White-robed Minister

Chapter 272 0270 [Ignore the New Laws, Focus on Destroying Western Xia]

The chaos at the warehouse was quickly resolved.

Several of the soldiers who participated in the riot were arrested, and the ringleaders were exiled to the border region of Shaanxi.

The grain supervisor caught red-handed by Wang Cun was dismissed from his post, fined copper coins, and stripped of all his power.

The warehouse supervisor was fined copper and demoted, and forced to leave the capital.

The official in charge of collecting grain in the granary was not only immediately dismissed from his post, but also placed under investigation by the Court of Judicial Review, and may face several years in prison.

The head officials of the granary were all exiled to Shamen Island!

Following this, the Three Offices and the Ministry of Agriculture reiterated that the Grain Storage Law must not force soldiers to sell their grain. In particular, when distributing grain, soldiers must not be directly deducted from their grain pay; they must be given a choice.

A few days later, the capital held a meeting.

The emperor would not usually go to the capital hall in person; it was the place where the chief ministers would hold meetings and work together.

There were quite a lot of attendees this time.

All the leaders of the Secretariat, the Privy Council, and the Three Departments were present: Wang Anshi, Wang Gui, Feng Jing, Wen Yanbo, Cai Ting, Wu Chong, Xu Lai, and Xue Xiang.

Wang Anshi said, "These are the Land Survey and Equal Tax Law and the Market Regulation Law formulated by the Ministry of Agriculture. You may take a look at them first."

Everyone received a copy of the draft new law.

Wang Gui pretended to be very serious and read slowly, word by word.

Feng Jing flipped through the pages quickly, occasionally pausing to examine them closely, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

Wen Yanbo remained expressionless.

Before Xu Lai transmigrated, he only knew the name of the new law and had not studied its specific content in detail.

After reading through the two draft laws, he couldn't help but ask Xue Xiang, "Is the imperial court that severely short of funds?"

Xu Lai genuinely didn't know.

The decentralization of power in the Northern Song Dynasty's central government resulted in the Secretariat, the Chancellery, the Privy Council, and the Three Departments being independent of each other. Even the officials in these central government agencies were unaware of each other's true situation.

Xue Xiang said, "Not only is the imperial court short of money, but Kaifeng Prefecture is also experiencing a cash shortage."

Xu Lai suddenly realized.

It turns out that the "sitting warehouse" method also served another purpose: to solve the cash shortage problem in Kaifeng Prefecture. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to initially spend 100 coins to buy back rice worth 50 coins from the soldiers.

The reasons for the cash shortage in Kaifeng are very complex.

First, the hoards of the wealthy.

Second, they melted down copper coins and cast them into bronze ware.

Third, the Song-Xia War. The imperial court implemented the Kaizhong Law, allowing merchants to transport military supplies to the northwest. Merchants came from various places, the receiving parties were in the northwest, but the cash was paid by the Kaifeng Treasury.

Fourth, the imperial court continuously siphoned off cash from the people through means such as taxes and exemptions from corvée labor. In the words of historical records, this resulted in "most of the cash going into government hands, with little remaining in the market."

The reduction of one million shi of grain transported annually by the "sitting granary" method not only alleviated the corvée labor in the southeastern regions but also eased the cash shortage in Kaifeng.

The reduced amount of grain transported was not exempted outright, but rather converted into cash and transported to the capital. The imperial court then repurchased the military grain, distributing the cash to the soldiers, who in turn channeled it into the civilian market.

However, two new problems arose: First, it caused grain prices in the capital to soar; second, after this cash flowed into the market, it did not actually circulate among the people, but instead went into the cellars of those big grain merchants!

Treat the head if it hurts, treat the foot if it hurts.

Thus, the draft of the Market Regulation Law presented today came about.

The purpose of the Market Regulation Law was to stabilize prices. It also served to extract money from wealthy merchants, allowing the wealth stored in their cellars to flow back into the market.

Big businessmen should be severely punished!

If we follow the market rules purely, the following should occur: The "sitting in the warehouse" method → ​​more soldiers need to buy grain → supply falls short of demand, grain prices soar → profits from selling grain increase → more merchants transport grain to the capital → supply and demand balance, grain prices fall.

But what is the actual situation?

Local big merchants colluded to monopolize the Kaifeng grain market, hoarding grain and refusing to sell it.

Merchants from other regions transported grain to the capital, but the major merchants in the capital colluded to drive down prices and even refused to buy more grain.

Out-of-town grain merchants were unable to ship their goods quickly; every extra day they stayed in the capital incurred additional berth and storage fees. Their only options were to sell their grain at low prices to large grain merchants in Tokyo, or to transport the grain back along the same route.

