New Shun 1730

Lin Min did not completely deny this idea, nor did he completely disagree with some of the things in it.

But on some fundamental issues, he was opposed.

He showed this article to his close aides, who laughed and said: "In the past, Zhen Chen said that lifting the salt ban would benefit the people, and Yuan Ke believed it. Therefore, Wang Euzhi said: The great trouble of the king. , It is better to have the intention of benefiting the people, but the villain uses it to carry out his own selfish interests. If he does not want to do it himself, he will be bribed by the rich businessmen and the people to do it and harm the country. Why are you ridiculing the people's illness?"

"The thing that people who make policies should be wary of most is that they have the heart to benefit the people, but villains use this heart to do the bad things they want to do. Jiang Zhai's words are still in my ears, this discussion is extremely embarrassing. !”

There is no doubt that Lin Min is very supportive of this evaluation of his staff.

Since his staff can skillfully quote some of Wang Fuzhi's historical arguments, it is obvious that Lin Min is leaning towards Wang Fuzhi's side in some thoughts.

The salt policy reform may seem to be just a reform, but in fact, it should be regarded as a manifestation of the ideological confrontation during the Ming Dynasty and Shun Xing Dynasty for more than a hundred years.

There's a lot involved here.

Regarding the salt policy reform alone, there are actually five factions in the DPRK, China, and academia.

Each of these five factions has its own ideas.

The factions here are factional debates based on pure economic ideas after eliminating the entanglements of interests.

The first is that the salt ban itself is wrong. The imperial salt ban is harmful to the people. All kinds of mountain and river bans should be completely abolished and free development should be allowed.

This faction was very influential in the late Ming Dynasty.

So much so that some local officials, out of conscience and belief in this principle, did not pay much attention to some private salt dealers.

Moreover, some private salt dealers also feel that they are doing something righteous and feel confident when selling.

This includes both sales and production.

The second type believes that it is wrong for businessmen to participate in the salt industry. The salt industry should be fully government-run and eliminate the participation of any businessmen.

Purchased by the imperial court, transported by the imperial court, and sold by the imperial court, all the benefits of the mountains and seas can be obtained.

Of course, another question needs to be raised here, that is, what does the court do with the money? The court should get this money to reduce the burden on farmers. Instead of levying so many taxes from the land, it should use comprehensive government-run industry and commerce to maintain tax revenue.

The third point of view is basically the point of view given by the students Lin Min saw.

The general idea is that the problem with the salt industry lies in the fact that traders are involved in the production of salt. Merchants should be removed from the production process. There is no problem with other systems.

The fourth view is that of Lin Min and other salt policy reformers in North Korea and China.

Their views are basically derived from the reflections of late Ming scholars such as Wang Fuzhi on the salt policy of the Ming Dynasty.

On the issue of whether to completely lift the salt ban, Wang Fuzhi believed that "relaxing the salt ban to allow the people to collect it will only benefit the wealthy people of one area, but they do not know that the country's reserves are used to ease farmers, which is undoubtedly a barnyard policy."

In other words, the salt ban cannot be completely lifted, which actually includes the mining ban, which means that the mining ban cannot be completely lifted.

The overall idea is to maintain the stability of farmers and maintain the operation of an empire through salt and mineral profits. Focus on farmers and maintain the small-scale peasant economy as much as possible.

But at the same time, on the sales side, sales should be liberalized and merchants should carry out transportation and sales.

In other words, the production end must be strictly controlled, but the sales end must be fully market-oriented.

The imperial court wants to increase the salt ban and prohibit others from mining illegal salt. But on the issue of sales, the salt introduction system was completely abolished, allowing merchants to sell wherever they wanted.

As the saying goes, "If there is a lack of phase, you will rush to it. The quick one will get it, and the dull one will blame himself for his own weakness. There is nothing to complain about." However, there is no penalty for smuggling, and there is no reason to fight for theft. Among the people, this means taking advantage of the lack in order to increase the price. But when the enemy has arrived, we are afraid that if we don’t attack him first, then the harm caused by the wealth will also be eliminated.]

