Southern Ming: A boy soldier at the beginning, supporting the world

Chapter 390: Destroying Buddha and Minting Coins
The Red Army captured Xiangtan and Tiaomajian, thus opening the road to Changsha. The soldiers were exhausted from days of traveling and fighting, and finally they could stop to rest and organize their weapons.

On the 26th, Cen Danchu followed the navy into Muyun City and summoned all the generals to hold a front-line meeting to deploy a decisive battle against the enemy.

Muyun City is located 20 miles south of Changsha City, on the east bank of the Xiang River, and is a bustling commercial port. Changsha is a big city, where the eight Xiangs converge, and the suburban commercial port is prosperous, with rice fields stretching like roads. Unlike the southern part of Hunan, Hengzhou, Yongzhou, Chenzhou, Baoqing and other prefectures have all been devastated by war, with many mountain strongholds and barren fields.

The news that the Red Army had recovered Hengzhou had spread, and many pilgrims from Changsha, Changde, and even Yuezhou walked in groups to Hengshan to pay homage.

Local people have passed on the story that there is an ancient temple on Hengshan Mountain, where the abbot is highly respected and praying to Buddha is the most effective. In the early days, there were frequent wars, busy farming, and the roads were blocked. Now that the rainy season has passed and the autumn harvest is still early, everyone is rushing to Hengshan Mountain.

The Red Army requisitioned a temple in Muyun City as its headquarters. It was magnificent, with bronze bells, bronze sculptures, and iron towers everywhere. Even during the war years, Muyun Temple was still popular with pilgrims coming and going.

This temple is called Muyun Temple. I wonder if the commercial port was named after the temple, or the temple was named after the commercial port?
Since the late Ming Dynasty, the common people, despite being extremely poor, have left their homes and traveled thousands of miles to famous Buddhist mountains to burn incense and to donate money to nearby temples. This trend was already very serious, and it became even more serious during the Southern Ming Dynasty.

"Ignorant and foolish people!" Qian Bingdeng sighed, "The more chaotic the times, the more devoutly the foolish people believe in Buddhism. King, look at this Muyun Temple. There are so many bronze Buddha statues. If these bronze pieces were melted into copper coins, they would be worth at least 5,000 strings of cash."

This caught Danchu's attention. One xian was one thousand coins, which could traditionally be exchanged for one tael of silver. Five thousand xian was five thousand taels of silver.

After the Ming Dynasty lifted the ban on sea trade during the reign of Emperor Longqing, a large amount of silver flowed in from America and Japan, causing the silver to depreciate. During the reign of Emperor Wanli, one tael of silver was only worth 500 to 600 copper coins.

In the early years of Chongzhen, that is, in the 1630s, the "tulip bubble" broke out in Europe, and countries fell into recession. Spain desperately tried to ship American silver back to the country, and other countries openly robbed Spanish silver ships. At the same time, the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan issued five orders to close the country, and completed the closing of the country in 1639, the th year of Chongzhen.

The two major sources of silver for the Ming Dynasty, America and Japan, simultaneously cut off the import of silver to the Ming Dynasty. Coupled with the Little Ice Age, the Chongzhen Dynasty fell into a serious financial crisis. The amount of silver in the private sector decreased, and the price of silver soared, with one tael of silver rising to between 1,500 and 2,000 wen.

After the reform of the Single Whip Law, the government used silver as the price for tax collection. In addition to paying grain in kind, farmers had to pay silver, which was called "paying taxes with grain". In order to pay silver, farmers had to sell their grain first, usually for copper coins, and then exchange them for silver.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, silver was expensive and copper was cheap, which was disadvantageous to the lower-class people. Unscrupulous merchants, boat officials, grain chiefs and others took advantage of the price difference between silver and copper to exploit the people.

This further aggravated the panic among the people, and the rich began to hide their silver underground, which was called "silver hoarding". The amount of silver circulating in the market gradually decreased, which can be called "silver tightening" in today's terms, and the financial crisis in the late Ming Dynasty was further aggravated.

No wonder that when Li Zicheng led the peasant army to attack the capital, tortured the officials and gentry, and forced them to hand over their "hidden silver", he actually obtained more than 70 million taels of silver in one go.

"What is the current exchange rate between silver and money in Lingnan Province?" Danchu asked, and then added: "I'm talking about the black market."

That year, Cen Danchu led the Red Army to Guangdong to rescue Dongxun. Due to the shortage of military pay, he ordered the establishment of Zhenxing Bank.

