Liu Zongzhou's estimate was roughly the same, and Tianqi really wanted to use too much to explain the reasonableness of his claim, but he didn't dwell too much on Confucius's words, and went directly to today's topic, that is, whether the price of this newspaper should rise in the future.

For more than half a month from mid-May to early June, the Great Railway Company used all the people and machines around Beijing who could print books, and kept printing and selling hundreds of thousands of newspapers, earning more than 20,000 taels of silver. The surrounding businessmen keenly sniffed out the business opportunities and immediately asked for cooperation in selling newspapers, and successively handed over more than 20,000 taels of deposits, which strengthened Tianqi's determination to make the publishing house under the big iron company bigger and stronger.

According to the original agreement, after removing all kinds of expenses, the big iron company and the Donglin newspaper each share half, which is equivalent to one party contributing money and effort and one side contributing brains, which is a win-win situation. At present, the Donglin Party did not show enough enthusiasm in this matter, and only in the end, for fear of losing influence among the scholars of the whole country, reluctantly agreed to increase the price according to the actual situation. Even so, Huang Zunsu was also assigned a position to supervise the price of the newspaper and supervise the content of the newspaper, and if Huang Zunsu, Liu Zongzhou and others sincerely cooperated in the future, it would be impossible not to persuade them.

Tianqi looked at Liu Zongzhou, who had a vigilant look in his eyes, thought about it and turned his head to ask Huang Zunsu, whose eyes were still flickering: "Lord Huang, you said in the book that this newspaper can't be sold too high, as long as it doesn't lose money, I want to ask you what you think of money?" That is, what do you think is the use of money? ”

Huang Zunsu said: "Your Majesty, of course the minister knows that money can buy things, as for how to look at the role of money, everyone has their own opinion, mainly depending on what position you are in." ”

Tianqi asked, "What do you Lord Huang think of money?" ”

Huang Zunsu said: "Money is not about having enough, sometimes too much money is not a good thing." ”

Tianqi nodded and said: "Yes, I want Shi Chong of the Jin Dynasty and Shen Wansan of this dynasty, if it weren't for too much money, they would probably be able to enjoy their old age in peace, and if they don't have money, they can't do it, but too much money will harm themselves." But this is your opinion after reading the book and becoming an official, it doesn't mean that other people think the same way, let's see if other people think the same way as you, Lord Huang. ”

After Tianqi finished speaking, he turned his head to look at the eunuch next to him, and then asked Tan Jing to call the little eunuch on the very edge, and when the little eunuch came over, Tianqi and Yan Yuese asked, "What's your name?" What do you think the money represents? Tell the truth, no matter what you say, I won't blame you. ”

The little eunuch was less than twenty years old, and when he saw that the apocalypse told him to tell the truth, he said: "Back to the emperor, the slave's surname is An, and the slave is called Xiao Anzi, and the slave thinks that with enough money, he doesn't have to do a lot of things." ”

Apocalypse asked, "Then do you think you will be satisfied if you earn enough money or do you want to make more and more money?" ”

Xiao Anzi said: "People are greedy slaves, and they are no exception. ”

Apocalypse nodded and said, "You go down and reward you with two taels of silver." ”

After the little eunuch Xie En stepped back, Tianqi said to Huang Zunsu: "It seems that ordinary people are different from Lord Huang, ordinary people want to make more money and Lord Huang thinks it is enough, compared to people like Xiao Anzi who account for the majority in Daming." We began to talk about each individual's opinion on money, so may I ask Lord Huang and Lord Liu and a few others, you can start from the needs of the imperial court and talk about how much money a country likes the people have. ”

Huang Zunsu thought about it and first said: "The people are greedy for money because they are afraid of being poor, even if they never end wanting to have more and more money, many of them have limited money in their lifetimes. The minister believed that while increasing their income, they should be educated so that the people could correctly understand that having more money was not a good thing. From the perspective of the imperial court, it is also hoped that the people will not be too poor and not too rich, too poor is the dereliction of duty of our officials, and if we are too rich, it will inevitably be like the Wei and Jin dynasties. ”

Tianqi shook his head and said, "Even ordinary officials can't feel that it's bad to have too much money like Lord Huang, let alone ordinary people who are already poor and scared like you said." The previous dynasties are not counted, let's just say this dynasty, how many corrupt officials have been killed in so many years from the beginning of Taizu to the present? Most of these people are well-read sages, why don't they know how to be happy as you, Lord Huang? ”

Seeing that the apocalypse said in a blink of an eye that the education of people could not be stopped, Huang Zunsu also shook his head and was speechless, when he was the imperial historian, he had written many times to ask for the governance of corruption in the officialdom, of course, he understood that many officials who had read books could not look down on money.

