The Prosperous Era of Longwan

Wei Guangde explained his ideas to Lv Diaoyang and Zhang Juzheng, and controlled the total amount of currency. "Of course, because our Ming Dynasty is vast and rich in resources, with 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 minted silver treasures, and also made a lot of money from it."

When Wei Guangde spoke, Zhang Juzheng and Lv Diaoyang nodded frequently.

When Wei Guangde finished speaking, Zhang Juzheng also understood what Wei Guangde meant, which was actually the role exchange between the court and the barbarians.

On the way here, Zhang Juzheng was still worried that the gold of the Ming Dynasty would be exchanged by the barbarians, but now it is the court that has to play this role.

Zhang Juzheng has always wanted to promote the "One Whip Law", but the silver in the folk is indeed inconvenient, especially the fire consumption, which is completely a weapon for the government to oppress the people. He had to think more and try to find a solution.

Now that silver is available and barbarians are transporting it by boat, the conditions for promoting the new law are gradually met, but Wei Guangde's mention of the old things in the Song Dynasty also made him alert.

Too little silver is useless, but too much is bad.

Fortunately, Wei Guangde thought of using gold to control the circulation of silver among the people, and even Zhang Juzheng had already thought about it. If there is too much silver among the people, the court will raise the price of gold and buy back the silver at an exchange rate of 1:30 or even higher.

The court will raise the price to buy back the silver without the barbarians raising the price.

"It is urgent to determine the money law first. The court must mint silver coins as soon as possible and promote them to the people. Once the silver coins are accepted by the people, the one-whip law can be promoted throughout the country."

Zhang Juzheng said.

"During this period, each province can also start to find out the family background and make some preparations."

Lu Diaoyang also nodded and continued.

"It's getting late. Let's stop here today. Tomorrow, after the court announces the reward, we will recruit officials from the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works to settle the matter in the cabinet, and then we will go to the palace to ask for an audience and try to finalize the matter as soon as possible."

Zhang Juzheng said with a final word.

Wei Guangde left Lü Diaoyang's mansion and got on the carriage to go back.

On the shaking carriage, Wei Guangde was still thinking whether it was good or bad for him to bring the Ming Dynasty into the "gold standard" system in advance.

Wei Guangde didn't understand the real difference between the gold standard and the silver standard. He just thought that the court recognized gold and hoarding gold was the beginning of trying the gold standard.

However, he still felt that something was wrong.

Indeed, as the Ming Dynasty is now, using real gold and silver for transactions, what is the standard? It is originally a commodity exchange of precious metals.

In fact, the money reform he is thinking of now is essentially a silver standard system, not the gold standard he thought.

Moreover, he didn't know that the establishment of the gold standard was caused by some special events. Although it should be a matter of time for gold to replace silver, it will definitely not be so fast.

The advantages of the gold standard are actually many. The first is currency stability. Gold, as the standard currency, can maintain the stability of currency value, especially in times of economic fluctuations.

Secondly, because countries love gold, it is also convenient for international trade. Gold-based currencies can be freely exchanged internationally, which is conducive to trade.

In addition, gold is of high value, and currencies supported by gold have strong credit, which enhances people's confidence in currency.

However, the gold standard also has its shortcomings, that is, there is a double standard between monetary gold and commodity gold.

Gold not only has monetary attributes, but also has strong commodity attributes. There is huge demand in industry and jewelry. The price of gold changes with the market. The same commodity actually has two sets of value standards, which may lead to market chaos.

At the same time, under the gold standard system, the money supply is restricted by gold reserves, which may affect economic development and the flexibility of monetary policy.

Wei Guangde has not thought of this at all.

After all, the total economic volume of various countries today is actually very limited, so Wei Guangde does not realize that when the Ming Dynasty's economy has developed unprecedentedly, domestic gold and silver are still not enough.

Relatively speaking, in the current international economy, silver as the main currency and the silver standard constructed by it seem to be more appropriate.

The advantages of the silver standard are mainly the sufficient source of monetary materials. As a monetary material, silver has a relatively sufficient source. There are silver mines in many parts of the world. Although there is a gap between the rich and the poor, it is widely distributed, making its supply as a currency relatively stable.

At the same time, because the value of silver is relatively low compared to gold, it has strong transaction flexibility. Large transactions use gold, and small transactions use silver, which is very convenient.

As for the disadvantages of the silver standard, it is mainly due to the instability of silver prices. Silver prices are affected by many factors, such as the improvement of mining technology and the increase in production, which leads to large fluctuations in the value of silver.

