New Shun 1730

Fleury's original intention was of course good, at least for France.

Because he knew that the king believed that "economy, finance, and system are all trivial, boring, and lacking in passion."

As an old prime minister who took full charge of France after the Mississippi bubble burst, Fleury knew that economy, finance, and system lack passion, but are the cornerstone of national hegemony.

The current situation in France is very special, very special.

Very special.

Whether it is the supporters of Colbert's controlled economy, the physiocrats who demanded the complete deregulation of state supervision, or the economic romanticism attributed to the petty bourgeoisie, they all need to find an example of "others doing it successfully."

Because twenty years ago, John Law, who was born a gambler, said to the king that "the people are not taxed more and the country has enough money." At that time, the French were confident and romantic. Even if they felt that no one had tried it, the times were turbulent, and there were many things that were successful without trying. This is the new era.

However, a wave of operations caused the economic crisis of the whole of Europe in 1720, and France's finances and national credit were on the verge of collapse. Unreserved paper money, the deception of 3500% annual stock returns, and the royal bank cheering for the bubble economy... all of these are still fresh in the French memory and lingering fears.

It took nearly ten years to recover.

Since then, whether it is the Enlightenment or economic policies, France needs the experience of "others have done it this way and done it well" to support it. This mentality was not completely reversed until the outbreak of the French Revolution, and began to constantly try new things, wave after wave, becoming a human social reform test field and revolutionary old area.

As for this time.

Colbert's supporters said that the distant Eastern Empire did it this way. Hundreds of years of reformers are also fully regulated and controlled by the government, with strict standards and taxes, so that the treasury revenue of the Song Empire leads the world.

Supporters of the Physiocrats said that the distant Eastern Empire did it this way. The policy of non-intervention and non-control of the economy is adopted. The fiscal revenue is mainly obtained from land tax. All forms of industrial and commercial taxes are exempted, and there is no excessive supervision on commercial industry.

Voltaire said that the distant Eastern Empire is an absolutely rational constitutional monarchy.

Quesnay said that the distant Eastern Empire said, "If the people are well-off, who can be the king? If the people are not well-off, who can be the king?" Agriculture is the source of national wealth. If the farmers are poor, the country is poor; if the country is poor, the king is poor.

Especially in the economic system, French economists need a distant example to support their arguments.

Because the incident 20 years ago was too scary. That bubble appeared without a successful example to support it. The final result was that the national finances almost collapsed. People dared not believe those novel theories that have not been tested in practice for the time being.

All novel theories must be attached to the argument that "others have done it successfully."

Dashun and France are really completely different.

Including the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period, the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Sui and Tang Dynasties before Dashun, they are all different.

It just looks like. Whether it is centralization, road construction, canal digging, or state-run economy, they only look similar, but they are not the same at all.

However, Fleury believes that the distant Eastern Empire is the epitome of highly centralized and Colbert's state-planned industrialism.

Since this epitome of highly centralized and Colbert's state-planned industrialism has been in the first echelon of the world for two thousand years; since this epitome of highly centralized and Colbert's state-planned industrialism can frantically export goods to Europe in this era and have an absolute trade surplus.

Then, there must be something worth learning from and learning from France.

Fleury wants to know, what policies did Dashun adopt that allowed Dashun to eat only gold and silver and not vomit at all?

Fleury wants to know, what policies did Dashun adopt that allowed Dashun to organize a battle of tens of thousands of people in a desert thousands of miles away?

Fleury wants to know, what policies did Dashun adopt that allowed Dashun's handicraft industry to be so developed that it completely crushed Europe?

These things are boring, uninteresting, and make people sleepy.

Fleury knew that his Majesty the King would not focus on these boring and dull things, but would only work with the special envoys of Dashun to discuss the world with a globe or atlas.

So he had to complete some future economic system planning for France before he died.

Tactically, it was the introduction of technology in the papermaking and textile industries.

Strategically, it was the study of Dashun's economic form and tax form.