Liu Zongzhou said at this time: "Your Majesty, the minister understood a little truth from the words of Xiao Anzi at the beginning, he said that if you have money, you can not do a lot of things, and on the contrary, it can also be said that if you have money, you can ask people to do a lot of things for yourself." People usually take money to buy food, clothing, buy houses, buy horses, but who sees someone take silver in their mouth and chew it? Who has seen a man running away on a great ingot of silver? Who has ever seen a large ingot of silver to help people cook and wash clothes and watch the door? That is to say, silver itself is of no use, but it allows others to do things to make themselves idle. ”

After listening to Liu Zongzhou's words, everyone nodded secretly, and Tianqi asked: "Simplify Lord Liu's words, can it be said that having money means having freedom?" Can people's pursuit of money also be seen as the pursuit of freedom? ”

Liu Zongzhou said: "The emperor wisely once said that the trend of historical development is that individuals will become more and more free, and the relationship between people will become more and more equal. ”

At this time, Xu Guangqi, who had not spoken for a long time, said: "Your Majesty, the minister found that the main role of money is to make people do things, and leisure is just a form of freedom, but it is not really freedom, just like Lord Huang said at the beginning, people are not busy but they will be idle." Using money to let others do things for you, and doing what you want to do according to your interests and strengths, is the real freedom to use money. ”

Xu Guangqi's opinion was also agreed by everyone, at this time Gao Panlong said: "At the beginning, Lord Huang said that it is not a good thing for a person to have too much or too little money, and what Lord Xu said can be seen as standing in the position of the imperial court, and the role of this money is to make people do things, so it is really compatible." You think, if the people have too little money, they will not be able to buy or sell things, but can only barter in a small area, and outsiders will not be able to interfere. If the people really have more money in their hands, they don't want to do things anymore, and they don't do things when they have money, then won't the country be idle? It can be seen that it is not possible to have more money or less, and this is true. ”

After listening to Gao Panlong's words, Huang Zun's face was pale, and he couldn't help but bow his head to Gao Panlong, Xu Guangqi couldn't help but feel a little comfortable when he saw that everyone agreed with his words, only King Xin secretly sneered in his heart, because he suddenly found that these ministers didn't seem to have connected the words of the Apocalypse. When King Xin was not in trouble, he liked to carefully analyze what Tianqi had done in the past few years, and found that many things were planned in advance with foresight, such as raiding his family and saving money to immigrate to survive the famine and building key border walls to block the Jurchens.

Seeing that everyone was speaking, but King Xin did not speak, Apocalypse asked, "Does King Xin have any opinions?" ”

When King Xin heard this, he said confidently: "All the lords have said very well, that is, from the perspective of the imperial court, the people should not be allowed to have too much money, and of course the people should not be too poor, and it is enough to keep it to the most appropriate level." But to what extent? It is a question of what method to use to lower the amount of money and what method to use to raise it less, just as the imperial brother emphasized that the words of Sage Kong are 'too much', so we must understand in advance how much money the people should have. ”

The words of the king of letters finally let everyone understand, it turns out that the apocalypse is waiting for them here, the so-called overdoing is to let everyone come up with a standard, and with the standard, everyone will do things according to the standard, so that the role of people will be weak to close to nothing. Huang Zunsu first relied on the deeds of Sage Kong to occupy righteousness, and now Tianqi also uses Sage Kong's words to convince everyone, showing that he is neither overpowering people nor using ingenuity.

Seeing that Huang Zunsu and Liu Zongzhou's faces were a little unsightly, Tianqi said with a victor's smile: "King Xin said well, on the whole, the officials should have a number in their hearts, that is, how much money should be in the hands of the people under your rule, and what method to use to adjust the money in their hands, neither too much nor too little, but just right. This is a big thing, you take your time to discuss it, what I mean is that there should be a standard for small things, just like the pricing of a newspaper, you must set a more reasonable price, not only can the price be too high so that the buyer is unwilling to buy, but also cannot be sold too low and be looked down upon at a loss. ”

Huang Zunsu and Liu Zongzhou glanced at each other, both of them nodded slightly, Huang Zunsu said: "Your Majesty, the minister wants to accuse you of a crime first, in fact, the minister also knows that the emperor means to guide public opinion by running a newspaper in the country, you don't care much about money or anything, you just want to achieve the best effect through a method." The reason why the minister opposed the price increase was not because he wanted to get along with the emperor, but because he was thinking about how to take less money and give everyone a little less. Your Majesty, you think that if the newspaper runs more in the future, it will make more money, and then it will make more money, which is not a good thing for scholars. ”

Apocalypse couldn't help but feel a little strange, I said earlier that you were afraid of sharing more money, and I would give you a little less, can you make such a big detour? You don't necessarily have more money, but if you want less, it's just a matter of words.

Tianqi thought for a while and said, "If you had said this earlier, wouldn't it have solved it by dividing it into two or three percent for you?" But now that I have said that I will give you five achievements, I will not lose my word. However, I have already come up with a solution, which is to impose a windfall tax on those who invest less and make more money, and your Donglin Monthly Report can be regarded as responding to the call to take the lead in paying taxes. But I'm a little curious, why do you think you want more money and less money? ”

Liu Zongzhou said in a low voice: "The emperor may not know very well that the manuscripts collected by Donglin Newspaper are all written by scholars, but scholars are not suitable for being too rich. ”