I'm really not doing business

Chapter 833 Profit is Exploitation, Exploitation is Profit

Liu Ji sailed six times in six years. During these six years, he traveled all over the world, and all he saw was endless purgatory.

He saw bloody wounds from whips in the Mexican Governor's Palace; he saw bodies of people being hung on trees after being wantonly killed, which was a warning to the local barbarians not to approach the colonists' gathering area; he saw the colonists' laughter of victory and celebratory dances, and the tribe's hundreds of years of savings were carried to the market for sale;
He saw the slaves in the Peruvian plantations who worked all day but ate the dirt. The land was planted with sugar cane and had a sweet taste. The children's stomachs were swollen like a ball. They were like a group of animals, looking at the colonists curiously, and then they were killed in any corner, and their bodies were eaten by scavengers.
He saw mass graves in the rich silver mines, where countless corpses were thrown away at random, and some carrion birds built nests beside the pits; he saw the laborers who used the amalgam method to refine silver were emaciated and looked like human beings; he saw teams of slaves being sent to the rich silver mines;
He saw countless bloody gold on the Gold Coast of Africa. These bloody gold were the foundation of the prosperity of the West, but no one cared who the blood belonged to. He saw the corpses that had been rotting for many days in the cocoa plantation, which became the nutrients of the cocoa trees.
He saw towering castles in the Governor's Palace of Mozambique, and also saw the black people shouting and rushing towards these castles to commit suicide. Perhaps, these castles contained his family, his brothers and sisters, and the wealth accumulated by his tribe for hundreds of years, but this charge was nothing more than a boring killing game for the colonists.

Liu Ji saw at the Diu Governor's Office that the Ram people pointed their weapons at their compatriots who shared the same language and culture. The Diu Governor's Office recruited a large number of vassal troops, which were like the Hwarang Army in the Korean battlefield and were even more cruel than the colonists.

Along the way, Liu Ji saw too much cruelty, but he didn't see gentleness, courtesy, frugality and modesty.

Liu Ji had no empathy for these barbarians. Compared with the experiences of these barbarians, Liu Ji was more worried that the people of the Ming Dynasty had become like this, becoming the oppressed party. It would be extremely difficult for them to straighten their bent spines again.

The treasures left by civilization were carelessly discarded in the corners of the cabin, and sometimes thrown into the sea because of the weight;

The experience accumulated over a thousand years became worthless, and all the wisdom seemed extremely ridiculous when the gunpowder erupted.

The characters created by the Yi people also became unfamiliar to them. No one recognized them anymore, and no one tried to understand the deep meaning behind them anymore, because backwardness and ignorance became their synonyms.

Whenever he saw these, Liu Ji always told himself that this was not the case!
Those are all precious treasures, they are the legacy of our ancestors, they are the survival experience of the ethnic group, they should be valued and cherished, but who cares?
The Ming Dynasty must win. The Ming people cannot afford the cost of losing. This is the lesson Liu Ji learned from his six voyages around the world with his fleet.

However, Liu Ji saw a very active West. It was not the barbaric West as perceived by the Ming Dynasty, but a West so active that it gave people endless imagination.

In Lisbon, Portugal, he saw ships of the Northern Netherlands Alliance. This type of ship, the Frutt Merchant Ship, had a load ratio 30% higher than that of a three-masted plywood ship, almost the same as that of a fast sailing ship, and a draft of more than four feet less than that of a three-masted plywood ship. It was a ship with a more sophisticated structure and a larger cargo capacity, which could gain more advantages in maritime trade.
At the New World Trade House in Seville, Spain, he saw a hybrid frame ship, with longitudinal frames on the deck and bottom and transverse frames on the sides and lower deck. This hybrid frame combines the advantages of both frame structures, with a more complex structure, but it can carry more cargo and the hull is more flexible.
He saw a lot of numbers in the House of Wise in Liberty City. All the ships departing from and returning to Tessaima had to pass through the Free Islands. Various data showed that Tessaima's fleet capacity could increase by 12% every year, and this number was still growing, especially the fleets in the Netherlands and England were increasing rapidly.

