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

Chapter 484: Pilot Programs and Local Chaos
On the 10th day of the eleventh month of the nineteenth year of the Han calendar, in Chang'an City, at the Yan Palace.

Zhou Bo sent the content of his communication with Li Si in the form of a news report to Chang'an City and handed it to Xu Fan. He believed that the Legalist state-run economic model could not only greatly enhance the power of the court, control the economy, and prevent the outbreak of economic crises, but also greatly narrow the gap between the rich and the poor and achieve a well-off society ahead of schedule. It was worthy of promotion by the court. He even believed that this model was the most likely model to achieve the Great Harmony.

"Government-run economy!" Xu Fan fell into memories when he saw this word. This should be the word closest to the later era. He didn't expect to see this word in the Han Dynasty. To some extent, Li Si was really ahead of his time. If he did it according to his method, he could really solve the crisis.

In the future, not counting those countries that have not entered industrialization, every industrial country will fall into the distress of overcapacity. Xu Fan has heard this term since he was a child. The overcapacity of industry has driven these imperialist countries to colonize the world and occupy commodity markets and raw material production areas. When the world is divided up by them, they will start to kill each other and eliminate the enemy's industrial capacity to eliminate excess production capacity. This can be said to be an extremely cruel process. The two world wars can be said to be the most deadly and cruel wars in history.

But there was a strange industrial country among them. It took a path different from all other industrial countries. From its founding to its demise, although it was less than 100 years, during such a long period of time, other industrial countries had experienced nearly ten crises, but it had never experienced a crisis, nor had it ever had overcapacity. It only had the problem of insufficient capacity. To some extent, this model was ahead of its time and could not match the productivity at the time.

In later generations, many keyboard warriors enthusiastically discussed that the development of productivity in the AI ​​era should be able to match this model, but unfortunately, there is no such opportunity for social development. It can be seen that in order to complete a social transformation, the right time, the right place, and the right people are all indispensable. Now we can only wait for the next era of great change, and another group of idealists to verify this model.

"The Legalists really like to make configurations that exceed the limits of productivity. They carried out total war in the feudal era and started a state-run economy when the first scientific and technological revolution just broke out. They were only half a step ahead of the times, but you always like to take a big step ahead of the times, which is easy to cause trouble. I have seen the consequences of taking this path. It is not suitable for the Han Dynasty today."

The state-run economy did solve the economic crisis, but it brought about problems such as market rigidity, lack of motivation for workshop development, and a lifeless society. Compared with these problems, the economic crisis was nothing. At least the Han Dynasty had a way to solve this problem. At worst, they could immigrate and reclaim wasteland and create new markets. The world was vast enough for the Han Dynasty to develop for two or three hundred years. But what to do after two or three hundred years?
Damn it, the Han Dynasty has already survived a dynasty cycle, why bother about problems two or three hundred years later?

However, the official economy had to constantly target Han officials in order to maintain the vitality of the entire system. He had the ability to do this, but future generations would not have such prestige. The only thing Xu Fan knew was that this system did not survive a hundred years.

Xu Fan wanted to wait until Zhou Bo returned to Chang'an City to warn him that this path was not feasible. There was no perfect economic model in this society. The economic crisis in the industrial age was much better than the cannibalism in the feudal era. It was a wrong idea to want to solve all the contradictions in the world once and for all with a template.

But Xu Fan obviously underestimated the impact of this debate on the academic community of the Han Dynasty. The content of this debate was quickly reprinted in Legal Monthly, Han Monthly and other large and small weekly magazines. In less than half a month, all the officials in the Han Dynasty knew the content of this debate and began to discuss the model put forward by the Legalists. The more they discussed it, the more they felt that this model was perfect. It was then quickly passed on to the Han Dynasty officialdom, and they were also extremely surprised when they learned about this model.

First, this model can solve the economic crisis that troubles them. For Han officials, stability is more important than anything else. The court often turns the knife inward, which is too cruel for them to bear.

Secondly, this model can greatly expand their rights. Now there are many Han officials who cannot be controlled. They cannot interfere with private workshops, money houses, the school system, and the legal system. If they embezzle a little money, they will be caught by the Supreme Court. It is obviously their own territory, but underneath it are independent kingdoms.

If Han officials wanted to realize their political ambitions, they also needed economic support. If they realized the state-run economy, they could gain control over most of the workshops and develop the local economy according to their own ideas.

All Han officials also began to write to the court to promote the official economic model in order to combat the impending economic crisis and resolve the court's predicament.

On November 25, this trend began to affect the Han Dynasty court. Prime Minister Ye Teng and acting prime minister Cao Shen also met with the emperor and proposed to experiment with the model of government-run economy to alleviate the economic crisis of the Han Dynasty.

Xu Fan was stunned and asked, "You also think this model is very good?"

This surprised Xu Fan. Both of them were experienced Han officials and they should have been able to see the flaws in this model.

Ye Teng said: "Legalists tend to go to extremes, and the court should indeed control it. There may be other flaws, but this model can enhance the power of the court and solve the crisis of overcapacity. With these two advantages, it is worth the court to verify it."

