It turns out that the history of usury is as long as five thousand years.

In fact, usury is not as terrible as we thought. Actually, usury is just a business. It's just that its user group happens to be poor people with poor credit and high risk of bad debts.

As a business, the history of usury may be the same as that of China's civilization, lasting for thousands of years. Or it can be said that from the day when Chinese civilization appeared, the usury business was opened.

Yan Di Huangdi period

Do you think this is profiteering? Don't fantasize. Let's relax, travel through time and space with Rong Xiaomei and return to the source of Chinese civilization, where Yandi Huangdi is. The same tribe, why can the Yellow Emperor manage the tribe so strongly?

The important reason is that business is not deceptive. At that time, the Central Plains region had begun a preliminary commodity exchange, but the tribes under the management of the Yellow Emperor did not do business in cheat people, which was regarded as the greatest virtue. With fame, more and more people followed, so the tribe became stronger and stronger.

When we get to Dayu, yes, that's the water controller. Due to perennial disasters, many people suffer from famine, and there is no loan at this time. Those who can't survive have only one way to solve the survival crisis caused by poor capital turnover: selling children for food.

How did Dayu win the hearts of the people? Mining copper mines and casting copper coins to help these suffering people redeem their children. What's this called? This may be the first time in China's history that management injected liquidity into the market to solve the disaster. This is the same as this year's government bailout.

Have you noticed that Dayu used his own money to do something to help others tide over the difficulties? This means that the non-trading currency relationship between people has occurred. Although the money borrowed by Dayu does not need to be returned here, it means that it is possible to do your own thing with other people's money under certain conditions. This behavior is called borrowing.

Here, you can actually correct the name of usury. In fact, the interest level is not important. This in itself is a kind of lending behavior. One is willing to fight, and the other is willing to suffer. Those who can borrow usury are generally desperate. Putting all your eggs in one basket means high risk of bad debts. With so much risk and so low interest, which rich man will do it? This is just market behavior.

Zhou dynasty

Do you think only poor diaosi will be chased? Even the emperor can't escape paying debts. It is said that after the invention of money, lending naturally appeared.

Zhou Nanwang was the last son of heaven in the Zhou Dynasty. Since he came to power, he has been harassed by the State of Qin. At this time, Chu asked him to form an alliance and jointly attack Qin. Zhou Xin believed it, and soon formed an army of thousands of people, but the national treasury was too poor to fight at all. What shall we do? Borrow! So Zhou borrowed money from some local tyrants in China and agreed to repay the principal and interest with the spoils when he won the battle.

As a result, I lost anyway.

That's great. Local tyrants in China pull banners to collect debts at the gate of the palace of the Emperor of Zhou every day. The emperor was forced to climb to a high platform in the palace to hide his debts. Later people called this platform a debt collection platform.

Debt-ridden, that's how this idiom comes from. Therefore, Zhou Nanwang was the first son of heaven who was tortured by usury.

After reading this, you may have an illusion. Is it stealing the concept and calling lending usury? No, or our ancestors were very clever. As early as the Zhou Dynasty, there was a mature national lending system with low interest or even interest-free. For example, when the sacrifice borrowed money from the government, it was interest-free for ten days. Funeral, interest-free for three months. At that time, the management thought it was a daily rigid consumption expenditure, so no interest was charged.

If it is used for commercial loans, it will charge corresponding low interest according to the purpose. For example, the Zhou Dynasty had five policies to govern the country, one of which was "fake agricultural loans", that is, loans to farmers to cultivate land. Like today's policies on agriculture, countryside and farmers, they all belong to special care policies.

the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period

Buying people's hearts with interest-free loans was also a key means for many governors in the Spring and Autumn Period, including some ambitious people. For example, Jin Wengong, the second overlord of the Five Overlords in the Spring and Autumn Period, went into exile in his early years 19, and later returned to China to kill Duke Huai of Jin, and succeeded in taking the upper position. The first thing to do after taking office is to grant amnesty to the whole world.

What is pardoned here is not the prisoners in the prison, but a loan owed by all Jin people to the government. This move directly won everyone's heart. Later, it was natural that Jin became the five tyrants in the Spring and Autumn Period.

Since there are low-interest loans led by the state, what is the situation of private usury? How much is the interest? Who is lending and who is borrowing?

Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the common usury varieties are called "double loans". As the name implies, the annualized interest is 100%. In other words, borrow it for one year and pay it back twice. Who is borrowing money? Rich officials or big families, of course. For example, everyone is familiar with Meng Changjun of Qi.

