I stole divine power in Daxia

Chapter 570: Borrow another ten billion taels from heaven!

In the Golden Palace, the Minister of Works Kong Zixing, who was dressed in purple, immediately stepped out and interrupted him, saying that it was not that he lost his patience, but that the matter was too important and it was not something that a minister like him could handle.

The Ministry of Industry was indeed jealous of the Railway Chamber of Commerce, but it only wanted to eat the meat and did not want to be beaten. So when the ministers were discussing just now, the Queen Mother gave a hint and he said something. But he never expected that before he could eat the meat, the pot was put down.

Moreover, this matter was not like the previous government affairs, which could be delayed for a month or two to see the results. As a second-rank official, he naturally knew the situation of the exchange. If he agreed, he would probably be used as a scapegoat by the Railway Chamber of Commerce before he even returned home.

The current situation in Tianjing cannot do without Zhou Tieyi, but it can do without him as the Minister of Works.

Zhou Tieyi smiled and said, "What's wrong with what Minister Kong said? I think it's very good. Whoever proposes it should solve it. Don't you agree?"

Kong Zixing is usually considered a good debater, but there are different levels of status, resources and strength in his hands. No matter how good he is at debate, he is at a loss for words, so he can only look at the Queen of Heaven with a pleading look.

The Queen Mother was looking at the entire Yujing Mountain. The sounds of crying and cursing coming from the street of the Exchange made her frown slightly. Even though she could not penetrate the Daxia Exchange established by Zhou Tieyi, she understood what the situation was inside.

What’s even more infuriating is that those idiots coming out of the exchange are already singing the same insinuations that were spread yesterday.

"The sun rises in the east, so how can the moon occupy its place?"

At this time, a fifth-rank official in red robes stepped out from outside the palace and said, "Minister Zhou is wrong."

The person who spoke was Zhang Songyue, a strategist recruited by the Queen Mother. He had made great contributions in resolving the issue of the grand sacrifice before, so he was given a nominal position as Pingzhang Palace Walking, allowing him to go to the palace to participate in government affairs.

Zhou Tieyi looked at the young man in front of him who was no more than 20 years old, and did not answer immediately. Since their statuses were not equal, naturally someone would ask questions on his behalf.

"Does Master Zhang have a better solution?"

An old official of the Zhou family asked.

Zhang Songyue said, "It's not that there is a better way, but I heard that the share price of the Railway Chamber of Commerce in Tianjing Exchange has plummeted in the past few days, and tens of millions of taels of silver have been lost for no reason. Tianjing Exchange is managed by Minister Zhou, and the Railway Chamber of Commerce is managed by Hao Ren, who is also Minister Zhou's former official. Before letting Minister Kong take responsibility, it is reasonable for both Minister Zhou and Hao Ren to handle this matter."

Zhang Songyue did not simply give in to Zhou Tieyi. Instead, he went a step further and acted as if the Queen was going to have a real decisive battle with Zhou's party in the court.

On the throne, His Majesty the Great Xia suddenly asked, "Where is Hao Ren, the manager of the Railway Chamber of Commerce?"

The commander of the Imperial Guards stepped out and replied, "Waiting in the side hall."

"Xuan, come up."

When Hao Ren entered the palace, the gaze of the Great Xia Emperor was fixed on Hao Ren. Hao Ren felt as if his entire body was seen through, as if he was standing naked on the street, being scrutinized by countless Taoists, unable to hide a single secret.

"Hao Ren, do you have an explanation for the current turmoil in the Railway Chamber of Commerce?"

Hearing the question from His Majesty the Great Xia, Hao Ren did not use the excuse that "the Railway Chamber of Commerce is privately owned" to explain. This explanation could stop a minister, but not a monarch.

Because the king is the one who makes the laws.

The Legalist school of thought realized one thing long ago, that is, no matter how strict the laws are, there will always be loopholes. In order to prevent people from exploiting these loopholes, the Legalists had the concept of "not deserveing ​​to be punished" long ago.

This is a separate charge, meaning that you did something you shouldn't have done, and therefore were convicted.

So what is considered doing something that should not be done? The degree of this depends entirely on the intention of the person who makes the law.

The most legitimate way to "not deserve to be punished" is to arouse public resentment and indignation.

Now that the Railway Chamber of Commerce's stocks have plummeted, it has naturally caused public resentment. Before, the people had no outlet for venting, so they could only blame the Queen Mother and the court who wanted to split up the Railway Chamber of Commerce. But now, if they use the term "undeserved guilt", they can also use Hao Ren as a scapegoat.

You are in charge of the Railway Chamber of Commerce, so no matter who is to blame, you have to take part in it.

Therefore, Hao Ren did not argue on this issue at all, as this would only make the other ministers who tended to be neutral think that he was "ignorant".

