warring states careerist

Chapter 922 The Inevitable Road

It's just that the right path for the nobles has actually brought Qi to the brink of economic collapse.

It was impossible for the Qin State to adopt a reform based on the great aristocrats like the Qi State, nor could it adopt this kind of manor owner economy that should have appeared on a large scale in the Tang Dynasty.

The essence is that Qin State is too far away from Sishang, and the only industrial and commercial area with the most developed ability to absorb a large amount of grain and raw materials is in Sishang, which is too close to Qi State. Qin State's geographical location determines that he cannot carry out reforms like Qi State .

The main income of Qi State is still agricultural income, and the strategy of establishing the country through industry and commerce has ceased to exist as early as the dispute between the princes after the death of Duke Huan of Qi.

More importantly, Qi's currency collapsed.

Qi State tried to mint sword coins, using the value of copper itself as currency, but it didn't take long before a very extreme situation occurred.

With the rapid development of agricultural technology, Sishang industry and commerce have produced more goods, and the coins of Qi State, which is the closest to Sishang, the place where the technology was spread, have problems.

The price of copper has risen steadily along with military activities such as casting cannons. There is little copper in Qi. The price of copper may be this price today, and it may be that price tomorrow. In this way, even those who have copper coins in their hands are unwilling Spend the copper coins, preferring to barter.

Copper coins are difficult to circulate. If I spend a catty of grain today, I might buy two catties tomorrow, so why don’t I just exchange it for something and save the copper coins for future purchases?
The nobles refused to mint money privately, and felt that it would be better to use copper to trade directly with the Mohists; it is even more impossible for the monarch to be so stupid as to turn the copper that is rising day by day into money.

It is not impossible to live without money, it must be the era of using stones, bronze farm tools, and yielding [-] catties per mu.

Now, money is not enough.

There are no coins in Qi State, but there are special banknotes on Sishang.

Although the anti-counterfeiting technology is very general, as the place where papermaking first appeared in Sishang, it relies on 20 years of technology accumulation such as simple special ink, thin inner lining of birch bark shipped from North Korea, and original concave-convex printing technology. , It is not something that Qi can imitate.

Over time, Qi State and Sishang first completed the "economic" unification, and Qi State was already within the scope of a unified market centered on Sishang.

The purpose of those nobles to produce grain, cotton ore is to sell them to the city and Sishang in exchange for the goods on Sishang.

The original economy under the most primitive enfeoffment system has actually been destroyed.

Economic activities under the primitive enfeoffment system did not require much money.

Within the fiefdom of the village community, farmers worked for the feudal lord, at most, farmers near some cities paid a kind of tax, and there were no large-scale transactions.

But now everything is different.

This kind of deformed manor owner economy in Qi State is different from the situation around Sishang in Song State.

Surrounding Sishang, that was the first place where the nobles of the Song Dynasty also understood that everything is fake in this year, but money is real.

What's more, they are closer to Sishang, and they are more aware of the Mohist policy on serfs binding slaves and slaves.

Coupled with the fact that Sishang was nearby, the mandatory physical confinement measures would only lead to large-scale escapes.

Therefore, the aristocrats in the Song Dynasty near Sishang adopted the following methods: occupying land, merging land, improving technology, buying new equipment, driving away the unusable population, and going wherever they like.

They manage their own land with the least amount of labor and rely on technological progress. Whether the surplus people go to Sishang to work as hired labor or join the joint farming cooperatives, it has nothing to do with them.

Get the most profit with the least labor, the least cost, and the least wages.

On the Qi side, a small amount of farmland is kept. After the emergence of new crops, three to five acres of farmland will not starve to death, and the rest will continue to maintain the labor rent of the land, making the farmers trapped on the land. Work hard for the nobility.

It may only take one day to escape to Sishang around Sishui; but it is not so easy to escape to Sishang in Qi State.

The more stringent laws prohibiting fleeing, and even the implementation of the sitting law, made the cost of fleeing too high. It is better to live than to die. As long as you don't starve to death, you can always stick to it.

As a result, a lot of cattle, sheep, wool, grain, wine, etc. can be produced, and they will be continuously transported to Sishang by sea.

