Crown Tang emperor

So he quickly explained: "Flying money, it seems that the two places do not leave the country, but there is still a difference. The personnel needs in Sichuan are far less than the amount of the two capitals. Merchants are greedy for the profits of the goods, and they will go to great lengths to transport goods far away. In addition, in previous years, there was no convenience for flying money. It was a pain to transport goods, and it was another pain to receive money. Now that money and goods no longer need to be transported far away, only goods are shipped, and the business will naturally double..."

The reason is very simple. Although Shuzhong is famous for its wealth, when it comes to the market demand and the speed of goods circulation, it is far inferior to the center of the world like the two capitals.Even if there is no flying money, the output of goods in Shuzhong is far greater than the inflow.

Now that there is flying money, Shu merchants no longer need to transport the money they earned from foreign transactions back to Sichuan. The output will naturally increase.

Wu Zetian expressed his intentions shallowly, worrying that this would keep money and interests in the local area. This is actually too much worry. This will not only reduce the influx of money in Shuzhong, but also stimulate the enthusiasm of Shu merchants and increase the output of goods in Shuzhong.

"But in this way, merchants' profits will increase, and local governments will reduce their money. Can this be maintained for a long time?"

Although the Wu family used to be a family of merchants, by the time Wu Zetian was born, his father had already become the Duke of the founding father of the Tang Dynasty, so naturally he would no longer be a lowly businessman.And she herself entered the palace in her teens. Although the first half of her life was full of ups and downs, she was basically insulated from common affairs in the market.

Later, although he was in charge of state affairs, apart from power struggles in the palace, he was faced with grand conceptual issues, and he did not have any in-depth understanding of specific commercial and even financial issues.

After all, human energy is limited, and today there are not as developed and convenient ways to obtain information as later generations.It is normal to have biased cognition.

"I don't have personal experience with the details of the Shu merchants' circumstances, so I dare not make judgments. I can only draw conclusions based on what I know."

Li Tong paused at this point, and decided to sell another Wu Youyi, so he continued: "King Jian'an's mansion entrusted me with wealth. I have never seen such a huge wealth in my life. At that time, Chad was terrified. There are many hungry ghosts on the streets, and the gardens and mansions are full of broken warehouses! Such amazing wealth and benefits, people can't enjoy it, it's just dust and waste."

Hearing this, Wu Zetian couldn't help but frowned and said in a low voice, "If you're so greedy, how can you not hurt yourself?"

"King Jian'an stayed in Xijing for only a short period of time. The merchants of Shu have been in business for generations, and they must accumulate money. Only by passing money can they profit. They can get the accuracy of the quantity and the ability of the market. It is really useless to hoard for a long time. "

Li Tong continued: "One place, one corner, within a short period of time, people have permanent staff, and things have fixed production. If they draw their floating money, the accumulated wealth will be able to swing. In the circulation market, how can material resources break it easily."

Currency itself is just a medium of exchange and does not represent the level of productivity. The goods with currency attributes accumulated in the Shu area over the years are far from being able to fall below market demand in a short period of time.

Moreover, when the money is extracted through the flying money business, when it has accumulated to a certain scale, a new business can be started, which is lending, so that it has the embryonic form of a bank.

But in this way, there is no doubt that the financial power of the government will be stripped away.Wu Zetian was already so sensitive about decentralization, Li Tong simply didn't mention it.If he wants to develop to that stage, it won't happen in a short period of time. At that time, his grandma will still be in office or not.

Wu Zetian fell silent after listening to the young king's narration, obviously digesting these.After a long while like this, she nodded and said: "This matter is indeed very promising. If you only use one place in Sichuan, it is still a bit small. Now that you have thought of this section, do you have a strategy to expand it?"

"My minister has a little plan, but after all, the matter is not deep, so I dare not boast of a good plan."

Li Tong saw that his grandma was a little moved, so he continued to work harder and said: "The capital of the imperial court was originally intended to seek benefits for the Beijing Baisi. But the situation has been unfolding, and it has been scattered in many places by now. Those in charge have High or low, there are pros and cons of skills, although capital is set, it may not be profitable. Instead of letting the states manage their own affairs, why not let the imperial court set up a special supervisory office to directly manage the capital of all parties?"

