Chapter 426 Salary and Silver Coins

The Zhou Dynasty improved the salary system and simplified the complicated salary system of the previous dynasty. The salary of rice, meal money, charcoal, salt, paper, pens and ink, autumn and winter clothing, etc. were all converted into rice, copper coins and cloth.

The salary of the first rank was 600 guan of money and 300 dan of rice. The salary of the first rank was 550 guan of money and 280 dan of rice, which decreased in sequence. The salary of the second rank was 450 guan of money and 220 dan of rice.

It seems that this money is a lot, but this is after all the previous benefits were cancelled and converted. If you really count it, it is less than before.

Besides, how many high-ranking officials above the second rank are there in the country? At most, there are only 30 to 50.

When it comes to the third rank officials, the salary will be reduced again. The third rank is 300 guan of money and 200 dan of rice.

After reaching the fifth rank, the salary will be reduced again. The salary of the seventh rank is only 50 guan and 60 dan of rice, while the salary of the seventh rank is 45 guan and 55 dan of rice.

These are monthly salaries. Even for a seventh rank official, these salaries are enough for his family to live well, to hire a few servants, and to afford carriages and horses.

You should know that during the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang gave a seventh rank county magistrate a salary of 90 dan of rice per year. Note that it is one year, which averages out to 7.5 dan per month.

How much is 7.5 dan of rice? It is about 900 kilograms of rice. 900 kilograms of rice is just barely enough to feed a family. After all, people cannot only eat rice, but also need oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, cloth, etc. The combined purchasing power is about 3,000 yuan per month now.

In addition, the Ming Dynasty also had a system of discount. The so-called discount means that the silver is not of sufficient quality, which reduces its purchasing power. When it comes to salary, it is 70% to 80% of the salary after discount.

The original salary was low, and after the devaluation, those officials really couldn't even afford to eat.

In comparison, the salary approved by Richard and Guo Rong was much higher, enough to make them live well.

In addition, for some officials, there will be corresponding additional salaries for the titles and honors they have added. Honor is honor, but material reduction is still necessary.

Even in the Soviet Union, after getting a medal, you can get more pension after retirement.

In the past, the treatment of the lower-level officials in the former Tang Dynasty was very low. After the Great Zhou, the salaries of the lower-level officials were increased. Therefore, after this new salary system was announced, the officials of the court were still in a good mood.

On the other hand, in the Baoquan Bureau supervised by Richard, silver coins were pressed out one by one. Richard picked up a silver coin at random. The pattern on the front of the silver coin was a flying phoenix. Yes, it was the Phoenix Qingxuan, which was also required by Guo Rong.

After all, Fengwu Youzhou and the rise of the Zhou Dynasty have become synonymous with Guo Rong. Below the phoenix pattern, it is marked with one guan of pure silver, and on the back is written the Great Zhou Yuanbao, as well as the year and place of casting.

When such a silver coin is pressed out, the image is not clear enough, but with the continuous improvement of technology, the pressed silver coins will become more and more sophisticated. After pressing these silver coins, craftsmen will also be asked to carve them to make the coin pattern clearer.

"How many machines does Baoquan Bureau have now? How many silver coins can be pressed in a day?"

"Reply to Prime Minister Li, Baoquan Bureau now has four sets of pressing machines. As long as there is enough silver material, 2,000 silver coins can be pressed in a day."

Two thousand silver coins are 2,000 guan, and 365 days a year is 730,000 guan. Through coinage, Baoquan Bureau has a revenue of about 100,000 guan a year.

Of course, with the improvement of technology and the increase of Baoquan Bureau's machines, this number will definitely get higher and higher.

Baoquan Bureau now presses silver coins, which is very important to the court, and the court will directly govern here.

Richard shook the silver coin in his hand. It was indeed forged according to his requirements. Then he picked up the silver coin and blew it in his ear. A clear and pleasant sound rang in his ear.

The quality of the silver coin was also within his requirements.

"Very good!" Richard nodded with satisfaction. Silver coins of this quality are much more exquisite than those copper coins, and this kind of anti-counterfeiting is also difficult to imitate. Richard deliberately stuck at this purity. Once the purity of the silver coin is reduced, the sound after blowing will not be so crisp and pleasant.

In ancient times, many powerful people used various means to reduce the copper in the copper coins and increase the weight of other metals in order to gain benefits. It was already a common thing.

Some powerful people scraped the copper coins and dropped a layer of the originally thick copper coins. Some people did it even more excessively. They directly trimmed the copper coins, that is, they cut off a circle of the outermost edge of the copper coins.

Therefore, when pressing the silver coins, Richard pressed the outermost edge of the silver coins into a serrated shape.

At the same time, ordinary people usually don't use the large-denomination silver coins of one guan, only big businessmen and dignitaries can use them.

