Established a thousand-year family from the end of Qin Dynasty

Chapter 133 Salt and Iron Conference (End)
One month later

This salt and iron meeting lasted for a whole month. The two sides debated with each other. When they were tired, they went to rest and eat. They came back to continue the debate in a few days, and then went back when they were tired. After a few days, they debated again, and so on.

Today, the debate between the two sides is finally over.

From the very beginning, the two sides discussed whether the official operation of salt and iron was appropriate, to whether it was appropriate to monopolize alcohol, then to equalization and equal loss, and then to the unified production of the state, and then to the state monopoly of industrial production and currency issuance. It then discusses the governor system, and finally even discusses whether the prefecture and county system is reasonable, and whether the country should practice kingship or hegemony.

Sang Hongyang insisted that the state should monopolize the production of all industries and the issuance of currency, because these industries and currency cannot be carried out by ordinary people, and ordinary people do not have the strength to operate the salt and iron industry. Those who mint currency are not ordinary people, they are all powerful or princes. Once these industries and currency casting are released, the wealth of the world will quickly gather to the powerful, and finally there will be a super powerful who is as rich as an enemy. Rebellion, that is not something the county soldiers can suppress.

The virtuous literature insists that the country should give up all industries, abandon currency casting, and let the people freely manage salt, iron, wine, etc., and let the people freely mint currency. It is to improve morality and implement benevolent government, rather than relying on cruel officials to monitor, and insist that the country should practice moral education and kingship instead of centralization and hegemony.

Whether it is Sang Hongyang or Xianliang Literature, both sides have insisted on their positions from the beginning to the end, and no one can convince the other without making a concession.

The essence of the dispute between the two sides is not who is right and who is wrong, but two hunters competing for prey.

Whether it is official or private, it has nothing to do with ordinary people. It is nothing more than letting the imperial court exploit the people or letting the powerful exploit the people.

As for the exploited people, they have no right to speak.

Sang Hongyang insisted on monopolizing the official business and allowing the court to exploit the people. The virtuous literature insisted on letting go of all industries and letting the tyrants exploit the people. As for the exploited people, no one considered their ideas.

However, whether it is Sang Hongyang or the virtuous literature, although they are essentially for the exploitation of the people, they keep saying that they are for the sake of the people.

Both sides know that they and the other side are out to exploit the common people, but both sides argue that they are thinking out of the common people.

Neither side of the debate convinced the other, and the only outcome of the meeting was to make Wang Hongyin and Zhang Mu shine and be admired by other Confucian scholars.

Even Huo Guang became interested in the two teenagers at the venue, and got to know their names during this month.

"The car stuck with glue is in the rain, everyone should disperse."

Sang Hongyang, the imperial historian, is not interested in continuing to debate with virtuous literature. This kind of debate with premise is a waste of saliva from the beginning. No one can really convince the other party, saying a thousand sentences and ten thousand sentences of saintly truth , It is also not comparable to the wealth gains brought by industries such as real saltworks and iron smelting workshops.

The virtuous writers looked at Sang Hongyang who was leaving, and thought they had won the debate. They felt that Sang Hongyang, the censor, was no match for the debate, so they found an excuse to leave.

So they all smiled, expecting Huo Guangneng to implement their ideas.

……

five months later
The Imperial Court's restructuring of the Salt and Iron Conference was promulgated by the Prime Minister's Office, and the results are as follows:
[Abolish the assassination history system, cancel the wine deliberation law, cancel the prosecution order, cancel the calculation order, cancel the vehicle and boat tax, and reduce the commercial tax from seven levels to five levels.

The rest of the system remains unchanged, such as Dutian case ratio, county system, Yantie official camp]

In terms of taxation, the calculated tax is still 120 yuan, the land tax is still [-] yuan, and the replacement tax (corruption money and military service money) is reduced to [-] yuan and [-] yuan, and the cloth tax, house tax, etc. Excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes during the period, but some exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes that existed in the period of Emperor Wenjing were retained.

