eldest son of Ming dynasty

Among this series of issues, the more critical one is obviously the second point mentioned by Jiang Yong, which is the transfer of minting rights.

In fact, because of the suppression of commerce in ancient China, currency, one of the supporting systems of commercial society, has always been relatively chaotic.

On the one hand, the central government has never truly unified currency, which mainly refers to currency value, quality, style, etc.

On the other hand, the operation of society does require a currency to conduct transactions and meet daily needs.

This resulted in that although copper coins and silver could be circulated throughout the country, there was too much private money produced by the private sector.

The 15th and 16th centuries can even be called the era of private money.

The complexity of this problem cannot be solved by just casting a new currency.

Because when it comes to unifying the currency, our ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang has already done it.

He forced the issuance of Ming Dynasty banknotes, but in practice, the Ming Dynasty banknotes had depreciated by more than 10 times during the Hongwu period. By the Yongle period, the large-scale issuance of the Ming Dynasty banknotes had depreciated dozens of times. By the first year of Zhengtong, the Ming Dynasty banknotes had depreciated by a thousand. More than times.

If the court must make it illegal to use gold and silver for transactions, then another kind of currency will spontaneously be born among the people.

Going further back, under the monarchy, if the government has the right to mint money, it is equivalent to opening Pandora's box.

It is equivalent to turning on the money printing press to gain wealth.

Such a convenient way to make money, even in modern times, when the monarchy system has completely disappeared, can humans, a species that prides itself on being smart, endure it?

Therefore, once the right to mint money is in hand, some kind of restrictions must be imposed.

Otherwise, it's just an aphrodisiac, take a sip and feel good, and then wait for death to call.

And constraints are precisely the hardest part.

To a certain extent, it is inevitable that finance and currency will become perfect in Western society.

Because behind these supporting policies must be the rule of law system.

It's equivalent to you stipulating that a 'thing' has value. You provide this thing and I accept it, but you can't cheat on me, at least not at will.

As an ordinary person, I don’t have the power to order the government, but I want to know where the government’s bottom line is. I’m not sure what you can do, but I at least want to know what you can’t do.

Even behind the development of commerce, there must be the rule of law, because businessmen do not know each other at all when they interact with each other. They are so far apart, why should I hand over money to a stranger?

This requires a common set of legal constraints.

This process will not become perfect all of a sudden, but it will always move forward in shocks. There will be a person who takes advantage of a legal loophole to defraud money. After learning a lesson, he will fix the loophole. This is not a problem. This is how the business society develops.

But you must never live without the law.

But this problem is very difficult in China.

Under the divine right of kings, the law is nonsense.

Even if the laws of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty are promulgated, or if the emperor breaks the law and the common people are guilty, it is actually not a word of the emperor? None of the officials below take the law seriously.

Even a small county magistrate has great freedom in handling judicial cases.

On the other hand, the reason why the bourgeois revolution beheaded the king was basically because the king’s power overrode the law and always violated the interests of the bourgeoisie. This gave birth to the saying that has been popular for many years - private property. Sacrosanct.

This is actually a prerequisite for the normal operation of business and currency.

Of course, human society is always in the process of change, and whether this sentence is true or not is a damn question.

Zhu Houzhao had good intentions and kept popularizing the four words "economic law" to these people, just to tell them the importance of financial and monetary issues.

But just telling is not enough.

Certain constraints are still needed.

Jiang Yong's words probably shocked them a little. Following Wang Qiong, Zhang Cong also agreed, "If there are such serious consequences, Wei Chen also thinks that we should find a way to control the amount of silver by the imperial court."

"That's right." Gu Renyi nodded, "Is it possible for the imperial court to announce a unified currency? The quantity and quality of such coins will be in the hands of the imperial court, and outsiders cannot interfere."

Zhu Houzhao was waiting for them here, "Isn't that what the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes were like back then? But they were quickly abandoned by the people. If we issue new money now, the people will not recognize it and just think it is another kind of banknote. This What to do?”

It was hard for everyone to talk.

The Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes were issued by Zhu Yuanzhang. The depreciation of the treasure banknotes was due to excessive issuance. They can still figure out the reason. Emperor Yongle issued a lot of them back then, but these two elders did it. What do you want future generations to say? ?

Zhu Houzhao can be more casual, but they can't.

The Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes are really speechless things. They are money issued by the imperial court.

But there are many regulations that simply don't make sense.

For example, the imperial court stipulates that gold and silver can be exchanged for treasure banknotes, but the treasure banknotes in your hand cannot be exchanged for gold and silver.

The imperial court used treasure banknotes to pay salaries to officials and military pay to soldiers. However, when ordinary people paid taxes to the court, they could not use treasure banknotes to offset the money, or they would only give you a small proportion.

What is this for?

Do you not acknowledge the money you paid?

In fact, in the early Ming Dynasty, because the cost of casting copper coins was too high, issuing banknotes was a good idea, and it worked for a while.

But in the eighth year of Hongwu,

The common people realized that something was wrong, and at the same time, the court discovered that they had tasted the benefits.

Therefore, the overall currency of the Ming Dynasty,

It started with treasure banknotes and declared other currencies illegal. During the Zhengtong period, treasure banknotes could no longer be obtained, and they had to let go of copper coins, gold and silver.

