A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 418 The Chosen Son Qiqianxu
Gongxi money was not originally created in the Tang Dynasty, but began in the Northern Wei Dynasty and flourished in the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

The Jingsi of the Tang Dynasty and the prefectures and counties all had public land for public and private expenses. Later, due to insufficient expenditure, they set up the capital of the public land and lent money to collect interest.

Wu Huaiyu's background in catching Qian Lingshi was still a point that many families ridiculed him, but Wu Huaiyu didn't care too much about it, unlike some officials, who were born as foreign officials, which became some shameful stain in life, and it would discourage one to mention it.

For example, Zhang Xuansu, the censor, started as a county lieutenant in the Sui Dynasty, but the county lieutenant had previously served as Jingcheng Facao, and before that, he was the official history of the Ministry of Punishment, and he was not a small official.

Today's Dali Temple Minister Sun Fujia is still the number one scholar in the reign of Wude, but he was the law officer of Wannian County in the Sui Dynasty, and before that, he was also a small local official.

This thing is like letting the future generations know that a certain woman once went to sea, and later she was rehabilitated, but it would be embarrassing if it was mentioned in public.

"His Majesty,"

Wu Huaiyu stood up and answered, "I am studying, and I saw that Su Xiaoci, the Minister of the Ministry of Industry of the Sui Dynasty, once admonished Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, saying that the public money lending was only seeking profit, disturbing the people, and corrupting customs. I specially asked the court to limit public money. use.

Later, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty issued an edict to prohibit the lending and interest collection of public money, and allow public money to be traded in the market. "

Li Shimin listened, "Is there another matter?"

"During Kaihuang's reign, this policy was indeed carried out, but later in Daye's reign, lending was allowed to collect interest." Left servant Fang Xuanling said to the emperor.

"What is the effect? ​​Why did Emperor Yang return to the past?" asked the emperor.

"Because lending money is easy to collect interest, double interest income, no complicated operations are required," Huaiyu told the emperor, public money is much easier to make money than trading, after all, many times, public money is already equivalent to rations, directly For wealthy households, it doesn't matter whether you need it or not, as long as you pay the interest on time.

This is the place where public money disturbs the people. First, the yamen often forcibly lends money to wealthy households. Second, there is a prescribed amount of public money, but in order to collect more interest, the yamen often spends more money on loans to collect interest. The public funds of the yamen also include the private funds of the officials, and even the private books obtained by the officials who seized the money. Therefore, it is often possible that the capital of a yamen office is only a few hundred guan, but the actual release has thousands or even thousands of guan .

In the end, those wealthy households, even ordinary people, will bear the burden. When the money is not paid, Lingshi will use the name of the Yamen to arrest them and force them to pay. In the end, the reputation and credit of the imperial court will be lost.

There is another problem, of course, that Lingshi who caught money got a special promotion by catching money. Since Li Shimin became emperor, only the Lingshi who caught money in Chang'an, in less than two years, more than 600 people have been promoted because of catching money.

In contrast, it is even more difficult for many other officials, even those who came from the imperial examination, to be elected as officials.

Although the history of catching money requires the children of high-ranking officials, in order to ensure the income of the public money lending, the local government often chooses businessmen or market people to be responsible. Although this guarantees the income of the public money, it also makes Datang The ranks of officials are not so pure. After all, businessmen and criminals are not allowed to be officials.

There are indeed advantages and disadvantages in the matter of the government's arrest of money and Lingshi. In particular, the bad reputation was finally borne by the court, and the advantages were taken by officials and some powerful merchants in the local area.

"Is it feasible to use the public money market to trade and buy?" the emperor asked.

"If officials are allowed to enter the market and participate in business transactions, I'm afraid it will disturb the people even more." Fang Xuanling said bluntly.

Li Shimin had a headache, he couldn't do this, he couldn't do that, but the court had no money. Since he became emperor, many officials complained that their salaries were low and hoped that the court would increase them. Li Shimin wanted to increase them, but where did the money come from?