After the Director of Finance, Philibert Ollie, roughly raised these two tactical and strategic inquiries and suggestions to Liu Yu, Liu Yu really couldn't help but smile bitterly.

Tactically, Dashun was indeed ahead.

The papermaking and textile industries were indeed stronger than France at that time, and it could even be said that they were much stronger. But it was only purely technical.

But strategically... if France learned Dashun's fiscal policy, it would have perished next year if it had learned it this year.

Dashun's fiscal policy was only slightly better than that of the Ming Dynasty, but it was not a little worse than that of the Song Dynasty, an empire with extremely high official monopoly and extremely oppressed people.

After France assisted North America in independence, the treasury owed 2.2 billion livres. According to the monetary policy in 1726 after the Mississippi bubble burst, 8 ounces of silver was equivalent to 51 livres, and 1 livre was about 4.5 grams of silver, which means that the debt was 240 million liters of silver.

Does the Dashun treasury have the ability to owe 240 million taels of silver? Can it afford it? Can it borrow it?

In the 30th year of Wanli, the national land survey was 1.1 billion mu. Dashun would at most collect taxes according to this number of mu, deduct salt tax and commercial tax, and add the head tax after the reform to the land, which is convenient for calculation, and only collect 22 million taels.

In theory, 0.02 taels of silver are collected per mu of land. It can be said that in theory, it is completely lower than the "30% tax" of benevolent government, because if the standard of 30% tax is really to be achieved, based on the current yield of one stone per mu, it should be more than 33 million taels.

So with a "low tax rate" that makes Europe ashamed, peasant uprisings are endless, and the internal market is seriously insufficient with a population of 200 to 300 million. With such a large foundation, it is impossible to collect the taxes that should be collected. If France does this and learns from Dashun, it will not have the population of Dashun nor the size of Dashun, and financial bankruptcy in the second year is inevitable.

Where did the money go? The peasants didn't know, and the court pretended not to know. In short, they followed the European tax rate, and it felt that they could get an annual income of 100 million, but in fact, it was only one-third.

To put it bluntly, if the Dashun treasury owed France so much money for supporting the North American War, and calculated the national tax according to the general loan interest rate of the Dashun people, the annual fiscal revenue could not even pay the interest.

Liu Yu knew exactly where the problem was, and the emperor knew it too, but they didn't dare to move, and they couldn't move.

Because of this, Li Gan favored Liu Yu, declared war on Japan, and thought about going to Southeast Asia to engage in trade.

Because the emperor was really poor and had no money. And the emperor also knew that if the court asked the people to collect one yuan, they could collect one hundred yuan at the grassroots level.

So the emperor was so determined to go to Southeast Asia after seeing the benefits of going to war with Japan and controlling Mongolia with business.

It is said that when Liu Yu came to Europe this time, Li Gan hoped that Liu Yu would learn from Europe how to collect taxes. How to make money?

Unexpectedly, Liu Yu didn't learn anything here, but the French came to ask Liu Yu first, how does Dashun collect taxes? How to make money?

After a bitter smile, Liu Yu really couldn't answer any of the questions.

Why is Dashun's handicraft industry so developed? It has nothing to do with the official economy. It is purely because of its strong foundation and thousands of years of development. The foundation is easy to cause trouble. In history, the foundation was so strong that the Qing Dynasty did it until the opening of the Suez Canal to completely defeat the Songjiang textile industry.

Why does Dashun only eat but not poop? This is not only a problem of small peasant economy, but also because the current handicraft level in Europe is inferior and the cost is high. Because if the small peasant economy of Dashun disintegrates, it will not be Europe's turn to sell goods to Dashun at this time, but the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions will directly suck the blood of the whole country, and Europe can't do it even if there is no tariff.

Whether it is the Ming Dynasty or Dashun, the reason why they were called a rich country by Europe after contact with Europe really has little to do with the emperor.

The Dutch gave face to Dashun, not to the Li Dynasty, but to the Songjiang weavers, Fujian tea farmers, and Jiangxi porcelain craftsmen.