The top three exports of Qi State are grain, spirits, and cotton.

The top three imports of Qi State are ironware, cotton cloth, and ceramics.

The basis of the Guanshanhai policy of the Guanzi School is the material basis for the domestic closure and the most developed industry and commerce in Qi State in the late Spring and Autumn Period.

The handicraft industry is far more developed than other places, and the commercial policy can be played well. If the handicraft industry is underdeveloped and adjacent to highly developed areas, the country may collapse if the commercial policy is not well implemented.

Now that this is done, the official Shanhai has become an official tariff, and the Tian family monopolizes foreign import trade, collecting taxes as military expenses; the nobles export grain and pay export taxes as support for the Tian family.

There was a joke in Linzi before, saying that the king's army, holding Sishang's muskets, wearing Sishang's cotton cloth, and flowers printed on Sishang's banknotes, would bring a group of soldiers when the king and Sishang went to war. The naked soldiers are gone.

The state of Qi still has the salt industry that can support it, and the remaining handicraft industry is basically over, and this has fallen into a vicious circle.

It's not that Qi can't fight now.

As far as the current situation in the Central Plains is concerned, if Zhao is eliminated, the most able to fight against Wei, Han, and Qi is actually Qi, which has been silent and dare not get involved in the war.

But this kind of economic situation can only be maintained. Once a war is defeated, it may be lost forever, and all internal and external conflicts may erupt.

It's not that Qi State wants to go this way, but that Qi State's rule is based on nobles, and it is too close to Sishang, so it has to go this way.

The nobles needed money, because the handicrafts on Sishang had to be bought with money, but they didn't have gold mines at home, so they couldn't make money.

what to do?The only choice is to start with fiefdoms, and you can only choose to annex the land to manage the export of grain, cotton, etc. If you rely on the previous system of renting wells for labor land, the nobles will have to eat shit, and they will have to live a life that is far worse than that of a small workshop owner in Sishang. .

The Tian family needs the support of the nobles. No matter how much they win over common peasants, businessmen, and businessmen, it is more in line with their needs and interests than the morality of the Mohist family.

The Tian family needs the army and the centralization of power, so it needs money, military expenses, the officer class, and the support of the nobles.

The Tian family didn't want the nobles in the country to follow the path they had walked in the past, so they had to win over some big cities in their own hands. It is better to let the nobles completely control those marginal areas.

It is not that the nobles do not have slaves and private soldiers, but these slaves and private soldiers are no longer able to fight against the center; but on the other hand, the officers of the standing army of the center and the officials of the center are all of noble origin, and it is impossible for the Tian family to take extremely drastic measures against the nobles. means.

This is the general plan set by the previous Qihou during the Qi-Mo war, and it has remained unchanged, so it has developed into this appearance.

Although it is deformed, it is enough to hang Yan Guo.

But Qi State did not dare to move, because the Mohists would not allow Qi State to expand when it went to war, which caused Qi State to fall into a strange paradox: Qi State could theoretically defeat Wei, Han, Yan, and Wei; But Qi State will attack any of the four countries, and the Mo family will backstab; No one in Shangqi can win.

The merchants, workshop owners, and handicraftsmen in Sishang also had a subtle attitude towards Qi.

The price of grain in Sishang is very low, and it can support a large number of urban population. After the Law of the People's Republic of China rejected the increase of tariffs on imported grain, the Mohists had actually turned their backs on the interests of small farmers, and the businessmen were very happy.

However, the goods sold by the Qi State every year made the industrial and commercial people very unhappy. A large number of farmers were imprisoned in the fiefdoms of the nobles of the Qi State. Labor-saving technologies are used whenever they are available.As a result, a large number of people in Qi State are still working for the nobles without pay, and they are not even allowed to migrate and flee.

A large number of farmers were imprisoned in the fiefdoms of the nobles. The farmers had no money and could not afford to buy anything. They could have sold ten bolts of cotton cloth but only three bolts were sold. This made the industrialists very dissatisfied, and The state of Qi is approaching, and the businessmen and merchants in Sishang are clamoring for war all day long.

