"All men are created equal?"

The first line of the first page of the manuscript to which Liu He belonged was like this, with seven words and a big question mark.

Immediately afterward, Liu He wrote: "All men are created equal", which is an empty and broad concept, more like a demagogic slogan. The so-called "equality" is the equality of personality? Ethical equality? Equality in social status? Or is it equality in the chances of survival? Or even equality in various rights? Without understanding the nature and connotation of "equality", the definition of equality itself is meaningless. ”

"It seems to me that for a long, long time to come, instead of discussing the question of whether all men are created equal, it is better to focus on how to make the material abundance of the people and keep the threat of death and hunger away from our people and our country. Because, even if we want to achieve the minimum equality of personality and dignity, we must wait until people can have physical freedom and be able to eat and clothe themselves. ”

“…… Equality of opportunity and rights is the goal that our children and grandchildren will strive for for in the next few hundred and thousands of years, and the equality of human beings in social status, power and wealth will never be achieved, unless there is only one person left in this world......"

“…… The amount of wealth is the yardstick for measuring the material abundance of a person, a family, an ethnic group, and even a country. There is nothing sinful in wealth in this province, nor is it dirty. It is the people who take unfair measures to grab the wealth that are guilty, and the dirty ones are the methods used by these people in their greedy acquisition of wealth......"

"In a narrow sense, money is a symbol of wealth. The more currency a person has. Then the more wealth he can occupy in this country and ethnic group. A good monetary system can promote healthy social and economic development and ensure that people's wealth is not stolen and plundered. Opposite. A bad monetary system can quickly destroy the economic foundation of a country, make the wealth that people have worked so hard to accumulate disappear quickly, and lead to the outbreak of sharp social contradictions and conflicts. ”

"During the reign of Emperor Ling, he was greedy and despicable, and sold his official position in order to grab wealth, and waited until after the Yellow Turban Rebellion. The mountains of copper coins in the imperial treasury cannot be exchanged for the stability of the society, nor can they be exchanged for the support and support of the people. If he and countless wealthy landlords across the country used the money in the treasury to help the victims and build water conservancy from the beginning. used to treat the sick, so how could Zhang Jiao and others induce millions of people to rebel with him? ”

"The foundation of money lies in circulation. Currency that cannot be circulated is, at best, a pile of scrap copper and rotten iron. When the country and the people are rich. The gold, silver, and copper coins that were piled up in the storehouses did not bring more wealth to the people; When the country and the population are poor. The gold, silver, and copper coins that were piled up in the warehouses could not be exchanged for grain and cloth out of thin air. ”

"It seems to me that for a country, the real wealth is not a mountain of gold, silver and copper coins, but a healthy and long-lived population, a brave and powerful army, a constantly developing technology, and an ever-expanding territory!"

"In order to turn these moldy and rusty coins that have accumulated in our hands into real wealth, we must change the existing monetary system. So that it can benefit the country and the people, so that it can protect our family and future generations from being guillotined by the rebels who come after! ”

Inside the conference room. It is always quiet, and occasionally the rustle of someone turning the paper can be heard.

Everyone was deeply shocked by what Liu He thought and said. In this era of advocating the divine right of the monarchy and the supremacy of imperial power, Liu He, as a superior person, was able to say the connotation of "equality" and "wealth" so profoundly and incisively, and then criticized the chaotic monetary system of the imperial court since Emperor Ling, which not only made people feel deafening, but also made everyone see clearly the practical significance of reforming the currency value.

Liu He looked around on both sides, and when everyone stopped flipping through the manuscript, he spoke: "Everyone, the importance of reforming the currency must have been understood. Next, I will first express my thoughts and leave them to everyone for discussion, and then work together to formulate a set of systems that can be implemented at present. ”

"First of all, we need to set up a special agency, which will not be for profit, and its main responsibility is to revise and improve the monetary policy formulated by us, and to ensure the implementation and implementation of this policy, to carry out macroeconomic regulation and control of the economy in the territory under our control, and to supervise and manage other currency-related institutions and industries. Such an institution could raise funds from the people on behalf of the government, but not through the brutal looting and plundering of the past, but for paid use. Because the area we actually control is still north of the Yellow River, this organization can be temporarily named 'Northern Money Bank', and when the South and Western Regions are pacified, it can be renamed 'Central Money Bank'. ”

"Secondly, after the establishment of the money bank, a huge amount of collateral wealth was required in exchange for various metals in the hands of ordinary people, including gold, silver, copper and tin, which we may call 'reserves', or 'reserves'. In the past, in order to loot the people's fat and ointment, the imperial court only frantically minted or printed low-value currency, but there was not enough reserves, so prices soared and the people were not able to make a living. If we can prevent and put an end to the indiscriminate issuance of coins by the imperial court through the guò reserve system, then we have done a great thing that has never been done before. ”

"I know that everyone will definitely think that maybe when I am alive, and when our sons and even grandchildren, they may still be able to respect these rules we have set, find ways to limit the power in their hands, or limit the power of the imperial court, and resist the criminal behavior of the imperial court indiscriminately issuing currency, but after a hundred years, future generations will gradually forget the rules we have set today, and those in power will once again carry out self-interested plundering in the name of the country for their own selfish desires!"

