Rule the Ming Dynasty Alone

Beijing City, Xiangcheng Hou Mansion.

The nobles of the Ming Dynasty were mainly divided into north and south. Nanjing usually followed the founding nobles, while the capital basically consisted of new nobles who followed Taizong Zhu Di.

Li Jin's ancestor Li Jun was the son of Li Wang, deputy Qianhu of the left guard of Yanshan. He followed Zhu Di in the army in the first year of Jianwen, and was later awarded the title of Xiangcheng Bo for his military merits.

By the time Li Jin arrived, he was already the fourth generation uncle of Xiangcheng. Unlike many descendants of mediocre warriors, Li Jin had made achievements in the military. In the third year of Chenghua, he served as the commander-in-chief to conquer the Sichuan capital barbarians. He was promoted to the title of Marquis of Xiangyang, and then Add Taibao title.

Now the Duke of the Capital is Diaoling. Although his military exploits cannot be compared with those of the rising Wu Jinghou Zhao Chengqing, his qualifications have already made him a veteran of the Wuxun Group.

It is precisely because he has such a high status and reputation that he organized the dignitaries in the capital to hoard rice to make a profit. It can be said that he responded to one call, resulting in a large number of rice shops and rice grains being controlled by him.

If everything goes well with the plan, he will make several times the profit from stir-fried rice this time, which will be even faster than loan sharking.

While he was humming a tune and listening to music, a figure hurriedly came back to report the latest situation of the rice market in the capital, which broke the peaceful singing and dancing in this prince's mansion.

"Why is this happening? Why are they selling them at a reduced price?"

Li Jin, the Marquis of Xiangyang, sent the female harpist away and sat at the stone table in the flower hall, preparing to drink sour plum soup to relieve the heat. When he learned that rice shops that still had stocks in the capital were selling at reduced prices, his whole brain immediately buzzed.

Although he had known that human nature was greedy, and every rice shop in the capital more or less kept some rice, these shopkeepers would definitely follow him to make huge profits.

But who would have thought that, as if overnight, these shopkeepers holding rice grains would stage a great escape, causing the rice prices that they had finally pushed up to fall.

It was obviously the time to close the net, but he didn't expect that the rice store owner who was pulling the net to catch fish with him would actually make holes in the fish net at this time.

The person who had been responsible for the work was actually Butler Li. At this moment, he reported with a sad face: "Master Hou, those rice shopkeepers are forced to sell rice at a reduced price. The main inducement is actually the Royal Rice Shop. They release rice to the people of the capital at low prices. Not only do they have People with rice tickets can exchange for rice, and people with cloth tickets can also exchange for rice. I heard that you can buy three kilograms of low-priced rice with copper coins, so the price of rice in the capital has dropped again!"

"Royal Rice Bank? Didn't he cooperate with the ban on rice sales earlier? Didn't he want to make money from the beginning?" Li Jin immediately thought of the person in the Forbidden City, and suddenly said confused.

Although he was the driving force behind the soaring rice prices in the capital, the imperial store in the Forbidden City owned much more rice than he did, so Zhu Youtang was actually the biggest beneficiary of the soaring rice prices.

He had seen this, so he knew that hoarding rice would be beneficial without any harm, and it was even possible for him to be reused by the emperor like Xu Shiying and Li Chengqing.

But who would have thought that when faced with such a good opportunity to make money, the person in the Forbidden City not only did not take advantage of the opportunity to make huge profits, but also sold rice and grain at a low price.

You must know that the cost of obtaining cloth tickets in the hands of ordinary people is very low. Now rice tickets and cloth tickets are exchanged based on the reference value at the beginning of the year, so the rice price at the Royal Rice Store has actually returned to the price at the beginning of the year.

From nearly 200 yuan to less than 20 yuan, this is not a huge sale. It is simply an attempt to make him, the biggest promoter behind the scenes, a living Buddha.

In order to be able to store rice smoothly, he has paid a cost much higher than the market price from the beginning of the year to now. Selling it now at a low price will actually force him to go bankrupt.

What he couldn't accept the most was Zhu Youtang's approach. It was clear that he could make huge profits leisurely, but in the end, he pointed the finger at his wise minister who was willing to share the profits with him. He was simply mean and unkind.

Butler Li did not expect that Zhu Youtang would do this. He shook his head in frustration and said: "This is indeed strange, but now the Royal Rice Store sells grain at a low price, and the rice shops in the capital are selling rice at reduced prices. Our rice grains It’s impossible to sell it at a high price!”

