Bi Ziyan's words were exactly what Zhu Youxiao was thinking at this time.
Therefore, after Zhu Youxiao listened to Bi Ziyan's words, he sat up straight and said, "My dear, please tell me in detail, why do you have such an idea and why do you want to come to Beijing and tell me in person?"
Zhu Youxiao said and walked down personally and took the memorial from Bi Ziyan.
Bi Ziyan said here: "Lao Chen and several of Lao Chen's students have conducted some investigations into the consumption situation among the people over the years, and drafted a memorial of ten thousand words to let His Majesty know the intentions of his ministers and others."
"In my humble opinion, from the Ming Dynasty to the present, even in the remote mountains and fields, there are prosperous towns and workshops. The sound of machines is constant, and the people running small businesses are like crucian carp crossing the river. When the market opens, the boats Too many cars will block the rivers, and too many cars will clog the roads. This is the good side of the Ming Dynasty's commodity economy! People gradually have more money, and therefore have the power to buy, so that towns and villages far away from the county seat can also prosper. "
"Even many women and children have greatly increased their incomes as a result. The Qi family in Changsha County was widowed at the age of twenty-two. Thirty years later, relying on the skill of glass painting, in addition to daily necessities, she accumulated over ten thousand yuan!
The Long family in Chengdu worked in a local silk reeling factory, accumulated 144 taels of silver, and provided for his posthumous son to study. Now he is a prefecture official..."
"I have discovered that since Your Majesty came to the throne, the people of the world have indeed become very wealthy. For example, I found out from my investigation that a landowner in Suzhou, a long-term worker, could eat one pound of meat, three spoons of wine, and two liters of rice for the cost of the eclipse. , it can be seen that the people are indeed richer than the previous dynasty. It is not a problem to buy a brocade every year and eat a meat every day.
However, the people all over the world are still experiencing hardships, just because the trend of extravagant comparison is on the rise. This is all caused by the guidance of the powerful and wealthy families! It is also the bad side of the Ming Dynasty’s commodity economy that has developed to this day. "
"First of all, when buying a home, you need to expand the land and build a garden. This is okay, after all, it can be used for many years and can be passed down to children and grandchildren. What should not be wrong is that weddings and funerals are also extremely expensive, and dowry gifts must be asked for. A lot of money, a lot of money must be spent to find a famous tree for the coffin!
In addition, people do not know how to be frugal when drinking and banquets. They spend thousands to tens of thousands on a meal. In terms of clothing, they like the new and dislike the old, and are simple and luxurious. Because there are no longer restrictions on etiquette and law, men and women wear too many clothes, and the colors of yellow and red are too much. It is so abused that it is difficult to distinguish between high and low, even if it is carved with dragons and phoenixes, and a piece of clothing is worth more than a hundred gold, even if it is made of mink fur, peacock fur, fur, velvet and other expensive materials, it must be worn once a day. abandoned!
However, this is still second. What is more important is the fee for seeking official recommendation for the imperial examination. If you want to enter a government school, you will spend at least a hundred gold. If you want to promote people, it will cost thousands of gold. The expenses for literati gatherings and banquets can last for several years. Use!
Moreover, the trend of prostitution and breeding is so unstoppable that in order to raise a prostitute, one has to spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy a house, and then pay ten thousand dollars to redeem her body. There are also wealthy people in the world who like to collect calligraphy, paintings and antiques. The fee is not worth tens of thousands of dollars. "
"If the middle-class families continue like this, they will eventually go bankrupt and destroy the foundation of their ancestors. In order to maintain this luxurious life, wealthy families will resort to exorbitant taxation, plunder and plunder, privately increase land rent, collude with the government to create clever names, and even privately grant high-interest loans to force families to die. , What’s more, they secretly form a secret alliance with powerful people to control the government of a government or even a province, steal and sell official property, and embezzle treasury funds.”
"Therefore, this kind of extravagance has caused the people to suffer from exploitation even though their wealth has increased. However, the remaining wealth has not increased significantly. Their consumption is still within their means and they are frugal and restrained. As a result, the manufacturing workshops cannot expand in scale. There may even be signs of failure;
In order to pursue luxury, wealthy families must spend a lot of money to buy purely handicrafts for daily use, and despise industrial products. As a result, craftsmen with superb skills are still obsessed with completing some extravagant and exquisite handicrafts alone, and lack the ability to pass on the handicrafts in their hands. Transformed into factory production, from luxury items to mass items, giving industrial products more power.
