New Shun 1730

The emperor has his own logic when doing things. It can also be said that he has his own value system.

Railways, technology, steam engines, and even capital are all tools.

Tools can be used in any way you choose.

Where you sit determines how you use these tools.

From the very beginning when he decided to go to Southeast Asia and conquer India, the emperor has always been eyeing the money that Liu Yu mentioned.

The money for spices.

The tax in India.

In general, it’s all money.

According to a certain school of thought among the pre-Qin philosophers, there is a huge difference between love and use.

So does the emperor love money? Just like he loves figurines, his wife, and paper figures, he is willing to sleep with money in his hands and listen to the sound of money clattering?

Or does he want to use money?

For the emperor, fetishism, commodity worship, and money worship are really not of interest.

Because under the imperial power, he is the great leader of the Divine Right of Kings. Why does he have to create a world of commodity worship, and then rely on "self-struggle" to become the ultimate leader of the end producer?

Isn't that idle?

Since it can be distinguished, the emperor coveted the money from Southeast Asia and the taxes from India for use, not for love, so what was it used for?

Naturally, it was used to consolidate his own rule.

The emperor asked the prince to read "Salt and Iron Theory", which was actually telling the prince that Dashun was now like the Han Dynasty. These various court benefits other than agricultural taxes supported a huge class of meritorious officials.

These things are not only the core tax source of the central government, but also the economic foundation for the existence of meritorious officials.

Relying on those agricultural taxes, a group of meritorious officials cannot be supported, and an economic foundation cannot be created for the existence of meritorious officials.

The prerequisite for meritorious officials to do things everywhere is to have money.

Without money, there is no soil for the existence of meritorious officials.

Unless the brain is rusty, the local power will be released, and the meritorious officials will be sent to the local area as vassal states, but this is essentially to let them make money. Without money, nothing can be done.

The emperor asked the prince to read "Salt and Iron Theory", and what he really wanted the prince to understand was still one thing.

Why was there a discussion on salt and iron after Emperor Wu died?

Why did Wang Mang reform the system after the Salt and Iron Controversy?

Also, in the book given, why did Liu Yu satirize the Dutch and British East India Companies, not for improving mousetraps, but for obtaining a franchised mousetrapping right?

Are these large "chaebols" of Dashun similar to some franchised industries in Western countries such as Britain, the Netherlands, and France?

What is the economic basis for the large number of meritorious officials, frontier hungry wolves, and "capable officials" who have tried to make trouble in the frontiers and colonies that have emerged in Dashun in recent years?

If the central finance, or the emperor's treasury, can collect tax silver from India again, how should this money be used? What kind of people should be raised? What problems should be solved? In order to make the imperial power last forever?

Is silver wealth?

What does silver rely on to buy what you want and keep the prices of bulk commodities as stable as possible?

If disasters occur in Henan, Sichuan, and other places, is the court's silver wealth that can be used for disaster relief? If a disaster occurred in Songsu and other places, would the silver of the court be wealth for disaster relief?

If the two are different, what is the difference?

When all the content that the emperor wanted to test the prince was reduced to a greatly simplified question of "which railway to build first", the emperor must also make one thing clear to the prince:

Before Dashun, it inherited the Ming system.

Dashun claimed to admire Li Tang.

But in fact, at this time, Dashun, whether it was the military merit system, the Langguan system, the expenses of the ministers of merit, the proportion of central fiscal revenue, and the proportion of land tax to fiscal revenue, was more like a variant of the Han Dynasty, but not the system of granting titles to the people.

The key lies in that sentence: The benefit of salt and iron lies in the benefit, not in salt and iron. The land of the Western Regions may be in the west, but it may not be in the south.

Don't just see its shape, cut the boat to find the sword, but not its meaning.

The reason why Dashun did not engage in iron monopoly was just because the management and monopoly of foreign trade was more profitable and easier to manage. Selling iron pots and farm tools is exhausting and you can't make much money in a year. Why do you have to monopolize this stuff now?

The income from the iron monopoly in the Han Dynasty can be completely compared to the export of silk, porcelain and tea at this time.

The iron in the past is not the iron now.

The essence of the benefits of salt and iron lies in the benefits, not in salt and iron, or in other words, keeping up with the times should be like the well-field, so that the retro faction now says "If you can have a well, then have a well, if you can't have a well, then have an equal distribution, and the well is an excuse for the equal distribution". If you want to understand what the essence is, it is not the form of the well-field.

If the prince can't figure it out, it is very likely that Dashun will also take the path that will eventually end up like Wang Mang's reform of the nationalization of land and the chaos of the world.