That is to say, if it is fully marketized and this place becomes expensive, merchants will definitely rush to sell it, for fear of being slow; and people in that place want to hoard goods, and just when the price is about to increase, goods from other places arrive again, and this hoarding of goods Ju Qi was afraid that he would not be able to sell, so he quickly lowered the price, so the problem of rising prices was solved.

Lin Min and other salt policy reformers learned from Wang Fuzhi's point of view, so the direction of their reform did not consider the production side from the beginning, but only the sales side.

A comprehensive voting system should be introduced to replace the salt quota system. I think that as long as this change is made, all the problems will be solved.

The fifth viewpoint is that of Liu Yu’s group.

The point of view of Liu Yu's group, in the meaning of what Liu Yu and Lin Min discussed at the time, is that as long as the productivity has not reached a state where the trains can be launched from the East China Sea to the Western Regions at the beginning of the month and arrive at the end of the month, then a pure market can Regulation, that’s just crazy.

To adopt a pure voting method is to trust the conscience of businessmen too much and underestimate the speculative instinct of businessmen. It also underestimates the inflow of silver, capital accumulation and monopoly that started in the mid-Ming Dynasty.

"If something is missing, the quickest will get it, and the dull will blame themselves for their own mistakes, so they can't complain." This applies to a country that is more than a thousand miles long and wide, at least at this time it does not apply to a country that is tens of thousands of miles wide.

Therefore, Liu Yu said that the quotation method and the voting method are all tinkering. The only meaningful reform that is not just tinkering is to build large salt farms and boost salt production.

This is a truly progressive reform, not a tinkering one.

On the sales side, we must believe in the resource allocation ability of capital and guard against the disruption and obstruction of capital to the market.

Therefore, we must carry out comprehensive salt administration reform, boost Sichuan salt, Shanxi salt, Changlu salt, Fujian and Guangdong salt, and Yunnan salt, and establish a comprehensive salt industry general company to coordinate and control.

Rely on production progress everywhere to alleviate the many problems caused by logistics and transportation.

The logistics and transportation problem is now unsolvable. Then we can only use our brains on the production side to allow each salt-producing area to radiate a reasonable range. The salt industry general company established by the state will regulate taxation and stabilize prices based on the production cost of salt; at the same time, through official transportation and commercial sales, open tickets and secret introductions, ensure that salt can reach most of the country and be sold.

These five views on salt administration are different.

The main disagreement between Liu Yu and Lin Min is "whether the focus of salt administration reform is to reclaim wasteland in Huainan."

In other words, the most important thing about the salt administration reform in Liu Yu's eyes is to reclaim wasteland in Huainan, and the most important thing about reclaiming wasteland in Huainan is to support capital to plant cotton and lay a solid foundation for Dashun's Mexican cotton replacement plan. If this cannot be done, then this salt administration reform is meaningless.

In Lin Min's eyes, the salt administration reform is mainly salt-based, and Huainan reclamation and cotton planting are actually by-products of the salt administration reform. When the two conflict, the reform of the salt administration on the sales side can give up the additional option of reclaiming wasteland and planting cotton.

As for other things, the two people don't have much disagreement.

Lin Min must be opposed to the approach in this article, because Lin Min's reform idea did not consider production issues at the beginning, but only considered the reform of the salt area salt introduction method.

Since the production end was not considered at the beginning, after seeing Liu Yu's production method of large-scale salt fields with his own eyes, and comparing it with Huainan's original method of digging pits, burning ash, pouring brine and boiling salt, he naturally tends to Liu Yu's method.

As for whether there are any places in this suggestion on salt administration that he agrees with, there must be some.

In addition to those hypocritical fantasies, Lin Min's main point of approval is about the currency issue.

That is, "In order to prevent these salt households from being exploited by merchants, the court should take the initiative to undertake the task of collecting salt, and at the same time give salt households a certain amount of rice and grain to ensure that the salt households will not be affected by the fluctuation of grain prices. "

This should be regarded as a very influential speculation starting from the late Ming Dynasty.

It should be said that it started from the middle and late Ming Dynasty and lasted until the first year of Dashun Weixin.

That is, the relationship between money, copper coins, silver, and materials.

