Chapter 847: New Scholar, Farmer, Artisan, and Merchant

Luo Lian did not believe that the Great Ming would turn from real to virtual for two reasons.

The first reason was that the people of the Central Plains particularly liked farming—that is, they liked production. Even the Governor-General of the Governor-General's Office liked to raise some flowers and plants at home, such as plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum, which were regarded as the backbone of scholars.

In fact, Luo Lian did not know that the Great Ming's Senior Grand Secretary would even personally plant some sweet potatoes to determine whether the sweet potato yield was really that magical; the Emperor even regarded himself as a farmer, leading the past Baoqi Division, now the Agricultural College, to cultivate countless good seeds, and was still improving various crops and livestock breeds.

"Robbing is not as good as planting." This was the experience of the Central Plains for thousands of years. Robbing could neither last long nor rob much.

The King of Shang did not plant wheat, so the four-way princes would regularly hold "wheat announcements" to tell the King of Shang where the wheat was ripe, and the King of Shang would take people there to rob. But later, this wheat announcement activity became less and less, because it didn't look very cost-effective. Mobilizing to start a war and robbing the wheat back was not enough to share with the soldiers. Later, the King of Shang began to plant wheat himself.

Wheat announcement slowly evolved into "punishing the disobedient."

The core concept of "robbing is not as good as planting" in the King's transformation constituted the cornerstone of the loyalty ideological seal of the Golden Pool Governor-General's Office.

Any thought depends on the material basis. As long as the mineral-commodity convection between the Great Ming and the Great Continent exists for one day, the Golden Pool Governor-General's Office will remain loyal. There is no other place that can eat so many ores.

The second reason was that the people of the Central Plains liked to rebel too much. Ever since Luo Lian learned the history of the Great Ming, she was always immersed in an incredible feeling. In the long history of the Central Plains, in the late period of the dynasty, there would always be several large-scale civilian rebellions.

In Luo Lian's view, turning from real to virtual was most important for the endurance of the common people. Even if the needs of the common people could not be met, the common people would die themselves, or wander around, instead of like the Central Plains people, who started taking action with bamboo poles, finally stirring the whole world into a pot of porridge and pulling the ruling class off their horses.

The most typical example was Antonio becoming the King of Portugal. Antonio gained the support of most of the common people, but it was completely useless. Antonio could sit firmly on the throne because of the support of the Great Ming Emperor and the life-and-death struggle of the Free Fleet.

Based on these two reasons, Luo Lian believed that the Great Ming had no way to turn from real to virtual. The "most benevolent common people" in the mouth of the Great Ming Emperor only existed in the Emperor's fantasy.

On the second day after Luo Lian arrived at the Golden Pool Governor-General's Office, she went to the Golden Plain Town. The name of this place was Jinyuan Town, specifically used for panning for gold. Luo Lian found some very strange things.

In the gold mines, there were no Japanese slaves or barbarian slaves, only Han people working hard.

"If we use the amalgam method, we will use Japanese slaves, but we haven't found a mercury mine, so currently we are still using the heavy sand ash-blowing method—that is, mining, crushing and calcining, grinding, water bed pulling, pelletizing and sintering, adding lead, and blowing ash," Deng Zilong explained in detail why there were no Japanese slaves.

The heavy sand ash-blowing method was a delicate job. The high-reward work of mining gold was not yet the turn of Japanese slaves to do. Japanese slaves were engaged in heavy labor work. Unless the amalgam method was chosen, Japanese slaves would not be used.

The amalgam method, in the previous steps, was the same. After grinding the material, all the materials were thrown into mercury. Because of the specific gravity, gold would sink to the bottom, forming gold amalgam at the bottom, while silver would form silver amalgam on the surface.

The amalgam method was not something new. The "Tiangong Kaiwu" also recorded: "Mercury can digest gold and silver into mud, like plating things."

But the toxicity of the amalgam method would reduce the lifespan of a Japanese slave to within three years.

