At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 321, the first court meeting after the southern tour, the lavish emperor

Wool can also be woven, which is a huge surprise for major textile factories in Han Dynasty that are in short supply of raw materials.

The Han people still have plenty of wool. There is a tradition of raising sheep in the north, and there are countless sheep in the desert. Sheep are the main source of food for the Hu people. There are dozens of times more of them than the Hu people in the desert. In the past, the use of these wools was very low and could only be made into wool felts, but now the grasslands are full of Han merchants purchasing wool.

When these wools entered the territory of the Han Dynasty, the spinning wheels that had previously stopped working began to operate rapidly, and all textile factory owners could see the golden Qin Banliang flowing into their pockets. The emergence of wool solved the problem of insufficient employment in Dahan's textile industry.

After Xu Fan inspected the Weishui Textile Industrial Zone, he returned to Chang'an City.

He immediately summoned the three ministers of the Han Dynasty, the top military officials, and senior officials from important departments.

Xu Fan smiled at everyone and said: "On this southern tour, I inspected a small half of the Han people. What I saw was mixed with joy and worry, but in general, I was more happy than worried. After the imperial court reduced taxes and exempted people from corvee, the people of the world Although it is still poor, there are not many people starving to death anymore, and the lives of the people are getting better quickly. In the land of the six counties of Han Dynasty, as far as I can see the situation, the people can already have enough to eat.

Last year, at the meeting of princes, we wanted to build a world of great harmony, and I am confident that we can complete the first step of not starving people to death. This is all the result of the efforts of the Prime Minister and everyone. "

Zhou Zhang and others said: "This is what I should do. Your Majesty leads well."

Everyone is beaming with joy. Don’t look at the starving people who say it is simple, but it is extremely difficult to achieve. For thousands of years, those who can achieve this simple standard are all prosperous dynasties in the New Age, and the Han Dynasty was only five years old. Years to do this.

The founding of the Han Dynasty was a prosperous period, and they will be recorded in the history of Qing Dynasty as virtuous ministers like Guan Zhongleyi. "

Xu Fan said: "Most of the others are just the first step in the prosperous age of great harmony that we are looking forward to. We, the monarchs and ministers, should guard against arrogance and impetuosity, and encourage together to realize the great harmony of the world as soon as possible."

Zhou Zhang and others saluted and said: "No"

Xu Fan continued: "Okay, now that I'm done, I'll talk about the problems encountered during this inspection. The court must find ways to improve these problems."

"First, the price of grain in the Han Dynasty is unbalanced. The price of grain in the north exceeds 100 yuan per stone, while the price of food in the south is generally very low. The food in Kuaiji County, Chen County and other places has dropped to about 30 yuan per stone. Such a low price , Even if the people produce more food, they will not make more money."

Zhou Zhang said helplessly: "There is no way around this. Last year, the north experienced two wars, and the food in the entire north was almost exhausted. However, under the rule of my great Han Dynasty for several years, the south reduced taxes, exempted people from corvee, and even provided food to hire people. By maintaining the logistics of the army, there will naturally be more food in the south. Coupled with the advancement of agricultural technology and the imperial court building a large number of water conservancy facilities, the price of food in the south will naturally be low. "

Xu Fan asked: "Can the imperial court organize transport ships to transport food from the south to the north to balance the food gap between the two sides?"

Zhou Zhang shook his head and said: "No woodcutter is sold for a hundred miles, and no grain is sold for a thousand miles. If there was profit, those grain merchants would have transported grain long ago. However, the transportation consumption of the imperial court has always been several times higher than that of the private sector. The imperial court did this for fear of transportation consumption. There is more money than the food shipped.”

After all, logistics costs in ancient times were too high.

Zhou Zhang continued: "Don't talk about the price of food in the south. The price of food in Guanzhong has fallen below 80 yuan per stone this year. After the summer harvest, I am afraid that the price of food will continue to drop."

Xu Fan asked with some concern: "How much will it drop?"

Zhou Zhang looks up to Zhang Cang.

Zhang Cang said: "According to my experience during the Qin Dynasty, the winter wheat sown in Guanzhong this year has exceeded 2000 million acres. As long as there is no extremely severe natural disaster during the summer harvest this year, Guanzhong can harvest 4000 million shi of grain.

