prosperous age

Chapter 951 1040 Pie for the Li family

Wei Guangde explained his ideas to Lu Tiaoyang and Zhang Juzheng to control the total amount of currency, "Of course, because our Ming Dynasty has a vast land, rich resources, and a large population, the total amount of silver that can be carried is also amazing, especially if the uncle wants to implement a whip method, it requires a huge amount of money." Amount of silver support.

The imperial court made huge profits from casting silver treasures. "

When Wei Guangde spoke, Zhang Juzheng and Lu Tiaoyang nodded frequently.

After Wei Guangde finished speaking, Zhang Juzheng also understood what Wei Guangde meant, which was actually a reversal of roles between the imperial court and the barbarians.

On the way here before, Zhang Juzheng was still worried that the Ming Dynasty's gold would be taken away by the barbarians, but now it is the imperial court that wants to play this role.

Zhang Juzheng has always wanted to promote a whipping method, but it is really inconvenient for private people to use silver, especially fire consumption, which is a weapon for the government to suppress the people. He had to think more and try to find a solution.

Now that silver is available and barbarians are arriving one by one, the conditions for promoting the new law are gradually met, but Wei Guangde's mention of old events in the Song Dynasty also made him wary.

A little silver is no good, but too much silver is a bad thing.

Fortunately, Wei Guangde thought of using gold to control the circulation of private silver, and even Zhang Juzheng had already thought about it. If there was too much private silver, the court would raise the price of gold and take back the silver at an exchange price of one to thirty or even higher.

There is no need for the barbarians to raise the price; the imperial court raises the price to take back the silver.

"It is a top priority to set the money law first. The imperial court must cast silver treasures and promote them to the people as soon as possible. Once the silver treasures are accepted by the people, a whip law can be rolled out across the country."

Zhang Juzheng said.

"During this period, each province can also start to check its own situation and make some preparations."

Lu Tiaoyang also nodded and answered.

"It's getting late, so we'll be here today. Tomorrow, after the reward is announced, we will recruit officials from the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Industry to finalize the matter in the cabinet. Then we will go to the palace to seek an audience and try to get the matter settled as soon as possible. It’s finalized.”

Zhang Juzheng said with finality.

Wei Guangde left Lu Tiaoyang's mansion, got on the carriage and headed back.

On the swaying carriage, Wei Guangde was still considering whether his plan to bring the Ming Dynasty into the "gold standard" system in advance was a good or bad idea.

Wei Guangde did not understand the real difference between the gold standard and the silver standard. He only thought that the imperial court was looking for gold and hoarding gold was the beginning of trying the gold standard.

However, he still felt that something was wrong.

Indeed, as the Ming Dynasty is now, trading with real gold and silver is called a standard. It is originally a commodity exchange of precious metals.

In fact, the money law reform he is currently thinking of is still essentially a silver standard system, not a gold standard as he thought.

Moreover, he had no idea that the establishment of the gold standard was due to some special events. Although gold should replace silver sooner or later, it would never be that fast.

The gold standard actually has many advantages. The first is currency stability. As a standard currency, gold can maintain the stability of currency value, especially during periods of economic fluctuations.

Secondly, because countries love gold, it also facilitates international trade. Currencies based on gold can be freely exchanged internationally, which is conducive to trade.

In addition, the value of gold is high, and currencies backed by gold have strong credibility, which enhances people's confidence in currencies.

However, there are also shortcomings of the gold standard, that is, there are double standards between monetary gold and commodity gold.

Gold not only has currency attributes, but also has strong commodity attributes. There is huge demand in industry and jewelry. The price of gold changes with the market. There are actually two sets of value standards for the same commodity, which may lead to market chaos.

At the same time, under the gold standard system, the money supply is restricted by gold reserves, which may affect economic development and the flexibility of monetary policy.

Wei Guangde has not thought of this yet.

After all, the economic aggregate of each country is still very limited today, so Wei Guangde did not realize that after the Ming Dynasty's unprecedented economic development, domestic gold and silver were still not enough.

Relatively speaking, in the current international economy, in fact, the silver standard built on silver as the main currency seems more suitable.

The main advantage of the silver standard is that there are sufficient sources of monetary materials. Silver, as a monetary material, has relatively sufficient sources. Silver mines exist in many areas of the world. Although there is a gap between the rich and the poor, its wide distribution makes its currency supply relatively stable.

At the same time, because its value is relatively low compared to gold, silver has strong transaction flexibility. It is very convenient to use gold for large-amount transactions and silver for small-amount transactions.

As for the shortcomings of the silver standard, it is actually mainly due to the unstable silver price. The silver price is affected by a variety of factors, such as the improvement of mining technology and the increase in production, resulting in large fluctuations in the value of silver.