The reason for the abolition of suing and counting is that although these two systems allowed the imperial court to accumulate a lot of wealth in a short period of time, they also caused many innocent middle-class families to go bankrupt and led to a sharp increase in the number of refugees in the world.

Yantie Guanying only cut leeks, but the leeks had to be pulled out by the root of the leeks.

So Huo Guang retained the salt and iron official business to make money, but canceled the lawsuit.

As for the abolition of the vehicle and boat tax, it is because after the introduction of this tax, people with cars and boats are unwilling to take out their cars and boats to transport goods, which leads to the lack of access to all kinds of goods in the world. In the later period of the first emperor's administration, the big man almost returned to bartering goods. era of things.

The abolition of the assassination history system and the drinking law is Huo Guang's small concession to the tyrants.

Virtuous writers representing the interests of local tyrants criticized Sang Hongyang at the Salt and Iron Conference, which made Sang Hongyang lose face, lost Sang Hongyang's dignity, and helped Huo Guang attack political opponents. Therefore, in return for the powerful gentry, Huo Guang canceled The system of the two former emperors.

However, the tyrants did not appreciate the result of Huo Guang's compromise, and Sang Hongyang was furious.

The tyrants and the virtuous literature representing the tyrants believe that the imperial court should cancel all the systems established by the previous emperors and return to the relaxed era of the second emperor Wen Jing.

Sang Hongyang believes that all the systems of the late emperor's period, except for the Huns, can be temporarily stopped, and everything else must be preserved. How can it be abolished?Isn't this a concession to the local tyrants?

One party wanted to cancel all the systems, the other wanted to keep all the systems, while Huo Guang canceled a small part of the systems and kept most of the systems. In the end, both parties were dissatisfied, and both felt that Huo Guang was unfair.

……

"It seems that our Great General Sima is not the same kind of person as us. Otherwise, why would he keep the Yantie official camp system?" Before leaving Chang'an, a Confucian scholar complained to Wang Hongyin.

"Things will always turn around." Wang Hongyin smiled slightly. He didn't dare to speak ill of Huo Guang, but he was actually not satisfied with Huo Guang's handling in his heart, but he didn't want to say it publicly, so he was looking forward to the new power minister in the future Or the new emperor can cancel the Yantie official camp.

The royal family doesn't care who the new power minister or the new emperor is, they only care about whether the new power minister or the new emperor can change the country's system to benefit the powerful.

……

"Huo Guang!"

"You betrayed the late emperor!"

Sang Hongyang clenched his fists, very angry.

Many of the policies of the late Emperor Liu Che were thought up and practiced by him. They were the hard work of Sang Hongyang all his life. But now, Huo Guang has canceled some of them and presided over the Salt and Iron Conference to deliberately guide those virtuous literature. Slam him and disgrace him.

At this time, Shangguan Jie said from the side: "Huo Guang deceived people too much. The late emperor arranged for four assistant ministers to let us handle state affairs together. But now, Huo Guang directly asked the prime minister's office to promulgate the law without the consent of the two of us." Restructuring, does he still have our two auxiliary ministers in his eyes?"

Sang Hongyang hated Huo Guang because the system he worked so hard to formulate was canceled by Huo Guang.

On the other hand, Shangguan Jie is relatively simple. He just wants to win over Sang Hongyang, who is also the auxiliary minister, because he wants to compete with Huo Guang for power, but he can't compete with Huo Guang, and join forces to bring down Huo Guang.

One was shattered because of his ideals, and the other was because he wanted to fight for power and profit. In the end, the two hit it off.

"Then how can we bring down Huo Guang?" Sang Hongyang asked.

He doesn't care about power, but he cares about his hard work. He wants to overthrow Huo Guang, and then implement the abolished system back, so that the big man can get back on track.

(End of this chapter)