Ten Dragons Take the Inheritance

Chapter 445 The Qing Post Office

"The beacon fire lasts for three months, and the family letter is worth ten thousand gold." Du Fu's poem said that it is not easy for the ancients to deliver letters. Even today, when post stations have spread all over the country's major cities, it is still not easy to deliver letters, especially private letters. ——The post station is exclusively used by the government, and the common people have no right to use it, even if they pay for it.In this day and age, the transmission of private letters is still very backward. In addition to asking acquaintances to help deliver letters, there is only one way to entrust some "travelers" who specialize in delivering letters for others to deliver letters. Very bad.There is no doubt that the potential market of the post office is huge, but whether it can make a profit while it is convenient for the people is another matter. Absolutely impossible.

The Eight Banners Company is an economic monster of this era. In terms of its turnover, it is also the largest economic complex in human history so far. Its business scope covers almost all industries. The only industry that the Eight Banners Company has not set foot in is the brothel up.Liu Chang'e was able to become the helm of the domestic part of the Eight Banners Company, not only because of his father's Yu Ze, but more importantly, Liu Chang'e himself was a business genius, with a strong ability to grasp business opportunities, and his mind was very good. When the concept of the post office was proposed, Liu Chang'e began to think about it. After Yin Zuo finished explaining the general idea of ​​the post office, Liu Chang'e had already sorted out the overall idea.

"Reporting to the Holy Majesty, the slave thinks that this post office can be set up, but whether it can make a profit depends on how the Holy Majesty plans to operate it. If it is run by the slave, it will be profitable and convenient for the people. If it is undertaken by the General Logistics Department, the slave can't guarantee it." Yin Zuo As soon as the words fell, Liu Chang'e replied very respectfully.

Uh huh, this makes a lot of sense. Either the state-owned monopoly will make a profit but fail to make things convenient for the people, or it will simply lose money and make a mistake. However, if the matter is entrusted to the Eight Banners Company, the Eight Banners Company is already a If the giant becomes a giant, it can do everything and monopolize everything. In the future, it will be difficult to start the strategy of building a country through commerce. In addition, if the government's official documents and military newspapers are handed over to the Eight Banners, it is impossible to guarantee that there will be no mistakes. It's not fun to leak secrets, let alone hand over to other private people to run the post office.Yinzuo's mind moved quickly, but he didn't say what he was thinking about, he just smiled and said: "Tell me, if you do it, what should the post office do?"

"Yes, Your Majesty." Liu Chang'e said in a deep thought: "I think that although the current post system is usable, there are many disadvantages in it. It is necessary to receive and deliver official documents. Not to mention that everything is complicated, and the demolition is rotten. There are too many things to mention, and the slaves think that if you want to open a post office, you can divide it into several steps: the first step is to separate, that is, to separate the post from the station, and the system of reporting horses is no longer related to welcoming and sending; the second step, Reorganize and strengthen the existing horse reporting system, and adjust it according to the population density; the third step is to set up a special management agency to sort out a set of reasonable posting fees, according to the distance of posting, the weight of the package, the degree of urgency, etc. Valuation; the fourth step is to issue the stamps and envelopes mentioned above, and implement them nationwide."

"Yeah." Yinzuo nodded noncommittally, and after thinking for a while, looked at Zhou Yongcheng who was standing aside with his eyes downcast, and said, "Chang'e, you can ask the Eight Banners to deploy more manpower to communicate with the General Logistics Department. Cooperate closely, do some research first, and come up with a charter as soon as possible, I will give you a plan for what to do, go ahead."

"Yes, the slave is resigning." Liu Chang'e is a sober person. Seeing that Yinzuo didn't immediately agree to hand over the matter to the Eight Banners firm, he knew that Yinzuo still wanted to hand over the matter to the General Logistics Department, and he didn't dare to do so. Not being dissatisfied, he hurriedly responded, kowtowed respectfully, and exited the upper study.

"You Fu, you heard everything clearly, the matter of the post office has to be sorted out quickly, well, if you are nervous about reporting horses during this period of time, I have a decree, first select some troops from the garrisons in various places to deal with it, After the regulations of the post office come out, we can make a decision, um, is it enough to give you a month to make adjustments?" After Liu Chang'e left, Yinzuo looked at Zhou Yongcheng and said.

Although Zhou Yongcheng kept silent all the time, he listened very attentively. In his heart, he had already secretly evaluated the post office system proposed by Yinzuo, and he admired the wonderful ideas in it. Li still meant to put the post office under the leadership of the General Logistics Department, and he was even more excited in his heart. He nodded vigorously and said, "Yes, Your Majesty, I will definitely sort out the regulations on time."