The Great Ming's Japanese slaves and barbarian slaves were bought, unlike the slaves in the rich silver mines, which were caught by the Red-Haired Barbarians themselves. Therefore, the Great Ming usually let a Japanese slave work for more than ten years, hoping for the greatest rate of return, and generally would not excessively blame them.

Deng Zilong explained the cost difference, shook his head and said, "Even if we find a mercury mine, we probably won't use the amalgam method for smelting. The amalgam method is fast and the output is indeed large, but it damages virtue. But the cost of Japanese slaves would make the profit lower, so it seems that the ash-blowing method is a good choice."

"Aren't there also many barbarians here? Just catch the barbarians," Luo Lian said immediately.

The Great Ming's purchase of Japanese slaves was not cost-effective. The shipping cost plus the cost of Japanese slaves made the Golden Pool Governor-General's Office's purchase of Japanese slaves half as expensive as in Manila. If calculated this way, the profit was a bit low.

But clearly, on this Golden Plain, there were endless human mines that could be mined. Insisting on going far away to buy Japanese slaves was a bit of a loss.

Deng Zilong was silent for a while and said, "These barbarians don't provoke us, why should we catch them? It's best to live in peace."

Luo Lian smiled. This was one of the disadvantages of the Great Ming's overseas expansion—high moral disadvantage. Deng Zilong traded gold sabers to the barbarians.

"Governor!" A mound-platform scout with a flag on his back galloped all the way, turned over and dismounted in front of Deng Zilong, his face slightly anxious, and said, "Governor, we found that the Kulin people have gathered and intend to harass Jinyuan Town!"

Luo Lian smiled even more brightly. The Great Ming did not provoke the barbarians, but did the barbarians not come to provoke the Great Ming people? Luo Lian knew she was a Red-Haired Barbarian, and she felt she understood the barbarian's thinking better than Deng Zilong.

The huge profits of Jinyuan Town made even the Great Ming's wealthy merchants willing to bring firms to the Golden Pool Governor-General's Office 20,000 li away. If it weren't for the Great Ming Governor-General's Office being strong, these wealthy merchants would absolutely not do business honestly, but would directly start robbing.

Then these barbarians, how could they let it go?

For the barbarians, gold was very important to the Great Ming people, and the Great Ming people had many goods. As long as they got the gold, they could exchange for goods, so robbing Jinyuan Town became the best choice.

The barbarians knew very well that they could not beat the Great Ming army, but they would absolutely not be reconciled without trying. Luo Lian was a barbarian, and she knew very well the logic of the barbarian's actions: rob if you can, and if you really can't rob, then talk a little bit of reason.

Facing the barbarians, any appeasement would result in the other party becoming more and more unscrupulous. Under the barbarian winology, your appeasement is fear, and your concession is cowardice, and the barbarians will not let go of any opportunity for extortion.

Although the Great Ming showed its military strength, these barbarians who did not know their own strength still felt that they had a possibility of success.

Deng Zilong fell into busyness. This battle did not last long, only less than seven days, and it ended completely. The Golden Pool Governor-General's Office captured more than 4,000 barbarians without losing a single person. Just one capture was more than the annual purchase volume.

Luo Lian also did not idle during these seven days. She was maintaining the image of the Governor-General and attended two foundation-laying ceremonies.

One was the "Nurturing and Relief Institute." The Nurturing and Relief Institute took in the widowed, lonely, old, weak, sick, and disabled. It was a kind of social security, a bottom-line mechanism, and one of the iconic buildings of the Great Ming, mainly to increase the stability of the Golden Pool Governor-General's Office.

The second foundation-laying ceremony was the Golden Pool Academy. From the elementary school to the university, the entire scale was not inferior to the Imperial Academy in the capital. It had four phases in total, covering an area of more than 1,000 mu, with a total investment of more than 5 million silver, with the purpose of establishing a university that could cultivate local students. The first phase of this academy was still from elementary school to the third-level academy, and the university was still in the planning stage.

