Xinshun 1730

Chapter 667 Spoils Sharing Conference ([-])

Fleury's original intentions were of course good, at least for France.

Because he knew that the king believed that "economy, finance, and institutions are all sidelines, boring, and lack of passion."

As an old prime minister who took full control of France after the Mississippi bubble burst, Fleury knew that the economy, finance, and system lack passion, but they are the cornerstone of the country's struggle for hegemony.

The situation in France right now is very special, very special.

very special.

Whether it is a supporter of Colbert's economic control, or a physiocrat who demands complete liberalization of state regulation, or an economic romanticism attributed to petty bourgeoisie, they all need to find an example of "others have succeeded in doing this" .

Because 20 years ago, John Law, who was a gambler, told the king that "the people don't pay more, but the country has enough."At that time, the French were confident and romantic. Even though they felt that no one had tried it, the times were turbulent, and there were many things that had not tried but succeeded. This is the new era.

However, a wave of operations led to the economic crisis throughout Europe in 1720, and France's finances and national credit were on the verge of collapse.The banknotes without reserve, the flickering of the 3500% annual rate of return on stocks, the Royal Bank of China cheering for the bubble economy... these are still fresh in the French memory, and they have lingering fears.

It took nearly ten years to slow down before finally recovering.

Since then, whether it is the Enlightenment or economic policy in France, it needs the experience of "others have done it and done it well" to support it.This kind of mentality was not completely reversed until the outbreak of the legal revolution, and it began to try new things continuously, wave after wave, and became a human social reform experimental field and an old revolutionary base.

As for this time.

Colbert's supporters say that the distant Eastern Empire did just that.A reformer for hundreds of years, he is also the government's comprehensive supervision and control. With strict standards and taxes, the treasury revenue of the Song Empire leads the world.

The supporters of the Physiocratic School say that this is what the distant Eastern Empire did.Govern by doing nothing, without any control over the economy, fiscal revenue is mainly obtained from land tax, all forms of industrial and commercial taxes are exempted, and there is no excessive supervision of commercial industries.

Voltaire said that the distant eastern empire was an absolutely rational constitutional monarchy.

Quesnay said that in the distant Eastern Empire, it was said that "the people are enough, the king is not enough, the people are not enough, and the king is enough", agriculture is the source of national wealth, if the farmers are poor, the country is poor; if the country is poor, the king poor.

Especially with regard to economic institutions, French economists needed a distant example to support their arguments.

Because the incident 20 years ago was too frightening. The bubble appeared because there were no successful examples to support it. The final result was that the country’s finances almost collapsed. theory.

All novel theories must be buckled with a "someone else has done it successfully" argument.

Dashun is completely different from France.

Including the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Qin, Han, Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties before Dashun, they were all different.

Just look like.Whether it is centralization of power, road construction, canal digging, or government-run economy, they all look alike, but they are not the same at all.

However, Fleury believes that the distant Eastern Empire is the master of highly centralized power and Colbert's national planning industrialism.

Since this master of highly centralized and Kerberian national planning industrialism has been able to be in the first echelon of the world in 2000; since this master of highly centralized power and Kerberian national planning industrialism can be in this The times exported commodities to Europe crazily and had an absolute trade surplus.

Then, there must be something worthy of reference and learning from France.

Fleury wanted to know, what policy did Dashun adopt so that Dashun would only eat gold and silver and not vomit at all?
Fleury wanted to know, what policy did Dashun adopt to allow Dashun to organize a battle of tens of thousands of people in a desert thousands of miles away?

Fleury wanted to know, what policy did Dashun adopt to make Dashun's handicraft industry show a level of development that completely crushed Europe?
These things are boring, uninteresting, and drowsy.

Fleury knew that His Majesty the King would not put his mind on these boring and boring things, and would only work with Dashun's special envoys, poking around and giving pointers to the globe or the atlas.

Therefore, before he died, he had to complete some plans for France's future economic system.

Tactically, it is the introduction of technology from the paper and textile industries.

Strategically, it is the learning of Dashun's economic form and taxation form.

