Chapter 92 Finance
As long as the benefits are big enough, even the smartest person will become stupid. Since Ruwang was able to climb to the position of chairman of the board of directors of the East India Company in the future, he was certainly not the kind of person who was content with mediocrity, willing to make sacrifices, and was selfless and fearless. Such a person is ambitious and uncontrollable, and will try to climb up as long as there is the slightest chance; not to mention that the Prince of Duke Mu has lowered a ladder for him, which is enough for him to climb up to the sky and reach a realm that he had never dared to imagine in his dreams.
The right to mint coins! Unified international trade! A golden rice bowl that can’t be spent! ——As long as you have a little common sense about finance, who doesn’t know what these terms mean?
Therefore, Ru Wang did not make any coy refusal, but directly responded to the hint of the Prince of Mu, saying that he was indeed very willing to cooperate with his old friend, but he had to wait until the situation had made real progress. The old maritime merchant who had been honed for many years would certainly not be an NPC who would bow down to the protagonist. He would never easily make such a huge bet before seeing any signs. In fact, he was already frightened by the results of the Shangyu naval battle and was in great violation of the previous practice of being good at playing with the sleeves. Unless the prince can demonstrate greater, stronger, and more terrifying power, people will definitely not say anything more.
To put it bluntly, the right to mint coins sounds high-end and elegant, but in reality it is just pushing down everyone's head to promote one's own financial authority and forcing all forces involved in Southeast Asian trade to call Da'an their real father. You can imagine how difficult it is. The other small countries in Southeast Asia are accustomed to being abused by Emperor Taizong. Perhaps if you just throw the latest model of rocket onto the shore, they will immediately understand the spirit and surrender, welcoming Master Feixuan and Master Wanshou to their loyal Southeast Asia. However, the Western colonial empires that have come from thousands of miles away may not be so sensible. If you want them to bow their heads and obey in such a treasure pot of business, you have to hit them one by one with an iron fist.
In other words, once the three words "right to mint coins" came out, it was basically equivalent to a mockery of the whole of Europe, and the effect was similar to Yehe Nara's declaration of war on all nations... Of course, Ruwang didn't know the story of Yehe, but he could guess the next move by intuition. So, after a tacit understanding between us, he asked tentatively:
"What plans does your country have for maritime diplomacy?"
——Brother, who are you going to hit next?
The prince leaned back on the recliner, smiling cheerfully, looking extremely calm:
"All the major policies of the country are decided by the current emperor. How can the ministers have room for arbitrary discussion? However, according to my guess, in seven or eight months, the court may have some conflicts with Japan."
Ru Wang's eyes widened slightly: "You want to fight the Japanese?"
"Do you have any doubts about this, sir?"
"Of course I dare not have any doubts...but may I ask why?"
It’s no wonder that Ruwang was so surprised and lost his composure. In this day and age, the Japanese archipelago is an outcast isolated from international trade. Apart from exporting ronin warriors to serve as mercenaries for the colonists, it has virtually no influence on the affairs of Southeast Asia. It is of course extremely unreasonable that an emerging force that is interested in competing for sea power, trade, national strength and coinage suddenly takes the time to beat up such a character that has no sense of existence. It is as if the protagonist of a cool novel has painstakingly practiced martial arts to achieve great success, but after going down the mountain, he is not in a hurry to become famous and rule the world forever, but instead goes back to the village to beat up the village bully Ergou. The plot is so abstract and bizarre that it will definitely make readers shout for a refund.
No, is there anything wrong with your brain?
Of course, there was nothing wrong with the brain of Prince Mu. He rolled his eyes:
"This was originally part of the plan. Mr. Ruwang may not know that Japan's sinister and vicious intentions are beyond question. If we ignore them, we will surely be in trouble. As long as Qingfu is alive, the troubles in Lu will not end. In order to avoid the worries of future generations, the court has no choice but to take on the responsibility."
It is so righteous and solemn that even Confucian scholars are speechless:
"...Perhaps the prince doesn't quite understand. What I want to know is not the official answer, but the real answer."
“That’s the real answer.”
After the peerless master came down the mountain, what he was obsessed with was killing Ergou to get rid of future troubles. The onlookers who didn't know the inside story would probably think that this was just a ridiculous excuse; but only the master himself understood that Ergou was his biggest, most terrible and most important trouble, one of the shadows and terrors that could never be erased; no matter how advanced his skills were, the haze of his youth would always be difficult to dispel, and even if he became a powerful figure in the world, he could not let go.
