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The Mid-Autumn Festival was approaching. On August 12, the left and right assistant ministers of the Ministry of Revenue, Xu Yingjie and Yang Chao, both went to the Jianjia Palace to ask to see the emperor.
Seeing this, Qin Mu knew that the two must have important matters to attend to, so he immediately asked the eunuch to call them in.
After the greeting, Xu Yingjie immediately said: "Your Majesty, according to the reports from the Changping Warehouses in various places, grain prices in various places have been falling since the summer harvest this year. Now that the summer tax has been paid, there is still no sign of grain prices rising again."
Qin Mu couldn't help but frown after hearing this and asked, "How low has the grain price dropped now?"
"Your Majesty, the price of a dou of rice in the market has dropped to sixty-five coins."
"So little? What's going on? Aren't there any grains being collected at the warehouses in various places?"
The original intention of building the Changping Granary was to improve the Qin Dynasty's strategic grain reserve system so that if there was a famine, relief could be provided better and faster to prevent chaos caused by the disaster.
The second function is to monitor grain prices in various places in real time, collect grain in good years to prevent low grain prices from hurting farmers, and sell grain in bad years to prevent grain prices from being too high.
Xu Yingjie replied: "Thanks to your majesty's great blessing, the weather in Daqin has been good in recent years, and there have been relatively few disasters in various places. As people's livelihood has gradually recovered, and new crops such as corn and sweet potatoes are widely planted throughout the country, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Households, the grain output of Daqin is now more than one-third higher than the total grain output at the peak of the Ming Dynasty.
The amount of money that each state and county withheld for grain collection ranged from 30,000 to 80,000 or 70,000 dragon coins. For the current total grain output, it can only play a partial regulatory role, and it is actually difficult to increase grain production overall;
It is already August. In a little over a month, if nothing unexpected happens, the autumn grain harvest will be good. If there is no regulation, the grain price will be even lower. In view of the seriousness of the situation, Minister Yang and I have no choice but to come to see Your Majesty in order to regulate it in advance. "
During the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, historical records clearly stated that a dou of rice cost four cents, and warehouses in various places were full, which the historical books called a prosperous era. But in fact, anyone with a little understanding of market economy knows that the lower the grain price, the better;
It is no exaggeration to say that low grain prices hurt farmers and may even lead to riots. In addition, a significant reduction in grain prices will not only hurt farmers, but also cause other commodities to follow suit and fall in price.
In a normally developing market economy, prices will never become cheaper and cheaper. Once this phenomenon occurs, there is only one possibility: there is something wrong with the market economy.
Only when people's income is reasonably proportional to the price increase can this market economy develop healthily, otherwise it will inevitably lead to serious deflation.
Don’t think that there were no economic crises caused by inflation or deflation in ancient times. There were, and they happened frequently.
It’s just that the ancients lacked theoretical knowledge in this area, and there was no such term as “economic crisis”, but if you look through the history books in detail, you can still clearly see that the so-called “economic crisis” has occurred in almost every dynasty and generation.
Once deflation is triggered by falling prices, the entire economy will stagnate. The reason is simple. Farmers grow crops but cannot sell them, or sell them at a low price. But they do not make more profit from the good harvest, so who will have the enthusiasm to grow crops
This is even more true for other commodities, such as cloth. Textile factories produce a large amount of cloth, but because the price of cloth is too low, they cannot make money, or even lose money. Then will anyone be willing to increase investment and expand production scale
The stagnation of production will inevitably lead to the bankruptcy of a large number of workshops and the unemployment of a large number of people. The horror of deflation is no less than that of inflation.
It was precisely because of this realization that Xu Yingjie and Yang Chao, the two senior officials in charge of the Ministry of Revenue, both came to see Qin Mu.
Qin Mu thought deeply for a moment before asking, "Do you two have any countermeasures?"
This time, Yang Chao answered, "Your Majesty, the Ministry of Revenue has urgently discussed this matter. We believe that to solve this problem, it is far from enough to rely solely on the Changping Warehouse to collect grain. The only way is to increase market demand. Only in this way can we hope to raise grain prices."
In this agriculture-based era, food prices have the greatest influence on other prices. If food prices cannot be raised, the risk of triggering deflation will be very high.
But it is not easy to raise food prices. The population is so small. You can't add a large number of people to consume food, and it is even more impossible to buy food and burn it.
Qin Mu's mind raced, and suddenly he had an idea, so he asked, "Japan has a large population. Do you know what the current grain prices are in Japan?"
Xu Yingjie was in charge of commerce, and he had obviously put a lot of thought into the price of grain. He immediately replied, "Your Majesty, there are some merchant ships transporting grain to Japan for sale. According to the information provided by these merchant ships, the current price of grain in Japan is about 100 coins per dou of rice. Merchants transporting grain from Daqin to Japan can make about 15 coins per dou of rice, excluding transportation costs."