Luo Lian looked at the inscription on the foundation-laying ceremony, which was personally written by the Emperor Zhu Yijun: "Those who practice are one, and they are just sincere."

The Great Ming Royal Institute of Technology, the Royal Institute of Technology, and the Nine Dragons University all had the same lying stone inscription, and the signature was Zhu Zhongxing.

On the back of the lying stone, a paragraph was engraved, which was in colloquial language.

"Knowledge is poisonous. As long as you learn it, it is difficult for you to pretend to be the way you were before you were poisoned." After Luo Lian read it once, she was somewhat inexplicable. She did not quite understand the specific meaning of this sentence. This sentence was from Geng Dingxiang, a social science PhD of the Institute of Technology.

After Luo Lian returned to the Governor-General's Office, she asked Deng Zilong about the specific meaning of this sentence.

Deng Zilong thought for a while and asked, "You say, what is the antonym of restraint?"

"Divergence?" Luo Lian thought for a while and answered this question.

"Look, this is the meaning of this sentence," Deng Zilong said with a smile. "The antonym of restraint is indulgence, not divergence. But you have read many mathematics books, so the antonym of restraint has become divergence."

"Knowledge is knowledge. Reading books is being poisoned. It is very difficult to pretend. Hearing, thinking, and practicing together, obtaining Prajna wisdom, is the barrier of knowledge."

Deng Zilong quoted a Buddhist verse to describe the original meaning of this sentence, which was that hearing, learning, thinking, practicing, and practicing in many aspects could obtain great wisdom, and the gap in cognition between people was in learning.

This sentence was to persuade students to study hard and not waste their studies; otherwise, they would make jokes like writing poetry without understanding poetry rules, writing lyrics without understanding the flat and oblique tones of the lyric, and writing mathematics proofs that "main equals 6," making people laugh.

Some things, after hearing, thinking, and practicing together, you know, and you can never return to the state of not knowing. Making jokes is a kind of clear stupidity that has not been polluted by knowledge.

This is also the significance of universal education. If you read more books and understand the truth, you will not be deceived by these scholars. At least the lies told by these scholars can be seen through at a glance.

The development of the Golden Pool Governor-General's Office was gratifying, and everything was flourishing. And the Great Ming capital was finally preparing for the New Year.

On the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the sixteenth year of Wanli, the last court discussion before the Great Ming New Year holiday.

The imperial court recalled three provincial governors at once: Shen Yiguan of Shaanxi, Wang Yie of Shandong, and Shen Shixing of Songjiang Prefecture, and appointed new provincial governors: Liu Guangguo from Henan to Shaanxi to take office, a scholar of the second year of Longqing; Song Yingchang from Zhejiang to Shandong to take office, a scholar of the forty-fourth year of Jiajing;

The reason why the Great Ming had to recall three important ministers to the capital at once was to prepare for the Great Ming Emperor's southern tour.

The seven-year-old Crown Prince Zhu Changzhi would supervise the country, the Nine Ministers would discuss and form a resolution, the Ceremonial Supervisor would approve the red and hand it to the Crown Prince to stamp, and all memorials would be copied to the southern-touring Emperor for final adjudication. If His Majesty did not approve, then corrections would be made.

And Shen Yiguan, Wang Yie, and Shen Shixing were all on the list of the new Nine Ministers.

This looked like a "virtual monarch system," but it was not a new thing.

The first to do this was Emperor Chengzu Wen, Zhu Di, who went on northern expeditions all day long, and only returned to Nanjing to see it after playing enough. Ren Zong Zhu Gaochi was the executive vice-emperor for twenty years, handling affairs big and small;

Emperor Xuanzong personally campaigned to quell the rebellion. When he quelled the rebellion of King Han, he was briefly supervised by King Xiang. King Xiang's supervision of the country was mainly "non-stick pan," and he did whatever the ministers said;

After that, it was the young Emperor Yingzong. In the ninth year of Zhengtong, after the three Yangs left the court, the virtual monarch system ended;

In the fourteenth year of Zhengtong, Yingzong went to Oirat for study. In order to counterattack Oirat, the court briefly had a virtual monarch system from the fourteenth year of Zhengtong to the first year of Jingtai;

By the time of Emperor Xiaozong, Xiaozong never made his own decisions in his life.

