Chapter 948 1037 Gold Reserves

The real inflation in the Song Dynasty was after the government began to issue paper money, that is, after the establishment of the official paper money issuing agency "Yizhou Jiaoziwu", the fixed denomination of Jiaozi was stipulated, and iron coins were used as reserves for Jiaozi.

Before the issuance of Jiaozi, a corresponding amount of iron coins must be prepared as reserves, and the reserve currency can be exchanged by the people at any time.

At the same time, the Song Dynasty government also formulated a corresponding currency system, stipulating that the use period of Jiaozi is two or three years. After the period is over, the old Jiaozi will be taken back by the government and new Jiaozi will be issued immediately.

This regulation is to prevent excessive wear and tear of Jiaozi and counterfeiting of fake Jiaozi by the people. Secondly, a fixed amount of Jiaozi has a relative amount of iron coin reserves, which can prevent the problem of Jiaozi's dishonesty.

It should be said that the rules for issuing Jiaozi in the Song Dynasty were very clear. If everything was done according to the rules, the phenomenon of cheap money would not occur later.

Unfortunately, history did not go this way.

When the military expenditure of the Song Dynasty increased sharply and the court issued a large number of Jiaozi to solve the problem, hyperinflation broke out.

Printing a large number of Jiaozi is just like the Ming Dynasty constantly absorbing silver from overseas at this time.

When the amount of silver exceeds the circulation demand of the people, it will also cause inflation.

Inflation benefits the rich and loses the common people.

Zhang Juzheng naturally understands Wei Guangde's meaning, but he is most concerned about the gold issue now.

Of gold and silver, the most popular among the people is of course gold.

For wealthy families, who doesn't have a large number of gold products and gold jewelry, and for the poor, it is very good to have a silver jewelry.

Because the Ming Dynasty is now in a net inflow of international trade, the international settlement currency is naturally based on the requirements of the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty recognizes silver, so silver is the international currency.

But according to Wei Guangde's words, once the Ming Dynasty lacks gold, the gold will be exchanged by the barbarians at a low price. When the Ming Dynasty needs gold, will the barbarians bring gold to the door for trading again?

Wei Guangde has already said that people are bringing silver now, but if the gold price is raised later, the exchange rate of gold and silver will be increased from 1:7 to 1:20, or even more, what should we do?

Gold and silver are recognized by the people.

Although the Ming court did not recognize the monetary attributes of gold and silver, the court had issued some decrees before, and silver was already circulated among the people.

Even a few days ago, he was still thinking about converting taxes into silver to reduce the collection of physical objects when implementing the "One Whip Law" throughout the country.

However, Zhang Juzheng was still happy about the large amount of silver flowing in after the opening of Yuegang, thinking that it could solve the tension of silver circulation among the people. But he didn't expect that it seemed to be a good thing now, but it would cause a situation like the Song Dynasty in the long run.

This forced him to think deeply about the pros and cons.

You know, the Ming Dynasty is still constrained by the currency problem, and it has not been effectively solved.

Now the good money minted by the government is mostly taken away privately by local tyrants to make inferior money, and there are serious hidden dangers in the circulation of private money.

In fact, this is also a problem that existed at the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

Seeing the old story of Song and Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang chose to give up minting coins after realizing that the copper material of Daming was insufficient and the cost of coinage was high. Instead, he issued treasure notes and banned the circulation of gold and silver among the people.

The treasure notes did play some role, but a series of measures taken by Zhu Yuanzhang later also made Daming treasure notes follow the old path of paper money in Song and Yuan Dynasty. Not only did it not bring convenience to the people, but it became a means for the government to plunder the wealth of the people.

The treasure notes collapsed completely, and the people used gold, silver and copper coins as the main means of transaction again.

Wei Guangde had long been considering improving the currency system of Daming. With the precedent of treasure notes, this matter certainly has a long way to go.

Earlier, Wei Guangde was still thinking about whether to use the large amount of silver pouring in from overseas as the main currency. Therefore, he foresaw that Daming would have less gold and more silver in the future, and let the family reserve more gold instead of silver as a countermeasure.

But today, after he saw that the gold of Japan at a ratio of 1 to 10 was bought up by the barbarians, he realized that the gold price of Western countries might be higher than this ratio.

The future international currency reserves mainly consist of some highly circulated national currencies and gold, but no country has seen a large amount of silver stored.

Although it seems that the United States on the other side of the strait has used silver as a currency reserve, it was for a short time, mainly because of the lobbying of silver mine owners.

At that time, the price of silver had been hovering for a long time, which caused the interests of these mine owners to be damaged.

Therefore, the silver that was once ignored was used as a supplement to the gold reserve by them, and they successfully lobbied the government to include it in the reserve.