In terms of controlled economy, state supervision, and official handicrafts, Dashun was far behind France.

So the situation was so magical: the French prime minister thought that Dashun was a complete body of centralized power and controlled economy; Dashun envied France's official economy and state supervision capabilities.

Strategically, Liu Yu could only use his book bag to combine the economic control of Guan Zhong, Huang Lao, Salt and Iron Theory, and Wang Anshi since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, with some later ideas, and made up stories with the French, which made the French financial director Philibert stunned.

Tactically, Liu Yu insisted on some handicrafts with technical advantages such as papermaking and textiles, and his answers were ambiguous.

Technology such as papermaking can of course be exchanged, anyway, paper cannot be sold to Europe, and there is no profit if it is sold to Europe plus the transportation cost.

But since the French have a request, it can be used to negotiate conditions.

As soon as Liu Yu showed an ambiguous attitude, Philibert Ollie immediately understood that this was obviously a play.

It was nothing more than what was needed to be exchanged.

As the financial director, Philibert actually had nothing to exchange. Dashun's main goods, porcelain, silk, cotton textiles, and tea, these France can either partially produce or have substitutes, so this tariff cannot be used for exchange.

If the tariff is really liberalized, India and China's cotton textiles, porcelain, tea, and silk can directly destroy France's independent industry.

But in addition to exchanging tariffs, Philibert couldn't think of any other technology that could be exchanged.

Of course, he didn't know that Liu Yu was not going to let France exchange this at all.

Because the initiative of the tariff agreement is in the hands of the French.

If the French really regret it in the future, Dashun will not be able to get 200,000 troops to force the French gunboats to open, wouldn't it be equivalent to giving the French several sets of technology for nothing?

If France was in Vietnam or Korea, Dashun could really beat France; but the problem is that they are tens of thousands of miles away. If France really wants to go back on its word, Dashun has no way to deal with it. Its projectile capability is too limited, and it really can't even get past the Cape of Good Hope. France has a fleet of three battleships and five cruisers stationed in Mauritius. There are too many lessons to be learned before. In two hundred years, they haven't taken a single step out of the sea.

What Liu Yu wants, Philibert can't give.

It is impossible for Dashun and France to sign an effective trade agreement, and Dashun cannot open the French market. Trade interests cannot make Liu Yu provide these technical support. Liu Yu got the battleship drawings that he wanted most, and also got some ship design plans. Dashun did not want anything else, and France's battleship use ideas gradually went astray. Dashun wanted a bunch of 100-gun heavy battleships, which was useless. The purpose of Dashun's navy was not to fight a decisive battle in the English Channel. What was the use of a bunch of bulky, high-firepower, low-mobility heavy battleships?

Louis XV could give him what he wanted. But the negotiations between Liu Yu and Louis XV were undoubtedly high-profile and secret, and the level was too high, so that "Minister of Revenue" like Philibert was not qualified to participate.

In this regard, Liu Yu made a suggestion.

"Mr. Financial Director, I can say that Dashun can provide technical support for industries such as papermaking and textiles, and even a full set of technology transfer for flat glass manufacturing. Anyway, the glass of the Celestial Empire cannot be sold to France."

"However, between countries, there is both friendship and exchange of interests. The trade of American ginseng and mink fur is the friendship between China and France; and the technology transfer requires the exchange of the interests I want."

"However, please go back and tell Lord Fleury that I agree in principle on the issue of technology transfer, but it requires certain exchange conditions. . Ask him to draft a report and hand it over to His Majesty the King of your country, and exchange it when I pay homage to His Majesty the King.

"Since I came to France this time not as an official of the Dashun government, but as a special envoy of the emperor, I am afraid you cannot participate in some of the negotiations."

"Lord Fleury is seriously ill and it is not convenient for him. I suggest that Lord Fleury should propose the significance of this exchange and the highest price that can be given, and finally decide it."

"Anything can be measured with a balance. Just quote a price. "