In fact, before the Ming Dynasty had sea trade, it was definitely impossible to build a silver standard system with the little silver in the Ming Dynasty itself, because the circulating silver was extremely scarce, so how to establish a monetary system.

Don't think that the tens of millions of taels of silver in the Changying Treasury of the Taipu Temple are a lot. In fact, it is just a drop in the bucket in the entire Ming Dynasty.

You must know that the annual in-kind tax of the Ming Dynasty is equivalent to 30 million taels of silver, but the cash income is relatively low, only about 3 million taels, so later generations have always said that the tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty is only a few million taels of silver.

But in fact, it is correct to say that the tax revenue was several million taels of silver, but it ignores the tax in kind, such as grain and tea, which were worth more than 30 million taels.

Perhaps it was precisely because of the lack of silver that although China began to use gold and silver transactions in the Tang and Song dynasties, the scale has always been small and cannot be expanded at all. The transportation of copper coins is too troublesome, so it chose to levy in-kind taxes and the court allocated them according to demand.

To be precise, if it were not for the great geographical discoveries and the discovery of gold and silver mines in the Americas, the world, whether in the East or the West, would not have entered the Silver Age.

Because both the East and West human settlements are facing the dilemma of gold and silver shortages, even though there is a Japanese country that is rich in gold and silver next to the Ming Dynasty.

In the late Middle Ages, the feudal system in Western Europe was full of internal contradictions.

With the increase in court expenses and the expansion of the bureaucracy, governments are often financially stretched, and they urgently need to find new sources of funds.

In this situation, the monarchs of Western European countries successively supported the opening of new routes and vigorously expanded overseas. Many feudal nobles and knights became the first colonists.

Spain and Portugal started the adventure of great navigation almost at the same time. At first, the explorers of the two countries had the same goal - to go directly to India and China, obtain trade privileges for spices and luxury goods, and open up the Eastern market.

However, the choice of different routes ultimately led to different results.

After Columbus discovered America, the Spanish soon realized that this virgin land of civilization had no goods or markets they wanted, but had unexpected precious metals.

In the mid-16th century, Spain occupied all of Central and South America except Brazil and established a huge Spanish colonial empire in America.

After Spain occupied America, rich silver mines were discovered in Mexico, Peru and other places. These silvers were soon cast into silver coins in large quantities and began to flow around the world.

According to statistics, from 1503 to 1660, Spain obtained a total of 18,600 tons of silver from America in more than 150 years.

At that time, the Atlantic trade route between Spain and the American continent and the trans-Pacific trade route between East Asia and Mexico through the Philippines were very busy. This sea route was called the Medieval Maritime Silk Road.

Such a large amount of silver was mined, which was almost equivalent to the total amount of silver in the entire Eurasian continent at that time.

At that time in Europe, because merchants from various countries traded with each other and did business with each other, everyone must reach a consensus and select a currency as the recognized currency for global circulation, and this recognized currency was silver.

Because silver has many advantages as a circulating currency, such as: convenient price comparison, easy to store, easy to carry, non-renewable, easy to identify, etc. It is rarer than copper coins, but not as rare as gold.

Therefore, most of the global trade at that time was settled in silver, and many countries had an increasing demand for silver, including the Ming Dynasty.

When the demand for silver soared, the Spaniards discovered the largest silver mine on the American continent to date. The increase in silver production also stimulated the improvement of smelting technology. The silver coins minted in Europe had less loss, more exquisite shapes, and higher purity.

In Zacatecas and Guanajuato, Mexico, a large amount of gold and silver deposits were discovered. The silver deposits in Zacatecas are still ranked first in the world. It can be seen how lucky the Spaniards are.

The mined silver mines were gathered in Mexico City, the capital of New Spain. In 1535, the newly appointed governor established the Mexico City Mint, and the New Spain region became the first Spanish colony to export silver coins.

Mexico City is the earliest and largest mint in the New World. Since 1536, the Mexico City Mint has produced the first silver coin in Spain, a silver coin with two columns.

This double-column silver coin has two columns on one side, which are wrapped by a scroll. The scroll is inscribed with the Latin "PLVS VLTRA" - there is a different world overseas.

The scroll around the stone column is wrapped in an S shape, and its appearance is similar to the dollar symbol $.

In fact, the creation of the dollar symbol is indeed related to this double-column silver coin.

Because of the existence of the Bretton Woods system in later generations, many people think that the US dollar is linked to gold, but in fact, when the US dollar was born, the anchor of the US dollar was silver.

