New Shun 1730

This matter requires both the influence of the court and the persuasion of the emperor.

What is also needed is to take advantage of the general trend of capital flow.

Today, Dashun has a total of four major capital groups, and behind each capital group, there are different forces.

The Songjiangfu chaebol group, which has the strongest capital strength but the shallowest foundation, is backed by the emperor, Liu Yu and a group of old brothers and nobles of Dashun.

Through the monopoly integration of the shareholding system and the administrative intervention of the court to move the foreign trade houses to Songjiangfu, this capital group has emerged in 20 years.

Using the power of the court of the feudal dynasty, the Guangdong comprador group with the weakest power behind it was killed. The comprador group that originally relied on Macau and Guangzhou was forced to either switch to smuggling opium or go north to Songjiangfu to "surrender", and by the way, force out a Lingnan Dayuling uprising that could break out at any time.

In addition, there are three other capital groups.

The Lianghuai Capital Group, which is backed by the gentry of Jiangnan, relies on clan relations, teacher-student relations, and the retainer system, and holds the two cash cows of salt and the canal.

Born out of the Lianghuai salt industry, the loser of commercial competition in the Jiangnan region, relied on the Dashun War against Junggar and immigration to the Western Regions to make a comeback, and was backed by the new military nobles in the northwest, the southwest and the new military nobles in Tibet.

Born out of the Lianghuai salt industry of the previous dynasty, the old Shanxi merchant group that escaped the net after the victory of the Dashun founding war, and was purged, rose again after the Dashun swept the court, conquered Mobei, and surveyed the border with Luocha, and the Shanxi Jingji Capital Group, which is backed by Shanxi people and Jingji officials.

Now these four major capital groups have made a Three Kingdoms.

The Shanxi and Beijing capital groups watched the show throughout.

Anyway, their main business is Mongolian furs, salt, alkali, rhubarb and tea sold to Luocha, usury to Mongolian nobles, and selling tobacco and strong liquor.

Their power center in China is Shanxi and Mongolia; their power center abroad is St. Petersburg; important trading ports are the Selenga River and the Baikal area.

They neither want to intervene in the affairs of the south nor have the ability to intervene. A strong dragon will not suppress a local snake, and a fierce dragon will not cross the river. Besides, if they go south, they will not be considered fierce dragons.

The remaining three are very interesting.

The strategic focus of Dashun in the future is to go south.

This is an unprecedented strategic change. The flintlock rifle is equipped with a bayonet and a bastion, which makes the subconscious northern threat actually disappear.

Even if the Luosha people have been a herbivorous nation since ancient times, they cannot cross Siberia with a scale of 5,000 people now. That is a miracle that can only be achieved by a moss-eating nation.

Although Dashun, which has already institutionalized its thinking by learning from history, has vaguely felt this change, it is difficult to complete the readjustment of the strategic focus so quickly.

The changes in the entire strategic layout, including the canal and salt administration, must be matched with this grand strategy.

The south that goes south is the south with the capital as the center.

It includes entering Tibet, Myanmar, the policy of changing the land system in the southwest, Nanyang, India and other directions.

The rise of the Shaanxi Capital Group is directly related to the Dashun's conquest of Junggar, immigration to the Western Regions, and the construction of bastions and post stations on the Mongolian Plateau.

After the end of the Northern War, Dashun began to strengthen the intensity of the policy of changing the land system in the southwest, began to station troops in the snow-capped mountains, and began to encircle and suppress the western Sichuan plateau.

The main force mobilized must still be the Xijing Army.

The relationship between the Northwest Frontier Army and the Shaanxi Capital Group is self-evident. With the intensification of the policy of changing the land system in the southwest, Shaanxi capital began to enter Sichuan on a large scale with its familiarity with logistics.

The new noble class in the army behind them has a good relationship with Liu Yu.

On the one hand, there are many old people from the Qingzhou Army in the Northwest Frontier Army, and on the other hand, the military reform presided over by Liu Yu gave them such an easy opportunity to make meritorious deeds.

Liu Yu is not a powerful minister. If the emperor wants him to die, he will die unless he runs away in advance. At most, he is a loyal dog who looks honest.

But not being a powerful official does not mean that he has no prestige and influence in the northwest. He certainly cannot mobilize the army, but it is easy to write a letter to ask someone to help.

Now the situation in the south is very clear.

From the perspective of capital, it is the Songjiang Prefecture Consortium and the Shaanxi Consortium that want to work together to kill the Lianghuai Consortium.

The Shaanxi Capital Group really wants the two large markets of Hunan and Chu. Henan cannot occupy them, but the population of Hunan and Chu is enough to make a fortune by selling salt.

