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

Chapter 552: Linzi County with cheats and elimination of backward production capacity

In Chang'an City, a grand meeting was held.

Zhao Shu, the governor of Sanchuan County, shouted loudly: "The Prime Minister and the court must find a way to save the market. If they don't, the crisis will become more serious and will affect the great prosperity of the Han Dynasty."

The more industrial the county, the more serious the impact of the economic crisis on them. Before Zhao Shu left Sanchuan County, the number of unemployed people in Sanchuan County had exceeded 10, accounting for one-tenth of the total population of Luoyang. Although it seems not much, you have to know that these unemployed are the young and strong in Luoyang City. They are the backbone of a family. With so many people unemployed, Sanchuan County is equivalent to one-fifth to one-quarter of the families losing their backbone and the source of the economy.

Li Shang said unhappily, "The court warned you a year ago, but how many of you listened? Especially in Sanchuan County, your steel production capacity has increased tenfold in 10 years. The court asked you to control the production capacity, but which of your two prefects listened? When you, Zhao Shu, went to Sanchuan County as the prefect four years ago, you encouraged the steel merchants in Sanchuan County to work hard to expand production capacity. Even though the court had warned of the production capacity crisis a year ago, you still added two large steel mills."

Zhao Shu said awkwardly: "Luoyang's steel industry is mainly dominated by private businesses. They use their own money to build steel mills, and it is difficult for me to stop them."

Compared with other counties in the Han Dynasty, the power of private merchants in Luoyang City is stronger. The core forces of Luoyang City's major pillar industries such as steel, machinery, carriages and horses, and textiles are all private merchants. Of course, this also has historical reasons. The main economic entities in the feudal era were mainly based on farming, and a few handicraft centers were enough to cover the world.

At that time, the silk handicraft centers of the world were in Linzi County and Shu County, the steel smelting center was in Nanyang County, and the handicraft centers of various luxury goods were in Sanchuan County. Due to the special geographical location, the trade center was also in Sanchuan County.

Other industrial counties of the Han Dynasty had no money, no craftsmen, no technology, and nothing in the feudal era. Today's factories are almost all developed by the Shaofu of the Han Dynasty. The Shaofu factories are not only at the upstream of the industrial chain and dominate the integration of the entire county's industrial chain, but in some counties, even the Shaofu factories of the Han Dynasty occupy an advantageous position.

The private merchants in Sanchuan County were wealthy and powerful. When the Han Dynasty began to use industry as the foundation of the country, these merchants in Luoyang City could rely on the craftsman resources and capital resources accumulated in the previous era, as well as the original business system advantages, to make the private economy of Sanchuan County very active and occupy an absolute dominant position.

This has an advantage, that is, these merchants can allocate their own money according to market demand, without having to obey the orders of the Han Shaofu, and can also ignore the warnings of the Shangji. Zhao Shu can also shirk his responsibility and say that it is not easy to stop them.

But Li Shang looked at Zhao Shu and sneered. Zhao Shu's idea, in the words of later generations, was Sima Zhao's intention, and everyone knew it. He just wanted to maintain the economic status of Sanchuan County. The rapid development of the steel industry in Sanchuan County was not caused by the constant instigation of the two governors.

When the Han Dynasty was just founded, Sanchuan County could be said to be ranked among the top three counties. Luoyang City was located in the Central Plains with fertile land. In addition, there was Ao Cang, the world's general granary. In the feudal era, Luoyang City was the place with the greatest wealth in the world.

In addition, Sanchuan County was located near the Yellow River, which could influence more than a dozen counties in the Central Plains. The opening of the Grand Canal also connected it to the Yangtze River, Huai River and Yangtze River. It can be said that Luoyang was the most important transportation center of the entire Han Dynasty.

Occupying such a favorable geographical location, Sanchuan County had always been the second most powerful county in the first decade of the Han Dynasty, so the people of Luoyang City were extremely proud of it. In terms of historical heritage, they were the capital of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty; in terms of cultural heritage, they were the cultural center since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period; in terms of economic heritage, Luoyang City had been the most prosperous place in the world for more than 800 years, so the people of Luoyang City were naturally qualified to be proud.