The most recent time was from Longqing to the fifth year of Wanli. Emperor Longqing was divine and only liked to open the harem. In the early years of Wanli, the young Emperor was suspicious, and Zhang Juzheng, as the "Ming Regent," managed the state affairs.

Therefore, this kind of short-term emergency virtual monarch system could be considered an ancestral method. The results of these few virtual monarch systems were also good and bad.

Shen Yiguan, Wang Yie, and Shen Shixing, three of the new Nine Ministers, were also battle-tested feudal warriors. The Great Ming Emperor was in his prime, and they dared not and would not create any moths to disgust the Great Ming Emperor.

The most special one here was Wang Yie. As a disciple of Xu Jie, originally the new Nine Ministers had nothing to do with him, but he performed very well in the Yang Wei case. Yang Wei did not try to hook up with Wang Yie, but Wang Yie was too busy. He was busy with kelp and salt field expansion. After the incident, Wang Yie understood that Yang Wei's letters had words in them.

Zhu Yijun flipped through the memorials in his hand and said to the court ministers, "Wang Yie doesn't want to return to the court very much, saying that his virtue is thin and his merit is shallow, and he intends to stay in the position of Shandong Governor-General until he retires. He said he wants to make Shandong rich."

Wang Yie did not want to return to the capital. He felt that his background as a disciple of Xu Jie could not express his opinions and ideas in the capital. Even if he said it, no one would listen, and no one would pay attention. No one was willing to form a party with him, and he couldn't do anything. It was better to be in Shandong and do some practical things for the Shandong people.

In Shandong, Wang Yie could plant kelp and build salt fields, truly making the Shandong people rich. The Shandong people had suffered too much from the Kong family. Only after the Kong family in Yanzhou fell could the Shandong people finally poke their heads out of the water and take a heavy breath.

In Wang Yie's words, the natural endowment of Shandong, with mountains, water, and arable land, could produce bandits like the "Xiangma" (bandits), which was truly shocking.

"Then it is not up to him," Zhang Juzheng said calmly. "The imperial court needs it, so he must return if he is told to."

"Then urge him to come to the capital," Zhu Yijun made the final instruction. For major personnel appointments, the court discussion had been passed, and personal wishes were not so important.

"The Songjiang Governor-General is a major matter. I believe it is appropriate for the Ying Tian Governor-General Li Le to go to Songjiang Prefecture to handle affairs, and for Wang Xiyuan to go to Ying Tian Governor-General," Zhu Yijun said to the ministers about the last personnel appointment, the Songjiang Governor-General.

After Shen Shixing left, Zhu Yijun still prepared to hand over Songjiang Prefecture to the Zhang Dang, which was a very clear attitude.

"Your Majesty, I recommend Yang Bo's son, Yang Junmin," Zhang Juzheng bowed and said. Yang Bo's son, Yang Junmin, had been the prefect of Songjiang Prefecture for several years and had never made a mistake.

... Shen Shixing left, and the nomination was compliant.

In Wang Yie's words, Shandong's natural endowment—having mountains, water, and arable land—could produce bandits like the "echoing horses" (highwaymen) who were famous nationwide; it was truly shocking.

Wang Chonggu immediately expressed his opposition, because Yang Junmin was his son-in-law.

If his son-in-law became the Songjiang Governor-General, it would not be a good thing for their Wang family. Pigs are most afraid of being fat; the fatter they are, the faster they die. The "Gong Party" plus Songjiang Prefecture, this bridgehead for opening the sea, I fear there would be some idiots who would have thoughts they shouldn't have.

