Yan Fu asked Chen Ke for advice on "fiscal policy", and Chen Kening was willing to delay his work for a while to talk to Yan Fu about the matter. Chen Ke likes to talk with Yan Fu, and the other comrades in the base area are almost the same age as Chen Ke, and none of them can compare with Yan Fu in terms of knowledge. And Yan Fu has always worked on the front line after studying, from industry to the military, he is not the kind of character who floats on the surface, so he does not have much literati popularity. Of course, because of the serious Westernization, Yan Fu occasionally took some stupidity, for example, he once advocated the implementation of English education in primary schools in the base area, which was wildly criticized by the comrades of the People's Party. The "new Chinese" education led by Chen Ke is very much in line with Yan Fu's taste, and he no longer puts forward his own "unique opinions".

As an "administrative officer", Yan Fu, the minister of education in the base area, is undoubtedly very qualified. The old handsome guy praised Chen Ke's specific method of strengthening cultural education "all the time". One of the differences between Yan Fu and other literati is that he "doesn't care about decency", although the handsome old guy is very scary when he has a straight face, the children in the school often dare not come out in front of "Teacher Yan". However, when the old handsome guy took the schoolchildren to paste the "learning board" in the various "new agricultural villages" in Fengtai County, he was still very happy.

This is a concrete measure to promote cultural education in the base area, and there is a "word learning board" on the wall at the door of every house, on which a Chinese character, a word, and a sentence are updated every day. For example, personal hygiene is now being practiced in the base area, so the word board reads "mosquitoes, flies, fleas, infectious diseases." "Flies and mosquitoes can spread germs." "Bacteria can be seen under the microscope." "Brushing your teeth removes bacteria from your mouth."

These texts are not just being updated. The glass manufacturing industry in the base area has developed well recently, and several glassmakers have been brought in from Shanghai, and a group of people have been selected from the base area to learn to grind glass. Recently, a batch of microscopes that can magnify a hundred times have come out. The microscope is very rough, but no matter how rough it is, it is also a microscope. In accordance with the attitude of the people's revolution, these microscopes, which should have been "very valuable" in other parts of China, were immediately put to use among the broad masses of the people.

In his spare time, he organized the masses in the base area to learn the concept of "bacteria". The peasants were frightened when they saw that there were so many living "little bugs" in the tartar that came out of their mouths. There are also so many "small bugs" called "bacteria" in the dirt inside the nails and ears. Farmers have finally intuitively established the concept of bacteria. The theory that bacteria are transmitted through flies, mosquitoes, and fleas was accepted by the masses. Hygiene and sanitation immediately improved dramatically. Not only washing your face, bathing, and brushing your teeth has become a new fashion. The family hygiene and public health environment have been improved by the people on their own initiative.

This "fashion" also brought some unexpected benefits, many peasants were reluctant to cut their braids, and the BJP never forced it. But lice are easy to grow in braids, and one of the results of this health campaign is that some peasants, who are worried that lice and fleas will spread diseases, simply cut their braids and keep the short hair of Chen Ke and the soldiers of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army.

Yan Fu is very much in agreement with this change in folk customs, the old handsome guy originally had a lot of short hair, and when he saw that the people began to cut their hair short, he also specially cut the same short hair. The popular "short hair" in these years is the large hairstyle called "traitor's head" in old movies. Yan Fu consciously and voluntarily cut his head, and other comrades who still had a big split cut their head quietly.

For Yan Fu's style of leading by example and connecting with the masses. It is impossible for Chen Ke not to welcome it. Therefore, Yan Fu asked about the financial policy of the base area, and although Yan Fu was not a cadre of the financial department, Chen Ke still explained it in detail.

"The fiscal characteristics of the Manchu Qing Dynasty were the collection of physical and metal money, and the disadvantages of this tax model have been discussed for thousands of years, so we will not continue to discuss them. The taxation of the base areas is centered on the allocation of labor. This kind of taxation requires a strong central government. In this day and age, if we want to save China, we must build an unprecedentedly strong government. The new government stripped much of the powers that had belonged to the gentry and village self-government from the old social system. It can be said that under the new system, local power is extremely atrophied. ”

Chen Ke did not talk directly about the fiscal system, but he started with the overall political system. If you can't understand this change in the political system, even people like Yan Fu can't understand it just by talking about the fiscal system.

