Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 629 New Things, New Problems
I felt very relaxed when I was with Miaoyu. It was just a matter of money, and we got along very comfortably.

When a person's social status is low, even a dog on the street won't give them a second glance. At that time, they will feel very stifled and lonely, and they will crave luxury and liveliness.

When you have a high social status, everyone, good or bad, will flock around you, trying to get some benefits. At that time, you'll feel annoyed and crave a moment of peace.

People are always like this; they never cherish things that are easily obtained.

Inside the trading hall, the bell ringer stood before the enormous bronze bell, looking somewhat awkwardly up at the second floor.

Standing in the second-floor corridor, Li Yuan turned to Jia Lian beside him and said, "What do you think of this candidate, sir? He doesn't seem grand enough!"

The head of the Royal Coal and Iron Group should naturally be a member of the royal family, but unfortunately Li Yuan couldn't find a suitable candidate, so he could only find a member of the royal family who understood technology from the research and development department.

Another reason is that this person is from a collateral branch of the imperial family, making him easier to control.

Li Yuan had had enough of his close relatives' misbehavior and preferred to give them shares rather than power.

Jia Lian smiled without saying a word. The decision was made by Li Yuan, and he had nothing to say. It couldn't be said that centralized imperial power was destined to breed this type of person. The coal and iron syndicate was better off when the emperor kept a close watch; if he relaxed his grip slightly, it would quickly fall apart. At present, the coal and iron syndicate was largely isolated from the emperor's close relatives, but it was uncertain how long this could last.

Let alone ancient times with emperors, how many rotten things have happened in the modern era?
"Your Majesty," Jia Lian said to Li Yuan in a low voice, "the funds raised by the Coal and Iron Group through the stock market must be used to expand production and improve employee welfare. Only in this way can a positive cycle be formed. If the funds are used for personal enjoyment, the more glamorous they are today, the more miserable they will be when they go bankrupt. When enterprises go bankrupt and employees lose their jobs, social instability will increase. Including the migrant population, the capital now has three million people. If employment cannot be guaranteed, the population will be a huge hidden danger."

Li Yuan frowned slightly upon hearing this. It was supposed to be a good day, so why pour cold water on it?

Dong dong dong! The bell rang three times, and a door in the roof opened, scattering flower petals like rain!

Royal Coal & Iron Group has officially gone public.

Li Yuan's attention was drawn to the flurry of bids being placed in the hall.

"Coal and Iron Group, buy 500 lots, offer two yuan!"

"Coal and Iron Group, buy 1,000 lots, offer 2.2 yuan!"

There were many buy orders, and the price soared all the way up to two yuan and fifty coins before a few small orders were placed, indicating that some people had probably cashed out their profits.

The limited number of sell orders were snapped up instantly. Amidst the cacophony of shouts, Li Yuan on the second floor watched the price soar, appearing exceptionally excited.

Before the market closed in the afternoon, the stock of the Coal and Iron Group had risen to five yuan. Li Yuan excitedly calculated the total value of the assets. Hu Min urged him repeatedly, and he reluctantly left the exchange.

"Sir, does this mean that my coal and iron group holds shares worth 300 million, and that doesn't even include the 80 million in capital raised from the initial public offering?" Li Yuan asked excitedly, leaning out of the sedan chair.

Jia Lian stepped forward and whispered, "Your Majesty, what would be the consequences if you sold all your stocks?"

Li Yuan was stunned, his eyes filled with hesitation and confusion. Jia Lian said in a low voice, "Your Majesty, go back and think it over carefully!"

After speaking, Jia Lian signaled the sedan chair bearers to start moving, and watched Li Yuan return to the palace.

Inside the sedan chair, Li Yuan suddenly rediscovered that feeling he had when he first sought advice from Jia Lian. He wouldn't give an answer immediately; he needed to think it over carefully first.

"How much tax revenue does the imperial court collect in a year? The stock market is making money too fast; this is very abnormal," Li Yuan muttered to himself in the sedan chair, lost in thought.

Recalling Jia Lian's words to him were the massive influx of precious metals plundered from the New World by European colonists over the centuries. The Zhou Empire wasn't actually short of money; it was just that vast quantities of precious metals were buried underground. This gold and silver didn't enter the market not because they didn't want to, but because there were no investment channels. The solution was to attract this money into the stock market, using it to expand investment and produce more goods. In this way, workers would have jobs, and the court would collect taxes. Money only becomes money when it circulates; money that doesn't circulate is just a dead lump of matter.

