that the contradiction between people and people here is not right now very big.

Therefore, Sichuan is no better than northern Jiangsu.

In northern Jiangsu, Liu Yu wanted to arrest people and go to Nanyang, and they were not even worth as much as a black slave.

But in Sichuan at this time, it is unlikely that there will be many people going to Nanyang for the kind of treatment given to Subei.

Sichuan is the Land of Abundance.

Although there is no real heaven this year.

But it depends on who you compare with.

Compared with the strong winds in May, the yellow floods in June, the release of water from Gaojiayan in July, the influx of high tides in August, and the anti-salt in September, heaven is worthy of it, let alone Tianfu.

Therefore, the labor cost here is quite expensive, at least a lot more expensive than in northern Jiangsu.There is less money to be given, and the conditions are like Liu Yu fooling people to go to Nanyang, so no one will come here.

Simple truth.

The current thermal efficiency of the steam engine is only about 5%, which may be less than that.

If the cost of burning coal is actually more expensive than hiring people to do animal work, why burn coal?
Of course, hired workers and tenants are not the same.

As long as the hired workers have a leader, they can be organized in an instant, asking for wages and eating meat.Historically, as early as the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the salt well workers in Sichuan could organize into associations, organize large-scale activities during the New Year and festivals, and demonstrate the martial virtues of the employees with the help of festivals such as dancing lanterns.

But well salt is not boiled salt by the sea. It is really not enough to make an iron pot for a family. It is necessary to build a large handicraft factory, a salt well of 700 meters, not to mention that at this time, it is the technology of later generations, and ordinary families cannot afford it.

Machines will prosper only where hired labor must be used.

In addition, because of the influence of the Lianghuai Salt Industry Group in the imperial court, Sichuan salt cannot theoretically enter Hunan and Chu, and only private salt goes.It is in the dawning stage of big development but not yet big development.

The great development of Sichuan Salt promoted by the reform of the salt administration this time will not have too much conflict with the old production system.

It is nothing more than a chaebol group supported by the imperial court. Through high capital and advanced technology, it quickly smashed those old salt wells and completed their monopoly. The old handicraft factories either sold the wells and merged into the monopoly group, or went bankrupt.

Coupled with the end of the Northern War in Dashun, the money from the Shaanxi Capital Group, which had made money in logistics before, had nowhere to go.After all, this is not Songjiang Mansion. All kinds of hype can make capital with nowhere to go to invest in it. There is nowhere to invest in it here.

It can be said that the combination of the steam engine and the Chuannan Well Salt Industry is really the right time, the right location, and the harmony of people.

After the businessman who invested in Sichuan Salt Industry told Liu Yu that Liu Yu "didn't know something", he sighed: "I don't know the price of this thing? What is the lifespan? I don't know if it will be sold? Is it troublesome to repair?"

Since Liu Yu brought them to see it, these merchants also knew that it must be for sale, otherwise why would they bring them to see it?

Now the businessman wanted to buy it, but Liu Yu didn't answer. He just said: "You might as well continue to look at it first. After reading it, we can discuss it together. Although I'm short on time, I can always spare some time. Everyone, come here to have a look." .”

He also led these Shaanxi businessmen to look at things like railway tracks, and these Shaanxi businessmen were very stable in mood.There is neither the urgency after watching the steam engine before, nor the astonishment that people in the mountains see when they see novelty.

No wonder.

After the development of the Yanjing area, in fact, there were more than ten kilometers of brine pipelines and several miles of original natural gas pipelines before a crow.

Coupled with various water-lifting tools and drilling technology capable of drilling up to 1000 meters deep.

To say that people in this line of work will be shocked by looking at these mechanical things is really underestimating the ancients.

Even for transportation, they also built a coal canal with a diversion lock system in Rong County, and the cinders were piled up across a river plain.

If you say this is the beginning of capitalism, it is.A large handicraft workshop with tens of thousands of people, the perfect fit of industrial capital and commercial capital has driven a whole set of surrounding industrial chains.

