Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 1619 Currency
As the nominal editor-in-chief of "Tongguang Quanshu", Shao Shude devoted a considerable part of his energy to writing books.

After going to Leyouyuan to appease the people who moved westward, he quickly returned to the palace and started writing books.

His book certainly didn't start from scratch.In fact, he has prepared a lot of handouts during the long-term education of his sons, and what needs to be done now is to string them together and tell them systematically.

The first book he compiled was called "Currency".

The content is not very deep, because his understanding is also very limited, but it is about enough in the classical era.Later generations still have the opportunity to innovate on this basis and develop new theories.

Queen Yueliduo of Khitan and Queen Xieshi of Gaochang helped organize the handouts.

Gao Rou, Queen of Bohai, was grinding ink.

Chang and Queen Mother Montessori are still alive...

She gave birth to a son in August, and she cried bitterly after giving birth, feeling like she was alive after a catastrophe.

Shao Shude originally wanted to say that having a child in his early forties is not that scary, but he thought about it.The sin he committed was to get into a woman's body when he felt comfortable, never caring about the consequences.So Haosheng comforted her and said that she would not let her give birth in the future, and Mengshi cried with joy.

Now she is preparing the paper, with a relaxed and freehand expression on her face.Seeing that Shao Shude finished writing a page, he took it away and dried it. After the whole book is finished, he will sew it into a booklet by himself.

Lian's is preparing snacks.

After witnessing Montessori's experience, she has long since given up any illusions.

In October of the 15th year of Jianji (915), she had already given birth to a daughter in the Gaochang Palace, but she knew that this was not the end.

Because even if the saint makes out with other women, he will always get into her body in the end, and he is pregnant without accident.

Letting a queen mother of a country get pregnant, does this make you so proud?
After sighing lightly, he carefully matched the delicious food and sent it to the sage when he was tired of writing.

Adieshi is making tea, and his two daughters are helping.

Just gave birth to a daughter in June this year.

Among so many women, she is the most uneducated. She only understands Uighur, but not Chinese.And after Satuk's death, the saint didn't seem to be very interested in her either.

Perhaps, this is not a bad thing.

Shao Shude didn't care what the "boots" were thinking, but took advantage of the feeling and the opportunity to write freely, and kept swaying—because many words were difficult to explain, and it was quite inconsistent to use them in the context of ancient Chinese. , so he wrote directly in vernacular.

"I call gold, silver, and copper precious metals. But precious metals themselves are not currency or currency. They only have monetary properties when they are minted into prescribed coins. In theory, this is perfect currency—in fact, it is very Hard to say..."

"Assuming that precious metals flow out during foreign trade, the amount of currency on the market will decrease, causing prices to fall. Until imports decrease, exports increase, and currency returns."

"Imports and exports are not the only way to reduce currency. Casting Buddha statues, burying gold and silver, storing them in warehouses, etc., may all cause such fluctuations, which in turn will cause large changes in prices."

"Take grain as an example. In the same peaceful year and the same favorable weather, in the same place, in just a few years, the price of a bucket of corn may jump from three renminbi to thirty renminbi, and then fall back to ten renminbi. The fact is that In fact, during this period of time, the cost of food production and consumption have not changed much, but the price has changed dramatically, why? The money supply is inseparable from the relationship. The amount of copper coins fluctuates."

……

"Let me talk about the effect of money supply on exchange rate later."

"In recent years, the amount of silver produced in Japan has increased year by year. According to the merchants who went to Japan for trade in Mingzhou, the prices of many commodities in Japan are rising. Although the range is not very large, they are rising every year and are very firm. The reasons are as mentioned in the previous section. As mentioned above, the money supply increased significantly.”

"I assume an ideal but extreme situation. Japan uses silver coins as the only currency, and their commodity production capacity and consumption capacity have not changed. The silver mines continue to be mined, and carloads of silver ingots are minted into coins and put into the market Afterwards, the prices of various commodities they produced generally rose rapidly, but the use attributes of the commodities did not change in any way. One hundred catties of grain, it can only produce the effect of one hundred catties of grain, and only the price has changed.”

"In this case, the Japanese silver coin actually depreciated."

"Assuming that during this period, my country's silver production, which also uses silver coins, does not increase, and the circulation of silver coins on the market remains constant, then the Japanese silver coins will also depreciate significantly compared to the Daxia silver coins, because they 'over-issue currency', which I call for 'inflation'."

"Assume that Japanese merchants must exchange the Japanese silver coins on hand for Daxia silver coins when conducting trade in Daxia. In such a case, because of the depreciation of the currency, the Japanese must take out more Japanese silver coins to exchange for Daxia Silver coins, which will put them at a disadvantage in exchange. It involves a concept, the exchange rate, which can be found in the appendix."

