Da Ming Tai Shi

Chapter 367
In Fengtian Hall, all the military generals in Beijing and the commanders of the provincial capitals gathered together.

The past two days can be regarded as meeting mountains and seas. Yesterday was the enlarged meeting of the Military and Political Yuan, and this morning was the Kyushu Meeting again. They didn't give Chen Yunfu a break, and the military opportunity followed.

But fortunately, this is the last meeting in the first year of Xihe.

"The capital divisions of all provinces have now completed the restructuring, and only Liaodong is missing. Benfu asked Wang Bi that Liaodong will also fully complete the restructuring in the middle of next year. Then, we can finalize the new military system."

"In the past, our Ming Dynasty's main military forces were divided into three types, the Beijing Battalion, the Frontier Army, and the Local Capital Division."

"The Beijing Camp is the 30 army outside Nanjing City. It is the army with the best fighting skills, the best equipment, and the highest salary in our country. It is nicknamed the Central Army and the Emperor's Army."

"The frontier troops are mainly concentrated in the Shaanxi-Gansu Xingdusi, Beipingdusi, Shandong Beiwa Army, Yunnan Dusi, and Monan Dongshengwei. The number is 29, [-], [-], and [-] respectively. .

There are too many guards in the local capital to count. The last audit by the Ministry of War was in the second year of Yongle. . "

"Now that the capital is abolished, the Beijing camp and the frontier army will also be merged. There will no longer be a distinction between the Beijing and the frontier. They are all Ming's troops and they will be treated equally."

"Each province retains one guard, that is, a garrison of 1 people. It is enough to be responsible for local emergency defense. The local chief executive has no right to mobilize. The armed forces will do it, and the provincial garrison will no longer assist.

In a word, without the order of the Military and Political Council, the local garrison will not care about anything except daily training! "

"The Northwest Frontier Defense Military Region was established in Lanzhou with a full strength of 20, and the Southwest Frontier Defense Military Region in Kunming was established with a full strength of [-] troops. The [-] troops will use special recruits and only recruit troops in the four provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Huguang."

"From Dengzhou, Shandong, Weihai to the south, passing through Shanghai County, Songjiang Prefecture, Ningbo Prefecture, Fuzhou Prefecture, and Quanzhou Prefecture, after this line, Xue Xian recruited people with good water quality along the coast to form our Daming Navy, with a full quota of 20. Coastal defense and going out to sea to wipe out Japanese pirates."

"Nanjing doesn't need to keep hundreds of thousands of troops anymore, 20 Gyeonggi troops are enough."

"Starting from Ningxia Guard in Helan Mountain from west to east, including the Hetao area, Dongsheng Guard, Kaiping Guard, and Shanhaiguan, this is the Northern Frontier Defense Army. This military region has the largest number of troops, 40, of which at least half of them are cavalry. At the same time, actively train troops and prepare for war.”

"After the Liaodong capital is completely restructured in the middle of next year, Liaodong will probably be able to form an elite army of 8 people, supplemented by the northern frontier defense force, to fight in North Korea."

Chen Yunfu waved his hand: "In this way, the full size of the new army will reach 110 million plus 17 garrison troops in 130 provinces, and the combined army will be [-] million."

An empire of 500 million has raised a regular army of 130 million.

Just ask God if he is afraid!
At this moment, Chen Yunfu has a kind of domineering look at He Xiongzai: "Benfu has made so many preparations in the past 16 years, changed and promulgated so many national policies, with only one goal, to do my best to make the country rich and the army strong!
Guochao has the ability to support this 130 million army. Benfu is confident that every soldier will be fed and clothed, and will receive full salary every month. Now, it is time for you to pay back to Benfu.

Raising soldiers for a thousand days and using them for a while, the entire Ming Dynasty will be the solid backing for everyone here to fight on the battlefield and make contributions, providing you with a steady stream of supplies, soldiers' salaries, and armaments. Now you tell Benfu, can you win the battle! "

130 regular troops out of production and trained only for war, followed by 500 civilians and continuously produced food and armaments. At this moment, all the generals felt an unprecedented confidence and pride.

Qi Shushu stood up, faced Chen Yunfu and lowered his waist.

"Please rest assured, grand master, the last general is waiting, but if there is a battle, every battle must be won!"

"Okay, very good."

Chen Yunfu nodded in satisfaction, looked at Lan Yu and Chang Mao, and ordered the latter's general.