During this period, copper coins were the mainstream and silver was the auxiliary currency.

After Jiajing, especially after Zhang Juzheng stipulated that taxes should be paid in silver, silver became the mainstream and copper coins became the supplement.

This process is what we have been talking about as the silvering of currency.

From the perspective of world history, silver has not been popular as a currency for too long. Soon there were too many silver mines and silver was no longer scarce, resulting in a sharp drop in silver prices, which prompted Western countries to enter the gold standard.

Of course, this was two or three hundred years later.

Now in the 16th century, the Silver Age has just begun.

During this period, Japan was relatively successful in coping with its currency system because of its rich silver mines. On the contrary, Ming Dynasty lost its ability to dominate the currency it used while being involved in the global trading system.

Therefore, during this period, currency reform is most appropriate, both domestically and abroad.

The ministers couldn't think of a way, so Zhu Houzhao was no longer polite to them and poured out all the ideas he had thought about for a long time, "This is a strictly logical sequence. If you want to gain Baixin's trust in the coins issued by the imperial court, Strict laws must be established so that the coins in their hands can be exchanged for silver at any time.

The specific approach is this. Ming Dynasty will establish a central bank dedicated to currency issuance and management.

But even the central bank cannot print and issue unlimited amounts of money. This constraint is to anchor the amount of money issued by the central bank's own funds. "

Zhu Houzhao spoke as slowly as possible so that they could understand, while pausing from time to time, "For example, if the central bank issues one hundred thousand taels of silver coins, then when the people use the coins to exchange them, the bank must be able to get this part of the silver."

This is completely contrary to Zhu Yuanzhang's regulations at that time.

Gu Renyi immediately frowned, "If new money and silver can be freely exchanged, then which common people would be willing to use new money?"

"It can be exchanged, but it does not mean that it can be traded. In other words, the court's taxes are collected with new money, and the court's salary is issued with new money. Commodity transactions in the Ming Dynasty must use the new money issued by the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty."

"If this is the case, the promise can be redeemed at any time, and it cannot be trusted by others."

It's like this. On the one hand, you said that I can't use it, but on the other hand, you said it's okay and you can exchange it freely. It feels like it's unnecessary. In the final analysis, it just forces me to give up using silver.

Zhu Houzhao's tone was tough, "The court must consider both hard and soft when doing things. If you are too soft, you won't get anything done."

The legal status of currencies other than precious metals is originally given by the power of the state.

Yan Song was a foreign affairs officer. He thought about it and said, "In this way, there is no problem internally. But what about externally? New money and silver can be freely exchanged, and the value of silver is still recognized. For people doing business, they are still You can bring back silver overseas,

Just come back and exchange it for new money. At that time, huge amounts of silver poured into the Ming Dynasty. How is this different from now? "

Zhu Houzhao was stunned and almost let him go around him, "Issuing new money does not mean denying the value of silver, nor does it prevent the inflow of silver.

As for the question you mentioned, it involves how much new money the central bank will issue.

A rough principle of disposal is to issue new coins based on the amount of silver imported. To put it simply, if you input 100 taels of silver from the Ming Dynasty, the central bank will issue new money worth 100 taels of silver. "

Yan Song probably still didn't understand, "Your Majesty, this...is this still the same? As the inflow of silver increases, there will be more and more new money."

"What will that bring?" Zhu Houzhao asked.

"New coins are worth less."

"What about the price of silver?"

"Silver prices will naturally fall as well."

"When a Ming businessman sells goods, will he ask his buyer for more money? Even silver will be despised by these people, and they will ask for gold at this time."

"Wouldn't this make doing business more difficult? What if the other party is unwilling to give?"

Zhu Houzhao pursed his lips, how the hell should he explain this?

In fact, when the cycle reaches that level, the productivity of the Ming Dynasty will theoretically increase a lot. Many of the manufactured products of the Ming Dynasty are not available in other countries. Technological progress will also bring about the power of military weapons, so in theory the Ming army will also be very powerful. .

In this case, I trade with you with good things, but you are unwilling to give gold?

This is not a question of willingness, but a question of courage or unwillingness.

"Well, let's put it this way... Let me go back and ask you another question. Ming Dynasty has so much wealth, what will it do with it? It doesn't have to be complicated, just four words, strengthen the country and enrich the people. Enriching the people doesn't have to be Duo mentions that the prerequisite for a strong country is a strong army.

As the saying goes, a gentleman is not guilty but possessing a jade is a crime. Therefore, in order to protect himself, a strong army must be done. Therefore, the wealth gained will be spent on weapons innovation, soldiers' salaries, military academies construction, food and grass security, ship construction, and military port construction. By that time, many problems will be easily solved. even……"

Zhu Houzhao paused, "I can ask him to use Daming's new money to trade with me."

Jiang Yong was stunned. "Your Majesty, the Ming Dynasty's foreign trade has always been about selling more and buying less. The West and Southeast Asia can hardly sell anything to us. Where did they get the Ming Dynasty's new money?"

In response, the emperor raised his eyebrows and said nonchalantly, "That's their problem."

"History of the Ming Dynasty" records: He will have a headache and ears.