There are also people who become famous when they grow up. Today, we are going to talk about Ada, a gifted scholar in the Tang Dynasty. When the Tang Dynasty was extremely weak, he saved the Tang Dynasty by implementing various economic measures. His financial thoughts and measures even influenced the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and he was recognized as an outstanding financial planner in the history of China. What are Ada's outstanding achievements worthy of praise?
Ada (7 16 -780), whose real name is Shian. Cao Zhou Nanhua people (now Dongming County, Heze City, Shandong Province) were called "prodigies" when they were young. At the age of 9, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty amenorrhea in Taishan, and Ada made a eulogy. Xuanzong was very surprised that Ada was good at writing at a young age, so he ordered Prime Minister Zhang Shuo to give a topic for discussion in the present court. Ada answered it like a stream. Xuanzong was very happy. He took it back to Chang 'an and made it a prince's orthography, and became an official to correct book mistakes.
In 762, Li Yu appointed Tongzhou secretariat as assistant minister of the Ministry of Finance and Beijing, and was appointed as the ambassador of spending money, transshipment, salt and iron, and casting money.
After the eight-year An Shi Rebellion, the agricultural production in the Tang Dynasty was greatly destroyed, and the Tang government was facing a serious financial crisis. To make matters worse, affected by the war, the waterway transportation was blocked, and the imperial grain could not be transported to the capital Chang 'an. Not only did Chang 'an people starve to death, but also the three meals in the palace were gone.
When the government of the Tang Dynasty was under siege, Tang Daizong handed over the important task of transporting grain to Ada, who was then the official department minister and distribution envoy.
After inspecting the grain transportation route, Ada felt a headache. The process of grain transportation is complicated, so it is necessary to organize thousands of ships to transport the grain produced in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to Yangzhou for concentration. Then from Yangzhou through the canal into the Huaihe River, from Huaihe River to Harmony, and then to the Yellow River. After entering the Yellow River, it goes west; after crossing Sanmenxia, it turns into Weihe River. The waterway winds 3000 miles to Chang 'an. Now the impassability of rivers is a big problem, and the labor force to solve the problem is a big difficulty.
After the war, people suffered heavy casualties and were seriously short of manpower. In addition, since the post-war social order has not been restored, thieves have mushroomed everywhere.
It is not easy to restore the water transport of Harmony River. Fortunately, Ada is a person who cares about the country and people. "Seeing that there is no water, I hope the Dutch store will go first; Seeing an unlucky grain, I am willing to go first. " He will not give up saving the country and the people because of difficulties, not to mention the sacred life is hard to violate. Ada made up his mind to restore grain transportation anyway. He reported all the difficulties and got the full support of his superiors.
Ada first organized a large number of migrant workers and soldiers to dredge the river. In order to ensure the manpower in place, he abolished the unpaid corvee system and changed it to the wage employment system.
In order to reduce the risk, Ada has designed a segmented feeder transportation scheme, and set up turnover stations in Harmony, Yellow River and Weihe River respectively. When the ship arrived at the turnover station, it didn't turn down a waterway, but unloaded the grain from the ship and put it on another waterway. This saves the trouble of transshipment every week and improves the efficiency of grain transportation. In order to ensure the safety of the whole freight, Ada sent officials and troops to escort along the way.
Later, Ada also improved the means of transportation and built a durable ship at any cost. Each ship invests 65,438+0,000 yards (65,438+0,000 yards for each rope of copper coins) to pay for materials and labor. In order to overcome the biggest difficulty in water transportation-the fast-flowing water crossing the Three Gorges Pass, Ada improved the material used for ship fibers and made tough fiber ropes to reduce the casualties of trackers. Each ship is equipped with 30 people to pull the optical fiber and 5 people to support the fence, which solves the technical problem of ship passage.
When the first batch of grain arrived in Beijing, Tang Jun was greeted by "Long live everyone". The harmonious transportation of food and materials not only solved the basic living problems of the officials and people in the capital of the Tang Dynasty at that time, but also consolidated the precarious central government of the Tang Dynasty.
By reforming the transportation scheme and improving the ships, Ada successfully completed the task of transporting grain, and his talents were appreciated by Tang Daizong. Since then, Ada was promoted to be the prime minister in charge of finance, and further improved the financial situation of the Tang Dynasty by reforming the financial business such as salt and iron, agricultural trade and so on.
Ada believes that "the more registered permanent residence, the wider the tax revenue, so his financial management should give priority to loving the people", so he insists on "raising the people and increasing taxes" when carrying out the reform. Ada's thoughts of "being close to the people" and "loving the people" were already reflected when he reformed the grain transportation. He set up a transshipment warehouse in Yangzhou to transport grain by stages, so that "the river embankment transports Yangzhou, the canal is harmonious, the river ships Weikou, and the Weihe River ships Taicang".
While carrying out the transshipment system, he also used the method of hiring labor to increase people's employment opportunities. After taking charge of finance, Ada once again "loved the people first" when reforming salt affairs, and formulated a series of policies of "supporting the people" to make the country rich on the basis of improving people's lives.
