Chapter 27 Jia Yi's worries

Although Jia Yi was staying in Changsha State full of depression at this time, his heart full of political enthusiasm never left Liu Heng for a moment.In response to Liu Heng's monetary policy of recasting four baht coins and allowing private minting of coins, Jia Yi gave a memorial to Liu Heng, talking about the following four points. First, Jia Yi believes that this kind of monetary policy is in the final analysis to lure ordinary people to commit crimes. Jia Yi said that once the government releases its control over the private minting of money by the people, minting money will become a means for many people to seek profits.Even if the current law stipulates that adulteration is prohibited when minting money, and offenders will be punished with tattoos, there will still be a majority of people who know the law and break the law, so as to save costs and make profits.

The coins of Qin and Han Dynasties are different from our modern banknotes. Their face value is equal to the value of copper spent in the casting process.That is to say, coin casting itself is neither profit nor loss. However, in the actual process, since coin casting also consumes other manpower and material resources, this often makes coin casting a loss-making business. When the coinage industry is widespread in the whole society, it means that there is a way to make money within the coinage industry, and the only way to make a profit is to add more fakes to the coins, and only need to mix a small amount of lead and iron. can obtain high profits.People who are greedy for money are often desperadoes. In order to obtain huge profits, they would rather risk getting tattooed and disfigured. No matter how many people are punished by the government, it will not help.

Jia Yi also emphasized that since ordinary people mint coins illegally in secret, this will make the number of people involved so large that it is difficult to investigate.In the past, hundreds of people may have been sentenced in a county for this, and even more were interrogated and monitored by the government for these things. Knowing that the people cannot be prevented from breaking the law, but insisting on establishing laws, isn't this inducing the people to commit crimes?Purely self-inflicted. Second, the laws on coins are too imperfect, which will lead to the loss of standards for the currency system.

Jia Yi believes that the copper coins used in different regions are of different weights, and the market is free to circulate, which will eventually lead to confusion in the currency system in the market, and it is unclear how light coins and heavy coins can be exchanged for each other. Moreover, it is difficult for the government to unify the currency system itself.Tough measures will inevitably encounter strong resistance. Economic reform is different from political reform. It needs a reasonable and operable law to maintain. The formulation and implementation of this law requires the government.Decentralization of coinage rights to the private sector means that the government has given up control over economic reforms, which will disrupt market order and the currency system.

Third, Jia Yi believes that the government must control the circulation of copper. Jia Yi pointed out that the lifting of the ban on private money casting will inevitably have an impact on the social structure.Many people engaged in farming will switch jobs to engage in illegal minting, trying to obtain greater benefits at a lower cost.Therefore, the number of coins of poor quality is increasing every day, while the production of grain is decreasing. Good people will not be able to withstand the temptation of huge profits brought by illegal coinage and break the law, and honest people will also be punished for being involved by others.Although the state cannot impose punishments on the common people extensively, in the face of these problems, the government must come up with solutions to solve them.

Jia Yi does not support the prohibition of private coinage again, because this will lead to a decrease in the number of coins and an increase in the value of a single coin.In this way, more people are willing to take the risk of breaking the law and being punished, trying to engage in illegal minting.Even if the government includes the "death penalty for privately minting coins" in the law, it may not help. Since the private minting of coins is hard to defend against, the country should turn to find a way from minting itself.To mint coins, you must first have copper.The reason why the government cannot monopolize the coinage industry and improve the purity of copper in coins is because the central government has no copper mines, and the copper is in the hands of the people and princes!Only by controlling the circulation of copper can the minting industry be truly controlled.

Fourth, Jia Yi believes that if the currency problem is solved according to the method he proposed, there will be the following seven advantages: 1. The government collects copper from the whole country and manages it, so that the people will not randomly mint money and disrupt the currency market. At the same time, the government can also reduce the number of tattoos imposed on the common people, so as to promote moral governance; 2. With less fake money, the common people also save a lot of worries; 3. Those who participate in coinage will return to agricultural production; 4. Copper is controlled by the government, so the government can accumulate more copper to control the weight, buy a lot of coins when they are light, and distribute them when they are heavy, so that money and things can be balanced;

5. You can distinguish between noble and inferior by the quantity and quality of copper products rewarded by ministers, and you can also use copper to make weapons; 6. After mastering the currency, you can regulate the market, adjust the shortage, and restrain the free economy and commerce; 7. Controlling excess property can win over more common people who are hesitant between the Xiongnu and the Han Dynasty. In addition, Jia Shan, who was originally the cavalry servant of Guanying, also wrote to Liu Heng.He believes that allowing the people to obtain the right to mint coins is equivalent to allowing the people to divide the power of the emperor, and having money is a sign of prominent status, and only the emperor can determine a person's status.

Since money can make a person prominent, it must be in the hands of the king alone, and the people and the king cannot share power.If ordinary people can get rich entirely on their own and get into the upper class, the authority of the emperor will be weakened. What Jia Yi and Jia Shan said was indeed in accordance with the autocratic and kingly way. Obviously, this is not in line with Liu Heng's thinking on governing the country. Jia Yi repeatedly urged Liu Heng to severely curb commercial development and increase government intervention in private commerce, which Liu Heng could not accept.On the one hand, business prosperity can quickly accumulate financial resources for the country; on the other hand, it is Confucianism to talk about high and low, and to emphasize agriculture. Liu Heng believes in Huang-Lao's theory, although Huang-Lao's theory did not separately mention the attitude towards business. But since Taoism wants to conform to "the nature of the people", and the development of commerce is inevitable for the development of the people, it naturally cannot exclude commerce.

Throughout China's history, the suppression of business development has been one of the reasons for social backwardness.The accelerated flow of capital is the best way to stimulate the development of productive forces. Although the nature of traditional society is based on kingly principles, which prevents the government from encouraging the development of commerce openly and on a large scale, there will be no progress in society without active commerce. Liu Heng is no better than Jia Yi. The latter is a nerd who plunges headlong into the Confucian classics, and thinks about problems in a single line; while the former, as the helmsman of the politics of the Han Empire, cannot use a certain theory to deal with all social problems.

The words of Jia Yi and Jia Shan are essentially advocating dictatorship.Of course, Confucianism says, "Under the world, is there any king's land; on the coast of the land, is there any king's subject" ("The Book of Songs Xiaoya"), dictatorship itself is an important Confucian theory, and we cannot criticize Jia Yi and Jia Shan on this point.But there is no doubt that Taoism's Huang-Lao theory is far less dictatorial than Confucianism.Liu Heng is an enlightened king, and if he wants to govern the country with Huang Lao's techniques, he cannot accept these ideas of the "Er Jia" anyway. In essence, Liu Heng's monetary policy is still effective in the short term.Allowing private coinage is actually a policy gamble. If you want the benefits to outweigh the disadvantages, you must know how to accept as soon as it is good, and you cannot let the momentum of private coinage expand. The starting point of such a design is good, but it is difficult to accurately complete it in the actual operation process. Sure enough, Liu Heng's "casting line" was too long, and finally hooked two "big fish". Unfortunately, the "fishing line" could not be retracted no matter what, and their weight was too heavy—these two big fish were named Deng. Tong, the other is called Liu Bi.