The major grain merchants in Kaifeng bought enough grain but sold it slowly, continuing to hoard and speculate!

This applies not only to food, but also to other commodities.

This led to a counterintuitive phenomenon: the cash shortage in Kaifeng Prefecture was a case of "localized deflation," during which money should have been more valuable, and prices in the capital should have fallen. However, the prices of most goods did not decrease, and grain prices soared due to the "granary sitting" policy.

The reason for this situation is that the big merchants in Kaifeng are colluding to control the market.

This forced Wang Anshi to introduce the Market Exchange Law.

How effective was the Market Regulation Law in history?

In the short term, it's highly effective. In the long term, it's a complete mess!

Regarding the issue of grain prices in Kaifeng alone, the imperial court did indeed suppress grain prices at certain times through the Market Exchange Law. Even when large grain merchants were hoarding grain for speculation, the government intervened and released grain at low prices, causing many large grain merchants to lose everything.

But the reformists still had some questionable tactics.

The Market Regulation Law stipulates that merchants from other regions who transport goods into the capital must sell them through the Market Regulation Office, which means that the government will purchase them in a unified manner.

The government's purchase price was extremely low, which severely impacted the profits of grain merchants from other regions.

In addition, the ever-increasing commercial taxes, such as the power tax levied on merchant ships based on their size, led merchants in the southeastern region to stop transporting grain to the capital for sale because it was no longer profitable.

Thus, a bizarre phenomenon emerged once again: the more abundant the grain harvest in the southeast, the lower the grain purchase price offered by the Market and Exchange Bureau. Coupled with the heavy taxes, even fewer merchants were willing to transport grain to the capital.

On one hand, grain prices in the southeast region are extremely low. Low grain prices are hurting farmers.

On one hand, grain prices in Beijing are extremely high, making it unaffordable for ordinary citizens.

Wang Anshi asked, "Do any of you colleagues have any opinions on these two new laws?"

Wen Yanbo asked, "Will it be implemented next year?"

Wang Anshi replied, "The Equal Taxation Law for Land Survey will be piloted first in the Eastern Capital Circuit. The Market Regulation Law will be piloted first in Kaifeng Prefecture."

"You've all made your decision, so I have nothing more to say." Wen Yanbo tossed aside the draft law and stormed off.

Wen Yanbo was too tired to argue with Wang Anshi anymore.

Xu Lai's reaction was similar; he had personally experienced what it meant to be a "stubborn gentleman."

Even with Xu Lai's extremely limited knowledge of economics, he knew that this flawed draft of the Market Regulation Law would cause enormous chaos if implemented. However, he was utterly unable to persuade Wang Anshi.

At this moment, Xu Lai completely gave up on helping Wang Anshi fix the loopholes in the new laws.

Because it was a thankless task, Wang Anshi wouldn't listen to advice.

Xu Lai got up and left the capital hall, pacing back to the Privy Council, pondering what he should do along the way.

He already had the answer.

Although Wang Anshi's new laws were extremely disruptive to the people and would throw the whole country into chaos, they did indeed ensure that the court had sufficient funds and provisions in the short term.

Why not take advantage of our abundant resources and wipe out the Western Xia in one fell swoop?

What Xu Lai should do next is to use the money and grain that Wang Anshi has obtained to destroy the Western Xia!

Incidentally, it also serves to promote one's ideas and gather more like-minded people.

noon.

Xu Lai took some time to write economics articles.

His knowledge of economics was limited to what he learned in junior and senior high school textbooks.

That's enough!

Value, equivalent, money, commodity — to be serialized in the sixth issue of "Duosheng".

When Xu Lai returned home that evening, he wrote letters to Zhang Heng, Yang Shu, Wang Shao, and others.

He bluntly stated that Wang Anshi's reforms wouldn't last long, and that they must take advantage of the benefits of Wang Anshi's reforms to quickly destroy the Xia dynasty. Therefore, he urged Zhang Heng and others to intensify military training and grain storage, as war might be imminent in two or three years.

Regarding Xihe, it would be best to capture the valley where the Western Xia and Southern Army headquarters are located next year, and complete the Han Chinese migration to those valley areas as soon as possible. Xu Lai assured him that he would do his best to create conditions for them.

The next day, Xu Lai said to Chen Xiaoyi, "Take these things to Minister Wang."

"Which Prime Minister Wang?" Chen Xiaoyi thought it was Wang Cun.

Xu Lai said, "Prime Minister Wang Anshi."

Chen Xiaoyi, carrying a stack of documents, ran towards the Secretariat.

