In the late Ming Dynasty, rising from the grassland

Chapter 251 Separate Governance
After the founding ceremony and the military parade, the first formal court meeting of China was held as scheduled in the front hall of Prince Dai's Mansion early the next morning.

Lin Rui also officially designated Datong as the accompanying capital of Hua Kingdom, and the capital was naturalized. Since the situations of Datong and Hetao were so different, he planned to temporarily separate them for governance.

The first thing was to appoint Hong Chengchou as the Second Assistant to the Cabinet, and concurrently as the Left Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, to coordinate the government affairs of the Xuanfu and Datong areas, and to be fully responsible for presiding over the New Deal.

Zhang Han and Zhang Xiuying are still in charge of government affairs on the grassland, and the judiciary of the two places is temporarily separated.

Seeing Lin Rui directly delegating power to himself, Hong Chengchou was also excited. Although he knew that it would be difficult to implement the New Deal, he was still very motivated and felt unprecedentedly excited.

For better management, Lin Rui also split Datong into two counties, namely Datong County and Shuozhou County. All offices were changed to the county system.

Lin Rui left all these matters to Hong Chengchou, and how to implement the New Deal was also left to him. Anyway, he will only look at the results. If he does well, he will continue to reuse them. If he screws up, don't blame him for being rude.

This also made Hong Chengchou feel excited, but also felt tremendous pressure. Fortunately, in addition to the original officials from the two places, there are now hundreds of scholars and ordinary scholars who have defected, and there is a steady stream of scholars every day. Come and submit.

With so many scholars available, Hong Chengchou had some confidence in the subsequent implementation of the New Deal.

Lin Rui's main focus is still on the Ministry of Household Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Industry. He plans to recruit people from Hetao to form branches in these three departments, and still leave them to the management of experienced wives.

Among the three departments, the Household Department not only needs to manage money and food, but also needs to set up a bank. The head office is located in Datong, and each county and county has to open a branch.

Lin Rui planned to issue his own currency, use grain and silver as reserves, and print small-denomination banknotes to replace copper coins.

After all, the country has been officially founded, we can't let everyone continue to generate electricity for love, so next we must pay salaries to officials, the army will also have to pay more or less military pay, and there will also be rents that need to be paid to landlords, which will definitely add up to It was a huge expense, and if we didn't issue our own currency, we would definitely not be able to sustain it for long just by relying on the millions of taels of silver seized.

The Ministry of Commerce only needs to open a store in each county to sell grain and salt, and the business tax issue can be temporarily put on hold.

From now on, except for these specialized shops under the Ministry of Commerce of China, no one is allowed to engage in the trading of staple grains and salt without permission, which would violate the law and destroy the entire family.

The Ministry of Works has the heaviest task, because Lin Rui plans to move the entire Department of Works to Datong, and all the craftsmen will also move here, re-marking an area outside Datong City to build various workshops.

There is no way, the Hetao resources are limited, and it was a last resort at the beginning. Now that we have the conditions, it is natural to put the industrial base in Datong.

After all, Datong also has coal, iron, and copper mines, and they are all ready-made mines. They can just be nationalized.

At this moment, listening to Lin Rui's arrangements, Zhang Xiuying, the minister of household affairs, and Wang Wu, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, both looked nervous, obviously feeling great pressure.

Mrs. Liu, the Minister of Commerce, breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this, with a relaxed look on her face. After all, as long as the shop is opened to the county level, at most it will be to recruit thirty or forty ladies to serve as shopkeepers in various places, and then recruit some handymen. Just set up a caravan, and it can basically be done within three months.

"Your Majesty, now that our country has so many scholars, why don't we find someone else to do this..."

Wang Wu once again weakly expressed his intention to replace Lin Rui. Obviously, he was really unsure about the next great migration and many tasks of the Ministry of Industry.

"Shut up, please remember. As the Minister of Industry, you not only represent yourself, but also represent the craftsmen all over the world. If you can't do it, you have to do it. You must do it well for me."

Lin Rui scolded with a straight face. The reason why Wang Wu was appointed as the Minister of Industry was not only because he was a veteran, but also because Wang Wu was a blacksmith.

He wanted to use this to set a benchmark and tell craftsmen all over the world that China valued craftsmen and technology, and craftsmen could also be high-ranking officials.