"There are still two and a half months until spring begins. Now you can discuss with them the specific military deployment. The restructuring will not delay the war. Benfu is a layman in the military, so I won't stay here to hold you back and command blindly."

After speaking, he got up and strode away amidst the sound of sending off.

He doesn't need to stay here.

Because it makes no sense.

On the way, Yang Shiqi mentioned the doubt in his heart all the time, that is, what is a bank.

Chen Yunfu originally wanted to talk about the bank, but then he thought, where did the bank come from in the early Ming Dynasty.

Ancient banks were first born in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. Even though there was Jiaozi in the Song Dynasty, there had never been a bank.

If you want to talk about pawnshops, they have a long history. The key point is that the business of pawnshops and banks is far behind.

"Someone summoned him straight up and said it together."

Yan Zhenzhi came back to Nanjing from Zhejiang last month, and he is actually quite embarrassed now.

Although he has a title of walking in the Military and Political Academy on his head, he has never had a specific errand. It is very uncomfortable to have a title but no job.

Now that Chen Yunfu was summoned, he knew in his heart that the former must have some errand to hand over, so he hurriedly ran from home to Chen Yunfu's mansion to pay his respects.

"bank?"

Yan Zhen felt that his thoughts really couldn't keep up with Chen Yunfu's rhythm.

The grand master on the head of the world is really too capable of tossing around.

"Savings and lending, absorbing deposits to give depositors interest, lending out loans to collect interest, and banks earn the difference from it. In addition, banks also have the role of stabilizing the currency exchange system."

"The exchange of gold and silver, the exchange of silver and copper coins, inflation and deflation, the price of food, and the price of goods are all directly related to the bank."

Banks, can it still be related to the price of food and commodity prices?

"You are the head of the food industry, so you should understand."

Chen Yunfu gave a simple example: "If there is a large silver mine in Zhejiang, but it does not belong to the state, and this silver mine can produce 300 million taels of silver every year, what do you think will happen?"

Yan Zhen straightened up a little, and immediately took a deep breath.

"Then in Zhejiang, the exchange of silver and copper coins will collapse, and one tael of silver will no longer be exchanged for one thousand Wen."

"Copper coins have never been used as a currency unit for silver exchange, but an independent currency that can be circulated. In the process of country-society large-scale transactions, silver is the only transaction currency. In the amount of transactions, copper coins are needed.

Therefore, copper coins are not the auxiliary currency of silver, but an independent currency system.

Any policy promulgated by the state, whether it involves military or politics, needs to take into account the role of the economy. This is the national policy allocation. Therefore, if the imperial court wants the policy to be implemented smoothly, it must use policy allocation to ensure the silver currency and copper coins. There must be no fluctuations in the exchange system between currencies.

In other words, the imperial court must firmly control the currency.

This is where the Baoyuan Bureau and the Baochao Lifting Department come into being. The existence of the two of them is the yamen embodied in the deployment of national policies.

When the price of silver in a certain place is too high, a certain amount of precious banknotes will be released locally to suppress the price of silver, so as to stabilize the purchasing power of copper coins, the folk currency, from falling.

If the value of silver in a certain place is too low, the Baoyuan Bureau will mint a large amount of copper coins in that place to increase the value of silver and stabilize the bulk trade.

The role of the bank is to combine the responsibilities of these two yamen. You said, is the existence of the bank related to the fluctuation of food prices and commodity prices? "

Yan Zhen understood it straight away, and he nodded frequently to express his affirmation.

"The imperial court has resumed business for many years. It is impossible to use copper coins for large-scale trade between the north and the south, because it is too troublesome and consumes too much manpower. Therefore, gold and silver have become the main currency of the economy, and the more dexterous and convenient than gold and silver are naturally precious notes.

In recent years, the depreciation of the treasure banknotes has been very serious, and the discount is only [-]%. After the establishment of the Central Bank, your top priority when you take office is to restore the purchasing power of the treasure banknotes, so that the country's economy can bloom. "

Chen Yunfu took a sip of tea and looked at Yan Zhenzhi with anticipation in his eyes: "How to do it, do you have any ideas?"

Restore the purchasing power of treasure notes.

Yan Zhen thought for a while, and blurted out: "Settlement."

"How to settle."

"The settlement between the imperial court and the locality, assuming that the business tax and mining tax of a locality is 300 million taels, the imperial court allows it to use the treasure banknotes for settlement. When waiting for supplies, they also use treasure notes for settlement.

Support the common people to exchange copper coins for precious banknotes, step by step, change future taxation to precious banknotes for settlement, and end the existence value of copper coins as independent currencies.