Since the late Ming Dynasty, the previous excessive confinement, the collapse of the grassroots in the later period, the influx of silver, and the development of commodity economy have led to the emergence of many great Confucian scholars who were later called enlightenment thinkers.

As for the currency issue, their ideas are basically the same.

Many of these ideas come from the fact that we always take too big steps here, and then we pull our eggs with a click, and then we go back and take small steps, and it is difficult to learn to walk normally.

In the first year of Weixin, the Emperor of Dashun spent the previous twenty years to finally figure out a problem: that is, money is not wealth, and those grains, ironware, cattle, horses, salt and the like are the real wealth.

But the premise of this idea is to affirm the role of money, and then extend it.

Otherwise, Korea would have thought about abolishing copper coins long ago, thinking that barter is the right way. Does that mean that their understanding is earlier than that of Dashun?

Obviously not.

The problem that Dashun spent twenty years to let the upper class figure out is an exploration of the nature of wealth under the premise of affirming the development of commodity economy starting from the mid-Ming Dynasty.

On the other hand, Korea directly thought about abolishing currency and bartering, especially in history, the Qing Dynasty banned the sea and moved the borders, which made Korea a middleman to fiddle with some precious metals from Japan, which delayed the idea of ​​bartering; while Dashun directly forced Korea to think about bartering very early. The premise of this idea is not the redefinition and thinking after development, but a regression under pure reactionary retro considerations.

The series of reflections that began in the late Ming Dynasty were actually based on the reaction against the situation in the late Ming Dynasty and Neo-Confucianism.

Let’s not talk about the academic and ideological issues, but only the currency issue.

The reason why Lin Min supported the exchange of some salt with grain instead of all currency was also the mainstream thought of Dashun.

Liu Yu’s idea was not mainstream, and even the reason figured out by the emperor was not mainstream, but the mainstream thought was “millet is born and gold dies, and the people are prosperous in benevolence”.

From the end of the Ming Dynasty to the hundred years since the founding of Dashun, the mainstream of the ideological world has always been “anti-silver, anti-paper money, and support for physical taxation”.

This idea is of course reasonable.

Dashun has no gold and silver mines, the state uses silver for taxation, but private transactions use copper coins, and silver has only one import channel, overseas trade. You can’t find gold and silver mines at the level of Potosí everywhere, that’s the reality.

Anti-paper money... Anti-paper money is because the step is too big, and it is ridiculous. There is no need to go into details about the matter, and I will not mention what the paper money of the previous dynasty was.

Anti-silver, anti-paper money, and support for in-kind taxation, many highly respected scholars think this way.

Gu Yanwu opposed it, Wang Fuzhi opposed it, and Tang Zhen also opposed it.

The reasons for opposition are basically traceable.

[In ancient times, when people talked about wealth, they only talked about grains; as for the market, there were tortoise shells, shells, gold coins, knives and cloth. Later, gold was used as the three products, and money was also important. Later, money was used exclusively, and pearls, jade, tortoise shells, shells, silver, and tin were only used as tools, not as currency. Since the Ming Dynasty, silver has been used exclusively. As of now, silver is becoming less and less, and it is not enough for the world. People with a wealth of thousands of gold often cannot see a single pound for months; grain is cheap and cannot be eaten, meat is not bought and cloth is cheap and cannot be worn. Those who sell grain, meat, cloth and silk cannot even eat or wear clothes, because of the lack of silver]

That is to say, there is too little silver, deflation, and it limits the prosperity of the market.

So, if you take too big a step, you will easily fall flat, and that's where it falls.

This set of theories was also expounded by John Law, who created the Mississippi bubble, in his "On Currency and Trade - A Proposal for the Supply of Currency to the Nation".

It is said that increasing the currency in circulation will have a hundred benefits and no harm to the national economy. But the amount of silver is limited and has many defects. Increasing the currency can only be done by other means other than silver coins. The state can alleviate this problem by issuing paper money.

Then he created the European financial market bubble explosion in 1720.

It is basically a similar problem, but it is completely different in France and here.

On the Dashun side, the paper money of the Mongols and the Ming Dynasty had already played with it and collapsed. Then silver, as a currency, did fall into the dilemma of deflation, which made the thinkers in the late Ming Dynasty question silver and currency itself.