It's not good for a country when a huge amount of wealth falls into the hands of a few instead of being used for production and consumption. However, too much money entering the market can also lead to rising prices, which is also not good for a country.

Over the years, Li Yuan had instilled a lot of similar knowledge in Jia Lian, and he took them out one by one to compare with reality.

After the relevant knowledge was put into practice and the logic was put into a closed loop, Li Yuan was convinced and further elaborated: "No wonder the sages spoke of the Doctrine of the Mean!"

For the time being, Jia Lian is not worried about insufficient market supply. There is currently a large gap in infrastructure development, requiring massive capital investment. The steel and cement produced so far are still far from meeting market demand. The current industrial goods market is still a seller's market; what about the future?
We'll deal with the future later; we can't worry about that now. Anyway, the country is big enough, and there are constantly expanding overseas markets.

To put it bluntly, the current level of productivity is sufficient to guarantee rapid development for another fifty years.

Western countries are also developing rapidly and have lost the Asian market, so conflict between the two sides is inevitable.

Therefore, it was essential to seize the window of opportunity presented by the Napoleonic Wars and leave the great powers behind.

Considering his future term in power, which is at least ten years, Jia Lian has no need to worry about development stagnation during his lifetime.

As for what happens after I'm dead, I won't care about anything else.

While others were frantically chasing stocks at the exchange, Jia Lian was writing furiously, submitting a memorial to the emperor.

It was less of a memorial and more of a school development plan.

Jia Lian not only wanted to promote the engineering college nationwide, but also to open railway schools across the country to meet the growing demand for railway engineering personnel.

According to the school's development plan, the railway college must be government-run to ensure that the nation's railways remain under official control. The core of this plan was to support the needs of railway construction.

The general idea was to use the stock market to absorb hidden wealth from the public and bring it into the hands of the government for railway construction. Jia Lian also had a plan to establish engineering colleges nationwide; these weren't required to be government-run, and could also be privately run.

Industry needs engineers, and engineering schools train engineers. In reality, engineering schools offer a wide range of subjects, including both science and engineering disciplines, but they are not yet separated.

At the current stage of development, we haven't reached the point where science and engineering are separated into such detailed disciplines. Let's learn them together for now.

After receiving the memorial, Li Yuan first affirmed the railway school's plan, and then began to have some thoughts about the engineering college's plan, falling into deep thought.

The reason Li Yuan thought so much was simply because Jia Lian had instilled the concept of state-owned enterprises in him.

There is precedent for engineering colleges; there is one in the western suburbs of Beijing. Graduates from these colleges never have to worry about finding jobs, and those with excellent grades can even become government officials.

As the scale and scope of state-owned enterprises expand in the future, will the talent cultivated by colleges be largely controlled by the government?
Furthermore, even royal industries like coal and iron ore groups need talented people.

By placing the engineering college under government control, government-run enterprises can naturally select the best candidates when they need talent in the future.

Nanjing also has an engineering college, but it's a privately run institution. It's supposedly there to train talent for private enterprises, since the funding comes from the local government itself.

After much deliberation, Li Yuan still couldn't reach a conclusion. He considered taking it to the cabinet for discussion, but felt that he wouldn't get any results from talking to those old fogies in the cabinet.

It certainly feels great to bypass the cabinet by using government-run enterprises, but on the other hand, the cooperation of the civil service is still needed in many matters.

Especially when government-run enterprises expand into local areas, they will inevitably clash with local private enterprises. To say nothing of the distant past, the civilian products of coal and iron groups are already fighting with private products.

Recently, Li Yuan saw a report from the cabinet regarding the vehicle factory under the Research and Development Bureau. Initially, it produced four-wheeled horse-drawn carriages, and later developed two-wheeled rickshaws. At first, it was an exclusive product, but after several years, the technology leaked, and similar products began to appear in the private sector. Fortunately, the market was large enough to absorb these privately produced products. After the first year of the Qianzheng era, competition arose between privately produced four-wheeled horse-drawn carriages and rickshaws and the government-run factory. The government-run vehicle factory reported to the authorities that private manufacturers had stolen the technology and requested government intervention.

Neither the Shuntian Prefecture nor the Dali Temple accepted the case, citing insufficient evidence.

However, the Five Cities Military Command did something: they stopped horse-drawn carriages and rickshaws all over the streets, demanding that they register their vehicles, pay management and road maintenance fees, and require the drivers to learn traffic rules.