In the future, banks will use gold and silver as reserves, and banknotes as the only settlement currency for commercial transactions and taxation transactions.

In this way, in the process of large-scale transactions, merchants will exchange their gold and silver into banknotes for convenience, and the commodity tax born in the process of commodity circulation can be settled with the court by using banknotes. Neither party in the transaction suffers, and gradually accepts the treasure banknote as the transaction currency, and uses settlement to restore the value of the treasure banknote. "

Chen Yunfu didn't show much approval, but asked first: "Then suppose a businessman suddenly needs 500 million taels of cash silver in a big transaction, and he comes to the bank with 500 million taels worth of treasure notes to make a deal?" Exchange, but the bank does not have so much silver reserves, and there is an exchange crisis, how to solve it."

Yan Zhenzhi was dumbfounded.

Paper money can be printed on a large scale, but gold and silver cannot be created out of thin air.

Exchange crisis is a kind of economic crisis.

"Because this bank can't get out 500 million taels of silver, it will inevitably lead to fluctuations in the exchange system between silver and banknotes. Originally, one tael of silver is equal to a thousand Wenbao banknotes. After the exchange crisis, merchants urgently need to cash out. Ten thousand taels, that is, 500 billion treasure banknotes were exchanged for 50 million taels into cash silver, and the exchange rate between the two changed from one to one thousand to one to one thousand two hundred and five.

After this process, the merchant lost billions of treasure notes, and the court even lost the credibility of the currency, and it is very likely that a series of bank runs will be issued, which will cause the value of the treasure notes to plummet, and the exchange system that was finally stabilized will collapse directly. All efforts are in vain. "

Chen Yunfu said step by step: "In the same way, if a businessman from Zhejiang came to do business in the barren Yunnan, he brought a full 1000 million taels of cash and exchanged it into 100 billion treasure notes, and he did business in Yunnan. After ten years of business, he has created a lot of industries, and there is not much, not much, and it happens to be 100 billion treasure notes.

He wants to exchange the banknotes for cash again. Tell me, does he want the cash to appreciate or depreciate? "

"Of course it's depreciation."

"That's right, if this businessman spreads rumors that a large amount of silver mines have been discovered in Yunnan, and the silver is everywhere, it will be worthless immediately, so everyone will go to the bank and exchange the silver in their hands for precious banknotes. It becomes worthless in an instant in the commercial circulation link.

At this time, the bank has no extra banknotes, and the central bank needs to print money, but it is far from quenching thirst. The Bank of Yunnan has already exchanged all the banknotes into silver, but there are still countless people queuing outside the bank. Waiting to exchange money, prices soared and troubles were imminent, Bank of Yunnan was in urgent need of a treasure banknote for emergency.

The businessman appeared, and like a savior, he provided the bank with 100 billion treasure notes, the ratio was one to eight hundred! The 100 billion treasure bills were exchanged for 250 million taels of silver, and he made a difference of 250 million taels without making a fuss.

How do you deal with the two situations I mentioned above. "

The two situations mentioned by Chen Yunfu can be summed up as banknote reserves and silver reserves.

"The amount of silver reserves in the treasury of the imperial court is the amount of treasure banknotes we can print and distribute. We decide how much treasure banknotes to reserve in the local area according to the price of goods and grain prices in a province. Therefore, I say that the existence of a bank is directly related to a banknote. The country's food prices and commodity prices are high or low, rather than blindly absorbing deposits and releasing loans.

We can’t just print [-] billion banknotes to make a profit. The most important point is to do a good job of price statistics, based on the people’s livelihood. Considered to safeguard the monetary system. "

Yan Zhen nodded frequently, the small notebook in front of him had already been written densely by him.

"Bank, Benfu is handed over to you, and your errand after taking office has also been clarified, that is, to resume the purchase of treasure banknotes, stabilize the exchange system between silver and treasure banknotes, and in addition, Benfu will also give you this central bank The president prepared a meeting ceremony and brought you the first business."

"what?"

"Fight against North Korea."

Chen Yunfu smiled and said: "The imperial court supports Chang Mao to fight in the DPRK. Hundreds of thousands of troops, millions of shi of grain, armaments, and materials, including the manpower and material resources mobilized along the way, you can do a calculation and see how much you want. Qian, in the future, you will be Changmao's biggest creditor."

Yan Zhenzhi was startled for a moment, and then a knowing smile appeared on his face that I understood.

To suck Chang Mao's blood from the land of Sanhan!

(End of this chapter)