xymnovel Chapter 66 Zhao Guangmei: My Second Brother is Invincible
Chapter 66 Zhao Guangmei: My Second Brother is Invincible
"As long as the military engages in business, the Burmese model cannot be completely avoided. People are inherently selfish, and even the imperial court has its moments of inertia. Your current thinking is simply because the Song Dynasty is at war every year, nothing more."
When peace is truly restored and weapons are stored away, such things will inevitably happen. Therefore, it's better to guide than to suppress, making other business models very important.
Zhao Guangmei shrugged, neither confirming nor denying it, but she didn't take Wang Lu's talk of peace and tranquility seriously.
The world has not been at peace for hundreds of years, to the point that world peace is more of a beautiful wish than a real problem.
In fact, even if we start counting from the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period, it has been a thousand years. The only truly long period of peace lasting several decades was the brief thirty-odd years during the mid-Tang Dynasty.
As a result, even political idealists of this era would not really consider how to prevent the army from becoming corrupt after the world is at peace.
It seems impractical at all.
Wang Lu didn't say much more, and continued to explain: "There is a second model for the military to do business, which is called the Thai model."
"What is Thailand? What country is it? I've never heard of it before."
"Don't worry about the name, it's just a name I came up with on the spot."
"oh oh."
"The so-called Thai model is about using high-ranking military officers as the core, leveraging military power and privileges to monopolize high-profit industries."
Then, through personal control and family-run operations, it's essentially about turning local warlordism into regional economic conglomerates. Do you understand?
Zhao Guangmei: "I think I understand. This must be what you mean by officers going into business."
Li Shoujie: "Isn't this exactly what armies around the world look like now? What's this so-called 'Thailand model'?"
Zhao Guangmei and Zhang Mei both glanced at him sideways.
Wang Lu: "That's definitely the case in Hedong now. I heard that Li Jun has already seized control of all the important mines and trade checkpoints in Luzhou."
Zhang Mei: "Since the late Tang Dynasty, there have indeed been many such regional military governors, but today, there are not many who can still be so arrogant."
Li Jun served as the military governor of Zhaoyi Army for far too long, to the point that he is now unruly and difficult to control.
Wang Lu: "Not every military governor in this world has the ability to do business. Only places like Luzhou and Daming Prefecture, which are also important points on trade routes, can do so."
"There's nothing inherently wrong with this model of military-run businesses. Since the late Tang Dynasty, the Central Plains have been in decline, but local warlords like Daming Prefecture and Luzhou were still enough to contend with the Khitans. This made the nation's strength less than one-tenth of that during the Tang Dynasty's golden age, but at least we weren't too humiliated by foreign powers, largely thanks to this."
"Only when the military governors of border towns have businesses can they have money. Only when they have money can they command their soldiers, train brave warriors, and be fair in their rewards and punishments."
To put it bluntly, what makes a good general? A good general is one with money in hand. If you don't have money, do you expect the court to reward or punish you? These days, which court is so reliable?
"Furthermore, these days, the soldiers of various regional military governors have a strong sense of ownership. If a military governor makes money but only focuses on his own extravagant enjoyment and doesn't distribute money to his brothers, he will usually be executed along with his entire family."
Since the An Lushan Rebellion, how many military governors of the Tianxiong Army, and its predecessor the Weibo Army, had their entire families beheaded and their heads kicked around by soldiers simply because their pay was a little late? This is far more efficient than the anti-corruption efforts of civil officials and censors.
For a moment, Zhao Guangmei, Zhang Mei, and Li Shouzhen all turned their attention to him, looking at him with strange eyes.
Why does it seem like Wang Lu is actually pleased that the soldiers of the Tianxiong Army cut off the heads of the Jiedushi's entire family and used them as a football?
"Of course, the disadvantages of this model are self-evident; since the mid-Tang Dynasty, people all over the world have suffered greatly from it."
The three nodded in satisfaction. Without that remark, they would have almost thought that Wang Lu had a problem with his values.
"A step above the Thai model is the Vietnamese model, which uses the military, communes, regiments, and commanders as basic units to establish workshops and chambers of commerce of varying sizes."
The current military officers will serve as the workshop's management, the second-line troops will work in the workshop and the chamber of commerce during non-training hours, and the elite front-line troops will be composed of retired veterans or their family members.
"The workshops themselves are managed by the military and, like other workshops on the market, they must participate in market competition. The profits are split proportionally, with a portion going to the state, a portion used to maintain the military's operations, and the remainder used to supplement military pay and directly pay the soldiers."
"If the country's frontline troops could all do this, the chaos that has plagued the country since the end of the Tang Dynasty would naturally end, because dynastic changes inevitably lead to a worse business environment, which delays everyone's share of the profits."
Business is a holistic endeavor; it's difficult for any single place to operate in isolation. If it does, it loses access to the unified national market, inevitably resulting in less profit.
As long as the soldiers receive their monthly pay from the workshops and are not short of money, they naturally won't sell the emperor.
It should be noted that being crowned with the yellow robe was risky even for the guards themselves. After Fu Yanqing's second brother, Fu Yanrao, was crowned with the yellow robe, he had all the guards who had draped the yellow robe over him killed.