The reflection on the monetization of silver and the collapse of paper money eventually led to the reactionary idea of ​​"millet is born and gold dies, and the people are prosperous in benevolence", which also triggered the discussion of "whether to re-levy physical taxes".

That is: should we continue the policy of silver monetization, and should we continue the policy of collecting taxes in silver?

Should we return to the Hongwu period and levy the policy of real taxes? Should we re-levy rice, salt, cloth, and silk instead of currency?

This is also a major mainstream in the ideological world in a series of events during the Ming Dynasty's fall and Shunxing.

On the one hand, the stability and tenacity of the small peasant economy are unmatched in the world.

On the other hand, the commodity economy develops and the buds of a new era emerge.

They are both depressed about the development of the buds and depressed about the lack of vigor of the buds.

So along with a series of reflections on the School of Mind and the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming Dynasties; a series of reflections on the chaos of the late Ming Dynasty, many radical schools, including the Taizhou School, collectively turned to reaction against the times after the death of some great figures.

The Taizhou School, which produced Li Zhi, turned to the Confucian religious route of "using ballads to spread the six edicts" and trying to merge the three religions after the death of those who founded the school.

Many theories of Song Confucian scholars were completely destroyed by the "textual research" method initiated by Gu Yanwu.

Especially after the textual research and falsification of "Modern Text Book of Shangshu and Ancient Text Book of Shangshu". After the sixteen-character heart transmission of [The human heart is dangerous, the heart of Tao is subtle, only the essence is one, and it is true to hold the middle] was proved to be a "fake", many theories collapsed completely.

Whether these sixteen words are true or false, how important it is, is fatal to Neo-Confucianism and Mind Learning.

It is not that these sixteen words themselves are wrong, or that the theories derived from them are wrong, but if they are false, then is the Confucianism explained by Neo-Confucianism and Mind Learning still Confucianism?

At this point in Neo-Confucianism, the problems caused by "mind" have caused a sharp division.

Some people have turned to religious asceticism; others, such as Li Zhi, have come up with the idea that eating, drinking, defecating and urinating are the laws of nature.

This extreme division stems from the fact that there are big problems with the theory itself, and it cannot be reconciled internally.

So Wang Fuzhi was so angry that he blasted Li Zhi, saying that "Collection of Books" written by Li Zhi is a poisonous weed. When reading a book, you must not indulge in the content, but must use etiquette to restrain it, to consider each word, think about the meaning, and guide it to yourself.

At the same time, it also includes saying that ordinary people are beasts, seeking food, clothing, spouses, and happiness, what is the difference between this and beasts? To be a human being, one must understand ethics, discern things, have a benevolent heart, and act according to righteousness. Those who cannot do these four things are no different from animals. The so-called common people are common people because they are animals.

These are all reactions to some radical ideas in the late Ming Dynasty under distorted differentiation.

This kind of reaction to ideological liberation is very normal. It is something deeply rooted.

The reaction on the economy and governance philosophy that is derived from this is also normal.

Whether it is to restore the autonomous system of large villages, or to react back to the feudal system, or to restore the in-kind tax, or to restore many systems in the early Ming Dynasty but modify and abolish their bad parts... etc., these are very popular mainstream theories in Dashun.

The best tool to destroy the reaction of etiquette and law is the comprehensive development of industry and commerce, and the rise of capitalism shatters all these warmth and affection.

But unfortunately, the small peasant economy, which is extremely strong and unparalleled on the earth, is so stable that it cannot be destroyed at all for a while.

In this situation, what we see all day is capital eating people, merchants drinking blood, currency fluctuations, and small farmers going bankrupt. If the trend of thought is not reactionary, it would be a miracle.

Including Lin Min, although they are opposed to the proposal for salt administration reform as a whole, they still support the idea of ​​using some physical objects instead of currency for barter.

The idea is very straightforward.

If it is currency, it may be affected by price fluctuations, causing small salt households to go bankrupt, and then borrow money from merchants, being exploited by merchants, and finally leading to the annexation of Caodang.

But if they are given some in kind to ensure basic survival security of being able to work, it will be difficult for small salt farmers to go bankrupt. For small producers, as long as they survive, that's enough.