This matter also directly led to the collapse of China's silver standard system in the 1930s, and the country could only start to issue legal tender, opening a chaotic currency era.

At that time, in old China, not only copper coins were still in circulation, but silver dollars, legal tender, gold yuan coupons, etc. were all in circulation, making it a mess.

Thinking of this, Wei Guangde naturally realized that silver could be used as a circulating currency, but the main reserve of the court could not be silver, and it must be gold.

However, the Ministry of Revenue of the Ming court now only has a reserve of hundreds of taels of gold, which is obviously not acceptable.

Moreover, combined with the fact that Zhang Juzheng had discussed the implementation of the One Whip Law throughout the country in the cabinet before, the silver standard must be determined to implement the One Whip Law, which is convenient for local unified tax collection.

The currency reform of the Ming Dynasty that I was considering seems to be on the agenda.

Now that Zhang Juzheng has passed the ball to me, I must take it.

Immediately, Wei Guangde took out something from his sleeve and handed it to Zhang Juzheng.

"Brother, let's take a look."

"What is this?"

Zhang Juzheng took it and turned it over in his hand for a long time before he said, "Is this made of silver?" ’

What Zhang Juzheng was holding was the Spanish silver dollar that Wei Guangde had received from his family earlier, but he didn't understand it because it was very different from the silver coins of later generations in his impression.

It is better to say that it is a silver pimple or a silver cake. It is only close to a circle. There is no monetary unit or portrait on the front and back, but a pattern of crosses on the front and back of double columns.

I heard that there is a kind of silver coin with more complicated patterns, but Wei Guangde doesn't have it in his hands. He only heard it mentioned by his servants.

"This is the silver coin brought by the Yi people. It was cast by the country where the Yi people live. It has clear weight and silver fineness standards."

Wei Guangde said.

In fact, he took it for granted, because in his opinion, the silver coins should have been minted by a European country, most likely Spain.

But he didn't know that the silver coin in his hand was indeed made according to the order of the King of Spain. It was a struck coin. The silver block was irregular in shape, but of appropriate weight and fineness. It was generally called cobmoney in Europe and America, or cob for short. ).

This is the Spanish Benyang, forged on the orders of Philip II.

At this time, Spain occupied a large area of ​​land in the Americas and discovered silver mines for large-scale mining. This was done to facilitate transportation and measurement.

This type of COB is generally divided into two categories, one is the one with the Spanish coat of arms on the front and a cross on the back, and the other is the one with double columns on the front and a cross on the back.

"Vulgar."

Zhang Juzheng weighed the silver coins in his hand and commented.

Wei Guangde was speechless, but that was not the point, so he just went and said it to Zhang Juzheng. He was not wrong anyway.

"Uncle, the cabinet meeting previously discussed the implementation of a whip law in all provinces of the Ming Dynasty to collect silver as taxes."

Hearing this, Zhang Juzheng nodded.

"But now in our Ming Dynasty, most of the silver circulating among the people is broken silver. After the government weighs and collects taxes, it has to be cast into silver ingots and escorted to Beijing."

Having said this, Wei Guangde took out a copper coin. This was Longqing Tongbao, a Xiaoping coin minted in the fourth year of Longqing.

Of course, this money was made of high-quality copper and was used as a reward from the palace. Now Wei Guangde showed it to Zhang Juzheng. He thought Zhang Juzheng should guess his intention.

Sure enough, when he saw the copper coins in Wei Guangde's hand and the Yiren silver coins in his own hand, Zhang Juzheng immediately guessed Wei Guangde's intention.

"You want to make money?"

Wei Guangde nodded and said: "Brother Shu once said that silver would be the main method of tax collection for the court. In fact, this is also the case now.

But at that time, I and Brother Qing once said that the government collected copper coins and broken silver to offset taxes, and also cast silver ingots and handed them over to the Ministry of Household Affairs. However, the fire consumption was levied from the private sector.

This amount can be large or small, all at the whim of the official. "

Zhang Juzheng nodded. Contrary to what ordinary people thought, the Ming Dynasty's cabinet would hold a lot of meetings and discussions before issuing decrees, instead of making decisions on their heads.

In film and television works, there is a discussion between ministers and the emperor. It is impossible for a minister to make a suggestion and the whole room applauds, and then immediately issue an order to do it.

The officials would discuss it, and if there was no problem, they would report to the emperor for approval.

It can be said that what was handed over to the emperor was a mature and implementable decree.

Therefore, before the cabinet actually implemented the One Whip Law in the world, it considered many issues, and Huo Xiao was one of them.

"There are regulations for making money in the Ming Dynasty. I think the money made by the Yi people seems to be similar to that of our dynasty.

Since the Yi people can make money from silver, we, the Ming Dynasty, can naturally do it too.

