Chapter 950 1039 Ming Dynasty Monetary Policy

When I was young, in front of the gate of Yongfangfang City, it was similar to the previous scene. After seeing that Liu Shou had the token, the soldiers on night duty naturally did not dare to stop him.

In fact, not to mention high-ranking officials like the Commander of the Imperial Guard, even ordinary officials in the capital, as long as their identity is verified, they have to let him go.

Today's Ming Dynasty is no longer what it was like in the early Ming Dynasty. No one will act according to the rules.

Military generals are their superiors, let alone civil servants. Now the civil servants have the final say in the court.

As the cars of Zhang Juzheng and Wei Guangde arrived at Lu Mansion, the officials in Yongfang also knew about it, and the two assistant ministers of the cabinet arrived at Lu Tiaoyang together.

Although they didn't know what these cabinet ministers were gathering to discuss at such a late hour, they all cheered up and paid attention.

Lu Tiaoyang was also quite surprised that Zhang Juzheng and Wei Guangde came together at this time. He welcomed them into the study room in the inner courtyard and arranged for tea to be served.

Soon, Jin Yiwei's information was put into his hands.

He didn't give in and let Lu Tiaoyang think about it and analyze it. Soon Zhang Juzheng explained his intention.

Hearing that the Yi people transported a large amount of silver to the Ming Dynasty, on the one hand, they purchased various commodities of the Ming Dynasty, and at the same time, they also purchased a large amount of gold to transport away. Similar operations were also done in the Japanese country, and Lu Tiaoyang naturally felt alarm bells ringing in his heart.

After listening to Wei Guangde's analysis, Lu Tiaoyang also believed it.

‘The Yi people are really very scheming. They traveled across the ocean to the Ming Dynasty, and they still had plans. ’

Lu Tiaoyang said.

Although Wei Guangde did not agree with Lu Tiaoyang's words, the meaning was correct.

People who took the risk to come to the Ming Dynasty certainly had some agenda, although they were not necessarily coming for the Ming Dynasty gold.

It should be said that maybe he was just doing business. He accidentally discovered that the price of gold and silver in the Ming Dynasty was very different from that in Europe, so he added another business.

"It's just this money making. Although I have used gold and silver to make coins in the Ming Palace before, they were for rewards. All dynasties have also forced people to use gold and silver coins made by the imperial court. This..."

At this time, Lu Tiaoyang was also thinking rapidly about Wei Guangde's suggestions on making money. Because it was inconsistent with many years of common sense, he always felt that something was wrong.

"Habits are formed. Think about the inconvenience of using silver coins among the people, weighing them, and having to cut them with scissors.

If the imperial court introduces money making, it is available in various sizes and is extremely convenient for the people to use. There is no need to bite the teeth to judge the quality. Naturally, those miscellaneous silver will not be liked by the traders, and the people will not reject it.

For the imperial court, making money is also beneficial, so it should not be opposed. "

Wei Guangde said: "Gold and silver are naturally not money, but money is naturally gold and silver."

"What's the explanation?"

Lu Tiaoyang was surprised when he heard Wei Guangde's words.

Zhang Juzheng on the side just opened his mouth slightly at this time, seeming a little surprised, but he was also thinking quickly about the meaning of Wei Guangde's words.

“Although gold and silver are not money by nature, the same goes for copper coins minted in the past dynasties. Copper only has value because of its special uses, so it was made into money.

In terms of value, the value of gold and silver is undoubtedly much higher than that of copper.

I remember that the money in circulation during the Qin and Han Dynasties mainly included gold, copper coins, cloth and grain, etc.

Among them, gold was used as a high-value currency in the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, while copper coins were used as currency in circulation during the Qin and Han Dynasties.

I remember that it is recorded in "Historical Records Pinghuai Shu" that gold is named after overflowing and is the top coin; copper coins are named half a tael and are as heavy as the text, and are the bottom coin. Therefore, the legal coins in the Qin Dynasty were only gold and copper coins.

By the Han Dynasty, the status of gold was undisputed, and it was most active especially in the Western Han Dynasty. It was widely used in rewards and punishments, transactions, gifts, burials, etc. There are also very rich records of gold in the Western Han Dynasty in history books, such as Gold cakes, horseshoe gold, lintel gold and gold plates.

And what’s the difference between gold cakes and this silver cake, haha”

Wei Guangde cheerfully pointed to the Spanish Benyang that Lu Tiaoyang showed to him and said.

"Haha, indeed, it's just a silver cake."

Lu Tiaoyang looked at the silver dollar in his hand and smiled.

“Despite this, gold and silver are valuable and everyone loves to collect them, so they are the best choice for money.

In my opinion, the currency of the Ming Dynasty can actually refer to the system of the Qin and Han Dynasties. Gold and silver can be used for large transactions. The main circulation among the people is small coins made from coins and silver treasures. "

Wei Guangde said with a smile still on his face.

