In mid-October, finally after receiving a huge amount of reparations from Russia, Britain fulfilled its promise to pay 10 million pounds sterling to the Qing Dynasty, frankly speaking, after the Sino-British Burma War, the British hated the Chinese to the bone, Guan Xuqing held 10 million pounds but could not buy anything from the British, which could not help but make him very headache, but using pounds to buy goods from Germany and the United States would definitely be earned by them A considerable difference, so the currency reform of the Great Qing Dynasty was imminent

However, it is still quite difficult to realize the 'monetary reform', because now the governors in various places earn the people's money through "fire consumption" and "centigold" to fill their own pockets, so the monetary reform is to a certain extent to the detriment of the interests of the governors in various places

"Fire consumption" originated in the Ming Dynasty Wanli years, Zhang Juzheng implemented a whip law, the tax is generally levied on silver, the people pay the silver due to the amount of tax is not too much, most of them are mainly small pieces of broken silver, when the state and county governments summarize and hand over to the treasury, the broken silver should be smelted into large pieces, the loss in the process of broken silver smelting, the state and county officials require the people to make up, so in addition to the tax payable silver, the taxpayer has to pay more, the excess part is called "fire consumption", used to compensate for the loss of smelting broken silver and transportation costs

According to the law of loss of broken silver smelting, the general loss rate is about 1% 2%, but the state and county officials have a lot of levies, every two plus two to two or three money, the additional tax reaches 20% of the positive tax 30%, sometimes at the beginning of the high definition, the collection of fire consumption is more than the Ming Dynasty, and the general provinces of fire consumption during the Kangxi period reached 30%

As for the Li Jin, it is another thing that harms the people, Li Jin originated from Xianfeng in the Jiangbei camp to raise and suppress the Taiping Army's military salaries, at that time the Qing court did not have any extra money to pay for military expenses, and the Qing Dynasty as early as the Shunzhi period set the iron law of "never give more".

So at that time, the court officials came up with a trick and set up bureaus in various places to persuade them to donate money, which was actually a disguised endowment

There are more than 2,236 bureau cards in the country, and there are many bureau cards, and the employment is also indiscriminate, and the bureau is the best for errands, and the bureau salary is not much, mainly by erosion and erosion, and this huge amount of money is obtained by one cent, and the annual income can range from 10,000 gold or 3 to 5,000 gold

In the same area, not only the donation bureau system is huge, but also the name of the donation is numerous, taking Jiangbei as an example, the donation agencies have Jiangbei Liangtai, Jiangnan Liangtai, Caohe Governor and Yuan Jia three military camps four systems, from Yangzhou to Huai'an is only 300 miles away, with eight centicards in the middle; Suzhou to Kunshan is only more than 50 miles, there are four places to collect cards

The names of donations include donations, borrowed donations, mu donations, house donations, shop donations, boat donations, salt donations, rice donations, salary donations, card donations, gunboat donations, embankment donations, banli donations, live donations, grass donations, Ludang donations, landing donations, and so on

At the same time, because the tax on Chinese merchants comes entirely from Chinese merchants and is inferior to foreign merchants, this system hinders the circulation of local goods in the market, which is conducive to the dumping of foreign goods, thus strengthening the competitiveness of foreign goods against local goods

After the monetary system was changed, if silver was no longer used as the main currency in circulation, then the fire consumption would be gone, and the burden on the people would be reduced, but it would make the governors in various places have one less tool to grab money

It is indeed a big blow to these officials, the Qing Dynasty originally gave relatively little to the court officials, but there is still a folk saying such as "three years of Qing prefect, 100,000 snowflakes of silver", it can be seen that in other places the officials have no other policies corresponding to the 'platform, and rashly withdraw from the monetary system, I really don't know what chaos will happen, so Guan Xuqing still decided to withdraw from the monetary policy at the same time to raise the salary of civil servants across the country and cancel the centi

Guan Xuqing used a seemingly very simple and straightforward method, and the Daqing Bank withdrew paper money from ten silver dollars, twenty silver dollars, fifty silver dollars, one hundred banks, five hundred silver dollars, and one thousand silver dollars

The people can use the silver to go to the Daqing Bank to exchange paper money, and the exchange ratio is according to one or two silver dollars for ten silver dollars, and the copper plates that were previously circulated on the market are also not used, and are replaced by one-yuan coins

Since there were a lot of broken silver when the people went to the Daqing Bank to exchange paper money, Guan Xuqing made a one-yuan coin according to the ratio of one cent of silver and nine cents of lead

