A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 436 Empty Gloves White Wolf

Wu Huaiyu held a Kaiyuan Tongbao in his hand and looked at it seriously.

This copper coin is not exquisite.

"This is a private coin."

Doulu Huairang handed him another copper coin. Compared with the two copper coins, the latter copper coin was pure and beautifully made. The four characters Kaiyuan Tongbao on the coin were exactly Ouyang Xun's calligraphy.In contrast, the previously privately minted money has become thinner and inferior, even whiter in color, and the inside and outside are not neat. Even the four characters are obviously not from Ouyang Xun's hands.

A very fake privately minted money can also be called white money.

"Recently, there is a lot of smuggled money in the market, some of which are extremely thin, and there are more and more in the Chang'an market."

As the newly-appointed governor of Guannei Road, Doulu Huairang's responsibilities include making money, and he must not only make money, but also be responsible for cracking down on private money.

Now the imperial court has set up money supervisors in many places and opened furnaces to cast money. These are government-run handicraft workshops. Each furnace employs 30 craftsmen.

The labor and transportation costs of casting money are not low, and the number of craftsmen is limited, resulting in a limited number of casting furnaces, and a limited amount of money that can be cast each year.

All the 33 money-making furnaces are in operation, with a maximum of 200 guan coins a year, but now there are only [-] million households on the surface, and each household only costs a hundred yuan. If it is spread to each person, it is equivalent to one person. Thirty dollars, this amount is too small.

But in fact, from the four years since Wude opened the furnace to cast money, until now, the amount of money minted in most years is less than [-] guan.

Wu Huaiyu observed the private money for a while, "This private money is different from the private money that has been found in circulation before. It should be made by a new private casting workshop with a new mold."

Casting money requires mother money.

Wu Huaiyu is no stranger to privately minted money. When he was in Lingyan, privately minted money was more prevalent there. At one time, Lingzhou used privately minted money from underground workshops, which was even half-tacitly approved by the court.

The quality of privately minted coins in Lingzhou is still good, with a uniform standard, but the copper content is lower.But now a lot of privately minted money in Chang'an is purely shoddy.

These bad money have sprung up like mushrooms after the rain, and they are banned endlessly. The direct consequence is that bad money is driving out good money.

Even many private money dealers themselves took the money minted by the imperial court, melted it and recast it into thin, small, and low-copper money. This kind of money circulated in the market, sometimes as official money, and sometimes as money Underestimate it and use it, but the emergence of these money will cause prices to rise and cause price disorder. It will also make people who have good official money in their hands collect the official good money and use the bad money first. There is more and more bad money, and less and less good money.

Those aristocrats are powerful, and they hoard money directly, and good money can only come in and out.

"Erlang, there is a serious shortage of Kaiyuan Tongbao on the market. Some people are deliberately collecting official money. As long as official money appears on the market, it will soon disappear."

Dou Lu Huairang hoped that the imperial court would be more aggressive in cracking down on private money, such as confiscating all privately minted money that appeared on the market.

"Your idea is too simple. If the privately minted money flows into the hands of the people, it is the property of the people. It is earned by the people's work or in exchange for agricultural products. If the court directly confiscated it, wouldn't it be robbing the people?" the property of?"

"But you can't just watch it flood like this?"

The imperial court has always cracked down on those who minted money privately, and those who found out were hanged directly, and their family members were killed.Even the crimes of private casting are the same as homicide, arson, seal making, robbery and other crimes, and they are the same as heinous felonies, which are unpardonable crimes.

Now the imperial court is discussing the formulation of the Zhenguan Law, and has opinions on private casts to reduce the penalty and change the death penalty to exile for three thousand miles.

Those who have prepared the equipment but have not cast it will spend two years in training; those who have not prepared the equipment will have a hundred sticks.

As long as you dare to forge privately, even if you have such a plan, even if you haven't even prepared the tools, as long as you plan this matter, you will need at least a hundred rods.

But as long as there is enough profit, someone will always take the risk.

The hot sales of bronze wares are huge, which further promotes the prevalence of selling money and private casting.

"Private money must be carried out in a two-pronged manner. It is necessary to control both the source and the downstream. For those who dare to make private money, we still have to intensify the crackdown, but for the bad money that has already appeared on the market, especially in the hands of the people, the court cannot just ban it." After all, the impact is too great.”

"I suggest that the supporters use the rice in the normal warehouse to buy privately minted bad money on the market, exchange it into rice and wheat for the common people according to their actual quality, and recover the bad money to sell and recast."

"The ratio of this exchange should be fairer. It's better to issue an order casually, saying that five pieces of bad money can be exchanged for one civil official's money, or that all bad money can be exchanged for one official money. It has to be based on the actual weight of the private money. Offer a relatively fair price for exchange, and the common people cannot suffer too much, otherwise no one will exchange money.”

