Three Kingdoms, I'm really not a general!

Chapter 368 Liu Ba's Role

Xing Daorong wants justice for the death of Mr. Qiao.

But every wrong has its perpetrator and the debt has its creditor, so they would not attack women and children.

I went to hang out in front of Mrs. Wu, first to see if she knew anything about Mr. Qiao's death.

The result was clear after just one test. Mrs. Wu must know it very well!
Hateful!
This old lady...

He is not as kind as he looks, but he is also a ruthless person!

In addition to testing, Xing Daorong also wants to control the Sun family naturally.

The Sun family became a bird in a cage and a fish in a pond, unable to move at all.

It's a bit strange though.

Liu Bei didn't know what was going on, and he didn't say anything about taking the Sun family to Chengdu. He just kept them in Moling.

This matter made Xing Daorong feel a little strange. Logically speaking, the Sun family must be under strict control.

Without thinking, he just shook his hand and left it to himself.

We can only control the Sun family first, and then talk about other things...

...

Jiangdong Xinping, we definitely can’t fight anymore.

Although Xing Daorong and Liu Bei both wanted to go to Hefei and bring back Sun Quan's head, they could not continue to engage in war.

In fact, Liu Bei was basically at full strength all the way.

The food and money stored inside are at their limit.

It was also because Xing Daorong led Liu Bei to charge smoothly all the way, otherwise, not only would there be external failures, but also internal collapse.

It was precisely because the situation inside was completely at its limit that Xing Daorong specifically asked Liu Ba to come to Jiangdong.

Historically, Liu Ba played many roles in Liu Bei's army, the most important of which was coin minting.

After Liu Bei pacified Yizhou, he once encountered the problem of shortage of military supplies. At the suggestion of Liu Ba, Liu Bei minted a currency called "Zhi Bai Qian" to solve this problem.

According to the Biography of Lingling Sages: "When attacking Liu Zhang, Bei made a promise to his soldiers: 'If the situation is resolved, I will not interfere with the treasury and other things.'"

"When they captured Chengdu, all the soldiers put down their weapons and rushed to the various storages to grab treasures. The military was running out of supplies, and Bei was very worried."

"Ba said: 'It is easy. Just mint coins of 100 yuan each, level the prices of all goods, and let the officials run the official market.' Bei followed his advice, and within a few months, the treasury was full."

This shows that this guy has the ability to help people get rich.

But Xing Daorong didn’t quite understand this. Wouldn’t directly minting coins cause inflation?
To put it simply, currency is a medium issued by rulers and used for transactions in the market. In times of war, rulers often mint large quantities of currency to solve the problem of "military supplies".

A similar situation occurred with the gold yuan in modern Chinese history.

However, this behavior often results in more and more currency circulating in the market, causing the value of the currency itself to become lower and lower.

The most obvious result is that prices continue to rise. Although people hold more money, their purchasing power decreases, which means that money is worthless as the saying goes.

Logically speaking, this could easily make life more difficult for the people.

Xing Daorong then summoned Liu Ba to ask about the coin minting.

Unexpectedly, Liu Ba looked confused and seemed to not understand at all.

But he smiled bitterly and said, "I thought General Xing summoned me here for something, but why is it for this vague matter of coinage?"

Only then did Xing Daorong realize that because of his joining, Liu Bei did not give heavy rewards to the army when he entered Sichuan. So there was naturally no need to ask Liu Ba to mint coins, let alone such a thing.

This makes me seem redundant...

However, Liu Ba seemed to be very interested in the coinage proposed by Xing Daorong, and asked: "General Xing, what is the matter with this coinage?" Xing Daorong saw that there was no such thing, so he did not intend to meddle in it, and just said: "Since there is nothing to do, it's fine."

"But I think Jiangdong doesn't have enough financial resources, so I came up with some ideas. I'm afraid it's not well thought out, so I asked Zichu to come here to help."

Liu Ba nodded, as if he understood a little, and said: "If that's the case, I do have an idea. I can use the 100-yuan coins to enrich the treasury."

The so-called "Zhi Bai Qian" is money whose value is one hundred times that of the original currency in circulation. In simple terms, it means issuing large-denomination coins for circulation in the market.

This approach has one advantage: it directly enriches the treasury!

To give a simple example, if Liu Bei had no copper to make money, he would use a copper coin with a face value of one hundred to exchange for one hundred copper coins in the hands of the people. Liu Bei would immediately earn ninety-nine copper coins.

Then he melted it down and made ninety-nine hundred-yuan coins, making another nine thousand eight hundred and one copper coins.

However, if you look at this thing carefully, you will find that there is a problem. If large-denomination banknotes fall into the hands of ordinary people, it will become a behavior of the government using large sums of money to "buy" small amounts of money in the hands of ordinary people.

Using such means, the goal of enriching the treasury was indeed achieved within a few months, but it was bound to become an act of exploitation of the common people.

Xing Daorong was about to shake his head when he heard this, but Liu Ba said, "The straight hundred coins can also be linked to Shu brocade. In this way, it will not be a problem for the noble families to circulate it."

Shu brocade...as the name suggests, it is a kind of silk from Shu.

This thing means the same thing as gold, and its main function is to be a hard currency.

but…

Just as Liu Ba said, the interests of ordinary people harmed by "Zhi Bai Qian" had nothing to do with the aristocratic families.

Zhibai coins are linked to Shu brocade, and the sales of Shu brocade have always been in the hands of the nobles. When the time comes, the transaction of Shu brocade must be done with Zhibai coins or exchanged, so it will not have much impact on the nobles.

The hundred coins in the hands of ordinary people had no way to circulate at all. After all, all business was in the hands of the nobles. The hundred coins in the hands of ordinary people were useless unless they were buying Shu brocade.

Otherwise, there would not be the saying of "women as transport workers" in Yizhou later on. It was not to help the army deliver food and get some food to survive...

Xing Daorong naturally could not agree to this practice of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

In his previous life, as a rich second-generation, although he was good at eating, drinking and having fun, he was not uneducated.

I still have some superficial knowledge about financial trade.

But he said to Liu Ba: "This is not the way to make money..."

“To mint new coins, we must coordinate with productivity!”

“Technological innovation is needed to match the new currency.”

Technological innovation?
What technological innovation?
Liu Ba was surprised at first that Xing Daorong, a warrior, seemed to understand his intention of minting new coins, but he was puzzled as to what technological innovation he was talking about...

But he said: "Can you please tell me in detail, General, how to reform it?"

Xing Daorong said: "What the people want is nothing more than food, clothing, shelter and transportation."

"The most important thing is, of course, food."

"There have been severe droughts in recent years, and the people have had poor harvests. They can barely get enough food and clothing, so how can they think about trade and circulation?"

“So this is called coinage, but it’s actually for agricultural innovation.”

Liu Ba was really confused after hearing this, wondering how it was related to agriculture.

but…

But seeing Xing Daorong's serious look, I knew he was definitely not making it up.

And then, Xing Daorong actually took out an object.

(End of this chapter)