Zhu Yijun shook his head and said, "I don't like Yang Bo."

Yang Bo was a "Great Understander." He knew everything, and his judgment of people was also very accurate, but what he did was neither bright nor upright. Zhu Yijun did not like Yang Bo. He had said it more than once. Of course, it was just not liking him. Yang Bo's posthumous title, official burial, and additional official titles, the posthumous honors were all there.

Then the matter was very simple and clear. Let Li Le replace Shen Shixing as the Songjiang Governor-General, and Shen Shixing return to the capital to be one of the Nine Ministers.

"Teacher, let Yang Junmin come to the capital. I will see his ability. The job of the Shun Tian Prefecture Assistant is not easy to do. If he can do it well, I will reuse him. Whether he is a 'Xunli' (capable official) or not, just put him on the fire rack and roast him, and you will know," Zhu Yijun thought for a while and gave Yang Junmin a chance, rather than completely denying him.

The position of Shun Tian Prefecture Assistant, put him up to try. If he is a capable official, reuse him. If he is not easy to use, let Yang Junmin safely lead his father's legacy and be a rich man, and don't enter the officialdom again.

This place is not suitable for him. The Emperor does not like him, and he does not have much talent himself, so it is a dead end.

"Your subject obeys the decree," Zhang Juzheng bowed and accepted the order. Since the establishment of Songjiang Prefecture, it had been in the hands of the Zhang Dang. Especially recently, it had become the touchstone of the Senior Grand Secretary. This position should also be sat by other families. Eating alone, eating too much, is easy to attract hatred, but the Emperor obviously did not think so.

The Emperor still left this fat place to the Zhang Dang.

The Zhang Dang and the Emperor Party actually had no difference. The people of the Zhang Dang knew very well that Zhang Juzheng had no political successor. Xiong Tingbi's age was really too small to inherit the mantle. This stall of the Zhang Dang was essentially the Emperor Party, which was the auxiliary minister Zhang Juzheng cultivated for the Emperor.

"After this matter is determined, there will be basically no other major events before the New Year," Zhu Yijun said with a full face of smiles. "When the court is dismissed, Teacher, let the Ministry of Personnel distribute the 'Everything Goes Well' boxes. At the beginning of the month, there was joy in the palace. Consort Ran gave birth to a son, named Zhu Changji."

The birth of the fifth prince made the Tonghe Palace full of joy. In the fourteenth year of Wanli, in the fourth month, Consort Zhou had a pregnancy. Unexpectedly, Consort Zhou miscarried two months later. In the first month of the fifteenth year of Wanli, Consort Li gave birth prematurely, a child of only three jin, who died three days after birth.

This made everyone in and out of the palace terrified, and even Empress Dowager Li began to sincerely worship Buddha, cleaning the Buddhist pagoda every month, until Consort Ran gave birth to a big fat boy in the twelfth month of this year, seven jin and three liang, looking very strong at first glance, which swept away the gloom in the palace. After being carefully taken care of for several days, it was found that the child could eat and drink, and his body was very strong, so they began to distribute the "Everything Goes Well" boxes.

(Wanli Imperial Heir Table)

"Your subjects congratulate Your Majesty and the Great Ming." All the ministers heard such good news and immediately stood up to bow and congratulate the Emperor. The more imperial heirs the Great Ming had, the more conducive it was to the stability of the Great Ming Dynasty.

In fact, the Emperor had not given birth to any heirs for a period of time, which made the Great Ming court have some doubts. Four princes were really not many. Emperor Shizong had eight, but only the late Emperor survived. Zhang Juzheng had completely experienced the court turmoil brought about by the lack of heirs in the late Jiajing and Longqing periods.

Even if it was the drama of "thirteen dragons fighting for the throne," it was much better than the collateral branch entering the Great Ancestor. Emperor Wuzong had no children, which caused too many moths.