But the germination is always the same: after making money, buy land, hoard land, and then a large amount of capital is not invested in reproduction, but invested in land purchase and usury.

The same goes for the Netherlands.

The Netherlands just doesn’t make money by buying land, but the essence is the same. Industrial capital quickly slides into commercial capital, and the value-added capital relies on rent collection and lending instead of investing in industry.

The same is true for these Shaanxi businessmen in history. They built large factories with tens of thousands of people and built more than ten kilometers of brine pipelines, which directly stimulated a commercial center worth 40 to [-] yuan.

Then, the income ratio of each family, the ratio of profit and land rent changed gradually. At the most, it was called a "salt industrial capitalism sprout", and the land rent could collect 400 million catties of grain a year.Just like the way that the Netherlands became the financial center of Western Europe from the sea coachman, the industry is exhausted, and it is indeed not as comfortable as collecting rent and lending to make money.

Although Liu Yu understands very well, the yield rate of land is so high, and the land in Dashun is free to buy and sell, so no fool would buy land.

This just reflects the profit-seeking nature of capital, which is driven by the invisible hand of the perfect free market.

But just like what he did in Songjiang Prefecture, in order to develop industry and commerce, the first step is to solve the characteristic problem of the Dashun, and of course the former Daming, that "capital accumulates and then flows to the land".

So after leading these people to visit the new technologies related to the development of salt wells, Liu Yu was not in a hurry to just sell these new technologies.

If it is just to promote new technologies, at most it is at the level of the Westernization Movement, and it is useless.

Without solving some institutional problems, the only function of the steam engine is to make the merger that was originally completed in 200 years be completed in only 30 years.

For Liu Yu now, the important thing is not to allow these Shaanxi capital groups to accept new technologies, which is obviously very easy.

The important thing is how to guide their profitable money to where he wants the money to go.

Use visible hands to forcibly reverse the flow of capital instead of land and usury.

This is the real key to reform in southern Sichuan.

But now, the first step that Liu Yu can do is to separate the "production, transportation and sales" of salt.

That is, capital production in Shaanxi, official organization operation, and small retail merchants elsewhere are responsible for sales.

If this step is not taken, once the South Sichuan Capital Group develops, the first step must be to invest in business, especially to control the production, transportation and sales of salt.

Because the profit is high.

And Liu Yu didn't allow them to do that.

So he told the emperor a lot about the benefits of "official luck and business sales", but in fact, Essence Mountain is for this.

Not the reasons he told the emperor.

The reasons he told the emperor were all for Dashun's life, so the emperor was willing to listen.

However, he didn't want to extend Dashun's life at all.

For this reason, after leading these Shaanxi businessmen to visit the new technology today, Liu Yu was not in a hurry to sell the new technology, but hosted a banquet for these businessmen in the evening.

Some innocuous things were said during the dinner.

I rested at night, and early the next morning, I started to meet one by one and find someone to talk to.

The merchants are waiting outside, and they can only enter when their names are called inside.

The name of the first person Liu Yu pointed out was not surprising to everyone. This was the leader of the merchants and had a close relationship with the imperial court. He also contributed to the army when he regained the Western Regions.

It's just that Liu Yu took the northern line, and these Shaanxi businessmen ran the line that entered the Western Regions through Xingxing Gorge.The two had never met before, but they still had such a friendship.

After the leader of the businessman went in, Liu Yu first talked about the old things about the recovery of the Western Regions many years ago, and then asked how the old man who helped to purchase the logistics of the military supplies was in good health.

After saying these polite words, Liu Yu said: "Now the war in the north has been decided, the Western Regions have been restored, and Raksha is at a loss. However, the southwest has not been very stable in recent years."

"The imperial court also remembers the contribution you made in transporting military supplies when you regained the Western Regions. This Xijing is also the place where dragons prosper in this dynasty, unlike other places."

"You were prosperous in the previous dynasty and opened up Chinese and French. After hundreds of years of ups and downs, what have you figured out? What did you say to me about the heirlooms of farming and reading? If you really understand the heirlooms of farming and reading, you won't be killed in the south of the Yangtze River." People drove back to Shaanxi."