The emperor hopes that the prince will understand that the traditional conservative ministers are unreliable.

The newly rising group of Songsu is also unreliable.

He also hopes that the prince will understand the vigilance he had when he saw the capital spreading rapidly along the canal in the form of looms going to the countryside during his last southern tour.

Dashun does not produce silver. Silver is a foreign currency, but it is also the legal tax payment currency and circulation currency of Dashun. Once the control is relaxed, the foreign currency accumulated by Songsu will instantly increase Dashun's land annexation problem by dozens of times.

And relying only on those conservative ministers, Dashun can only collect 20 million taels of silver a year, and the meritorious faction can go home and sleep completely. There is no stage for them to exist at all.

Because there is no money, Dashun can't toss around. How can there be meritorious faction without merit?

Without the ministers who have made contributions, the court will go from fighting against each other to fighting all at once, and the dynasty will basically be over.

Rotten into a ball of mud, slowly decaying.

The prince should understand that water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it.

The common people can overthrow the previous dynasty together when Emperor Taizu raised the banner of justice.

The common people can also stand by the imperial power most firmly when the new era threatens everything old.

Water can carry heavy loads, but it can also overturn a boat. Its essence is people-oriented and shepherding the people. People-oriented is not about loving each other and benefiting each other, nor is it about everyone not wanting to take a hair from me, nor is it about the people being the masters of the country. They are not the same thing at all, because you have to distinguish between water and boats. Water is not a boat, and a boat is not water.

Of course, this is something about the way of ruling. The emperor feels that he still has time, and the prince should still be able to learn it.

As for the art of ruling, using railways, the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, and the navy, the world is divided into several parts, so that the uprising in the west will not affect the Central Plains, and the riots in the east will not cross Jingchu. This is also the significance of railways to imperial power.

In the end, where the first railway should be built can be said very clearly.

There is a pattern for the Yellow River to burst.

Since the Song Dynasty, the Yellow River has burst in the range of Henan and southwest Shandong, over and over again.

Cao County, Heze, Lankao, Yuncheng, just these few places, basically, whenever there is a breach, it will definitely rush this side first.

The people of Dashun read "Water Margin" very much, but the people of Dashun actually don't know what the 800-li Liangshan Water Margin is.

Because when "Water Margin" was written, the 800-li Liangshan Water Margin really existed.

When the people of Dashun read "Water Margin", a large levee appeared on the north bank of the Yellow River because of the canal transportation. In addition, the water control strategy of "protecting the north but not the south" to protect the canal transportation has been tacitly accepted since Mingshun, and the 800-li Liangshan Lake has become a legend.

This change is a choice of realistic governance.

Under the current reality, if the Yellow River really breaks through the north, will Dashun choose to let the Yellow River flow back to the south?

Let the Yellow River flood in the financial and taxation areas of Dashun?

This itself is a choice with the same core as the "protecting the north but not the south" tacitly accepted in order to protect the canal transportation. It's just that the form has changed due to the changes in reality.

Dashun has begun to build something similar to the Taihang Dike, but this Taihang Dike is on the south side of the river, not the north side.

"From the current river, there is no way to change the current way, even the god Yu cannot do it. If the South River can only delay for days and months, there is no medicine to cure it. Even if human power does not change, the river will change itself."

This is basically the consensus of the knowledgeable people in Dashun after solving the canal problem and breaking the scar of hiding the disease and avoiding medical treatment.

However, these people with lofty ideals are too "knowledgeable, courageous and bold". They think that if they have money, they might as well dig a river channel that flows into the sea from the north and change the course artificially. Anyway, even if human power does not change it, the river will change itself, so dig it.

Dashun learned from the lessons of the Song Dynasty and did not think that artificially digging a Yellow River channel was a project that Dashun could understand now. Digging a river blindly is too risky.

And as the emperor said, the Yellow River will not burst when it is idle.

After solving the problem of canal rice, Dashun's efficiency in river management is higher than before. With the popularization of straw crops such as corn and sorghum, the materials for repairing dams are also richer than before.

Therefore, the emperor's judgment is reasonable.

That is: if the Yellow River bursts in this case, it is not just a matter of considering the bursting of the Yellow River.

It is obvious that Henan and other places must have encountered a major flood.

A small flood will not cause the Yellow River to burst.

At that time.

The upper reaches will be flooded.

When it reaches Kaifeng and Heze, it may be the Yellow River bursting.

As for the problem of Hongze Lake in the Huaihe River, Dashun has only solved a little bit. In fact, the water level is still high, and there are still problems with flood discharge in the upper reaches of the Huaihe River.