The birth of the fifth prince also made the ministers breathe a sigh of relief. Having one is better than having none. If the Emperor has no heirs, who will guarantee the afterlife and the afterlife name for fighting for the Emperor?

"Your Majesty, should we take two more concubines? Empress Dowager Li has issued decrees many times," Minister of Rites Shen Li stood up and bowed.

"No, wait until the army triumphs. The soldiers are fighting outside, and I am taking concubines in the back. If the soldiers know, they will think that 'soldiers are half-dead before the battle, and beauties are still singing and dancing under the tent'." Zhu Yijun waved his hand, still not allowing this matter. It was the Great Ming's old tradition.

In fact, the Great Ming soldiers would not say so. If the military pay and rewards were enough, who would care how many concubines the Emperor took?

"Your subject obeys the decree." Shen Li was somewhat helpless. The biggest resistance to taking concubines was actually that the Emperor and the Empress were in harmony and loved each other, and their feelings were very good, which caused huge resistance to taking concubines. The Emperor did not have that mind.

"Your Majesty, recently, 'Leisurely Anecdotes' published another article, called 'New Interpretation of Scholar, Farmer, Artisan, and Merchant'." Zhang Juzheng took out a miscellaneous report and presented it to the Imperial Front.

Young Master Huang was the major shareholder of "Leisurely Anecdotes." Every article in it was personally reviewed by the Emperor, but the Emperor wanted to play Young Master Huang, so Zhang Juzheng could not point it out. When it was time to cooperate with the acting, he could not turn a blind eye.

Watching the excitement was one of the few interests of Young Master Huang.

Zhu Yijun flipped through the miscellaneous reports and let the ministers see it before saying, "Li Zhi is indeed worthy of his title of 'Madman'."

Zhang Juzheng dared not say what he dared not say. When Zhang Juzheng compiled the "Class Theory," he took the Emperor out separately as a separate class. He thought this was reasonable.

But Zhu Yijun thought this was unreasonable, because the Emperor was a hereditary official class, and there was no special and detached nature of "I am different from the ordinary."

The Great Ming Emperor also had to fight with the court ministers, and sometimes when they tore each other, it was also very ugly. From Li Shanzhang in the Hongwu period to the Great Ritual Controversy in the Jiajing period, it was essentially a struggle between imperial power and ministerial power.

The Emperor's supremacy was only theoretical.

But Zhang Juzheng could not say so. He was regent before, and classifying the Emperor into the hereditary official class easily made people think that Zhang Juzheng's thinking had problems and wanted to replace him. No matter how others divided it, in Zhang Juzheng's place, the Emperor was the only one.

But Li Zhi, in the "New Interpretation of Scholar, Farmer, Artisan, and Merchant," was very bold and compiled the Emperor into the collective of "Scholar."

The definition of "Scholar" had not changed from ancient times to the present, that is, the ruling class, which could be subdivided into the Emperor, hereditary officials, selected officials, scholar-officials, etc. Although these people's identities changed, they had controlled power from ancient times to the present and mastered the fate of the myriad people in the world. The rise and fall of the dynasty were closely related to them;

"Farmer," in the previous explanation, represented farmers, but in Li Zhi's new interpretation, "Farmer" was defined as land and means of production.

Li Zhi believed that this collective of "Farmer," after the bankruptcy of aristocratic politics—that is, starting from the Song Dynasty—specifically referred to landlords, not farmers. Only those who owned land were farmers. Those without land were tenants, were "mang" (commoners), were drifters, and were not farmers at all.

When the Great Ming transformed from a small-scale peasant economy to a commodity economy, the definition of land expanded to means of production and production tools in a broad sense.

Only by owning the means of production can one be called a farmer.

"Artisan," the craftsmen of manual technical personnel. This definition, with the formation of the commodity economy, began to become narrow and could no longer explain social phenomena.