The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is blocked due to the management of the Yellow River, the north is experiencing a sudden locust plague, and they have hoarded a large amount of rice. Now should be the time for them to close the net.

But who would have thought that just when they thought huge profits were at their fingertips, the wealth they acquired overnight seemed to vanish in an instant.

The price of rice, which was still unattainable at first, has now fallen rapidly, directly below their profit and loss line.

"That's not right! Even if the Royal Rice Store doesn't issue extra rice coupons, it shouldn't have so much rice. This must be to spread suspicion!" Li Jin's eyes flashed brightly, and he shook his head with understanding.

Assuming that the total amount of rice in the capital would not fluctuate much, he had started planning from the beginning of the year and secretly stockpiled 20 million kilograms of polished rice in the capital, almost controlling the entire rice market in the capital.

Due to the lack of water in the canal, rice grains cannot go northward in the near future. The locust plague in North Zhili will definitely affect the autumn grain harvest. Therefore, the shortage of rice prices in the capital is an inevitable trend now and in the autumn.

No matter how much rice the Royal Rice Bank has, as long as it does not sell the rice in its hands, the rice shortage in the capital will not be alleviated.

As soon as he thought about this, his thoughts suddenly became clear. Royal Rice's price reduction was just a huge profit that he gave up, and he did not need to mess up his position at all.

Butler Li's eyes lit up slightly and he said excitedly: "Master Hou, you mean that the Royal Rice Store doesn't have that much rice at all. Are you trying to lure us into selling rice at a low price?"

"He is an emperor but not a god. How could he produce so much polished rice?" After Li Jin figured this out, he immediately took up the sour plum soup and said with confidence.

Butler Li found out that this was really the case, so he regained his confidence and asked: "Master Marquis, if this is the case, what should we do next?"

"Immediately let the news out that the Royal Rice Shop is short of polished rice. We won't sell any rice, and there are still more!" Li Jin happily took a sip of the ice-cold sour plum soup, but paused deliberately.

Butler Li expressed his understanding of the first two decisions. This was to unite other rice stores to resist the Royal Rice Store's big price cuts, but he didn't know what else he could do: "What else?"

"Doesn't the Royal Rice Store allow cloth tickets to be exchanged for rice? Let's recycle the cloth tickets at a high price and exchange them for all the polished rice from the Royal Rice Store. Then we can take the opportunity to make another profit!" Li Jin's eyes flashed with confidence. It seems that the pearl of wisdom is in the right place.

Since Zhu Youtang did not choose to take advantage of the opportunity to make a big fortune, but instead tried to suppress the price of rice in the capital, he would not be pedantic and give up the fat in his mouth, and would even take the opportunity to eat an extra bite of meat. .

Even if Zhu Youtang is a high-ranking emperor, he can't stop these powerful people from making money. What's more, since Zhu Youtang came to the throne, life for them, the powerful people in the capital, has become increasingly difficult. This time, they are just eating some meat.

That's right. The best way to solve the current troubles now is to let the Royal Rice Bank run out of rice. Once the rice supply of the Royal Rice Store is exhausted, the price of rice in the capital will be snatched by people, let alone 200 fen, even 300 fen.

Butler Li swallowed his saliva, but poured a basin of cold water on it and said, "Master Marquis, all the money we have is used to store rice, and now we don't have much money left!"

Even though the Marquis's mansion has infinite scenery, it still costs money, and the amount of money given to the Marquis by the court is actually just a little. However, Li Jin's military post in the Beijing camp was dismissed, so his income was even less.

Now the Marquis of Xiangcheng has organized everyone to stock up on rice. The Marquis of Xiangcheng's Mansion is already trying to sell iron, and it is impossible to use financial resources to take over the rice from the Royal Rice Company.

"Don't worry about money! As long as you don't have enough money to buy rice, you can just go to Xinyi Money Store to withdraw it!" Li Jin put down the sour plum soup in his hand and said with a confident smile on his face.

Butler Li was stunned for a moment and looked cautious: "Master Hou, our Xiangyang House has no money exchanges with Xinyi Money Store. Can it give us money? Besides... there is still so much money!"

"Of course I know that there is no money in the house. You can take this sign and go to Xinyi Money Store to withdraw money at will. Just follow my instructions!" Li Jin took out a dark sign from close to him and handed it over, making it appear that Authentic and confident.

Butler Li took the heavy sign and suddenly realized that there were very powerful allies behind his family. Even hoarding rice this time might not be as simple as it seemed.

The sky in August is unpredictable. Yesterday it was cloudy, but today it is clear.

