Chapter 532 The disaster caused by tulips
"Why is this?" Jiang Lu asked curiously.
Qin An explained: “The main purpose of state-owned enterprises is to have ownership or control over their capital, and the government’s will and interests determine the behavior of state-owned enterprises.
For example, if the imperial court establishes a state-owned enterprise to sell grain, it can control the price of grain in the future, whether it is a natural disaster or a man-made disaster.
In addition, you can also target those unscrupulous grain merchants and use price wars to drive down the price of grain very low, leaving them with no profit and ultimately forcing them to sell grain at low prices.
At this time, state-owned enterprises can take advantage of this low price to purchase these grains, buy all their grains, and then restore grain prices.
This is just a low-level business war. Directly crushing opponents with price can only be done by people with absolute strength.
Therefore, I personally suggest that state-owned enterprises do not need to control all walks of life, as long as they control important industries, such as the steel industry, the food industry, the military industry, etc. "
Jiang Lu nodded as if he understood, and said: "Brother-in-law, you just said that using low prices to deal with others is a low-level method, so what is a high-end method?"
Qin An thought for a while and said: "The high-end method is to use one thing to cause the entire country's economy to collapse, leading to the people's livelihood and the country's failure."
"Is it really that powerful?" Jiang Lu said with some uncertainty.
Qin An nodded vigorously and said: "Yes. This incident happened abroad, in the Netherlands in the 17th century.
This incident is also classic. There was a businessman who used a flower called tulip to cause the economy of a country that was originally economically developed to instantly regress for decades. "
"How did he do it?" Jiang Lu asked.
"The method is very simple, that is, hype." Qin An said, "Tulips are very difficult to grow in large areas, so they are expensive. A meal of tulips is equivalent to one gold coin.
So the businessmen saw the business opportunity and started to speculate, turning the tulips that originally cost one gold coin into one hundred gold coins. "
"What the hell? Are those people who buy tulips fools? Does anyone still buy such expensive tulips?" Meng Xifan said.
"They are not fools but smart people." Qin An said, "And the people who buy these tulips are businessmen. 33
Tulips, which originally cost one gold coin each, were collected by merchants from farmers. He wanted to sell them, so he would tell others that these tulips were flowers that kings and nobles wore.
To prove this, merchants gave tulips to some nobles, who wore brooches made of tulips during banquets.
After only a few times, all the nobles would ask about the tulips, so some merchants saw the opportunity and sold the tulips that originally cost one gold coin to other merchants for two gold coins.
Other merchants sold for higher prices, and then some bad news spread, saying that many tulips were dead and so on. Increase the price of tulips tenfold at once.
Because the news is false, the price will not go down anymore.
At the same time, in order to make more money, businessmen will also cooperate with officials to raise the price of tulips higher. "
"Even so, only nobles can afford tulips, and no one else will buy them. Even if they are going to suffer, will they not let the common people suffer?" Jiang Lu said.
Qin An smiled and said: "That's because you are too naive and take human nature too simply.
Some businessmen have made money, do you think the people will not want to make this money? Although tulips are difficult to grow, it does not mean that they cannot be grown. Now a tulip sells for twenty gold coins.
So as long as I cultivate one flower, wouldn't I have twenty gold coins? Excuse me, under such great temptation. Do you cultivate tulips? "
"Yes, let alone a hundred gold coins, I can cultivate even one gold coin." Jiang Lu said.
"That's it." Qin An said with a smile, "There are actually a lot of tulips on the market, but the merchants used fake news to tell everyone that the yield of tulips is very low and the quantity is very small, so they can increase the price of tulips. .”
"That's all right. Do you think the nobles are stupid? Don't they know whether there are more or fewer tulips?" Gan Luo said.
Qin An smiled and said, "Even if they know, so what? Will they tell the truth?"
"Why not?" Gan Luo said again.
Jiang Lu said: "No, the nobles will not say it, because the nobles already have a large number of tulips on hand. Once the truth is told, the price of tulips will fall.
Once it falls, their wealth will shrink, and the shrinkage will be severe. "
Qin An said: "Yes, that's it. At this time, both the nobles and speculative businessmen have been tied to tulips.
Even ordinary people are tied to tulips. "
"What does this have to do with the people?" Gan Luo asked.
Qin An smiled slightly, looked at Jiang Lu and said, "Brother Third Uncle, can you understand?"
Jiang Lu shook his head and said, "I know that the people will definitely be affected, but I really don't know how."
"Qin An, don't hold back, just tell me directly." Ying Zheng said.
Qin An nodded and continued: "It's actually very simple, because the price of tulips is very high. If merchants and nobles want to maintain the price at this price, they need to buy the tulips from the people."
"Isn't it that the common people have money?" Gan Luo said.
"Yes, but all this money is owed and has not been given to the people. Even if it is given to the people, the people will use the money to buy tulip seeds in order to make another profit.
The money ended up in the hands of those behind the scenes.
And I said that tulips are difficult to cultivate. Once you fail, you will lose everything.
If I were the person behind the scenes, these seeds would be mixed with boiled seeds so that the tulips would not be able to germinate and bloom.
Because there are many people buying, some succeed and some fail, so no one will doubt the person behind the scenes.
And by doing this, he can also control the number of tulips, thereby controlling the price and harvesting more wool.
In this way, once a large number of flowers entered the market, nobles and speculative businessmen would buy up all the tulips.
If the money is not enough. It will use government money, that is, the national treasury.
In addition, some people in the market have begun to use tulips as money and buy goods with tulips. "
"Absurd. How can you use flowers as money?" Ying Zheng said in a deep voice.
"The people volunteered, and the government couldn't control it." Qin An said, "And this step is also the most fatal. After the government realized the harm, it was already too late."
Some people died, but not completely...
