prosperous age

Chapter 948 1037 Gold Reserve

The real inflation in the Song Dynasty occurred after the government began to issue banknotes, that is, after the official banknote issuance agency "Yizhou Jiaoziwu" was established, the fixed denomination of Jiaozi was stipulated, and iron money was used as a reserve for Jiaozi.

Before issuing Jiaozi, a corresponding amount of iron money currency must be prepared as a reserve. The reserved currency can be exchanged by the people at any time.

At the same time, the Song Dynasty government also formulated a corresponding currency system, stipulating that the useful life of Jiaozi was two or three years. After the limit was reached, the old Jiaozi would be taken back by the government, and new Jiaozi would be issued immediately.

This regulation is to prevent excessive wear and tear of Jiaozi and counterfeit fake Jiaozi among the people. Secondly, a fixed amount of Jiaozi has a relative amount of iron money reserves, which can prevent the problem of Jiaozi's breach of trust.

It should be said that the rules for issuing Jiaozi in the Song Dynasty were very clear. If everything was done according to the rules, the phenomenon of low money would naturally not occur later.

Unfortunately, history did not go like this.

When the Song Dynasty's military expenditure increased sharply and the court issued a large number of Jiaozi to solve the problem, hyperinflation broke out.

Printing Jiaozi in large quantities was just like the Ming Dynasty continued to absorb silver from overseas at this time.

When the quantity of silver exceeds private circulation demand, it will also trigger inflation.

Inflation benefits the big households and the small people lose.

Zhang Juzheng can naturally understand what Wei Guangde means, but what he is most concerned about now is the gold issue.

Gold and silver, the most popular among people is of course gold.

For wealthy people, who does not have a large number of gold products and gold jewelry, but for the poor, it is very good to have a piece of silver jewelry.

Because Ming Dynasty is now experiencing a net inflow of international trade, the international settlement currency is naturally based on Ming Dynasty's requirements.

The Ming Dynasty recognizes silver, and that silver is the international currency.

But according to what Wei Guangde meant, once the Ming Dynasty lacked gold and the gold was exchanged by the barbarians when the price was low, when the Ming Dynasty needed gold, would the barbarians come to trade with gold again?

Wei Guangde has already said that what he brings now is silver. What if the gold price is raised in the future and the gold and silver exchange rate is changed from one to seven to one to twenty, or even more?

Gold and silver are recognized by the people.

Although the Ming court did not formally recognize the monetary attributes of gold and silver, the court had issued some decrees before, and silver was already circulating among the people.

Even a few days ago, he was thinking about converting taxes into silver to reduce the collection of taxes in kind when implementing a whip law across the country.

However, Zhang Juzheng was also happy about the large influx of silver after the opening of Yuegang to the sea, thinking that it could solve the tension of silver circulation among the people. However, he did not expect that it seemed to be a good thing now, but over time it would lead to a situation like the Song Dynasty.

This forced him to think deeply about the pros and cons.

You know, Ming Dynasty is still subject to currency problems, which have not been effectively solved.

Nowadays, most of the good money minted by the government is taken away privately by local powerful men and made into bad money. There are serious hidden dangers in the circulation of private coins.

In fact, this was also a problem that existed since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

After seeing the old events of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Zhu Yuanzhang chose to give up minting coins after realizing that the copper materials in the Ming Dynasty were insufficient and the cost of cutting coins was high. Instead, he issued treasure banknotes and banned the circulation of gold and silver among the people.

Baochao did play some role, but a series of measures taken by Zhu Yuanzhang afterwards made Ming Baochao follow the old path of paper money from the Song and Yuan dynasties. Not only did it fail to bring convenience to transactions for the people, but it became a means for the government to plunder the wealth of the people.

The treasure banknotes collapsed completely, and the people returned to using gold, silver and copper coins as the main means of transactions.

Wei Guangde has long been considering improving the monetary system of the Ming Dynasty. With the lessons learned from Baochao, there is of course a long way to go.

Earlier, Wei Guangde was still thinking about whether to use the large influx of silver from overseas as the main currency. Therefore, he foresaw that the Ming Dynasty would have more gold and less silver in the future, and asked the family to reserve more gold instead of silver as a response.

But today, after he saw that the gold of the Japanese country was bought by the Yi people at a ratio of 1 to 10, he realized belatedly that the price of gold in the Western countries was probably even higher than this ratio.

In the future, the main international currency reserves will be highly circulated currencies and gold of some countries, but no country has been seen to store silver in large quantities.

Although the United States on the other side once used silver as a currency reserve, this was short-lived mainly because of lobbying by silver mine owners.

At that time, the long-term status of silver prices was low, causing the interests of these mine owners to suffer.

As a result, silver, which was once ignored, was used as a supplement to gold reserves, and they successfully lobbied the government to include it in the reserves.