Of course, Wu Zetian was full of vigilance about the separation of powers, but when he heard that the capital of the state corporations would be centrally managed, he suddenly became energetic: "How should we specialize in the franchise? If you have any ideas, feel free to tell us. Don't worry about the superficial plan, it's just in the palace. Small talk."

Chapter 0312 of the capital self-collection, a million profits

The capital of public houses in the Tang Dynasty was naturally government-run usury. The government selected some high-ranking households under its rule to distribute the capital, and collected monthly interest, usually six or seven cents.This part of the income is generally distributed as benefits for officials such as monthly allowances and lesson money.

Usury is a huge profit industry, and it is still government-run, so it is even more lucrative, and there is no risk at all.But even so, in many places, including Beijing Baishi, the phenomenon of insufficient income and even capital deficit often occurs.

This kind of phenomenon can happen in a few ways, either the officials are enriching their own pockets, or the government colludes with the rich households, and the former rich households act as middlemen to forcibly distribute capital to the poor households. With a small income, he bears many burdens such as rent adjustments, and then is forcibly increased, and he will naturally go bankrupt.

In either case, it reflects that government-run usury has its institutional flaws.So can it just be scrapped?

It really can’t be abolished. First, this part of the income is an important supplementary part of the government’s normal tax collection. Second, the government can also use this to clamp down on the wealthy households under its rule. Third, usury does have its basis for existence at the moment. When the government withdraws from this market, the powerful, powerful families, temples, etc. will naturally join in to compete for the market.

Of course, there is another fundamental reason, that is, it is easy to go from thrift to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality.Enjoying extra money has become a habit, and the interests are related to the entire bureaucratic group. It is not easy to abolish it directly.

It was not for a while that Li Tong set his sights on the capital of the government office, and he had such an idea from a very early age.One is that this matter itself is a miscellaneous matter other than military and political affairs;

Although the capital of the public house has a long history, it is not permanent.As early as the reign of Emperor Gaozong Yonghui, it was once called to stop, but soon after, with Gaozong's attack on the border areas and the construction of the eastern capital, he was unable to cope with this part of the extra expenditure, so he had to give up the control, and the original government in Beijing Baisi spread rapidly to the local area.

During the reign of Yifeng in the later period of Emperor Gaozong, his condition became more and more serious. Wu Zetian, who was still the queen of heaven at that time, also had a tendency to become more and more authoritarian, and the conflict with the prince Li Xian became more and more serious.

Under such circumstances, Wu Zetian started to pay the capital of the company and transferred it to pay by levying household taxes. The purpose was naturally to concentrate this part of the power in his hands.If you want people to be obedient, of course you have to grab their pocketbooks first.

However, this situation did not last long. As Xu Jingye and Yue Wang Lizhen successively rebelled, and the pace of the revolution in the Tang Dynasty became more and more rapid, in order to stabilize the situation of people's hearts, it was necessary to reduce the taxation of the people and increase the salary of all officials. Materials, miscellaneous money, and at the same time, large-scale construction and ceremonies must be held, so the ban can only be lifted again.

So when Li Tong proposed that the capital of the company could be brought under the control of the court, Wu Zetian was so interested that he even put on an attitude of not being ashamed to ask.Although she is the lord of the world, she is also trapped by money at the moment, and she is quite agitated to chop her hands.

"The capital of each state and county is set up separately, ranging from tens to thousands of wires. Although the amount of each is not large, if you look at it together, there are hundreds of thousands of wires. The consumption of legs will double!"

Wu Zetian nodded after hearing the words, and his eyes lit up at the same time.

Nowadays, the capital of the world is different from inside and outside. There are many government offices between the two capitals, so the capital of the public houses is large, which is more than [-] yuan.