However, such a deep and tortuous state of mind is difficult to explain to outsiders. So Mu Qi added:
"Didn't Mr. Ruwang serve in the French court? Then he should know the relationship between Britain and France."
Ruwang: …………
...You should have said it earlier. Once I give this analogy, won’t everyone understand it immediately?
"But the cost of war—"
"We can ask Japan to pay for it."
Ok, the last and biggest problem has been solved; Ruwang no longer has any questions, he stood up and expressed his willingness to cooperate with all the preparations of the Chinese side, and he is looking forward to the new round of naval battle between Daan and Japan. The so-called killing the chicken to scare the monkey is a display of violence as well as a show of bargaining chips; the progress of this new naval battle in the future will obviously determine the choices made by this shrewd collaborator and will greatly affect the future direction of the situation in Southeast Asia.
Can the Rockets, who are highly expected, perform as expected? This is probably the issue that maritime merchants are most concerned about right now.
·
After seeing Ru Wang off, Mu Qi shrank back into the recliner in an ungraceful manner, obviously exhausted by the long speech; but this secret talk was extremely important and sensitive, and the negotiation process could not be spied on by outsiders, let alone leaving any concrete written evidence. Therefore, Mu Qi had to handle all matters by himself, and he had to find ways to persuade the only partner he could trust. The energy and effort consumed in this process is obviously incalculable.
However, after going through all the trouble to agree on the basic framework, the rest of the process became much simpler. Mu Qi took out a brush from the drawer, blew on the tip of the brush and dipped it in thick ink. He wrote solemnly on the spread paper, trying his best to write clearly:
"Brother Taiyue, please accept my praise..."
After all, it is handwritten and strives to be formal. It would be inappropriate if it is too simple. So Mu Qi racked his brains and squeezed in two lines of four-six parallel prose at the beginning of the letter, quoting from classics and elaborating on his ideas, trying his best to show off the little knowledge he had. But his cultural common sense can only support the first few sentences. In the end, he can only let himself go and use plain language to express two ideas concisely:
First, I hope Zhang Taiyue can collect relevant information on the financial reforms of the imperial court since Emperor Wuzong, so as to prepare for future use;
Second, I hope Zhang Taiyue can have more contact with Yan Donglou and Yan Xiaoge Lao, especially to talk about matters related to maritime trade.
There is no need for heavy hammers to make loud drums. The letter was light-hearted and to the point, but the newly appointed Zhang Taiyue and Zhang Hanlin had already understood what was going on. They knew that this was a clear signal from the prince that he was planning to push him into the Ministry of Revenue, and maybe even team up with Yan Donglou.
This is also normal. Whether it is compiling the "History of Yuan Dynasty" or compiling the "Quotations of Emperor Xingxian", in the final analysis, it is all about showing loyalty and attitude in front of the emperor and increasing one's presence; but now the presence and favorability have been gained, and of course there is no need to stay in the Hanlin Academy for a long time, and one should plan the direction for the future in advance.
According to the convention of the imperial court, Hanlin scholars were noble and prominent, and were regarded as "prime ministers in reserve" by the court and the public. In their spare time, the newly appointed Hanlin scholars were supposed to observe the government affairs of various ministries and make full preparations for their future positions in the cabinet and to be in charge of government affairs. They could legitimately interfere in the affairs of the six ministries. The Crown Prince was working hard to place his own people in the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works - power always changes with the flow of affairs; once the so-called "Jiayin Reform" is fully launched, finance and construction will inevitably be the top priorities of the court's administration, and at that time the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works will suddenly become prominent, and the power they hold will probably be greatly expanded. If we don't take this opportunity to lay the groundwork, it will be much more difficult to fight for power in the future.
Of course, laying an ambush does not mean seizing power. After Mu Qi had written most of the letter, he could not help but add a few more words at the end to remind Zhang Taiyue to be slow when looking up information and contacting people, and never show any intention of coveting financial power and plotting reforms. Even if you have any grand ambitions after reading the information, you must wait for him to come back and carefully plan your joint advance and retreat; in general, when it comes to big things, stability is the top priority.
This sentence was so unbelievable that Liu Li even exclaimed in his ear:
"Oh my god, do you even know the word 'stable'?"