Hao Ren raised his hand and said, "I have been in the Queen's palace for three days. The stock price was still good three days ago. I don't know why it has fallen so much now. I think it is my fault for neglecting my duty. Please ask Your Majesty and the Queen to find someone else to take care of it."

The officials in the imperial court were all experts in political struggle, and they could not help but secretly admire Hao Ren's answer.

The Railway Chamber of Commerce itself is naturally not wrong in legal terms, and the only verdict they can have is "not guilty". So arguing about legal principles at this time is a sign of political immaturity.

But even if it is an "undeserved crime", there must be "reason" in itself. As the saying goes, if there are no laws and regulations, there will be no justice.

Since it makes sense, it can be subdivided. Since the specific legal principles cannot be divided, they can be explained from the perspective of practical reasoning.

I, Hao Ren, was fine when she was in charge three days ago, but the Queen Mother didn't let me take care of her during these three days and locked me up in the palace. Even if I am at fault, doesn't the Queen Mother have any fault?
Of course, the most important thing is Hao Ren’s last sentence, which once again returns to the core of the matter.

Now that such a big mess has occurred, dealing with the person who caused the mess is one thing, but the more important thing is how to solve the problem. Without Hao Ren, can others quickly stabilize the current situation?

If there was such a good man, Hao Ren would have been dead long ago.

His Majesty the Great Xia looked towards the Queen Mother.

For the first time, the Queen of Heaven rose from the throne on which she sat and bowed, saying, "This was my negligence."

There is another hidden meaning behind what the Queen said, which is that she had signed a military order in front of the Emperor of Great Xia to take away Zhou Tieyi's power over the central bank, but now this oversight has come to light.

The Great Xia Emperor withdrew his gaze. Of course, he could not undermine the Empress at this time. He said softly, "It is the greatest virtue to admit one's mistakes and correct them."

After saying this lightly, His Majesty the Great Xia looked at Hao Ren again, "It's already come to this point, there's no point in saying more. You were in charge of the Railway Chamber of Commerce before, and nothing went wrong, which was naturally good, but now the Chamber of Commerce's stocks are not stable yet, which may hurt the people. Do you have any countermeasures?"

On the one hand, the Emperor of Daxia pardoned Hao Ren's recent apology and said that he would not pursue the past, which also implied that he would not pursue Hao Ren relentlessly. At the same time, he also began to ask about Hao Ren, or Zhou Tieyi's conditions.

Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief. The most intense debate in the court today was over. He bowed and said, "The Chamber of Commerce is in turmoil now because the people are afraid of the changes in the Chamber of Commerce. Even if I were to appease the people now, I'm afraid it would be difficult to mend the situation." Hao Ren used the term "reconciliation" to describe the current mood of the people in Tianjing and the situation in the court. His words touched the hearts of all the ministers.

"I dare to ask Your Majesty to approve this policy to reassure the people!"

Hao Ren took out a stack of written policy papers from his sleeve and presented them to the eunuch Xue Minghao. The Great Xia Emperor read through the policy papers at a glance and finished reading them in just over ten breaths. He was silent for a while and said to Xue Minghao, "Read."

Xue Minghao received the order and began to read Hao Ren's policy paper.

"Requesting 1 billion taels of silver to build a transportation plan."

Compared with Zhou Tieyi's original work, the policy essays written by Hao Ren at this time were more colloquial and almost straightforward.

But just the beginning was enough to make the ministers, who had been craning their necks, let out cries of surprise, and instantly made the entire hall look like a forest full of birds.

Xue Minghao even had to stop and speak loudly and quietly before continuing to read.

The content is actually explained in the first sentence.

That is to spend 1 billion taels of silver to build the transportation of the entire Daxia. This is many times more ambitious than the "Three-Year Planning Guidelines for the Tianjing-Southeast Line" that Hao Ren had previously passed on to the market.

Even Si Lu and Simin, who were used to seeing a lot of storms, looked sideways at the silent Zhou Tieyi. They thought Zhou Tieyi would do something big, but they didn't expect that he would ask for ten billion taels!

You have to know that the Great Xia Dynasty did not have food or drink in the past. Last year, the court's annual silver income was only 20 million taels. If this is really approved, then the Great Xia court will not have to eat or drink for 50 years, right?
Of course, things cannot be calculated entirely in this way, because when Zhou Tieyi first established the central bank, he had promised that it would directly increase the court's income by at least 100 million taels of silver each year.

At the beginning of this year and the first two months of last year, the role played by the central bank under Zhou Tieyi's leadership has actually been far greater than the annual fiscal revenue of 100 million taels.

According to this calculation, even one billion taels can be accomplished within ten years, which is not difficult to understand.

But thinking is one thing, and doing is another.