Over the past few years, the Zhenxing Bank has been on the right track and started to unify the coinage, issuing a set of "Nanyue Tongbao", all copper coins, with three types, namely the most basic one-cent copper coin, the five-cent copper coin worth five cents, and the ten-cent copper coin worth ten cents. Later, in order to facilitate transactions, the Zhenxing Bank followed the suggestions of merchants and minted one or two taels of silver and ten-cent silver coins, which greatly facilitated private transactions.

In order to rebuild its credit, the Nanyue Kingdom forcibly stipulated that one tael of silver could be exchanged for one thousand copper coins. The purity of a five-cent coin was exactly the same as that of a one-cent coin, but its weight was five times that of a one-cent coin. The same was true for a ten-cent coin.

Mo Guangshu, the assistant military officer, was standing by and said, "The silver price in Lingnan Province has fallen. The Nanyue Tongbao issued by Zhenxing Bank is of high quality and very popular. But on the black market, one tael of silver can be exchanged for about 1,100 copper coins, which is higher than the official price."

The situation is already very good. Danchu sighed: "Since the late Ming Dynasty, scholars have been studying economics and advocating practical application in order to save the country from danger. What is economics? Governing the country and benefiting the people is economics.

"The Red Army will conquer every attack and every defense, and will unify its orders and prohibitions, but this is not enough to run the country and benefit the people. If we want to run the country and benefit the people, we must get the tenants to pay taxes, liberate the untouchables, unify the currency system, and prosper the economy.

"If we allow the Buddhist temples to suck the blood of the people, allow the ignorant people to squander money, and allow the currency system to be in chaos, then there will be no way to govern the country and benefit the people."

The words were a little difficult to understand, leaving people confused. Qian Bingdeng tried to figure out what he meant, and said, "The ruler cares about the people and has the world in his heart. He is truly an outstanding ruler. I think there have been many cases of destroying Buddhism in history. The reason for this is that Buddhist temples occupied fertile land, amassed countless wealth, and endangered the foundation of the court.

"This small Muyun Temple actually has so many bronze sculptures. I also heard that Muyun Temple has more than 200 mu of temple land and more than a dozen shops, which are as far away as Changsha and Xiangtan. From this, we can see that there are tens of thousands of Buddhist temples in the world, and I don't know how much money they have collected from the people."

Danchu was suddenly shocked. If the Buddhist temples and Taoist temples in Guangdong, Jiangxi and Hunan were confiscated, hundreds of thousands of taels of silver could be looted from the copper alone.

Mo Guangshu went on to say: "The copper material in the world is produced in Yunnan. Yunnan has not used copper coins since ancient times, but still uses shells. The people suffer from the burden of copper mining, but do not benefit from using copper, so the people have been resentful for a long time.

"After the Western Army entered Yunnan, the copper was no longer exported. Sun Kewang abolished shell coins and used copper to cast 'Xingchao Tongbao'. He also engraved words on the back of the copper coins to indicate the value of cents and five cents. It was a great success."

"This guy is indeed quite talented," Qian Bingdeng said. "Yunnan has many mines, and produces half of the silver and most of the copper in China. But silver and seashells have always been the currency of choice. During the Jiajing period, China tried to circulate copper coins in Yunnan, but failed because the price of silver was artificially raised and the people of Yunnan opposed it. Sun Kewang ruled Yunnan with an iron fist, forcibly set the silver-copper ratio, and forced the circulation of copper coins, and surprisingly succeeded."

"Well," Danchu pondered, "Sun Kewang was able to train 200,000 soldiers and horses, not only because of the farming system, but also because of his silver-coin exchange system. The profit from coin minting is huge, and forcibly setting the exchange rate can seize countless silver.

"We stipulate that one tael of silver can be exchanged for one thousand copper coins, which is much more generous than Sun Kewang's. You will wait and see. In time, the Nanyue Tongbao will surely surpass the Xingchao Tongbao. Although the Red Army will not fight the Western Army, it will be enough to take the lead and make the Nanyue Tongbao circulate in Yunnan and Guizhou."

It was decided that under the rule of the Red Army, Buddhist coins would be destroyed. Specifically, the gold, silver, and copper precious metals in Buddhist temples and Taoist temples would be confiscated without compensation, but Buddhism and Taoism would still be allowed to exist; the use of precious metals to cast statues and instruments was strictly prohibited. Statues could be made of clay, and instruments could be made of base metals such as iron, lead, and tin...

Danchu had always wanted to issue paper money and implement credit currency, but because the time was not yet ripe, he gave up for the time being.

(End of this chapter)