This incident also directly led to the collapse of China's silver standard system in the 1930s, and the country could only begin to issue legal currency, ushering in a chaotic currency era.

At that time, in old China, not only copper coins were still in circulation, but also silver dollars, legal tenders, gold yuan certificates, etc., and it was a mess.

Thinking of this, Wei Guangde naturally realized that silver could be used as currency, but the court's main reserve could not use silver, and it must also be gold.

However, now the household department of the Ming Dynasty only has a few hundred taels of gold reserves, which is obviously not enough.

Moreover, combined with Zhang Juzheng's cabinet discussion on the implementation of the One Whip Law nationwide, the silver standard must be determined to implement the One Whip Law, so as to facilitate unified local tax collection.

It seems that the Ming Dynasty currency reform that I have considered can be put on the agenda.

Now that Zhang Juzheng brought the ball to him, of course he had to catch it.

Immediately, Wei Guangde took out something from his sleeve and handed it to Zhang Juzheng.

"Brother, let's take a look."

"What is this?"

Zhang Juzheng took it easily, turned it over and over in his hand for a long time, and then said, "Is this made of silver?" '

What Zhang Juzheng was holding was the Spanish silver dollar that Wei Guangde had received from his family earlier, but he didn't understand it because it was very different from the silver coins of later generations in his impression.

It is better to say that it is a silver dollar than a silver pimple or a silver cake. It is only close to a circle, and there is no currency unit or portrait on the front and back, but a cross pattern on the front and back of double columns.

I heard that there is a kind of silver coin with more complicated patterns, but Wei Guangde doesn't have it in his hands. He only heard it mentioned by his servants.

"This is the silver coin brought by the Yi people. It was cast by the country where the Yi people live. It has clear weight and silver fineness standards."

Wei Guangde said.

In fact, he took it for granted, because in his opinion, the silver coins should have been minted by a European country, most likely Spain.

But he didn’t know that the silver coin in his hand was indeed made according to the order of the King of Spain. It was a struck coin. The silver nugget was irregular in shape, but the weight and fineness were appropriate. In Europe and the United States, it was generally called cobmoney, or cob for short. ).

This is the Spanish Benyang, forged on the orders of Philip II.

At this time, Spain occupied a large area of ​​land in the Americas and discovered silver mines for large-scale mining. This was done to facilitate transportation and measurement.

This type of COB is generally divided into two categories, one with the Spanish shield on the front and a cross on the back, and the other with double columns on the front and a cross on the back.

"Vulgar."

Zhang Juzheng weighed the silver coins in his hand and commented.

Wei Guangde was speechless, but that was not the point, so he just went and said it to Zhang Juzheng. He was not wrong anyway.

"Uncle, the cabinet meeting previously discussed the implementation of a whip law in all provinces of the Ming Dynasty to collect silver as taxes."

Hearing this, Zhang Juzheng nodded.

"But now in our Ming Dynasty, most of the silver circulating among the people is broken silver. After the government weighs and collects taxes, it has to be cast into silver ingots and escorted to Beijing."

Having said this, Wei Guangde took out a copper coin. This was Longqing Tongbao, a Xiaoping coin minted in the fourth year of Longqing.

Of course, this money was made of high-quality copper and was used as a reward from the palace. Now Wei Guangde showed it to Zhang Juzheng. He thought Zhang Juzheng should guess his intention.

Sure enough, when he saw the copper coins in Wei Guangde's hand and the Yiren silver coins in his own hand, Zhang Juzheng immediately guessed Wei Guangde's intention. "You want to make money?"

Wei Guangde nodded and said: "Brother Shu once said that silver would be the main method of tax collection for the court. In fact, this is also the case now.

But at that time, I and Brother Qing once said that the government collected copper coins and broken silver to offset taxes, and also cast silver ingots and handed them over to the Ministry of Household Affairs. However, the fire consumption was levied from the private sector.

This amount can be large or small, all at the whim of the official. "

Zhang Juzheng nodded. Unlike what ordinary people think, the Ming Dynasty's cabinet would hold a lot of meetings and discussions before issuing decrees, instead of making decisions on their heads.

In film and television works, there is a discussion between ministers and the emperor. It is impossible for a minister to make a suggestion and the whole room applauds, and then immediately issue an order to do it.

The officials would discuss it, and if there was no problem, they would report to the emperor for approval.

It can be said that what was handed over to the emperor was a mature and implementable decree.

Therefore, before the cabinet actually implemented the One Whip Law in the world, it considered many issues, and Huo Xiao was one of them.

"There are regulations for making money in the Ming Dynasty. I think the money made by the Yi people seems to be similar to that of our dynasty.

Since the Yi people can make money from silver, we, the Ming Dynasty, can naturally do it too.

