[Comprehensive] Number of Merry

Things start with five baht.

This is a small copper coin cast during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. The outer circle and the inner square symbolize the heaven and earth. Since it was released in the Central Plains for five years, it has been in use until the founding of the Tang Dynasty and the recasting of Kaiyuan Tongbao. It has been in circulation for a total of 720 years.

But in the past 720 years, every time there was a war, the five baht coin would be abolished, and it would be re-used after a period of time. The mystery lies in the six words "bad money drives out good money".

Take a more recent example.Two years before the founding of New China, the Kuomintang printed a large amount of legal currency due to a large increase in military expenditures and financial deterioration, causing inflation. Before the issuance of golden round notes in 1948, the issuance of legal currency increased by more than 490 times compared with the eve of the Anti-Japanese War, and prices rose by [-]. [-] [-] times, note that the unit is [-]!

In just three years and nine months after the Kuomintang re-ruled Shanghai, the price of rice rose from 3725 French currency per shi to 175333333 gold yuan notes. Considering the factor of 300 million to 1 gold dollar note, the price of rice reached 500 trillion French currency. Thirty times the price increase in France after the war.

In this inflation event, the victims are all the people in the areas ruled by the Kuomintang government, and all the hard-earned income has been wiped out in inflation. The winners, or the short-term gainers, are the Kuomintang government and the Kuomintang government. Close to the big capitalists, all the hard-earned income of the people fell into the pockets of these people due to the excessive issuance of legal currency.

The same thing happened when Wang Lang lived. At that time, there was a very popular saying, "Everything goes up, but wages don't go up." Assuming that only one month's salary can satisfy one month's food and drink, now it takes three months. Salary, that is, the savings accumulated in the past, is equivalent to letting people work for nothing for two months.

So whose pocket did the benefits generated by this two-month work for nothing fall into?

The answer is people who misprint paper money.

These people first printed banknotes recognized by the society, used these banknotes to buy hard currency, and took the real goods into their own hands. Then the people found that the money in their hands was worthless, because the goods circulating on the market were rapidly increasing. Reduced, money increased in large quantities, resulting in skyrocketing prices, and the money was worthless.

There is a saying that there is nothing new under the sun.

As early as the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty more than 1000 years ago, Dong Zhuo, who did not understand economics but knew that inflation could be used to seize private wealth, was also doing such things.

The prevailing currency in the Han Dynasty was copper coins. Unlike banknotes, Dong Zhuo adopted the method of minting small coins instead.Originally, five baht copper was needed to cast a five baht coin, but the five baht coin cast by Dong Zhuo only needed less than one gram of copper, and he destroyed a large number of bronze figures, copper pillars and other artifacts from the Qin and Han Dynasties, all of which were used to cast coins, resulting in The law is in chaos.Other places are fine. In the area under Dong Zhuo's rule, severe inflation broke out, and the price of grain rose by a million times. Dong Zhuo collected all the wealth of the people at once.

In order to solve this problem, the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu, and Wu each came up with their own plans.

The most benevolent and righteous are the three generations of the Cao family in Wei State, Cao Cao, Cao Pi, and Cao Rui.

In the tenth year of Jian'an, Xun Yue proposed in "Shen Jian·Current Affairs" to restore the circulation of five baht coins, perhaps influenced by him. In the 13th year of Jian'an, Cao Cao, who served as prime minister, ordered Dong Zhuo's small money to be deposed and the use of five baht coins to be restored.

However, although Cao Cao issued a decree to restore the circulation of five baht coins, he did not start to mint five baht coins, because the world was not yet unified at that time, and the metals needed for casting coins must first meet the needs of military and agriculture; It is bad money, and it is easy to use these bad money to defraud Cao Wei's regime of good money and plunder wealth just like Dong Zhuo's indiscriminate distribution of small money.

So, shortly after, Cao Cao abolished this decree. Twelve years later, when Cao Pi replaced the Han Dynasty, the ambitious Cao Pi ordered the resumption of the circulation of five baht coins. Chinese society has regressed back to the primitive era of "bartering".

Attempts by Cao Cao, Cao Pi, and his sons to recover the five baht coins all failed, and the task fell to Cao Cao's grandson, Wei Mingdi Cao Rui.At this time, the decree of using grain and silk as currency has been implemented for six years, and the disadvantages are very obvious.For example, people increase the weight of grain by soaking grain, and increase the length of cloth by weaving thin silk, so as to make profits.Although the court severely cracked down, the phenomenon continued repeatedly.Therefore, the court held a meeting to discuss the solution.

The ministers headed by Sima Zhi believed that the time had come and the five baht coins could be restored.Cao Rui followed the advice of Sima Zhi and others and ordered the resumption of five baht coins. Since then, five baht coins have continued to circulate for nearly 400 years, and they were not withdrawn from circulation until Tang Taizu Li Yuan cast and issued Kaiyuan Tongbao.

Looking back at the efforts of the three generations of the Cao family to restore the five baht coins, it can be found that these three generations have never accumulated folk wealth by issuing small coins, but have worked unswervingly to solve the problem.

The other two monarchs of the same era were far inferior to the three generations of the Cao family.

Let me talk about Sun Quan first.

The state of Wu is also short of copper. It is impossible to make small coins like Dong Zhuo, because there is too little copper.So the clever Sun Quan came up with a good way to make a lot of money!