Yan Fu nodded frequently, and as the Minister of Education, he felt this very deeply. The education system created by the People's Party is very different from the imperial examination, which is an examination system in which the state controls the election of officials, while the basic education system itself is actually out of the control of the state. The BJP, on the other hand, has a basic education system that is completely under the control of the government, through which the state disseminates the knowledge of all kinds of hopes to the people in various ways. As a doer, Yan Fu has been working in education for almost 20 years, and he feels that the sum total of education popularization in the past 20 years is difficult to say which side is more than his work in the base area in the past few months. The handsome old guy is very satisfied with this.

Because he had done so much work himself, Yan Fu could also understand Chen Ke's thoughts, and he smiled: "I originally thought that the officials would be in the township and the gentry would be better." Now the gentry are not as good as those officials. It is also appropriate to take away their power. ”

Chen Ke may not support Yan Fu's idea, but since the People's Party wants to completely destroy the old system, officials and gentry can't escape, Chen Ke no longer bothered about who is more reliable.

"Mr. Yan, to put it bluntly, the old tax is also to collect the products produced by labor, but there are layers of intermediate strata between the government and the people, officials, gentry, and landlords. Therefore, the core of the new fiscal system in the base areas is to eliminate all middle classes. The government is in direct contact with the people, and grassroots government is built directly in the villages. I won't say anything about other forces, this landlord is bound to be eliminated. ”

Confucianism is not at all opposed to the political view that "the tiller has his land". Historically, radical Confucian disciples have even been hoping for the restoration of the Ida system. Yan Fu also has land in his house, and he doesn't care about distributing the land in his house to the people. Yan Fu cares about whether this division is reasonable. Listening to Chen Ke's views on eliminating the landlord, Yan Fu nodded slightly, but did not speak.

"We have three acres of land for one person, and we try our best to pick up the three acres of land for the people, just to ensure that the society is not chaotic. It will not provoke a full-blown revolt because of the drastic land policy. How many people in a family have fifteen or sixteen acres of land in this year? What percentage of rural areas are located? I think it's less than 30 percent. As far as the survey summary of our base area is concerned, it is actually less than half of it. Even if it is half a mile, it is only thirty or fifty acres. The damage to their land is actually limited. What's more, this is a disaster area, and the resistance is even weaker. ”

Yan Fu couldn't help but smile bitterly after hearing this. Yan Fu read Chen Ke's books back then, and thought that Chen Ke, like other people who wrote books and spoke up, liked to tell big truths. But after contact these days, Yan Fu already knew that Chen Ke was actually more like a calculating guy, although he didn't know how to fix it, he only cared about small profits. But once it comes to the question of "who is a friend and who is an enemy", Chen Ke is not sloppy at all, and it must be clarified until it is clear.

"But since one person has three acres of land, that is to say, one person has only three acres of land. The rest of the land, as well as the resources on it, are owned by the government. That's the most important thing. Because in any case, after the people receive grain, they will rely on these three acres of land for life, old age, sickness and death, which is absolutely unrealistic. It is also absolutely impossible. One person has three acres of land, and now we are based on cooperatives, and there are more farmers and less busy farmers. It is necessary to let the people work to earn money, and if they work spontaneously, it will be too wasteful of labor. And God knows what the people will do, and then the government will have to step in. The government runs many factories and workshops, and ordinary people earn renminbi through labor. We were lucky, we encountered the flood, and the things that the people wanted to buy were simple, but some basic household items. Moreover, our Chinese people are particularly reasonable, knowing that some things are indeed unavailable now, but they do not blame the new government's supply and marketing cooperatives for not being able to provide products. ”

When Yan Fu heard this, he somewhat understood the financial characteristics of the base area. "According to Wenqing, we occupy the public land in the base area, and use the minerals and materials produced on the public land to run handicrafts, and the people work in the factory or participate in production, so they earn money and use the money to buy daily necessities."