If the imperial court does not absorb grain, the price of grain will fall below 70 qian per stone. By this year's autumn harvest, 8000 million shi of grain will enter the private sector. By then, the price of food among the people will drop sharply to 50 qian per stone. If there is no war in the court next year, the price of food may drop to 30 qian per stone compared to the pre-Qin period. "

Xu Fan frowned and said: "Food prices have dropped too fast, which is unbearable for farmers in Guanzhong."

After three times of deflation in two years, the market outlook will be a direct Great Depression. This means that the Han Dynasty is still a self-sufficient feudal system. Even if there is more food, farmers will not sell it at most and have to bear the loss.

But Xu Fan soon understood that it was not that there were no losses, but that the farmers had borne the biggest losses. However, they had no say and would not appear in the history of the Qing Dynasty. So this kind of counter-intuitive thing happened. No wonder in ancient times In the prosperous times, it is easy to flourish and decline, because the dissatisfaction at the bottom is suppressed, and when it cannot be suppressed, it will explode.

Zhou Zhang said strangely: "Your Majesty's decrease in food supply is a good thing for the people in the world. People in cities and towns can get low-priced food, and ordinary people will not go hungry if they have food in their hands."

The industrialized society is much more complicated than the self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy. Even though the current Han Dynasty is not yet an industrial society, there is already a trend in this regard. However, it is obvious that Zhou Zhang has not realized this change in the Han Dynasty. He still regards it as the feudal era. Look at the food problem from three perspectives.

Xu Fan explained: "In times of war, the more food the better, but in peacetime it is more important to stabilize prices. Food prices have dropped threefold, which is equivalent to a threefold reduction in the purchasing power of farmers in Guanzhong. By then, our steel plant will Who will buy the farm tools produced, and who will buy the cloth produced by our textile factory? Without farmers buying steel, cloth, and steel, the cloth will be unsaleable, and there will be an economic crisis in the world.”

"Farmers are not only producers but also consumers. The imperial court will not lower the income of farmers while requiring them to buy our steel products, cloth and other products. This is not a joke."

It is difficult for a large feudal country to enter the industrial age for this reason. The population already accounts for one-third of the world. Where can we find a market that is dozens of times larger? Therefore, if a large feudal country wants to enter industrialization, it can only rely on internal circulation. But in the early days, Capitalists only want producers and not consumers, creating an internal loop. Internal circulation cannot be established, but because wealth is accumulated in the hands of a few people, it will eventually lead to chaos in the world, and the sprouts will naturally be crushed to death.

At this time, Xu Fan thought of a joke from later generations. Faced with the sluggish consumption of cattle and horses, they would reduce the loan rate. Faced with the lack of time for cattle and horses to consume, they did not increase the time for cattle and horses to rest, but made up some time here and there to let the cattle and horses go. Consumption.

In short, it is not possible to reduce the working time of cattle and horses, nor to increase the rations of cattle and horses. So in order to make the cattle and horses spend more money, people are trying their best. What do you want from others? Do you really want them to give their own money to those poor people to solve this problem at the most fundamental level?

Zhou Zhang said: "But as the world's food increases, this trend is inevitable."

Xu Fan said: "Prime Minister, you have always wanted to establish the lowest protective price for grain. The amount of grain in the hands of the imperial court has exceeded 20 million dan. This year, the imperial court has spent billion dan. In Guanzhong, Jiangdong, and Jiangnan, Buying grain on a large scale.”

Zhou Zhang shook his head and said: "The imperial court cannot afford so much money, and even if it does so reluctantly, as long as the growth of grain does not end, the price of grain will still drop. The imperial court's money is not unlimited, and it also costs money to store grain. of."

Xu Fan thought about it and understood that the laws of the market could not stop the imperial court. The imperial court could stop it for one or two years, but it certainly could not stop it for ten or eight years.

The reality is that as long as there is no war, the imperial court will accumulate a large amount of food every year, and it will have to find a way to deal with this food.

So Xu Fan said: "Grain can decrease slowly, but it cannot fluctuate too much. This year, the court will try to stabilize the price of grain in Guanzhong at 70 qian per shi, and increase the price of grain in Jiangdong and Jiangnan to 40 qian per shi."