But all this ended when the Han Dynasty opened up the sea. The Spice Islands were discovered, and the Han Dynasty found the Indian continent, as well as various civilizations and countries west of Shenzhou.

The economy of the coastal counties, led by Kuaiji County, has grown by leaps and bounds, and there is no limit to this growth momentum. Kuaiji County, a county located in a wild land before the Qin Dynasty, is now one of the top two economically powerful counties in the Han Dynasty.

More than ten years ago, Chen County carried out government-run reforms. Under the strong leadership of the Legalists, it integrated the industrial chains of the three counties and gave full play to its original advantages in industrial production capacity. In recent years, its textile industry, steel industry, machinery manufacturing industry, and even overseas export business have made rapid progress, quickly surpassing Sanchuan County and continuing to maintain its economic size in the first echelon of the Han Dynasty.

In this fierce economic competition, Luoyang City has begun to gradually fall behind, and is in a position where it is neither up nor down. Compared with the top three, Sanchuan County has obvious gaps in economic size, tax revenue, and even the salaries of ordinary craftsmen, but it is also one level higher than ordinary counties in the Han Dynasty. This has put Sanchuan County in an awkward situation: it wants to be a first-tier city, but there is an obvious gap. Its own pride does not allow it to degenerate into a second-tier city.

What has made Sanchuan Junjin even more embarrassed in recent years is that Linzi County, which had been his competitor for hundreds of years but declined after the Qin and Han Wars, has climbed back again in recent years with the help of the New World.

After the discovery of the New World, the trade volume between the Han Dynasty and the New World quickly exceeded 100 billion and grew to 200 billion in less than ten years. Even with such rapid growth, as more and more vassal states of the Han Dynasty were enfeoffed to the New World, the overall trade volume was still rising rapidly, and most of this huge amount of wealth was obtained by Linzi County.

You should know that the Han Dynasty had more than a dozen industrial counties. If you count all the light industries mainly based on textiles, they can basically be regarded as industrial counties. Since the outbreak of the first economic crisis, the production efficiency of the Han Dynasty has exceeded the consumer market for the first time. How to find a distribution market has become a problem for all industrial counties in the Han Dynasty. You want to dump others, and others also want to dump you. If the Han Dynasty court had not strongly suppressed and established a unified large market within the Han Dynasty, the local counties would have divided the Han Dynasty into more than 50 independent small markets in order to grab the market.

Linzi County was the envy of all the Han county governors. A huge gift package fell from the sky, and a market worth tens of millions fell on his head.

There is nothing in the New World except gold, silver, precious medicinal materials, scarce rubber resources, timber resources, fertilizer resources, and a group of natives who can only dance hula.

Food needs to be purchased from the Han Dynasty, cloth and silk need to be purchased from the Han Dynasty, and of course all kinds of steel raw materials, machinery, and even transportation ships all need to be transported by the Han Dynasty. In short, it can be said that there is no goods from the Han Dynasty that the New World does not need.

With such a large market, the industrial development of Linzi County was booming. More than 1000 million pieces of cotton, silk, linen and other cloths were produced, and more than 600 pieces were sold to the New World, making textile merchants in other counties and counties of the Han Dynasty drooling. Even grain, the least valuable commodity in the Han Dynasty, was transported to more than 300 million stones in the New World, making Linzi County the largest grain trading center in the Han Dynasty.

Not to mention the steel machinery industry, Linzi County has a monopoly of 10 million of the 7 billion market. More importantly, the various specialties of the New World are either precious metals with extremely high profits or specialties that the Han Dynasty urgently needs. This makes it unlike Tianzhu, which will be squeezed dry after a few years. The trade between the New World and the Han Dynasty has always been very balanced. The inputs are the most scarce resources of the Han Dynasty, and there is still huge room for growth. This complementary trade can exist for a long time.

Relying on the extremely vast and rapidly developing market of the New World, Linzi County's industrial development was injected with endless impetus. The textile industry, steel industry, mechanical processing industry, and shipping industry all grew by leaps and bounds. Merchants from the Han Dynasty flocked to Linzi County to set up factories. In ten years, 15 industrial zones were built in Linzi County, and fiscal revenue increased tenfold. Linzi County even relied on the fiscal surplus to build a 10-mile railway, achieving railway mileage in every county, the longest in the world. Linzi County connected all 5000 industrial zones with railways, and was able to transport its own goods to the New World at the lowest transportation cost.

