today for you

Niu Qian's worries were suppressed by me for the time being, and I could see that he didn't understand, so I let go and said: "You coordinate with the two ministers, set a minimum amount, and give as much as you can in the treasury, and the rest will come from the government." out of the private treasury."

The emperor's private treasury is separate from the national treasury, and it is regarded as private property. After all, the richest and most invincible country in the world is none other than the emperor himself.If I say money, then basically the logistics of this war will be guaranteed.

I saw that the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of War were happy in writing, and I also divided my mind to beat them: "You two should also pay attention, I don't plan to fight a protracted war, we must hit every hit, and the battle will be resolved quickly. I try to be as small as possible. The Tianshan Mountains are far away in the frontier, and the loss of an expedition is not small, and I don't want this war to drag me down!"

"I obey the order!" The three ministers responded in unison.

That's pretty much the end of the matter.As for the details of dispatching troops, it is natural for the officials of the various ministries to do it. Otherwise, why would I support so many officials?But now, there is another new problem in front of me, which makes me miss Feng Xiaolan for a while.It is about the economy of the Great Yin.

What Niu Qian said that day revealed only the tip of the iceberg. I don't know much about economics, so I have some understanding of the problems encountered by the economic system in the middle and late Tang Dynasty.This problem is actually easy to understand in modern society.

Currency, which plays the role of value measure and means of circulation in the process of commodity circulation, cannot meet the needs of daily life. It is like storing goods worth ten taels in your home, which must require others to spend twelve or more money to buy them. , but other people only have five taels of silver in their hands, and they can't afford your ten taels of goods.

So you can't sell the extra goods worth five taels, and if you can't sell them, the labor required for the ten taels of goods you paid will not be rewarded, and the commodities will not be converted into wealth, and you will lose money.As an individual, the loss is only five taels of silver, so what about the whole country?That's a loss in the hundreds of millions.

Originally, such a phenomenon occurred, and it was not possible to realize the circulation of commodities by bartering, but bartering is a transaction method that is only used when the commodity economy is underdeveloped, and it will create a "value measure function". There are many kinds of "currency", which is not conducive to the unification of the currency system, let alone the development of the commodity economy.This is a historical retrogression for the Great Yin, which had already forcibly unified the currency unit.

A large part of the reason for this "money shortage" phenomenon in the Tang Dynasty was related to the backward casting technology, the high cost, and the country's inability to meet the needs of the people, but this was not the case in the Great Yin.

Dayin has always attached great importance to the development of industry, which can be seen from the money invested in the Ministry of Industry every year.If the research and development funds are sufficient, it is easy to produce results, and the technology to overcome the problem of high coinage cost and long time has long been a breakthrough.Then what caused the coins minted by the Great Yin to fail to satisfy the market?

Now that the military officers in Beijing have been sent out of Beijing, and the military supply team has been decorated, it is time to solve this difficult problem.

On the economic issues of the Great Yin, no one has more say than the Ministry of Households. I did not go back to the Zichen Palace this day, and directly took a large group of people from the Ministry of Accounts to the households in the west corridor of the Xuanzheng Palace. ministry office.

My visit to the household department in person put a lot of pressure on the officials of the household department. Everyone was stunned like a wooden stake, and they were a little trembling when they saluted.Seeing this, I still sent an inquiry directly to Niu Qian.

"I asked you to think about the issue of adding copper coins last time, have you thought about it?"

Niu Qiancheng panicked: "Report to Your Majesty, I have considered it carefully."

"What about the result of your consideration?"

Niu Qian said firmly: "I think this method is not possible. Although the casting of copper coins is simple, the price of copper is cheap and the price is not equal. The folks have long had the wind of melting copper coins to make utensils. Under the same weight, the value of copper utensils It is several times that of copper coins. Although the imperial court has issued a strict law to prohibit it, it still cannot prevent the people from taking risks, and just adding more official coins does not solve the problem of insufficient copper coins."

"In your opinion, what method should be used to cure this disease?" I listened quietly.

"Your Majesty, I wondered if the problem could be solved if private minting of coins was allowed, but I found that those who have the ability to mint coins privately are merchants and wealthy households, and ordinary people are powerless. If this is the case, the poor will benefit from the poor and serve the rich. It is not feasible for the rich to get richer and fulfill their desires (Zi Zhi Tong Jian)."

"The minister also imagined that if the policy of paralleling money and silk is not forced to be restored, the tax can be offset in kind. However, silk is not easy to store, and it will be damaged over time. .”

"If you don't mint coins and change to mint big coins, one coin is equal to ten coins, it is likely to be the same as coin reforming, resulting in the phenomenon of people using small coins to cast big coins, which will inevitably cause great confusion."

Niu Qian put forward three proposals in one breath, and also personally denied the three proposals. After speaking, he remained silent for a long time. I thought for a while and said, "So Aiqing has no other choice?"

"Your Majesty, I have no other choice." Niu Qian admitted unwillingly.

"Then how do you deal with the chaos of money being expensive and things being cheap?" I asked.

"Your Majesty, there is no effective way now, but to force the state governments to strengthen supervision, strictly punish those who privately mint and melt, strictly prohibit the hoarding of coins, and issue more copper coins in an appropriate amount. This is just a strategy to slow down the army,"

I put my head back and thought, Niu Qian's words can be summed up in a few points, the copper coins are not enough, but there are objective conditions to limit the casting.I thought again, what restricts the circulation and use of copper coins.