"As I said before, silver ingots are not currency, but silver coins are. But unfortunately, many people equate gold nuggets and silver ingots with gold coins and silver coins, which gives Japanese merchants great convenience. They hold Japanese silver coins, as long as the weight Enough, often can have the use value of Daxia silver coins of the same weight. This kind of cognition makes the exchange rate between Daxia and Japan fixed at 1:1 all the year round, which is actually not good for our business.”

"Here I ask a simple question. If the silver coin is kept in the treasury and not used, is it silver bullion or currency? The answer is in the next section."

……

"Yes. If the silver coin is piled dusty on the treasury's shelves instead of being put into the market, it is equivalent to silver bullion. Again, silver bullion is not money, but silver coins are. Silver coins locked in the treasury can only be used Treated as 'capital', it can only be considered 'currency' when it is put into the market."

"Based on this cognition, the Ministry of Households can artificially adjust the price of commodities and the exchange rate of currencies by increasing or decreasing the amount of silver coins put on the market. , it is better not to do this, it will only cause disaster."

……

"Assume another situation. Suppose that Shouzhou of Huainan Province purchased a large amount of woolen cloth from Lingzhou of Guanbei Province, resulting in a large outflow of local currency and a sharp drop in the prices of various commodities. However, because Lingzhou sold a large amount of woolen cloth, a large amount of money flowed in, resulting in commodity prices. It skyrocketed. Then they purchased a large amount of tea from Shouzhou, and the money flowed out again, and the commodity prices in Lingzhou plummeted across the board. Because of the influx of a large amount of money in Shouzhou, commodity prices rose in retaliation after falling to the bottom..."

"This kind of sudden rise and fall in a short period of time is harmful to people's livelihood. So how to avoid it?"

"I put forward an idea. The establishment of a depository institution will affect the large commercial transactions of currency circulation in a place. Buyers and sellers open a vault here. When paying or entering accounts, currencies are circulated between different vaults without having to physically present in the market so as not to have drastic disruptions."

"The name of this depository institution can be called 'bank'. In fact, in various places, this 'clearing bank' mechanism has appeared for many years. It operates well, has considerable 'capital', and is trustworthy. Do not doubt its ability to cash. At this time, some things can be further simplified. The 'depositary receipt' (silver bill) issued by the bank can be directly used for transactions. The bank does not even need to move the currency in the vault, it only needs to see the receipt Instant redemption can guarantee credibility.”

……

The more Shao Shude writes, the more excited he is, and his writing is like a spring.

He tried his best to explain all kinds of economic phenomena in very simple and essential language.

The various nouns that appear in it have to be explained or defined in an appendix. In fact, the workload is not small.

When you get tired of writing, wave your hand and call for a queen or queen.

They automatically unbuttoned their shirts and sat in Shao Shude's arms.

After a lot of wanton kneading, he regained his energy and continued to write books. It can be described as a combination of work and rest, and the efficiency is extremely high.

"Do you know this?" Seeing that the sky was getting late, Shao Shude was tired, so he put down his pen and took out two silver coins.

One is a gold dinar and the other is a silver dirham, both seized from Persia—including the time when they paid the ransom fee.

"Persian... currency." Xie had been reading Shao Shude's manuscript by the side, so engrossed in it that he didn't even notice that his skirt was gone.

If it was normal, she would definitely resist.

Now, maybe she has discovered it, but in the face of this new book with refreshing and deafening content, she feels that she can not resist this time.

The talent and learning of the sage is indeed much stronger than that of Vija.Besides, I couldn't resist.The more violent the resistance, the more humiliating the final gesture is always.

"Persian Currency." Shao Shude nodded, and said: "In the southwest of Persia, there is a small country called 'Safar'. There is a land in the country called 'Panjshir Valley', which is rich in silver. It has been mined for decades, and the output Never went down."

"Panjshir" means "Five Lions" in Persian, surrounded by the Hindu Kush Mountains.The terrain in the valley is flat, with rivers, lakes, and fertile soil. Most of the later generations living here are Tajiks and belong to Afghanistan.

Since the era of Baiyi Dashi, two things have been abundant here: silver and precious stones.In the 21st century, the Tajiks are still using the silver and emeralds produced in the valley to exchange resources from the outside world-the silver mine that has been mined for 1000 years is simply...

"When I was in Gaochang, I also saw a lot of Persian silver coins, but I didn't expect that they were collected from this valley." Xie was a little surprised.

She calmly lifted the skirt that had fallen to her ankles.

"The war with Persia won't last long." Shao Shude said, "I expect they will come to seek peace sooner or later."

"Why?" She asked, blinking her eyes.

"Don't you hear that 'to fight against the outside world, you must first settle the inside'?" Shao Shude said: "The Persians' peace is just a stopgap measure. First free up their hands to solve internal problems, and then make a fuss. Otherwise, internal and external difficulties, too difficult."