Specific to the locality, the official houses are scattered and not concentrated, and in addition to the capital of the public houses, there are other kinds of capital, such as boats, bridges, relief, etc., which are disposed of in case of trouble.

The young king's estimate of tens of thousands of coins is actually conservative. In terms of the total amount of public money, 300 million coins may not be able to stop.The annual rent collected by the imperial court is mediocre, but it is worth a little over 200 million yuan.In recent years, although new capital transfers have been added to cover classes, all kinds of laborers can pay money on their behalf, but the income is only between one million yuan.

Although the number is large, transportation is really difficult because it spreads all over the world, and the difficulty of overall management is even higher than that of her heroine.

But now the money order created by Shaowang can offset the shipping cost to negligible.Although the states do not have to leave the money, the imperial court deprived them of the right to manage the money with this piece of paper.

Although Wu Zetian does not have advanced financial concepts, she is by no means an ordinary person who is obsessed with real money. If she can deprive the states of capital management rights in the form of laws, she is still afraid that the states will continue to lend money privately?

Of course, if the money does not go abroad, you also need to consider how to manage the revenue. Originally, these powers are in the states and counties. If you build a team for this matter, not to mention the efficiency, the cost of employment is also a problem. Nerve question.

However, she was not in a hurry to ask questions, but stared at the young king with great interest.

"Flying money to remit numbers is separated from the money itself. If you want to use its power successfully, you must use things as a load. The permanent warehouses set up by the states are sufficient for this purpose."

Li Tong's tone was slow, because he had to organize his thoughts while speaking.Flying money draft basically means that there must be corresponding money or things if there is a ticket, if not, it is a piece of waste paper.

As for credit currency, in the current era, whether it is ruling technology, commodity economy, including basic productivity development, it is too advanced.Not to mention using paper as money, even the new money made during Gaozong's reign could not be circulated because of its crudeness.

Flying money bills and credit currency are two concepts in themselves, so they must be supported by real objects.Rebuilding a network is costly and unpredictable.However, the open warehouse system has a long history. If the two are operated in parallel, then the world will have a material basis.

When Wu Zetian heard this, he couldn't help clapping his hands and exclaimed, "Wonderful, really wonderful!"

That's great?The combination of bills of exchange and open positions only solves a basic exchange problem.Although the Changping warehouse is relatively independent of the jurisdiction of the local government, it is not a profitable institution itself, and in fact, it does not fundamentally solve the fact that money and food are still in the local area.

"For the use of money and goods, it can be attached to the state tribute and imported into the capital, and the amount will be increased according to the current price of the capital. The state will issue tributes to the top, and the imperial court will use the flying money bills to write down."

Nowadays, financial behavior cannot be separated from the physical carrier.The so-called local tribute refers to the local specialties contributed by each locality other than the regular tax. These special products are either cheap in the village or rare outside.

If the current price in the capital is used to enshrine the local government, as the capital of the public office, it can offset the resistance of local officials to the greatest extent.

This is equivalent to that they only need to pay a few thousand or even less money, and they can redeem a ticket of tens of thousands of dollars at the court, but the premise is that you must be obedient, otherwise, you will not even get a hair.

Wu Zetian frowned slightly when he heard this, and then relaxed after a while.After all, she is not a market woman who lives by a few meters. Compared with the amount of goods, she actually pays more attention to the psychological control of those local officials through this exchange.

But she still couldn't help asking: "Although all the things you have said can be called good, they are not at all related to profit. The capital set up by the states is related to the food and clothing of the group of officials. If there is no sufficient profit, how can they cope with hundreds of thousands of people?" official needs?"

Li Tong was naturally unfazed when he heard this question, and continued to laugh and said: "The capital agency set up by the imperial court naturally can't just collect money. The land tributes from the states can be sold easily. Although it is only at the current price , but the capital has already been collected, and with this huge wealth accumulated, it is possible to operate calmly."

"go on."

Wu Zetian's eyes were bright, and he raised his hands curiously to urge him.

