Dashun Yongchang

As soon as Jiang Tian heard the teacher's words, he nodded immediately and replied: "The teacher is right. The sea is a place where the weak are preyed upon by the strong. The rules on the mainland do not apply at sea. For example, merchants on the mainland like to travel together. It is less risky, but it is safe not to accompany unfamiliar ships at sea. At sea, there is really no order."

Hearing his disciple's words, Jin Sheng also said with deep emotion: "Indeed, no matter where you are, if there is no order, there can be no safety at all. It is true that Emperor Yongchang acted absurdly, but when it comes to establishing order, Really unique insights."

Jiang Tianyi's mood towards Li Zicheng is quite different from that of 4 years ago. If he was in Anhui, he regarded Li Zicheng as a traitor and a traitor who should be eliminated.After arriving in Yangzhou, he reluctantly agreed that Li Zicheng did have the ability and strength to stabilize the country and stabilize the country. At this time, he also accepted the fact that the dynasty changed.

But the fact that he was sent to Europe as an envoy freed him from the idea of ​​loyalty to a certain dynasty.What I saw and heard when I went to Europe was mainly what happened to the local natives who were colonized by Europe, and when I was in Europe, I saw that the nobles of those countries were not fighting for the king, they were fighting for their own beliefs. These experiences let His thinking has undergone a drastic change.

Jiang Tianyi now feels that the monarch can be replaced after death. If the country is conquered, it is impossible for the people to receive good treatment from other countries.Of course, a wise monarch is extremely important to the country, so he respects Li Zicheng very much now, and doesn't want to criticize Li Zicheng's actions with his teacher.

He then changed the subject and said, "Teacher, when I went ashore, I heard that His Majesty has already defeated the Manchus in the north? Has the world really been unified?"

After a moment of silence, Jin Sheng nodded slightly and replied, "Yes, Emperor Yongchang has recovered Beijing, and the Manchus have sworn allegiance to His Majesty. Now people in Yangzhou are discussing whether Emperor Yongchang will move the court to Beijing? I said, do we still need to discuss this kind of thing? If the imperial court is not moved to Beijing, how will Liaodong, Inner Mongolia and other places be subdued?"

Now Jiang Tianyi agrees and agrees: "The teacher is right, the capital should still be in Beijing, otherwise the nomads outside the Great Wall will soon rise a new one, and the safety of the northern border of Dashun will be worrying."

Jin Sheng patted himself on the head and said, "What are we talking about here, hurry up. Dalin, take Tianyi's salute..."

Chapter 625 Brand New Yangzhou

Jiang Tianyi thought that Jin Sheng had already rented a boat. After all, the last time they went from Guazhou to Yangzhou, they went there on a black-peng boat.But this time, Jin Sheng brought him to a carriage stop. Seeing the four tracks stretching northward, Jiang Tianyi asked in surprise, "What are these iron bars nailed to the ground for?"

Standing on the platform and directing the servants to load Jiang Tianyi's luggage into the car, Jin Sheng came to his senses when he heard Jiang Tianyi's question, and introduced him: "This is the railway track, and all the things we put under the carriage now are It is an iron wheel. Although it has a good load-bearing capacity, it is difficult to run on ordinary roads, because it is easy to crush the ground, so it is necessary to move on this kind of rails.

With the rails, a horse can pull the weight that three horses used to pull without sinking into the ground.Horse-drawn carriages run faster than boats. It used to take a whole day to travel from Guazhou to Yangzhou, but now it only takes three hours.

On our side is the lane used by private carriages, and on the left side of the platform, that is, in the middle of the road, is the lane used by public carriages. These lanes can only pass in one direction, anyway, it is right to drive on the right..."

While Jin Sheng was explaining, a public carriage stopped on the opposite platform. The carriage several times longer than ordinary carriages looked very heavy, but the two horses did not exert much effort.After the carriage door was opened, a total of 21 people got off, including the coachman, exactly 22 people.

As soon as Jiang Tian couldn't help it, he asked the teacher: "Is this kind of public carriage expensive once? How does it compare to taking a boat?"

