"my country has always divided the people into scholars, farmers, industry and commerce, and scholars are the people who are officials and academically employed, and have the highest status. The interests of farmers are the most valued, while industry and commerce are ranked at the end, and merchants have always been discriminated against. Merchants and business seem to be useless. Since ancient times, famous scholars have criticized merchants with the argument of valuing agriculture and suppressing commerce. Is business really useless?" Wu Yun asked.

Chen Fei began to think about it, and then said: "Business is not useless, but at least it can protect our land of China from being divided."

"Oh?" Wu Yun asked curiously.

"I once said that I had pursued the so-called peace in which small countries have few people, chickens and dogs have heard each other, and never interact with each other. However, the world is so big, and the property differences in various places are very huge. In this way, it has always been so small countries have few people. If everyone does not communicate with each other, then they will not be able to survive in the end. Only business exchanges can make everyone unite and avoid division. Commerce is the basis for maintaining unity of a big country. If there is no business as a bond, then the cause and effect of division will sooner or later be planted."

"Only commercial development can the whole country be closely linked, so that war can be truly curbed. Only by allowing the people from all over the world to depend on each other's products can the people be truly united and not survive self-sufficiently. In this way, the people will truly gather in order to survive."

After hearing Chen Fei's words, Wu Yun could not help but nodded because what Chen Fei said made sense. In Chen Fei's words, it was simply useless to criticize my proposal to not interact with each other when the small country was a small country and the people who died of old age. After all, if we really don't need to rely on each other to survive, this would be the real outcome of the country's division and the outbreak of the war.

If Chen Fei looked at the economic theory of later generations, the reason why ancient countries were divided was largely caused by the self-sufficiency model. In ancient times, self-sufficiency was emphasized rather than requiring various material support from others. This also caused the country to operate well after leaving any province, and the economy and people in other places would not suffer losses. However, this allowed those local forces to split the country without any scruples, because they did not need to rely on other provinces, because they could survive.

However, in the era when the commodity economy was developed enough in later generations, human needs were far more than food. There were countless demands in various life, and this was the only way to connect the whole country through the commodity economy. Just like the country needed coal in later generations, and Shanxi, which was rich in coal, was pulled into this economic circle. Shanxi also needed other materials, so that the whole country could maintain unity under mutual involvement. This is why the commodity economy in later generations was developed, but countries were not easily divided and disintegrated. The political basis is the economy, and the economic foundation determines the superstructure, so Chen Fei did not think that commerce should be suppressed. Only when the commodity economy of commerce develops can the country be truly maintained.

"Mr. Chen, do you think business can take on such a great responsibility?" Wu Yun asked curiously.

"Since ancient times, no farming is unstable and no business cannot survive. Commerce is an industry that meets the needs of the people and cannot be eliminated casually. The bigger the country, the more business is needed. And the more developed the business, so that the country can maintain stability. The so-called suppression of commerce is just the honor of the scholars and officials in order to maintain their independent values ​​and their identity!" Chen Fei said.

Of course, Chen Fei would not say that East and West have actually discriminated against merchants for a while. Foreign discriminated against merchants because they wanted to maintain the so-called status and independent values ​​of the aristocrats. This is not the case with Chinese literati and doctors. Because they need to maintain the independence of their own values, they will suppress the development of business. But all this is futile, because in ancient China, the government's suppression of business was actually very weak.

During the Han Dynasty, merchants were restricted from wearing various clothes, but many people thought this was a suppression of merchants. But isn’t this the government’s helplessness towards the power of merchants? They could not suppress business, so they could only make money on clothes to comfort themselves. Could it be that merchants would not make money because they were restricted from clothing and residences and various rules on life, so they would not make money and develop?

According to Chen Fei's understanding, they were all big landlords, or spokespersons of the interests of the landlord class. The emperor was the biggest landlord, and the emperor exploited the people through the state machine of the state government, and this was the behavior of the landlords. The merchants and they were not people from the same class, and merchants made profits through material exchange, so they were not the same class.

The reason for suppressing commerce in ancient times was that as the government of the landlord class, they did not want the people to move. They hoped that the people could stay on the land and then plant land to give them enough interests to exploit. If the people pursue commerce, then no one would help the land of the landlord class, and as the largest landlord emperor and senior officials would have no profit. In order to protect their rights of income, the emperor and the high-ranking officials naturally found ways to suppress commerce, so that the interests of the landlord class could be safeguarded.

"Mr. Chen, how do you think business can truly develop? That is, the government will not suppress business?" Wu Yun asked curiously.

Chen Fei said firmly: "It's nothing more, it's just about improving productivity!"

Wu Yun didn't know whether Chen Fei could solve the problem of business, and the suppression of ancient commerce was already an indisputable fact in ancient times. Although it was not possible to completely eliminate business in ancient times, it was an indisputable fact that the ruling class did not support business. However, business was not eliminated because the people really needed the circulation of materials, so business could be preserved. No matter how the government suppressed merchants, it did not disappear.
Chapter completed!