The capitals of the states have been collected through such twists and turns, and Li Tong does not intend to directly invest these capitals in market transactions.On the one hand, the quantity is too large to operate, and on the other hand, it has a government-run background and strong capital. Once it competes with those merchants in the market, it will not take long for all businesses to be depressed.

"After the revenue, I have a few plans, whether it is feasible or not, needs to be corrected by Your Majesty."

He said a word of modesty first, because what he was going to say next was to offend people: "In Jingbaisi, there are many extra benefits besides serving. In government temples, the meat is easy to market and not used by officials. Hundreds of years of planning and inspections have been carried out, and the remnants of the treasury are missing. The local criminal department pursues the stolen goods and clears them. In order to hide themselves from the government, the sentence is light. There are all kinds of piles, which cannot be counted."

What Li Tong said were all the long-standing abuses in the current officialdom.The ancients were never stupid, and some small activities in the officialdom have been well thought out for thousands of years.Things like year-end audit surprise expense budget and the like are pretty smooth.

The law of the Tang Dynasty stipulates that the stolen money needs to be turned over to the central government if it exceeds a certain amount, and if it is within a certain amount, it will be kept for personal use.Naturally, some people take advantage of such legal loopholes and deliberately lower the value when estimating stolen goods, which can not only reduce the crime of criminals, but also keep the stolen goods in place.

"If all these extra benefits are placed in the capital department, the so-called accumulation of armpits will surely increase the annual surplus, and it will also make the government clean..."

With so much money in hand, it's no use bullying the common people. If you want to do it, you can do it with the government.

When Wu Zetian heard this, the smile on his face was already big, and he pointed to the young king and nodded repeatedly, showing that he was extremely satisfied.After a while, she said again: "Recently, I've been living in the inner garden, and I'm free to discuss personnel affairs with your grandmother. There is no need for you to worry about or ask about external affairs!"

Chapter 0313 Love is as warm as the spring breeze

In the next few days, Li Tong lived in the Forbidden Garden, and felt deeply the spring-like love and care of his grandma.Giving food in the morning and evening every day, and ordering the maidservants to live and serve diligently every day, those are the basic operations.

At the same time, Wu Zetian himself was very concerned about this grandson. He returned to the court every day. If he did not call the prime minister to discuss affairs, he would definitely call the young king into the palace, even when dealing with government affairs.Sometimes when encountering some unspeakable memorial affairs, they even directly push the memorial to the young king and ask the young king's opinion on it.

The most discussed among grandparents and grandchildren is naturally the issue of paying the capital of the Baishi Zhuzhou corporation to the public.In this regard, many of Li Tong's opinions can win his grandma's heart.

Like Li Tong's idea of ​​inductive and overall planning by Yu Hui outside the department, Wu Zetian, in addition to expressing his deep approval, has even begun to discuss specific details.

In fact, the imperial court is not turning a blind eye to this issue, but the management has not been strong enough.

For example, in the eyes of Li Tong, the titles of Treasurer Yu, Huican, etc., were actually involved in the "Gou Accounting Style" promulgated as early as the early years of Chui Gong, and the most important content was to establish the application of the four-pillar bookkeeping method.

The three-pillar bookkeeping method adopted by the imperial court originally had only three items: income, expenditure, and surplus.The four-pillar rule adds the old account surplus, which also includes the old treasury surplus into the statistics.

However, such reforms are only managed in the check and audit.As for the specific management operations, it lasted until the Kaiyuan and Tianbao periods. With the efforts of Yu Wenrong and Yang Shenjin, who were able to manage money, they became part of government administration and expanded into a new fiscal revenue.

Although the remnants and surplus items are not pleasant to hear, the high profits in them should not be underestimated.

For example, when Li Tong was in Xijing, his father-in-law Tang Xiuzhong once introduced him to Zhang Keji, the son of Longyou horse king Zhang Wansui.Li Tong talked about horse affairs with him, which involved issues related to the taxation of the stables in Longyou and the handling of dead horses.

The horse business in Longyou is prosperous, and there are hundreds of thousands of horses in the stables. One can imagine the complexity of the things involved.