After thinking for a while, Jin Sheng said: "The daily salary of ordinary citizens in Yangzhou is about 130 standard renminbi, the single ticket from Yangzhou to Guazhou is about 50 standard renminbi, and the ticket for a boat is 150 renminbi per person, so taking a horse-drawn carriage is cheaper than taking a The boat is convenient. Now the boats on the canal are mainly responsible for transporting goods, and there are not many passengers.

Taking a public carriage has another advantage. Because it is fast, single women can also take it. After all, this is an official route, so the coachman can deal with unruly passengers on the carriage. This is much safer than taking a boat. "

Jiang Tianyi followed the teacher into the carriage, and Jin Sheng's servant sat on the top of the carriage. Soon the coachman yelled and drove the horses forward.Jiang Tianyi, who was sitting in the carriage, felt it, and found that the carriage running on the track was indeed much more stable than those in Europe.He couldn't help asking: "Such a carriage shouldn't be cheap, right?"

Jin Sheng nodded and said: "The driver is 36 taels a year, 2 horses are 40 taels, and the annual cost of the horses is 24 taels. When I bought this car, it was 120 taels, but now I can buy it for 110 taels in the market. It costs about 70 taels a year to maintain such a car, and the one-time cost of buying vehicles and horses is 160 taels."

Jiang Tian thought, this is an astonishing number. In the past, he could earn 40 taels a year when he taught.But at this time, Jin Sheng said to him: "You have the experience of going to Europe this time, which is enough to find a position at Yangzhou University. For a professor, it is still affordable to keep such a carriage." ...However, if His Majesty is going to use you a lot, the position at Yangzhou University is nothing. Well, then I will take you to meet some people, and you will be useful."

Hearing this, Jiang Tianyi suddenly realized that the teacher seemed to have undergone some changes since he hadn't seen him for 4 years, but he didn't notice it himself.The carriage continued to drive towards Yangzhou in the north. As soon as Jiang Tian threw it through the window, he realized that the carriage was actually covered with glass. Although it was still a little cloudy, it was indeed a luxury.

Outside the car window were waves of golden rice, and the farmer had already started harvesting in the field. Looking at this scene, he finally realized that he had really returned to his homeland, and he could not see such a scene in Europe.Because there is almost no rice in Europe, most of their farmland is wheat. Although the mature wheat field is also very beautiful, it is not the scene of his hometown in his memory. Only now when he sees the heavy ears of rice in the field, he can feel it. familiar memory.

However, in this familiar memory, the scenery in front of him still has some alienation. For example, in his memory, there are no such neat tree-lined avenues and drainage ditches. Beyond the 4 tracks, there are dirt roads for pedestrians to and from. The entire road is 7 feet wide, followed by a 5-foot-wide tree planting area, followed by a 5-foot-wide drainage ditch, and a 5-foot-wide tree planting on the outside of the drainage ditch District, counting all these, the whole road is more than 10 feet wide.

From a farmer's point of view, such a wide road is really a waste, but for pedestrians, this wide, neat and flat boulevard is quite pleasing to the eye.Looking at the scene outside the car window, a thought flashed through Jiang Tianyi's mind, is this the new dynasty?

The carriage stopped once halfway to feed the horses with food and water. There was a professional stop on the way to provide the services required by the carriage and passengers. With these dedicated service personnel, the carriage could start again soon.So within three hours, Jiang Tianyi saw Yangzhou City.

The difference from when he left was that at that time, although there were many manors outside the city of Yangzhou, there was no street market. There were only villages and grass markets outside the city, and there was still an essential difference between the countryside and the city.But the outside of Yangzhou City in front of him has changed a little bit, and if the city wall of Yangzhou City is not still there, he probably thinks that he has arrived in a newly built city.

The original rice fields and woods outside the west gate of Yangzhou have almost become roads and houses now. Even though many places are still empty, the original good fields can no longer be seen because the land has been filled.