With so many guests in Meng Changjun, where does the money come from? A large part of it comes from usury. It is said that he can collect100000 yuan a fief just by collecting interest a year. Borrowers, of course, are poor and middle peasants. On the one hand, they have no land to rent, on the other hand, they need to survive but have no stable source of income.

Combating usury is not only now, but also since ancient times. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Luan Huanzi, a doctor of the State of Jin, was an outstanding general. However, it is because of usury that the reputation has been tarnished. Thus, this period of history was written into China's first national history book, Guoyu. So this guy may be the first unlucky guy in history to be recorded for usury.

Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-25AD)

By the Western Han Dynasty, the usury business was more developed. At that time, Chang 'an formed a loan market. At that time, the usurer was called Zi Qian, and the loan business was called Zi Qian's family.

It is said that their annual interest at this time is as high as 10 times, which is not usury, but a huge interest loan. At this time, the usury business was not only for the poor, but also directly for the government.

Due to the unstable government and frequent wars at that time, during the reign of the fourth emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty, there was a rebellion in Wu Chu. Emperor Jing wanted to send troops, but he had no money, so he went to Qian's house to borrow money. As a result, everyone looked at the aging Liu family and refused to borrow money.

Only a local tyrant named Wuyan lent his daughter to Emperor Han Jingdi. Unexpectedly, Emperor Han Jing put down the rebellion in three months and returned several times as much money as Wuyan with interest. Through this transaction, Wuyan's family suddenly became a rich man in Guanzhong.

Later, the Western Han government felt exhausted and had to manage this private lending market. So the government set an interest ceiling, which is called law. There is no way to verify exactly how much. However, at that time, the government also did a lot to protect private lending.

For example, a Hou in Heyang was robbed because he owed money to others for six months. There is also a Lingxiang Hou, who is also exempt from waiting because usury exceeds the official maximum interest rate.

It is also the invention of our ancestors for usurers to find powerful people as umbrellas. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, many nobles undertook the task of helping money lenders collect accounts. They use the power of the government to collect accounts and then collect a share from them.

In Han Shu's original words, "According to their rights, ordinary people should not dare to bear the burden of lending to the county." Therefore, the set we are playing today has long been broken by our ancestors.

Southern and Northern Dynasties

There are even more wonderful things. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, in addition to the prosperity of folk usury. Buddhism was very popular in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and emperors often took the lead in giving alms. Many temples are rich. At this time, the monks began to rely on Qian Shengqian and started the usury business.

It started as a pawn. An official named Chu Cheng went to the temple with eleven thousand yuan to redeem his brother's clothes there. Later, he began to lend publicly: in the Northern Qi Dynasty, there was a monk named Dao Yan, who was rich because he was a monk official. It is said that his loans are spread all over the region, and even the local government helps to collect accounts.

Later, this kind of pawn usury business in the temple even took a very nice name: Changshengku. Without saying that Buddhists are good at packaging, they can't live forever.

Tang Songyuan Ming and Qing Dynasties

Later, in the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. At this time, with the progress of commercial society, usury is more common. Today I'm talking about the origin of usury, and I won't elaborate on the relatively mature usury.

Let's look back. Why are there loan sharks? In ancient times, most borrowers were farmers. According to this analysis in "Governing the Country by Governing",

First, the economic characteristics of farmers are "less than a month, more than a year", and there are often cases where there is no bumper harvest but money is urgently needed.

Secondly, the busy farming season can't be delayed. If there was not enough rain at that time, people needed to be hired to fight drought.

Third, there is too much food at harvest time, so it can only be sold at a low price.

Fourth, the tax corvee expenditure is too heavy.

In fact, to put it bluntly, in the social environment at that time, when encountering natural disasters and man-made disasters, we had to rely on usury, and usury was a pit. Once we jump into the water, it is difficult to climb out.

abstract

In essence, usury can only be used for short-term turnover, but not for daily use. Regardless of ancient and modern times, whenever usury is regarded as daily consumption, then a vicious circle begins.

For example, the way that young people use cash withdrawal credit cards for daily consumption is a very wrong example. Today's discussion is mostly about usury in normal social order activities, which still belongs to market behavior, but more usury appears in abnormal scenes such as casinos and profligacy, and this behavior may be more. Similarly, I think this kind of loan case is by no means an invention of modern society.

Usury was born under the demand of taking advantage of the fish in troubled waters. It is this fire, the fire of social management and the fire of human greed that should be eliminated or radically cured.