Chapter 182: The Establishment of the King (II)

Before he sat down, Fang Xin said: "Alone as the king's system, I want to determine the hearts of the people, and make the etiquette law first, but the legal code is still simple, military law, civil law, criminal law, and great law. ”

These two allusions, those present are familiar with the classics, and of course they will not be unaware

The law of the Lu country, the Lu people are the concubines of the princes, and those who can redeem them will take their money in the house. Zigong ransomed the Lu people to the princes, and came and let them not take their money. Confucius said, "Give what you lose." From now on, the Lu people do not redeem people. If you take the money, you will not be harmed, and if you don't take the money, you will not redeem the person. ”

Zilu rescuers, their people worship oxen, Zilu receives them. Confucius also said: "The Lu people will save the drowning." ”

It means that there is a law in the Lu country, the Lu people are slaves abroad, and if someone can redeem them, they can go to the treasury to reimburse the ransom. Once, Zigong, a disciple of Confucius, ransomed a Lu nationalist abroad and refused to accept state compensation after returning home. Confucius said, "Oh, you're not doing a good job. From now on, the people of Lu will no longer be willing to redeem their compatriots who have become slaves. If you recover the compensation from the state, it will not impair the value of your actions; And if you refuse to get back the money you paid, others will not redeem them. ”

Zilu rescued a man who had fallen into the water, and the man thanked him and gave him a cow, which Zilu accepted. Confucius said: "Now the people of the country of Lu will definitely have the courage to save those who fall into the water." ”

"Zigong has gold and righteousness, and he redeems people instead of Lu, because he thinks it is good, but how many people in the world can reach it? Moral people, seeds, always cultivated, to grow, such as the world people think that the way of a gentleman, lies in heaven, and how many people are willing to learn it? Fang Xin said calmly: "Therefore, the legislation of loneliness lies in cultivating virtue, and cultivating virtue cannot give up profits, why not, all the people suffer a lot, the sun rises and ploughs and the sun sets, and the income is only to support the family, if there is nothing to repay for good, how can it be good?" ”

Speaking of this, Fang Xin got up, paced with his hands behind his back, and after a while, he glanced at the three ministers with dark eyes, and said, "The sea does not give up water, so it can become big; The mountain does not give up the soil and stones, so it can become its height; Those who are good do not take meager merit as small, so they can become their virtuous, and I hope that when the secretary of law enacts, he can remember the intention of loneliness. ”

"Yes, the king has insight into the metaphysics, and he sees the slightest detail, and the ministers should carefully abide by it, thinking that it is the outline of the new law!"

The meaning of this passage is even clearer, the people are already in difficulty, there are parents to support, there are officials to exploit, there are children to raise, life is not enough, and they still want to promote "unconditional dedication and sacrifice", holding up the typical demand of Zigong, then it is already out of order - the purpose of morality is to create a better time, not sacrifice.

Infinitely elevating morality and treating one's private morality as public morality will only lead to one result - that is, morality has become a tool for the superior to exploit the common people in the world

There are moral brains and cannon fodder, their families are declining, life is difficult, and the people avoid it when they hear their morality, and what the result will be when they hear it, and it is very clear what it will be.

When the three ministers heard the decree, they all had calculations, Shen Xuan got up and said: "The king's sacred heart is silent, he has seen the great benevolence, the law is not a day's work, the ministers should lead the king's benevolence, carefully refer to the gains and losses of the past dynasties, carefully figure it out, carefully delete the changes, and decide for the king's holy judgment, so as to seek a good law for a hundred generations." ”

The formulation of laws is not a matter of one or two years, and even if there are references to the laws of the past dynasties, it will take at least ten years to formulate a relatively complete set of laws.

At this time, the establishment of the new country, there are many major events, domestic and foreign affairs, the focus of the new country, or the war, but there are many things, can not wait until the world is really pacified, must be prepared for a rainy day, the matter of making money discussed below, the same is true, Fang Xin saw that the ministers had understood the meaning, so he said: "The founding of the country in the past dynasties, the opening of the Yuan must make money, in order to declare the world, this matter must also be prepared." ”

"What the king said is that this matter is also extremely important, and each province originally had a minting bureau, and as long as new money is set, it can be minted." Yuan Cheng, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, said at this time, this matter was originally within the scope of his jurisdiction: "It's just copper mining, tens of thousands or even tens of thousands of copper workers, gathered in a few places, it's really worrying, the king, you can wait for the world to calm down, and then collect it on a large scale!" ”

In ancient times, copper mining and mining not only had to cut down a large number of trees, but also because the technology was not advanced, thousands of people had to be gathered at every turn, and copper and iron could be directly made into weapons, so it became a hidden danger, and all generations were cautious.