Chen Ke nodded, "Exactly. The core point of this is the issue between the state and private ownership of land. Now the people are full of desire to fetch more food. Therefore, oil, cloth, and daily necessities are very scarce. Cotton, hemp, rapeseed, peanuts, bamboo, alfalfa, and trees are grown on the public land of the base area. Fish and ducks are raised on the surface of the lake, as well as sheep and pigs are raised in various feedlots. Although many things will not be effective in the short term, they are very effective in the long run. In order to buy daily necessities and iron tools, people must get renminbi. Since they can earn renminbi through labor, the people naturally refuse to exchange gold and silver for renminbi. In addition, there are a lot of things that everyone needs, and the yuan is definitely not enough. For the time being, there is no need to worry about the people using RMB to run on the gold and silver in the banks. And in the long run, after this year's cotton harvest, we will be able to open a textile mill. First, it provided a lot of employment, and secondly, people could also buy cloth by working in textile factories. And the cloth of the supply and marketing cooperatives is also cheap. As long as cloth stamps are issued, there is no fear of the people reselling cloth. ”

"That's a lot of revenue." Yan Fu suddenly realized.

"It's not a big income at all. It is impossible to set the price of the products in the base area very high. If the price is high, there will be a chance for people outside who are reselling goods. We forcibly distort prices through the system of supply and marketing cooperatives, and as long as we can produce our own goods, outside goods cannot enter the market of our base area. This is a trade barrier. ”

Fortunately, Yan Fu is a new-school figure and has a strong ability to understand new vocabulary. Even so, he asked Chen Ke to write about "distorting prices" and "trade barriers", so that he understood what he meant. Yan Fu originally thought that Chen Ke's economic policy was aimed at a society where "men plough and women weave", but he didn't expect that this was not the case at all.

"What's the use of distorting prices and trade barriers?"

"Quite simply, distorting prices allows people to buy more goods, and many of the goods that used to be very expensive are now available to everyone. Without distorted prices, people's lives would not have improved in the short term. For example, with our new farm tools, many people may not be able to buy the grain produced by those three acres of land in a year. If you don't distort the price, people can't afford our products. After everyone buys these products, it is an immediate effect on the promotion of production. The standard of living has also improved a lot. The people's living standards have improved, and with our propaganda and education, the people naturally know that the new system is beneficial to everyone. It's worth embracing. As for trade barriers, it's even simpler, we can't let other places earn the money from our bases. And by buying in limited quantities per store, we are also able to prevent people from taking advantage of our space to distort prices for scalping. ”

"Aren't we losing money, then?" Yan Fu was confused. The purpose of distorting the price is to make the people able to afford the product, so what was originally worth five yuan is now sold for three yuan. This is tantamount to losing money.

"How can you lose money? That's the advantage of the new system. Our finances are one, some projects are losing money, but some projects are making money. As long as we maintain a fiscal equilibrium, for example, we issued 1 million yuan at the beginning of the year, and at the end of the year, we returned the 1 million yuan. Neither do we owe the people, nor do the people owe ours. But on the originally barren land, many new workshops have been built, many trees have been planted, and we have a large number of products left. In this year, the people's living standards have improved a lot, so we have made a lot of money as a whole. ”

This concept is a bit difficult to understand, Yan Fu thought about it for a while, and suddenly realized. "No wonder I didn't figure it out, I see. I still think that gold and silver are surpluses when they are in hand, but I forget that the improvement of the people's lives is the purpose of the revolution. I see, I see. ”

"Our financial surplus is not the improvement of the people's lives, but the factories that have been built and the products that come out of the surplus. Now the base area is not Fengtai alone, and other new base areas also need daily necessities, and the people have no money or food. These surplus products can be used in other new bases. In this way, the issuance of renminbi will be larger, which on the one hand will ensure the implementation of the new system and exchange more labor back. I can do so much more. It's like a snowball, we use RMB to buy labor, and people use RMB to buy cheap daily necessities. As a result, people's living standards have improved, and the output of our products has also increased. The new system also enjoys the support of the people. ”

Seeing Yan Fu's nodding repeatedly, Chen Keyou followed, "The renminbi was originally just a paper banknote, which was useless in itself. The banknote is only meaningful if the renminbi can be exchanged for labor and goods. This is the meaning of the general equivalents in Capital. As long as we can ensure fiscal balance, all the products that come out of it will be our profit. ”

Yan Fu is Yan Fu after all, although he feels overjoyed, but he is not carried away. Yan Fu then asked a very technical question, "But there is always a limit to expanding production so much." ”

"Mr. Yan is right, some products in our base area will inevitably reach their limit in a short period of time. In the long term, all products will experience production limits. Then since we can ensure fiscal balance, we can dump outside the base area at a very cheap price. Every penny we make, it's our profit. In exchange for products that cannot be produced in our base area, but we need them very much, this is our profit. ”

"How does that sound like a foreigner?" Yan Fu asked with some confusion.

