Chapter 501: Wage Standards and Prices (Seeking Tickets and Subscriptions)
After the people have money in their hands through the three ways of paying wages, collecting raw materials, and purchasing grain, Luo Chong only needs to issue a new decree, requiring that any product purchased from a state-owned enterprise must be paid in cash. In this way, the currency of the Han tribe will really be in circulation.
Although it is only a very simple circulation that is issued by the government and then returned to the government, how can we say that money is something that, as long as it flows, all those who pass through it can benefit.
It is naturally impossible for the people to spend all their money at once. They will definitely save their own savings, or use the money to purchase some private property that they had thought about before but had no way to get. The government can also save a lot of savings through the circulation of large amounts of money. In addition, after formalization, the Han tribe can also start collecting taxes and use the taxes to better develop the entire tribe.
This is extremely important both for the living standards of the people and for the development of the Han tribe.
After these issues were resolved, the last remaining problem was the pricing of goods. In line with Luo Chong's own "real goods standard" monetary system, the issuance and purchasing power of coins must be linked to real goods, and the representatives of these real goods are naturally the three essential things for human survival, grain, cloth, and white salt.
In fact, as long as the official price of grain is set, other things can be converted with this price, even cloth and white salt are no exception.
According to the monetary system of the Han tribe, based on actual productivity, how should the price of grain be determined?
The first thing to consider is the conversion of grain units and coins, which is mainly to prevent trouble in future transactions. For example,
if one penny is calculated for one catty of rice, a person can't eat it in one meal. If he goes to a restaurant to eat, and a person orders a large bowl of rice, which is about 1/4 catty of rice, then he obviously loses money by paying one penny. Even if the firewood fee and service fee of the restaurant are added, the value of a bowl of rice will not be quadrupled. If this is the case, who will go to a restaurant to eat? Can't you bring your own food and cook it yourself?
Furthermore, if this happens, the smallest denomination of the Han tribe currency is one penny. How can the seller change the money? There is no way to trade.
Therefore, in order to avoid these situations, the minimum value of a single item must be considered when pricing. For example, when buying a pancake, a bowl of rice, a bowl of porridge, or an egg, such a minimum unit should allow buyers to pay with the right coins when such a transaction occurs, and the seller should also have change.
So in the end, Luo Chong priced the grain at 10 cents per catty for shelled rice, 8 cents per catty for shelled rice, and 8 cents per catty for corn kernels. This is mainly because the yield of corn is relatively high. Soybeans are 10 cents per catty, peanuts are 20 cents per catty, unshelled wheat is 10 cents per catty, shelled wheat kernels are 10 cents per catty, and flour is 20 cents per catty.
The main food crops of the Han tribe are rice, followed by corn, and finally wheat. Although wheat was planted earlier than corn, the yield has not been very high, so the tribesmen are not very interested in planting it. In addition, after corn began to enter the tribesmen's field of vision, they obviously found that the yield of corn was much higher than that of wheat on the same size of land, so they were less interested in planting wheat.
Therefore, although wheat is planted every year in the Han tribe, the planting volume is very scarce. At present, it is mainly based on scientific cultivation and domestication, and has not been widely popularized. As a result, the Han tribe has even less wheat inventory.
After all, things are precious because they are scarce, so the price of wheat is so high.
As for rice and wheat, why are there several prices for shelled and unshelled? It is mainly because of the tax collection method of the Han tribe. The agricultural tax stipulated by Luo Chong must be paid in shelled millet.
Facts have proved that shelled millet can obviously be stored longer than bare rice. Moreover, according to Luo Chong's experience in his previous life, the grain stored in the warehouse is basically shelled. Of course, the processed refined rice packed in standard woven bags does not count. The grains
that have been mechanically shelled and polished are all commodities to be sold, while the grain in stock that Luo Chong mentioned is the country's strategic reserve grain, which is all for emergency use, and all purposes are determined by the longer storage time.
The price of this grain is not high, but it is not low either, because basically the base price of a pound of grain is around ten cents, so when you want to buy a bowl of rice, you can pay between three and five cents to trade, which is the cost of the grain plus the firework and service fees. When the price is controlled at a few cents, both the buyer and the seller can also have change, so as not to encounter the embarrassing situation of not being able to afford it or not being able to make change.
With this grain price standard, other things can be converted according to grain.
Take cloth for example. First, calculate how much raw material is needed per square meter, calculate the cost of raw materials, and then add labor costs. For example, a female weaver in the Han tribe can weave a cloth that is two meters wide and ten meters long every day. The wages of this person in a day must first be enough to ensure that she has three meals a day, and a little more to subsidize the family, which can be considered as half a person's meal money. So this person's daily wages must be enough for her to have five meals a day.
Then add the cost of raw materials, labor costs, and finally a certain profit. This sum is almost the ex-factory price of the cloth.
In the subsequent retail stage, transportation costs, inventory costs, store rents and employee costs must be added to this basis, plus the profits of retailers, and finally the retail price appears.
This price is not set by Luo Chong, but by the market itself. Because of the influence of the environment and even the weather, the price of each material will definitely fluctuate. The wages of workers remain unchanged, but the transportation costs generated will be different depending on the distance of the retail point from the manufacturer. This will not change in any era. The farther away from the source of goods, the higher the retail price.
The same is true for other things, such as the salt mining industry. The cost of workers' wages, plus the cost of transportation, is finally divided by the output, plus a part of the profit, and finally the retail price can be obtained.
The most critical part of this is that workers' wages have a standard, which can be directly measured by grain prices. How much food a person needs to eat every day will not change. So as long as they are given enough food, and then adjusted by different degrees according to the type of work, so that workers can save some spare money after meeting their own needs, the amount of this salary will be determined.