"Of course, for the circulation of private money, inspections must also be strengthened. For example, when crossing the border between states and counties, the copper coins carried must be checked. If there is private money, it must be exchanged with the government. If the private money exceeds a thousand, be punished accordingly.

If you carry more than ten strings of private money, it will be confiscated directly, and you will be convicted and severely punished. "

Wu Huaiyu is now also suggesting that the imperial court increase the mining of copper mines, etc., and allow private mining, which can increase the supply of copper materials on the market.

At the same time, he also suggested the implementation of the ban on copper, that is, the prohibition of private casting of copper wares. The use of copper wares must have a certain status. Just like the use of gold and silver wares, the casting of bronze wares must be registered and issued by the government. Sales should be restricted to prevent all copper materials from being used for castings, which would lead to an increase in the price of copper materials, and some people would sell money for castings.

Furthermore, private mining is allowed, but after accepting and buying, copper, iron and other metal materials must also be truthfully registered in the government, and both buyers and sellers must go through official review. All the copper in the warehouse had to be sold to the imperial court.

Control the source of copper material.

The free circulation of copper is prohibited, and the carrying of copper materials without official certification of origin will be criminalized if it exceeds a few catties.

While controlling the source of copper materials, crack down on smuggling, and ask local coin envoys to set up special money collectors to be responsible for inspecting smuggling, and also order all states and counties to manage the circulation of private money within their own borders, and list it as one of the performance evaluations. One, if the management is not good, officials will be demoted.

On the other hand, the official coinage of the imperial court has to increase the amount of coinage and even improve the technology.

Otherwise, there would be too little official money in the market, and the common people would have no money to use, which would always be a problem.

"In the future, it is forbidden to use copper coins for transactions of more than ten guan coins, and silk must be used."

"I am going to write a letter to the sage. From now on, noble officials and common people will be restricted to save money according to their status and rank. Those who are above the third rank can save ten thousand guan. For the fourth and fifth rank, they can save five thousand guan. Qianguan, eighth and ninth grades, you can save three thousand guan, and Liuwai ninth grade, you can save two thousand guan, ordinary people should not save more than one thousand guan."

This savings is the most copper coins you can store privately, excluding silk, gold, silver, food, etc. No matter how rich you are, you can't privately store more copper coins than your grade can store, otherwise it will be illegal.

This is done to prevent the aristocrats from deliberate hoarding of copper coins, especially official money, so that there is no money to circulate in the market.

In fact, Wu Huaiyu thinks that the amount of savings is actually too high. It should be five thousand guan for the third rank and above, three thousand for the fourth and fifth ranks, two thousand for the sixth and seventh ranks, and one thousand for the eighth and ninth ranks. .

However, this suggestion is relatively unprecedented, so it is better to relax at the beginning, try to pass it, and change it later.

Wu Huaiyu opened the cabinet, and there were several grids inside, and each grid contained a piece of private money. Such private money is still in circulation, and there are all kinds of it.

He took out one and gave it to Dou Lu Huairang, "Look at this coin,"

"This money seems to be a little different."

"Well, this is privately minted money from the Qi and Hengzhou areas on the west of Jiangxi Road. The private miners there are all privately minted on boats on the lake and river. They have even adopted the sandwich casting method to bake tin After it is opened, it is directly clipped in the money mold and pressed into coins, and there is no need to open the fan to withdraw money."

Casting money on boats in the rivers and lakes is to prevent the imperial court from inspecting and arresting, and secondly, casting money requires a lot of water.

This kind of clip casting method has high efficiency and low cost, far surpassing that of the imperial court. Of course, the quality is far inferior to that of the imperial court.

"I have a new coinage method here, which has been tried out in Chang'an Qianjian. Even at today's copper price, the cost of casting coins with this method is only 750 yuan per coin, with a profit of 250 yuan, and the efficiency is great. improve.

I am going to ask Your Majesty to build a new Chang'an mint in Chang'an, use this method to mint coins, and directly recruit and train artisans, instead of enlisting artisans to serve for free like the money furnaces in various places.

After the completion of the mint, about 30 coins can be minted a year. "

"Much more than the one hundred money casting furnaces now?" Dou Lu Huairang exclaimed.

"There is no problem at all, an average of one thousand per day."

"Right now, a coin-making furnace is fully cast, with a maximum of [-] coins a year."

"That's because the current way of minting money is wrong. There are only [-] craftsmen minting coins in one furnace, and they are still conscripted to serve for free. How much enthusiasm can there be? Mining coins also need to have a scale, so as to be efficient, otherwise it will be the same as those privately minted small What's the difference between a workshop."