What surprised him the most was that a large piece of land outside the west gate was actually surrounded by a short fence. Looking at the large area of ​​lawn, flowers and trees inside, he couldn't help asking Jin Sheng: "This is the palace?"

Jin Sheng shook his head and said: "No, this is a park, a public garden funded by Yangzhou City for the people of Yangzhou to play. Opposite the building is the Imperial Council Hall. Next to the Council Hall is the Prime Minister's official residence and the offices of various ministries. "

Jiang Tianyi wondered: "Then where is His Majesty's palace?"

After being silent for a long time, Jin Sheng said: "It seems that there is no His Majesty's palace in the new city, but the Pingshan Hall has been slightly renovated. Your Majesty's residence in Yangzhou should still be in Pingshan Hall."

Arriving at a large parking lot here, the track of the private carriage is over, and the private carriage that got off the track is replaced with the wide wooden tires that exist here, and then it can leave by itself.Jiang Tianyi noticed that the road here is paved with red bricks in the middle and gravel roads on both sides of the red brick driveway, so the carriage can still drive after changing the wide wooden tires, but it doesn't look like it on the track. So easy.

But when Jiang Tianyi and Jin Sheng's carriage passed by under the sweeping mountain, Weng Hanjin was talking to the businessmen beside him on a flat land filled in the west of the sweeping mountain, "Yangzhou University is on the opposite side of the street. It can be seen that the feng shui here is still very good. We are building a commodity exchange here, not far from the cabinet and the meeting hall in the north. Something changed suddenly, and we don't know anything about it."

Some of the merchants around asked him: "It's okay to build a commodity exchange here, but can public bonds be sold here freely? What if the imperial court interferes?"

Someone immediately echoed: "Yes, the public debt is an IOU made by the imperial court due to lack of money. We buy and sell the imperial court's IOUs, don't we steal the imperial court's business? What if the imperial court refuses to approve it? It's okay for us to change hands in private , but I don’t think it’s that easy to sell it publicly.”

Weng Hanjin said disapprovingly: "In the past, the imperial court was strict, wasn't it because the world has not yet been unified? Now that the Manchus have surrendered, and the whole world is now surnamed Li, the public debt can naturally flow freely? This is also your Majesty's. mean.

In order to ensure that the public bonds purchased by everyone will not become waste paper, the imperial court means that in the future, when purchasing overseas land, a part of the public debt must be paid, otherwise they will not be able to enjoy some preferential policies.Let's rest assured that the court still accepts its debts. "

But Weng Hanjin's words didn't completely impress these businessmen. Although they didn't refute Weng Hanjin out loud, most of them believed in their hearts that it was because Li Zicheng had unified the world that they were more likely to renege on his debts, because now there was no power in the world that could threaten him.Although relying on the Dashun court to make everyone earn a lot of money in the past few years, the money was all trapped in public bonds, so Dashun's public bonds were somewhat unsalable.

In order for the imperial court to continue to issue public bonds, for the current Dashun, money is needed no matter where it is. After Ma Shiying and Li Zicheng reported, they decided to let Weng Hanjin give advice to the merchants, and decided to relax the control on the sale of public bonds. Attract businessmen to continue to spend money to buy government bonds.

In fact, when the government bonds were issued at the beginning, they could be bought and sold freely, but most of the merchants did not believe that the Dashun regime could continue, so although they were forced to buy some, they were quickly sold at a discount. Li Zicheng had no choice but to order a suspension Only through the free trading of public bonds, and then by overseas land sales to recover public bonds, did the price of public bonds be stabilized.

However, after the Shun army repelled the Qing army going south, the reputation of Dashun's public debt increased. In addition, the Dashun regime promoted the emancipation of slaves, requiring the master's family to give the slaves a certain area of ​​land, which forced the southern landlords to buy land. Overseas land was used to meet the land distribution needed to free slaves, which allowed the price of public bonds to stabilize.

However, overseas development is still risky after all. It is actually more profitable to invest in various handicraft industries in Jiangnan and then export them overseas. hometown.As a result, the upsurge of public debt trading brought about by the emancipation order ebbed because of the private transactions between the freed slaves and the master's family.