"The same is true of foreign dumping of goods in China, but their dumping is far less than ours. Foreign countries are dumping by enterprises, and every enterprise has the purpose of making money. Foreign countries are dumped by a certain enterprise, and the products are still relatively simple. And we are a joint dumping of state-owned enterprises under the leadership of the government, because we have an overall accounting internally. So dumping is even more unscrupulous and pervasive. ”

Chen Ke's answer left Yan Fu speechless. At the beginning, listening to Chen Ke talk about the financial issue was still a bit warm, but when the financial issue rose to a higher and higher level and involved a wider and wider scope, the discussion became ruthless and ruthless unconsciously. Yan Fu knew that the dumping of foreign goods in China led to the bankruptcy, which directly bankrupted Chinese workshops and caused economic chaos. Dumping in the base areas will undoubtedly cause the same problem to occur in areas outside the base areas. Before and after thinking about it, Yan Fu found that he didn't feel guilty at all. If the dumping of commodities in the base areas led to this chaos, the rest of the region could have resolved the contradiction by joining the revolutionary ranks.

"Mr. Yan, the economy of our base area will definitely improve greatly in the near future, and the biggest reason is the change of system. The biggest problem in rural China is invisible unemployment. There is no other way to make a living than farming. Under the new system, the people owned land equally, and by eradicating the rentier class in the middle, the government directly mobilized the people's labor force, which led to a significant increase in employment. Labor can also be used efficiently. Moreover, we advocate equality between men and women in our base areas, and gender equality is not just about those few acres of land. Equality between men and women is first and foremost a politically correct issue, and we guarantee equality between men and women institutionally and legally. The economic embodiment of gender equality is that we provide a large number of employment opportunities for women. In addition to having land, women can also earn money. Coupled with institutional support, after the introduction of the new Marriage Law, women can request divorce. And you don't need to go through the consent of your in-laws, just the government's consent. In such a situation, who would dare to discriminate against women and bully women? Women can't stand bullying, just divorce. Women can support themselves on their own, there is a state to protect women's personal freedom, and women do not have to rely on men to live. This is, first and foremost, the liberation of the people. Second, women will join the workforce. This has increased the number of people we are able to mobilize. ”

The combination of politics and economics has always been brutal and ruthless. Yan Fu looked at Chen Ke in silence, the enthusiastic revolutionary and the ruthless ruler, these two almost completely different images were strangely combined, and then Chen Ke was the person. Chen Ke can not only construct a political concept from a moral height, but also use extremely realistic means to ensure the implementation of this concept. Whether Chen Ke was a young man enthusiastic or cold, Yan Fu couldn't tell the difference. But what Yan Fu knows is that Chen Ke has absolute confidence and unwavering attitude. And Chen Ke has a talent that is absolutely incomparable to other Chinese politicians in this era. Yan Fu also supports the improvement of women's status, and he has some ideas, but compared with Chen Ke's design ideas, Yan Fu is far from the same in terms of strength and feasibility.

Chen Ke didn't notice Yan Fu's expression, and he also said a little excitedly at this time, "In order to ensure that this liberation will not be distorted, in order to ensure that women will not be tied to the family by their children." We need to vigorously promote education. From nursery school to elementary school, we have to do it. On the one hand, we solve the pressure of the family, and on the other hand, we also put the children in our education system and start educating the next generation of the new China from an early age. In this regard, Minister Yan, you are going to suffer. ”

"Oh? What are the high opinions of Wenqing on children's education? Yan Fu replied reluctantly.

