Spring and Autumn I Am King

"The five grains are the life of the people and the treasure of the country."

Starting with this, in this wheat field on the outskirts of Yecheng, Ji Ran confided to Zhao Wuxi his plan to let the Zhao family spend the disaster year safely.

"A person's life is only a few decades, and he must first save up to prepare for disasters, so that he can be safe and sound, and the same is true for the country. In the time of Xia and Yu, the world suffered floods for nine consecutive years, and the people did not get displaced; during the Shang and Tang dynasties, the world suffered from severe droughts for seven consecutive years, and the people did not starve to death because of this. This is the wise man of ancient times. The reason for being able to anticipate disasters in advance and have sufficient reserves.”

Ji Ran pointed to the bumper harvest of wheat and millet fields, and made a calculation for Zhao Wuxi: After this bumper harvest, in the treasuries of Zhao's counties, Ye will have surplus grain for one and a half years, Hanoi will have three years, and the eldest son will have two. This is because there has been no large-scale use of troops in these three places in the past few years, but there are a lot of immigrants in Yecheng, which consumes a lot. Taiyuan, which has sent troops several times, has only one year of savings, Dongyang has one and a half years, and the barren Daijun and Hejian have only half a year.

This is what Ji Ran said before, "Those who start a division must first accumulate food, money, and cloth. If they don't accumulate it first, the number of soldiers will be hungry, and if they are hungry, they will be easily injured." Zhao Wuxi's soldiers are not pottery figurines who don't eat or drink. Every time they move, they consume a lot of food. This is also the reason why the Zhao family has only deployed troops on a small scale in the past three years, and has not fought a national war. Without him, there is only a shortage of food.

As for the Wei and Han families who fought in successive years and recruited the people several times, Zhao Wuxi reckoned that Anyi and Guocheng would burn high incense if they had a year's surplus of food.

But if it is as Chang Hong expected, no one can escape when the disaster strikes.

Zhao Wuxi frowned and said: "In this way, if the entire Jizhou (the area between the two rivers, Ji, including Shanxi) is affected, the food supply in Taiyuan, Dongyang, Hejian, and Dai will be somewhat stretched. In this way, starting from today How about cutting down on major projects that consume food, such as digging out various passes and roads in Taihang, which can be released later, and then transfer the food from Hanoi to the treasuries of the prefectures?"

"It's just a throttling, and it's a drop in the bucket for the counties."

Ji Ran pointed to a paddy field in the distance and said: "Zhao's food is like the water in this paddy field. No matter how you save it, it will dry up under the sun. So besides this, you have to dredge and adjust it, and you have to open source. , dig up the ridge, and let the water from other places flow in."

"How to adjust? Please tell me sir."

"It's actually very simple." Ji Ran smiled and said, "A cheap grain will hurt farmers, and an expensive grain will hurt the bottom..."

...

"There is a certain price for grain, which is based on Zhao's five baht dollars. Twenty dollars a shi is too cheap, and ninety dollars a shi is too expensive. The high price of grain has hit the merchants, making them unable to hire workers and transshipment goods. The rising tide makes the boat extremely expensive, which will lead to the depression of the market, and the tax revenue of the Zhao family will drop. If the price of grain is too low to hit the peasants, the peasants will waste their land and suffer from famine. Complete the plan. In the event of a disaster, it will be even worse, which may cause people to flee."

Zhao Wuxi nodded, this is the future King Hui of the Wei Dynasty, "Hedong disaster, Hanoi disaster... The people of neighboring countries will not increase, and the people of the few will not increase, why?" The origin of this question. In the case of the coexistence of many countries, people can't survive in this country, and they can cross the border and go to other countries to make a living. Anyway, the land is vast and sparsely populated, and the governments of other countries are also welcome. Unlike later, where the same government is everywhere, the wanderers will be suppressed, and they can only rebel.

The current official system of the Zhao family is completely different from that of the Jin state. Instead, it is like the Qin and Han Jiuqing system. Many official positions even have the same names. Zhao Wuxi has appointed Ji Ran to be promoted from Yecheng Ling to the "Internal History of Suzhi". agriculture.

The economic department also has "shaofu", which is handed over to Jiqiao, who is proficient in mathematics, in charge of industry and commerce, as well as forging coins of money, gold and silk.

Ji Ran, as the internal history of Su Zhi, in his position, he naturally has to seek his government. The Zhao family has a vast territory, and he can also display what he has learned in his life.

"Therefore, the price of grain should not be higher than 90 cents, and the purchase price should not be lower than 20 cents. This is beneficial to farmers and merchants. But how should grain prices be adjusted? Merchants and merchants have their own set of internal rules for growing grain. , so the price fluctuates with supply and demand in the market.”

"The minister's suggestion is to buy food at the right time (籴dí) and sell it at the right time (紜tiào). In this way, regardless of the year of good or bad, the price of food can be maintained within a certain range, and farmers can The business and the two benefit. This is to make up for what is lacking. Even if there is a famine and drought, the price of food will not skyrocket, the prices in the stores can be stabilized, and the people will not panic and flee to foreign countries.”

Zhao Wuxi nodded as he heard it, but this thing always felt like he had heard it in a history class in his previous life.

After thinking for a while, he finally patted his head.

Isn't this the "Ping Bian Law" in the reform of Li Kui in the Wei Kingdom!

...

However, after Zhao Wuxi recalled, he found that Ji Ran's focus was to sell grain to benefit both farmers and businessmen.

Ping Bian and Ping Bian, each from Ji Ran and Li Kui, have two views separated by hundreds of years. To intervene in the national grain market, and to handle grain in a timely manner in the market to stabilize grain prices and protect and promote the stability and development of grain production.