——That’s right, although all outsiders were excluded from this crucial negotiation, in order to show his absolute respect for the other two original shareholders in the Battle of Shangyu, Mu Qi still spent the deviation value to start a live broadcast for the two of them, demonstrating his open trust. But this trust seemed to be misplaced after all, because Liu Li's observation angle was completely unbelievable, and he actually made such a profound statement at this time.
"No wonder you wrote the letter yourself and didn't even ask a Qingke shanggong." He said with a sigh, "'Safety is the most important thing!' If there was no evidence of the chicken claw handwriting, who would believe that you said this?"
Mu Qi: …………
This is the truth, but do you have to say it openly? Didn’t your father teach you how to speak?
"It can't be helped." He said dryly, "Da'an's finances can't be drastically cut. If he really wants to work at the Ministry of Revenue, the first thing he has to learn is to be careful."
"Not really." Liu Li disagreed: "Didn't they say that after the success of the Jiayin Reform, fiscal revenue would increase significantly? With money, everything can be done. Why are you so nervous?"
"You think too simply." Mu Qi said calmly, "With money, everything will be easy... Then let me ask you, how many government offices in Da'an are qualified to intervene in finances?"
"...the Ministry of Revenue and the Emperor's inner treasury?"
"'The palace and the government are one,' right?" Mu Qi smiled. "Do you think this is a system created by the Prime Minister? Well, I won't hide it from you. Before I entered the cabinet, I tried to retrieve the files of the six ministries and nine departments, and compared them one by one in detail, trying to find out where the money of the court went. But after spending more than half a month, I was exhausted and had to give up. And just from an incomplete statistics of the past half a month, there are at least more than two dozen government offices in the Da'an Dynasty that are qualified to collect taxes and allocate money to manage their own finances."
Liu Li: ...Ah?
"These government offices are completely independent of each other, and the Ministry of Revenue has basically no authority to govern them." Mu Qi said slowly: "Their accounts are isolated from each other, the income and expenditure of silver and money are not related to each other, and the taxes collected are also arbitrary and incalculable. The accounts for hundreds of years have always conflicted and contradictory with each other, and the overlapping and complicated, the errors and omissions are incalculable - this is the information I found. Although I don't understand finance; but this level of bad accounts is likely to be beyond the scope of human processing. If there is a super AI to slowly calculate, it may take ten or eight years to get a result."
"Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg of fiscal problems. A lot of Da'an's fiscal revenue comes from in-kind taxes, including rice, grain, cloth, and soybeans. How to convert these foods is already a huge problem. But what's more troublesome is that the weights and measures collected by various government offices are different."
Perhaps it was completely beyond his comprehension. Liu Li was a little confused: "...What does that mean?"
"To put it simply, one foot of cloth in the Jinling warehouse is not equal to one foot of cloth in the Beijing warehouse, one dou of rice in the inner warehouse is not equal to one dou of rice in the Taichang warehouse; one catty of silver in the Jinhua silver is not equal to one catty of silver in the Ministry of Revenue." Mu Qi said in a gentle voice: "The measurement units are different in each country. Big catty, small catty, big dou, small dou, southern chi, northern chi, the collection units of each government office are completely different, and the standards are also very different - as for how to convert... I spent three days asking the officials in the warehouse, anyway, I didn't learn it."
Liu Liren was dumbfounded. He was stunned for a while, and could only force out a sentence:
"...In your world, there is a Qin Shi Huang, right?"
"Maybe Zheng Ge'er was too soft-hearted. Who could have predicted this?" Mu Qi shrugged. "So you should understand how big a financial challenge we are facing. The simplest question is, if the Jiayin Reform really greatly increased the country's fiscal revenue, then which government office should be responsible for collecting the extra silver, grain, rice, cloth, and other goods?"
If anyone does not understand what a backward system constrains productivity means, then he can understand it by taking a look at Da'an's current financial system; perhaps everyone thinks that no one in the world would complain about having too much money, but Da'an's tattered financial system with leaking air blowers and scattered parts really cannot handle the huge influx of wealth. Once too much tax is collected and too much profit is made, the influx of materials will quickly choke its weak, old and vulnerable central structure, leading to unpredictable consequences.
Simply put, the digestive system is so bad that eating two more bowls of rice can cause bloating to death.
Therefore, the Da'an system can only deal with the economic problems of the small peasant era, and its upper limit is the self-sufficient, conservative and closed agricultural empire imagined by Emperor Gaozu, where the people never interact with each other until they die. Too much wealth is not a good thing but a poison. Even if the Jiayin Reform was successful, this system would collapse at an unimaginable speed.