"It's not children's education, it's national education. I think kindergarten is fine from three to six years old. Children in kindergarten need to receive general knowledge education. First of all, they have to know from kindergarten that the earth revolves around the sun. The seasons change throughout the year, twenty-four hours a day. It is necessary to observe discipline and pay attention to hygiene. Learn to line up and listen to commands. It's all common-sense stuff. Of course, when you sing and play games, try to learn pinyin and speak Mandarin. It's as simple as being able to count. In general, children need to learn some necessary common sense at this stage. We don't have to devote ourselves to cultivating geniuses who can read at the age of three and write poetry at the age of four. ”

"It's nature." Yan Fu couldn't help but laugh.

"Primary education is from the age of six to eleven. Of course, because there is no universal education, it can be relaxed. You can go to school between the ages of six and twelve. Older people, many of whom are already in the workforce, receive adult education through cram schools. Of course, during the busy farming season, the children also have a holiday to participate in the labor, and the school will start after the farming is busy. ”

"Well, children over the age of twelve, many places have been treated as adults." Yan Fu also agrees with this.

"The two foundations of the revolution are science and democracy. These are the things that we are going to start educating adults in the near future. The people are in pursuit of a better life, which can only be achieved through science and democracy. Science is not only about educating cultural knowledge, but also about cultivating a worldview. There are no gods and ghosts in this world, only the laws of nature. Children are also trained in the school system. But in the short term, we must strive for people's consciousness through science point by point. ”

"It's like we use a microscope to show people what bacteria are?" Yan Fu was deeply impressed by this matter.

"We raise plants in glass bottles, and the people finally know what the root system of various plants looks like?" Chen Ke was referring to an important activity in the recent popularization of agricultural technology. There is no shortage of glass in the area, and the newly established agricultural technology department has been planting many plants with glass bottles since spring, and many roots grow against the walls of glass bottles in the growth of plants, and various delicate and subtle root structures can be well observed. The people were very interested.

"Hmm." Yan Fu doesn't understand agriculture, so he can only roughly agree.

"By the way, Mr. Yan, speaking of which, I also have to talk about another issue in finance, which is the issue of long-term investment and short-term investment. Short-term investments, such as growing rape. Growing oilseed rape began with a labor effort. A few months later, the rape was harvested and the oil was extracted. When you sell the oil, you recoup your costs. The investment cycle is a few months. But for example, in steelmaking, we need to beneficiate, we need to build iron-making furnaces, and we have to commission, and this process will probably take a year or more. These workers who are engaged in steelmaking need to be paid, as well as the production or purchase of these equipment. When the first furnace of iron arrives, the first furnace of steel comes out. Our costs are far from being recovered. It is likely that the cost will not be recouped until the fifth year. The investment cycle is five years. ”

Yan Fu had already been a little dizzy by Chen Ke's complicated explanation. Although he did not regret asking Chen Ke about financial issues, Yan Fu never imagined that a fiscal policy could involve such a wide range of political and economic issues. And Chen Ke obviously has a lot of things that have not been fully explained. Yan Fu looked at his young "disciple", he really couldn't figure out where Chen Ke had learned so much knowledge.

Chen Ke didn't care about Yan Fu's thoughts, he believed that there was one of the most important issues that had to be made clear to Yan Fu, the Minister of Education, that "the longest-term investment is not even industry." The longest-term investment is in education. Mr. Yan, if a child goes to kindergarten from the age of three. He went to elementary school at the age of six, junior high school at the age of eleven, and high school at the age of fourteen. By the time he graduated from high school, he was seventeen years old. That's fourteen years. If the kid goes to college after high school, four years of college, that's eighteen years. During these eighteen years, the teacher who taught the child may have taught fifty people at the same time. And this education system, it takes eighteen years to educate a person. In the past 18 years, the education system has been a gold-swallowing monster. ”

"Huh?" Yan Fu never thought about the education system in this way. At this point, he was completely unable to think about the education system from a financial point of view.

Chen Ke asked: "You can probably understand what the budget is all about now, right?" ”

"No, Wen Qing, I don't understand what the budget is all about now." Yan Fu frankly admitted, "We only have half of Anhui. If the finance can really be considered so carefully, there will be absolutely no shortage of financial talents when we are in charge of the world. ”