"Yi Guogong, you are the servant of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Pan Duzhi, and you are in charge of the country's finances. Isn't there any other good way to increase fiscal revenue besides issuing bonds?"

The throttling that Wei Zheng said is a good suggestion, but it is not easy to implement under the current circumstances.

And it has to be done step by step, and there is a limit to how much money can be saved.

The best way is to open source.

But without running water, how to open source.

"Your Majesty, I also feel that it is not a long-term good policy to hand over the money of the public house to Qian Lingshi for loan. There are nearly a thousand Qian Lingshi in the capital divisions, and there are more than [-] prefectures and more than [-] counties in the area. There are ten thousand people who have their own money grabbing orders and lending history.”

Although the local officials who catch money are not real officials, they often do not have the status of exiled officials, at most they have the status of a non-scholar or something. They can't directly appoint officials if they catch money well, but they can do it. Officials can also go up.

The history of 1 money-catching orders is surprising.

Since Li Shimin became emperor, in the history of Chang'an's money-grabbing orders alone, more than 600 people were awarded officials because of money-grabbing.

You must know that there are only more than 2000 officials in Chang'an's various divisions. Wei Zheng said too much, let's cut off [-].

Last year, [-] candidates were selected, but in the end there were only [-] positions, and [-] candidates were rejected.

Although Wu Huaiyu knew that tens of thousands of people would be offended if the history of seizing money was cancelled, but since he became the servant of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, he still had to find a way to deal with the problem.

Professional things have to be done by professional people. This can be seen from the fact that every government office chooses those businessmen and merchants to catch money. Everyone is not stupid. They know that those kind of nerds who go to catch money will definitely not get it back. .

"Your Majesty, I have an immature idea to set up Zhidu divisions in the capital and various places, appoint Zhidu envoys, and collect the company money currently in the hands of each government office into the Duzhi division, as capital, and give it to the Zhidu divisions. It is used for buying and selling to make a profit."

Wei Zheng asked, "Just now you said that you want to reduce the number of personnel and consolidate provinces and organizations, so you want to set up a new government office?"

Wang Gui asked, "How to ensure that the Zhidu Division and the Mai business will not disturb the people, and why not just let the money-catching Lingshi of the various yamen directly change the lending to the Mai business?"

"Your Majesty, what I'm talking about and buying operations is not an ordinary market entry, but a nationwide mobilization of some special crops that are official.

For example, a certain state in the south of the Yangtze River has a certain local product, but it is limited to road traffic, market information, etc. Their goods cannot be shipped, no one buys them, and the price is cheap but they cannot be sold. Then the imperial court can integrate information and build channels.
Like a granary, we can set up transshipment warehouses and distribution markets at major water and land transportation hubs across the country, purchase and transship these native goods from all over the country, and then distribute and sell them, so that the goods can be distributed all over the world and their profits will come from themselves. "

Merchants do not produce goods in the first place, but porters of goods. The essence is to buy low and sell high, and exchange what is needed.

Those who produce goods are artisan farmers.

"The imperial court can also make use of the market. For example, in a good year, the price of grain will fall, but high and low also hurt farmers. Therefore, when the price of grain falls in a good year, we can buy grain from the people at a price higher than the market, so that It can also guarantee farmers' income,

Then store the grain in various transshipment warehouses. When there is a disaster, or the price of grain in some places is too high, the grain will be transported there and sold at a price slightly lower than the market, which will not only solve the grain shortage, but also protect the people. , Do not eat high-priced food.

The imperial court can also benefit from it. "

What Wu Huaiyu said and buying has been one of the basic fiscal policies since the Tang and Song Dynasties, even such as government-run handicraft workshops, making some high-end products, such as porcelain, silk, etc., as well as overseas trade. , or the goods coming in at land gates, first collect a tax in kind, and then buy a part according to demand, and transport it back to the capital or the inland market, and you can earn a fortune.

Anyway, if you really want to make money in business, there are quite a few ways.

