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

Chapter 482: Legalist Prescription
The simple economic model diagram that Meng Yi drew on the blackboard left Kuai Che speechless. Because when he was thinking about the free economic model, he also intentionally or unintentionally ignored the existence of the economic crisis. After all, it was only a low-probability event that happened once, and it happened nearly ten years ago. No one would consider such a low-probability event as normal.

But Meng Yi's economic model hit the soft spot of his free economy. What he thought was a low-probability event was actually the result of daily accumulation and the final outbreak. He couldn't think of how to fight back for a while.

Kuai Che looked at Li Si, who was half asleep and half awake in the audience, and felt annoyed. His school of enriching the people was just a newly established elementary school. Was it necessary for the Legalists to target him like this?

You should know that the theories he is promoting today are those that have not been elaborated in his "On Enriching the People". The core is to provide theoretical support for the withdrawal of officials and the advancement of the people. As a result, his theory was defeated by the Legalists as soon as it was published. If he did not have a deep understanding of "On Enriching the People", it would be impossible for him to hit the soft spot in his own theory so accurately.

Li Si also noticed that Kuai Che was looking at him. He understood what Kuai Che meant and snorted with disdain. "The Fumin School is just a small fry and is not worthy of being targeted by the Legalists. You overestimate yourself."

The model developed by Li Si was not intended to attack the school of enriching the people, but to solve the defects in the Han Dynasty's economy.

The Han Dynasty entered its second decade. During this decade, driven by the steam engine, the economy of the entire Han Dynasty was booming. Fiscal revenue had tripled compared to ten years ago. Through taxation, we can know that the wealth of the entire world has more than doubled compared to ten years ago.

The salary of craftsmen has generally doubled compared to ten years ago, and the income of farmers has generally increased by 50% to 100%. According to the propaganda of the Han Monthly, urban families in the Han Dynasty have basically reached the standard of a well-off life. As long as there is one person working, they can support a family of six or seven people (the standard model of the Han population is a couple supporting two elderly people and three children). They can live a well-off life with meat for three meals a day and children going to school.

One to two percent of the farmers in the Han Dynasty have reached this standard. The editors of the Han Monthly News announced to the world in an extremely enthusiastic tone that the Han Dynasty is on the eve of the whole nation achieving a well-off life. If everyone works hard for another ten years, all the people of the Han Dynasty will be able to live a well-off life. The prosperity of the Han Dynasty will be unprecedented in the past 3000 years. The founding generation of young people will be the richest and happiest generation, because they live in the golden age of Chinese civilization.

The people of the Han Dynasty were also in an excited state. They also believed in the propaganda in the Han Monthly News because it was the same as their feelings. The people believed that their lives would get better and better. They believed that their lives would definitely be better in the next ten years. A well-off society was not a problem at all. Many people had begun to look forward to a harmonious society.

"When great virtue is practiced, the world becomes a community for all. The virtuous and capable are selected, trust is upheld, and friendship is cultivated. As a result, people are not only loving to their own relatives and children; the old are ensured to have a place to live, the strong are employed, the young are raised, and the widowed, the orphaned, the lonely, and the disabled are all provided for." The passages from the "Datong" chapter of the Book of Rites have become a must-recite text for primary and secondary school students in the Han Dynasty. Even the craftsmen and common people in the cities have been inspired and can recite a few sentences from it fluently. At this time, the Han Dynasty could be said to be filled with the sound of Datong in the marketplace.

But Li Si knew that beneath the prosperous scene of the Han Dynasty there were undercurrents. Because of the relationship between Zhang Cang and Li Feng, Li Si knew that the development of the Han Dynasty's industry had reached the limit of oversupply, and a crisis of overcapacity could break out at any time.

The Shaofu of the Han Dynasty also began to shrink its operations across the board. He collected all the outstanding debts that could be collected and sold all the goods in the warehouse, even at a loss. He even began to issue orders to major workshops, asking them to hoard money in preparation for the winter. At the same time, he also began to sell off his subordinate textile workshops.