——The products of the old era will ultimately have no way of boarding the ship of the new era.
But the problem is that this thing breaks down too quickly. Mu Qi was indeed planning to use productivity to burst the feudal system; but the whole plan would have to last for at least fifty or sixty years, until he had time to eliminate external threats and prepare a sufficiently safe strategic space for a change of dynasty. And judging by the performance of the current system, if productivity really improves rapidly and breaks through the limit, it would be wishful thinking for it to last for ten or twenty years!
Do you understand the value of our Da'an liberal politics?
Facts have proved that as long as the display is bad enough and thorough enough, and as long as the self-detonation can drag everyone down with it, even the enemy will have to grit their teeth and try their best to help him. Of course, Mu Qi had no good feelings towards this system, but he couldn't just watch the suicide truck dive into hell, so after thinking it over, he could not find a solution. He could only grit his teeth and try to extend the life of the finances and delay the explosion as much as possible.
It is amazing that a system can achieve this. To be honest, even if Mu Qi racked his brains to save the feudal dynasty, he might not be able to design the ultimate weapon that could blow everything up in just over ten years.
When it comes to such major events as overthrowing imperial power and disintegrating rule, feudal emperors of all generations actually did a better and more efficient job than this radical. Who can he go to for justice?
The difficulty changes when the position changes. It's easy to wreak havoc without scruples, but it takes a lot of thought to painstakingly patch a broken system. He could act as crazy as he wanted on normal days, but now he really didn't dare to touch the pillar of finance - not only did he not dare to touch it, the prince even had to be cautious and take every step carefully to try to fill this huge hole.
——New goal: It will be a victory if the finances can last for 50 years.
"Since Yang Tinghe, all the prime ministers have wanted to reform the government. After all, no one likes to swim in a cesspool." Mu Qi sighed, "And the purpose of the reforms is the same. They all hope to abolish this overlapping structure and try to establish a unified department to take charge of financial expenditure and use. Minimize the losses and conflicts caused by multiple policies."
Liu Li didn't say anything, and of course he couldn't say anything. To be honest, after being influenced by his father for a long time, he has a broad vision. Under normal circumstances, he probably wouldn't think there is anything wrong with such reforms. But now, now... now he couldn't help but feel admiration from the bottom of his heart:
You dare to modify such a broken system, you are a brave warrior!
"This goal is difficult to achieve, after all, there are too many interests involved. So the prime ministers have to settle for the second best, hoping to first solve the chaos and disorder in weights and measures, abolish the original tax system with multiple orders, and merge them into a unified tax item."
"One Whip Method?"
"That's right." Mu Qi said, "Now you know the importance of Shezong, right?"
One has to experience it before knowing how difficult it is. If it were just a vague entry to record the Whip Method, probably no one would think it was anything great. But only by putting yourself in their shoes and experiencing the chaotic, quagmire-like tax mechanism of the Da'an Dynasty, will you unconsciously develop great respect for Shezong, Zhang Cong, and Gui and E - with such a mountain of shitty code and such fundamental contradictions, they actually managed to get the system up and running, and were able to barely fix the bugs and do some upgrades, and there was even a sign of revival. Such a high level of ability and exquisiteness is of course jaw-dropping and unable to control oneself.
The characters who have their own chapter in "General History" have this kind of importance.
"So you're going to support the one-whip law, too?"
Mu Qi spread his hands: "What else can we do? Do you still expect the court to completely reform the financial system?"
Again, instead of counting on financial reforms under old Deng, it is better to count on overthrowing and rebuilding after a change of dynasty - in fact, the mountain of shitty codes that are difficult to reverse can only be overthrown and rebuilt; even Zhang Taiyue, at his level, can only tinker and make some small patches, what else can you expect from later generations?
Liu Li said: "But doesn't the One Whip Method have flaws?"
"That's better than the existing ones." Mu Qi shook his head: "Just use it... Besides, since there is a precedent, we can try to make up for the so-called defects. Otherwise, why do you think I would attack Japan? I'm not a warmongerer."
Liu Li remained silent, obviously not being able to express his opinion.
He was silent for a moment, then smiled at Liu Li:
"Of course, we have to prepare for the next naval battle in a few months. The time is still too tight, and I may need your help... So, you will support me in launching a war against Japan, right?"
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