After Chief Financial Officer Philibert Ollie put forward these two tactical and strategic advice and proposals to Liu Yu, Liu Yu couldn't help but smile wryly.

Tactically, Dashun is indeed in the lead.

The papermaking and textile industries are indeed stronger than France at this time, and it can even be said that they are much stronger.But it's just purely technical.

But strategically... If France learns from Dashun's fiscal policy, if it learns this year, it will be destroyed next year.

Dashun's fiscal policy is limited compared to Daming, and it is not 01:30 worse than Dasong, an empire with extremely high official monopoly and people's oppression.

After France assisted North American independence, the treasury owed 22 billion livres.According to the monetary policy in 1726 after the explosion of the Mississippi bubble, 8 ounces of silver was equivalent to 51 livres, and 1 livre was about 4.5 grams of silver, that is, Kuping silver, who owed 2.4 million yuan in debt.

Does Dashun Treasury have the ability to owe 2.4 million taels of Treasury Pingyin?Can you afford it?Can I borrow it?

In the 30th year of Wanli, 11 billion mu of land was inspected nationwide.Dashun Dingtian also collected taxes according to the number of acres, excluding the salt tax and business tax, and adding the reformed head tax to the land for easy calculation, it only collected 2200 million taels.

To put it into perspective, in theory, 0.02 taels of silver is levied for one mu of land.It can be said that in theory, it is completely benevolent and even lower than the "three-thirty-one tax", because if the thirty-one tax standard is really to be achieved, based on the current per-mu yield of one stone, it is said that the receivable amount should be more than 3300 million taels. right.

So with a "low tax rate" that makes Europe ashamed, peasant uprisings have emerged one after another. With a population of [-] to [-] million, the internal market is seriously insufficient.With such a large background, it is impossible to collect the tax due.If France does this and learns from Dashun, it will neither have the population nor the size of Dashun, and it will inevitably go bankrupt the next year.

Where did all the money go?The peasants don't know, and the imperial court pretends not to know. In short, it is done according to the European tax rate. It feels that it can generate [-] million annual revenue, but in fact it is only one-third.

To put it bluntly, if Dashun’s treasury owed so much money to France for supporting the North American War, the national tax would be calculated according to Dashun’s general private loan interest rate, and the annual fiscal revenue would not even be able to pay back the interest.

Where did the problem come from? Liu Yu's heart was like a mirror, and the emperor's heart was also like a mirror, but he didn't dare to move, and couldn't move.

It is precisely because of this that Li Gan trusted Liu Yu, went to war against Japan, and thought about going to Nanyang to engage in trade.

Because the emperor is really poor and has no money.And the emperor also knew that if the court asks the people to charge one yuan, they can collect 100 yuan when they reach the grassroots level.

That's why the emperor was so determined to go to Nanyang after seeing the benefits of going to war with Japan and controlling Mongolia with business.

Ordinarily, when Liu Yu came to Europa this time, Li Gan hoped that Liu Yu would learn from Europe. How would he collect taxes?How to get money?

Unexpectedly, Liu Yu didn't learn anything here, but the French ran over to ask Liu Yu first, how does Dashun collect taxes?How to get money?

After a wry smile, Liu Yu really couldn't answer any of the questions.

Why is the handicraft industry in Dashun so developed?It has nothing to do with the government-run economy. It is purely a solid foundation. It has been going for thousands of years, and the foundation is casual. Even in history, the foundation was so strong that the Manchu Qing Dynasty did it until the opening of the Suez Canal. It completely crushed the Songjiang textile industry. .

Why does Dashun only eat but not lax?This is not just a problem of the small peasant economy, but also because the current level of handicraft industry in Europe is substandard and the cost is high.Because if Dashun's small-scale peasant economy disintegrates, it will not be Europe's turn to sell goods to Dashun at this time, but the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions will directly suck the blood of the whole country, and tariff-free Europe will not be able to do it.

Whether it is Ming Dynasty or Dashun, the reason why Europe calls it a rich country after contacting Europe has nothing to do with the emperor.

The Dutch sell the face of Dashun, not the Li Dynasty, but the face of weavers in Songjiang, tea farmers in Fujian, and porcelain craftsmen in Jiangxi.