But the only requirement is to be professional, and it must be the kind of unified scheduling. It can't be the same as the current public office money, and do it yourself like a yamen. That will not be effective, the income will not be high, and it will not be positive. role.

It must be a unified dispatch of the national market.

The imperial court not only has to make money, but also has other positive guidance, such as helping the circulation of goods, such as the deployment of daily necessities such as grain and cloth, and stabilizing market prices, etc. These are very important.

Of course, in addition to buying and selling, there is actually another way to make money, and that is to sell, that is, monopoly.

For example, salt tea, now Yunmin mines salt and sells tea, there is no additional tax, it is only taxed when ordinary commodities are in circulation.

But salt was once an official business in the Han Dynasty, and it has become one of the most important financial revenues of the Central Dynasty since the middle and late Tang Dynasty.

Of course, the high salt tax and the salt monopoly actually transfer the tax to the burden of the people, so some people say that the salt tax is actually a poll tax. After all, it is something everyone wants to eat.

However, if appropriate tax increases, or to engage in monopoly, is also one of the ways to solve financial difficulties.

In the civil system, the government collects the salt and transports it to the merchant. On the salt, the imperial court only needs to supervise the salt production and put all the salt into the warehouse. Selling salt and selling salt is still handed over to the merchants. They just take salt from the official salt warehouse and pay a little salt tax at the same time. .

As long as the salt tax and salt price are well controlled, although there will be illegal salt, but the price difference is not too large, the illegal salt will not be too severe.

You can't cost a penny, if you increase the price by one hundred and one thousand, then everyone will take risks.

Wu Huaiyu hopes to integrate official resources, gather the current capital of the company, and set up a branch department in the ten ways of the world, under the unified leadership of the branch department in the court, select some officials who are good at financial management, and then recruit some merchants, etc. Or from now on Selected personnel in the history of the money-catching order set up transshipment warehouses in various places, holding the capital and buying and selling,

In the future, when the capital is sufficient, you can also get involved in aspects such as mining minerals.

The point is to make one plus one greater than two, and be more positive, rather than so many disadvantages of public money now.

"Support department, transshipment warehouse, and buying, discussing and selling, salt tax and tea tax..." Li Shimin was very moved as he read these words.

He felt that although Wu Huaiyu was born in Lingshi who caught money, his brain was really easy to use, just like the bond he made before, which directly gave him a lot of money.

Some expectations.

Li Shimin also knows many disadvantages of catching Qian Lingshi, but there is really no expedient measure.

He considered canceling it at the beginning of his accession to the throne, but the office expenses of the government office?Where do officials' salaries come from?
Earlier, some officials suggested a plan to Li Shimin, saying that they should simply select [-] wealthy households from all over the world, and designate them as servants.

To put it bluntly, you are the 7000 chosen sons of the day. You were given the status of shishi, and you were originally going to serve as servants of officials.

After paying the money, there is no need to perform other services.

The money was collected by the imperial court and then distributed to various government officials.

Essentially speaking, it is no different from the money-grabbing Lingshi. In the past, [-] yuan was returned, but now it is not given at all. You pay a sum of money every year, which is actually a kind of plundering of the rich.

Of course, Xu Shi is even more ruthless. If you don't give the capital, you won't be given the opportunity to hitch a ride and lend money. It's really not that disturbing to the people, and you only have these seven thousand sheep.

But this kind of policy is obviously a big problem. Seven thousand households are responsible for it, and it can be carried in a short time.

After much deliberation, Li Shimin decided to stop catching money first, and at the same time set up support divisions in various roads, build transfer warehouses, and draw out and buy capital.On the other hand, select [-] households from various states in the world, and collect their teaching funds according to the law, but they will be replaced every three years, and the officials' salaries will be directly distributed by the finance.

It is safer to try the two methods together. In case Wu Huaiyu's plan does not work, it will not affect the income of all officials in the world.

Scholars, farmers, businessmen, and officials Zuo Tianzi governed the world, of course they must be guaranteed first.

(End of this chapter)