Chapter 24 The Three Battlefields of Reform: Finance, Currency and Land

Wang Mang's reform claimed to be "following the ancients and reforming the system"-Chinese people have always believed that the present is not as good as the past, and the predecessors are smarter than the present.However, from a policy point of view, he does not want to reform to the distant Zhou Dynasty. The goal of the reform is actually the "Han Wudi-Sang Hongyang" model.His reforms basically revolved around the "three core issues" that affect the macroeconomy: finance, currency and land. In the second year of Wang Mang's accession to the throne, he launched "five equalization and six management".

The so-called "Wujun" refers to the establishment of Wujun officials in the six major cities of Chang'an, Luoyang, Handan, Linzi, Wan, and Chengdu. : One is regular adjustment and average price, which is called "market level"; The second is to control the market supply. When the goods in the market are unsalable, buy them at a low price, and when the price of the goods rises, sell them at a high price; The third is to apply for credit loans, and to issue interest-free loans (credit) or low-interest loans (loans) according to specific circumstances; The fourth is to collect Shanze tax and other miscellaneous taxes.

The so-called "six managements" means that the government is in charge of six economic undertakings, that is, the state monopolizes the sale of salt, iron, and wine, the monopoly of minting money, the collection of Shanze production tax, and the handling of five equal credit loans.In short, "five equalization and six management" is to fully restore the monopoly of salt and iron and the two methods of equal distribution and equalization. Judging from the imperial edict issued by Wang Mang for "five equals and six managements", he has a very good understanding of the franchise policy.He said that what the government wants to control are the daily necessities of the people. Even if the price is high, the people will definitely buy the goods. That is, "key industries related to the national economy and people's livelihood". The purpose of suppressing mergers and congregations.Hu Jichuang commented: "Before Wang Mang, those who advocated economic regulation, such as Guan Zhong and Sang Hongyang, were not as thorough as Wang Mang said about the necessity of regulatory policies." However, people in later generations also know that all those who promote planned economy All of them use the slogan of "equalizing the rich and the poor" and realizing social justice, but in fact they are all aimed at strengthening the centralization of power and expanding fiscal revenue.

Compared with the nationalization policy during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Wang Mang's policy was too intensive, and the color of the plan was even more intense.For example, the control of retail prices has reached the point where there is no detail. The "Hanshu "Shihuo Zhi" records that the government classifies and prices various commodities at a specified time, and the same commodity is divided into upper and middle grades according to their quality. First, lower third, and then allow merchants to take it to the market to sell. This is tantamount to completely replacing the function of the market with the hand of planning.

If Wang Mang completely imitated Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in terms of fiscal and industrial policies, then he was much more radical in currency and land reforms. Wang Mang changed the currency system for the first time in the year before his accession to the throne, that is, in May of the 7th year of AD. He used Zhou coins as the blueprint and added more coins. There are three types of new coins, each worth five thousand coins, five hundred coins and fifty coins. Money, for "big money".At that time, there were already signs of inflation in the country, and the nominal value of the new currency was much higher than the five baht coin of the old currency. As a result, private minting by the people became popular, and Wang Mang ordered the princes and princes to privately hide gold.

In 8 A.D., when the new dynasty was established, Wang Mang changed the one baht coin in the name of "Fengtian Chengyun". It was rumored that the five baht coin and the big coin would be abolished, and the market was in chaos. They were arrested and exiled to the frontiers, and on the other hand, they minted a lot of small money.In 10 A.D., Wang Mang suddenly announced to change the currency system, and named the currency as "Baohuo", which was divided into six types: gold, silver, tortoise, shellfish, money, and cloth. The six currencies were subdivided into Twenty-eight varieties.Due to the variety of varieties and the unreasonable conversion ratio, common people's understanding is confused and transactions are greatly affected.Four years later, Wang Mang was forced to change the currency system for the fourth time. He ordered the abolition of big money and small money, and the issuance of "cargo cloth" (weighting twenty-five baht, worth twenty-five eight), "money spring" (weighting five baht, worth a) Two currencies.In just seven years, Wang Mang carried out four currency reforms.

In terms of land reform, Wang Mang's reform plan is the most decisive - to restore the comprehensive state ownership of land, and then distribute it equally to farmers for cultivation.Its specific policy is: to change the name of all the fields in the world to "Wang Tian", and no one can buy or sell them. Any family with less than eight males and more than one well (calculation unit, one well is 900 mu) will be privatized. The surplus is distributed to the clan and fellow villagers. This is the first regime to re-enforce land nationalization since Shang Yang's "abolition of well fields".Land is the foundation for the survival and reproduction of aristocratic groups. Prior to this, many people had put forward various containment ideas for the situation of land annexation. For example, Dong Zhongshu suggested "restricting land". He knew that it would be wrong to return to the well field system. , but it is possible to prevent excessive mergers by specifying the upper limit of land owned by each household.This idea of ​​equalizing land rights on the basis of affirming private ownership of land became the mainstream in later history.Wang Mang's implementation of the royal land system was a revolution in the nature of land.If we look at the history of two thousand years, from the pre-Qin period to 1949, among the rulers of the past dynasties, there were very few people who tried to fully integrate the land. Strictly speaking, there were only two people. The founder, Sun Yat-sen, and the Sun family only announced it on paper, but Wang Mang put it into practice.

While promoting land and state-owned flowers, Wang Mang announced that the trading of slaves and maidservants is not allowed. The reason is that the sale of slaves and maidservants is contrary to the righteousness of saints that "the nature of heaven and earth is precious to man".From the records, Wang Mang seems to have always held a sympathetic attitude towards slaves. Before he became emperor, his second son killed a maid, and Wang Mang forced him to kill himself.Therefore, many historians spoke highly of Wang Mang's policy of prohibiting the sale and purchase of slaves, and believed that it was a humanitarian initiative.However, from an economic point of view, Wang Mang's thinking may not be so far. Restricting land annexation and restricting population annexation is a supporting policy to combat the power of aristocratic clans.