The money made by Sun Quan is called "Daquan Wubai", which means that one coin is worth [-] yuan, but because copper is really not enough, "Daquan Dangqian", "Daquan Two Thousand", and "Daquan Five Thousand", One coin is worth five thousand dollars.

A good five baht money suddenly becomes a big spring money, even if you are a big money!People in Soochow, especially businessmen, reacted fiercely and resolutely resisted Daquan money.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Sun Quan issued an edict not to mint big money, and the big money that had flowed into the people was returned to the government, and the government exchanged it for five baht coins in proportion.That is to say, in fact, a lot of big money was not recovered, and it remained in the folk until the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the difference in price made the Soochow government full at once.

Finally, look at Liu Bei.

If it is said that Sun Quan made a lot of money, he may have also considered the issue of convenient circulation, not deliberately defrauding the people.Then Liu Bei is absolutely not.

At first, when attacking Liu Zhang in Yizhou, Liu Bei and his soldiers agreed that if the matter is successful, all the collections in the treasury in Chengdu will be given to you, and I will not interfere.When the soldiers took all the collections in the treasury and there was nowhere to go for military expenses, Liu Bei was very worried.At this time, Liu Bei's counselor, Liu Ba from Jingzhou, came up with an idea for him: "It's very simple, cast a big coin worth [-] yuan, which is equal to and unified with the price, and just order the officials to effectively rectify the market."

So in just a few months, Liu Bei used white wolves empty-handed, and obtained wealth from the people by setting the value of one coin to one hundred, and raised all the military expenses.

However, although Liu Bei's motives are impure, the currency under his rule is actually the most stable among the Three Kingdoms.Because he has a good helper Liu Ba whose level of economics is ahead of the times, and Zhuge Liang, the prime minister who is world-class in making money.

Liu Ba formulated economic policies and sent officials to stabilize the market. Zhuge Liang increased revenue and cut expenditure, worked hard to make money, and made up for all the money Liu Bei defrauded from the people, which established the people's confidence in the new currency.Everyone believed that the prime minister said that the money was worth a hundred, so it was worth a hundred.And since the common people believe it, then this money is indeed worth one hundred, which is why it costs only a few cents to mint a hundred yuan banknote, but it can be used as one hundred yuan when used.

There is a very famous saying in the field of finance: "Confidence is more valuable than gold." This is the truth.

After talking about the history, return to Jingzhou.

Because of Wang Lang, Jingzhou and Yizhou were opened up. Jingzhou, which has not encountered a major war for five consecutive years, is stable and prosperous. The commercial exchanges between Jingzhou and Yizhou have promoted the development of Jingzhou's business. The communication between them is also continuous.The original means of "bartering things" could not meet the needs of merchants at all, and the lack of five baht coins in the market also led to a gradual upward trend in prices. Except for cloth and rice, which were forced to set prices, they could be purchased with small money or with goods. Except for barter, the prices of other commodities fluctuate in an overall upward trend.

Wang Lang not only expected this, but also noticed this phenomenon, but she couldn't come up with a good solution for the time being.

The so-called bad money drives out good money roughly means that when people have two legal tenders at the same time, they will always spend the one that they think is unreliable first. For example, Jingzhou circulates both small money and five baht money. Just want to spend the little money first.

This will create a vicious circle, that is, small money is becoming less and less valuable; the less valuable it is, the more it needs to be minted, and the more minted; the more minted, the less valuable it is, and the more money it lacks. The problem of money shortage that has occurred repeatedly in history is caused by this, and countless talented people are helpless about it.

Fortunately, after breaking through the pass, things took a turn for the better.

Because there are a lot of small coins minted by Dong Zhuo in Guanzhong. Although the quality of these small coins is low, the advantage is that the total amount is huge. If they are taken back and melted and recast into five baht coins, then the problem of insufficient five baht coins in Jingzhou City can be solved at once.

Like food and cloth, metal is also a hard currency.With food, cloth, salt, and metal, the four necessary materials for a country are all in place, and the rest are relatively dispensable things.

Now that Wang Lang has these four kinds of supplies, and they are all sufficient, the time has come to start thinking about resetting the currency system.Out of caution, Wang Lang cast stones to ask for directions, and first wrote a letter to Xuexuetang, asking scholars to write an article on the monetary system of the Han Dynasty and express their opinions-this is a means of communication between Xiangyang and Nanyang, usually by Wang Lang provided questions, most of which were current affairs questions, and then the scholars in the academy would discuss and study the questions, and the scholars with excellent answers would be invited by Nanyang to become officials.Regardless of whether he is an official or not, being affirmed by Nanyang is a great honor in itself, and his speech is innocent. Few scholars can refuse such an opportunity.

Zhuge Liang, who was studying in the academy, saw this topic, and combined with the news that Wang Lang had successfully fought in Guanzhong and confiscated a large amount of copper coins, he understood that Wang Lang would soon start reforming Jingzhou's currency system.

He has done some research on this issue, and he also believes that this is the fundamental issue that determines a country's national strength. It is only as important as war. Therefore, he temporarily put aside his studies and studied the issue of currency in more depth, and wrote an excellent article. political theory.But Zhuge Liang still had a worry in his heart. He planned to become an official in two years, so he suppressed the article and did not publish it. He only circulated it among a few close friends.It's a pity that due to a chance meeting, the article was still lost and spread to Guanzhong, which attracted Sima Zhi's attention.

The reason why Lu Yi and Lu Ji laughed when they mentioned this matter was because of Sima Zhi.