I want to be emperor

Chapter 288
Huang Chengxuan's proposal to mint coins to raise funds is not empty talk, but a proposal after careful consideration.

And Luo Zhixue also expressed approval to his proposal.

In fact, last year Luo Zhixue instructed Huang Chengxuan to investigate and study the currency system and prepare for the issuance of the imperial currency.

At that time, Luo Zhixue also mentioned that part of the funds could also be raised through the issuance of new currencies.

Because in the process of issuing currency, no matter whether it is copper coin, silver coin or gold coin, it is impossible to adopt the method of pure copper, pure silver or pure gold, and other parts of metal must be added to reduce the cost and increase the anti-wear performance of the currency, etc. .

In other words, a copper coin with a face value of one penny contains less than one penny of copper.

The difference in copper content here is the main income of minting coins.

This time, Huang Chengxuan also explained in the same way: "Gold, silver and copper coins are widely used in the empire-controlled area. Among gold and silver, gold is too precious. It is mainly used for bulk transactions and does not circulate on a large scale. The main circulation is still silver. And the silver is mainly various irregular pieces of silver, and all kinds of silver ingots are rarely circulated in the market on a large scale because of their relatively large amount.”

"We can use the newly launched large-scale hydraulic press from the Ministry of Industry as casting equipment to cast a kind of exquisite silver coins with uniform specifications and denominations ranging from one coin to one tael to replace the current large amount of broken silver as widely circulated currency. "

"At the same time, we can also use the copper coins minted by the same machine as the main auxiliary coins to replace the various complicated copper coins now."

"During this process, if we take proper measures, it is estimated that the profit from minting coins will not be too small. It is predicted that the profit will be more than 20 taels a month. After a year, the profit should be about 250 million taels."

Huang Chengxuan also took out a small wooden box: "This is the first batch of model currency minted by our finance department. Please have a look at it, Your Majesty."

After finishing speaking, Huang Chengxuan sent the sample currency to Luo Zhixue, who took it over and looked at it.

I saw ten coins of different sizes lying in the wooden box, one of which was a gold coin, four were silver coins, and four were copper coins. These coins were different from traditional copper coins in that there was no hole in the middle.

Luo Zhixue picked up the gold coin with the largest denomination among them. In the middle of the front of the gold coin, there was the word "one tael" and dragon patterns wrapped around it.

Looking from the back, in the middle of the north is the words "Great Chu Empire", and on the top is the words "Made in the second year of Chengshun by the Ministry of Finance of Great Chu"

The edge of the gold coin also has a pattern, which is to prevent someone from cutting chips on the edge of the gold coin for profit.

The pattern of silver coins is also dominated by dragon patterns, while for copper coins, in order to control costs, the patterns are omitted, and the words "Chengshun Tongbao" are written on the back.

The face value, typeface, and size are not surprising. In fact, last year Luo Zhixue had already seen and selected the final version among multiple versions.

Face value, the new coins will use gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins that match each other.

The gold coin only has a denomination of one tael and weighs 37 grams. It is unlikely that this gold coin will be circulated in the market on a large scale in time, because the value is too high, and there is a high probability that it will only be used as a reserve or large-scale transactions.

Silver coins have a denomination of one or two, five, two, or one. The weight of one or two silver coins is 37 grams, and the silver content is nine silver and one copper.

The silver coins of five qian, two qian, and one qian are all silver seven copper three.

Copper coins have five denominations of [-] Wen, [-] Wen, [-] Wen, [-] Wen, and [-] Wen, with copper as the main material.

This division of face value still continues the traditional currency units of two-qian-wen, and the copper content of copper coins is formulated. In order to match with silver coins, one tael of silver is equal to one thousand Wen Chengshun Tongbao copper coins. Proportion.

The formulation of this ratio is also to end the current situation in which the various copper coins in the folks have different copper contents, which leads to the confusion of the entire exchange system.

Now under the control of the Great Chu Empire, there are all kinds of messy copper coins, and the copper content, size, and weight of these copper coins are not the same, so that the entire trading system is very troublesome.

And Luo Zhixue hopes to end this chaos of copper coins through a copper coin that is exquisitely made, difficult to imitate and wear, and lay the foundation for the next real currency reform.

So in this new set of currency, in fact, Luo Zhixue's most important copper coin, which seems to have a small face value, is a secondary coin.

Especially the newly picked up copper coin with a denomination of one penny in his hand now.

This copper coin can be seen at a glance that it is cast by machinery, and it is also directly die-cast by a large-scale machine. The entire copper coin looks smooth, even shiny, and the pattern is very clear.

This is not only true for this copper coin, but also for other silver coins with a face value of five coins, two coins, and one coin, as well as four copper coins with a face value of two, five, and ten coins.

The new coins made by the Great Chu Empire are very typical industrial products, which are naturally different from hand-cast coins.

Leaving aside the silver content and copper content for the time being, it is only said that this craftsmanship is not comparable to that of old copper coins.

If the copper content and silver content are not too wide, then it is relatively easy to get the approval of the public.

Good things, everyone will not refuse.

Luo Zhixue continued to play with these silver coins in his hands, and said at the same time: "The casting of this coin is not bad, and the appearance is good, but I think the craftsmanship is good, will the processing cost be relatively high? What about the production capacity?"