In 1792, the newly established United States adopted silver as the basis of the national currency. The country stipulated that each US dollar was equal to 24.056 grams of silver. Basically, it can be considered that one US dollar was actually a Spanish 8-riyal silver coin at that time.

Therefore, the purchasing power of one US dollar at that time was very amazing.

It can be said that the Spaniards directly contributed to the arrival of the Silver Age. For hundreds of years afterwards, silver has always been the main trading currency in countries around the world.

A large amount of gold and silver produced in the Americas was minted into gold and silver coins, and then part of it was continuously shipped to Europe, and the other part was shipped to the Ming Dynasty in the east without stopping.

These silver coins were used to buy various commodities of the Ming Dynasty, mainly luxury goods, such as porcelain, silk, etc.

As one of the most developed countries in the world at that time, the Ming Dynasty had a vast territory, rich products, and a stable social structure. It was also the most important producer of luxury goods in the world.

At the same time, they did find that the exchange rate imbalance between the precious metals in the two places was indeed found.

In layman's terms, the silver in the Ming Dynasty was more valuable. The same amount of silver could buy more goods in the Ming Dynasty and could also be exchanged for more gold.

At that time, the price of silver in the Ming Dynasty was even twice that of Europe. The gold-silver ratio of the Ming Dynasty was 1:7, the Japanese was 1:10, and in Europe it was more than 1:13.

So, smart businessmen discovered this foreign exchange difference. They took a large amount of silver to the Ming Dynasty to earn the difference. In today's business terms, it is called "arbitrage", which is to arbitrage the cheap gold of the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, later generations doubted the huge amount of gold in the Qin and Han dynasties, and even gave rise to the saying that the so-called "gold" in ancient China refers to brass.

But the truth is that ancient China actually distinguished between gold and brass very early.

"Han Shu" also made it very clear. "Han Shu·Shihuo Zhi" said: "Gold has three grades, gold is the best, platinum is the middle, and red gold is the worst."

The words couldn't be clearer. The best is what later generations call gold, platinum is what later generations call silver, and red gold is the so-called brass.

"The History of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties" records: "In the early Western Han Dynasty, the total amount of gold used was more than one million catties."

If we calculate according to the "Research on Chinese Measurements and Weights in History", which shows that 1 catty in the Western Han Dynasty is equivalent to 248 grams today, the one million catties in the Western Han Dynasty is equivalent to 248 tons in later generations, which has reached one-sixth of China's gold reserves today, which is absolutely terrifying.

According to "Wenxian Tongkao", "In the Han Dynasty, the gold given to ministers was 100 catties, 200 catties, and at least 30 catties. Although King Yan Liu Ze gave 200 catties of gold to the princes, when King Liang Xiao died, there were more than 400,000 catties of gold."

Liu Bang successfully alienated the relationship between Xiang Yu and Fan Zeng with 40,000 catties of gold. After losing Fan Zeng, Xiang Yu was defeated all the way to Maicheng, and Liu Bang dominated the world.

This can only show that there was indeed a lot of gold in China during the Qin and Han Dynasties.

However, the final destination of this gold is a mystery.

Wei Guangde has certainly read similar articles, and he has also read many ancient books when he was inspired, but he did not find the answer.

Come to think of it, if it was so easy to find the answer, it wouldn't have become a mystery for ages.

However, in this life, due to Wei Guangde's intervention, it has become extremely difficult for Europeans to extract gold from the Ming Dynasty on a large scale.

Wei Guangde was originally a doer. At this time, the leader was actually in the Ministry of Works. As long as the casting plan of the Ming Dynasty silver treasure was put forward as soon as possible, the craftsmen of the Ministry of Works would soon be able to start casting the Ming Dynasty silver coins.

The Ministry of Works was exactly the government office with the greatest influence of Wei Guangde.

And the other government office that had a huge influence on this matter was not the Ministry of Revenue, but the Ministry of War.

After all, the Changying Treasury of the Imperial Household Department was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War. In addition to the order from the palace, they also had to get the consent of the Ministry of War to take out the silver.

Wei Guangde returned to the mansion and did not send anyone to send a message to Zhu Heng and Tan Lun overnight. After all, it was too late.

He planned to wait until tomorrow morning for everything to be discussed after the grand court meeting. Thinking of Li Chengliang and his son, who he saw at the captive offering ceremony today, although he was dissatisfied with his practice of nurturing the enemy, Wei Guangde felt that he should appease them appropriately for his hard work.

It seems that the Li family is making all these troubles just to get a title of nobility.

Wei Guangde lay on the bed and thought to himself that he could be recommended for a title of nobility after pacifying the southwest.