Prime Minister

Chapter 821 Settlement Currency
Cai Yanqing rode worriedly on his way to Xizhou.

He had previously inspected Hezhou and learned that he had sent to spy on Taozhou to spy on the five Tibetan chiefs who were friendly to the Song Dynasty, but Biansi Bojie, the leader of the Guizhang tribe, had found an excuse and killed them.The bones of these five leaders are now being hung upside down on the top of Yigong City.

Si Bojie here is not only capable and ambitious, but also cruel and young.This person is more cunning and dangerous than his grandfather Guizhang, and sooner or later he will become a serious problem for the Song Dynasty.At the same time, another general of Dong Zhan, Ji Lengpu, also led his tribe to move southward to the south of Jishi Mountain, and seemed to join forces with Bian Sibo.

After Cai Yanqing learned about this, he wrote to Zhang Yue, but the other party didn't seem to pay much attention to it.

This time Zhang Yue asked himself to discuss something important with Xizhouyan, Cai Yanqing felt that he had to bring this matter up with Zhang Yue.

In the past, on the road from Hezhou to Xizhou, from time to time, some tribes came in and out to ambush the Song army or the caravan food convoy, and Cai Yanqing led more than a hundred riders to ride the road at night in the rain. Light and dark are uncertain, horseshoes enter and exit the muddy road.The bumps on the horse's back caused Cai Yanqing's mood to fluctuate, and he finally felt relieved after seeing the Xizhou City bathed in the wind and rain.

After Cai Yanqing arrived in Xizhou City, he stayed overnight in a Buddhist temple in the city. When the transfer envoys visited the states, they had no fixed residence. Sometimes they stayed in post houses, sometimes in temples, and sometimes they were received by local officials. at home.

The next morning Cai Yanqing came to Jinglue Mansion.

Zhang Yue, Li Xian, and Cai Yanqing had breakfast.Zhang Yue talked to Cai Yanqing for a while and asked him to support him, and Cai Yanqing understood.

Then he went to the hall to discuss the matter, Cai Yanqing took a glance, but saw Wang Hou, Zhong Shidao, Zhang Shouyue and Shen Kuo.

Except for Miao Shou and Gao Zunyu who are in Huizhou, all the generals on Xihe Road are here.

Seeing this battle, Cai Yanqing didn't rashly bring up the matter of the gangsters.

But after Zhang Yue said a few words, Cai Yanqing asked, "Surplus? Deficit?"

Cai Yanqing couldn't help being stunned when Zhang Yue mentioned this vocabulary, even though he had read thousands of volumes, he had never heard the phrase "deficit and surplus".

Zhang Yuedao: "To be more precise, it is a trade surplus and a trade deficit. Another term is salt banknote reserve."

Cai Yanqing prided himself on being well-read and knowledgeable, and he had never heard of these things before. He didn't know any of the three words, and he was completely confused.

Zhang Yue explained: "What is a surplus? To put it bluntly, the Fans buy more of my goods, and we buy less from the Fans. For the court, this is a surplus."

Zhang Yue directly concealed the price so that the generals would not understand.

Even so, Wang Hou and others were still confused, and Li Xian didn't understand.Wang Hou has read books, and Zhong Shidao has also been a civil servant. Poor Zhang Shouyue is old and can only sit and listen to the scriptures.

On the contrary, Cai Yanqing understood a little bit: "A surplus is more beneficial than harmful to our imperial court!"

That's right, the Song Dynasty's previous strategies to deal with Xixia and Khitan were to close the market and stop trade, making the other party's trade cost high, and achieving the purpose of shaking the minority regime.

The surplus leads to a problem, that is, less goods and more money, causing private prices to soar.

The deficit will also cause a problem, that is, more goods and less money, which will lead to extremely low prices.

Zhang Yue said: "Everyone knows that the imperial court has been in a money shortage. Why did the money shortage happen?"

"Some people say that it was because the Xia Kingdom lost its trade income after the Silk Road was cut off. But this is only a source."