"close the door?"

"They don't want to sell rice at a lower price!"

"My daughter's monthly salary at the weaving factory can be fully paid in cloth coupons. Only ghosts can eat your high-priced rice!"

…

Although the Royal Rice Store sells rice at a reasonable price, various rice stores in the capital did not choose to follow the price reduction, but chose to close down one after another. As a result, many people were unable to buy rice even if they had silver in their hands.

It’s just that the people did not compromise. Not to mention that everyone has always helped each other, but now there are many channels to obtain cloth tickets, so they have turned to people who have rice tickets or cloth tickets for help.

"There is no justice in this world. You can't even buy rice even if you have a tael of silver in your hand!"

Li He has been living very hard recently since he exchanged his rice stamps for silver. He looked at the closed store with the last bit of silver in his hand and sighed.

Things did not develop as Zhu Youtang expected. Greed is the nature of businessmen. Almost all rice shops refused to lower prices and chose to close their doors. As a result, many people were unable to buy rice despite carrying silver.

At this point, silver has dropped to a freezing point in the hearts of the people in the capital, and many stores have even refused to accept silver, or have discounted the price of silver.

The Huangdian simply refused to trade silver and only accepted cloth tickets, rice tickets and copper coins, or the Hongzhi silver dollar that had just been issued by the imperial court.

The city of Beijing is still lively.

“The polished rice from Royal Rice Shop is really beautiful!”

"Can it be bad? My daughter works here, and she is only sold after three screenings!"

"Haha... My son also works here, and the scale of the rice shop is exactly the same!"

…

As the Royal Rice Store sells rice grains at affordable prices, a large number of people flock to the Royal Rice Store to buy, and the Royal Rice Store located in various mills has an endless stream of customers.

Originally, Royal Rice Store was the chain rice store with the most stores in the entire capital, but because of its beautiful decoration, it never had many customers.

However, after this turmoil, the polished rice of the Special Royal Rice Store was not only sold at affordable prices, but also of high quality, making it the well-deserved No. 1 rice store in the capital.

Due to breaking the traditional employment principle of relatives, Royal Rice now recruits a large number of ordinary people, which further shortens the distance between it and the people at the bottom.

The biggest impact of the rice price turmoil is actually silver's official currency status.

"Why are so many people buying cloth tickets at high prices recently?"

"It must have something to do with the rice shops in the capital. All the rice has been shipped back to their rice warehouses!"

"No matter what tricks they want to pull, we must keep a few rice tickets in our hands!"

"It's not necessary to hold rice coupons. Our newly issued silver coins can also be used to buy rice. This is more convenient!"

…

Faced with the ticket buying behavior organized by the Marquis of Xiangcheng, the people in the capital were the first to notice it. However, seeing the cloth tickets in their hands becoming more and more popular, people cherished the cloth tickets even more, and even had a better impression of Hongzhi Silver Dollar.

The most important thing about currency is its circulation. Nowadays, cloth tickets are killing everyone. On the other hand, silver can’t even buy rice. Naturally, everyone prefers the one with strong circulation.

"Big news, be careful when exchanging cloth tickets for silver!"

"What's this? The imperial court just doesn't encourage us to use silver, it doesn't ban it!"

"I just got inside information. The reason why His Majesty banned silver is because His Majesty dreamed of countless silver mountains overseas!"

…

This is true in any era. As long as you encounter some unusual behavior, all kinds of gossip will emerge in endlessly.

Faced with the fact that the imperial court did not encourage private silver trading, and the government would no longer collect silver from the people, everyone became curious, and now people have really found the answer.

It is said that the emperor dreamed again. Why do you say "again"? The main reason is that Hongzhi dreamed about the gold mines in Luzon and the treasures in America. It is not surprising that he now dreams about silver mountains all over the world.

As the news spread further, many people began to exaggerate: People on the other side of the ocean used silver to build houses and pave roads, which was more than the Ming Dynasty stone.

"Isn't the story in this dream unbelievable?"

"Can the emperor's dream be the same as yours? How can you not believe it?!"

"I heard that the Japanese silver mine acquired by the East China Sea Governor's Office this year has a storage capacity of hundreds of millions of taels!"

…

Although the matter became more and more mysterious as it spread, the people in the capital were satisfied with it. More and more people chose to believe it, and the news soon involved the silver mine in Japan that was acquired by the East China Sea Governor's Palace.

"How can there be silver mines in a barbaric land like Japan?"

"Luzon is more wild than Japan. Haven't we discovered a big gold mine?"