Linzi County caught up quickly and soon surpassed Sanchuan County, which brought them tremendous pressure because Linzi County's growth potential was obviously higher than Sanchuan County.

It would be fine if they couldn't catch up with other newcomers, but now even their brothers in trouble are about to surpass them. The people in Sanchuan County have a complicated mentality of being afraid of their brothers in trouble, and also afraid of their brothers driving a Land Rover.

With all the complicated factors combined, everyone in Sanchuan County had the idea of ​​rapid development, and the competition with the Han Dynasty in all walks of life was extremely fierce. If you wanted to bite off a small piece of the market, you had to be prepared to bleed.

But soon, merchants in Sanchuan County found an industry with great growth potential and high profits, that is, the steel industry. They already have a foundation in the steel industry, and with the convenient transportation environment, the radiation range for Sanchuan County is extremely wide, whether it is the input of raw materials or the output of the market. More importantly, the court replaced wooden tracks with railways, and the market prospects are visible. The steel consumption alone is as high as more than 10 billion. Therefore, in the past years, merchants in Sanchuan County have invested all their money in the steel industry, forming a cluster advantage. The price of steel in Sanchuan County is at the lowest level of the best price in the Han Dynasty. Coupled with the advantages of the market and transportation, Sanchuanjin's steel production capacity has rapidly increased, becoming the largest steel center in the Han Dynasty. After more than ten years of development, the industrial scale of Sanchuan County has increased rapidly, and it is chasing after Linzi County, which has opened plug-ins, to catch up with the first echelon of the Han Dynasty.

But steel is both the cause of success and the cause of failure. This time, the Han Dynasty's economic crisis happened to be in the steel industry, which dealt a heavy blow to the economy of Sanchuan County. Now, let alone catching up with Chang'an, Kuaiji County, and Chen County, they don't even know if they can maintain their current status.

This is why Zhao Shu said he wanted to save the market as soon as he arrived in Chang'an City. The situation in Luoyang City was already very dangerous.

Li Shang said: "Since you don't obey the orders of the court, you will be responsible for the crisis."

Li Shang wanted to curse. This was only his second year as prime minister, and during this year he had to reform the court system and deal with natural disasters in the north and south. This was enough to make him overwhelmed. Many corrupt scholars even said that he was unpopular, so the gods sent down these disasters. It must be that the emperor was disdainful of such things, otherwise his situation would have been even more difficult. As a result, the economic crisis broke out again before the first two things were dealt with.

This has happened for the third time. The local county magistrates always only care about food and not punishment. This economic crisis is even more serious. The bad debts of banks have exceeded 800 billion yuan. According to this trend, the bad debts will exceed billion yuan by the end of the year. The crisis is getting more serious each time.

How could he go to the meeting of sages with such an achievement? Would he try to turn a funeral into a wedding and tell the sages of the Han Dynasty that under his leadership, the economy of the Han Dynasty had grown ever larger, so the bad debts caused by the crisis were also increasing!

Li Shang also has his dignity to save.

Wu Zhuan, the governor of Nanyang County, said: "Prime Minister, it is not that we are unwilling to obey the orders of the court, but we also have difficulties. Now the Han Dynasty has more than two million young adults every year. These people were born under the Han Dynasty and grew up in a prosperous era. When they were born, they were already in the prosperous era of the Han Dynasty and did not suffer much. They are also unwilling to suffer. They don't want to stay in the fields, they don't want to go to the settlements, let alone let them go overseas to the New World. Now there is no land to be distributed to them in the local area, and these young people can only run to the city. The court wants to find jobs for them. How can there be jobs if we don't develop industry?
Last year, the imperial court did say that we should limit the scale of the steel industry. I don't know about other counties, but in Nanyang County, the steel industry is a pillar industry. Every year, it can absorb 50,000 young and strong people into the upstream and downstream industrial chains related to the steel industry. If we stop the growth of the scale, what should we do with these young people? Should we let them do nothing and become hooligans in the city? "

"But the court has asked us to focus on youth employment. This is an issue that the court has asked us to address almost every year. It was even ranked first in the last assessment. What do you want us to do? If we don't expand the scale of the industry, how can we place the young and strong?"