After the scale is up, not only the production capacity and efficiency can be improved, but the most important thing is that his cost will also be greatly reduced. Wu Huaiyu is now experimenting with the new method of casting coins, and it is calculated that casting consistent coins only costs 750 text coins.

In the past, the imperial court almost always lost money.

Even if the new minting factory is in Chang'an, the freight is not included, but with the freight, there is still a lot of profit.

If the scale of the Danquan Copper Field of the imperial court is built, and cheaper copper materials are available, the profit of minting coins will increase a lot.

"If the profit of minting coins increases greatly, I'm afraid that private minters will take more risks." Dou Luhuai gave way.

"Now that you sell money and cast utensils, you get five times the profit, and the profit is even higher. Could it be that the imperial court just doesn't care about it? It must be banned, and it must be controlled."

Wu Huaiyu reminded Doulu Huairang, "The ban on saving money will be passed soon. Your Doulu family is a Guanlong family. You should have a lot of copper coins in your family. The court only gives a one-year deadline. Hurry up and spend the extra copper coins."

Raid money.

Dou Lu Huairang had a headache. Dou Lu's family is indeed rich, and he is still a son-in-law. The princess still has a lot of private money. After all, the princess also has her own household in Tang Muyi.

"Do you really want to ban saving money?"

"It goes without saying that everyone hides copper coins, especially good copper coins, in the cellar. No matter how hard the court tries to mint money, it won't be enough."

"Where will I spend this time?"

In fact, Doulu Huairang is reluctant, the money hoarded at home is good money.

"Buying slaves and maidservants to buy cattle and horses, or changing Chang'an Fang City, buying some houses and shops is fine, or your family really has too much money, you can invest more money to open mines and build workshops, all of which can increase in value, and money makes money , It’s dead money if you stay at home, except for rust, you can’t make money.”

"If you really have too much money, why don't we start a bank together."

"Buying silver jewelry?"

"No, this bank mainly saves and lends, exchanges in different places, etc."

"Is that the same as the Temple Soup Kitchen?"

"It's still a little different. We not only lend money, but we don't lend usury. Our interest rate is lower,"

In fact, Wu Huaiyu has always wanted to set up a bank. He thinks that this bank is a very profitable business. Even if it is a bank, it will be fine. At that time, it will be able to issue banknotes, give interest to the people so that they can deposit their money in, and then use some of it to lend money. , there will be more semicolons in the future, and you can exchange deposits and withdrawals between semicolons in different places.

Especially this thing makes money.

There is no need to engage in such high interest rates like the incense product kitchens in temples. As long as the loan interest released is about double that of the deposit interest brought in, it will be profitable no matter what.

In fact, the newly announced red money for usury by the imperial court is six cents per month, and the annual interest rate is 70.00%, and the maximum double profit can be reached in sixteen and a half months.

Nowadays, there is generally no such thing as deposit interest. If you want to deposit your property in someone else's cabinet, you have to pay a storage fee, which is not cheap.

Therefore, as long as you pay very low interest, you can attract a lot of deposits, and the interest on deposits and loans can be several times the difference.

Isn't this pure empty glove white wolf?
In the financial business of banks and money houses, the most important thing is the scale. As long as the scale increases and the amount of funds in hand is large, more loans can be issued, and it is impossible for all depositors to withdraw cash.

There is still a big difference between a bank and a pawnshop. They have different business directions and different profit points. Basically, there is no overlap in business.

In terms of development prospects, it must be that Qianzhuang has greater development potential.

Doulu's family is rich in capital, and more importantly, the old family has a high reputation. Doulu Huairang has a more flexible mind and is also relatively good at economics and finance. It is a good idea to start a bank with him.

Dou Lu Huairang believed in Wu Huaiyu very much, and the two of them had cooperated a lot before, and at the cherry banquet a few days ago, they also joined Shaozhou's great mining business.

Now Huaiyu asked him to contribute money to open a bank together, and he immediately agreed.

When he left, he hesitated and told Huaiyu.

"The matter of private casting, no matter in Chang'an or in the local area, generally involves many powerful families, even noble officials. If this matter is investigated carefully, they will definitely be investigated."

"Are you afraid?"

"I'm not afraid. My emperor's brother-in-law, what am I afraid of? Even you know that the involvement is too wide. I'm afraid that there will be side effects. Do you want to think about it?"

"Brother Doulu, you also know that I'm just a pawn in the front line, so everything I'm planning and doing is for myself?
You know, the imperial court's finances are so bad now, but His Majesty has great ambitions, but can't wait for the things to be done. Your Majesty has treated me well enough to Wu Huaiyu, so I must repay your kindness.

I also know that what I do is offending many people, but I have to do it too. "

Dou Lu Huairang nodded, "That Erlang counts me as one, let him fight like a mountain of fire, we two brothers stand shoulder to shoulder, and fight for His Majesty together."

(End of this chapter)