Cao Shen said helplessly: "Your Majesty, I have served as the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty for less than five years, but I cannot see clearly what path the Han Dynasty should take for development. From these years, I feel that the Han Dynasty is like a blind man and a blind horse, walking on an unknown path. Although the Han Dynasty is developing rapidly, it will always encounter obstacles. We are not sure whether there is a cliff on this road. My idea is to adapt to several more paths. When the current path of the Han Dynasty is blocked, there are other paths to choose from."

People like Ye Teng are different from Xu Fan. Not to mention the state-run economy, they don't know what to do with the current industrial development situation of the Han Dynasty. Although all industries are developing very well, there is always overcapacity, which is very distressing. The current economic system will have problems every ten years, and it doesn't look like a smooth road. People of this era have a strong sense of morality. They all want their own political operating model to last for a hundred years, and preferably like Zhou Gongdan, which brought 800 years of dynasty and national fortune.

Although the model proposed by the Legalists has no known flaws, it has two obvious advantages. They want to find a smoother path, so it is natural for them to have this idea.

After listening to what the two people said, Xu Fan fell into deep thought. He was the only one who knew the drawbacks of the state-run economy. If the Han Dynasty did not take this path now, perhaps future generations would find a way to take it.

Wang Mang's reforms could be said to be without any ideals. If Wang Mang really had no ideals, perhaps his new dynasty could have lasted for dozens or even hundreds of years. But the tragedy was that he really wanted to distribute land equally and realize the Confucian ideal of the Three Dynasties. Unfortunately, this came at the cost of destroying an empire, proving that this path was a dead end.

The Confucian scholars of the Eastern Han Dynasty suffered a blow and completely lost their ideals. Therefore, when the aristocratic families came to power in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Confucian classics became family studies. They only cared about the inheritance of their own families and no longer cared about the problems encountered in social development. The premise of the Eastern Han Dynasty's three dukes in four generations was that countless poor sons had no way to serve the country. Therefore, there is really nothing to say about the Eastern Han Dynasty in history. When they lost their upward ideals, the Eastern Han Dynasty was not as good as the Western Han Dynasty in terms of land area, military strength, and even the living standards of the people. They could only talk about morality to confuse the people, so the 24 filial piety stories, which can be called fantastic, appeared.

To use a popular term on the Internet in later generations, the two hundred years of the Eastern Han Dynasty were garbage time in history, because it never reached the peak of the Western Han Dynasty in terms of politics, economy, and culture, but was in a state of gradual decline.

When Xu Fan read Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a child, he had a feeling that with so many heroes in that period, how could they be powerless to save the situation and let the most rubbish family gain control of the world? Now he knows that it was because the world at that time was occupied by those rubbish aristocratic families, and this was not a trend that could be changed by one or two heroes.

Xu Fan discovered that when he was in power, he could try out more paths, even if they were wrong, it didn't matter, as it was just to accumulate experience for future generations. With him around, the cost of trial and error for the Han court could be minimized.

After figuring it out, Xu Fan said, "After Zhou Bo returns to the court, the court will use one county as a pilot."

"Your Majesty is wise!" Ye Teng and Cao Shen said.

On December 2, Zhou Bo, who had already returned to Nanjun, received an order from the emperor, asking him to deal with the chaos in the Jianghuai counties on behalf of the Han court and to let local Han officials obey the court's orders.

Last year and this year, Xu Fan summoned the governors of all counties in the Han Dynasty and informed them of the overcapacity and the impending economic crisis, so that they could prepare for the crisis.

When the county governors from various places heard the emperor's words, their reactions were completely different from what Xu Fan had expected. Instead of preparing to clear the area and leave, they increased their stakes and wanted to take advantage of the crisis.

Competition in the textile industry was becoming increasingly fierce. Xu Fan had the experience of later generations and knew that in such a competitive industry, government-run workshops generally had no advantage. It just so happened that the Han Dynasty's steel mills, equipment factories, steam plants, and shipyards had risen strongly in recent years, and the profits they could provide were getting higher and higher. Xu Fan simply took advantage of the good market conditions in the textile industry to sell at a high price.

Some of these textile workshops were purchased by the craftsmen of the textile factories themselves and became collective workshops, while others were purchased by private textile workshop owners. The textile industry was not profitable for the imperial court, but it was different for them. If they reduced the welfare benefits a little, the profits would go up, and they wanted to use this to expand their market share.

The textile industry is already the most competitive industry in the Han Dynasty. The more scale advantages you have, the more you can gain the upper hand. Therefore, these private workshop owners do not want to be eliminated. They can only desperately expand their own scale and rely on scale advantages to gain profits. Even if the profit drops to only half, as long as they can sell 1 million goods, they can make a profit of 500 million yuan. Winning by quantity has become the norm in the textile industry. These people have been involved in the whole industry to the point where it is unprofitable. But they have to endure even if it is unprofitable. If they can outlive others, they can survive.

But another part of it was purchased by the county officials. The court officials looked down on the profits of these textile workshops, but the county officials of the Han Dynasty were still very willing to take over.

When they knew that Dahan was about to face a capacity crisis, they did not stop, but wanted to learn from Xu Fan's idea of ​​expanding capacity against the trend and occupying more market share. So they worked very hard this year and merged a large number of local textile workshops.