The economy of the Song Dynasty has been increasing for so many years, and more and more goods are produced during the economic growth, but the growth of money cannot keep up with the growth of the economy, and there will be a shortage of money. "

The annual casting of copper coins in the Song Dynasty was only 180 million guan, which was far from keeping up with the GDP growth of the Song Dynasty.

There was no shortage of copper in the Song Dynasty, but if copper was used as currency, it was very scarce.The government has been casting iron coins instead of copper coins, but the common people don't buy it.Therefore, folks often melted copper ware to cast private money, which eventually led to the Song Dynasty prohibiting folk melting copper to cast money.

Why the Song Dynasty opened the sea ban is also because of this reason.At the beginning, Fan Xiang made salt banknotes to alleviate the lack of large iron coins in the Northwest. This was the thinking of banknotes for power and money.

Salt banknotes can be slightly alleviated. The money shortage in the Song Dynasty was, in the final analysis, a palliative, not a root cause.

After Xue Xiang was transferred from Shaanxi to serve as the third envoy, he took the right to mint salt banknotes from the local area to the center.

In another time and space history, due to the opening of the Xihe River, Yanchi, Shaanxi produced an average of 110 million seats per year, while the imperial court printed an average of 170 million seats per year, an average of 59 seats more.

According to the official price of 300 yuan for a seat of five guan, it is more than [-] million guan.

However, the extra salt banknotes were collected and purchased by the imperial court in the capital from the Capital Salt Court.

Of course, this time and space is collected by the Jiaoyin Institute, and the imperial court is also very restrained in printing money, so the price of salt bills has always been more than five hundred and five hundred yuan, but there is no way to restrain it after Xihe opened the border.

After Zhangyue's restructuring, the well salt in Xizhou, Minzhou was also settled with salt banknotes.The well salt in Xizhou, Minzhou has been mined from the Zhuotong well, and a total of more than [-] wells have been drilled. Now the well salt produced in a year has reached about [-] seats.

As soon as the news came out, the price of salt banknotes in Qinzhou and Yongxing Mansion suddenly rose to seven or eight seats, and Zhang Yue asked Cai Jing to sell a large amount of salt banknotes on the market.

Only three months later, Xue Xiang shamelessly added 15 more seats to the court's annual salt banknote printing... As soon as the news came out, the price of salt banknotes plummeted to five per seat, and Cai Jing bought back all the salt banknotes he had sold at the beginning. Made a fortune along the way.

No matter how you say it, the salt note of five guan and one seat is still very firm, even though it is lower than the original price of five guan and [-] wen.

The most important thing is that the imperial court actually earns income through the annual issuance of salt banknotes. Now the imperial court sells more than 120 million salt bills in Xieyan Yanchi and Xizhou Minzhou Yanchi, but the three divisions issue nearly 200 million salt bills every year.

Cai Yanqing listened to Zhang Yue's talk about the salt money, at this time Shen Kuo spoke.

Shen Kuo had been building a village in Minzhou before, and after building the Iron Castle, he just returned to Zhang Yue.

Shen Kuo is the minister of economy, Zhang Yue first learned about salt money from the Mengxi pen talk written by him before crossing.In the book, he praised Fan Xiang's salt banknote reform.

In history, Shen Kuo once advocated that the annual additional salt banknotes be set at 200 million guan, and at the same time, an additional 20 guan should be issued every year as a contingency, so as to make it a permanent system.

Shen Kuo handed over the document and stammered: "The commander-in-chief's order..., the lower officials can calculate... almost, the establishment of the Xizhou market can export 110 million guan of goods and import 130 million guan of goods every year. , In other words, the imperial court has a deficit of 22 salt bills every year."

Cai Yanqing was stunned when he heard this, didn't he say that he had a surplus, why did it turn into a deficit?

Zhang Yue said: "Similar to silk, tea is a common thing in the Song Dynasty, but the medicines, spices, gold and silver that were traded in Fanbang are rare and precious things, so it is a deficit!"

