New Shun 1730

Xu Heng tried to think about the many reform policies in Jiangnan in recent years from the perspective of his father, and nodded involuntarily.

Indeed, some of the reforms attempted by several prefectures in Jiangnan in recent years seem to have nothing to do with them who do business.

Today, the per-acre tax is changed, tomorrow, there is a green seedling loan, the day after tomorrow, people are sent to Southeast Asia, the day after tomorrow, the grain tax is changed to tax silver, and the day after tomorrow, the shipping fee for rice imports is cancelled...

Many changes seem to have nothing to do with industry and commerce, and even have nothing to do with those who engage in overseas trade.

But when all these things are added up, the consequences gradually emerge.

First, the per-acre tax reform, followed by the green seedling loan. The combination of the two immediately reversed the situation of "the owner is not as good as the tenant" that had appeared in Songjiang Prefecture.

Originally, a large number of small self-cultivating farmers sold their own land and rented the land of the gentry to grow crops. One of the main reasons is that Dashun put the head tax and other miscellaneous fees on the land, while the gentry could be exempted from miscellaneous duties and a large number of levies. In fact, the burden of national taxes was indeed collected according to the land, but the burden of local taxes was basically all on small farmers.

After the per-acre tax reform, land prices rose, and self-cultivating farmers no longer sold their land, but regarded it as a treasure.

The Qingmiao loan that followed was of course different from the Qingmiao loan in Songjiang Prefecture and the Lianghuai area. The Qingmiao loan in Songjiang Prefecture required land mortgage and was only loaned to self-cultivating farmers who had their own land.

Pure tenant farmers either went to Southeast Asia or went to work in factories, and would not be given a way to maintain their livelihood as tenant farmers.

The introduction of the Songjiang Qingmiao loan made the self-cultivating farmers in Songjiang Prefecture more stable.

In fact, it did not make tenant farmers more miserable.

Although the increase in national taxes was actually a tax increase on gentry.

And the tax increase on gentry was naturally passed on to tenant farmers.

However, this is the same as the rent problem under the housing subsidy of the British Poor Law at this time. If the gentry is not taxed, will the gentry be soft-hearted and reduce the land rent? Land rent has nothing to do with tax increases, but only with the limit of the tenant's tolerance; rent has nothing to do with the cost of holding a house, but only with the limit of the tenant's tolerance.

With these two policies, at least in Songjiang Prefecture and surrounding areas, the interest on loans and the yield on land have dropped sharply.

This is a "legal" policy change.

The "illegal" means is naturally to use the plaque "Respect Heaven and Love the People" in the Forbidden City at the beginning of the founding of the Dashun as a righteousness, and use various means to kill the chicken to scare the monkey, and suppress the wealthy merchants on the list of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce from buying land and investing elsewhere in the country.

After these sets of policies, these sea merchants who did not feel a huge impact at the beginning suddenly found that their capital was locked by Liu Yu.

It's like digging a pool and blocking other gaps with various means, leaving only three gaps: fixed quotas of sea trade, Nanyang development, and emerging industries.

Either, flow this way.

Or, suffocate in the pool.

Capital needs to flow to make profits, and it certainly doesn't want to be suffocated.

There were originally several gaps such as land, usury, and land hoarding, but now these gaps, at least in several prefectures in southern Jiangsu, have been blocked.

The wealthy merchants on Liu Yu's list wanted to flee Songsu with their capital, but they were skinned and miserable.

The Western Trade Company and the Japanese Trade Company, as the "banknote issuing bank" of Dashun, have long been included in the scope of reform. The banks under preparation require gold and silver profits to issue exchange certificates, promising that they can be redeemed at any time, but the problem is that these banknotes are now only in southern Jiangsu, Nanyang, Jinghai, and the coal and iron areas relying on Liaohe River and Tianjin.

It's not so easy to exchange silver and run away.

Although it can be exchanged at any time, what is the exchange for? It must be recorded.

The bank's forced paper money exchange was based on the high rate of return on trade, forcing merchants from all walks of life to accept: either give up the dizzying profits of the Western and Eastern Trading Companies; or accept paper money.

In fact, Dashun has only developed a copper mine in Yunnan over the years, alleviating the problem of small currencies. But Dashun does not have super large silver and gold mines, so the "currency" that Dashun increases every year can be said to come from the Eastern and Western Trading Companies.

Liu Yu did not move the stock, but the currency increment that was easier to move.

The currency increment of the East-West trade is huge.

From the Ming Dynasty to the present, the pure inflow of silver from outside has reached 70,000 tons, equivalent to 2.2 billion taels. Before the Ming Dynasty, China's total silver deposits may not be even one-third of this number.

This does not count the inflow of Japanese trade.

Therefore, Liu Yu directly seized the inflow point, that is, the annual increase in silver is issued in the form of paper money, and paper money can now be exchanged for sufficient silver, but paper money is not circulated nationwide.

This is similar to setting up a "foreign currency zone" in Songsu Nanyang and other places. To spend money in other places in Dashun, you have to use Dashun's local currency, silver and copper, and other places do not recognize paper money at all for the time being.

Are wealthy merchants like the Xu family rich?

Very rich, with a net worth of millions.

But if you leave these special areas, you will have no money.

And these special areas can be said to have no impact on luxury enjoyment, eating, drinking, whoring and gambling.

If the southern Jiangsu area can't satisfy it, then other places are probably even worse.

In this case, it is hard to say whether they are rich or poor.

It can only be said that their money is not free.

Very unfree.