In fact, before the Ming Dynasty had maritime trade, it was definitely impossible to establish a silver standard system with the little silver the Ming Dynasty had. Because there was an extreme lack of silver in circulation, how could a monetary system be established?

Don’t think that the tens of millions of taels of silver in the Taifu Temple’s Changying Treasury are a lot. In fact, compared with the entire Ming Dynasty, it is just a drop in the bucket.

You know, the Ming Dynasty's annual physical tax is equivalent to 30 million taels of silver, but the cash income is low, only about 3 million taels, so later generations have always said that the Ming Dynasty's tax revenue was only a few million taels of silver.

But in fact, it is correct to talk about tax revenue of several million taels of silver, but it ignores the in-kind taxes on grain, tea, etc. worth more than 30 million taels.

Perhaps it is precisely because of the lack of silver that although China began to trade gold and silver in the Tang and Song Dynasties, the scale has always been very small and cannot be expanded at all. The transportation of copper coins is too troublesome, so it chose to impose a physical tax, and the court allocated it according to needs. .

To be precise, if it were not for the great geographical discoveries and the discovery of gold and silver mines in America, neither the East nor the West would have entered the Silver Age.

Because the two human settlements in the east and west are facing a shortage of gold and silver, even though there is a Japanese country rich in gold and silver next to the Ming Dynasty.

In the late Middle Ages, the feudal system in Western Europe was riddled with internal contradictions.

As palace expenses rose and bureaucracies swelled, governments were often financially stretched and needed to find new sources of revenue.

Under this circumstance, the monarchs of various Western European countries successively supported the opening of new shipping routes and vigorously expanded overseas. Many feudal nobles and knights became the first batch of colonists.

Spain and Portugal embarked on their great voyage adventures at almost the same time. At first, the explorers from both countries had the same purpose - to lead directly to India and China, obtain trading privileges for spices and luxury goods, and open up the Eastern market.

However, the choice of different routes ultimately led to different results.

After Columbus discovered America, the Spaniards quickly realized that this virgin land of civilization had no goods or markets for the goods they wanted, but it did possess unexpected precious metals.

In the mid-16th century, Spain occupied all Central and South America except Brazil and established a huge Spanish American colonial empire. After Spain occupied the Americas, rich silver mines were discovered in Mexico, Peru and other places. This silver was quickly minted into silver coins in large quantities and began to flow around the world.

According to statistics, in more than 1503 years from 1660 to 150, Spain obtained a total of 18600 tons of silver from the Americas.

At that time, the Atlantic trade route between Spain and the American continent and the trans-Pacific trade route between East Asia and Mexico via the Philippines were very busy. This sea route was called the Medieval Maritime Silk Road.

Such an amount of silver was mined, which was almost equal to the total silver in the entire Eurasian continent at that time.

In Europe at that time, because merchants from various countries were trading with each other and doing business with each other, everyone must reach a consensus and select a currency as the recognized currency for global circulation, and this recognized currency was silver.

Because silver has many advantages as a currency in circulation, such as: easy price comparison, easy to store, easy to carry, non-renewable, easy to identify, etc. It is rarer than copper coins, but not as rare as gold.

Therefore, at that time, most global trade was settled in silver, and the demand for silver was increasing day by day in many countries, including the Ming Dynasty.

When the demand for silver skyrocketed, the Spanish discovered the largest silver mine so far on the American continent. The increase in silver production also stimulated the improvement of smelting technology. The silver coins minted in Europe had less loss, were more exquisite in shape, and had higher purity. high.

Massive gold and silver deposits were discovered in Zacatecas and Guanajuato, Mexico. The silver deposits in Zacatecas still rank first in the world, which shows how lucky the Spaniards are.

The mined silver mines were brought to Mexico City, the capital of New Spain. In 1535, the newly appointed governor established the Mexico City Mint, and New Spain became the first Spanish colony to export silver coins.

Mexico City is Spain's earliest and largest mint in the New World. Starting in 1536, the Mexico City Mint began to produce Spain's first silver coins, struck silver coins with two pillars.

This kind of double-column silver coin has two upright columns on one side and is wrapped by a scroll. The scroll has the Latin word "PLVS VLTRA" - a unique world overseas.

The scroll surrounding the stone pillar is wound into an S shape, similar in appearance to the later dollar sign $.

In fact, the creation of the dollar sign is indeed related to this double-column silver coin.

Because of the existence of the Bretton Woods system in later generations, many people thought that the U.S. dollar was linked to gold, but in fact when the U.S. dollar was born, the anchor of the U.S. dollar was silver.