Two months ago, Song Yi and Xiong Xin found Xu Fan and carefully told him that the imperial court wanted the four major banks to shrink their fronts and recover the loans, and they had already completed 90% of the loans to private workshops.

However, there were still some government-run workshops in counties and prefectures. Not only did they not repay the money, they also wanted to continue borrowing. Naturally, the two men refused to do so. If they violated the emperor's order, their future would be in jeopardy.

But what Song Yi and the others never expected was that the local money houses had gone out of control, even though they had issued orders not to allow further lending.

But as of October of the 19th year of the Han Dynasty, local county loans not only did not decrease, but increased by 60%. When they realized the seriousness of the problem, the two had no choice but to turn to the emperor for help.

After knowing this, although Xu Fan was angry, he also understood that this kind of thing was bound to happen. Compared with his superiors who were far away, the county magistrate who was right in front of him could better control these banks.

This kind of thing should be handled according to the system. If the local Han officials dare to cross the line, the court will punish them according to the system. As long as the local Han officials are punished a few times, they will naturally understand what they can and cannot do.

The fear is that the system you set up does not dare to punish such things, and the rules and regulations become a mere decoration. The prestige of the court is also declining under the repeated breakthroughs of local Han officials. There are so many things in the Han Dynasty that have repeatedly broken the bottom line, so that it becomes uncontrollable. The court's decrees become a mere decoration, and the so-called unspoken rules begin to prevail. Corrupting the world's atmosphere, reducing social credit, and increasing the cost of living for the people of the world.

Xu Fan simply handed the matter over to Zhou Bo. It had been more than ten years since Zhou Bo became the Tax Inspector and he had not been in contact with local affairs. This time was a good opportunity for him to get to know the situation of the local Han officials.

After Zhou Bo received this order, he thought it was no big deal. The court had already reminded him two years in advance, so even a fool should know what to do.

But when he really arrived in Chenjun, the accountants, censors and others worked day and night to review various materials from the Chenjun government office and the four major banks. After the check, everyone was stunned, even Zhou Bo was shocked. He never expected that these officials below not only disobeyed the court's orders, but also went against the court.

They took over the workshops sold by the court in various ways. The court asked them to reduce production and prepare for the winter, but they expanded against the trend and wanted to occupy a larger share. This is really a case of not taking the right path but going down a dead end. Zhou Bo was so angry that he was speechless.

Because expanding against the trend is considered a good thing. After all, it is really for the development of the workshop and doing things. It is just a matter of poor ability.

The key is that some more daring Han officials colluded with the managers of the four major money houses to set up fake state-run workshops, and then lent money at an ultra-low interest rate of 10%, and then lent money at an ultra-high interest rate of 20% to 30% to those workshop owners who were in urgent need of development. Even the sea merchants from Kuaiji County came to Chen County to borrow money.

The four major banks in the Han Dynasty tightened their lending business, but that doesn't mean that the people of the Han Dynasty don't have this demand. If the formal banks are unwilling to lend, then there will naturally be informal banks to fill this part of the market business, and of course their fees are higher. But people who are short of money have no other choice, they can only accept this super high interest.

This gave them room for collusion between officials and businessmen. A loan could be lent through these non-existent workshops to those who really needed money, and they could earn 10 to 20 percent interest, which was then divided privately by the petty officials and money shop managers in the chain.

According to Zhou Bo's investigation, the amount of money loaned out through these non-existent workshops was as high as 12 billion yuan. This was just a problem discovered in Chen County. There were fifty counties in the entire Han Dynasty. If every county was like Chen County, the annual fiscal revenue of the entire Han Dynasty court would not be able to fill this hole.

How dare they do this? Zhou Bo said angrily.

He immediately reported the chaos in Chen County in Guangbao, and requested the emperor to authorize him to temporarily mobilize a battalion of troops from Chen County to suppress the local Han officials.

He even said the word "suppress", which shows how angry Zhou Bo was inside.

Half a day later, the news came from Guangbao, and the emperor said, "Yes!"

After Zhou Bo was authorized, he seized the power of Chen County Lieutenant and detained him. Then, with the authority of County Lieutenant, he began to mobilize the chiefs of Chen County and other five counties, asking them to recruit 100 people each.

As soon as this order was issued, the entire Chen County was in an uproar. The last time the people of Chen County received a conscription order was more than ten years ago when they fought against Xiang Yu.

Every soldier who returned victoriously that year received generous rewards, and many of them even achieved a leap in their family's fortunes, becoming the most powerful people in the Han Dynasty.

Now there is another opportunity to make achievements, and these soldiers gathered very quickly. Thousands of soldiers in Chen County gathered in half a day, and then gathered in the county city. Then Zhou Bo issued an order to block the entire Chen County, not allowing anyone to enter or leave.

The next day, the other four armies also joined in Chenjun and followed Zhou Bo's orders. A total of 5000 soldiers blocked Chenjun tightly.

At this time, the Han officials in Chen County began to panic, as Prime Minister Zhou Bo had ill intentions.

(End of this chapter)