This time, Li Zicheng had no choice but to agree to the restoration of free trading of government bonds, so as to ensure that the southern merchants could accept Dashun's new round of government bonds if they had a channel to cash out.

Chapter 626 Sugar Plantation

It took Weng Hanjin a day of work, but after all, he still failed to rekindle the enthusiasm of these businessmen for public bonds. However, these people are very interested in Yangzhou real estate, which made him a good fortune. After all, he was the first to respond to Li Zicheng's call For those who bought land in Yangzhou, the price of land in Yangzhou has doubled, based on the price he bought.

There is no way, the development of Yangzhou in the past four years has been too fast. After Li Zicheng invested a large amount of funds raised, not only the embankments of the canal and Gaoyou Lake were renovated, but also the embankment of Hongze Lake was almost repaired. As for the flood last year, it had little impact on Yangzhou in the end, because the Paijiang Estuary and the Tonghai Canal were repaired, so the flood was finally diverted.

Once Yangzhou is free from flood damage, it will naturally be a first-class blessed place in the world, similar to Suzhou.Suzhou was also a place with frequent floods in the Song Dynasty. Hundreds of years of water conservancy construction since the Song Dynasty finally made Suzhou a real land of fish and rice.

The geographical environment of Yangzhou is similar to that of Suzhou. As long as the Lixia River is properly managed, the coastal plain will immediately become a land of fish and rice, which can provide sufficient food for Yangzhou.Coupled with the salt fields in the Huaihe River and Huaihe River, Yangzhou's economy naturally recovered quickly and surpassed the peak of the Ming Dynasty.

For example, after the recovery of Henan and the opening of the Yangtze River route, the salt industry company bought at 5 ren per catty and wholesaled at 10 ren per catty. According to the monopoly law, the retail price in each province should be between 1 and 20 ren.In other words, regardless of retail sales, the gross profit of the salt industry company has doubled for a year.However, the liberalization of the retail industry made businessmen from all provinces come to Yangzhou to buy salt, which naturally brought prosperity to Yangzhou.

In the past, Yangzhou only prospered in the salt industry and the hedonic industry that served salt merchants, but under the control of salt companies and the Salt Monopoly Law, the salt merchants who once dominated Yangzhou have also begun to decline.However, this kind of decline is different from the decline imagined by ordinary people. In the past, the big salt merchants just had to lie at home to make money, because there was too much money to spend, so they liked to do some outrageous things, such as putting golden lotus on the bridge Lamps and gold leaves sprinkled on the wall are all pediatrics. Generally, they play with thin horses and husbands. The special one is to hire a wet nurse to feed suckling pigs and then eat pork.

Now Dashun has enforced control over the salt industry, which has brought an end to the period of huge profits for salt merchants.Previously, they bought table salt from kitchen households at a price of two or three renminbi a catty, and then sold it at a retail price of forty or fifty renminbi, an increase of almost 20 times.Now these salt merchants can only take dividends from the stocks of salt companies, and the annual dividends are about 15% to 20%, which of course cannot be compared with past income.

Therefore, these salt merchants can no longer lie at home and live that kind of shameless life. If they live like ordinary people, they can still live without worrying about food and clothing.Naturally, this kind of decline cannot be understood by the common people.

The diversion of large salt merchants and the increase of small salt merchants have also reduced the luxury business in Yangzhou City, but there have also been many businesses serving ordinary people.The Yangzhou new city built as the capital has made the construction industry and the bamboo and wood industry flourish, which directly led to the labor force of Yangzhou city being three times higher than that of the surrounding villages, and 50% higher than that of Zhenjiang and Suzhou cities across the river. , So some craftsmen from Suzhou and Zhenjiang came to Yangzhou to develop.

The economies of places like Suzhou and Zhenjiang are much healthier than those of Yangzhou. They themselves developed by relying on labor skills rather than monopoly industries. Therefore, the handicraft industries in these places serve more ordinary people. In the past, Yangzhou was looked down upon by rich businessmen and poor people. I can't afford it, but with the change of Yangzhou's economic structure, these handicrafts have begun to be welcomed by Yangzhou people.