When it was first implemented, no one could see any impact. I feel that holding silver will cause losses and making large transactions is troublesome, so it is of course better to get banknote exchange coupons.

But when people gradually accepted it, the businessmen discovered that there were still shackles on it.

When these reforms that were carried out slowly were linked together one by one, they became the rhetorical question in Xu Tao's mouth.

"What now?"

A visible hand firmly controls the flow of these overseas trade value-added capital.

Because the owner of this visible hand is convinced that the value-added capital must be kept by the invisible hand and go to land and lending.

But after the last shackles of non-nationally circulating banknotes fell, the scene that Xu Tao is lamenting now appeared:

The Duke said, in business, we must talk about interests. Everyone in the world is interested in profit. I will not use government means to force you to do something you don't want to do!

The backhand is a set of policies that make it difficult to buy land and lend money, which are the most profitable.

Just tie a rope around the dog's neck first, and then smear a bunch of chili powder and rat poison on its favorite salted fish and bacon within the rope range, so the dog voluntarily eats the leftover steamed buns.

If you don’t believe me, you can ask the dog if he voluntarily ate the leftover steamed buns.

Of course, there seems to be another problem here, that is, dogs elsewhere can still eat salted fish and bacon. Moreover, dogs from other places will see that there are only leftover steamed buns to eat here and will not want to come.

But actually this is not a problem.

This is also a special situation where "I am Dashun and have my own national conditions here".

First of all, East-West Trade is the note-issuing bank of Dashun. The annual increase in value is enough to support the slow industrial and commercial development of Dashun. Whether the cats from other places come or not, there are not less than a few. You can buy land in your hometown and collect rents and loan sharks. If you can't afford to offend, you can't afford to hide.

Secondly, although compared with buying land and lending money at high interest rates, if the investment is high and the dividends are reduced, it will be a waste. But the only things that are better than leftover steamed buns are salted fish and bacon, and the rest are not as good as leftover steamed buns.

Thirdly, with an annual interest rate of 12%, the gentry who invest in Dashun may still hold their noses and feel unfair. But in Amsterdam, the world's financial center at this time, the annual interest rate of 12% can be squeezed out by investors. At least Dashun is not afraid of capital outflows. Anyway, Liu Yu doesn't believe that any fool would rather buy the free 5% British treasury bonds than the 12% to 15% intervention stocks officially supervised by Dashun.

Fourthly, Dashun's special handicraft industry is extremely developed, labor costs are extremely low, the average daily wage is one-third to one-fourth that of London, and the price of grain is one-third of that in silver terms, making Dashun as long as it opens to Europe. Market sales and capital accumulation will continue, and the existing foundation is sufficient, without the need for investment from gentry elsewhere.

After all, this was a cotton trade war. Relying on pure handicrafts and hedging against the British steam engine from 1767 to the 1890s, the hand-woven textile industry only collapsed by half - hand-spinning must have collapsed, but hand-woven fabrics have collapsed because the yarn has become cheaper. Such development was so great that in the year before the Sino-Japanese War of 1898-1894, Nantong homespun cloth actually used machine-made cotton yarn to push a wave of foreign cloth with almost no tariffs - a magical and industrious country.

[Nothing illustrates the plight of our textiles in China than the following fact: after the Treaty, the raw silk shipped to London was actually packed in the finest Manchester cotton. Because it is the most worthless packaging product that can be found in Jiangsu - even more worthless than the Hangzhou cheesecloth that the locals commonly use for packaging. 】

Dashun's special national conditions, special currency issuance channels, special capital appreciation speed, and special labor cost advantages mean that this set of policies can only be used in Dashun and cannot be used elsewhere.

Applying it to the Netherlands, not to mention such a "strict" control policy, just change the prohibition on the flow of gold and silver exports, and London will become a financial center tomorrow.

Dashun's current industrial and commercial policy is that "the imperial court allows merchants to make money and encourages merchants to make money, but only allows merchants to make money where the imperial court wants merchants to make money."

Apart from these policies, the last thing is what Xu Tao said: "Fools can be replaced." This is using bureaucrats to scare businessmen, but it is the least important point.

Because...this can only be used to scare people, but cannot be done for real.

Some of the impacts of these policies can be felt by businessmen like Xu Tao, some cannot be felt or understood, and some are the least important but are considered the most important by these businessmen...

But these policies are indeed beginning to work.

After Xu Heng thought for a while along the lines of thought proposed by his father, he couldn't help but sigh: "Now it seems that the Duke's method of dealing with us is similar to the way he dealt with the Dutch, forcing the Dutch to follow the steps he set. . Moved to Ceylon and established cooperation, but there was no fierce battle. In fact, the outcome was already doomed on the day when the Duke invaded Japan and cut off the sales of Nanyang sugar. "

"Don't you feel a little scared, father? He is plotting against us step by step, and the temptation actually forces us to follow the path he has set."

Xu Tao asked: "Otherwise? Do you know where to go? Where do you want to go?"

Xu Heng hesitated for a moment, and seeing no one around, he whispered: "After all, he is an official, and we are just citizens. If it is like the Dutch system, I like it best. Only businessmen like us can be the leaders of the four people."

Xu Tao was not surprised at all. After all, he had dealt with Westerners a lot. Businessmen naturally envied the Dutch system. Many people had thought about it.

Then he smiled and said, "It's simple, but everything is difficult at the beginning. You just need to blow a breath, first destroy the 20,000 good family men stationed in Songjiang Prefecture, then destroy the fleets in Tianjin, Weihai and Lushun, and then destroy the 70,000 Beijing Camp Field New Army stationed in the capital, and that's the beginning."