In 1792, the newly established United States adopted silver as the basis of its national currency. It was stipulated that each US dollar was equal to 24.056 grams of silver. Basically, it can be considered that one US dollar at that time was actually one Spanish 8 reales silver coin.

So, the purchasing power of one dollar at that time was amazing.

It can be said that the Spanish directly contributed to the arrival of the Silver Age. For hundreds of years, silver has been the main trading currency in various countries around the world.

A large amount of gold and silver produced in the Americas were minted into gold and silver coins, and then part of them was continuously shipped to Europe, and the other part was shipped non-stop to the Ming Dynasty in the East.

These silver coins were used to purchase various goods in the Ming Dynasty, mainly luxury goods such as porcelain, silk, etc.

As one of the most developed countries in the world at that time, the Ming Dynasty had a vast territory, rich products, and a stable social structure. It was also the most important producer of luxury goods in the world.

At the same time, they did find an exchange rate imbalance between precious metals in the two places.

In layman's terms, the value of silver in the Ming Dynasty was higher. The same amount of silver could buy more goods in the Ming Dynasty and could also be exchanged for more gold.

At that time, the price of silver in the Ming Dynasty was even twice that in Europe. The gold-silver ratio in the Ming Dynasty was one to seven, in Japan it was one to ten, and in Europe it was more than one to thirteen.

Therefore, smart businessmen discovered this foreign exchange gap, and they brought a large amount of silver to the Ming Dynasty to earn the price difference. To use today's business vocabulary to describe it, it was "arbitrage" to arbitrage the cheap gold of the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, later generations were skeptical about the huge amount of gold during the Qin and Han Dynasties, and even came up with the idea that the so-called "gold" in ancient China refers to brass.

But the real situation is that ancient China actually distinguished gold and brass very early.

"Hanshu" also makes it very clear. "Hanshu Shihuo Zhi" says: "There are three grades of gold, gold is the top, platinum is the middle, and red gold is the bottom."

It couldn't be more clear. The best is what later generations call gold, platinum is what later generations call silver, and red gold is what later generations call brass.

"History of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties" records: "In the early Western Han Dynasty, the total amount of gold used was more than one million catties."

If one jin in the Western Han Dynasty is equivalent to 1 grams today according to the "Chinese Weights and Measures Examination of Ancient Dynasties", one million jins in the Western Han Dynasty is equivalent to 248 tons in later generations. This has already reached one-sixth of China's gold reserves today, which is absolutely worth it. Called terrifying.

According to the "Tongkao of Documents" records: "In the Han Dynasty, ministers were given gold for one hundred, two hundred, or thirty catties. Although King Liu Ze of Yan used the princes to grant fields and gold, it was also two hundred catties. After the death of King Xiao of Liang, there were forty golds. More than ten thousand kilograms.”

Liu Bang used 40,000 kilograms of gold to successfully drive a wedge between Xiang Yu and Fan Zeng. After losing Fan Zeng, Xiang Yu defeated Maicheng all the way, allowing Liu Bang to dominate the world.

This can only show that China did have a lot of gold during the Qin and Han Dynasties.

However, the final destination of this gold remains a mystery.

Of course Wei Guangde had read similar articles. He also read many ancient books on a whim, but he didn't find the answer.

Think about it, if the answer was so easy to find, it wouldn't be an eternal mystery.

However, due to Wei Guangde's intervention in this life, it has become extremely difficult for Europeans to extract gold from the Ming Dynasty on a large scale.

Wei Guangde was originally a person who did things. At this time, the leader was actually in the Ministry of Industry from the beginning. As long as the casting plan of the Ming Dynasty silver treasure was come up as soon as possible, the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry could soon start casting the Ming Dynasty silver coins.

The Ministry of Industry was precisely the yamen where Wei Guangde had the greatest influence.

And the other yamen that had a huge influence on this matter was actually not the Ministry of Husbandry, but the Ministry of War.

After all, Taipusi Changyingku was within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War. In order for them to come up with money, in addition to the palace's orders, they also needed the consent of the Ministry of War.

When Wei Guangde returned to his mansion, he did not send anyone to send news to Zhu Heng and Tan Lun overnight. After all, it was too late.

He planned to wait until the morning meeting tomorrow morning to discuss everything. Thinking of the Li Chengliang and his son he saw at the prisoner presentation ceremony today, although they were dissatisfied with his self-respecting approach to raising the bandits, Wei Guangde felt that he should be appropriately comforted in view of the hard work.

It seems that the Li family is causing all these troubles just to get the title of marquis.

Wei Guangde was lying on the bed and thought to himself that he could be recommended to a knighthood after the southwest was pacified.

(End of this chapter)