Because the Legal Monthly had branches in all the counties of the Han Dynasty, Li Si was also good at collecting intelligence. He found that the action of the Shaofu selling workshops was not only in Guanzhong, but also in other counties of the Han Dynasty. All these actions of the court were too similar to the way they dealt with the economic crisis ten years ago. Li Si knew that a new crisis was coming.

This also caused Li Si to be surprised. Economic crisis was unprecedented. He looked through history books and found that such a thing had never happened in the 3000-year history of the Han Dynasty.

He thought the last economic crisis was an accident, but the second crisis is about to come. This cannot be explained by an accident, but rather is a contradiction that is bound to arise from the operation of the Han Dynasty under the new social state.

So Li Si began to study why the economic crisis of the Han Dynasty occurred. He consulted a large amount of economic data of the Han court and was shocked to find a correct piece of nonsense, which was what the emperor said ten years ago. The reason why the Han Dynasty had an economic crisis was that too many goods were produced, so many that the people could not buy them all.

The solution to the crisis is very simple. First, increase people's income and expand the market, that is, eliminate part of the excess production capacity to balance supply and demand again.

What the imperial court did in the past ten years was to resolve the contradictions in economic supply and demand from these two aspects, by establishing settlements and settling immigrants, relocating people to vassal states to expand the market, replacing water-powered textile machines with steam textile machines, and eliminating backward production capacity.

But it is obvious that the court has not found a way to completely resolve this contradiction, otherwise the Shaofu would not have completely shrunk and even began to withdraw from the textile industry. You must know that ten years ago, the textile industry was the pillar industry of the Han Dynasty. If the court could find a way to resolve this contradiction, it would not have given up such a large amount of fiscal revenue. This is also because the Han Dynasty is developing rapidly and other industries can make up for the losses in the textile industry. Otherwise, this will shake the foundation of the country.

But this aroused Li Si's excitement. The reason why Legalism became a prominent school of thought in the Warring States Period was because of its ability to solve problems for the monarch.

During the Warring States Period, the major princes wanted to enrich their country and strengthen their army, so they relied on the Legalists. The reforms of Li Li in Wei, the reforms of Shen Buhai in Han, the reforms of Shang Yang in Qin, and the reforms of Wu Qi in Chu were all presided over by the Legalists.

The development of the Han Dynasty has obviously encountered troubles. If his Legalists can solve this problem, then Legalism will surely become a prominent school of thought in the world again.

So Li Si spent this year studying the economic crisis and its solutions. For this purpose, he even wrote a letter to the emperor, asking the Han court to open up some confidential data to him.

Li Si could only obtain data that was public from the Han Dynasty court, but there were also a lot of data that were confidential documents within the court that Li Si had no way of obtaining publicly.

After Xu Fan received Li Si's letter, he was speechless. Not many people in the Han Dynasty court believed in the economic crisis. After all, in the current environment of the Han Dynasty, not many Han officials felt that the Han Dynasty was in any crisis.

You said that the crisis ten years ago warned them, but most Han officials thought it was just an accident. The current momentum of the Han Dynasty is more than three times stronger than it was ten years ago. The crisis back then is not a crisis at all for the current court. But they don't know that the more the economy develops, the stronger the crisis will be.

Li Si believed in the impending economic crisis, and Xu Fan did not find it strange. After all, Li Si's talent was recognized. However, he wanted to study the crisis and solve it, which surprised Xu Fan. Did he want to be a sage of the Han Dynasty?

However, this matter is also good for the Han Dynasty. Only when the Han Dynasty understands the principles of economic operation better can it better deal with crises. If a few books with theories are accidentally researched, the Han Dynasty will make a lot of money. So Xu Fan asked Zhang Cang to develop the database of the Han Dynasty for Li Si to study.

After receiving the rich data of the Han Dynasty, Li Si was shocked by the strength of the Han Dynasty. The textile industry, which had the most complete statistics of the Han Dynasty, had increased its production capacity by more than ten times in 20 years, and the steel industry had increased by hundreds of times. Now the production capacity of steel in the Han Dynasty has reached 30 billion catties, and the fish catch has reached 500 million stones. No wonder the people of the Han Dynasty can eat fish almost every meal. The Han Dynasty built a granary from the sea. There are other data, which are basically more than ten times that of the Qin Dynasty. Only the grain production capacity has increased by less than five times. The Han Emperor really surpassed his predecessor. This is a war machine that is more than ten times stronger than the Qin Dynasty.