With Britain's 10 million pounds sterling as foreign exchange reserves, the currency reform is also quite successful, with the currency system, the country can form a single currency circulation market, not like before, this province with a milliocean, that province with a half-open, silver horn unified currency has a great effect on commercial development, can be a good integration of the domestic market, and the country has the right to issue currency, the ability to regulate the national economy is also strong

The state introduced paper money, the people use paper money to pay taxes, no longer use the excuse of "fire consumption" to overcharge money, after this policy came out, aroused the resonance of the people of the whole country, the provinces of the Qing Bank have a run on the situation, overnight the provincial banks in the silver are piled up into a mountain, printed paper money is popular in the country for a while

However, at that time, the communication channel was too single, at the beginning of the notice at the entrance of the yamen, there was no radio or television outside of various newspapers, and many rural places did not know such a thing as paper money, and some still used silver or some did not know that one or two silver was exchanged for ten silver dollars, and was exchanged for ten silver dollars by fellow villagers

There have also been some troubles in some places, but on the whole, the goods reform has achieved certain results, and the people have also seen that the government is doing practical things for them, and sometimes the people are easily satisfied

At that time, as long as you have enough food and warm clothing, there are no other requirements

In Guan Xuqing's view, this is far from the possibility he needs...... Even...... It's the whole world

The inherent social ideology of any country's political and economic reform is always the most difficult to change, and it is also the root cause of the obstruction of reform measures

In short, before the Meiji Maintenance, Yoshida Shoin, Nagai Masaku, Takasan Shinsaku and others had made ideological preparations for the Japanese people for more than ten years, and it could even be traced back to the "Orchid" school that had been circulating in Japan for more than 100 years. And from this, we understand the development of the Western world, and it is no wonder that Meiji was a matter of course

On the other hand, in the Wuxu Reform in Chinese history, it was only a small group of people at the top who really had the sense of reform, and they did not have a dominant position, and the people were still ignorant and ignorant, so it is no wonder that it was like a farce, which only lasted for 100 days and ended miserably

The same is true of the later Xin Revolution, and it is not difficult to see from Lu Xun's "The True Story of Ah Q" and other literature that this is another revolution of superior people, so it has not been able to change China

In fact, Kang Youwei, Liang Qi, Sun Yat-sen and others all knew that social change must be based on ideology, and before the reform of the law, the Uyghurs had also given lectures in grass halls all over the country, and the publication of books such as "The Illustrated Chronicles of the Sea Kingdom," "The Danger of the Prosperous Age," and "The Chronicles of Yinghuan" could not be said to be deafening

But they miscalculated their own difficulties, and it can be seen from some historical materials that have been circulated in later generations that whether it is Kang Youwei, Liang Qi, Sun Zhongshan, or others, they have all traces of learning from the Japanese, and all the reform measures are also compared with Japan, but they don't know how big Japan is, how big China is, Japan may only use the work of people of insight for more than ten years of training, and China is afraid that it will take at least a hundred years, not to mention that China is a country standing at the peak of the feudal system, and China's feudal education is also the most perfect in the world, the most thorough

This deepened the difficulty of promoting national awakening through cultural thought, and many in later generations sadly discovered that it was almost impossible to set off an Enlightenment movement in China like it had before the French Revolution

There are too many people in China, so it is difficult to unite together, and it is difficult to have one thing that everyone pays attention to, and finally came to the conclusion that if the Chinese people want to consciously awaken, they can only rely on war to bring them to the point where they are facing the situation of life and death, and if there is no war for decades such as the Northern Expedition, the Agrarian Revolution, the Eight-Year War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and the War of Liberation, there will be no people's consciousness as high as when China was founded

This is the so-called inferior nature of this nation

However, this also reflects one of the advantages of this nation, that is, the identification with the country, which has never been broken in cultural thought for thousands of years, and the identity of the country is beyond the imagination of any foreigner

In Western countries, many outstanding talents are employed in other countries, and sometimes even enemies of their own motherland, which is forgivable in their eyes and even praised for their professional integrity, but in China such a thing can never happen, "the rise and fall of the world, the husband is responsible" may be the best portrayal of this nation

After all, the cost of conducting such a subversive war is too great, and Guan Xuqing only needs the people to feel a sense of crisis, and the real awakening is still completed by the education promoted by the state apparatus

In other words, no other feudal emperor would be as keen on the awakening of the people as Guan Xuqing, they always put the consolidation of their rule in the first place, and "wisdom and foolishness" are the classics they believe in

It is precisely because Guan Xuqing's special experience cannot be replicated that his reform cannot be replicated, even if history repeats itself, without the emergence of such a person, China will not be able to miraculously rise