Seeing Fang Xin groaning, Zhang Zhuo, the head of the household department, said again: "Why don't you use paper money according to the founding of the previous dynasty?" ”

"The previous dynasty set paper money, prices soared, and the people were poor, so that Taizu had to abolish it after 20 years. Yuan Cheng, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, heard it and immediately retorted.

In fact, the world economy has almost reached the heyday of the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties on the earth, and the social and economic development has reached a certain stage, so paper money naturally appeared.

The problem is that, due to the lack of knowledge and checks and balances, successive rulers have used it to exploit and plunder the wealth of the people, with no security deposit and unlimited issuance – causing prices to skyrocket.

On the earth, there is even a "root cause of the problem of opening the river to change money", which shows the demise factors caused by the indiscriminate issuance of banknotes.

After several experiments with the imperial court, many ministers have reached a consensus - to exclude paper money!

Fang Xin was very sober about this, he said: "The issue of official banknotes is not feasible at this time, so there is no need to discuss it, as for the existing Jiaozi, it can be recognized by decree, and forging Jiaozi is equivalent to stealing the same amount of money, and the imperial court will also set up a Jiaozi Division to investigate fraud." ”

Although the issuance of paper money is a progress in the history of currency, it cannot be implemented at all under the imperial power ** system, the reason is very simple, the court and the emperor, both need money, and there is no guarantee and balance, so the indiscriminate issuance of paper money inflation is unavoidable, this is the root of the problem, not what system and wisdom can change - in any country dominated by imperial power, want to issue banknotes without inflation, it is simply impossible.

The imperial power is greater than everything, and the printing press controlled by the imperial power determines that inflation will inevitably occur.

On the contrary, the handover of private banknotes is very promising.

Of course, there are friends in this world, which is the inevitable development of the economy to a certain extent, maybe the names of each world are different, but they are exactly the same.

When the economy develops, a large number of goods and money transactions, resulting in money is inconvenient to carry, and it is not safe, so a reputable money bank, can issue a jiaozi - the depositor will deliver the cash to the bank, the money bank will temporarily fill in the amount of cash deposited by the depositor on the roll made of paper, and then return it to the depositor, when the depositor withdraws cash, pay a custody fee of 3.

This is actually based on the same amount of copper, silver and gold as a guarantee of the money village, each Jiaozi has its own name, mark, autograph, stamp, directly to the responsible parties, others are difficult to forge, so Jiaozi has won a high reputation.

However, not all money banks are law-abiding and trustworthy, and the imperial court must be held accountable, but this is only a tax of 1, if it is not illegal, it will not be involved in its internal affairs - history proves that even in the Song Dynasty of the earth, the government intervened in Jiaozi to form an "official Jiaozi", and there were 28 reserves, which also led to inflation, and by the Jiading period of the Southern Song Dynasty, it depreciated to one-tenth.

Seeing that the minister was thoughtful, Fang Xin said again: "The court's rectification of the law also lies in making money, but Lone not only makes copper coins, but also prepares to make silver coins and gold coins. ”

As the economy develops to the present, society is calling for a higher value currency, and since paper money is not viable, there are only silver and gold coins.

On the earth, copper coins circulated in the Ming Dynasty, and silver also became currency, although the amount of silver was minted into a certain standard of silver ingots from the Yuan Dynasty, but ingots were not popular.

In the Qing Dynasty, silver was the main currency, and more than one tael of taxes must be collected, and the finished grain must be full silver. Because the central government does not cast a unified circulation of silver, the silver used by the people may not be pure silver, and the shape, fineness, and flat yard of silver ingots are different in various places, so every time before paying taxes, the silversmiths and silver shops will melt and cast the folk loose silver into pure silver. Some silversmiths colluded with officials to take advantage of the opportunity to exploit the people in terms of the quality of silver, causing many complicated social problems.

Since we know this problem, the production of standard silver and gold coins is also in response to the social trend.

"Your Majesty, what is the law of these bronze coins, silver coins, and gold coins?" Shen Xuan thought about it and asked, the matter of minting money will shake the country's capital at every turn, which is very serious, so he has to ask clearly.

"Copper coins, copper six, zinc four, lead one, weight one penny and one cent, charge one penny and two cents. Silver coins, silver eight, copper two, weighing five grams. Fang Xin thought about it for a while, and then said: "There is only one way, that is, to mint money and hand it over to the private sector, how about it?" ”

"Your Majesty, how can this be, minting money is the foundation of the country, and An can hand it over to Shang Lihu?" The three ministers, all of whom were shocked, hurriedly spoke.

The coinage of the past dynasties was mostly because of the huge profits, which was a very important financial supplement for the imperial court.