If the Ming Dynasty stagnated, it would only take seven years for its transportation capacity to fall behind that of the West.

He saw a type of ship in the Strait of Gibraltar. It was a new ship being tested by the Spanish, and they also discovered that copper-clad wood could greatly extend the service life of the ship, a shipbuilding technology that the Ming Dynasty was promoting and popularizing.

He heard that in London and Amsterdam, England, the shareholding system was being promoted to raise funds and set up special eastern routes to the ports of Ming Dynasty. The shareholding system in Ming Dynasty was not common, and the legacy of the production relations of forced personal dependence was still plaguing every corner of Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty was like a splendid and prosperous dinner party in the old days. The guests were all polite and beautifully dressed. They talked about classics, history, and literature all the time. On the surface, they seemed elegant and luxurious, but behind that was the corruption caused by countless flesh and blood, as well as the decadence of not wanting to make progress.

This is the Ming Dynasty that Liu Ji saw. The vitality of the Ming Dynasty was still too weak compared to that of the West.

"Let's set sail!" A sailor hanging on the mast shouted loudly.

The global caravan set sail from Ryukyu and headed towards the new port of Songjiang Prefecture again. After Liu Ji arrived at Songjiang Prefecture, he immediately boarded a fast sailing ship to Tianjin Prefecture. He had to report to His Majesty and go to the Ministry of Revenue to confirm the list of this year's ocean-going trade caravans.

In fact, the list of goods is almost the same every year. It mainly includes six kinds of world commodities: porcelain, tea, silk, iron pots, cotton cloth, and spices. These are the commodity advantages controlled by the Ming Dynasty, and they are the high ground that absolutely cannot be lost.

All the salt carried on the ship last year was sold out, and the Netherlands lost their salt-producing areas, but the arrival of the Ming Dynasty ships made up for this well.

But differences arose, and the Southern and Northern Leagues of the Dutch began to split again. The Southern League once again went to Madrid and pledged loyalty to Felipe, while the Northern League still refused to obey the Act of Abjuration.

When Liu Ji arrived in Tongzhou, he bought a whole year's official reports and various miscellaneous newspapers from Tongzhou Shuima Posthouse.

In the Gewubao, you can learn about the technological progress of the Ming Dynasty; in Xiaoyaoyiwen, you can see what alienation the bold and limited liberals discussed; in Minbao, you can see all kinds of interesting things about the Ming Dynasty; and in Qingliu Mingru Fengliuyunshi, all the gossip about the concubines of various famous scholars.

As long as you read the court reports and miscellaneous newspapers of the year, you can understand most of what happened in the Ming Dynasty. For example, the horsepower of Shengping No. 6 has been increased to 150 horsepower, and it is still being miniaturized;
Daming was studying the Zhenwen of the Shang Dynasty. Liu Ji read it for a long time and immediately confirmed that the relationship between Daming and Taixi was probably the same as the relationship between the Shang people and the Qiang people. It was a competition for survival.

What’s interesting is that even the old scholars in the Ministry of Rites, Hanlin Academy, and Imperial College could not figure out the original appearance of the commonly used words “black”, “white”, and “use”, because these words were so commonly used and so many people wrote them that they made mistakes over time.

The word "bai" does appear in tortoise shell and animal bone inscriptions, but it does not mean black and white. It means "bo", which is the "bo" in "fangbo", representing the princes of a region. These fangbos seemed to have a complicated relationship with the king of Shang. The king of Shang would occasionally use the fangbos to worship their ancestors, and their skulls, or fontanelles, would be used as bones for sacrifice.

By the time the word "fontanelle" evolved into the Ming Dynasty, it almost only meant the bone and had no other use.

Liu Ji was not willing to read all the miscellaneous newspapers. He only read the official reports, because he had to report to the emperor and read them. However, he would take these miscellaneous newspapers to the sea and read them slowly to pass the long, dull and boring time at sea.

The emperor and his ministers recently had a confrontation over whether the Yanxinglou trading house should be closed, and finally the stamp duty was introduced.