Zhang Mei immediately sensed something was wrong and said, "Then this workshop must be big enough and profitable enough, even consistently profitable enough. What kind of workshop can support an entire army?"
"They still have to pay taxes to the imperial court? How can such workshops compete fairly with their counterparts in the private sector? Isn't this competing with the people for profits?"
Wang Lu: "What does the Grand Commandant think of our family's steel workshop?"
"The Grand Commandant can have the Salt and Iron Commissioner send down to investigate this workshop's accounts. If it makes money, we should pay our taxes. Do you think that after paying all the taxes, this workshop will have enough money left to support the army?"
Zhang Mei frowned, somewhat dissatisfied.
After all, the Salt and Iron Bureau was staffed by civil officials. It was absurd for a civil official to investigate the accounts of a military officer, especially since this workshop had Zhao Guangmei, one of the Three Kings, backing it up.
How can such workshops ensure fair competition with private workshops?
Zhao Guangmei waved her hand and said more directly, "Let's compete with the people for profit. Is this the time to be thinking about such things in this world?"
Moreover, the profits from this workshop come from iron smelting. What kind of people can profit from salt and iron? If they could really profit from salt and iron, how could those who compete with us be ordinary people?
For the sake of the Song Dynasty, what's wrong with letting them suffer a little? What kind of people are they?
Seeing this, Zhang Mei simply shut up and didn't say anything more. Instead, she asked, "Jingfu just said there are four models for military businesses. Is there a fourth one?"
Wang Lu was stunned for a moment before realizing that Jingfu was talking about him. This was his courtesy name, given to him by Zhao Guangyi. However, given his age and the customs of the Five Dynasties, this seemed to be the first time someone had ever called him by his courtesy name.
"I call the fourth one the Iranian model."
Zhao Guangmei pouted: "Your name is really weird, it's completely incomprehensible."
"In this model, the army is the army, and the workshop is the workshop, but a revolving door needs to be established between the army and the workshop."
Only reservists who perform well in the workshop are eligible to join the army. Only highly qualified soldiers, officers who have made meritorious contributions, or family members of fallen soldiers can obtain formal positions or management roles within the workshop.
Only those who have held management positions in workshops, gaining knowledge of people's livelihoods and understanding of the economy, can then serve as high-ranking officers in the military, in order to avoid a complete disconnect between the military and the civilian population.
"Finally, the money earned by the workshop will not be directly distributed to the military, but will be used to establish special foundations for martyrs and veterans, etc."
"No misappropriation or profit-sharing is allowed. Military pay must be unrelated to this. This money is specifically for the compensation of martyrs' widows and the resettlement of wounded veterans. All accounts must be supervised and monitored by the Censorate and the Three Departments."
Upon hearing this, Zhao Guangmei clapped her hands repeatedly: "This is good, this is good! The Iranian model is the best, Grand Commandant, this is excellent!"
Zhang Mei frowned: "What's so good about it? This isn't just competing with the people for profits anymore, it's clearly... leaving no loopholes for the people at all. How are ordinary people supposed to operate like this?"
"Can the Censorate and the Salt and Iron Bureau, these civil officials, really supervise your accounts? How can they possibly be impartial?"
Zhao Guangmei said sincerely, "Grand Commandant always says that he is competing with the people for profit. May I ask, who exactly is this 'people'?"
Zhang Mei: "…………"
In fact, the Iranian and Vietnamese models could only have been successfully implemented during the Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty period.
Because there is no sufficiently powerful "people" class in this world, there is naturally no such thing as competing with the people for profit.
For ordinary people, joining the army is a tangible way to change their fate.
Zhang Mei thought for a moment upon hearing this, then shook her head and said, "The key is how much money we can make. Looking at the Vietnamese model, a workshop has to support an entire army and pay military expenses. If we also have to pay taxes to the government..."
With a cost of 10,000 guan, this business needs to make at least 30,000 guan in profit to survive. What is three times the profit?
"Exorbitant profits! And not just small business profits, but huge business profits! Where in the world can you find such enormous profits? Even if you could, how much? Won't this affect public tax revenue? If the army receives its pay, who will the Salt and Iron Bureau collect salt and iron taxes from?"
"As for the Iranian model, it's probably all about making even greater profits. After all, there aren't many businesses in the world that can earn so much money and support so many soldiers."
Even if we only maintain a small number of elite troops, it won't be enough. If we had the money, wouldn't everyone see that the Vietnam and Iran models are better?
But since you don't have that much profit, you can only adopt the Myanmar and Thai models. Are these two models really good? This matter... should be considered more carefully.
Zhao Guangmei stood up and retorted, "Who says there aren't many profitable businesses? Isn't my second brother's iron smelting workshop one? When it comes to making money, my second brother is a master at turning lead into gold; he's unbeatable!"
Li Shouzhen, standing to the side, seemed to be deep in thought, and said, "A workshop like this would actually be very suitable to be built in Luzhou. Third King, how about we get you to invest?"
Zhang Mei: "Who is Li Dongzhu to the Zhaoyi Army? Could he be the young marshal? I heard that the young marshal of the Zhaoyi Army just arrived in Zhongmu."
Li Shouzhen: "…………"