The industrialists and businessmen in Sishang grew up watching the modified morality of the Mohist School. Under the influence of their ears and eyes, they knew how much the market would be expanded once the land reform happened, and farmers had to have their own surplus to buy things.

So this caused Sishang to frequently accuse Qi State of injustice and demand Qi State reform; Qi State deeply feared that the Mohists would go north next, because they could not reform.

Idealists with the heart of benefiting the world believe that Qi's policies are harmful to the world.

The profit-seeking industrialists and merchants believed that Qi's policies were the root cause of their inability to sell more goods and hire more workers.

The farmers who are dissatisfied with the low food prices believe that Qi's policy is the root cause of the low food prices.

Being able to offend almost all classes in Sishang, Qi State can be regarded as the first among the princes, even Chu State is not so deep in economic ties with Sishang that it is not enough to say that everyone shouts .

On the contrary, the Tian family knows who is the enemy and who is the friend. If the reform continues, it is likely to be over. It is better to continue to deepen the reactionary reform and strengthen the power of the aristocracy to unify the outside world, expand the armament, and squeeze the peasants, farmers, and businessmen.

As a result, the Mo family attacked Chu first, which made Qi even more nervous.

The situation before Sishang was that as long as they fought within three hundred miles of Sishang, none of the vassal states could defeat the Mohists alone.

Even if it is the coalition of princes, as long as the Mo family sticks to the inside and chooses to fight inside, the coalition of princes will have nothing to do.

Moreover, the princes were not monolithic, and the Mohists used vertical and horizontal techniques to expand the contradictions among the princes, making it difficult for the princes to be united.Just like the state of Qin, the ruler of the state of Qin is not a warrior of etiquette and law. He does not want to seize Xihe, but sends tens of thousands of troops to fight Sishang for the sake of the righteousness of the world?
But now that the Mo family is fighting against Chu, Qi, who has been trying not to provoke the Mo family as much as possible, can't sit still.

If the Mohists occupy the lands of Jianghan and Wuyue, and give the Mohists another ten years, even if the princes are monolithic, there is nothing they can do.

But Qi State is so close to Sishang, and has always been accused of injustice by the Mohists. Tian, ​​who had tried to avoid wars before, knew that if he didn't take the lead in this battle, it would be over for him.

The State of Wei has been abolished, and the field army has been wiped out by the bloodletting tactics of advancing from east to west; State Zhao has the worries of Hetao and the enemy of Zhongshan, so it is impossible to raise the banner of anti-Mo; it is better to expect Yan State to be realistic than Qin State point; South Korea is not qualified to pick this banner.

It turned out that Tian wanted to pretend to be a grandson, to avoid conflicts with the Mohists as much as possible, to integrate the internal affairs first, to avoid wars, and he was unwilling to bear the huge economic problems once the war broke out, so he wanted to borrow a knife to kill people.

I never thought that the huge state of Chu would be destroyed in half a year, and the essence of the Jianghan land had already come into the hands of the Mo family. The Mo family stretched out their fangs to kill the old aristocrats.

Given the current situation, we should do our part, and the banner of anti-Mo can only be carried by the Qi State, taking advantage of the opportunity when the Mo family has not completely stabilized Jiang Han and Wu Yue, to give it a go.

Anyway, if you don't fight, you will die in ten years.The Mohists have completely abandoned the morality of non-offensive, claiming to have inherited Dayu’s legal system, and the troubled times must be brought to an end if the Kyushu were to be united. This is the point. Qingzhou, one of the Kyushu, is naturally within the Kyushu. Ten years later, if Integrating the power of Wuyue Jianghan, it is even more invincible.

But to carry the big flag is to carry the big flag, but not to die by yourself. Qi State must negotiate with other countries to send troops together. Otherwise, Qi State feels that it is powerless to reverse it, and it will take time for various countries to negotiate to send troops. This is what led to the Mohism. It has been half a year since the war against Chu, and there is no reason for countries to send troops to intervene.

At least, Sishang Mohism thinks so, and guesses Qi's movements in this way.

(End of this chapter)