Huang Cheng declared: "Your Majesty, my finance department has already conducted preliminary negotiations with the Ministry of Industry, and entrusted several machinery factories under the Ministry of Industry to build several sets of mechanical equipment for coin minting for us. These equipment use hydraulic power as the power. , once it is really started, the output will be very high, and it will also be able to effectively reduce the cost per piece.”

"If His Majesty approves, the Hanyang Mint under our Ministry of Finance will be able to officially operate, and we will be able to start issuing new currency on a large scale next month."

Luo Zhixue said: "Since this is the case, let's go ahead and mint and issue new coins as soon as possible!"

After thinking for a while, he said again: "The issuance of the new currency will start with the payment of official salaries, and promote its use in tax collection!"

"In the future, we must recycle all kinds of gold, silver and old copper coins from the people as much as possible, and replace them with new currencies!"

"In order to cooperate with the issuance of currency and the recovery of gold, silver and copper coins, the Ministry of Finance is planning to deploy manpower to set up an official bank to facilitate deposit, withdrawal and exchange."

"Implement strong supervision on financial institutions such as banks and banks in the private sector, formulate relevant financial policies, guide private financial institutions to standardize experience, control risks, and prevent them from absconding with money or blindly lending to cause unfavorable business bankruptcy, and then cause social unrest."

"Continuing to issue orders, it is completely forbidden to privately make copper coins and silver coins, and offenders will be severely punished."

"I will ask the Court of Justice to formulate relevant laws and regulations immediately."

The integration of the financial system is not something that can be accomplished with just a few words. Luo Zhixue is only planning to give an introduction today. If it is really implemented, the Department of Justice and the Ministry of Finance must conduct extensive research first, and then formulate relevant regulations. Only after the policies and laws are established can they be truly implemented.

Well, it's still early, and it would be nice to be able to issue the new currency first.

After finalizing the issue of the new currency and using this opportunity to make money to enrich the finances, Luo Zhixue and others did not stop the meeting, and continued to discuss several other matters of raising funds.

For example, the Ministry of Taxation proposed to further strengthen indirect taxation, reduce direct taxation, reduce tax burden for small businesses, and effectively increase taxation.

Raising taxes while lightening the burden on small businesses may sound like a contradiction, but it really isn't.

Because the wool will always come from the sheep, it is also possible for the Great Chu Empire to cut taxes for small merchants while finding big merchants or increasing taxes in the upstream circulation of commodities.

Now the people in the tax department have a lot of experience in taxation. They think that collecting taxes is taking money out of other people's pockets.

Except for the tax rate of agricultural tax, which needs to be directly oriented to the public, they believe that other types of taxes can be collected in the middle and upstream links, and the downstream channels will not care about him...

The cost of tax collection in the downstream channels is too high and difficult, and it is easy to cause a backlash from the public. It is better to abandon the downstream and directly increase taxes in the middle and upper reaches...

This is an indirect tax.

How should I put it, taking the textile industry that is currently being vigorously supported and cultivated in the Great Chu Empire as an example, the tax department will collect taxes on almost all the links in which enterprises participate in the textile industry, such as raw materials, processing, transportation, and channel sales.

But when it comes to the final retail link, it seems that there are sales tax and other taxes for retail stores, but in fact it is superficial. Almost all small street shops will not honestly report their real sales and pay taxes.

However, it is very difficult to tax such small shops, because the tax department does not have enough manpower and material resources to conduct comprehensive supervision on such a massive retail industry.

Not to mention the ancient times in the seventeenth century, even in modern countries in the 21st century, almost all countries are unable to supervise and collect taxes on petty cash transactions.

In response to this problem, the Taxation Department of the Great Chu Empire simply collected taxes from the downstream directly at the middle and upper reaches...

After all, it is unrealistic to collect taxes from ordinary retailers, but it is much easier to collect taxes from factories.

This is the real reason proposed by the Ministry of Taxation to strengthen indirect taxation and reduce the burden on small businesses.

According to the plan submitted by the Ministry of Taxation, they estimate that after adopting a series of new measures, the amount of industrial and commercial tax will increase by about [-] percentage points on the basis of the existing industrial and commercial tax.

To put it bluntly, it is a tax increase...

However, ordinary people are unlikely to notice the tax increase of the Great Chu Empire this time.

After all, the Taxation Department will never raise taxes in retail terminals or for individuals, and will not even announce it on a large scale to the outside world. Even if it is announced, it will only announce and publicize the tax reduction and exemption policy for small businesses...

The feeling of ordinary people is that the prices of some daily necessities, such as cloth, may have risen a little bit.

And there is a high probability that those merchants will think that those merchants are too black-hearted and want money to raise prices...

When Chen Xingkai from the tax department proposed to strengthen indirect taxation, he said triumphantly: "This move will not only increase the taxation of the empire by millions, but it will not cause public backlash, nor will it affect people's livelihood..."

At this time, Guo Quanshu, Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, looked at the triumphant Chen Xingkai, and sighed in his heart: "Compared with your tax department, the hypocritical taxation is like a child's play, and it is not worth mentioning! "

(End of this chapter)