Starting this year, we will first build two sub-warehouses in Jiujiang County and Nanyang. Each sub-warehouse will store 2000 million shi of grain. Based on the current grain price in Jiangdong and Jiangnan, 4000 million shi of grain will cost up to 12 billion yuan. It was also a good deal for the imperial court. "

Zhou Zhang said: "No"

Anyway, the imperial court will vigorously collect grain this year, and it is also beneficial to the imperial court to purchase grain in places with the lowest grain prices.

Xu Fan looked at Chen Yue and Chen Lian from the opera troupe and said: "Your opera troupe should also strengthen publicity to the people, let the people raise more poultry, and replace grains with meat for livestock. Tomorrow you will go to the Agricultural College to ask the master of the Agricultural College. They compiled some dramas about raising poultry and livestock."

Xu Fan thought for a while and said: "The name of these operas is "The Book of Getting Rich". I don't care about the operatic nature, but the scientific nature and authenticity must be guaranteed. Let the people read the contents of "The Book of Getting Rich". According to the If you follow the steps in the content, you can really feed countless poultry and livestock, so the scriptwriters should be based on teachers from the Agricultural College, and you can't adapt it randomly."

Sure enough, the choices a country can make will not make much difference. There is too much food, and it can only be consumed by the breeding industry. Chen Yue and Chen Lian were still wondering why the emperor would come to them. Sure enough, they had a mission.

The two immediately replied: "No"

Xu Fan continued: "In order to allow people all over the world to learn this new knowledge faster, your opera troupe needs to expand. Each state in the world must have an opera troupe to promote advanced agricultural knowledge."

"promise"

Xu Fan thought for a while and decided to get out the thermometer so that he could activate the technology tree hatched by the heated kang and produce dozens or hundreds of times as many chickens, ducks and geese.

Just as the big man clicked on the glass technology tree, he was about to find Zhao Gao to get the thermometer.

Xu Fan then continued to talk about what happened to the Han army in the South China Sea.

Then he said: "The military system of our Han Dynasty must also be reformed. Every adult citizen of the Han Dynasty must serve in the military for three years, including one year as a county soldier, one year as a border army, and the last year to be stationed in Chang'an. The court must specially An imperial examination was held for the soldiers of these institutes, and the outstanding ones could become Langguan, and after receiving education at the court, they could become officers or Han officials."

"After three years of military service, the soldiers have fulfilled their obligations to the country. If the soldiers are excellent and the country still needs these soldiers to perform military service, they will be paid a salary. I haven't figured out the exact amount yet, but it is roughly one level higher than that of ordinary craftsmen. "

Xu Fan basically copied the military system of later generations of military, standing army and compulsory soldiers.

Wu Sheng and Deng Zong were overjoyed. This was a great thing for their military. After this restructuring, the Han Dynasty would invest more resources in the military, and the treatment of soldiers would also become better. Such better Talents will be put into the Han army.

But as the helmsman of the Han Dynasty, Zhou Zhang was not happy. "Your Majesty, my great man's treatment of his soldiers is already extremely high. If we continue to give them salaries, the government's finances will be unsustainable."

The treatment of the Han army is extremely high. The food standard reaches that of small landowners, and the clothing and housing standards reach that of large landowners. People all over the world say that the Han emperor raised soldiers according to the standard of raising soldiers, and this is also the material that makes the Han army invincible. Base.

The Han Dynasty now has a standing army of 10 people. Although they do not need salaries, they spend hundreds of millions on food every year, and more than one billion on weapons, equipment, and military uniforms. Even if they are not fighting, the Han army consumes nearly 20 gold expenses. According to the emperor's reform, giving tens of thousands of standing army soldiers salaries would cost hundreds of thousands more gold.

The Han Dynasty's annual financial balance was only over 200,000 gold, and almost all of it was annexed by the military. How could Zhou Zhang be happy?

Kong Yu thought for a while and said: "Your Majesty, now that the world is at peace, we, the Han, should streamline our troops and streamline our administration, instead of continuing to expand military expenditures. You must be wary of the road to violence against Qin."

Xu Fan said: "This time the imperial court has established a long-term mechanism, so it will spend more money. However, after this money is spent, it will not increase in the future. At the rate of our Han Dynasty's finances increasing by 20% every year, we will have to work hard for at most two years." It will take years, but the establishment of a system will be a long-term benefit to Dahan.”

"Everyone should not just see the money, but also see that protecting the Han Dynasty is the responsibility of the entire Han people. This responsibility cannot be borne by only a small group of people, otherwise this small group of people will be resentful towards the imperial court.