The materials stored in the granaries of the Han Dynasty were something he could not imagine when he was the prime minister of Qin. For such a powerful country, some people said that he would encounter a crisis that would shake the foundation of the country. If this person had not been the emperor of the Han Dynasty, Li Si would have wanted to spit in his face. After three months of studying the data of the Han Dynasty, Li Si finally found the problem that the Han Dynasty produced more than it consumed.

In the dynasties before the Han Dynasty, ordinary people lived just above the hunger line. Apart from the food that fed them, they had no other wealth. The nobles controlled the food and thus controlled the people. Naturally, there was no problem of overcapacity, only the problem of overpopulation.

However, the productivity of the Han Dynasty increased more than ten times, and the people had solved the food crisis. They had higher demands, and merchants all over the world began to compete for this part of the wealth. In order to win this part of the wealth, they opened a large number of workshops, but these riches entered the hands of merchants and rarely flowed back to the Han Dynasty. This resulted in less and less wealth in the hands of the people. As the wealth became less, the workshops originally built according to this system seemed to increase, which caused the so-called overcapacity in the emperor's mouth. In fact, as long as this part of the wealth flowed back to the Han Dynasty, the so-called overcapacity crisis in the emperor's mouth could be solved.

But the key issue now is that the wealth of the Han Dynasty was not distributed equally. Instead, the princes, nobles and merchants of the Han Dynasty occupied this part of the wealth. The wealth occupied by ordinary people would be used for daily life, but the nobles and merchants of the Han Dynasty could not consume their wealth completely, and this part of the wealth could not return to the Han Dynasty.

Then Li Si continued to simplify this model, and called the behavior of nobles and merchants occupying the wealth of craftsmen as occupying surplus wealth. As a result, the entire economic model became more understandable, and we have the economic model that Meng Yi is drawing now. The defects of the Enriching the People School can just be explained by this model.

Kuai Che was unwilling to give up and asked: "Everyone can raise a question, but I don't know how the Legalists solved this problem?"

Meng Yi smiled and said, "The solution to this problem is also very simple. This model is not missing 6900 million in wealth. As long as Master Kuai takes 1000 million less in wealth, ordinary craftsmen will have 1000 million more in wealth. The craftsmen do not have as much wealth as Master Kuai. With this extra wealth, they can easily spend it on daily necessities, buying houses, and sending their children to school. This 1000 million in wealth will continue to operate in this standard model, and the whole world will have 1000 million more in wealth."

"By the same token, if Master Kuai took 20 million less wealth, the whole world would have 20 million more wealth. If Master Kuai took 69 million less wealth, the output and consumption of goods in the whole world would reach a balance, and the so-called economic crisis would naturally be eliminated.

After all, it is difficult for a person to spend billions of dollars, but 10,000 people can spend 10,000 dollars until there is nothing left. There is no so-called capacity crisis in this world. It is just that you and other businesses are too greedy and occupy too much wealth, leaving the people with no money to spend. The economic crisis is nothing but a self-inflicted trap for you businesses. "

"Great!" All the scholars here applauded and cheered for Meng Yi's speech.

After Meng Yi's demonstration of such a simple model and his explanation, many people felt enlightened. It turned out that it was not that the workshops produced too many goods, but that the merchants took too much money and the people had no money to consume the goods they produced.

Kuai Che said: "Master Meng is too idealistic. Confucius in the Spring and Autumn Period understood that one should not raise one's morality too high when doing something. People will not do things that are not profitable, and in the end, it will cause greater losses.

It is natural for businesses to make profits. According to Master Meng's standard, you want everyone in the world to do good deeds. Can this be considered a way to solve the problem?
According to your standard, everyone must be a saint to achieve this. As long as one person retains selfishness, a portion of the world's wealth will be intercepted, and an economic crisis is inevitable. Do you think this is possible? If everyone is a dragon, and all the people in the nine states are Yao and Shun, do you think such a scene can appear in reality?"