On the fifth day of August in the fourth year of Yuanzhuo, on the fifteenth day, on the 25th, the second, third, and fourth issues of "Jingshi Chronicle" were released one after another, and the "five puzzles and ten mistakes" mentioned in the "Wan Yan Shu" were published. The two sides launched a heated debate in the newspapers—there was generally no doubt about the merits and demerits of the Battle of Brento Haizi, and few people raised objections. There are few controversies about diplomatic negotiations, mainly because scholars in this era don't understand what diplomacy is all about, and they can't raise too many objections at all. The vast majority of scholars still welcome it; although some people raised objections to the military system reform, they did not mention the idea, basically it is nonsense like nonsense, and it is not even qualified to be published in newspapers; The erroneous criticisms of the ministers basically dissipated due to the confession of the ministers in the first issue of the newspaper. Even some disputes were difficult to be elegant; the controversy over the partial reform of the imperial examination proposed by Yin Zuo was not small, but because Yin Zuo carried After Confucian's "Six Arts", many scholars have no choice but to complain about the increased burden of examinations. As for the reform of martial arts, no one mentioned it. One is that martial arts has little to do with scholars. People will complain about martial arts, both. After the reform, the military academy replaced the martial arts. Not only did it not reduce the number of military officials, but it increased by dozens of times. No one will get cheap and act good.

The focus of the debate is on the money law and the way of business. Both sides of the debate express their views on the pros and cons of the current money law, but generally speaking, the opinion in favor has an absolute advantage, and there is no other. At this time, the money law has been implemented for eight months. Yu Yu, although the currency exchange work is still in progress, it is coming to an end, and the benefits of the new money law, tax system transactions, and tax payments have begun to appear. Facts always speak louder than words, don’t they?However, the dispute over the status of commerce was extremely intense, and it was difficult to distinguish between the two.

Whether it is in the Confucian classics or the royal ruling thoughts of the past dynasties in China, the status of the people is always ranked as scholars, farmers, businessmen, and merchants. Even status, this is a tradition. Although this tradition is a very unreasonable tradition, the vitality of the tradition is frighteningly strong.In fact, in this great debate, the number of people who support the improvement of the status of businessmen is far lower than the number of people who oppose it. If it weren't for the outstanding writing skills of Fang Bao and others, I'm afraid they would have already fallen behind.

Yinzuo has always attached great importance to business, no matter when he was an elder brother or now as the emperor, various policies to encourage industry and commerce have been introduced, but Yinzuo has never dared to directly put forward the idea of ​​"commercial use". In addition to worrying about the digestibility of the market, the more important thing is: Yin Zuo is not sure that he can immediately change those deep-rooted traditional concepts , as an emperor, you must not make a will for a while, regardless of the tradition, if it causes turmoil, then the gain will outweigh the loss.

"I think this newspaper is doing very well. The "five puzzles and ten faults" in the "Wan Yan Shu" are now only one puzzle. It doesn't matter if you don't understand. Facts speak louder than words. Businessmen The issue of the status of the government can be put on hold for now, and a decision will be made later. In my opinion, this debate should end here. Well, the General Logistics Department has proposed a post office idea. You all have a look, please give me your opinion. Now, if you think it’s feasible, you might as well let the newspaper publish first, one to shift the focus of the debate, and the other to create momentum for the post office.” Yin Zuo pointed to the newspaper in his hand with a smile, and spoke to the people gathered in the upper study room. The ministers of military aircraft said.

After a group of ministers went to the study and circulated the feasibility report prepared by Zhou Yongcheng and Liu Chang'e, Ma Qi was the first to stand up and said: "My lord, this is an act for the benefit of the people. It should be feasible, but it is just an official document, Whether the transmission of the military report will be affected is still unknown, and would it be better to separate it?"
"Master Ma's words are reasonable, but the official thinks that official documents are recorded with the special postmark of the government, and military newspapers also have special military mail, and they are not mixed with ordinary letters when they are delivered. Moreover, there are also urgent military newspapers and official documents. There should be nothing wrong with the special line transmission." Zhou Yongcheng explained calmly with confidence.

Zhang Tingyu frowned and thought for a while: "Master Zhou, according to your regulations, a letter from Jinling to the capital needs to be stamped with [-] cents for ordinary letters. It can arrive within [-] days, and express letters can be posted with [-] cents. It can arrive within ten days. Express Paste the star anise and deliver it within five days, I have two questions, one is, can such a fee cover the cost, and the other is, can the public accept such an expensive fee?"

"Responding to Zhang Zhongtang's words, in terms of ordinary letters, they are sent uniformly in horse-drawn carriages. If a horse-drawn carriage can carry more than [-] letters, after deducting the cost, you can still get a profit of three cents per letter. As for whether the public can accept this As for the tariff, the lower officials have done research, and have conducted investigations in dozens of places such as Jinling, Luoyang, and Xi'an. The public's ability to accept ordinary mail tariffs is still reliable. As for express mail and express, they are prepared for merchants. As long as it can be delivered in time, ordinary merchants can afford this kind of money." Zhou Yongcheng replied calmly.

……At the same time, the Minister of Military Aircraft raised some opinions and doubts around all aspects of the post office. Zhou Yongcheng answered them one by one in a leisurely manner. Let’s publish this matter in the newspaper first, and try it out in Jinling, Changsha, Xi’an, and Chengdu. After summing up the experience, it will be promoted to the whole country. The Military Aircraft Department will prepare and cooperate with the General Logistics Department to come up with a postal law. , when it is fully promoted, I will issue a clear edict."

(End of this chapter)