Before the salt system reform in Ada, the state monopoly system was implemented in the salt industry in the Tang Dynasty, and the salt produced by salt merchants was purchased by the government and then transported and sold by the government. After the Anshi Rebellion, due to the national economic difficulties, many corrupt officials used the government to monopolize the patent of salt industry and privately increased the price of salt to enrich themselves. This not only makes people's lives more miserable, but also seriously affects the country's salt tax revenue. When Ada reformed its salt policy, it implemented the following new system in view of the previous disadvantages:
First, it is stipulated that "the salt cooked by the official salt collectors should be transferred to the businessmen to stop them". In other words, official business, official transportation, official sales for official business, commercial transportation and commercial sales are all changing. The government collects salt tax in a unified way, and businessmen can sell salt in designated areas as long as they pay salt tax. In order to ensure the interests of businessmen, Ada also called for the implementation of "strike state and county tax rate", prohibiting local officials and the army from setting up checkpoints to re-levy salt tax. In this way, the extra burden of salt merchants is reduced, and the salt transportation cost of salt merchants is also reduced, so that the circulation of salt is smoother. The interests of businessmen have been protected, and the state's tax revenue is more secure.
Secondly, it is stipulated that in the case of insufficient coins, the government will first raise the price of silk, and then allow "businessmen to collect silk instead of salt". This can maintain the sales of salt and prevent the proliferation of illicit salt. In addition, by encouraging businessmen to buy silk, the government got a lot of silk, which also saved the trouble of collecting money first and then buying silk for soldiers to make military uniforms.
Thirdly, in order to solve the problem of high salt price caused by salt shortage in remote areas, he built salt warehouses in remote areas and "reduced the price" when the salt price was high. In this way, not only the people's salt problem is solved, but also the government can get a small part of profits from it, thus increasing the government's fiscal revenue to a certain extent.
Fourth, encourage people to join the salt industry, expand the circulation of salt through the development of salt industry, and strive for more salt tax revenue. In this way, more people can benefit from salt making, and the government will not take advantage of salt by deducting the cost of frying salt or raising the price of salt.
Since Ada implemented the new salt policy of civil administration, official revenue, business transportation and business sales, a large number of salt collectors have been laid off. After the transportation cost is reduced, the price of salt is reduced, and businessmen benefit, and the people also benefit, and the national tax revenue is also greatly increased. Before the reform, the annual salt tax revenue of the Tang government was only 600,000 yuan. After the reform, this figure rose continuously for more than ten years, reaching more than 6 million yuan at the end of the Dali period (779). At this time, the salt tax revenue accounted for half of the fiscal revenue of the Tang government at that time.
Ada's salt policy reform is not through exorbitant taxes, but through improving the system, and making profits on the basis of ensuring the interests of businessmen and people.
Later, when he carried out the "Changping Law" to reform food prices, he also adhered to the financial management concept of "supporting the people and increasing taxes". In order to really "support the people", he first set up "knowledge imperial palace" in each county to collect local agricultural economic information, and appointed people with lofty ideals who were diligent, honest and loving the people as knowledge imperial officials.
Academy officials collect local economic information every month, including weather conditions, prices, crops, etc., and report to the central government. Accordingly, the central government implemented the strategy of "abundance is expensive, hunger is cheap" to benefit the local people. If there is a good agricultural harvest in a certain place, the government will buy grain at a high price, store it in warehouses, or sell it at a low price to areas with poor harvests due to floods and droughts. Changping Law prevented people from being hurt by food shortage in harvest, and also prevented food prices from rising in famine, stabilized prices and guaranteed people's livelihood.
Ada's financial management method based on "loving the people" and "educating the people" does not mean that the government simply "gives alms" to the people. He pointed out: "The king's lover is not given, but should be cultivated and woven, collected in famine years." When giving relief, he will not only consider the temporary interests of the victims, but proceed from a long-term perspective. He said: "people who are good at treating diseases will not be exhausted;" Those who are good at disaster relief do not. Therefore, what you give is not enough for the living. Living more is used by the country, and the country has been re-incorporated! "
In order to ensure that the disaster relief expenditure does not affect the national finance, that is, to avoid the government from increasing taxes due to excessive expenditure after disaster relief, he took precautions and set up warehouses to stabilize prices before the disaster occurred. In the process of disaster relief, he also implemented the relief strategy of "cheap food and simple groceries", that is, exchanging low-priced disaster relief food for local products in the disaster area, encouraging victims to invest in sideline production and restoring the economy in the disaster area as soon as possible. Under a series of reforms, the financial situation of the Tang government was greatly improved, the country became rich and the population increased greatly.
After more than ten years, the national registered permanent residence has increased from 2 million to more than 3 million, and most of the increased population is distributed in the areas under the jurisdiction of Ada. If it weren't for Ada's financial thoughts and measures, the Tang Dynasty would eventually go to extinction, and it wouldn't continue the national luck of 100 years.