As for pork, Luo Chong didn't know what the farming model was in ancient times, but he had heard a little about modern ones. For example, corn is a kind of grain. It is good for health to eat it once a week. Of course, eating it every day
will not kill you. It's just that grains wear teeth more severely, and the nutrition is definitely not as high as refined grains. But modern times generally use corn as pig feed. It is said that three catties of corn can raise one catty of pork, so the price of meat can be determined according to this standard.
One catty of meat is equal to three catties of corn, which is 24 cents. Add some profits and other costs, and the
price of meat is about 40 cents. Then the minimum standard for a worker's three meals a day is five bowls of rice, which is about 23 cents. If you add half a catty of meat, it is about 50 cents a day. Add some vegetables, which is about 60 to 70 cents. If you give more to support the family, then the maximum is one yuan, which is about 30 yuan a month.
The overall wage level is similar to that of China in the 1970s and 1980s. Of course, this is the level of a well-off family. Those farmers who do not work are self-sufficient, eating the grain and vegetables grown in the fields. The surplus grain is used to raise pigs to provide meat, which can also be sold to increase income. If they do a good job, they can save a lot of money, which is not much worse than the working class.
Of course, the above is just the average wage line. After all, different industries, different positions, and different work difficulties, it is impossible for all wages to be the same.
However, with the most basic grain price as a reference, the value of all other items can be measured based on this.
Another thing is the change in grain prices. Luo Chong cannot set the grain price at a number that will never change. He must leave some profit space for merchants, but this space must not be large. The authorities must do everything they can to prevent merchants from driving up grain prices or hoarding goods, especially in disaster years.
Take rice for example. Luo Chong set a minimum red line. The minimum price of shelled rice cannot be lower than eight cents. After all, low grain prices hurt farmers. If grain is too cheap, farmers rely on it to make a living. How can they survive if grain is worthless?
So if there is a bumper harvest, there will be a lot of grain. However, no matter how much grain there is, if private merchants reduce the price to buy it, the government will not allow it. In this case, the government will buy it all at the lowest price of eight cents per catty, and take as much as they can, forcibly rescue the market and raise the price of grain.
In addition, there is a maximum standard. The maximum price per catty of shelled rice cannot exceed 14 cents. If there is a disaster year, such as drought and floods, which leads to a reduction in grain production that year, the people's own grain is not enough to eat, and the grain on the market is hoarded by merchants and the price is raised, then the government will take out the grain stored in normal times and sell it to the market at this maximum standard. Take as much as you can, and make sure to bring the price down so that those merchants dare not raise the price.
In addition, the law should severely punish merchants who disrupt the market order, especially those who dare to make money from the national disaster on grain. If they are caught, they will be sentenced to death and will never be tolerated. In order to prevent panic buying and merchants from buying in disaster years, the government should use real-name authentication when selling affordable grain, and supply it in limited time and quantity.
The purchase amount per person per day is limited to prevent merchants from buying in large quantities and then continue to disrupt the market.
After the pricing incident came to an end, the only thing left was the currency reserve. The Han tribe now has only one mint, which is in Hanyang City. Although there are wind-powered die-casting machines, it is still difficult to get enough currency for tens of thousands of people to trade. So another thing to say is the transformation of the metallurgical workshops in the Han tribe. The
construction of new metallurgical workshops has become an inevitable trend. The Han tribe is developing and the population is increasing. It is not only a problem of currency, but also the demand for other metal products is increasing. Therefore, Luo Chong's plan is to directly establish metallurgical plants in various mining areas, and then export finished metals from various mining areas, such as various metal ingots, and finally send them to the places where they are needed for secondary processing.
At the same time, the purpose of doing so is to allow those private blacksmith shops to develop rapidly. The so-called official operation of salt and iron does not mean that the government is responsible for the retail of these two commodities. The government above only needs to control the two processes of mining and refining. As for other transportation, retail, and labor costs, they are all handed over to those diligent private merchants.
In this way, as long as there are enough blacksmiths, they can set up blacksmith shops in various places, and then buy carbon from local people, and then purchase iron ingots from merchants, so that he can come back and start processing directly.
Luo Chong did this mainly for two reasons. One is to reduce the transportation cost of ore. After all, the transportation cost of this era is really expensive, mainly because of the low transportation capacity. So in order to solve this problem, he will directly smelt it in the mining area in the future, and make it into metal ingots that can be used for processing and then sell it to the outside.
On the other hand, with the rise of blacksmith shops in various places, the per capita ironware ownership of the Han tribe will increase significantly. Of course, this is not the key. The important thing is that doing so can discover a large number of creative people.
Before, when the tribesmen of the Han tribe needed various tools, they would be mass-produced by the tribe's metallurgical workshop. Although it was more convenient and the tools were easy to use, Luo Chong's overall impression of this model was not good.
It is no exaggeration to say that this action directly opened up a private tool manufacturing competition. In the past, the tools were all issued by the tribe, so only they themselves knew whether the length, weight, etc. were convenient to use. But now, not only do they have a new source of tools, but they can also customize other iron tools here. Any strange tools that you can describe, as long as the wages are in place, the blacksmith master can knock them for you.
With such basic conditions, the people of the Han tribe can give full play to their ingenuity and make more convenient tools. This is not because all the tribesmen of the Han tribe are Edison, but they are purely tempted by the title. After all, if you make an invention and it is proven to be useful, you will definitely get the title.
Not only that, as the business system and monetary system of the Han tribe gradually improve, some smart people also start to think of ways to make money for their families.
(End of this chapter)
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