"So, after all this trouble, they added another stamp tax on the powerful and wealthy?" After Liu Ji read the cause and effect and the result, he always felt it was a bit weird. The emperor and the prime minister had a quarrel, but in the end the powerful and wealthy were the ones who got hurt?

But if you think about it carefully, looking at the whole world, your Majesty's taxes are still very low, the general tax rate is only 13%, while the general tax rate in the West can reach more than 30%.

In order to ensure the legality of all their contracts, agreements, and property ownership transfers, the powerful and wealthy must purchase tax stamps and post them on the contracts. Otherwise, they will be left with nothing to cry about when the tax inspection office comes to audit their taxes.

Those who could afford to run a money shop were all wealthy and powerful people. After all, this business relied on confiscation of property for profit. In the Ming Dynasty, those who could legally confiscate property were the most noble of the nobles, and these people were also the targets of the Tax Inspection Office.

Liu Ji entered the capital and stayed at Huitongguan Inn. He was exhausted from the long journey, but now that he was in the capital, he seemed even busier. He was called the God of Wealth in the capital, and being able to catch the global trade caravan's tailwind meant he was extremely rich.

After Liu Ji returned to Beijing, people came to visit him one after another.

When the crowd dispersed, he leaned back in his chair. Dealing with these dignitaries was even more tiring than dealing with the raging ocean.

But he could not afford to offend any of these dignitaries. These people had no ability to accomplish anything, but were very capable of doing bad things. A few words of gossip could make them lose his favor.

Liu Ji closed his eyes for a while, washed up, and went to Taibai Tower. This was a social event he had to attend. He had declined all the other events by saying that he had to see the emperor the next day, but this one was something he had to go to and it was obvious that he could not refuse.

Wang Qian, the only son of the second assistant and the general manager of Yanxing Tower, hosted a banquet to welcome him, and Liu Ji had to go.

When Wang Qian gave a banquet, the people who accompanied him were naturally either rich or noble.

Ye Xianggao, a Jinshi in the 11th year of Wanli, was a Hanlin Academy student and was appointed as an editor. He was in charge of the affairs of the Imperial College. He was a leading figure of the younger generation and was known as a talented scholar.

Ye Xianggao was born into a family of poetry, literature, rites and music. His father is now the prefect of Guangxi. He is from Fuzhou, Fujian. When he was still in his mother's womb, Fujian was invaded by Japanese pirates. Ye Xianggao's mother was displaced with the child in her belly.

In the 38th year of the Jiajing reign, Ye Xianggao was born in a dry toilet. He was hungry and had no food to eat, so he had to hide everywhere.

When the Japanese invasion arose, it didn't matter whether you came from a family of poetry, literature, rites and music, or were a descendant of a noble family.

In the 41st year of the Jiajing reign, Qi Jiguang led his army to attack the Japanese pirates' nest in Niutian and wiped out the pirates. The Japanese invasion in Fujian was gradually pacified.

Ye Xianggao was able to return home at the age of four. He was still very young at that time. He only remembered that when Qi's army left, the people in the city were kowtowing to see them off, which was a grace of rebirth.

Ye Xianggao was still young at that time, and his head was all red from knocking his head because he finally didn't have to hide everywhere. His memory of that time is already vague, but he remembers that his mother always forbade him to cry. She would beat him hard, and then cry silently in his arms, for fear that it would attract Japanese pirates and bring disaster to the whole family.

Yao Guangming of the Yao family is from a wealthy family. He came here on behalf of his brother Yao Guangqi. The Yao family is as rich as half of the people in Wuzhong. They are really rich, but no matter how rich they are, they cannot keep their power. So now that Yao Guangqi has made a name for himself, the whole family has to rely on this Yao Guangqi who was kicked out.

Mi Wanzhong of Shaoyuan Mi family, Mi Wanzhong's father was a hereditary centurion of the Jinyiwei, and his elder brother Mi Wanchun was a military scholar in the Longqing period, and now served as a lieutenant general in the Beijing camp. Mi Wanzhong was also a well-known talent, proficient in poetry and songs;

Xiong Tingbi was also called to accompany them. He came on behalf of the Quan Chu Guild Hall. He was busy with his studies and was preparing for the next imperial examination, hoping to pass and become a Jinshi.