With money made of silver, there is no need to talk about fire consumption, which can be regarded as good governance that reduces the burden on the people.

To this end, the imperial court could also set the weight and fineness of copper coins, stipulate that silver coins should be minted and copper coins should be exchanged, and this should be announced to the world.

Folks mostly use privately minted money. If they are willing to mint it privately, they can mint it privately. When the time comes, they can exchange it for money according to weight and fineness.

However, before promoting this matter, the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Industry must participate in discussions to determine the specifications of silver and copper money. To avoid the old events of the Song Dynasty, the difference between large money and small money must also be considered.

For example, this silver coin can be used to make two kinds of money: one tael and one qian. "

Wei Guangde's natural first step in reforming the Ming Dynasty currency was to determine the currency style.

However, Zhang Juzheng didn't quite understand how this had anything to do with the previous foreign purchases of gold.

When Zhang Juzheng frowned, Wei Guangde continued: "One tael of silver coins can contain 80% silver. In this way, the court can make 20% profit for every one tael of silver coins minted, and at least 10% profit after the minting cost.

In the Ming Dynasty, only money made by the Ming Dynasty was allowed to be circulated. This kind of money must be exchanged for money made by the Ming Dynasty, and an additional 10% minting fee will be charged based on the silver content. "

Obviously, this is aimed at importing silver from overseas.

When doing business with Ming Dynasty, I will earn 10% of your money first.

Anyway, Ming Dynasty's products are not worried about sales, and some overseas businessmen come to buy them.

Earning 10% of the silver is equivalent to reducing the purchasing power of the Yi people by 10%, which can effectively reduce the outflow of gold from the Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, the court will also make a net profit of 20% of the silver, which will alleviate the court's financial difficulties.

"Well, I think it's feasible."

After Zhang Juzheng figured out the difference, he immediately nodded in approval.

Liu Shouyou did not expect Wei Guangde to come up with such an idea. It must be said that it is a good idea, and the court can benefit from it.

"At the same time, the court also needs to build up enough gold reserves, and it can't be like this anymore."

Wei Guangde said immediately.

"Shandai, you know the current situation of the court, where can I exchange silver for gold as a reserve."

Zhang Juzheng smiled helplessly.

"Yes."

But, Wei Guangde said immediately.

"Huh?"

Zhang Juzheng was slightly surprised, but soon he roughly guessed Wei Guangde's idea in his heart.

"Uncle brother should have thought of it, hehe

Speaking of this, I think uncle brother has also realized that the price of gold and silver may change, so the tens of millions of taels of silver stored in Changying Treasury cannot be left, and it will be a loss to the court at that time."

Wei Guangde continued.

"With a large influx of silver, the value will inevitably decrease greatly. You plan to exchange the silver stored in Changying Treasury for gold. I also support it. There should be no one in the court who opposes it."

Zhang Juzheng stroked his beard and smiled.

It doesn't really matter whether it's gold or silver, as long as there is a reserve.

Wei Guangde nodded when he heard this. As long as both of them support it, it can be regarded as having been recognized by the palace.

"This matter should not be publicized, but should be operated secretly to avoid causing panic in the court and the people."

Wei Guangde continued, "At that time, the Jinyiwei will have to closely monitor the people, first to prevent the news from leaking, and second to prevent someone from making ill-gotten gains by doing so."

"Yes."

Liu Shouyou agreed on the side.

"With the ten million taels of silver in Changying Treasury as a base, the court should be able to reserve two million taels of gold, which is not enough.

In the future, Changying Treasury will let the local governments exchange the horse price silver for gold and deposit it in the treasury, so that the local gold price will rise earlier, so as to avoid being taken advantage of by the barbarians.

The silver in Changying Treasury is the raw material for the court to make the first batch of Ming silver treasures. The court should make a profit of one million taels in this matter, and this profit should also be used to build the court's gold reserves.

In this way, the gold circulating in the market can be collected into the national treasury.

As for the private wealthy households collecting gold, let them do it.

These golds should not be able to flow out, so the court does not need to worry too much."

Wei Guangde said.

Anyway, what Wei Guangde is considering now is how to increase the exchange rate of gold and silver in the country and raise the gold price.

Anyway, most of the silver of the old Wei family has been exchanged for gold, so the loss in this incident will not be great, but will make some profit.

Draining the circulating gold in the private sector and preventing the outflow of gold can be more effective than issuing a decree to strictly prohibit it.

For some things, the more the court prohibits them, the more people commit them, because they are profitable.

In this case, it is better for the court to take the profits directly.

"The Jinyiwei should intervene in the entire exchange and clarify the situation of gold circulating in the market to prevent them from hiding it."

Wei Guangde said again.