Wang Anshi was also completely bewildered. He quickly flipped through a few documents and discovered that Xu Lai was investigating hidden fields in Yingtian Prefecture.

Problems encountered and solutions to the implementation of the fish-scale register method.

Wang Anshi was extremely surprised by this and asked, "What else did Vice Minister Xu say?"

Chen Xiaoyi shook her head: "My husband only asked me to bring these things over."

Wang Anshi said, "Go back and tell him that I received it."

"yes!"

Chen Xiaoyi bowed and took his leave.

Xu Lai was quite supportive of Wang Anshi's Fangtian Equal Tax Law, although its implementation would inevitably create a host of problems.

But no matter what, this thing should be made.

Wang Anshi implemented the equal taxation policy for farmland in the five northern routes, which directly doubled the number of registered farmlands in the north!

Unlike in history, Wang Anshi's current Fangtian Equal Tax Law also incorporated the Fish Scale Register system developed by Xu Lai.

It's certain that many upper-class households colluded with officials to illegally seize land from lower-class households under the guise of investigating hidden land. But overall, it was beneficial to the country, even if it meant sacrificing some of the lower classes.

To put it more coldly, if the government didn't investigate hidden land, wouldn't upper-class households have been able to merge their land holdings? They had plenty of ways to do it!

The real scourge of the hidden fields actually came from those officials who were greedy for credit.

Some officials, in order to achieve political achievements and to curry favor with Wang Anshi, would point to a barren beach and say: "These are all top-quality fields."

He then pointed to a barren mountain and said: "These are all excellent mulberry fields."

It has driven countless farmers to ruin and death, and even the upper-class families have suffered greatly as a result!

Even so, the investigation of Hidden Field must still be carried out.

Editorial Department of "Duosheng"

"This article will also be included in the next issue," Xu Lai said, throwing out some basic economics knowledge.

Wang Hou was taken aback for a moment: "Sir, the articles in the sixth issue are enough."

Xu Lai said, "It's being added temporarily, but the magazine's price remains unchanged."

Wang Hou read it carefully and found that the writing was extremely straightforward, lacking any literary style or elegance. The content was also very superficial, actually discussing what commodities and currency were.

Who doesn't know these things?

Wang Hou continued reading, becoming increasingly astonished as he went on. He had never before considered many seemingly simple and common phenomena in detail; how could Master Xu have summarized the underlying patterns?

Chang Anmin and Xie Liangzuo also came over and carefully read the article.

Xie Liangzuo exclaimed in amazement, "This is the study of governing the world and benefiting the people!"

Xu Lai laughed and said, "Then let's call it Economics."

"My lord, a General Xu has come to visit," a servant from the editorial department ran over to report.

Xu Lai personally went out to greet him.

Xu Jiang smiled and said, "I've wanted to visit Vice Minister Xu for a long time, but I've been too busy with official duties to find the time. I've been to several places today before I found out that Vice Minister Xu is here."

Xu has indeed been busy with important matters during this period.

The allocation and appointment of officials in vacant positions were first reviewed by the Southern Bureau, and then submitted to the Performance Evaluation Office for final approval. The evaluation and management system was too chaotic, with no unified rules between the Southern Bureau and the Performance Evaluation Office.

This resulted in many officials waiting for vacancies being suppressed by the officials in charge because they lacked the money to bribe or were unwilling to do so. Moreover, they had nowhere to appeal.

Xu Jiang served as the judge of the internal affairs department for only two months, and successfully petitioned the court to abolish the Southern Bureau. He also formulated a strict set of assessment regulations and set up a special public residence to receive officials who came to appeal.

As long as this set of rules and regulations is not violated, all candidates for vacancy will benefit in the future, and candidates for vacancy at the level of selection will no longer need to bribe people everywhere.

"Congratulations, Scholar Xu," Xu Lai said with a cupped-hand salute and a smile.

Because of his successful handling of this matter, Xu was promoted by the emperor yesterday to the position of Hanlin Academician and concurrently drafter of imperial edicts.

Now that Xu has finally some free time, he's taken the initiative to befriend Xu Lai privately. These two top scholars share remarkably similar governing philosophies, and they're sure to form a political alliance in the future.

Xu Lai said, "Come to my house for drinks tonight."

"That's exactly what I was thinking," Xu Jiang laughed heartily.

Xu Lai then took out the economics article: "Brother Chongyuan, please take a look."

Xu will read quickly, then read it again carefully.

He read slower and slower, sometimes staring at the text in thought, and after reading it several times, he hurriedly asked, "What happens next?"

"It's not finished yet," Xu said.

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