"It's the king." Seeing Lin Rui say this, Wang Wu gritted his teeth and replied, not mentioning the matter of abdicating the throne in favor of someone more worthy. "In fact, it's not as complicated as you think. You only need to move the managers, real blacksmiths, carpenters and their families. The other craftsmen and ordinary people will continue to stay and naturalize. You can handle these things. Leave it to Minister Zuo to take charge.

As for taking back the mines and building new industrial zones, let the right minister do these things, and you will be responsible for staying at the Ministry of Industry. From now on, everything else will be left to others. You only need to do it every now and then. Just ask about the progress and report back to me. "

Lin Rui took the trouble to explain to him.

Wang Wu has limited abilities and poor understanding. It doesn't matter if he doesn't know what to do. As long as he conveys his words to the ministers and wives under his command, they will naturally know what to do.

After Wang Wu and Mrs. Liu left, Zhang Xiuying looked at Lin Rui and said with some worry: "Rui Lang, this bank is too complicated. I'm worried that I won't be able to do it well."

"Sister Xiuying, you are too nervous. It is not as complicated as you think. Besides, there is me. In this way, you first set up a banknote printing bureau and a banknote making bureau to print banknotes and mint new silver ingots. At the same time, Deploy some ladies and maids to go to various counties to open bank branches."

"But those ladies and ladies have never been exposed to bank business before?"

"It's okay, as long as they can read and write, and can use simple numbers to calculate records. The bank's temporary business is to recycle copper coins and exchange them for new silver ingots and banknotes. It does not accept storage services, so those ladies Miss is more suitable to be a bank treasurer than a bank treasurer."

Lin Rui waved his hand and explained that if the banknotes are to be strong, they must be able to be exchanged for silver in full, so the main purpose of opening a bank for the time being is to recycle banknotes, copper coins and broken silver.

When Zhang Xiuying heard that she only had to be responsible for the exchange, her face became much more relaxed, and then she asked: "How many denominations will our banknotes be printed on? And silver ingots?"

"Well, the denomination must not be too large. Let's do this. Let's print six types first, namely one coin, five coins, ten coins, fifty coins, one hundred coins, and five hundred coins. The material of one coin and five coins can be different. , it’s okay if it’s a little rough, the material of a hundred and five hundred words must be better, and the printing must be more exquisite.

By the way, the three sizes of [-] units each should be distinguished. One, ten, and one hundred units are printed in red, and those of five, fifty, and five hundred units are printed in yellow. In this way, even large characters Ordinary people who don't know each other can also distinguish the sizes of various denominations based on their size and color.

As for silver ingots, just cast five taels of gold ingots directly. In this way, if you want to exchange banknotes for gold ingots, you must collect the denomination of five thousand Wen. "

In this way, the banknotes can be kept in the hands of the people and merchants as much as possible, and they can avoid crazy runs as soon as they are issued.

"Are there any fees for the exchange? What denomination of banknotes is suitable for printing?"

After Zhang Xiuying listened carefully, she remembered everything Lin Rui said, and then asked again.

"We now have almost 500 million taels of silver in total. Let's print 1000 million taels of banknotes first. As for whether to charge or not, I will think about it again. There is no rush for now."

Lin Rui knew that opening a bank would definitely be a loss-making business unless he could mint silver coins. However, with current technology, it might not be realistic to mint exquisite silver coins in large quantities, so he could only choose to do so for the time being. The ingots of full color and weight were cast and exchanged for banknotes.

Next, Lin Rui told her everything he knew about finance in detail, and Zhang Xiuying began to make preparations.

As for what kind of paper to use for banknotes, what kind of ink, how to prevent counterfeiting, etc., naturally there are professionals to consider it. After all, Shanxi's banknote business is already very developed. With the current power of China, it wants to get a batch of production and printing The talents of banknotes are still very simple.

After arranging the affairs of the three departments, Lin Rui focused his energy on military affairs again. This time Lin Rui planned to conduct a thorough reorganization and establish high-level combat units above the battalion level to prepare for the upcoming battle of unification. Prepare.

After all, he can't always command hundreds of thousands of troops by himself, nor can he, the great king, roll up his arms and go into battle in person every time he needs to divide his troops for a sneak attack.

(End of this chapter)