When Wang Qian heard the doorman report that Liu Ji had arrived, he immediately stood up and went to the door to greet him.

"Please sit down. We are all working for Your Majesty. There is no need to be polite." After Wang Qian led Liu Ji to sit down, he smiled and turned the fish head on the table so that it was facing Liu Ji, with a big smile on his face.

The fish head is aligned, the wind and the water are favorable, this is a beautiful wish. I hope Liu Ji can always have smooth sailing.

Wang Qian's meaning was very clear. Today's dinner was not arranged by him, but was a welcome treat at the emperor's request. Therefore, Ye Xianggao, Yao Guangming, Mi Wanzhong and other rich and powerful people came along to accompany him.

There was no wine on the table, because Liu Ji had to meet the emperor the next day and being drunk would be impolite, but the atmosphere at the table was very warm.

Wang Qian was very curious about the ocean and was willing to listen to Liu Ji's stories about the sea. Yao Guangming and Mi Wanzhong, both from the mainland, had never seen the sea in their lives. They were extremely surprised to hear that the waves were three meters high and even the bow of the ship could dive into the water.

With a good audience, Liu Ji naturally opened up and briefly recounted the ups and downs of the past year.

"Are these red-haired barbarians from the west so cruel?" Wang Qian said in horror, "Killing people is not enough. They even hang people upside down to warn the barbarians not to get close?"

"It's really outrageous!"

Killing is killing, but killing people upside down is a bit of a disease. Ye Xianggao gritted his teeth and clenched his fists and said, "Commander Liu is not lying. Fujian also had trouble with red-haired barbarians, who were no less than the Japanese pirates. They were all a group of barbarians with wolf faces and beast hearts. They killed people without blinking an eye, even killing children."

The northern barbarians on the grassland at least have their own way. They only take revenge to avenge their ancestors, and most of the time they kidnap people.

There was a disturbance by the red-haired foreigners in Fujian. This was when Zhu Wan pacified the Japanese pirates in Shuangyu. At that time, the composition of the Japanese pirates was already very complicated, including Japanese, red-haired foreigners, black foreigners, Ming Dynasty fugitives, and so on.

After Ye Xianggao and Liu Ji's explanation, Wang Qian was actually able to understand why the King of Shang used Qiang people for sacrifice. It is indeed better to use some barbarians.

"The Han people are talking nonsense, but they are cursing the Han people at the top of the city."

"Commander Liu said that the Ram people of the Diu Governor's Office pointed their weapons at their compatriots. This kind of thing also happened in Suiyuan, so it's not surprising." Xiong Tingbi shook his head and said, "When I was in Suiyuan, I had a similar experience. At that time, the captain who led me told me not to trust the Hu people on the grassland, let alone the Han people on the grassland."

“I almost suffered a loss at that time.”

Xiong Tingbi was more concerned about the story of the Ram people because he had seen them on the grassland and was almost tricked by these Han people on the grassland. Fortunately, he was very smart and saw through the conspiracy.

"I think your stories can be compiled into a play script and are worth singing." Yao Guangming came up with a good idea. The Qianmen Teahouse belonged to his family, and he decided to compile these stories about Liu Ji into singing segments, just like the stories of the Governor's Mansion in Jinchi.

"This is a good idea." Wang Qian immediately agreed.

Liu Ji felt a little strange that he had become a character in the opera, but he thought it was no big deal. He was quite busy and probably wouldn't be able to hear these parts. If he didn't hear them, he wouldn't feel embarrassed.

"Is that Li Zhi?" Liu Ji looked at the people on the stage. There was a gathering today and the speaker was Li Zhi.

Wang Qian looked at Li Zhi and said with some regret in his tone: "He is just a madman. If it weren't for Master Huang's protection, he would have died long ago."

Wang Qian was in the quagmire of officialdom. He knew very well how dissatisfied the traditional literati were with Li Zhi. His existence was like a thorn in the throat of the old literati, which was even more unacceptable to them than the emperor's scolding of a cheap scholar.