And these people are not ordinary people. Those powerful people can force ordinary people to exchange good money for their inferior money, but when the other party is a big businessman or a dignitary, this approach will not work at all.

So it is impossible to cut the edge of the silver dollar.

Soon, in the third month after the court announced the reform of the salary system, silver coins began to appear in the salary.

In the middle of early July, Zhao Zhi took his servants to the Taifu Temple to collect his salary. The salary of the Zhou State was collected in the early morning of each month. For those senior officials, the salary was delivered to the door by the officials of the Taifu Temple, and a seventh-rank official like Zhao Zhi needed to come in person with his servants to collect it.

After all, the seventh-rank officials also have 60 dan of rice, which is equivalent to 720 kilograms of rice. He can't carry so much rice back by himself.

The court's payment time is different. Usually, all the money will be paid within ten days. The order is based on the rank of the official, and the payment is made one department at a time.

As a reformist official, Zhao Zhi's salary payment time is quite good before the exam. At this time, there was a long queue in the Taifu Temple, and almost all those who came to collect the salary were driving a horse-drawn carriage.

Soon it was Zhao Zhi's turn. After handing over his seal, the salary was soon distributed, but to his surprise, there was only one pile of money for the fifty strings of money. A cloth bag was not filled, and there were only a few in it.

Seeing this, Zhao Zhi hurriedly stopped the official who was distributing the salary and asked, "Fifty strings of money weigh more than a hundred kilograms, so why is there only this much this time?"

"Minister Zhao, these are the silver coins that the court has just made. One silver coin is one string of money, and fifty strings are exactly fifty coins. Is that okay?" said the official in charge of distributing the salary.

"One is one string of money?" Zhao Zhi looked grim. He thought of other dynasties in history that were short of money and directly minted large-denomination copper coins, with one for a hundred and one for a hundred. Now the court has also started to do this, and it's even more excessive, with one for a thousand!

"The court minted a thousand-coin?" Zhao Zhi said with a trembling voice.

"What do you mean by a thousand-coin? This is a silver coin!" the clerk said unhappily. After speaking, he opened the bag and let Zhao Zhi check it himself. When Zhao Zhi saw the exquisite silver coins in the bag, he was also surprised.

These silver coins were unexpectedly exquisite, and a silver coin in his hand was full of weight. On the other hand, the anti-counterfeiting on these silver coins is also very easy to identify.

After seeing these silver coins, Zhao Zhi was very excited. He happily collected them and left with his servants. He let the servants go home by themselves, and he went to the market to buy some things.

When he took out the silver coins to pay, the merchants were very fond of silver coins and strongly asked Zhao Zhi to pay with silver coins, and said that he was willing to pay an extra 10% as compensation for the silver coins.

Zhao Zhi was very happy to hear this and immediately agreed to the merchant's request. Then he traded at a premium of 10% of the face value of each silver coin. As a result, his fifty strings of silver coins turned into fifty-five strings of copper coins.

The salary directly increased by one tenth, and Zhao Zhi was very happy.

Then, officials in the capital saw a large number of merchants frantically chasing silver coins. The original silver coin of one string could now be traded at the price of one string and three strings.

And this situation is still improving. Even Richard did not expect that silver coins would be so popular.

Every time the court issued silver coins, people would rush to exchange them, and the court officials also made a fortune with the silver coins.

Seeing this situation, Richard asked someone to check and find out what was going on.

Soon a lot of information was sent up, and after reading this information, Richard understood why silver coins were so popular.

For those big businessmen, copper coins were too inconvenient when trading.

In ancient Chinese coins, the face value was very problematic. Almost most of the coins of twenty, fifty, and one hundred would depreciate as soon as they appeared.

To put it bluntly, this practice was to forcibly plunder the wealth in the hands of the people. Richard's silver coin was different. It was exquisitely shaped and made of pure silver, which immediately made those big businessmen recognize his coins.

And those big businessmen's transactions were mostly hundreds or thousands of strings each time. So much money was exchanged for copper coins, and they wanted to use several carriages to pull it. This was very troublesome for transactions, and so many copper coins were needed in transactions.

Now, with the silver dollar, one silver dollar is one guan of money, so it is much more convenient for those big merchants to trade. Hundreds of guan or thousands of guan, only a small box is enough.

There is no need to pull several carts of copper coins.

It can be said that the emergence of silver dollars not only alleviated the problem of money shortage, but also promoted commercial trade. The emergence of one guan of silver coins made trading easier.

Now, most of the silver coins circulating in the market have fallen into the hands of these big merchants, or those aristocratic families. After seeing the silver coins, those aristocratic families immediately began to exchange the copper coins in the cellar and prepared to collect silver coins.