Chongzhen Daming: Starting from Coal Mountain

Chapter 406
The water conservancy and food bank is located in Baling, the capital city of Yuezhou.

Chongzhen immediately sent flying cavalry to Baling, and asked Qian Mo, the big treasurer of the Water Conservancy and Grain Bank, to come to Wuling, Changde City. Qian Mo rushed to Wuling the next morning after receiving the imperial edict.

Qian Mo is a Jiashan scholar, only nineteen years old this year.

At the beginning, together with his elder brother Qian Xi and brother-in-law Xia Wanchun, he was ordered to be King Qin.

It's just that the Qian brothers are mediocre in military talent, but they are quite talented in business. They were later selected by Chongzhen to be the big shopkeepers of the Shipping Shipbuilding Bank and the Water Conservancy and Grain Bank.

"Minister Qian Mo, I invite the Holy Spirit to Jin'an." Qian Mo paid homage.

"Get up." Chongzhen waved his hand and said, "Qian Mo, I heard that you bought grain from ordinary people with IOUs?"

"There is such a thing." Qian Mo did not deny it, nodded and said, "Because there are only more than [-] million taels of silver left in the Water Conservancy and Grain Bank, but the project to strengthen the Yangtze River embankment has been fully rolled out, so I dare not take these eight million taels. If millions of taels of silver are embezzled for other purposes, we can only issue IOUs to the common people first, and pay them after the grain is sold.”

Chongzhen frowned and said, "If you don't have money, you can borrow it."

"I went to borrow it." Qian Mo shook his head and smiled wryly, "But I can't borrow it."

"What did you say, you can't borrow it?" Chongzhen said in disbelief, "The Royal Bank won't lend you money?"

"It's not that I don't want to, it's that I don't." Qian Mo said with a wry smile again, "There is only [-] million taels left in the treasury of the Royal Bank, and the Crown Princess said it was a reserve fund, as you said, Holy Majesty, it should not be easily transferred."

"Ah?" Chongzhen said in disbelief, "there is only [-] million taels left in the bank of the Royal Bank?"

This Chongzhen did not expect that when he left Nanjing, there were more than [-] million taels of silver in the treasury of the Royal Bank, but now there are only [-] million taels left?

The rest of the money was borrowed?
Isn't this borrowing speed too fast?
So what is the total amount of currency in circulation in the Daming market now?
You must know that the Daming Royal Bank is equivalent to the central bank.

Qian Mo continued: "I have also borrowed money from the Bank of Industry and Commerce and the Bank of Shipping and Shipbuilding, but they are even tighter, and they also borrow money from me in turn. It is really evil to say that there is a shortage of money in the whole of Jiangnan this year. "

"Everywhere in the south of the Yangtze River is short of money?" Hearing this, Chongzhen suddenly reacted.

Good guy, this is because of insufficient liquidity and a money shortage broke out. Daming's money shortage broke out so quickly, which was a bit beyond Chongzhen's expectations.

Insufficient liquidity simply means that there is a shortage of currency on the market.

The currency of the Ming Dynasty is silver, which means that the silver circulating in the market is not enough.

The reason is that with the vigorous development of the handicraft industry in the south of the Yangtze River, various commodities are produced in large quantities, and then the workers in the workshops also generate consumption demand because they receive wages, and the consumption of workers promotes the development of the service industry. All kinds of service industries have also been able to flourish.

That is to say, the number of people participating in economic life has greatly increased.

The population participating in economic life has greatly increased, and the consumption demand has also greatly increased.

But consumption needs to be paid, so the frequency and total amount of money used has also greatly increased.

A simple calculation can be made. The poor people in the agricultural era lived like livestock. Except for selling grain for silver when paying taxes, they rarely had a few taels of silver in their pockets throughout the year. These people hardly participated in economic life, so There will be no shortage of money, and those officials, nobles, nobles, gentry, merchants and merchants hold a lot of money, so naturally there will be no shortage of money, so there is no possibility of a money shortage in the market.

But things have changed now.

Now [-] million or even [-] million people in Jiangnan are deeply involved in economic life, because they all receive wages from workshops or factories, or earn money by opening restaurants, teahouses, restaurants, etc., so There are a few taels of silver in his pocket, and he has even accumulated a lot of money.

These small households have not developed the habit of depositing money in the bank, mainly for convenience, because their total amount of money is so small, and they can't earn much interest by depositing it in the bank, and it is troublesome to deposit and withdraw. Therefore, the willingness to deposit in banks is very low, and as a result, a large amount of money flows into the private sector.

There are [-] million people in the south of the Yangtze River, and each of them holds ten taels of silver in their hands on average, which is [-] million!
The total amount of silver in the Ming Dynasty is about [-] million taels. Excluding the silver in the hands of Jiannu, Puppet Shun, and Zhang Xianzhong, the total silver stock of the Ming Dynasty should be about [-] million taels.

Among them, a considerable part was hidden in the cellar by the local rich.

The total silver stock is [-] million taels, [-] million taels have been distributed to the common people, and part of it is buried deep in the cellar. It is no wonder that there will be a money shortage in the market. Even the Royal Bank has only [-] million taels of silver reserves left.

Because of this, Qian Mo searched everywhere but could not borrow money to buy food.

But fortunately, this time, he made a fortune from Yunnan and got a lot of money.

