New Shun 1730

The Sichuan merchant who had scolded Shaanxi merchants for their cunning and treacherous lending was like a thorn in the flesh not long ago, praised them after drinking tea: "It is said that Qin merchants are wealthy merchants, but this is indeed unnecessary. You are really worthy of Guan Erye, who is worshipped in the Xiqin Guild Hall!"

The Shaanxi merchant who forced someone in Pingwu to sell his wife and forced more than a dozen families to drink brine to commit suicide a few years ago, and was eventually driven out of Mianzhou and swore not to intermarry with Sichuan people for generations, also said at this time: "You are all Sichuan people, and we have heard that Sichuan people are loyal and righteous. In the future, we will have to make a living here, and we may still be businessmen doing business together. We have both been right and wrong in the past, and now let it go."

The two sides admitted their mistakes and talked about business.

Sichuan merchants rarely go to Jiangnan. They usually go to western Sichuan and Tibet to engage in tea, horses, salt and the like.

Although I have heard about the shareholding model that has emerged in Songjiang Prefecture, I don’t know what it is like.

In feudal society, people don’t like to engage in such a joint stock system.

For example, if other shareholders commit a crime and are implicated, they may also suffer.

Moreover, how are the company's assets calculated?

If the company really loses everything, what should be done with the money? How should the company's debts be calculated?

Should all the company's assets be paid in compensation?

Or should each shareholder contribute his own family assets?

Or, if they offend officials or commit treason, will they be implicated and the company will be confiscated as well?

Shaanxi merchants were the losers of the Lianghuai business war. They were beaten back to Shaanxi by Hui merchants despite the huge advantage that the northern border troubles had not been completely solved before Dashun.

But they were also familiar with Jiangnan. In the previous dynasty, Yangzhou was known as half Shanxi and half Hui. Although it is no longer the same as before, there is close communication and they are well aware of some new situations.

The Shaanxi merchants immediately explained how to operate and many rules.

The direction of businessmen's attention is similar.

After listening to these rules, these Sichuan merchants nodded and said, "It should be. If we do this, there will be no competition among everyone, and we can make money together."

"Now it seems that the court really wants to support us. As long as the land rent here is resolved, even if the court wants to sell it to the government and lower the price, we can still make money."

The root of this matter is that the court and these merchants are in collusion. Although their goals are not the same, they are still on the same path at this time.

These merchants are not stupid, and it is easy to understand what the court means by doing this.

It's nothing more than the court wants salt tax.

Don't talk about letting the people eat cheap salt. That is not something that a feudal dynasty should consider, nor is it an obligation that the emperor and the court should be given. Feudal rulers do not have such an obligation.

It's just that the official salt is too expensive, and the people eat private salt, so they can't collect money.

That's why the salt industry in southern Sichuan needs to be reformed.

And the salt that the people eat is not made out of thin air, after all, it is produced in salt wells.

Previously, there were many salt wells and it was difficult to crack down on smuggling, which made many people very rich.

The court did this simply to learn from the reform experience of Songjiang Prefecture, to set up large companies that are easy to control and audit, and to squeeze the living space of private salt as much as possible.

The land rent issue, according to the court's logic, is that land rent leads to expensive official salt, expensive official salt leads to ordinary people eating private salt, eating private salt leads to the inability to collect taxes, and the inability to collect taxes leads to the central power retreating again and again.

Salt wells themselves are easy to gradually develop into a monopoly. Digging wells requires high capital investment. Now such a change is not a matter of pulling up the seedlings to help them grow, but it is equivalent to pushing forward something that must be completed.

Shaanxi merchants and Sichuan merchants know this very well. It is better to suffer a loss or gain an advantage. The court's abolition of land rent alone has allowed them to gain a great advantage.

The rumor released in advance is to allow enough capital to come.

While the two sides were talking, the servant ran in and said, "Master, the adults from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce are here."

This is the protagonist today, and the main seat has been empty.

Merchants from Qin and Shu hurriedly stood up to greet him. After the man from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, who was in his twenties but not yet thirty, came in, he naturally sat in the main seat without much politeness.

When he spoke, he was also straightforward, defining his identity.

"We, to put it simply, are actually the imperial court's father-in-law and mother-in-law for you. Let you do it yourself, and everyone knows what you can do."

"Just like the six governments are official names, but in fact everyone still calls them the six ministries in private. Although we are called the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, some people call us the "Minister of the Imperial Household" in private."

"Since Emperor Wu handed over the salt profits of the Ministry of the Imperial Household to the government, we, the "Minister of the Imperial Household", are actually not in charge of salt administration. Of course, we are not in charge now."

"Business and industry are the affairs of the industry and industry, and salt administration is the affairs of the salt administration."

"Salt administration is responsible for collecting taxes, and we are in charge of investment and construction. Land rent is the responsibility of the prefect, and we have no control over it."

"Let's make it clear first, each of us is responsible for a beach, we will take care of what we should take care of. Don't ask us about what we should not take care of."

Whether to call it the six governments or the six ministries is not a political principle issue like "Chuangze" or "Chuangwang", but the difference between official and private names.

The people in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce said that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce was actually the "Shaofujian", which meant that the emperor was finally going to formalize this matter.

The emperor had said before that now many things were handled by Liu Yu's "shogunate", and although there was no government, it was no different from having one. In order to avoid the end of the government after the death of the leader, it is better to come up with a set of rules.

Now that the regulations have been drawn up, it is self-evident that these people are officials but are not under the control of the six governments.

This young official was even more outspoken and made it clear that these people were the "father-in-laws and mothers-in-law" assigned to them by the court.

This sentence has two meanings.

First, when something happens, especially when there is a conflict with the outside world, the father-in-law and the mother-in-law will definitely take care of their daughter-in-law.