Niu Qian mentioned that people melt copper money to make other things, which reminded me of a real problem.Copper is a metal that is too easy to use.The melting point is very easy to reach, and there are many domestic copper mines. That is to say, copper is too cheap.

The value of copper itself is not enough, so there is no room for profit from the development and utilization of copper, but copper, as a base metal, occupies a pivotal position in the economic system of the Great Yin in the form of currency standard.

I slapped my forehead and understood that feelings are problems with the currency system.I said, looking at China for thousands of years, before the modern society, the country's currency system has not risen to the gold standard, at most it is the silver standard.Not using precious metals as legal pricing and settlement currencies will limit economic development to a large extent.

Precious metals are expensive precisely because they are scarce and hard to mine.Using this as the standard currency will stabilize the value of the currency, thereby stabilizing a country's financial system.From this point of view, the money shortage problem suffered by the Great Yin or the Tang Dynasty is an important process of the reform of the currency system. The only way to solve the problem is to move from the copper standard to the more advanced silver standard or even the gold standard. !

The Great Yin also has silver, but it is usually used as a higher-level currency to facilitate large-scale commerce and tax settlements. It is essentially an ordinary currency, and its use is not as common as copper coins. In my opinion, it is imperative to change the currency system, but with Judging from the current level of productivity development, the silver standard is obviously more applicable.

This is the advantage of looking back at the past from the height of future generations, and can quickly see some problems that people at that time were puzzling and even pedantic.I looked at Niu Qian, who was extremely distressed. In fact, this guy is also very keen. He can draw attention to problems when they arise. His vision is far and wide, which can be seen in general. I can't help feeling that the progress of history still depends on this. people.

I knocked on the table to bring him back to his senses: "Aiqing said that the price of copper is cheap, but what about the price of silver? How much copper can be worth one tael of silver?"

Niu Qian opened his eyes wide in an instant, and slowly raised his head to look at me, his eyes were full of light, as if fireworks were exploding in his mind, light leaked from his eyes.He hurriedly knelt down: "Your Majesty is wise! If the price of silver is used to set the price of copper, if the price of silver remains the same, the price of copper will not be cheap, and if the price of copper is not cheap, then business will be possible! Your Majesty..." At this point, Niu Qian even burst into tears. speechless.

I was also very stressed when a strong man was in front of me with tears in his eyes. I hurriedly helped Niu Qian up: "Niu Aiqing calm down, now that you have a direction, why not make a plan immediately? You write a note, and I can approve it, right? "

Niu Qian wiped away tears indiscriminately: "Yes, I'm being rude, I'm going to prepare the book now!"

The household department immediately mobilized up and down, Niu Qian gave orders energetically, and the big guys started working in an orderly manner right under my nose.I saw that there was nothing wrong with me, so I swaggered away.

These officials are all very smart, and they belong to all walks of life. As long as they have a good way, they can run faster than anyone else.Only half a month later, a simple plan was put on the desk.

This is for preliminary review and deliberation. It is only to straighten out the context of the New Deal, and the specific implementation plan will take longer to polish. After all, this is not a matter of overnight.

So today's court was arguing over this plan.More than half of the ministers are ignorant. How come the basic national economic policy of the national currency system has to be changed?Is this going to change?

Everyone doesn't understand, saying that they don't know the future, it is difficult to predict the danger, and they can't rest assured about the far-reaching new policy.Although there are problems with the old law, it can still be used after tinkering. Why take this risk to implement a new policy?Who is responsible if something goes wrong?

This dispute was also expected, I waited for everyone to calm down, and then I said: "For economic matters, let the professional do it, you Dali Siqing is in charge of prisons, right? Why do you want to interrupt? If I will let Zhong Shuling judge the right or wrong of your case, will you agree?"

"As for the words, I will put it here. If anyone can completely solve the money shortage, I will let you take care of the household department. If there is no other way, and you still have to block people who have the means to do things, then I will not forgive you. gone."

I walked out of the Xuanzheng Hall with a relaxed body, and I couldn't help but sway to the dovecote again while sitting on my shoulders. As soon as I stood still at the door of the dovecote, a fat pigeon with a yellow beak, gray claws and gray skin rushed towards my face. When I grabbed it, it looked familiar.Touch the bird's leg again, there is a letter!

I hurriedly took out the letter paper, and on the short piece of paper was the handwriting that I had missed thousands of times.

"It's back, don't read it."

My Lanlan is finally coming back!

The author has something to say:

I wrote this chapter and checked some information, and found that the ancients were really smart. For example, the sentence "Qifu is a thing, currency is the most expensive, and the benefits are not much", which shows very pertinently that money is only a measure of value, and it can only be used in circulation. It has its value, and it is just an item without circulation.This sentence comes from Zizhi Tongjian, which is from the same article as the one I marked in the article. "Zizhi Tongjian Volume 210 [Tang Ji Thirty] From the beginning of the year to the eunuchs, it was eight years since the great glory and the great desolation.Xuanzong to Dao Dao Dao Dao Dao Ming Xiao Emperor Zhongzhong Kaiyuan 22nd Year (Jiaxu, [-] A.D.)".

The writing is very simple and easy to understand, and you will gain knowledge after reading it. _(:з」∠)_