The Songjiang Prefecture Capital Group strongly supports the abolition of the Grand Canal and also wants a large amount of capital to flow in so that they can expand abroad and seize the world market. If you want a large amount of capital to flow in, you have to kill a group of people and eat their flesh and blood. Who to kill?

Anyway, it is impossible to kill the group of people who have never interacted with each other and watched the excitement all the time in Mongolia to lend money and sell tea to Luosha.

It is also impossible to drink the Shaanxi Capital Group, which is eight feet away and obviously not full, so naturally it can only think about eating the Lianghuai Capital Group.

From the perspective of the struggle between forces and lines within the court.

The old brothers and nobles of Yulin and Yan'an have now found a new way to make money, that is, overseas expansion.

And the new military meritorious nobles who have risen in recent years, such as conquering the Junggar, reforming the land system in the southwest, and entering Tibet, are extremely eager for war. They are the group of people who can best understand the true meaning of "the Han people will perish by being strong alone" and are eager to fight in the border areas all day long to gain military merits. They are the group of people who shout the loudest slogans in the court, such as the military governors of the four counties of Han and the military governors of Jinghai Army to coerce Myanmar.

Sichuan is the best base for the southwest and Tibet. So, they will definitely support the development of Sichuan and the collection of money from Sichuan salt to facilitate the turnover of military expenses.

This is the issue of line struggle.

The old noble group headed by Liu Yu and the new military noble group that has climbed up in the war in recent years strongly demand external expansion.

The premise of external expansion is internal stability, the money that can be collected internally, and not spending money on the high cost of repairing the canal and relieving the annual floods in Hongze Lake.

The money should be used to build warships, build cannons, buy military uniforms, and pay military salaries.

This group of people is the accelerator.

The gentry group with the Lianghuai salt industry and canal trade as its economic foundation is the brake of the empire.

They are conservative because their wealth comes from land rent. They don't see the benefits of external expansion. They only see that after Liu Yu conquered Nanyang and a large amount of rice entered the country, the rent that originally sold one or two silver coins can now only be sold for eight silver coins.

In the abstract, external expansion is good for the empire.

But we need to consider the particularity of Dashun.

The British conservatives, including the land nobles and gentry groups, support external expansion.

Because their land rent is closely related to the export of British woolen cloth: woolen cloth is not a British specialty. The Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Prussia, and Austria can all make woolen cloth.

If you don't advance, you will retreat. There is no retreat.

Why do the conservatives of Dashun, especially the gentry groups and landowners, support external expansion? How can they support external expansion?

Silk raw silk is not woolen cloth.

Sorry, the best goods in the world are here, you can buy it or not.

Don't buy it? If you don't buy it, you can learn from France and engage in domestic substitution. Within three years, the high-end silk weaving industry almost collapsed. The high-end silk weaving craftsmen in Lyon angrily cursed Colbert's "legacy"; or, if you don't buy it, you can learn from Sweden and pat your head to raise silkworms in Stockholm, which is close to the Arctic Circle.

The emperor's daughter has no worries about marriage, and the raw silk in Jiangnan has no worries about selling. Even in the era when the Pacific Railway was built, the raw silk from the West Coast ports was an important commodity to the East Coast.

You can collect money sitting at home, and you can also collect money by firing guns and cannons. The money collected by both is the same. Who is crazy enough to fight outside?

Even the Songjiangfu Group was whipped by Liu Yu and made progress by tying a carrot to the stick. In fact, the cost-effectiveness of going to the Atlantic to seize the dominance of Eastern trade is really not very high now, if the market issues of the Industrial Revolution are not considered in advance.

After all, it is so comfortable to be a comprador and make money lying down. Didn’t the British East India Company also want to make money lying down and selling Eastern cotton cloth?

It’s just that the wool landlord class in its country is powerful, and they are not allowed to make money lying down. They are taught a lesson by the feudal iron fist covered with parliamentary skin, so that they understand who is the real ruling class.

Moreover, external expansion requires taxation. Whose interests are affected by tax reform? The rice produced in Nanyang is shipped to the country crazily to stabilize the domestic rice price. Whose interests are affected?

Even Liu Yu integrated the power of foreign trade and used various means to quickly complete the monopoly. What are the consequences?

The consequence is that Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, Britain, France, Prussia, and Austria all came to buy goods. Whoever pays more will be sold to him. The most prosperous three to five years of the tea industry were before the dissolution of the Ostend Company, when the trade war in Guangzhou was fought to break the Anglo-Dutch tea monopoly.

What about now? Now Songjiangfu Capital Group has obtained the pricing power, and it offers a similar price. It is up to you to sell or not.