Jiang Bin said, "Prime Minister, the number of people arranged by the court to settle and cultivate land has been decreasing in recent years. After you became prime minister, the number of places for settlement and cultivation has been reduced by half. If these young people do not go to settle and cultivate land, they can only stay in the local area. The court must find jobs for them. We are also acting in accordance with the orders of the court."

Although Jiang Bin did not say it explicitly, his words implied that the court asked them to limit the scale of the industry on the one hand, and to arrange jobs for these young and strong people on the other hand, in order to pass the blame to the local governors. It is not impossible to reduce the production capacity of the steel industry, but in return the court must arrange more young people to settle and cultivate land to solve the employment problem of local youth, so that they can control the production capacity of the steel industry. But last year's list of people to be settled and cultivated was half short. What can you ask them to do?

Li Shang sighed inwardly. He didn't want to reduce the scale of military reclamation, but he had just taken office as prime minister and it was really difficult for him to withstand the pressure of military reclamation.

The main theme of the Han Dynasty's reclamation was fairness and openness. People were sent to the poor counties and the rich places. People were sent to the villages and the cities. The common people were sent to the villages and the Han officials and nobles were also required to arrange for their sons and daughters to go to the villages in proportion every year.

If these Han officials and nobles were sent away, the pressure of reclamation would not be so great. However, the emperor insisted on fairness and justice, so reclamation became something that everyone in the entire Han Dynasty hated. No one wanted to leave their homes and go to the south or north thousands of miles away to settle down. Especially since the reclamation of the Han Dynasty had lasted for more than ten years, the pressure from all sides was increasing.

This was because the emperor had high prestige, and the Han Dynasty's policy of land reclamation could still be implemented. However, the accumulated resentment and the pressure of resistance became increasingly greater. In recent years, the descendants of the Han Dynasty's nobles and officials who went to the land for land reclamation either fled to the territories of the princes or secretly returned to the Han Dynasty.

Zhou Bo was a tax inspector. Because of his many tax reforms, he was known as a tough and iron-blooded prime minister. However, even a tough man like him had to gradually narrow the list of people for military settlement.

Although Li Shang was also a veteran of the Han Dynasty, his contributions and prestige were far inferior to those of Zhou Bo. It was difficult for him to do what Zhou Bo could do. He reduced the list in order to ease some conflicts and win over Han officials, but it ended up becoming an excuse for local Han officials to shirk responsibility.

Li Shang said solemnly, "Since you say so, I will double the list of settlements this year. You can also gather together those unemployed and bankrupt craftsmen. It just so happens that the princes of the New World are short of civilians. Sending hundreds of thousands of Han civilians over will solve the employment problem of the court, and the major princes of the Han Dynasty will also solve the problem of civilian shortage."

The whole audience was stunned. They never expected that Li Shang would be so desperate at this moment.

Zhuo Hong, the governor of Handan, said with a bitter face: "Prime Minister, now is not the time to fight. The steel production capacity of our Great Han is close to 100 billion catties, which is more than 500 million tons according to the imperial system. The total output value has exceeded billion. If the upstream and downstream industries are taken into account, the impact will be to billion in economic volume. If the imperial court does not find a way to save the market, I am afraid that the economy of our Great Han may not be able to recover in two or three years."

"Yes, yes, now we have to work together to resolve the crisis."

"It's not like the imperial court doesn't need steel. If we build more railways this year to reduce the inventory, the crisis will be solved."

Li Shang sneered, “Then I’ll let you continue to expand your production capacity next year, and the crisis will continue to break out the year after.”

Dongjun Governor Lu Yi quickly shook his head and said, "We will never dare to do it again. When we return, we will obey the orders of the court and will not expand the steel industry within ten years."

Li Shang said: "It's OK to ask the imperial court to rescue the market, but the imperial court also has a requirement. You have to eliminate those backward production capacities."

Zhuo Hong immediately asked: "What is the standard for backward production capacity?"

Li Shang said coldly: "Blast furnaces below 25 tons, that is, blast furnaces below 10 jin, are all backward production capacity. No matter what you do, even if you blow them up or demolish them, you must do this well and then discuss the court's rescue."

(End of this chapter)