Due to the continuous influx of foreign population, Yangzhou New City began to look more and more like a city without city walls. These populations not only brought technology, but also brought money and resources, which naturally began to promote the continuous rise of land prices in Yangzhou.

It's just that although Weng Hanjin has made money, he is not very happy because his most important wish has not been fulfilled.If it is said that Li Zicheng alone paid attention to the promotion of public bonds in the past, then Ma Shiying and the cabinet have also noticed the role of public bonds now.This method of advancing future money to the people is really a good medicine for the prime minister and the cabinet who have been worrying about not having enough money.

As for the shareholders of the Imperial Central Bank, helping the imperial court sell public bonds is not out of patriotism.On the one hand, there is a rebate for the sale of government bonds for the court, which is about 1 to 3 points; on the other hand, the funds returned after the sale of these government bonds must first repay the principal and interest of the bank loan, which is to support the loan with debt.

The shareholders of the bank have already tasted the benefits of this circular circle, lending money to the court to collect interest, helping the court to issue public bonds to make money, the court uses the borrowed money to balance the accounts, and then the bank continues to lend money to the court.It seems that this game can continue to be played, anyway, it is the imperial court that has more and more debts in the end.

As for whether the imperial court will renege on its debts, the Li Company founded by Li Zicheng accounts for 24.5% of the bank's shares, so what reason does Li Zicheng have for the imperial court to renege on its debts?According to his agreement with the Imperial Council, this country is not exclusive to the Li family, but belongs to all citizens, so the debt also belongs to all citizens.In other words, Li Zicheng should stand on the side of the bank shareholders, and it is in his best interest to urge the court to find the money and pay it back as soon as possible.

With dissatisfaction with these businessmen who refused to make sacrifices for the country, Weng Hanjin took a carriage to the Xi Garden in the north of Yangzhou City. For the Xi family, this was their North Garden.

Weng Hanjin also bought a garden by Baobao Lake, but he didn't want to renovate it, because he felt that he should live closer to the emperor, but now that Li Zicheng hadn't decided where to live, he naturally didn't have the mind to overhaul the garden. up.

And judging from his contact with Li Zicheng, this man is not that supportive of Xiuyuanzi. This man thinks that the money should be spent on production instead of enjoyment, because Dashun is still in ruins in the north.Li Zicheng built Yangzhou New City only to drive up land prices and then spend the money on military and state expenditures. At least he didn't think Li Zicheng enjoyed it much.

When Weng Hanjin arrived at Xiyuan, several powerful directors of the bank were there, such as Xi Benzhen’s nephew Jin Zhi, who was also the bank’s prime minister; his uncle Ye Chengchuan, the bank’s supervisor; It is also one of the shareholders of the bank.

It can be said that they are the masterminds of the Dongting Merchant Gang in the past.However, with the establishment of the Imperial Central Bank, the leaders of the Dongting Merchant Gang suddenly felt that this business about money was much more interesting than those physical businesses that traveled north and south.

In the past, the Dongting Merchant Gang would also lend money internally. It was this kind of mutual guarantee and lending that allowed these Dongting merchants to invest in their own business with much lower interest than the market, thereby winning the opportunity.But they did not expect that one day they would be able to lend money to the imperial court. It was not that there was no such opportunity in the past, but the credit of the Ming court was too bad. The court borrowed money?

Li Zicheng gave them this opportunity on the premise that he would really pay back the money on time, so that everyone dared to invest money in the bank.Of course, the shareholders felt that just giving loans to the imperial court was meaningless, and taking the salt tax and tariffs mortgaged to them by the imperial court to modify them in their own favor was the most interesting way to play.

Today, the shareholders of the bank, apart from Li Zicheng and the imperial court's shares, all feel that the imperial court's commercial policies should follow their opinions, because they are the ones who really understand what business is.Their ambitions began to expand with their powerful positions, and Weng Hanjin was one of them.