So Zhao Wuxi coughed lightly and added: "Mr.'s remarks are reasonable. In my opinion, it is better to formulate a system based on this opportunity, and divide the good years into the upper, middle and lower grades, and the bad years into the upper, middle and lower grades. The third class. In bumper years, according to the annual bumper harvest, let the government purchase excess grain to prevent merchants from lowering grain prices; in poor harvest years, according to the degree of poor harvest, the government will sell the purchased grain at a par to prevent merchants from driving up prices and causing panic …”

This is the content of the "Ping Bian Law". Zhao Wuxi is now learning and selling, which makes Ji Ran quite surprised.

If you think about it carefully, selling at a fair price is indeed more specific and more maneuverable than passively adjusting according to market price fluctuations.

However, compared with Ji Ran's "Ping Tiao", this method is not so friendly to merchants, and it guards them like a thief.

As far as Ji Ran's heart is concerned, he pays more attention to agriculture, which is why he subconsciously calls merchants "the end". It's not because business is not important, it's just that when disaster strikes, the choice must be to protect agriculture first. What's more, as the long history of millet control, it is his job to do a good job in farming...

So Ji Ran promised to revise and supplement this law according to Zhao Wuxi's suggestion after going down, and strive to implement it after the autumn harvest, and use the savings from this year's good year to deal with the famine that may come next year.

He couldn't help but sigh in his heart: The monarch's ability to comprehend is so strong, which is really surprising and delightful, because ordinary monarchs, ministers, and doctors are only concerned about how much food they can collect this year, and whether they can increase taxes and collect more. Or it is to force the people under the rule to hunt, log, and fish to sell and generate income. Few are like Zhao Wuxi, who rely on improving agricultural technology to increase food, and rely on paper, porcelain and other technical handmade products to make money.

This is also the reason why the Zhao clan is able to "struggle with military force". If you switch to another country, the people will already have their own dishes.

...

On Zhao Wuxi's side, he can only feel distressed about the income of the Shaofu, which will inevitably decrease next year, and the teacher Ji Qiao, who is worried about the decrease in political performance.

But this is impossible. Although I don't want to admit it, the fact is that although Zhao's industry and commerce seem to be booming, even if Zhao Wuxi develops for a few decades, China is still a civilization based on agriculture. , any "progress" or "sprouting" that is out of the production level of the times is a castle in the air. This is the reason why Qin State swept the more advanced six countries in terms of commerce and material by relying on the tedious "agricultural war".

Because they have grasped the fundamentals and grasped the lifeblood of this civilization.

Therefore, for the Zhao regime based on the military meritorious landlords and small peasant economy, the price of grain must be conducive to mobilizing farmers' enthusiasm for production, and conducive to the development of agriculture, and must not be at the expense of harming farmers' interests!

Of course, Zhao Wuxi did not hate the merchants like the legalists of the Qin and Jin Dynasties of the later generations. After all, the trade power of the entire north is in his hands. He asked Zigong to use Cao State Taoqiu to collect and distribute goods from Chu, Chen, Cai, Song, Wu, and Lu States, and when Wei Canal was built, Puyang could also distribute goods from Jin and Lu, and the trade share left for Linzi and Xinzheng would become few and far between. .

In addition, Yidun's official caravan controlled the trade with Daibeihudi and Shangjun Rongdi, and Taiyuan became a city in the north, occupying the bulk of cattle, horses, and leather transactions. On the Juguo Langya side, the method of drying salt is also quietly replacing the method of boiling salt, which is expected to break the monopoly of the Wei family and the state of Qi on table salt.

To put it bluntly, his Zhao clan is the most hateful official and businessman of this era, an ancient trust whose one foot is still in the feudal era, but one foot has stepped into the monarch's ****.

Therefore, Zhao Wuxi did not take the extreme route of "shanging the agriculture and eliminating the end", focusing on agriculture, supplemented by industry and commerce, and the coexistence and healthy development of the multi-ownership economy is the kingly choice.

What's more, Jiran's "open source" strategy has to rely on large and small businessmen to realize it!

The two of them stood for a long time and were a little tired, so they sat on the field ridge. As the minister of Jin State, Zhao Wuxi didn't think it was dirty, so he crossed his legs and asked.

Ji Ran said: "Shangqing has forced the use of Zhao's five baht money among the lords of Lu, Wei, Ju, and Si Shang~www.readwn.com~ to replace the previous miscellaneous coins and become the only currency of all countries. In addition, Han, Wei, Song , Zhongshan, Beiyan, Qi, Zheng and other countries that have close trade relations with the Zhao family, the five baht money is also extremely circulated, and it has almost become the standard currency for trade. Now Jin is full of iron ore, and weapons and agricultural tools no longer need a lot of copper and tin. Why not mint a large amount of copper and tin from the reserves, and then use these coins to buy grain from Han, Wei, Zhongshan, Beiyan, Qi, Zheng and other countries at prices exceeding the market?"

"This year is a bumper harvest year, and the countries and the two ministers don't pay much attention to the regulation of grain reserves. Domestic merchants are eager to make profits, so they will inevitably rush to import grain into Zhao. In this way, the treasury can be self-sufficient..."

Zhao Wuxi slapped his palms and smiled: "Sir, this plan is a bit 'weak enough to make up for the excess'!"

However, he likes this method of harming others and benefiting himself. When there is no money available, Feiyin standard currency is going to trick others, and there is no International Monetary Organization to embarrass him, it is exciting to think about it.

The disaster that may come next year is not only a test for Zhao, but also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

PS: This chapter has been written for a long time, and I don’t know if you can understand it... The second chapter is in the evening (.)