Why is the court in this situation today? Isn't it because the Queen Mother wants to take over the central bank with "100 million taels of silver"?
Now Zhou Tieyi is in trouble. He multiplied this amount tenfold. The Queen Mother can't even manage 100 million taels, so how can she gain the trust of the Emperor of Daxia to manage 10 billion taels?

By then, I'm afraid that the people suffering won't just be the Tianjing Stock Exchange Street.

The ministers were thinking and listening carefully. They also wanted to know how Hao Ren could get the court to come up with 10 billion taels of silver.

Gradually, they listened attentively, because Hao Ren did provide a solution.

That is the dual funding system of central and local governments.

Currently, the construction of railways is led by the imperial court and the Railway Chamber of Commerce. Apart from that, only the Shantong Prefecture and Tangzhou Prefecture lines were built by King Ning, Mo Jia, and Gong Shujia. The construction of railways in the five northern provinces is still funded by the imperial court.

Hao Ren proposed to continue to add national railway bonds, but this railway bond was just an introduction, allocated to local county governments, allowing them to build the best economic line like the Kaiping Line, and then use the income from this economic line as collateral to raise funds from local people, that is, local debt.

Although the officials did not have a clear understanding of national debt and local debt, they realized after thinking for a moment that this was essentially borrowing money again, and borrowing money on the basis of borrowing money. In the past, they borrowed money from the country, which was limited to Tianjing and Liuhuan Machinery City. But in the future, local county governments will really have to borrow money. By that time, the entire Great Xia Dynasty will be borrowing money, and naturally they will be able to raise 1 billion taels of silver!

But even the Minister of Law and the Minister of Citizens felt their scalps tingling at the thought of borrowing 1 billion taels of silver from the people of the world. Dong Xingshu originally thought that he had gradually accepted Zhou Tieyi's economic theory and was the most open-minded among the Confucian reformists, but when he heard that the local county government was asked to borrow 1 billion taels of silver, he still couldn't help but exclaimed, "Absurd!"

Xue Minghao was interrupted by Dong Xingshu. Naturally, he did not dare to scold Dong Xingshu. He could only stop reading with a helpless look. There was no need for him to join in and be cannon fodder when these gods were fighting.

Dong Xingshu didn't even look at Hao Ren, but looked directly at Zhou Tieyi, "Let me ask you, if you can't pay back the 1 billion taels of silver in the future, how will the world be governed?!"

Zhou Tieyi smiled and said, "If you follow my reform method, you can't even pay back 1 billion taels of silver. There's no need to rule the world. It's better to demolish it."

"What nonsense!"

"Be bold!"

"Zhou Tieyi, you have lost your mind!"

Voices of condemnation came from all directions, but Zhou Tieyi was calm and composed, not afraid at all. He looked at the Great Xia Emperor on the throne and said, "Since Your Majesty asked Chief Steward Xue to read it out, it means that this policy proposal must have its merits. Since Hao Ren has already brought out the policy proposal, it is entirely up to Your Majesty to adopt it or not."

Zhou Tieyi directly kicked the ball back to the Emperor of Daxia.

His Majesty the Great Xia frowned and said nothing.

If Zhou Tieyi really came up with a bad idea, he wouldn't even get angry, he would even laugh. But he was afraid that Zhou Tieyi would come up with a good idea that was "critical".

And this article "Ten Billion Dollars" is just like that.

Although it sounds like a policy that would harm the country at a glance, how much silver has the Great Xia Dynasty borrowed now?
There are 400 million taels in the stock market, and although the bond market has less, there are still tens of millions of taels. That is why the ministers were able to discuss this year's plan so easily and stabilize the situation.

It would take at least another year and a half or even longer for him to become a saint. If he wanted to delay for such a long time, he would need more money to stabilize the whole world.

More than 400 million taels of silver have been borrowed, so it seems that the 10 billion taels of silver are not a big problem.

From this point of view, the Emperor of Daxia is like a gambler who borrows money at the gambling table. Without earning enough, there is no difference between borrowing 40 taels of usury and borrowing 100 taels of usury. If he doesn't pay it back now, he won't be able to pay it back anyway.

But if I don’t borrow this high-interest loan, then I might have to pay back the forty taels I just borrowed immediately!
There is nothing wrong with the strategy itself, but there must be something wrong with the person who came up with it. His Majesty the Great Xia is not sure what hidden dangers there may be in this strategy paper, and at the same time he needs to ensure that there are no new variables in this matter.

So the Great Xia Emperor said, "Whether it is good or bad, it is not too late to debate after listening to the policy paper. Xue Minghao, continue reading."

Xue Minghao bowed to receive the order and continued to read out Hao Ren's eloquently written policy paper. For a moment, the hall fell silent again.

(End of this chapter)