In other words, once this happens, it will inevitably be a major disaster affecting large areas such as the Huaihe River, Anhui, Henan, southwest Shandong, southern Hebei, and northern Shandong.

According to experience since ancient times, generally speaking, floods in Henan are usually accompanied by floods in Anhui. And this time, we have to consider the bursting of the Yellow River, as well as floods in Shandong and southern Hebei.

The population density in the Central Plains is too high.

The transportation constraints of commercial grain production areas to the Central Plains are too difficult.

And Henan and Jingchu are the center of the world. If there is chaos here, the surrounding areas will be in chaos.

There is also the experience of "when forced to do things at the end of the dynasty, they often can't do it even if they are hanging hair."

Shaanxi and Gansu can cultivate and move to the Western Regions; Fujian and Guangdong can go to Southeast Asia; Shanxi can go to the West Pass; Hebei and Jiaodong can go to Guandong; Songjiang, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang can have commercial grain; Sichuan Deyou and Dujiangyan are generally fine as long as they don’t collect taxes blindly... Only in the Central Plains, there is neither commercial grain import relief nor escape and cultivate wasteland. Once something happens, it will be a big deal.

In addition, the very obscure truth that "the common people will not rebel if they have food to eat" that most people may not understand.

So the emperor felt that the idea of ​​where the prince's first railway should be built was quite naive.

Who can say for sure when the Yellow River will have an accident? Just like the Lisbon earthquake a few years ago, is there anything that can be said for sure?

The first road did not think about running through the Central Plains and connecting Jingchu, but actually thought about building to Zhangjiakou, Chengde, Guandong and other places. How can this be a monarch who understands the railway era?

Even if the railway to Zhangjiakou was not built, the merchants' usury still controlled Mongolia; even if the railway to Chengde Rehe was not built, the Dashun army still suppressed the northerners and made them dare not rebel.

It's not that it can't be built, but it's the icing on the cake for the imperial power.

In the Franco-Prussian War in history, the German general staff's understanding of railways was that it was an efficient way of corps mobility, which would greatly change the mode of land warfare.

For Dashun, it is impossible to understand the railway in the same way as the Franco-Prussian War, because is there any enemy around Dashun that needs to build a railway or can't be defeated? The places where railways can be built and are easy to build railways can still be won; the places where they can't be fought and are difficult to fight must be places where it is difficult to build roads, or where it is impossible to build roads at all at this time.

Therefore, the Dashun imperial power's understanding of railways must be to maintain system governance, facilitate relief, facilitate grain transportation, and facilitate suppression from the beginning.

The railway from Jingxi Coal Mine to Beijing continued this idea, in order to ensure the stability of fuel in Beijing; and the first major railway that was really planned to be built with Indian taxes must have continued this idea.

The emperor felt that what the prince lacked was an understanding of "instruments", an understanding of how to use them. This is not a good thing, because this matter can be taught, so if new contradictions and new problems arise in the future, they cannot be traced back to the original plan. Without ideas, what can be done? Wouldn't he be confused at that time?

The conservatives don't understand.

The practical learning and practical achievement school is too radical.

The new school has its own ideas in mind.

If the emperor does not have a consistent idea, he will think that the husband is right and the wife is right... In Li Gan's view, there is no problem with the Xining Reform, and there is no problem with the restoration of the old party afterwards.

The problem is that whether it is reform or restoration, the emperor must be above the party disputes and ministers.

To be above, you need to have your own ideas, your own understanding, and your own understanding. Know what to do and what to do.

I am the country, what I want to do, the new party, the old party, the conservatives, the practical school, the ancient Confucianists, the radical business school, are all tools!

Otherwise, it will be played to death.

The reforms of Dashun were never carried out when Liu Yu was in power. From the beginning to the end, the emperor saw him as a tool, because the emperor knew roughly how to do it, roughly knew what could be done and what could not be done, and the disputes among the ministers were all bullshit, just listening to the sound.

Including before the system was established, Liu Yu was just a eunuch in the eyes of the emperor, who took advantage of the emperor's power to open a government outside and carry out reforms with the shogunate of close ministers and favorites. It is neither the prime minister opening a government nor the one-man show in the Tianyou Palace. The difference is huge.

Neither will Liu Yu be dismissed, nor will the imperial examination be reformed, and even less will those ministers who attack Liu Yu be dismissed.

However, if the prince was of this quality, even if he took away a few people who had to be "taken away" before he left, he was afraid that there would be a chaos like Wang Mang's reform. As for the Jingkang Shame, Li Gan thought about it and felt that even if he was being too modest, there was no political entity in the world that could cause another Jingkang Shame. Instead, he felt that the reform was getting closer and closer to something similar to Wang Mang's.