"If this is the premise, a certain school of enriching the people can also solve the economic crisis. As a saint, why do you need so much money and concubines? You can just distribute it all to people in the world. Then everyone's wealth will be the same, and there will naturally be no economic crisis.

But since we don't make money, why should we work so hard to run the workshop? Why not learn from Xu You in ancient times, be a leisurely wise man, and wait for wise kings like Yao and Shun to bring them a good life? Do you think that if there are too many people like Xu You who just wait and rely on others, who will produce wealth in the world? Without wealth, who can live a good life now?"

Meng Yi smiled and said, "We don't need everyone to be a saint to solve the economic crisis. Just because you can't do it with Fuminxue doesn't mean I can't do it with Legalism."

Zhou Bo and others listened carefully. Although others did not understand the situation of the Han Dynasty, Zhou Bo knew it very well. Now the Han Dynasty court was dealing with this crisis very seriously. After all, the emperor had never made any mistakes in this regard. Since the emperor said that a crisis was about to break out, they naturally believed the emperor and were prepared.

However, the three dukes and nine ministers of the Han Dynasty also hated this kind of crisis. The Han officials wanted a stable economic order. An economic crisis like this one that broke out every ten years was too annoying for the Han officials who liked stability.

Based on their understanding of the emperor, if a crisis breaks out, the court's income will decrease, and the income of the people will also decrease. In order to reduce the resentment of the people, the emperor will definitely turn the knife inward, first attacking himself, then these Han officials, and finally the wealthy workshop owners of the Han Dynasty.

They have been the emperor's subordinates for 20 years and know his majesty's character too well. They believe in sharing happiness and difficulties and pursue fairness, fairness, and damn fairness. As long as an economic crisis breaks out, everyone will suffer together and no one can complain.

The people of the Han Dynasty will not complain about this, but they find it hard to accept. They usually work hard for the country and the people, and the court still takes action against them when it encounters a crisis. Is there any official in the world who has a harder job than the Han officials?
If the Legalists can solve this problem, the three dukes and nine ministers of the Han Dynasty will certainly welcome the Legalists back to the Han Dynasty court. Now the court is in need of someone like you who can really solve the economic crisis. The Legalists are the saviors of the Han Dynasty court.

Zhang Liang shook his head and said, "The root cause of the economic crisis is greed, which is part of human nature. It is an unsolvable problem, so the economic crisis is inevitable. At least I can't think of a solution, and the emperor can't think of a solution either. Otherwise, the emperor would have told me to wait."

Zhou Bo was stunned and felt that what Zhang Liang said made sense. If there is a problem in this world that even the emperor cannot solve, then almost no one can solve it.

But he still held on to a 1 in 10,000 hope and said, "Li Si is no ordinary man. Maybe he has really come up with a solution. I'll just wait here and listen. Anyway, there's nothing to lose."

At this time, Meng Yi said: "In fact, the solution to the problem has long been proposed by our legalist predecessors, which is to use all the power of the land. The Han Dynasty is based on industry, and those industries led by the court have never had the so-called overcapacity.

The textile industry is the industry that the court controls the least. You merchants are extremely greedy and wantonly expand the industry and squeeze profits, which naturally leads to overcapacity and then an economic crisis. But if all the textile industry workshops are run by the court, and these workshops belong to all the people of the Han Dynasty, there will be no industrial crisis. If there is more cloth, some of it can be distributed to the lonely elderly, working farmers and craftsmen of the Han Dynasty. These are the goods they produce. Now they are given to use. Isn't this the way of heaven? The more workshops the court controls, the harder it is for an economic crisis to break out. If all the workshops in the world belong to the court, the economic crisis will naturally be resolved. "

Zhou Bo was excited when he heard this and said, "I finally understand why the Legalists became the most famous school of thought in the world. They are really capable of solving problems. When it comes to solving practical problems, the other schools of thought are still inferior to the Legalists."

(End of this chapter)