"I have no objection to the imperial court making money."

Hearing this, Lu Tiaoyang nodded and said with a smile, "It's just that the imperial court has a large reserve of gold, especially the much silver in Chang Ying's treasury. If the price of gold really rises in the future, the imperial court will have the opportunity Suspected of fighting for profit by the people.

What's more, according to your wishes, in order to avoid causing panic among the court and the people, the gold exchange must be done privately. "

Wei Guangde laughed when he heard that Lu Tiaoyang was worried about being mentioned in the future, saying that they used the silver in the imperial court's ever-increasing treasury to exchange for gold to compete with the people.

"Brother Heqing, all the gold circulating in the market is in the hands of businessmen, not the common people."

Wei Guangde smiled.

"Agriculture, industry and commerce, don't businessmen count as citizens?"

Lu Tiaoyang did not smile, but frowned and said.

"But the merchants are pursuing profit, and the gold remains in their hands. As long as the Yi people offer an exchange price of 1:8, I am afraid that the gold will be delivered to the Yi people on a pole, and the Ming Dynasty will not be able to keep the gold.

Instead of letting the barbarians exchange it away, why not exchange it with the imperial court? The imperial court did not want his gold for nothing, but also exchanged it for silver. "

Wei Guangde smiled and explained: "Only the imperial court can establish a real gold reserve without being interfered with by the outside world.

The main currency in circulation among the people now is silver. If there is too much silver in the market in the future, the imperial court can also take back the silver and sell gold to stabilize prices.

This is what my uncle worried about before. In the future, the barbarians will send a large amount of silver to the Ming Dynasty, causing the silver price to fall and disrupt the market.

This is also the reason why Yinbao also has to issue small coins. Imagine that now merchants collect money, but they just weigh and cut the silver to complete the transaction. But after the implementation of the coin making, the imperial court strictly prohibits the people from destroying the Tongbao privately and not cutting it.

Then how to exchange money, don't you have to prepare some large Small coins can be used to make up for the loss, which can also increase the amount of silver and money on the market.

After the coins are fully implemented, the court will strictly prohibit non-coin gold and silver transactions.

Set a time limit, which can be five years or ten years. It is forbidden for the people to privately store silver ingots and silver bars. All of them must be exchanged for silver treasures, and a 10% fire consumption will be added.

If found outside the deadline, they will be forcibly collected and recovered at a 50% fire consumption.

As for gold, forget it. That thing is valuable. Some people are willing to collect it. However, the court can still notify the various Maritime Customs Offices that gold can only be imported but not exported. "

"Shandai, what kind of money law are you trying to establish by doing this?"

Zhang Juzheng asked a little confusedly.

"The people mainly use copper coins and silver treasures, while the court mainly stores gold."

Wei Guangde said.

In fact, Wei Guangde never understood that the central banks of various countries in later generations seemed to rely mainly on gold reserves, but among the many dynasties in ancient China, it seems that there was a lot of gold in the Han Dynasty, and tens of thousands of kilograms of gold were often granted.

In theory, China did not lack gold during the Qin and Han dynasties, but why did the court seem to have no gold in later generations, but only copper coins.

In other words, for the convenience of storage in the future, some dynasties will replace some copper coins with gold and silver for storage, but the quantity is not large.

This is what the later generations call "gold standard" and "silver standard".

Wei Guangde knew that the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China seemed to choose the silver standard, and in the end the world adopted the gold standard.

What Wei Guangde has to do now is to determine the national gold standard system before the West.

The court mainly stores wealth in gold, not silver, to avoid the country across the sea from making a silver bill and almost bankrupting China.

In fact, the currency of the Ming Dynasty was still very direct, that is, gold and silver were directly used as monetary units, unlike the Western countries at that time, which actually had their own currencies, based on copper plates.

Until the massive amount of gold and silver from the Americas was shipped back to Europe, the gold and silver of European countries increased greatly, and they began to mint gold and silver coins in large quantities to determine the exchange price of each country's currency against gold and silver.

For example, the Spanish Benyang that Wei Guangde took out was eight rials in Spain, equivalent to eight rials of silver coins.

Yes, the Spanish Benyang shipped to the Ming Dynasty was a kind of Spanish currency, but there were smaller silver coins circulating in the market in Spain.

After all, whether in the Ming Dynasty or in Europe at that time, the purchasing power of a Benyang was amazing, and there were not many circulating in the market.

Whether it was the Ming Dynasty or European countries, everyone had almost the same monetary system, that is, the money circulating among the people was mainly copper coins, but European countries had determined the position of gold and silver in the monetary system earlier, and they were made into circulating currency by state-controlled mints.