At that time, the First Emperor passed this responsibility to a few people. The soldiers stationed in southern Xinjiang and northern Xinjiang could not return home all year round, which caused the southern Xinjiang army to be alienated from Bao Qin. If Bao Qin's capital was not in Chang'an, even the northern Xinjiang army would have turned against Bao Qin. Qin was disinterested and disloyal. "

Zhou Zhang and others thought of the 50 Southern Xinjiang Army who were deep in thought watching the demise of the Qin Dynasty. Although there were various reasons why the Southern Xinjiang Army did not obey the orders of the First Emperor, stationing in the border all the year round aroused their resentment towards the imperial court, which was obviously also a reason. main factor.

Thinking of this, Zhou Zhang and others did not object to Xu Fan's military reform.

Xu Fan continued: "Since I, the great man, have declared to the world that I want to build a world of great harmony, I must take this action to show it to the world."

Zhou Zhang asked worriedly: "What kind of reforms does Your Majesty want to carry out?"

"Qinbo"

"I am here"

"How many craftsmen are there in Guanzhong Shaofu?"

"There are 6 craftsmen in Guanzhong Steel Factory, textile factory, equipment factory and other state-owned workshops."

"How long do the craftsmen in your young mansion work every day?"

Qin Bo said: "Female textile workers weave from dawn to dusk because there is too much cloth to weave and cannot use oil lamps. There are already several small weavers working day and night with oil lamps. As a result, the entire textile workshop was burned down." Empty."

"Because the blast furnace cannot be turned off, the steel plant now works in two shifts, with each shift lasting six hours. Other equipment workshops also generally work five to six hours."

At this time, Xu Fan finally understood why Edison's status was so high. Capitalists couldn't let the sun never set. Edison helped them solve this problem. No wonder he has so many dark histories and is still pushed to such a high status by capitalists. Electric lights have little effect on ordinary people but have great effect on capitalists.

Xu Fan continued to ask: "What is the situation like in other private workshops?"

Qin Bo said: "It's the same. Work at sunset and rest at sunrise. The few workshops that can use oil lamps will work for 6-7 hours."

Xu Fan was shocked. This is still a situation of insufficient population, and the craftsmen are already so busy. If it were really placed in the environment of later generations, where you don't dare to have people working, I'm afraid the craftsmen wouldn't even have time to sleep. As expected, capital carries original sin from birth.

Xu Fan sighed: "The people have stopped working and are living in a well-off society. The people of the world should also live a good life."

"We, the Han Dynasty, must set an example. From today on, the four-hour working system will be fully implemented in the workshops of our Han Dynasty. Regardless of sunrise or sunset, as long as workers have completed four hours of work, they can rest. At the same time, their salaries will not be reduced. ”

Qin Bo was surprised and said: "Your Majesty, this will increase the cost of the imperial court's workshops. It doesn't matter for workshops like steel plants and equipment factories. After all, only we, the imperial court, can manufacture these things, and the profits are high.

But in workshops with fierce competition such as textile factories, if we increase the manpower, the profits will be lower, and it is impossible to compete with these private textile factories. Although your Majesty has good intentions, these textile workshops in the imperial court have closed down, and the workers have no food to eat. "

Qin Bo almost said that the emperor wanted to do bad things out of good intentions.

Zhou Zhang was even more shocked and said: "The textile industry is the pillar of the imperial government's finances. Your Majesty wants to cut off this pillar, so you might as well just kill me, the Prime Minister."

It's not that you can't be kind to the people, but you have to do what you can. Each of these laws mentioned by the emperor will increase the expenditure of the imperial court. Now they also have to severely damage the pillar industry of the imperial court. The emperor is too extravagant. He really doesn't know how expensive firewood, rice, oil and salt are. .

Xu Fan said: "Businessmen are profit-seeking. The sages have said that they care about profits but not benevolence and righteousness, so the court cannot expect them to be benevolent and righteous to the people. At this time, the court, as an arbiter, must take action and force Businessmen should be benevolent and improve their moral bottom line instead of collaborating with them. "

"With the four-hour work system, the imperial court must find a way to force all merchants in the world to do this. If all merchants in the world do this, it will mean that the cost of everyone has increased. If the cost of everyone has increased, it will be equivalent to So fair play.”

(End of this chapter)