Chapter 358 61. Eight generations of generals are thrifty

  Meeting Chuemon, after listening to Nagata Chuemon’s account, he fell into deep thought, Matsudaira put down the eggplant he was holding and asked tentatively.

   "What are you thinking about?"

   "No, no, I'm just a little curious, why this silk needs to be peddled along the street." Chungemon hummed and waved his hand, indeed a little curious.

   may not be well-known, but one thing that everyone knows in Japan nowadays is that all the goods and services in circulation in Japan are all monopolistic guilds!

The   monopoly guild may not mean monopolizing the whole of Japan, but monopolizing Edo or monopolizing Osaka, and the wealthy merchants among the big names may also monopolize their own domains. Like the Hagi Fan we went to before, Murata Kiyokaze is forcibly setting up a monopoly. Everything in the world is not allowed to enter the Hagi Fan freely, and must be sold by the government-run monopoly.

  The merchants above the shogunate, including Edo and Osaka, are all monopoly guilds. In particular, industries related to people's livelihoods such as rice, wine, timber, and loan sharks have extremely strict monopoly systems. Even the firewood and charcoal burned in Chuemon's house are monopolized.

  It is not only stamped with the seal of the monopolist, but also with the seal of the local government, guaranteeing that this bundle of firewood is really being sold by the merchant who paid the shogunate.

The    shogunate granted monopoly monopoly rights to high-end merchants, and used feudal power to maintain such monopoly monopoly rights, and then obtained transportation gold from the high-end merchants. At the same time, you can also get a lot of filial piety from time to time and don't have to repay loans from the wealthy businessmen to maintain the shaky shogunate finances.

  So some people say that being a merchant in the Edo period is equivalent to the purse of the shogunate and daimyo, but shoguns and daimyo are qualified to ask for what you want. Your entire business, if you put a pig on it, you can also manage it in a vivid and colorful manner. All your money is obtained through monopoly. Is it possible that you think it is based on your own ability?

  It's really a big joke in the world!

  Some people actually sympathized with saying that Mitsui and Konoike were suddenly demanded by the shogunate for hundreds of thousands of taels of gold. The shogunate is really nothing. Extremely ridiculous! The big businessmen these days don't care about their operations at all, and the operations are all done by their professional managers. Moreover, there is no fear that professional managers will commit crimes, because the generals with monopoly power are only given to the big businessmen themselves.

  You have great abilities, and it is impossible for you to become a wealthy businessman. If you die, you are lucky to go to heaven, and you marry the daughter of a wealthy businessman who has no son, then you still have a chance. That's it. As long as the wealthy merchants flatter the general and the name, the money can fall from the sky. Even if this kind of money is taken away by the general, it is normal, and the wealthy merchants seem to have put some effort into it.

  I’m doing this business all over the country. If your customers love to come, get out if they don’t come. You have the ability to live in a cave and eat wild fruits and learn from a white-haired girl. As long as you need goods and services, you can only come to my house.

  Monopoly guilds will spread throughout Japan, why is it not reflected on this silk?

  Listening to Chuemon’s doubts, Matsudaira did not show much expression, gnawing on the rice stick in his hand, and said the reason in an indescribable tone.

  "This matter, I have to start from the eight generations..."

  Yatsushiro is Tokugawa Yoshizong. Before him, when the seven shoguns of the Tokugawa shogunate ruled the world, the shogunate was actually okay. By the time the fourth-generation Shogun Tokugawa Family Tsuna reigned, the shogunate still had a huge deposit of 4 million taels. It feels as if I can't use it up until I die, it's very relaxing.

  The turning point was in the fifth-generation general Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. This "dog official" was a very extravagant life, and at the same time a very bad and good person. Because he could not give birth to a son, he not only issued a "compassion order for birth", but also gave a lot of monasteries, hoping that the sky full of gods and Buddhas would bless him to give birth.

  As a result, the cub was not born, and millions of dollars were spent!

  In addition, the climate fluctuated drastically at that time, and the floods and droughts occurred in successive years. The feudal vassals kept asking Tokugawa Tsunayoshi for help. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi lent money to the clan and genealogists without a bottom line to improve their vassal governance. This money is a muddled account in a muddled account. Even the future eight-generation general Tokugawa Yoshizong owed one hundred thousand taels of gold to the Shogunate at that time.

  If the huge loan can be recovered, then I won’t mention it, but Tsunayoshi Tokugawa is a bad guy. When others cried to him, he would kindly say that he didn't want it. Don't forget it, next year someone will borrow again, and he will really borrow.

  So that in the late Tsunayoshi period, even the one hundred thousand taels of gold for visiting the Nikko Toshogu Shrine could not be collected, and only to stop paying homage to the **** of Tokugawa Ieyasu.

  His successors Tokugawa Iesun and Tokugawa Ie were both short-lived ghosts. One died in the prime of life, and the other died in childhood. The continuous changes and chaos of the shogunate made the finances completely collapsed.

  The eight generation shogun Tokugawa Yoshizong comes to power!

To save the crumbling shogunate, Tokugawa Yoshizong, known as the "Mi Gongfang", immediately rigorously rectified his finances, and at the same time tried every means to guarantee taxation.

  So he issued the "Great Frugality Order", requiring all princes and warriors in the world to no longer wear expensive silk clothes and use cheap kapok fabrics. This is what we have said before and will not be expanded. Just talk about the impact of this order.

  In order to ensure that everyone can no longer wear silk clothes, Tokugawa Yoshizong’s method is simple, rude, and efficient, which is staggering ~lightnovelpub.net~ to cut mulberry trees!

  I cut down all the mulberry trees in Japan, and then prohibits Nagasaki from importing raw silk and silk. Then people in Japan can be thrifty, and then they will never be able to wear silk clothes.

  Good way, it’s really a great way. The effect is extremely significant, so significant that there is nothing to say. Of course, he is not only cutting mulberry trees, he also shovels all cash crops such as tobacco, cotton, indigo grass, etc., to ensure that all luxury goods are completely cut off from the raw materials.

  Then he ordered rice to be planted on these lands, so the rice production greatly increased the following year, and the price plummeted immediately. The shogunate’s finances collapsed completely, and the poor were washed away in tears.

  In the end, the princes had to be allowed to pay money and food in exchange for a reduction of the account time by one hundred days. In this way, he barely took a bite and didn't let the shogunate die on the spot.

   Going back to the silk matter, the mulberry tree was cut down, and all the wood was burned. The mulberry leaves are gone, the silkworms have no food, and the silkworms starve to death. The output of raw silk plummeted, and the output of silk plummeted to the valley. Don't talk about sales, even production can't be produced at all.

  So you guys think, are there any silk merchants at that time? Or maybe there are silk merchants?

  (End of this chapter)