With money made of silver, there is no need to talk about fire consumption, which can be regarded as good governance that reduces the burden on the people.

To this end, the imperial court could also set the weight and fineness of copper coins, stipulate that silver coins should be minted and copper coins should be exchanged, and this should be announced to the world.

Folks mostly use privately minted money. If they are willing to mint it privately, they can mint it privately. When the time comes, they can exchange it for money according to weight and fineness.

However, before promoting this matter, the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Industry must participate in discussions to determine the specifications of silver and copper money. To avoid the old events of the Song Dynasty, the difference between large money and small money must also be considered.

For example, this silver coin can be used to make two kinds of money: one tael and one qian. "

The natural first step for Wei Guangde's reform of the Ming Dynasty currency was to determine the currency style.

However, Zhang Juzheng didn't quite understand how this had anything to do with the previous foreign purchases of gold.

When Zhang Juzheng frowned, Wei Guangde continued: "One tael of silver coins can contain 80% silver. In this way, the court can make 20% profit for every one tael of silver coins minted, and at least 10% profit after the minting cost.

In the Ming Dynasty, only money made by the Ming Dynasty was allowed to circulate. Such coins must be exchanged for money made by the Ming Dynasty, and an additional 10% minting fee will be charged based on the silver content. "

Obviously, this is aimed at importing silver from overseas.

When doing business with Ming Dynasty, I will earn 10% of your money first.

Anyway, Ming Dynasty's products are not worried about sales, and some overseas businessmen come to buy them.

Earning 10% of the silver is equivalent to reducing the purchasing power of the Yi people by 10%, which can effectively reduce the outflow of gold from the Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, the court will also make a net profit of 20% of the silver, which will alleviate the court's financial difficulties.

"Well, I think it's feasible."

After Zhang Juzheng figured out the difference, he immediately nodded in approval.

Liu Shouyou didn't expect that Wei Guangde would come up with such an idea. It had to be said that it was a good idea and the court could benefit from it.

"At the same time, the court also needs to establish sufficient gold reserves, which can no longer be the case now."

Wei Guangde said immediately.

"Shaloan, it's not like you don't know the current situation in the imperial court. Where can I find silver that can be exchanged for gold as a reserve?"

Zhang Juzheng said with a helpless smile.

"Have."

However, Wei Guangde said immediately.

"Ok?"

Zhang Juzheng was slightly surprised, but he soon roughly guessed what Wei Guangde was thinking.

"Brother Uncle should have thought of it, haha

Having said this, I think my uncle has also realized the possible changes in gold and silver prices, so the tens of millions of taels of silver stored in Changying Treasury cannot be kept, and it will be a loss to the court. "

Wei Guangde continued.

"With a large inflow of silver, its value will inevitably decrease significantly. You plan to exchange the silver stored in Changying Treasury for gold. I also support it. There should be no objection from the DPRK and China."

Zhang Juzheng stroked his beard and smiled.

It doesn’t really matter whether you reserve gold or silver, as long as you have reserves.

Wei Guangde nodded when he heard this. As long as both of them support it, it can be regarded as having been recognized by the palace at this time.

"It is not easy to make a big deal about this matter, but to operate it secretly in private to avoid causing panic in the court and the people."

Wei Guangde continued, "At that time, Jinyiwei will have to closely monitor the people, firstly to avoid leaks of information, and secondly to prevent anyone from taking advantage of this to make ill-gotten gains."

"Yes."

Liu Shouyou agreed from the side.

"With Chang Ying's treasury of tens of millions of taels of silver, the imperial court should be able to reserve two million taels of gold, but this is not enough.

From now on, when Chang Yingku collects horse-priced silver, it will be converted into gold by the local government and deposited in the treasury. This will also allow the local gold price to rise earlier, so as not to be taken advantage of by the barbarians.

The silver in Chang Ying's treasury was the raw material used by the imperial court to make the first batch of Ming Dynasty silver treasures. The imperial court should have made a profit of one million taels from this matter, and this profit would also be used to build the imperial court's gold reserves.

In this way, gold circulating in the market can be collected into the national treasury.

As for wealthy private households collecting gold, let them do it.

This gold can't be leaked out, so the court doesn't need to worry about anything. "

Wei Guangde said.

Anyway, what Wei Guangde is thinking about now is how to increase the exchange price of domestic gold and silver and bring up the price of gold.

Anyway, most of the old Wei family's silver has been converted into gold. In this incident, the loss will not be huge, but there will be a profit.

Absorbing the gold in private circulation and preventing the outflow of gold is more effective than issuing a strict ban.

The more the court prohibits some things, the more people commit them because they are profitable.

In this case, it is better for the court to take away the benefits directly.

"Jin Yiwei will intervene in the entire exchange to find out the situation of gold circulating in the market to prevent them from hiding it."

Wei Guangde said again.

(End of this chapter)