The businessman also smiled helplessly, and said: "What the Duke said is very true. The ancestors of the family made their fortunes in the Hongwu period of the previous dynasty. At that time, they had just practiced the frontier law, and the ancestors contracted the logistics and fodder of 1000 soldiers and 400 horses in the Tianbao Mansion military camp. , changed to Yanyin. In the future, branches and leaves will spread, and one branch will go back to Xijing."

"Originally, Shanxi and Shanxi were not separated. After the drastic change in Jiashen, Shanxi and Shanxi separated, and they turned from the bright to the dark. The holy dynasty rose, and the Beili Court was conquered in the future. After all, the centipedes of the Shanxi merchants died but not stiff, and finally rose again. I wait for the Western Merchants to wait until the Holy Dynasty returns to the Western Regions and conquers Qinghai before I wake up."

"This is what the villain has figured out over the years."

In these words, it sounds like a bit of complaint, but in fact there is no complaint.

I just lament that doing business requires not only relying on one's own struggle, but also considering the process of history.

In the Jiashen year, Shanxi merchants and Shanxi merchants actually made their own bets.

Now the Shanxi merchants have won, but the subsequent historical process is doomed to the death of the Shanxi merchant group after being purged, because the military operations of Dashun for a long time after the founding of the country were all in Liaodong, Monan Mongolia, and they had no intentions at all. Go to Northwest.And there, after all, is closer to Shanxi.

The Shaanxi businessman wins the bet, but the benefits he can get are really not very big.It wasn't until Dashun sent troops to the northwest to recover Qinghai and the Western Regions that Shaanxi merchants ushered in the spring.

In the original history, these Shaanxi businessmen were also very interesting.

After they were defeated by Huizhou merchants and left Lianghuai to enter Sichuan, they wrote such a couplet full of feelings in the Shaanxi Guild Hall in Sichuan.

Qin Chongli has the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty
The emblem or the title of Hou, King, King, and Emperor is only worthy of being a minister on that day
Of course, this must be hanging in Guan Laoye Temple, but it is clear at a glance what it is actually talking about.

However, following a series of policies such as Sichuan salt entering Guizhou, using troops in the Northwest, and suppressing rebellion in western Sichuan, their mentality changed, and they had long forgotten the original intention of the couplet.

And in this time and space, because of the process of Dashun's founding of the country and the subsequent use of troops, the merchant in front of him, who had been ups and downs since the Hong Wunian family in the previous dynasty, understood one thing.

That was what he and Liu Yu sighed.

Whether it is Huizhou merchants, Shanxi merchants, or Shaanxi merchants, in fact, their prosperity is nothing more than compradors of the imperial court.

The policy of the imperial court directly determines the rise and fall of the consortium.

The imperial court went north to Liting to establish the capital, so the Shanxi merchants who were in the wrong line at the beginning could revive.

The imperial court regained the Western Regions, and the Shaanxi merchants who had been retreating steadily in the Lianghuai and Huaihe Rivers would be able to prosper again.

The imperial court went to the ocean, so in just 20 years, a new capital group of Songjiang Prefecture emerged.

The imperial court attacked Japan and built a waste canal for the navy, so the Fujian-Guangdong trade center that flourished since the mid-Ming Dynasty was directly transferred northward to the mouth of the Yangtze River. The old comprador merchants who did not know how to transform collapsed directly. Songjiang Order".

The outlet, only by keenly grasping the outlet is the foundation for the prosperity of a business family.

However, where do people who know three parts of the world without leaving a cottage exist?

Understanding this truth is almost equivalent to not understanding anything.

But Liu Yu praised this statement quite a bit, and boasted: "You can be regarded as a businessman who really understands Dashun."

"After all, there are too few people who can understand this truth. They all think that relying on their own unparalleled abilities, but in fact they are just leftovers from the wheel of history."

　Don't forget the past
　　
　
(End of this chapter)