In the Ming Dynasty, the Baoyuan Bureau of the imperial court mainly produced copper coins, and the Imperial Household Department in the palace produced a small amount of gold and silver coins for rewards. The silver circulated in the market was still silver taels, mainly broken silver.

However, what Wei Guangde did not know was that Spain's silver coins were also divided into many types. In addition to the 8-riyal silver coin he took out, there were also 4-riyal, 3-riyal, and 2-riyal double-column silver coins, and 1, 1/2, and 1/4-riyal silver coins of three denominations.

In addition, Spain also minted gold coins of various denominations, among which the most minted was 8 escudos, which was also the largest denomination gold coin in Spain.

At this time, Spain's gold and silver coins were also hexadecimal, and 16 riyals equaled 1 escudo.

It should be said that Wei Guangde considered letting the Ming court mint silver coins from 1 qian to 1 tael, and gold coins were also minted in this way, which was in line with the development trend of the times.

What Wei Guangde didn't know was that although the currency was naturally gold and silver, it would take several hundred years for European countries to truly enter the gold standard system. At this time, European merchants were buying gold in Ming and Japan, only to find that there was a huge arbitrage space in the gold-silver exchange rate between the East and the West.

In this era, there was really no concept of currency war.

It can only be said that after Wei Guangde came through, he must have been thinking about the problem according to the thoughts of later generations.

He thought that this was deliberately done by Europeans, but in fact it was just accidental.

For a long time in the future, the Spanish dollar, that is, the crudely made silver coin he took out, was the main currency of world trade, and silver was also the main currency of international trade for hundreds of years.

Because the currencies of world trade transactions now choose gold and silver, naturally there is no currency with a superior status like the US dollar in later generations.

Anyway, it is all real gold and silver for transactions. Wei Guangde proposed to mint coins, mainly to truly unify the money law of Ming Dynasty, so that the country can truly control the right to mint coins, and at the same time gain benefits at once.

The Ming Dynasty was in a financial crisis. Without forcing the people and levying heavy taxes, Wei Guangde could think of few ways to increase fiscal revenue, and coinage was one of them.

In his time, most Chinese people only knew that it was the late Age of Exploration, and the dividends brought by the great geographical discoveries had been divided up.

But in fact, this era has another name, which is not familiar to Chinese people. Maybe they have heard of it, but they know it vaguely and don’t know much about it. That is the Silver Age.

This Silver Age, of course, does not refer to the so-called Silver Age and Golden Age in Russian literature, but the period when international currency was mainly silver.

In Chinese history, gold and silver have always existed as a precious metal. Although gold was also used as money during the Qin and Han dynasties, it was generally rarely circulated because of its high value.

Copper coins became the main circulating currency in ancient China for more than 2,000 years.

In the Ming Dynasty’s rules and regulations, there are only "Banknote Law" and "Money Law", but no "Silver Law", which actually shows that silver was not originally the legal currency of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, from the prohibition of gold and silver transactions in the early Ming Dynasty, silver went from illegal currency to legal currency, and now Wei Guangde is pushing it as the main currency. Naturally, it needs to be carried out carefully.

Of course, in the folk, from gentry to ordinary people, they have gradually accepted silver, which is the confidence of Wei Guangde to promote silver treasure.

In later generations, all countries printed paper money, so the amount of currency issued can be controlled.

But in this era, when the currency is mainly gold, silver and copper, how to control the circulation of currency in the market is a big problem, and it is difficult to control the total amount of currency in the market.

Wei Guangde thought about the so-called macro-control in later generations, especially the problem of market money supply, which is the main means of regulation.

Well, it was called monetary policy at that time.

How to control the currency of the Ming Dynasty, how to control so much silver flowing into the country?

The way Wei Guangde can think of is to use gold for regulation, at least the court can have some influence.

Get enough gold at a low level, and when silver is rampant in the empire, sell gold to the people and buy silver, reduce the total amount of silver in the market, and avoid serious inflation.

Gold will not become the main currency of the Ming Dynasty for the time being, but will be used as an imperial reserve and a tool to regulate the market, while copper coins and silver treasures are the circulating currencies.

"Too much silver will be like the iron coins of the previous dynasty. The amount of goods purchased will quickly decrease, and the price of goods will rise. The people have limited income and will suffer the greatest loss in the price increase.

Therefore, the more silver, the better. It is best to keep the total amount moderate."

Wei Guangde explained his ideas to Lv Diaoyang and Zhang Juzheng to control the total amount of currency. "Of course, because my Ming Dynasty is vast and has a large population, the total amount of silver that can be carried is also amazing, especially my uncle wants to implement the "One Whip Law", which requires a huge amount of silver support.

The court casts silver treasures, and also makes a lot of money from it."

When Wei Guangde spoke, Zhang and Lu nodded frequently.