"Zhu Qing is a little rest, it makes sense to be alone."

"Please also ask Wang Shangming to speak." The three of them looked at each other and said, if it is unreasonable, they should resolutely not obey the order.

"The benefits of coinage, this does not need to be detailed, but because of this, so not only the king for it, even the officials are also for it, the coinage bureau single-handedly opened mines, collected, refined, and made money, and the solitary once read the system of the Great Chu, and the court directly governed the coinage bureau does not count, locally, the less is only one bureau in the province,

Most of them even have money bureaus in the county, and the upper and lower rosters are widely implicated, and there should be millions of people! Speaking of this, Fang Xin's face couldn't help turning blue: "The hardships of mining and the gathering of people to make trouble are countless, these must be counted on the imperial court, and it is easy to cause trouble for a long time, and although it is advantageous to mint money, but the distribution of food and salaries is exploited layer by layer, and the imperial court only earns 20 million yuan a year - only 20,000 taels of silver!" ”

"Not only that, all provinces and bureaus have made profits from this, ignoring the laws of the imperial court, making the quality of the coinage lower and lower, and even a large number of inferior money, which can be broken on the ground, and the people are full of complaints, but the law does not blame the public, and the provinces and counties are like this, and it is difficult for the imperial court to clean up all of them - just for these tens of thousands of taels of silver, it is really not worth it to create such a situation!"

"Of course, private minting is not to allow the private to mint money, but on the contrary, it is necessary to cancel the minting bureaus of all provinces and counties, and collect them under the direct jurisdiction of the imperial court, and cast them by hundreds of giant merchants in the country - in this case, the responsibility is all businessmen, one can reduce the involvement of officials, two can sit on the huge profits, and three can dispose of the silver village if necessary."

"The profit of casting money, the court can take the sixth, the merchant can take the fourth, if there is additional loss, the same, if there is a rough casting profit, the law should be dealt with, so, the court does not add a penny, it can make a profit, such a hundred giant businessmen, not forever, but can be changed once in three or five years!"

Speaking of this, the three ministers immediately reacted.

Over the ages, coin minting is really a big problem, as said, although the founding of the country, the politics are relatively clear, the casting is relatively unified and exquisite, but with the passage of time, the provinces and counties, as well as the people, are all for profit and coinage, gradually the coins are bad, the size is different, although the imperial court has repeatedly banned and cracked down, but because it is profitable, and the coingers have officials to participate in the cooperation, so it can not stop a large amount of bad money mixed into the market, destroy the normal economic life of the society - and even sometimes, in order to solve financial problems, The same is true of the central court.

At this time, Fang Xin's policy, in essence, was to cancel the right of each province and county to mint money, and the central government appointed some merchants to mint money.

The imperial court does not participate in the specific minting of money, which saves hundreds of thousands of establishments and many relationships, but also reaps huge profits, and all the responsibility can be put on the head of the businessman.

Of course, the profit of minting money is large, and the profit of forty percent is also a huge amount of money, although the businessman knows that there is a great risk in it, not only economic risks, but also political risks, but it can also make people take risks.

The three of them thought about it carefully, in fact, although it was a commercial cast, it essentially strengthened the official control, and it was sitting on huge profits, at the moment, Shen Xuan was thoughtful, and then said slowly: "Your Majesty, this matter is very big, please forgive me for some time, Rong Chen and the others think about it carefully!" ”

In fact, he also has a meaning, that is, the business casting is for profit, and the distribution of interests at the current level of science and technology is obviously not satisfying.

Fang Xin has decided that if someone can invent these skills, then "go to great joy and reward ten years of patent franchise", so that the inventor can obtain great benefits, and in this way, change some of the atmosphere.

"The matter of salt, now we don't have coastal provinces, we can't boil salt, and the salt wells in the interior are only usable, so we won't discuss it today, what else does Zhuqing have to do?"

"Your Majesty, the ministers should cast gold, silver, and bronze third-class money, and come to offer it, in order to seek holy judgment, but the money must have an era name, I don't know what year name the king will use in the future?" Only these core personnel of the six cabinet departments can talk about it, and only Prime Minister Shen Xuan can ask it.

"My wish, for the heaven and the earth, for the people, for the eternal peace, such as the solitary enthronement as the emperor, the year name will be Kaiping, take the road to level the world, create the meaning of eternal peace, what do you think?" Fang Xin smiled.

"Open the way to level the world, create peace for all generations, the virtue of the Lord, the fruit can shine with the sun and the moon, and the ministers are willing to go to the soup for the king, and they will not give up." When the three of them heard this, they immediately fell to their knees.

"Very good!" Fang Xin stood up, staring at the courtyard scenery outside, and an indescribable feeling appeared in his heart.