In terms of economic control, national supervision, and government-run handicrafts alone, Dashun is far behind France.

So the situation is so magical: the French prime minister thinks that Dashun is a complete body of centralization and control of the economy; Dashun is envious of France's government-run economy and state supervision capabilities.

In terms of strategy, Liu Yu can only drop his bookbags, and combine Guan Zhong, Huang Lao, Yantielun, and Wang Anshi's set of economic control from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods with some ideas of later generations. Philibert, the French finance director, was taken aback for a while.

In terms of tactics, Liu Yu insisted on some handicrafts with technological advantages such as papermaking and textiles, and his answer was ambiguous.

Technology such as papermaking can of course be exchanged. Anyway, paper cannot be sold in Europe, and it is not profitable to sell it plus transportation costs.

But since the French have a request, they can use this to negotiate terms.

Liu Yuliu showed an ambiguous attitude, and Philibert Ollie immediately understood that it was obviously meant to be a joke.

It is nothing more than what needs to be exchanged.

As the chief financial officer, Philibert really didn't have anything to exchange for.Dashun's main goods, porcelain, silk, cotton textiles, and tea, can be partly produced in France or have substitutes, and this tariff cannot be exchanged.

If the customs duties were really released, the cotton textiles, porcelain, tea, and silk from India and China could directly destroy this independent industry in France.

But apart from exchanging tariffs, Philibel couldn't think of other technologies that could be exchanged.

Of course, he didn't know, and Liu Yu was not going to let France exchange this at all.

Because of the tariff agreement, the initiative is in the hands of the French.

In the future, if the French repented, and Dashun didn't have the ability to force a 20 army to force the French gunboat to switch, wouldn't that mean giving the French a few sets of technology for nothing?
If France was in the position of Vietnam and North Korea, Dashun would really be able to defeat France; but the problem is that it is tens of thousands of miles away, and if France really wants to repent, Dashun has nothing to do, and its projection ability is too limited, so it really cannot pass the Cape of Good Hope. ——France has a fleet of three battleships and five cruisers stationed in Mauritius.There are too many lessons owed before, and I have not stepped out of the sea in 5 years.

Philibel couldn't give what Liu Yu wanted.

It is impossible for Dashun and France to sign an effective trade agreement, and it is impossible for Dashun to open up the French market. Trade interests cannot allow Liu Yu to provide these technical supports.Liu Yu got the blueprint of the battleship that Liu Yu wanted most, and got some ship design plans.Dashun doesn't want anything else, and the idea of ​​using battleships in France is gradually going awry. Dashun wants a bunch of 100-gun heavy battleship eggs, and the purpose of Dashun's navy is not in the English Channel. In a decisive battle, what is the use of a bunch of heavy battleships with high firepower and low maneuverability?

What he wanted, Louis XV could give.However, the negotiation between Liu Yu and Louis XV was undoubtedly high-level and secretive, and the level was so high that a "house secretary" like Philibert was not qualified to participate.

In this regard, Liu Yu made a suggestion.

"Your Excellency, Chief Financial Officer, I can say that Dashun can provide technical support for papermaking, textile and other industries, even including the complete technology transfer of flat glass manufacturing. Anyway, it is impossible to sell the glass of Tianchao to France."

"However, between countries, there is both friendship and exchange of interests. American ginseng and mink fur trade, that is the friendship between China and France; and technology transfer, it needs to be exchanged for the interests I want."

"How about this, please go back and tell Lord Fleury that I agree in principle to the issue of technology transfer, but a certain exchange condition is required. Please ask him to draft a report and hand it over to His Majesty the King of your country before I make a pilgrimage When His Majesty the King, make an exchange."

"Since I am coming to France this time, not as an official of the Dashun government, but as a special envoy of the emperor, I am afraid that you cannot participate in some negotiations."

"Master Fleury is seriously ill, and it is inconvenient. I suggest that as I said, the meaning of this exchange and the highest price that can be offered by Lord Fleury should be finalized."

"Anything can be measured with a balance. As long as the price is quoted."

(End of this chapter)