"Silver dollars are the real good thing now! You can buy cloth and rice, and in two years you can exchange them for silver coins to be stored in kilns!"

…

The attitude of the people in the capital is quietly changing, especially seeing that "silver continues to depreciate and cloth notes continue to appreciate", which has led to more and more people becoming optimistic about the newly issued Hongzhi Silver Dollar.

Unlike the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes and cut-off copper coins issued through strong power, since Hongzhi came to the throne, the cloth tickets and rice tickets issued have been bound to physical objects, and the same is true for the newly launched silver coins this time.

Currency is linked to physical objects, which also greatly enhances credibility.

However, the Ming court's "cheap silver" plan greatly infringed upon the interests of the official and gentry class. Hongzhi, who was dedicated to the rise of China, once again stood on the opposite side of the official and gentry class.

"Nonsense, just nonsense!"

"How could the Ming Dynasty have such a king?"

"God has no eyes, the tyrant is trying to destroy the foundation of Ming Dynasty!"

…

Hongzhi's attack on silver and the launch of Hongzhi Silver Dollar were equivalent to infringing on the fundamental interests of the powerful class, causing another group of powerful people to gnash their teeth at Zhu Youtang.

The Ming Dynasty has lasted for more than a hundred years, and the main wealth has been gathered towards the upper class.

Since the dynasty had cracked down on land annexation since the founding of the dynasty, and Hongzhi did not indulge the scholar-bureaucrats in annexing land as in the original history, and also cracked down on usury, the main form of wealth for the elite was kiln silver.

Nowadays, a large number of silver kilns are hidden in their homes. As a result, the imperial court actually advocated the cessation of silver trading, and even made remarks that overseas silver was as abundant as rocks, which led to a significant devaluation of the wealth in their hands.

Once the silver in their hands becomes useless money, or becomes less valuable, it will actually be a heavy blow to all of them, and even make them fall off the throne of the rich.

"The Hongzhi silver dollar is the same as the Ming Dynasty treasure banknote. Don't believe it!"

"Does the Zhu family still have credibility? Anyone who believes in Hongzhi Yinyuan is the biggest fool in the world!"

"He said that he can exchange for silver blooms in two years, but where do the silver blooms come from? This is just empty talk!"

…

The so-called elites who own a large amount of silver do not intend to sit still and wait for death. However, they stand on the opposite side of Hongzhi Silver Dollar and openly sing the opposite tune.

Although all of them were familiar with the books of saints, none of them was really a saint. Now that he sees that his own interests have been damaged and the wealth in his hands is about to depreciate, he can't wait to raise a flag to rebel.

In fact, many people did not expect that Zhu Youtang could be so tossing.

After rectifying the salt policy, clearing land ownership, cracking down on finance and imposing extravagant taxes, Zhu Youtang now actually has such an amazing trick hidden in his mind, which is to devalue the wealth of the upper class elites all over the world.

"I believe in the transcript of the court's letter now!"

"Silver ingots naturally come from the sea, and can't silver dollars also be used to buy cloth and rice?"

"If it were from other dynasties, I would never believe it, but the current Emperor Hongzhi has never raised taxes once!"

…

Faced with the direction of public opinion in the capital, ordinary people were not affected, but continued to support the new currency, believing in the credibility of the now prosperous dynasty.

The Chinese people are actually very simple. If all dynasties had not eventually issued official currencies indiscriminately, they would not have uniformly changed the use of silver.

The disadvantages of silver are obvious: it is troublesome to cut broken silver, and the impurities in broken silver vary. Once it is smelted, a lot of impurities will appear and the value will depreciate. At the same time, it is not easy to carry.

It's just that they are really afraid of being squeezed. The little wealth they have worked hard to save all their lives has been wasted for most of their lives after the court issued money indiscriminately.

Now, they have met a wise king who is rare in a hundred years.

Since Hongzhi ascended the throne, the imperial court has rectified the salt policy and cleared the land of the fathers. It has also cracked down on the financial industry that plundered the people through usury, and even levied taxes on the rich through extravagant taxes.

Just facing the people at the bottom of their class, the Hongzhi Dynasty not only never levied an additional tax on the people, but also tried every means to make everyone's life better.

The fact that Hongzhi never levied taxes on them was enough for them to credit Hongzhi this time and believe that the Hongzhi silver coins issued by the Hongzhi Dynasty were not fraud.

While the elite were still encouraging scholars to claim that no silver ingots would be paid after two years of Hongzhi, the latest news came from Tianjin Port: the first batch of gold from Luzon was shipped back. (End of chapter)