If you have the ability, you can send it to Calcutta or Mumbai to smuggle it yourself.

The problem is that you are a group of people who read the scriptures. Do you know where Mumbai is? Do you know what monsoon, ocean current, and Indian Ocean storm season are?

It has been better in recent years. It is only because Liu Yu insisted on paper currency exchange to control silver. Otherwise, with the silver in the hands of the sea merchants, those producers can be killed: the silver-to-money price ratio is manipulated to float, and the harvest is counted as copper coins and the goods are counted as silver. The bank that issues the banknotes can do whatever it wants.

As the opposite of these conservative groups, or the differentiation of the old ruling group caused by the emergence of maritime trade - in Britain, the development of maritime trade led to the merger of the old ruling group and the emerging class, and the external expansion maintained the land rent; in Dashun, the development of maritime trade led to the differentiation of the old ruling group.

The nobles and gentry were originally the landlord class.

Just like the British gentry, they were originally the landlord class.

But with the development of maritime trade, in Britain, some gentry still live on land rent, while others invest the land rent income in maritime trade to earn dividends.

In Dashun, gentry are still gentry, and the old nobles of Dashun have no room for promotion, so they can only focus on money like the nobles of the previous dynasty.

The previous dynasty had no choice but to merge land; this dynasty has maritime trade, so it naturally invests in maritime trade. It is not that the previous dynasty did not have the awareness of maritime trade, but Emperor Yongle insisted on eating alone, and the royal monopoly of the spice trade, using land power and a long coastline, led to a special version of the "Navigation Regulations" and "Monopoly Authorization Law". Moreover, they were too eager to eat. It is not OK for you to be the chairman while others are working for you. You should give them the opportunity to be shareholders. You can also learn from the Dutch and use the thinking of pouring milk to burn a lot of spices to increase the price. As a result, the price of spices collapsed in a few years.

The root of this differentiation in Dashun can be traced back to the history of the founding of Dashun.

When the system was established, the emperor did not have too many imperial farms, nor did he widely confer titles on his descendants. A group of nobles stayed in the capital, led troops when fighting, and "sat in jail" in the capital when not fighting. Land acquisition was strictly controlled because of the memory of the founding of the Dashun Dynasty.

Some "old soldiers" and "good family sons" with the status of "old fifth battalion" were directly under the control of the emperor, and their land could not be moved. It was an optimized military household system from serfs to small nobles.

There was no way to over-annex. Once the overseas trade was opened, people would naturally rush in.

And the newly emerged military nobles in recent years... that's even simpler.

You, Liu Yu, could rely on fighting to be promoted from a guard to a duke, so why can't we?

After you were promoted, you said that the Han Dynasty was destroyed by its own strength, and that we should prevent excessive expansion and prevent unauthorized border provocations. Damn, when you were not conferred a title, you were more happy to cause trouble on the border than us.

After the military reform, it is much easier to gain military merits. If you don't take this opportunity to seek a title and squeeze into the upper-class noble circle, what are you waiting for?

How can you be granted a title without fighting? How can you get promoted and make money without fighting? If you don't fight, how can your son be born with a stable job like a noble guard?

The noble circle is so small. Even if you don't have the opportunity to get into the circle that starts with "My great-grandfather followed Emperor Taizu to kill that donkey named Ai" or "My great-grandfather followed Emperor Taizong and Emperor Shizong to fight Ajige and Wu Sangui for several months in Tianbao Prefecture with thousands of troops", the rising channel of foreign wars now has the opportunity for descendants to chat and laugh with people in that circle.

Are there any contradictions between the new and old nobles?

Yes, it is the difference between being strong first and then weak or being weak first and then strong.

Should we first go west to India to seize the Atlantic trade rights and then slowly integrate the tribute circle?

Or should we eat the meat at our mouths first, eat up the tribute circle and then fight outside?

But this is a non-confrontational contradiction.

In the major contradiction of "external expansion" or "conservative closure", the interests of the new and old military nobles are consistent.

Big principles govern small principles; big contradictions suppress small contradictions.

The two major capital groups of Shaanxi and Song want to kill the Lianghuai capital group. Apart from Lianghuai capital, the two hungry capital groups can't find better blood food.

The new military meritorious nobles and the old military meritorious nobles will take the opportunity to suppress the discourse power of the gentry class, reform the internal tax system, adjust the strategic center, and prepare for the transformation of external expansion.

In this context, before Liu Yu met with these private salt smugglers, he successively submitted the third and fourth memorials on salt policy reform to the emperor.

And the crowbar and fulcrum that elevated this "tactical reform" to "strategic reform" are these seemingly inconspicuous private salt dealers in front of us.