Hearing that Weng Hanjin's career was unfavorable today, Wang Boyi also sighed and said: "It is said that businessmen from Jiangsu and Zhejiang have applied to the imperial court again to open a bank dedicated to overseas colonial trade. They seem to have gone through the old way of Ma Ge. We may not be able to stop them this time."

After hearing this, Jin Zhi said nervously: "Now the overseas foreign exchange business exceeds 600 million taels a year, and we make a net profit of 30 taels. Aren't these Zhejiang people robbing us of business?"

Weng Hanjin also nodded and said: "The main reason is that we have insufficient reserves, so we cannot issue more banknotes, otherwise it will not be the turn of these Zhejiang people to grab our business."

Jin Zhi still had hope and said: "We have His Majesty's shares here, so Your Majesty will not let Zhejiang people steal our business, right?"

Wang Boyi shook his head and said: "I'm afraid not. The people from Zhejiang opened this bank mainly to further expand overseas wasteland. This is what His Majesty hopes to see. If no one goes to sea to develop overseas wasteland, the land that the court has won should be sold to who?

Now the sugarcane plantations on Taiwan Island and Ryukyu Island have reached a scale of 3000 mu each. Cane sugar is now 4 taels a load, and one and a half loads per mu is 6 taels. If the planting is rotated, 1200 mu is planted every year, which is 7200 taels. .

Such a plantation needs about 130 workers, and the annual expenditure of each worker is 25 taels, which is 3250 taels a year.The cost of input per mu is about 1 tael, 1200 taels a year.The cost of sugar extraction machines and transportation is almost 1000 taels a year.The total expenditure for one year is 5450 taels, and the net profit is 1750 taels.

The value of 3000 mu of overseas land is only 500 taels, which means that the cost of developing a sugarcane plantation is only 6000 taels.If you are lucky, you will be able to recover the cost that year.If you don't use immigrants from the mainland, but hire people from North Korea and Japan, you can save at least one-third of the labor.

So now the imperial court maintains the high position of sucrose, and then encourages everyone to go overseas to cultivate sugar cane plantations.Those Zhejiang businessmen also saw this opportunity, gave loans to those who wanted to go out to cultivate sugar cane plantations, and then waited to collect the money. "

Weng Hanjin nodded, then shook his head and said: "It is not justified to say that the imperial court deliberately maintained the high status of sucrose. 40 Wen a catty of sucrose is still affordable for the people in the south of the Yangtze River.

What's more, now that the imperial court has opened up trade routes on the grassland, sugar is still very popular on the grassland, no different from currency.And it is said that a load of sucrose in Europe exceeds 12 taels, which is three times the price of ours.

In my opinion, the price of sucrose at 4 taels of a load is likely to be maintained for a long time..."

Chapter 627 The War of the Bankers

After listening to his nephew Weng Hanjin's analysis, Ye Chengchuan said slowly: "If the price of cane sugar maintains at 4 taels a load for a long time, it means that it is profitable to open up sugarcane plantations overseas. With the cheap land and labor overseas , even if it cannot be occupied for a long time in the future, the completion of short-term development is enough to benefit, and it seems that overseas colonization will usher in a new round of upsurge."

Sitting in front of an elegant huanghuali desk, Xi Benzhen also agreed with Ye Chengchuan's judgment, and he nodded in agreement: "Before, everyone was keen on overseas development because Taiwan discovered the business opportunities brought by gold mines and logging.

However, now Taiwan has almost been divided up. If you go to the south or north, the risks and transportation costs will increase, and gold mines cannot be everywhere, so this enthusiasm for overseas development has been interrupted.

The emergence of sugarcane plantations has found a new hotspot for overseas colonization, which will indeed rekindle the enthusiasm for overseas colonization, but we are already full of various businesses now, and if we want to intervene in this business again, I am afraid that we will not be able to do what we want Feeling. "

Jin Zhi said with some regret: "It's not that we can't do this business. The key to the problem now is the bank's reserves. The imperial court's loans and borrowings have taken up too much of our principal, and we can't move the position."