Cai Yanqing nodded, and the same was true for the Song and Liao trade, saying that it was an annual tribute, but the Liao Kingdom used the annual tribute to buy things from the Song Dynasty.It is equivalent to the Song Dynasty sending money to the Liao Kingdom, and the Liao Kingdom will use my Song Dynasty's money to buy my Song Dynasty's goods.This maintains an almost trade balance.

However, the Qing, Tang and Tibetan tribes and the countries in the Western Regions did not have the treatment of the Liao Kingdom.

However, during Zhang Yue’s Zhiping period, he asked Wang Shao to promote salt money in the northwest, and when he attacked Hezhou before, Zhang Yue used salt money to buy food from the Qing and Tang tribes, not to mention that the rewards from the Fan soldiers were all It is issued in salt notes.

When the Xihe trade fair opened, these salt banknotes flowed back to the Song Dynasty under the huge trade surplus.

Everyone doesn't understand why in the end the Song Dynasty benefited, the Tibetans benefited, and the Han merchants also benefited. What happened in between?
Cai Yanqing understood a little, and exchanged the silk and tea bricks that were not in short supply in the Song Dynasty for horses, cattle and sheep, while the Fanbu exchanged the silk and tea bricks in the Song Dynasty for the silk and tea bricks that were not in short supply.

Faintly, he has seen that the way to increase wealth lies in exchange.

Cai Yanqing understood, Shen Kuo also understood, he spoke clumsily, but at this moment he wished to take a small notebook to write it down.

At the same time, Shen Kuo also thought that Zhang Jinglue wrote a book on economics when he was idle, and later dedicated it to Jinshang, and now it is hidden in the emperor's bookstore. Just borrow it and read it.

But Shen Kuo changed his mind and thought again, it doesn't matter, Zhang Jinglue's knowledge is as vast as the sea, and what I learn from him is getting better every day, and I must have benefited a lot.

Zhang Yue looked at everyone. The circulation of salt banknotes in the Northwest meant that the country with the largest trade surplus in the world had also mastered the settlement currency. What would happen in this way?
Just think about the replacement of US Dollars by Ruanmei Coin in international circulation, or a country trying its best to return to the number one surplus country.

In order for salt money to become a settlement currency, it is necessary to prohibit the return of the army.The overall strategy is in place, can it be implemented?
Zhang Yue sat down and said: "Nowadays, all the troops stationed in Xihe are for the purpose of returning to Yi. I think the disadvantages are very serious. Emperor Taizong and Emperor Zhenzong have strict orders not to allow the frontier troops to return to Yi. Later, because of the war with Xixia, this happened. Let go. Now the soldiers and horses of Xihe Road are treated by the imperial court, and at the same time, they plan to reward the soldiers and horses of this road with 20 guan salt money from the surplus of the Shiyi Division every year."

"This cancels Hui Yi, what do you guys think?"

Wang Hou, Zhong Shidao stood up one after another and said: "Since the commander-in-chief speaks words, we will follow the leader of the commander-in-chief."

Zhang Shouyue was the only one left in the field.

When Zhang Shou made an appointment with Wang Hou, it was no surprise that Zhong Shi Dao supported them, both of them were single-handedly promoted by Zhang Yue.In fact, every year 20 guan, the army of Xihe Road will share one point, which is actually similar to the money earned through hard work, but what others give to oneself is not as reliable as the money earned by oneself.

Zhang Shouyue was unwilling to agree, but this time some situations are stronger than others.He looked at Cai Yanqing, who had just arrived, wondering what the other party's attitude was, and Cai Yanqing smiled and said: "If Huiyi can be banned, it will be very good!"

Li Xian also expressed his support.

Zhang Shouyue had no choice but to bite the bullet and said unwillingly: "The last general and the last general have nothing to say, but the senior deputy chief and general Miao are afraid that they will not?"

(End of this chapter)