Because Li Zhi's existence is a fundamental questioning of etiquette, authority and classics.

He said: "A man is created by God to have his own use, and does not need to be supplied by Confucius to be satisfied. If he must be supplied by Confucius, then there would be no Confucius before the ages, and he would not be a human being in the end?
When God gives birth to a human being, it is natural that he has a purpose. He does not need to rely on the Confucian classics and the words of the Master to cultivate himself, improve his nature, manage his family, and gain a foothold in the world. If one really has to follow the Master's words and deeds to gain a foothold in the world, then if there had been no Confucius before the ages, would people not be human beings?
When there was no Master, were people human? If people were not human, then before the Three Dynasties, that is, the era of Yao, Shun and Yu, were Yao, Shun and Yu not human?

As for this one sentence, no scholar-official in the entire capital could refute Li Zhi. Of course, there were also some people who made specious arguments and made all kinds of ridiculous remarks, but not many people agreed with them.

Ever since Zhu Xi and Cheng Yi's Neo-Confucianism became popular, Confucians have developed a habit of narrating but not creating. This means that they only expound on the theories of their predecessors and do not create their own works. They are absolutely not allowed to create their own works on the books of sages and can only annotate them themselves.

What Li Zhi broke was this trend of talking but not doing, emphasizing the individual's independent judgment and constantly using practice to improve one's cognition, that is, the unity of knowledge and action.

He believed that worshipping all of Confucius' words and living according to them was blind obedience.

This kind of criticism naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of countless people. "Dare to advocate heresy, mislead the world and slander the people, and corrupt the hearts of the people in the world" were all accusations against Li Zhi, but he not only did not refute these accusations, but he would put them on himself every time he had a conversation. He was not ashamed of it, but proud of it.

There is no way. This is the person protected by Young Master Huang. Even if it is just his identity on the surface, Young Master Huang is still the general's family member. No one dares to speak out. People who know Young Master Huang's true identity will be even more taboo.

"The Wanli New Deal is booming, why are there still people who are strongly opposed to it?" Jiao Hong was sitting on the stage. He was a Doctor of Gewu in the Gewu Academy and was usually elusive. He was not good at dealing with people, let alone being an official.

But in the Academy of Gewu, he was a master in the field of mathematics in the Ming Dynasty and the mentor of Xu Guangqi. Because Jiao Hong and Li Zhi were good friends, when Li Zhi invited him, Jiao Hong would go to Taibai Tower for a talk.

Recently, Jiao Hong led Xu Guangqi to study questions such as why the earth revolves around the sun and why people stand on the ground.

For example, Jiao Hong raised an interesting question: stones and javelins thrown by people will fall to the ground, and lead bullets fired from cannons will fall along a parabola but will fly farther. However, if the speed of the cannonball is fast enough, will it not fall to the ground?

This is a question of an ideal experiment, and doctors of science are having a very heated discussion about it.

Li Zhi smiled and said, "Indeed, the Heaven and Earth Reform brought about a change in all things, and the Emperor's plan ushered in peace for all nations. But some people are still holding on to a small mistake in the process of the Reform. Why do they oppose the Wanli Reform?"

"It's just for my own status."

"The surging sea freight has wiped out the monopoly profits; the grinding machinery has destroyed the foundations of the villages. Those who have inherited the family fortune are not as smart as the average person, and their talents are not as good as those of children. Even in the normal world, they still worry about falling, so how can they avoid panic when encountering a sudden change?"

“I am afraid that my position of wealth will fall, and I am afraid that it will be difficult to inherit my family lineage, so I use the ancestral system as a shield and the old rules as a weapon.”

The Wanli Reform triggered drastic social changes. The society had a new growth direction, especially the opening of the sea and the improvement of productivity. Some people who relied on the legacy of their ancestors were not smart and were even very stupid. In an unchanging world, they still could not guarantee the stability of their identity and status, and might even slide downward. After the huge growth of society, it became even more difficult to guarantee their social status.

This is the fundamental reason for opposing the Wanli Reform.

In this passage, Li Zhi again poked at the Confucian scholars and scolded them, saying that their wisdom was not up to the average level and their talent was not as good as that of a boy who had completed elementary education, which was why they were so panicked.