Hearing this, Wang Boyi could only smile wryly. As long as the loans and borrowings from the imperial court can be repaid on time, then it is a fairly stable business. This is not a business that banks can dislike.Jin Zhi expressed such emotions, but he was eating what was in the bowl and looking at what was in the pot, and his heart was not enough to swallow like a snake.Of course, if he can really intervene in this business, he will not object, who is afraid of money biting his hand?

The Dashun Dynasty is different from the Ming Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, money and money were different, but in Dashun, money and money are equal. That is to say, the land rent collected by the scholarly family who cultivated and read the heirlooms and the merchants earned through trade There is no distinction between higher and lower money, because their purchasing power is the same.This is somewhat unacceptable to gentry and landlords, but it is extremely welcome to businessmen.

Indeed, for the same vain money, why should it be more expensive when it is collected from farmers, and lower when it is earned from doing business?In the past, businessmen were afraid to say this conclusion out loud, but now everyone dares to say it out loud.

In the meeting hall, some people have openly claimed that the value of merchants is greater than that of landlords, because merchants not only exchange supplies for various places, but also pay a lot of taxes for the country, while landlords, in addition to enjoying the fruits of tenants’ labor without doing anything, also try to Allowing the country to reduce its own taxes and labor is completely maggots of the country.

Although such remarks were opposed by many scholar-bureaucrats, they have increasingly won the support of the citizens.Strange to say, it is obvious that the tenants benefit the most from such remarks, but the tenants have few voices, because they are afraid of offending the landlord, so they dare not support such remarks against the landlord, but they have no interest in this matter Citizens who have no relationship with them are filled with indignation towards localism.

However, as long as the occupation and income of the citizens are analyzed, the source of the citizens' aversion to the landlord class will be clear.Although the production and life of the citizens are not directly related to the landlord class, they have a great influence on the indirect relationship.

One is that citizens need to buy food from the market, and the market price of food is almost all controlled by the landlords.That is to say, if there is no class of hoarding grain, such as landlords, those self-cultivated farmers or rich peasants will inevitably throw their surplus agricultural products to the market after harvesting each year, and then exchange them for daily necessities. Equivalent exchange.

The second is the first. Citizens living in cities are mostly related to handicrafts. They need farmers to have enough purchasing power to produce more handicrafts, so that they can live a better life.Raising food prices and squeezing the labor of farmers, the landlord class has become the number one enemy of the citizens.

In the past, the Ming Dynasty talked about the Three Cardinal Guidelines and the Five Constant Principles, and talked about the monarch and ministers, father and son. This kind of attack on the landlord class would naturally be suppressed by the gentry.However, what Dashun talks about is that the world is the public, and that the monarchy is granted to the people. The people are not only gentry and landlords, but urban civilians also belong to the people recognized by Dashun, and have their own channels to speak out.

Under the conflict of interests, the urban commoners naturally did not want to be outdone and stood up to safeguard their own interests. They demanded that the landlord class pay the same taxes as themselves, abolishing the political privileges of the landlords and gentry, especially the landlords’ influence on the production and life of the local villagers. Influence.To put it simply, urban commoners hope to obtain equal status with the landlord class, so as to allow themselves to join the class that manages the country.

Under the support of Li Zicheng, the class of urban civilians began to emerge in political life, which immediately attracted the attention of businessmen.Although urban civilians include small businessmen, they do not include those big businessmen who own a lot of property.

After these businessmen made a fortune in the past, they wanted to transfer to the scholar-bureaucrat class in order to seek the transformation of the family and keep their family property.The so-called: "Get rich with the end, keep it with the foundation", but this kind of transformation is actually quite difficult. In addition to having the seeds of reading at home, you also need to have scholar-bureaucrats willing to support you.

Although the sons of wealthy merchants such as Weng Hanjin and Zheng Yuanxun were selected as Jinshi candidates, they were only marginalized members of the scholar-bureaucrat class and could not enter the core group of scholar-bureaucrats at all.However, if businessmen turn to the urban commoners, as long as they fund those common people groups and then speak out for the common people, then they will soon be regarded by the common people as their own people, even leaders.