For example, when the tax grass comes in and out every year, at the end of each season, there are still a lot of old season leftover grass and food left in the stables and warehouses, but the new tax grass needs to be received and put into storage, so these old grass It can only be dealt with at a reduced price to local herdsmen.

Zhang Keji himself owns a large-scale private horse farm. According to him, he can save tens of thousands of dollars every year through this transaction alone.

There is also the treatment of those sick horses and dead horses. The court only stipulated that the horse hides should be handed over to the Sifu Temple for backup, but the horse's meat, bone glue and other materials were handled by the local stables themselves.

Adding up these materials for each horse, you can get tens or hundreds of dollars, which is not a lot by itself, but once the number increases, it will be an astonishing figure every year.And these incomes are not included in the account, and the court has no way to check them.

Zhang Keji is only a private horse farm owner in Longshang, and what he talks about is just a horse thing. The various wastes of the court revealed in his words have already amounted to 10,000+ coins every year.

Gather sand into a tower.If the imperial court can have a special organization in charge of this matter, the extra income every year will be astonishing.

This is indeed the case. During the Kaiyuan and Tianbao years, it was only the surplus operation of the Kansai horse affairs around these remnants. Without considering the increased cost input by the court, the scale of the horse administration was directly expanded by a few points.

As for using the regular open warehouse as the material basis for flying money drafts, Li Tong's main intention was not to be greedy for convenience.The basic operation of the regular position is to buy cheap and sell dear, so as to stabilize prices and prevent farmers from being hurt by low grain prices.

But before the Tianbao period, Changping warehouses in Zhuzhou were independent and only responsible for their own affairs. Not only was the profit limited, but even the basic maintenance was very difficult.Especially in some large grain-producing states, it takes a lot of money from the court to subsidize it every year to maintain it.

However, after the Anshi Rebellion, Liu Yan, a famous official, reformed the Changping law, managed the Changping warehouses in each state as a whole, and adopted the trade relocation system. Changping trading is no longer limited to grain and rice, and all kinds of goods are legalized. Only Changping salt can generate income for the court. Huge million.

It even extended a special envoy, that is, the salt and iron transport envoy, and it became an important part of the functions of the third secretary envoy of the Minister of Finance in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, including the early Northern Song Dynasty.

Although agriculture is the foundation nowadays, the unevenness of products in different regions is a natural problem. It is also necessary to communicate with each other. As an indispensable part of social behavior, commercial behavior also has its own meaning.

Li Tong's overall idea is to take the capital of the government office as the cost, coordinate and take care of various administrative redundancy and waste, and use Changping warehouse, which already has a storage system, to create a state-owned commercial entity, or simply directly In other words, it is a state-run supply and marketing cooperative.

Of course, Li Tong's purpose was not pure when imagining these things, because it involved the infringement of all aspects of the power of the imperial court, including the states and counties.

For example, the inventory of all parties' surplus and remnants involves financial inspection and auditing. This was originally the scope of authority of the Ministry of Justice under the Qiuguan Criminal Department.The Changping warehouse originally belonged to the Sinong Temple.As for the collection, storage and expenditure of the local tribute from the states, it is subordinate to the Sifu Temple and the Shaofu Shangfang Supervisor.

It is precisely because it involves the distribution of power and benefits of all parties that the capital of various companies should be used as the operating cost.Because this is related to the overall interests of the bureaucratic group, if you dare to stare and resist, it will hurt everyone's wallets.

Only in this way can the conflict and resistance in all aspects be eliminated to the greatest extent.As for the final degree of completion, it depends on the specific operation implementation.

It is conceivable that Wu Zetian is very interested in such a plan. During the recent period, he has been thinking about this matter almost all the time.At the same time, he appreciated the young king who proposed such a concept to the extreme.

On this day, the grandparents and grandchildren discussed it until late at night. When the young king retreated to the palace to rest, suddenly the wind and rain came and the temperature dropped sharply. Eye asked: "Have you ever added curtains in Xianyuan?"