The old minister finally discovered that the wealth donated by the Ming Dynasty has been concentrated in non-producers, and the increase in wealth of the people who are truly producers is not as great as the increase in wealth of people who are not engaged in production in the world.
Between ministers, if most of the increase in wealth is not concentrated in the hands of producers, but is not in the hands of producers, not only will it not be conducive to the long-term stability of the country, but it will make the country decline earlier!
Because if this continues, there will definitely be more people who are indolent and indolent!
Today, the population of the world is increasing rapidly. However, although a large number of newly added people are landless and propertyless, they are unwilling to work in factories and workshops. Instead, they would rather devote themselves as adopted sons and daughters to a wealthy family as slaves and maids, and even do things to promote excellence. The harm caused by such phenomena can be proved.
Therefore, Your Majesty, I boldly speak out, I hope that the imperial court will stop this trend, so that more of the increase in the wealth of the empire will go to the hands of those who work hard to produce, and not to the hands of those who do not work hard to produce!
As far as I know, in the Jiangnan area, a famous prostitute who is good at playing and singing can earn tens of thousands of gold per day, while a virtuous woman who manages a household can only earn a hundred gold per year. The court cannot ignore this phenomenon! Otherwise, the world will perish because of this! "
Zhu Youxiao threw Chen Que's knowledge to him: "Someone also mentioned this. What Aiqing just said is right. The consumption level of the common people has been suppressed, but the consumption of the wealthy has not been suppressed. On the contrary, it has hindered productivity. development, the country will regress as a result.”
Zhu Youxiao looked at Liu Hongxun as he spoke: "Liu Aiqing was right to restrict scholar-bureaucrats from taking concubines before, and even to rebuild their morality."
Liu Hongxun said: "Your Majesty, I now feel that what I did in the past was not enough. Now that I think about it, if we want to curb this extravagant trend and make more of the benefits in the world go to those who work hard, we must be stricter with the scholar-bureaucrats. These, public fees need to be stipulated, and moral conduct must also be required!"
"Very true!"
Zhu Youxiao nodded and asked: "My dear friends, do you have any other good strategies to make the growing wealth of the world more reflected in the producers, so that the people of the world can truly know that workers are glorious! Instead of Han people?" You are willing to degenerate yourself, unwilling to serve the people, but willing to work for the rich and powerful!"
After listening to Bi Ziyan's explanation, coupled with his current experience, he couldn't help but discover that in history, although the Ming Dynasty had a high degree of economic development during the Longwan period, it failed to undergo capitalist transformation. This was because economic development brought about There is something wrong with the consumption pattern.
The increased wealth after economic development has all gone into the hands of the big landlords and big bureaucrats, and has become capital for these people to squander. The people's lives have become increasingly difficult, and large factories cannot be opened, because the big landlords and big bureaucrats do not need cheap industrial products, they need Expensive luxury handicrafts have caused the economic transformation to fail.
This forces Zhu Youxiao to now have to think about how to prevent this phenomenon from continuing to occur in Ming Dynasty.
Obviously, blindly copying the Western model will not work. Even if Ming Dynasty can prosper for a long time due to global colonial plunder, if we are not careful, Ming Dynasty will inevitably decline in the future.
And history has proven that the great powers that have risen in the West will quickly decline after becoming strong because of the free development of capital.
If Ming Dynasty wants to prosper for a long time, it must follow its own path.
And what path to take.
This is the answer Zhu Youxiao needs to find now.
"Your Majesty, I have thought about this matter, and I believe that the imperial court should control the free development of the current commodity economy and control it appropriately, and the imperial court must have the power to control it, so that the industry of huge profits in the world should still be exclusively controlled by the imperial court and implemented officially. In the strategy of advancing the people and retreating, most private businessmen running factories only know how to exploit the workers as much as possible, so that the workers are not rich even though they work hard. At present, the government can only build government-run industries. If His Majesty had set up government-run industries in Tianjin before, Hundreds of thousands of refugees are the same, but if more profits from government operations are distributed to workers, and even shares are given to workers, and workers are allowed to hold shares, then workers will definitely gain something from their hard work!"
At this time, Bi Ziyan answered the strategy he had in mind.
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