I am Da Song

Chapter 294 One city leads to wealth and one country

How much wealth is there on the Silk Road?
From the perspective of the Central Plains, it may be difficult to see.Because the Central Plains is too big, with trillions of people living in it.The contradiction between the hard struggle of ordinary people and the stinky wine and meat of the scholar-bureaucrats has been carried through every dynasty.

The scene of every household with hundreds of acres of land and infinite people in the world like the Taikang prosperous age is just a flash in the pan.

However, countries along the Silk Road can deeply appreciate the wealth of this Silk Road.

For example, Tubo and Gaochang relied on the Silk Road to develop a prosperous economy and accumulate a lot of wealth.

Because of this pearl and jade, the Longyou Governor's Mansion was extremely eager to collect taxes on the Silk Road and the Ancient Tea-Horse Road.

As long as the Longyou Protectorate can carefully sort out commercial taxes and tariffs, it will surely be able to reproduce the prosperity of Tubo in the past.

With money and food, the Longyou Protectorate's local rule will naturally be more stable and smooth.

Because of their wealth, Longyou officials would not exploit and oppress the Hu people.

With clear government affairs and easy taxation, the Hu tribe naturally rarely rebelled.

Song Jun can flatten any careerists and jumpers without any worries.

Ji Xiang Yang Shi analyzed Liu Kai: "From Liu Duhu's words, we can know that the Tubo area is still dominated by agriculture and animal husbandry, and the city is not prosperous."

Liu Kai didn't understand, and asked: "Why is Ji Xiang so determined? I was in Xining City, and I saw the business exchanges with my own eyes. The caravans are blocking the road."

"There are more than [-] Hu merchants in Xining City alone, and there may be as many as a thousand large and small merchants. Hundreds of caravans enter the city every day. This is not prosperous, how can it be considered prosperous?"

"These caravans have hundreds of horses and horses, and the goods transported by each car can be worth hundreds of thousands of guan. Even if the tax is eleven, a caravan can still pay hundreds or thousands of guan."

"It is a pity that so many taxes are not collected to enrich the national coffers."

Ji Xiangyang raised his head, looked at Liu Kai, and asked, "Then Liu Duhu has ever counted whether these caravans enter Xining City more or leave Xining City more?"

"This... has never been counted."

"Have you ever counted whether there are more caravans coming from the west to Da Song, or more caravans going to the west from Da Song?"

Liu Kai frowned and asked, "Is there any difference?"

Yang Shi nodded with a smile, and said, "The difference is still huge. If Liu Duhu wanders around Tokyo for a few more days, he will hear a very famous proverb that zero tax rate is the best tax rate."

"Third Division has done strict statistics, and the number of caravans from Tokyo to Sifang is about twice as large as the number of caravans from Sifang to Tokyo."

Liu Kai's eyes widened in shock, his face was full of disbelief, and he blurted out: "Impossible! How is this possible!"

"Tokyo has a population of over one million, and it must rely on water transport from all directions and things from the southeast to maintain its operation."

"Businessmen and merchants all send strange things to Tokyo to meet the needs of Tokyo's scholar-bureaucrats and millions of soldiers and civilians."

"Caravans from all over the world and from inside and outside the Central Plains are transporting wealth to Tokyo. How can there be twice as many caravans from Tokyo?"

Yang Shi said calmly: "That's why I assert that the city in Longyou is not prosperous. Liu Duhu has never seen what a real industrial and commercial prosperity looks like."

"The production workshops in Tokyo City occupy more than half of the city. Every day and night, a large number of utensils and materials are produced."

"Before, I used to say that the whole country supports Tokyo and one city. But now there is a saying in Tokyo that one city is rich and one country is rich."

"With large-scale production workshops, hundreds or even thousands of workers are employed, and the porcelain and clothing produced in a day can equal the output of a county in other roads."

Liu Kai asked in surprise, "A workshop employs thousands of weavers?"

Yang Shi nodded and said, "Not only weavers, but also porcelain craftsmen who produce ceramics, craftsmen who smelt iron and forge, craftsmen who make pulp and paper, and skilled craftsmen who burn glass cups. These workshops often employ thousands of workers. By."

Liu Qi quickly figured out, in Xining Prefecture, the most prosperous city in Longyou, is there any county with a thousand households of iron smelting craftsmen, or any county with a thousand households who can hand-fire porcelain.

It doesn't compare to skills. The question now is, in Longyou, is there no county where the total amount of manual production can compare with a workshop in Tokyo?
Without waiting for Liu Kai to think carefully, Yang Shi continued: "Because of the increase in the scale of the workshops, each workshop is more inclined to lay machines, such as large spinning wheels with hydraulic shafts, forging machine tools and a large number of high-temperature porcelain cellars. The output of Tokyo City in a day is Astronomical figures unimaginable everywhere."

"The items transported by water to Tokyo can be mainly divided into three categories, grain, raw materials for production, and various rare treasures."

"When the caravan left Tokyo for the four corners of the world, they carried a variety of items. Although they were not as large as the caravans that transported raw materials to Beijing, they were obviously more in number and the value of the goods was higher."

Liu Qi asked with concern: "Wealth and goods are exchanged, and business is connected to all directions. So much wealth is sold everywhere, what is the significance for the country?"

Yang Shi asked: "Then Liu Duhu thinks that the country is rich or not, how can it be judged?"

Liu Kai thought for a while and replied: "See if the people's wealth is sufficient? If a family saves a hundred yuan and there are infinite people in the world, then it is probably a prosperous and prosperous age. As the poem says, recalling the heyday of Kaiyuan in the past, Xiaoyi still feels like Tens of thousands of houses are hidden. The rice is fat and the corn is white, and the public and private warehouses are full of fruit."

Yang Shi clapped his hands, pointed his fingers in the air, and praised: "Liu Duhu's words hit the truth."

Then Yang Shi turned to Zhao Huan and said, "Officials, I remember that at the end of last year, the imperial court discussed whether to lower the land tax. Because of the drop in grain prices, the levy of [-] yuan per mu is already a bit heavy."

Zhao Huan nodded and said, "I remember this matter. At that time, the court meeting ended with strong opposition on the grounds that the ministers advocated that the court's laws should not be repeated at will."

Yang Shi said: "The reforms of the past dynasties in our dynasty are more likely to be repeated, which wastes national power. The lesson learned from the car before was only one of the reasons why I opposed the reduction of land taxes. The more important reason is that the minister thought that the pressure on the people would be reduced a year. One year."

Zhao Huan was keenly aware of what Yang Shi was implying, and asked, "Do you mean that the coins in my dynasty will continue to increase, and the common people will have more money?"

Yang Shi said: "Your Majesty has a keen mind. It is true. Under the circumstances that the state encourages industry and commerce and lightly taxes and taxes, the prices of the goods I sell to the West in workshops and caravans may be cheaper than those in the local area. The items produced in the workshop were continuously sold to Western countries. The commodities on the Silk Road were far more than just silk and porcelain.”

"Furthermore, the caravans from east to west on the commercial road even greatly surpassed those from west to east. Every caravan returned from the west and brought back a large amount of gold and silver."

Liu Kai didn't understand, and asked, "This is private wealth, what does it have to do with the country's regular taxation?"

(End of this chapter)