The palace official who was sleeping next to him stepped forward and whispered: "The autumn dryness is still there during the day, I don't want the cold to hit in a blink of an eye, the leisure garden where the king lives is not often used, and I haven't had time to put up the tent yet."

Wu Zetian frowned when he heard this, and said, "Send someone to the palace treasury... Forget it, first tear down the tent of this hall, and quickly add the young king's residence."

The palace officials were still waiting to advise, but Wu Zetian waved his hands to urge him to hurry up, so he didn't dare to say any more, and could only order the maidservants to do things.

Of course, the tent that was demolished was not set up by Her Majesty the Queen’s dormitory, but even if it was only the setting up of the outer hall, this grace and compassion really surprised the governor, and naturally he conveyed His Majesty’s great love to him. The King of Hedong, so that Li Tong lay on the bed tossing and turning, silently recited "I am not shaking M" dozens of times, and then slowly fell asleep.

The relationship between grandparents and grandchildren in the imperial palace is harmonious and harmonious, but the affairs of people outside the palace are different.

Not to mention the various discussions in the court about the dispute between King Hedong and Lai Junchen, Lai Junchen, the sufferer, has been very depressed recently.

Although Lai Junchen came from a low family background, he has been extremely favored by the Holy Emperor since he was released by the informant. In addition, he does have the ability to rape and rape. In the past few years, he has been a god-stopper. , The Buddha blocked and killed the Buddha, all the way to the present, never had he suffered such sulking.

But this time, he was beaten to death in public by the King of Hedong. Needless to say, he suffered physical trauma, and his self-esteem was trampled on.

He was sent back to his residence that day, and he rested until the next day before Lai Junchen could barely sit up.The first thing was to summon his henchmen to discuss how to concoct revenge on King Hedong.

When he learned that the King of Hedong fled to the Ciwu Terrace inside the Chongguang Gate of the Eastern Palace after the incident, he sneered and said, "He offended me, no matter where he fled, how can he get away with it..."

It was just this smile, and the breath inevitably rubbed and scratched several strangled throats, the pain made his face bruised, and he hadn't recovered for a long time.

But he was eager for revenge. Although he couldn't speak loudly casually, when he heard that all the kings of the Wu family entered the palace together because of this incident, he thought about it and wrote quickly. When his disciples took his warrant to visit King Wei and Liang Wang and the others, since they were just trying to find out, if the two kings were anxious to put the King of Hedong to death, they would give another blow to the autumn wind by the way.

At the same time, he also ordered the party members to go to Luxinfang King's residence to watch day and night, record the people who came and went, and expand the personnel relationship of Hedong King in Shendu, so as to facilitate the subsequent revenge.

But he had just finished setting up here, and the next morning he learned that the King of Hedong had been summoned into the Forbidden City by His Majesty the Holy Emperor, and that he would stay directly in the Forbidden City that night, and he suddenly felt something was wrong.

He himself is an expert in torture and framing, so he naturally understands that at such a critical moment, whoever is closer to the decider can gain a greater initiative.

At the same time, Du Jingjian, Shaoqing of Sixing, sent his subordinates to the door to ask when Lai Junchen could go to Sixing Temple to explain the whole story of the case.

Hearing the door servant's report, Lai Junchen became even more annoyed, taking this as a humiliation to himself.The scene of him being beaten, the people in Shendu City witnessed it with their own eyes, if not [-], there were [-], and now they are still asking him!

While ordering the servants to drive the officials of the Sixing Temple out of the house, he asked the servants to prepare the car, while dragging his wounded and sick body, he went straight to the imperial city, hoping to appeal for grievances before His Majesty the Holy Emperor.

Although he was beaten by the young king, Lai Junchen's fierce deterrence did not hurt much. The car drove directly into the Lijing Gate of the imperial city, but was blocked when it arrived at the Longqing Gate of Da Nei. His Majesty asked him to concentrate on recuperating at home.

But now that the enemy lives near Chenju, how can Lai Junchen rest at ease, and visit the palace every day, and after a few days, he was finally summoned by His Majesty the Holy Emperor.