Secondly, after things settle down in the future, there is a saying that a daughter-in-law of many years becomes a mother-in-law. If you have the ability, you will send your father-in-law and mother-in-law back to the west; if you don't have the ability, you will be under supervision.

As for sending the father-in-law and mother-in-law back to the West, these salt merchants dare not even think about it.

If they really want to send their parents-in-law back to the West and become a mother-in-law on their own, they will not be able to stop the counterattack of the landlord forces.

Since you don't have the ability to be your parents-in-law or the ruling class, then you should be obedient and become a vassal of the existing ruling class.

After the phone call was over, the businessmen had never seen this kind of speaking style. One by one, they claimed that it was true. They thought that it would be important to find an in-law to protect them, otherwise they would not even be able to fight against the local landlords.

Now, thinking about the supervision of my parents-in-law in the future is just like worrying about eating steamed buns to death before I even eat them.

After the young official set the tone, he asked someone to unfold a picture and said, "Now that you are going to start a salt company and raise capital, you have to talk carefully about how to use this capital."

"The imperial court took the salt wells here under official ownership and gave them to you to operate, not to let you continue to use the old methods."

"The imperial court wants production. It must be able to ensure the salt needs of Guizhou, Tibet, Sichuan and other places. It must also ensure that if anything happens downstream in the future, Sichuan salt can be used to help."

"In our internal words, we need to improve productivity, otherwise there is no need to do this."

"The so-called improvement of productivity means installing steam engines, installing large natural gas wells, boiling salt intensively, and laying brine pipelines."

"This all requires centralized planning. Rather than just handing over the management rights to you and letting you continue to use the old methods. In that case, you are changing the soup without changing the medicine."

In these words, except for steam engines, many of these people are unfamiliar with them.

The rest, whether it is large natural gas wells or brine pipelines, they are familiar with.

In recent years, those who really have the financial resources are actually doing this, concentrating the scattered brine from salt wells to the fire wells to boil the salt.

However, because it has just emerged, it is not yet very large-scale.

What the young official meant was that this large-scale salt-producing area had been planned on this scale from the beginning.

This is equivalent to the court depriving the landlords of their profits and using these profits as bait to make capital willing to make high investments.

As these businessmen complained before, in many wells in the past, "customers came to build the high-rise buildings, and the customers went to the owners to collect them." Unless some wealthy businessmen used marriage and other means to completely obtain the ownership of the land, they would not engage in large-scale construction.

Otherwise, wouldn’t it be making wedding clothes for others? Who is willing to spend a lot of money for construction and leave it all to the landlords in the future?

The initial investment is certainly not small, but once it is put into operation, the daily profits will be considerable, replacing the "three draws and one rest" cow with a steam engine that does not stop all day long.

The unfolded drawings are only a rough plan. The first phase of the project is still focused on transforming existing salt wells.

Seeing the plans unfolded by people from the imperial court, these businessmen who were preparing to invest felt even more reassured. Because whether salt can make money does not actually depend on whether the machine is advanced, but on who the court is willing to support.

If you are willing to support, then in the Huainan region, wouldn’t the salt-making industry with the lowest technology, where one person has one stove, be able to live well?

And the imperial court's display of such a plan is actually the last reassurance for these businessmen who are preparing to invest: the imperial court will not be idle to engage in such a big battle. Once it is done, it will really support you, official businessmen. Under the sales policy, the main force will definitely buy your salt.

The more trouble and supervision they put in, the more reassured these businessmen are, because salt is really different from other things. Just as those Shaanxi businessmen said in the capital before: I wish this Yanzheng Yamen were built in Chengdu.

After taking this reassurance, the young official added: "If there is no problem, then the stock offering will be scheduled for the first day of next month. Mr. Fu Yin estimates that the land problem can be solved for us before the end of the month."

"The proportions of Shaanxi and Sichuan have been decided. How to divide it internally is up to you to discuss."

"If you still have some money left, don't worry. There are still several projects here such as building coal transportation roads and building coal mines in Rong County."

"The imperial court doesn't like having too many hired workers, because hired workers tend to cause trouble, are the most difficult to control, and tend to form gangs. However, they have to eat salt and burn coal."

"Our principle is very simple: the higher the unit productivity of each person, the one the court wants to support; the lower the unit productivity of each person, the one the court wants to eliminate."

"So, why does the imperial court want to support you and get on the steam engine? Why does the imperial court acquiesce to you and squeeze out those small producers who stew and fry themselves? This is the intention."

"To use 10,000 workers to do something that previously required 30,000 people, I really understand His Majesty's intentions."

"Vigorously developing productivity is to share the worries of the country and Your Majesty!"

This young official learned the essence of Liu Yu's words. He spoke about the court and his majesty, and spoke about the improvement of productivity, which was in line with the political correctness of the feudal dynasty of Dashun.

Studying railways is to train a group of railway workers who are quite professional in rebellion? No, it is for your majesty's country and people, to build a Grand Canal that does not require water.

Developing steam engines, is it for the new class of hundreds of thousands or millions of people who work in hot factories in the future to dig pits and bury Dashun? No, it is for your majesty's country and people, so that places like Xishan Coal Mine, which are a headache for the court but have to exist, can use the least number of people to do enough work.

Although it is magical, this is the political correctness of Dashun at that time.

The court is afraid that small farmers will become unemployed and Wang Zicheng and Zhao Xianzhong will emerge, so it must do everything it can to maintain the small peasant economy.

But it is eager to hire fewer and fewer workers and the unit productivity of workers is extremely high, because Guo Zinu, Liu Xinyu, Li Dayong, Jiang Changzi, Zeng Jienu and others who were the most capable in Hunan and other places at the same time, as soon as you hear the name, this slave and that slave, you know that they are basically all coal miners in black mines.