His starting point was much higher than others, but he got up very early and arrived late. Instead of keeping his position, he lost everything.

"In the final analysis, it's just incompetence." Jiao Hong said with a smile: "The great river flows eastward, no corrupt scholar can stop it; the great furnace melts gold, no rotten wood can stop it."

"Mr. Zhuo Wu, there has been a lot of discussion in the capital recently. The power and might of this profit are really frightening. I wonder if Mr. Zhuo Wu has heard of it?"

Li Zhi shook his head and said, "Profit seems to be omnipotent, driving everyone to where there is profit. This has been nothing unusual since ancient times."

"Why do the gentry of the world merge? It's for profit. However, the profit from merging land is only 50% a year, while the profit from opening the sea is huge. The profit is at least 20% a year. Naturally, they all flocked to the sea trade."

"We should take advantage of the situation and not be afraid. Of course, the senior officials in the court are in charge of the country, and it is related to the safety of the country. No matter how cautious they are, it is not excessive. After all, they are not like a crazy man like me who can just open his mouth."

"What I want to talk about today is why profits are so omnipotent. The root of their terrible power is exploitation."

"I think the scariest thing about profit is that it exploits other people's labor, time, and life to make a profit."

As soon as Li Zhi said this, all the people who were gathered together started to whisper to each other, because a few days ago, it happened that the owners of the money shops didn't even care whether they could get the money back, because these money shops essentially made profits by confiscating property. This incident just proved what Li Zhi said today.

Profit is exploitation, and exploitation is profit.

"I've seen something even more vicious," Li Zhi said with a sigh.

"Oh? What did Mr. Zhuo Wu see?" Jiao Hong asked solemnly. Li Zhi's conversation did not follow the schedule at all. Even Jiao Hong did not know what Li Zhi was going to say.

Is there anything more vicious than profit is exploitation and exploitation is profit?
Jiao Hongshen frowned and said, "In the past, the pace of annexing farmland was actually very slow. It was only from the Hongwu Dynasty to the Hongzhi Period that the annexation was initially completed. For more than a hundred years, there was still no shortage of self-cultivating people in the Ming Dynasty."

"During the Jiajing period, the land was surveyed and returned to the land. Starting from the nobles, during the Wanli Restoration, the land was surveyed and returned to the land again."

The land survey and return by Zhang Juzheng was actually carried out by Zhang Cong in the early years of Jiajing, and it was carried out on a very large scale and with good results. However, Zhang Cong and Lu Bing were both gone, and Emperor Jiajing was trapped in the Western Garden and unable to move.

Li Zhi said: "In the past, the annexation of land was slow, but now, the speed of expropriation is far faster than the annexation of land. It is enough to just keep accumulating silver, and there is no need to annex land."

The merger of land is slow, and the efficiency of capital exploitation accumulation is far higher than before. As a result, everything has begun to accelerate, and the demands on the court will only be higher. Once these increasingly large interest groups cannot be effectively restrained, they will be swallowed up by these interest groups.

This is one of the fundamental contradictions that the Ming Dynasty must face as it enters the commodity economy: the difference between value and price.

On the one hand, there is social labor and production; on the other hand, there is unfair pricing; the differences in value and price are not only reflected in quantity, but also in nature. Even intangible morals such as honor, loyalty and fidelity can be priced, or even worthless.

The huge gap in value and price has caused the rapid accumulation of capital exploitation, which will become faster and faster as time goes by, eventually forming a huge gap.

"What should we do then?" Jiao Hong asked anxiously.

Li Zhi shook his head and said, "I don't know. If I knew, I would have gone to Wenhua Hall to be a minister!"

After listening to this conversation, Liu Ji looked at Wang Qian and asked in a low voice: "Censor Wang, has Li Zhi always been so bold in his conversations?"

Wang Qian shook his head and said, "He has restrained himself a lot. He was even more daring before. Now he is the only editor-in-chief of Xiaoyao Yiwen. He is afraid of being silenced, so he has been as cautious as possible."

(End of this chapter)