"For this, to be honest, I don't dare to pat my chest and promise that it can definitely be avoided. However, if this money bank is not controlled by the imperial court alone, if there are leaders from all walks of life who put the interests of the family and the industry in the money bank, then it will be regarded as a change of dynasty. For the sake of the family and the industry, everyone will also rise up and fight to the death against any irresponsible and indiscriminate issuance of currency. ”

"As long as our Heavenly Path can survive. Then the flame of justice and equality will not be extinguished, and the money bank founded by us and participated in it will not be completely controlled by the imperial court, and the currency control power, which symbolizes the wealth of the world, will not fall into the hands of emperors, magnates, courtiers and profiteers! ”

When Liu He said this, he deliberately stopped, because he was expecting someone to question and opinion.

As Liu He expected, the wise Cai Yong was the first to ask: "Shiren, your original intentions are all good. And the conditions are met, but have you ever thought about the people we are involved in today. Even the people who join in the future, if they control the sharp weapon of the money bank, then the family and descendants we represent will actually become an unshakable elite class themselves? If our descendants don't make good use of this power. He has become the kind of person you say is crazy about grabbing the wealth of ordinary people. Isn't it a change of soup but not a change of medicine? ”

Liu He was very satisfied with Cai Yong's question, and the expression on his face was not anger or resentment when he was questioned, but an expression that won my heart. "I think most of you must agree with the academics, right?"

Many people nodded at the same time, seemingly not worried that Liu He would be angry.

Over the years, Liu He has respected other people's views and opinions when discussing matters, and has never been arbitrary, so Liu He's team still has a strong atmosphere of democracy within the team, as long as it is right about things and not about people. Everyone can speak their minds.

"My solution to the problem of scholars is that the shares of Qian Xing have always been dominated by the central court. At a minimum, it is necessary to ensure that the imperial court occupies sixty percent of the shares of the entire money bank, and the core members of the Tianzheng Dao occupy the other forty percent. Because the decision-making power is still in the hands of the imperial court, the main responsibility of Tianzheng Dao is to supervise and restrain the central money bank, and Tianzheng Dao wants to exercise this power, the premise is to unite internally and have a voice externally. ”

Liu He still had some words in his heart that he hadn't said, but some of the people in the conference room who were quick and quick had already thought of them. Why did Liu He use a money bank to be created to connect Tianzheng Dao with the central imperial court? Why the emphasis on core members and shared voices? From another point of view, isn't this Liu He using the actual interests of real money to closely link the elite of the entire society from all walks of life?

In the past, when kings encircled the elite, they could only use guò to divide the land, and the reason why the elite were willing to maintain the same voice with the court after obtaining the fief was not because the land could bring them sufficient wealth.

Now, what Liu He wants to do is to use the wealth itself to condense everyone, and avoid the problem of land separation. Judging from the current core members of Tianzheng Dao, there are not only Cai Yong, Liu Hui, Cheng Bing, Yuan Jian and others who represent the scholars, but also Zhao Yun and Zhang He who represent the army, as well as Xu Yue, Hua Tuo and Zhang Ji who represent the science and technology industry.

Take Zhao Yun as an example, even if Liu He doesn't give him a land, with Zhao Yun's loyal temperament, he will not turn his back on Liu He in this life, but Zhao Yun's relatives and descendants also have to live, eat, and have a respected social status, they can't always live on the military fame accumulated by Zhao Yun during his lifetime, right? If one day, Liu He's grandson, or the first great-great-grandson, encounters a crisis on the throne, whether this crisis comes from within the country or from outside, what can he do to inspire Zhao Yun's descendants to serve him?

The human heart is alive and always changing. However, the total amount of wealth in a society is finite, and it will never be possible for everyone to have an equal possession of this wealth. Only a team that is bound together by the common interest is unbreakable.

Think about it, if the internal members of the Tenshodo Path jointly control about forty percent of the wealth of a country, then their interests are closely linked to the life and death of the country, the rise and fall of the country, what reason do they have not to maintain the existence of this relationship?

In the same way, as the king of a country and the minister of the court, they still control sixty percent of the country's wealth, and the other forty percent are inextricably linked with them, so the first thing they think about at any time is not how to eliminate the Tenshodo and the central money bank, but how to make the Tenshodo and the money use for their own regime.

This is Liu He's thinking and understanding that the establishment of Qian Bank is actually a bank in later generations, although it seems to go around and around, but it contains deep thinking about human nature, society, the country, the trust-like family and many other things.

In later generations, no one can know how many rich and rival consortium families are hidden behind the most powerful country, and these families will never explicitly seek control over the country, but use the huge wealth in their hands to influence and manipulate those political figures standing in front of the stage. If Liu He was able to dominate and establish such an invisible wealth and power group in the Han Dynasty, then he wouldn't have to worry too much about the Han court not being able to escape the fate of changing every three hundred years, let alone worrying that the country dominated by the Han people would be slaughtered and occupied by those barbaric and backward alien peoples!

Because the Tianzheng Dao founded by Liu He is not synonymous with backwardness and conservatism, but an emerging force group with self-improvement and continuous development. (To be continued......)