The Prosperous Era of Longwan

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.

𝟔𝟗Book Bar→𝟔𝟗𝐬𝐡𝐮𝐱.𝐧𝐞𝐭

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 show off 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 risked their lives to come to Ming Dynasty certainly had some agenda, although they were not necessarily here for the Ming Dynasty gold.

It should be said that maybe he was just doing business. He unexpectedly 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 judge the quality with teeth. Naturally, those miscellaneous silver will not be liked by the traders, and the people will not reject it.

For the 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 is true of 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 about 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 the gold cake 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 and small coins in 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 to exchange so much silver in Chang Ying's treasury for gold. 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 in 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 merchants, 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.

Rather than 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 interference from the outside world.

At present, the main currency in private circulation is silver. If there is too much silver on the market in the future, the court can also take back the silver and sell gold to stabilize prices.

This is what my uncle was worried about earlier. In the future, the Yi people would send a large amount of silver to the Ming Dynasty, causing the silver price to fall and disrupt the market.

This is why silver treasures also have to be issued in small coins. Just imagine, when merchants collect money now, they only complete the transaction by weighing and cutting the silver. But after the introduction of money making, the Tongbao discovered by the court strictly prohibited people from destroying it privately, and they were not allowed to cut it.

So how to exchange money? You have to prepare some large and small coins in each store to make up for it. This can also increase the stock of money on the market.

After money-making was completely pushed back, the imperial court would strictly prohibit non-money-making gold and silver transactions.

Set a time limit, which can be five years or ten years, and prohibit private possession of silver ingots and bars. All silver ingots and bars must be exchanged for silver treasures, and an additional 10% fire fee will be charged.

If found outside the deadline, it will be compulsorily collected and recycled at 50% of the fire consumption.

As for gold, forget it, that thing is of high value, and some people can keep it if they are willing to do so. However, the court can still notify the shipping offices of various places that gold is not allowed in or out. "

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

Zhang Juzheng asked a little confused.

"The people mainly store copper coins and silver treasures, while the imperial 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 mainly reserve gold. However, there were so many dynasties in ancient China. It seems that they only heard that there was a lot of gold during the Han Dynasty, and they easily gave away tens of thousands of catties of gold and dozens of gold reserves. The kind that weighs ten thousand pounds.

Ordinarily, there seemed to be no shortage of gold in China during the Qin and Han dynasties, but in later generations, it seemed that the imperial court had no gold at all, and it was all copper coins.

That is to say, for the convenience of storage in the future, some dynasties will exchange some copper coins for gold and silver storage, but the quantity is not large.

Here are the so-called "gold standard" and "silver standard" in later generations.

Wei Guangde knew that during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, it seemed that the silver standard was chosen, and in the end the gold standard prevailed in the world.

What Wei Guangde has to do now is to get ahead of the West and determine the national gold standard system.

The imperial court mainly stores its wealth in gold, not silver, to avoid imposing a silver bill in the country across the sea, which would almost bankrupt China.

In fact, the currency of the Ming Dynasty was still very straightforward, that is, it directly used gold and silver as the monetary unit. Unlike the Western countries at this time, they actually had their own currencies, and the currencies were based on copper plates.

Until massive amounts of gold and silver from the Americas were shipped back to Europe, European countries experienced a huge increase in gold and silver, and began to mint large quantities of gold and silver coins to determine the exchange prices of each country's currency for gold and silver.

For example, the Spanish currency that Wei Guangde took out is eight reales in Spain, which is equivalent to eight reales silver coins.

Yes, the Spanish coins shipped to the Ming Dynasty are a type of Spanish currency, but there are also smaller silver coins circulating in Spain.

After all, whether in the Ming Dynasty or in Europe at this time, the purchasing power of a foreign country was amazing, and there were not many in circulation on the market.

Whether it is the Ming Dynasty or European countries, everyone has almost the same currency system, that is, the money in private circulation is mainly copper coins, but European countries have determined the position of gold and silver in the monetary system earlier, and they are controlled by the state. The mint produces currency in circulation.

In the Ming Dynasty, the Baoyuan Bureau of the imperial court mainly produced copper coins, and the imperial supervisor in the palace produced a small amount of gold and silver coins as rewards. The silver circulating in the market was still silver taels, mainly broken silver.

But what Wei Guangde doesn't know is that there are many kinds of silver coins in Spain. In addition to the 8 reales silver coins he took out, there are also 4 reales, 3 reales, 2 reales double-column silver coins, and there are also Silver coins in three denominations: 1, 1/2 and 1/4 rials.

In addition, Spain also mints gold coins of various denominations, of which the largest number is the 8 Escudo, which is also the gold coin with the largest denomination in Spain.

At this time, Spanish gold and silver coins were also in hexadecimal form, with 16 reales equal to 1 escudo.

It should be said that Wei Guangde considered asking the Ming Dynasty to mint silver coins ranging from 1 qian to 1 tael, and to mint gold coins accordingly, which was in line with the development trend of the times.

But what Wei Guangde didn't know was that although the currency was naturally gold and silver, it would be hundreds of years later for European countries to truly enter the gold standard system. At this time, European merchants were purchasing gold aggressively in the Ming Dynasty and Japan, and they only discovered gold and silver from the East and the West. There is huge room for arbitrage in price comparisons.

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

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

He thought this was a deliberate move by the Europeans, but in fact it was just accidental.

For a long time to come, the Spanish currency, that is, the crude silver coin he took out, would be the main currency of world trade, and silver would also be the main currency of international trade for hundreds of years to come.

Because gold and silver are now the currencies used in world trade transactions, naturally there is no transcendent currency like the U.S. dollar in later generations.

Anyway, all transactions were made with real gold and silver. Wei Guangde proposed coinage mainly because he wanted to truly unify the money law of the Ming Dynasty, so that the country could truly control the right to coinage and gain benefits at the same time.

The Ming Dynasty's finances were too difficult. 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 era, most Chinese people only knew that they were in 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, 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 currency in circulation in ancient China for more than 2,000 years.

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

Therefore, from the prohibition of gold and silver transactions in the early Ming Dynasty, silver has changed 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 control.

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 only way Wei Guangde could think of was to use gold for control, at least the court could have some influence.

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

Gold will not become the main currency of the Ming Dynasty for the time being, but as a tool for the empire to reserve and 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 decrease quickly, 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 Lu 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 the uncle brother wants to implement the one-whip law, which requires a huge amount of silver support.

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

When Wei Guangde spoke, Zhang Lu nodded frequently.