This matter caused quite a stir, even alarming the cabinet, which is why a memorial was submitted to the emperor.

Li Yuan asked Hu Min to find the relevant memorials, which contained quite a lot of information.

On one hand, the Censorate is impeaching a large number of carriages in the capital for overloading, with some carriages driving recklessly and causing numerous casualties. The Five City Garrison is overwhelmed and is therefore requesting the introduction of traffic regulations to facilitate management.

On one hand, numerous officials and nobles within the city submitted memorials impeaching the Five City Garrison Command, accusing them of abusing their power and arbitrarily detaining private vehicles. Furthermore, they were discriminating against privately owned vehicles, releasing them after paying only a small fine, while privately owned vehicles were impounded for extended periods, causing significant losses to private vehicle manufacturers.

After summarizing the information from both sides, the cabinet presented it to the Emperor, clearly explaining the situation and proposing two solutions.

What are some solutions? One is Fang Song's suggestion: the Five Cities Military Command is under immense pressure maintaining order, preventing fires, and combating theft, so we should be more understanding and introduce relevant traffic rules and management measures to help ensure the city's security and pedestrian safety. Therefore, we should support the Five Cities Military Command in enacting relevant policies and regulations.

Another solution was proposed by Li Qing. Currently, the Five Cities Military Command has too many tasks and its scale is growing daily, making it necessary to establish a separate agency, separated from the Censorate, that reports directly to the Cabinet. Li Qing also agreed with the traffic regulations and management methods.

After reading the report, Li Yuan realized once again that industries jointly developed by the government and the private sector are destined to be involved in competition.

The cabinet report, ostensibly about traffic congestion, actually contained various hidden agendas.

It wasn't just a problem with traffic within the city; there was also the issue of privately-owned vehicle factories demanding equal treatment from the five city garrisons, and the underhanded tactics of the two cabinet ministers who were undermining each other.

Lin Ruhai, the chief minister, simply simplified the complex issue into two problems: one was the law enforcement issue of the Five Cities Garrison, and the other was the status issue of the Five Cities Garrison.

Li Yuan also saw Lin Ruhai's self-interest in this report. Now, after reading this report together with Jia Lian's memorial, he also saw Li Yuan's bias towards state-owned enterprises.

After careful consideration, Li Yuan decided to address the cabinet's report first, and then make a judgment on Jia Lian's memorial.

Therefore, Li Yuan reviewed the cabinet report and wrote: "[The current structure of the Five Cities Garrison was established by Jia Qing, and the vehicle factory is also a subsidiary of the R&D department founded by Jia Qing. This matter should be handed over to Jia Qing to come up with a solution that satisfies all parties. The cabinet will then discuss it and submit it to the cabinet.]"

The cabinet had submitted its report half a month ago, but Li Yuan had not processed it. The cabinet thought it had been delayed, but unexpectedly, Li Yuan had reviewed and issued it.

After reviewing the approved documents, Cabinet Secretary Lin Ruhai summoned Fang Song and Li Qing to review them. After all, the report had been submitted after incorporating their opinions.

Fang Song and Li Yuan had nothing to say after reading the emperor's comments, and Lin Ruhai sent them to Jia Lian.

When Jia Lian received the report, he was quite surprised. The cabinet couldn't handle it, so they passed it on to the emperor, and now they've passed it on to me.

For such a small matter, the cabinet can't even come up with a unified solution?
In that case, don't blame me for being rude.

Jia Lian quickly offered several suggestions. The matter of privately-owned vehicle factories stealing technology from government-owned factories was, in retrospect, a murky affair. He suggested establishing a patent office so that all new technologies could be patented, protecting the interests of those who innovate. He also noted the rapid increase in vehicles in Beijing and recommended establishing a new traffic management bureau to oversee vehicles and traffic nationwide, along with relevant traffic regulations.

In short, new things are constantly emerging, and human society is constantly patching things up and managing them one by one. For this reason, Jia Lian specifically emphasized the importance of vehicle registration and driver's licenses. After Jia Lian's feedback was relayed to the cabinet, Lin Ruhai summoned Li Qing and Fang Song together, asking if they had any further objections.

When Fang Song and Li Qing saw Jia Lian's plan, they both fell silent. Neither of them benefited, except for a newly established government office.

As for the Traffic, Roads and Vehicles Authority, they had no idea what it was or what level it was.

(End of this chapter)