Qin Mu said, "How about this. The Ministry of Revenue has a lot of extra money. We can use some of it as a special fund to buy a large amount of grain and sell it to Japan. We can also buy cash crops like cotton from Japan at a high price."
"Your Majesty, this..."
Even Xu Yingjie couldn't figure out the purpose of Qin Mu's actions. Obviously, even if he didn't lose money, it would be in vain and he couldn't make much profit.
"Whoever controls finance and currency controls the whole world; whoever controls food controls everyone. Do you understand, my Lords?"
Xu Yingjie thought for a moment and immediately said, "Your Majesty's intention is to sell the surplus grain of Daqin to Japan, and then guide the Japanese to grow cash crops at high prices, so that Japan will rely on Daqin for food, so as to achieve the goal of better controlling Japan."
"That's right! By doing this, firstly, we can ensure that domestic food prices will not fall any further, and secondly, we can slowly control Japan. When Japan has to rely on our Qin for finance, currency, and food, we can influence the direction of Japan without a single soldier."
"Your Majesty, rest assured. I will start to handle this matter immediately. However, this cannot be done in one fell swoop. If too much food is allowed to flow into Japan at once, it may easily arouse the vigilance of the Tokugawa shogunate. We have to boil the frog in warm water. This will be like a distant water cannot quench the immediate thirst."
Qin Mu also admitted this. If the control plan against Japan was too hasty, it would only do harm. He asked, "Since you two have come to see me, I believe you have some countermeasures. Please tell me."
"Your Majesty, after consultation with the Ministry of Revenue, we believe that there is only one way to quickly increase domestic food demand and raise food prices, and that is to build large-scale projects, such as increasing the construction of domestic roads."
Large-scale wars consume the most food and supplies, and the same is true for large-scale construction. From this point of view, Xu Yingjie and his team's countermeasures are at least appropriate.
Yang Chao continued, "Your Majesty, if a large number of prisoners of war are used to build roads, the biggest expense will be food, and the silver and money expenditure is actually not large. The national treasury is expected to have a surplus of at least 40 million dragon coins this year, so it is not a problem to allocate some money to buy food and build roads."
When building roads with prisoners of war, you only need to provide them with rations, no wages are needed. Various stones and asphalt used for road construction can also be mined and transported by prisoners of war, without having to pay extra money. In a word, all you need to do is give the prisoners food to eat.
From this point of view, large-scale road construction is indeed a feasible strategy. It can not only quickly raise domestic food prices and prevent deflation, but also speed up the construction of Daqin's infrastructure and lay a solid foundation for future economic take-off.
"Your Majesty, I suggest that we requisition 800,000 prisoners of war from Jiaozhi and Dongwu to build roads. In addition to the asphalt road from Chengdu to Xijing that was originally planned to start construction after winter, the road from Changsha to Nanning Prefecture can also be built at the same time. In addition, I suggest that we build another asphalt road from Nanning Prefecture to Shangjun City, and another from Kunming to Wangben City."
My goodness! Qin Mu couldn't help but be dumbfounded when he heard that they were going to requisition 800,000 prisoners. Should we say that the Ministry of Revenue was rich or had extraordinary courage
The Shangjun City Yang Chao mentioned refers to the former Jiaozhi capital of Thang Long, which later became Hanoi. Wang Ben City is Ava, the former capital of Dongwu. After the Qin Dynasty conquered these places, they were officially renamed.
The two roads from Nanning to Shangjun City and from Kunming to Wangben City, especially the latter, have extraordinary significance and can be said to be indispensable strategic channels for the Qin Dynasty to firmly control the Indochina Peninsula.
This path had long been in Qin Mu's plan, but he had not had time to implement it because people's livelihood had not yet recovered.
Now that Yang Chao had proposed this, in addition to recognizing that the passage from Kunming to Wangbencheng was indeed important, he also wanted to curry favor with the emperor, which would make the Ministry of Revenue's proposal much easier to pass.
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ps: Thank you for your support, 79 votes have been cast today. To be honest, this is an unexpected surprise for me. In the past few months, the number of monthly votes on the first day was only a few dozen. Today, the enthusiasm of brothers and sisters is a bit unexpected. According to the promise made this morning, one chapter will be added for every 100 chapters. Because I don’t have any manuscripts on hand now, I suddenly feel a sense of urgency.
But don't worry, I won't be the kind of person who breaks his promises and gets rich. Brothers, just vote hard. The more votes I get, the happier I feel and the more efficient I am in typing. Let my heart fly, let the monthly tickets fly, I'm not afraid... ... I want to fly higher, I want to be on the headlines... ... .. (To be continued...)
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