"I see." Xie nodded.

"When you were in Gaochang, Vija didn't let you participate in state affairs?" Shao Shude asked.

"No, he only let me read Buddhist scriptures. But I like to read miscellaneous books, very much." Xie felt a little unnatural.

One is that I heard my husband's name, and the other is that the skirt fell to my ankle again, and the movement behind it is indescribable——

Just like the Panjshir Valley in winter, it is repeatedly swept by the strong cold wind, and the sparse vegetation is destroyed.Only the underground hot springs are flowing, showing a different kind of spring.

"Do you think I will agree to the request of the Persians?" Shao Shude asked.

"Your Majesty should agree." Xie Shi said.

"Why are you so sure?"

"If His Majesty is unwilling, the Persian envoys will not be able to come to Luoyang."

"Sure enough." Shao Shude said with a smile: "I robbed Persia, one is to weaken Persia's strength. Their strength is weak, they will not have so much ambition, and they will not think too much about expansion. Second, naturally want to Use Persian money and food to support the Western Regions. It’s not that the Great Xia cannot afford to support the Western Regions. Slowly immigrating and developing, they will eventually rise, but that is too slow, too slow. Especially in the early stages of accumulation, if you get a windfall, you can get it back Ten years or even decades."

Immigration development is a snowball.

Taking Liaodong as an example, it can bear tens of thousands of immigrants a year, because the local area already has considerable output and has a strong reception capacity.

But in the early days, it barely supported hundreds or thousands of people a year.

Shao Shude is very clear about the concept of exponential growth.If the early base can be increased, the longer the time is stretched, the more amazing the exponential growth will be, which can save a lot of time.

"But Persia can't be too weak." Shao Shude said again: "I don't want to destroy Persia, and I don't have that strength in the short term. Dealing with Persia, which has a vast territory and a large population, but is full of internal conflicts and external crises, can gain the greatest benefit."

"Does Your Majesty want to do business with Persia in the end?" Xie asked.

"What a smart woman." Shao Shude praised, "Why do you think so?"

"If His Majesty occupies the silver mine in Panjshir, I'm afraid he will fall into war every day, so he can't use it with peace of mind." Xie said: "Besides, there are not enough people in the Western Regions to mine it. Instead of that, it's better to let the Persians mine it." Send it here, and save the huge cost of the war."

"How to get the Persians to send it over?"

"Of course it's for business." Xie pointed to a page of the manuscript and said, "Your Majesty also said that if a place has a lot of silver, their things will become very expensive. Merchants will find ways to go Foreign countries buy cheap things, bring them back to the country and sell them, and earn huge profits. After so many times, the local craftsmen lost their business and went bankrupt. In the end, they relied more on the supply of foreign goods, and silver continued to flow into Daxia. It cannot be reversed."

After saying this, Xie couldn't help shivering.

In the summer of 2022, the Afghan disaster management department stated that due to severe weather, the Panjshir Valley caused record-breaking floods.The trees were washed away by the erupting flood, and they fell down close to the ground. The muddy water in the valley overflowed, and there were abnormal mountain phenomena that are common in floods: the hill tops are deformed and bulged.

"Isn't this book in vain?" Shao Shude said with a smug smile: "I set up the Western Regions Trading Company to prepare for this. Many people think that the Western Regions have fallen and there is nothing to do, but am I such a superficial person? ?Ha ha."

Xie looked at Shao Shude with inexplicable eyes.I have been repeatedly exploring why such a wise, wise and powerful person is so obscene?If you're serious, there's more to fame and achievement than that.

Even, don't over-stimulate and humiliate yourself, use some water to work hard, will you still resist so much?After all, Vija is not at the same level as a saint no matter from which aspect...

"In the future, you can read the books I write as you like." Shao Shude said.

"What's in the next book?" Xie asked, resisting the strangeness.

""Population Trap"." Shao Shude said: "However, you have to pay some fees after reading the half of "Currency", right?"

Xie was puzzled.

"Read a book and give me a child." Shao Shude said.

Xie gave him a blank look, but actually didn't object much.

"When the stomach becomes big, go show it to Vija." Shao Shude said again.

Xie struggled violently.

It was snowing goose feathers outside.

Yue Liduo, who had long been familiar with Shao Shude's abnormality, sorted out the manuscripts and handed them over to Mengshi.

Montessori read it just now.

The book is not yet finished, but what it has so far is horrifying enough.

The most powerful thing is that the content in the book is very simple, so that laymen can understand it and gain something - some things, officials who have been in contact with finance and accounting all the year round may also understand a little bit, but no one has ever been so systematic. told.

The sage has done it, and after the manuscript is finished, published, and distributed, it may have a very far-reaching impact.

(End of this chapter)