Under such circumstances, the sons of rich merchants like Weng Hanjin will naturally stop humiliating and begging for the approval of the scholar-bureaucrats. Even if they can get the approval of the scholar-officials, at least they will have to wait for his sons or grandchildren to integrate into it. How could this compare to using the strength of the common people now to gain a place in Dashun politics.After all, would you rather be a chicken mouth than a cow queen?

Just when Wang Boyi was thinking about these things in his heart, Weng Hanjin suddenly said: "Since the bank's reserves are insufficient, then we will solve this problem. As long as we can solve the problem of bank reserves, we will return Do you need to make concessions to those Zhejiang people?"

After hearing this, Wang Boyi had to say: "Increasing the reserve fund is certainly a way, but how to increase it? It is said that the wealth of the world is gathered in the south of the Yangtze River, but in fact we all know that this is just a joke. The wealth of the world is actually gathered in two places. One is for merchants and the other is for gentry.

Gentlemen's money is actually very difficult to get out. These local rich owners believe that their money should not be revealed. Their money is either purchased land, repaired gardens, or hidden in cellars. It is seldom taken out and deposited in the bank.Even if it was to buy government bonds, it was forced by His Majesty.

And when it comes to the money in the hands of merchants, there are actually only a few merchants in the world. Shanxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Huijiang, and other places are not good.Shanxi businessmen, because of the war before, they were on the wrong team after that. Their strength has been severely hit, and they may recover in the future, but now they should have no spare power to spend money.

Businessmen from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, besides us, there are only Zhejiang people left. Since Zhejiang people want to open their own banks, they obviously will not support us.So the next step is businessmen from Anhui and Jiangxi, but businessmen from these two places like to invest in industries and are not willing to deposit their money in banks.Therefore, it may be very difficult for us to increase our reserves. "

Weng Hanjin shook his head in disapproval and said: "The old man is right. If it only refers to the country, what the old man said is correct. But what we are facing now is not the Ming Dynasty in the past, but a brand new era. The world has not only Only in the two capitals and 13 provinces, there are also large areas overseas.

For example, Japan, an island country, is quite rich in gold and silver output.In our country, the value of a Japanese small pen is 4.056 Yongchang gold coins, but in Japan, it can be bought for only 2.718 Yongchang gold coins.The small amount of gold in the Japanese market is not less than tens of millions. In terms of value, it is 4000 million Yongchang gold coins, which is almost [-] million yuan.

This is only the gold circulating in the market, without counting the amount of gold that has not yet been made into money.If Japan deposits this batch of gold in our bank, or simply sells this batch of gold to us, then the capital of the bank can be multiplied seven or eight times in no time.What else are we worried about about insufficient reserves? "

Wang Boyi said with a dumbfounded smile: "How could the Japanese do this, and we don't have so much silver to buy..."

Seeing Weng Hanjin's disapproving eyes, Wang Boyi said suddenly, "You don't want to print banknotes to buy them, do you?"

Weng Hanjin said frankly: "It doesn't make sense for the Japanese to stockpile gold. They still have to spend it on our country's silk, porcelain, furniture and other goods. They can also use the banknotes printed by us as gold, so why not use ours?" banknotes?

Of course, if the Japanese are unwilling to exchange gold for our banknotes, we can also lend them money first, but require them to take gold as collateral.In this way, our economy can prosper, and the Japanese don't need to hold gold and merchants to calculate the price. "

Wang Boyi felt that Weng Hanjin was simply wishful thinking. If he were Japanese, he would not do such a stupid thing.However, he would not object to this kind of thing that is beneficial to his own interests, so he asked, "So, how do you plan to let the Japanese hand over gold to us?"

Weng Hanjin said with confidence: "Our fishing boats went to Ryukyu to hunt whaling before, but found many Japanese on Ryukyu Island. According to those Ryukyu people, Japan invaded Ryukyu as early as Wanli 37 and captured King Shang Ning at that time brought it back to Japan.