Immediately Chongzhen asked Qian Mo: "Have you counted, and how much money do you need?"

Qian Mo said: "I have already made a rough estimate. According to the fish scale book in Wanlijian, the total area of ​​cultivated land in Huguang Province is more than [-] million mu. Because of the military disaster and tax evasion, the cultivated area was once less than [-] million mu. Mu, but the situation has improved greatly in the past two years, especially this year. Before the autumn harvest, I went around the various prefectures, and nearly half of them were abandoned, but most of the abandoned land was barren mountainous land, and the fertile paddy fields were basically cultivated."

Chongzhen said: "That is to say, nearly [-] million mu has been planted. Is that what you mean?"

"Yes." Qian Mo said, "And basically we plant one crop of wheat and one crop of rice. This year's crop is good, and the average harvest of three stones per mu is no problem."

"So even if it is calculated on the basis of [-] million mu, it can harvest [-] million stones of grain."

"According to the numbers recorded in the Fish Scale Atlas, there are more than [-] million adults in Huguang Province, and the population should be around [-] million. Considering the loss of population, the population of Huguang Province should be around [-] million. It is calculated based on the per capita ration of four shi, leaving [-] million shi is enough to eat."

"So, the surplus grain in Huguang Province is at least [-] million shi."

After a pause, Qian Mo said again: "Even at the price of one stone, one penny and five cents, it would cost at least 1200 million taels of silver. I really don't have the ability to make up such a large amount of silver now."

"How can it be one stone, one yuan and five cents." Chongzhen said, "This price is too black-hearted."

"I also think this price is too unscrupulous." Qian Mo said, "But this year's grain price in Huguang is only at this point."

"The price of grain is too low, which will hurt the enthusiasm of farmers, so next year they won't grow any more grain. This won't work." Chongzhen said flatly, "Just buy grain at the same price as in previous years."

Qian Mo said: "The price in previous years was five qian per shi, so it would cost [-] million taels."

Chongzhen said: "Forty million taels is forty million taels. I will figure out a way for the silver, and you can just buy it. I want all the [-] million shi grains to go into the granary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and not one grain will flow into the black-hearted grain merchants." hand."

"Leadership." Qian Mo respectfully agreed, and said again, "It's just about the money, Your Majesty?"

Obviously, Qian Mo was still worried about not having any money, so he still had to issue IOUs to the people.

Chongzhen said: "That's it. This time I got more than [-] million taels of cash from Yunnan plus jewelry worth [-] million taels, so you don't have to worry about the silver."

Only now did Qian Mo feel relieved.

After sending Qian Mo away, Chongzhen began to consider how to solve the money shortage.

To be honest, Chongzhen was a little caught off guard by the arrival of the money shortage. He originally thought that the money shortage would not erupt until the end of next year, but he did not expect that it would be more than a year earlier.

But this is enough to prove how fast the handicraft industry in the south of the Yangtze River is developing.

Now Chongzhen can't wait to go back to Nanjing to have a look. How much has changed?
As for how to solve the money shortage, the silver standard requires large-scale mining of silver, and the gold standard requires large-scale mining of gold. As long as there is sufficient supply of silver or gold in the market, the phenomenon of money shortage will naturally disappear.

The Ming Dynasty was a silver standard system, but it is obviously not feasible to expect silver mining to alleviate the money shortage.

Because even Yunnan, which produces the most silver, can only mine more than a hundred thousand taels a year. How can this little silver alleviate the money shortage?I'm afraid it's not enough to plug the teeth.

So now there are only two ways.

One is to plunder the money of the pseudo-shun and Jiannu.

Looted all the 3 million taels of silver deposits in the hands of Puppet Shun and Jian Nu.

However, this method can only alleviate the symptoms for a while, but cannot cure the root cause. Even if all the 3 million taels of silver deposits are plundered, it will not last long, and the money shortage will break out again in a year at most.

Therefore, the most fundamental way is to issue bank notes and give them circulation properties.

Only by adopting the bank note system can the Royal Bank become a real central bank. Then the Royal Bank only needs to issue [-] million equivalent bank notes to commercial banks such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank, the Shipping and Shipbuilding Bank, and the Water Conservancy and Grain Bank. , can generate [-] million or even [-] million liquidity in the market.

The multiplier effect of the base currency can reach up to 7.5 times.

But with Daming's industrial development level, it would be nice to have a three-fold multiplier effect.

Chongzhen estimated that the Royal Bank needs to issue at least another [-] million silver bills, so that it can generate circulation worth [-] million to [-] million taels in the market, so that the total amount of money circulating in the market will change from [-] million taels of silver to [-] million taels of silver. If it becomes [-] million taels of silver, the money shortage will disappear, and inflation may even occur in turn.

The so-called bank notes are actually the Ming version of RMB. Regarding this, Chongzhen even has the technology to print money.

Once there is a need, the bond printing factory can directly print a large number of them. Of course, the anti-counterfeiting technology, especially the encryption technology, needs to be further optimized.

[Note: Some readers reported that the author deviates from the main line and is too broken, but there is no such thing, because now the plot has been fully unfolded, and the people and things that should be explained must be explained, otherwise it will appear abrupt when used later, so It is recommended that those who like to watch the plot of Jian slave can skip the chapter and read]

(End of this chapter)