People who master a certain technology can be called "Artisan." Those accountants who were locked in the Dongjiaomin Lane prison, this kind of professional technical talent, the physics doctors in the Royal Institute of Technology, were also "Artisan," and agricultural PhDs were also "Artisan."

Skilled craftsmen were also "Artisan." Unskilled craftsmen were not "Artisan," but "mang" and "drifters," who went wherever there was work.

"Merchant," from ancient times to the present, had been a derogatory term. In the era of the commodity economy, "Merchant" was still a derogatory term. The definition of "Merchant" from ancient times to the present was people who did not engage in production and specifically bought low and sold high to earn the difference, not wealthy merchants.

Wealthy merchants mastered a large amount of means of production and were not merchants at all, but farmers like the local gentry.

Merchants were those who relied on glib tongues to buy and sell, hoard goods, and even hoard prohibited commodities like grain and salt. This kind was "Merchant."

"This article of his expands the scholar, farmer, artisan, and merchant to the scope of the commodity economy. In fact, this arrangement has never changed. Those who have no means of production, unskilled craftsmen, tenants, drifters, commoners, and laborers who work by strength are not in the ranks of scholar, farmer, artisan, and merchant," Zhu Yijun said with great emotion after seeing the ministers finish reading the miscellaneous reports.

Buying and selling, hoarding goods, also required costs. You at least had to have silver. If you didn't have silver, you didn't even have the capital to buy and sell.

Skilled craftsmen and unskilled craftsmen were worlds apart. Skilled craftsmen could obtain a relatively decent life by relying on their own rich experience, while unskilled craftsmen should be called laborers. Craftsmen were truly too misleading.

Poor people who only exerted strength, I fear that after a lifetime of exertion, they would not be able to accumulate enough experience to become skilled craftsmen.

"Your Majesty, why not seal it? It's the New Year, adding blockage to people," Zhang Juzheng said helplessly.

Li Zhi spoke very correctly. He explained the new scholar, farmer, artisan, and merchant under the commodity economy, and explained it very reasonably. But whether it was the old or the new, it seemed that there was no place for tenants, drifters, commoners, and laborers.

How ironic this is.

"It has already been published, so let it be," Zhu Yijun did not intend to seal it. ===== CHAPTER 848 =====

The wealthy merchants and tycoons controlled a large amount of the means of production; they were not merchants at all, but farmers just like the local gentry.

Merchants were those who relied on glib tongues to buy low and sell high, hoarding goods for speculation, and even hoarding goods strictly prohibited by law like grain and salt; these were the true merchants.

"This article of his extends the 'scholar, farmer, artisan, merchant' to the scope of commodity economy. In fact, this arrangement has never changed. Those without means of production, unskilled artisans, and the tenant farmers, vagrants, drifters, and laborers who rely on physical strength to work are not included in this 'scholar, farmer, artisan, merchant' category." Zhu Yijun looked at the ministers who had finished reading the *Za Bao* and said with great emotion.

Buying low and selling high, hoarding goods for speculation—these also require costs. At the very least, you must have silver; if you don't have silver, you don't even have the capital to buy low and sell high.

Skilled artisans and unskilled artisans are worlds apart. Skilled artisans rely on their own rich experience to obtain a relatively decent life, while unskilled artisans should be called laborers; the term "artisan" is truly too misleading.

Poor people and laborers who only exert physical strength—I fear that even after a lifetime of exertion, they will never accumulate enough experience to become skilled artisans.

"Your Majesty, why not seal it off? It's the New Year, and it's just adding to people's annoyance." Zhang Juzheng said with a helpless expression.

Li Zhi spoke very correctly; he explained the new "scholar, farmer, artisan, merchant" under the commodity economy, and he explained it very reasonably. But whether it was the old one or the new one, it seemed there was no place for these poor people and laborers—the tenants, drifters, vagrants, and laborers.

How ironic this is.

"It has already been published, so let it be." Zhu Yijun had no intention of banning it.