Chapter 20 The reform created the first "half a billion empire"

The overall supporting reform of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty began in 121 BC and ended in 87 BC, two years before his death, about thirty-four years before and after.In the history of the country, he was the first great dictator who truly established a complete centralized system.Toynbee wrote in "Historical Research": "If the durability of performance is used as a measure, the founder of the Han Dynasty can be regarded as the greatest statesman among all the founders of a unified country." Toynbee mentioned The most famous "founder of the Han Dynasty" is Liu Bang, but in fact, it is undoubtedly Liu Che who really made the centralization system last for a long time.On a global scale, another great emperor who was almost at the same time as Liu Che was Caesar of the Roman Republic (102-44 BC).This seems to be another coincidence. When China built a centralized system of power, Rome also transformed from a republic to an empire, and the world entered the "Dictator Era".

During the reign of Emperor Wudi, China's population had exceeded 50 million. This was also the first "half a billion empire" on earth. His centralization reform made the Han Dynasty the most powerful country in the world, and the so-called "strong man" came from this And born.Through continuous and systematic policy experiments, Emperor Wu of the Han established the basic model of economic governance under a centralized system.It can be seen from the historical records that whether it is industrial reform, circulation reform or tax reform, the final result is "the national treasury is full", that is, the goal and effect of the reform are to increase the fiscal revenue of the central government.From the perspective of time, almost all economic centralization policies were introduced at the critical moment when the long-term war between the Han Empire and the Xiongnu entered a stalemate.The implementation of these income increases provided a strong economic guarantee for the final victory of the Han-Hungary War and the subsequent conquest of Korea, southern Guangdong and other regions.

After the state controlled the lifeline of the economy, the local princes were deprived of the most important source of income, and the power to resist the central government was naturally reduced, which greatly guaranteed the re-formation of centralization economically. In this reform, the feature of "concentrating power to accomplish big things" through the state-owned enterprise system has also emerged. Taking salt and iron as an example, driven by government investment, the production scale and technical level of the salt and iron industry in the Han Dynasty have been unprecedentedly improved.According to the research of contemporary historian Chen Zhi and others, there were at least 50,000 people engaged in the iron smelting industry in the early Han Dynasty, and each iron official had an average of as many as 1,000 people. Before the official operation, the largest private iron dealer in China So is the scale.People at that time had already realized very clearly that state-owned enterprises invested by the government were much larger in scale production than private enterprises. "Salt and Iron Theory" records: "The government summoned craftsmen to start production, and they needed money and equipment. Utensils. If private operators are allowed to operate, it is inevitable that the structure will be small and the quality of the products will be uneven. Now the government is in charge of salt and iron affairs, unifying purposes, balancing prices, officials set up systems, and craftsmen perform their duties. Naturally, it can produce the best commodities." In the history of economic thought, this is the first passage to discuss the advantages of large-scale production.

Because of the large-scale operation, the iron smelting technology in the Western Han Dynasty has also been greatly improved and promoted. For example, cast iron softening treatment technology and steelmaking technology were not popularized in the early Western Han Dynasty, but they were obtained after the official iron smelting. In order to promote rapidly, the technology is more mature.In the world at that time, the iron manufacturing technology of the Han people was the most superb, which was far beyond the comparison of the surrounding ethnic minorities. According to the "Han Shu", when the Xiongnu fought against the Han army, it took five people to resist a Han army. The main reason is that It is because the iron weapons of the former are relatively backward.This is also one of the important reasons why Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was able to expand the territory and expand the territory without any disadvantages.