After talking about the definition, Yang Rui continued to brag about the role of economics: "Although economics is not as intuitive as scrutiny and chemistry, it is also a very important science. At this point, it can also be said to have the role of promoting the country and saving the world. I will give two examples here and you will understand."

Yang Rui paused, and then sang everyone's appetite and said, "The first example I gave was the demise of the Ming Dynasty." As soon as this said, the following was even more chaotic. This example was too exciting. In the hearts of these vague anti-Qing and Manchu students, the demise of the Ming Dynasty was a very regrettable thing. Yang Rui was very bachelor. He asked the students what they thought were the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, and then wrote the answer on the blackboard. The students believed that it was nothing more than corruption by officials, stupid ministers, and rebels and chaos, etc. As for the reason for the Qing Dynasty, no one dared to say it, but he must have regarded it as a major reason in his heart.

Yang Rui drew these reasons in chalk and made a fork. He said solemnly: "The reasons you mentioned are all appearances. The reason why the Ming Dynasty really perished was that the economy was not good, and it was destroyed because it had no money. Why do you say that? Let me first look at a set of data." Yang Rui wrote it on the blackboard according to the data compiled last night - in fact, it was seen on a forum, and he felt that it made sense to download it. "This is the income and expenditure of the Ming government," he wrote the data, and pointed to the first line of data and said: "This is the income and expenditure of the government during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty.

The situation is that the annual overspending amount is half of the annual income. After this situation continued to the Shenzong stage, the situation began to improve, and there was a surplus every year. However, this situation changed again in the tenth year of Wanli, and the government began to overspending every year. Of course, the degree of overspending was not as high as before. It was about 500,000 taels of silver per year. What was the result of such overspending until the first year of Chongzhen? The nearly ten million taels of silver that the Shenzong had accumulated had been used up and a large amount of military pay was owed. For example, the Shaanxi border army had lost more than 30 months."

Yang Rui paused for a while and let everyone see the data. After waiting for a while, he continued: "After reading the data, everyone will have questions. I will explain first why the Shenzong period began to turn losses into profits. It was because the tax law was changed. Zhang Juzheng practiced the one-whip method, and at the same time saved unnecessary expenses. Why did the Wanli period start to lose money again? Although Zhang Juzheng resigned, the one-whip method continued to be implemented. The main reason for the deficit is the three major levies in Wanli. War always costs money, and it costs a lot of money.

After Zhen took office, he also wanted to work hard to govern. He came up to kill Wei Zhongxian. According to some classmates, since the treacherous ministers were gone, the world should be governed, but the actual situation was still not rich. At this time, a minister suggested to Chongzhen that the post station could be abolished, so that he could save 10,000 taels of silver every year. Chongzhen agreed that it was reasonable, so he agreed. So a group of post station personnel were laid off and all went home. Do you know who among these people who were laid off? Li Hongji, that is, Li Zicheng."

There was another uproar below. Yang Rui was very satisfied with the effect and smiled and continued: "Of course, I can't think that because of the abolition of Li Zicheng, he later entered Beijing and destroyed the Ming Dynasty. There were many reasons for the rebellion in Shaanxi. Natural disasters were the most important reasons, but why were natural disasters so frequent during the Chongzhen period?"

Yang Rui wrote two words on the blackboard, saying: "What does the ice age mean? It is the period when the entire earth is covered with ice. This research was proposed by the Swiss Agassi - his name is very long. I use the abbreviation here. It was around 1840, during the Xianfeng period. Later, someone suggested that the earth had experienced four ice ages. The scientific community also recognized this statement, and there is also certain evidence, such as the veins of many rocks are tilted, which caused the rock to tilt.

The consistency of the oblique is because there are glaciers moving on it. When the earth is completely covered by ice, it is generally called the Great Ice Age, but when the earth is not completely covered by ice, it is just the temperature drop. It is generally called the Little Ice Age. The most recent Little Ice Age was from the 13th to the mid-17th century, and it was the coldest between 1619 and 1650, and the temperature ranked first in a thousand years. Under such climatic conditions, the temperature in China is abnormal and disasters continue. According to local chronicles, heavy snow began to fall in Guangdong and Guangxi."

Speaking of this, Yang Rui wrote on the blackboard 1618-1648, saying: "In addition to natural disasters, there is another reason that has also aggravated the economic problems of the Ming government. This is the 30 Years of War in Europe. We don't care why Europe is fighting. As long as we know that the war has affected the entire Europe, it will be fine after 30 years. What we need to know is that the tea, silk, porcelain, etc. of the Ming Dynasty have always been best-selling in Europe. Porcelain, silk, and silk are brought to Europe one by one, and Europe has shipped silver into the Ming Dynasty. But now in Europe, in addition to fighting wars,

In addition, in 1636, the collapse of the Dutch tulip market triggered an economic crisis that affected the entire Europe and caused currency tightening. At the same time, in 1639, the Japan Tokugawa shogunate issued the fifth "Country Locking Order" to prohibit gold and silver from flowing to China. That is to say, silver in the world no longer flows to China, causing China's prices to rise. Many merchants took the opportunity to stock silver when they saw the price increase. These reasons eventually led to a crisis of currency circulation, resulting in food but no money to buy it. This is the second reason that aggravates the economic problems of the Ming government."

Speaking of this, Yang Rui and other students digested what he said, took out a teacup from his bag, and drank a sip of tea. It seemed that everyone was focused and did not go away, and they were very satisfied. Then they continued: "I had no money because of overspending and war, and then there were constant natural disasters. Natural disasters either needed to provide relief or to suppress rebellion, which made the court even more poor. This was not enough. In the end, even the Europeans and Japanese who sent ships of silver to the Ming Dynasty every year were not here. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty's finances collapsed, and in the end they could not control the rebellion and perished."

"So, the economy is the basis for the good operation of the entire country. If the economy is not smooth, civil unrest will continue." Yang Rui concluded: "What is economics' role? It can adjust the investment and consumption of the entire society. For example, rice in Shanghai is very expensive, merchants will transport rice. When the rice reaches a certain level, the rice price will fall. Until the merchants lose money, no one will transport rice again. The rice price will stabilize. This process is like an invisible hand commanding. So some people call the economic law an invisible hand. Economics is the science of studying the invisible hand."
Chapter completed!