Cutting 1719

Chapter 390 Whoever buys it is a fool

Speaking of which, Tian Wenjing is already well-known in today's upright official circles.When Yongzheng succeeded to the throne, Tian Wenjing was sent by Yongzheng to Henan to check the accumulated debts and deficiencies. As soon as Tian Wenjing took office, he implemented the method of trial and pursuit, that is, all the officials who had been found to be in arrears of money and grain were brought together to Kaifeng, and then reviewed one by one. And sealed up his property, used to sell compensation.

This method almost made Henan officials feel worse than death. By this year, it has completely made up for the deficit of the chief treasurer. Moreover, Tian Wenjing reinforced the seal of the grain collection silver cabinet during the collection of money and grain, and ordered "public When dismantled on the same side, the craftsman poured it into the melt immediately, and the two fractions of positive and negative are resolved, and nothing can be kept."

Yongzheng naturally admired a capable official like Tian Wenjing, but apart from admiring him, he also knew in his heart that if he put his temper in the overall situation of Yunnan and Guizhou, it would cause trouble.

"As far as the overall situation of Yunnan and Guizhou is concerned, it is more necessary to connect the upper and lower levels, accumulate strength, and unite people. In this respect, Tian Wenjing is not as good as Li Wei, and Li Wei is even worse than Ertai."

"Your Majesty really learned a lesson, and this slave admires him the most."

Yongzheng nodded slightly, and then asked Zhang Tingyu to draw up an imperial decree, asking Ertai, the governor of Shandong, to take over the post of governor of Yunnan and Guizhou.

Zhang Tingyu quickly wrote about his promotion and stamped his seal, but he knew in his heart that this imperial decree was only something on the surface, and the real terrible thing was the secret decree given behind the scenes.

After the matter was dealt with, Yongzheng pretended to be casual and asked: "Hengchen, have you heard any rumors in the capital recently?"

Hearing Yongzheng's question, Zhang Tingyu's face changed slightly, but he lowered his head, but Yongzheng didn't notice, so he had to answer honestly: "There are some boring people in this capital all day long, and they like to chew every day. Yahuazi, this servant doesn't even know what rumors the emperor is talking about."

It has to be said that Zhang Tingyu is well versed in the three tastes of being an official, but his answer is extremely ingenious. If he said yes, then he would be very passive. It is the duty of the minister to hear that it is the duty of the minister, why didn't he report it?Do you have a dissatisfaction with the emperor?
If you say no, then this is an insult to Yongzheng's IQ. After all, he is also a member of the imperial court. Don't you ever pay attention to any news in the capital?Saying this will only increase the laughter.

Therefore, Zhang Tingyu said it very cleverly at the moment, only saying that there is, but not which one. The reason is that there are too many rumors and too many rumors.

A meaningful smile appeared on Yongzheng's face, "Hengchen, there has been some movement in Jingshan recently, you can take a look for me."

"Whoo."

Although neither side made it clear, Zhang Tingyu had already understood the meaning of the words. Where is Jingshan?That was the location of Kangxi's Jingling Mausoleum, and the only one who really needed him, the Minister of Military Affairs, in Jingshan was the old fourteenth Yunzhen who had been under house arrest.

Another hot potato!

Zhang Tingyu couldn't help sighing, these brothers probably haven't finished fighting yet, so they can only continue to look back.

When the Qing court fell into the puzzle of fighting openly and secretly, Ning Chu started to toss about "money" again. After formulating a new monetary policy, it is equivalent to Ning Yu creating a golden egg. Chickens, but chickens are not golden eggs that can be directly exchanged for money after all, so the subsequent incubation is the key.

Therefore, in late April, Ning Yu held a meeting of the Great Chu Financial Cabinet in Fengtian Temple, with the purpose of hatching this golden egg.

In the resplendent and resplendent hall, only a dozen or so people stood under the majesty. Among them were the cabinet ministers, representatives of several large consortium chambers of commerce, and the newly appointed chairman of the Great Chu Banking Regulatory Commission Shi Nan Wang Ning Zhongxin, and Deng Boran, Governor of the Central Bank of Dachu.

In fact, the current Dachu Central Bank was actually reorganized from the original Huitong Bank, and Ning Zhongxin, the original owner of the bank, has now successfully become Ningchu's pocketbook.

Ning Zhongxin, the chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, naturally cannot continue to be in charge of the central bank, otherwise the power would be too great, and even Ning Zhongxin felt something was wrong in his heart, so even on the bright side, he had to relieve himself. The responsibility of going to the central bank was handed over to Deng Boran, his confidant who followed him for a long time.

Deng Boran, as the old minister of Conglong, has always been Ning Zhongxin's right-hand man, and he has also made great efforts. Therefore, this time, he became the first governor of the Central Bank of Dachu as a matter of course.

At this time, everyone stood under the steps, listening to Ernst, the Grand Master, talking in the hall, from the newly issued currency system to financial issues, but they were a little dizzy.

"Your Majesty, and gentlemen, the potential of my great Chu is far from being realized. The key lies in the fact that the huge financial potential has not been tapped. Therefore, our so-called lack of money is essentially standing on the ground. Crying for poverty on Jinshan, you don’t know what a waste it is!”

"In the past, we had no standard currency, no uniform exchange rate, and even no conventional national bond issuance mechanism! This means that our productivity has not been opened up, and as a currency in circulation, we have fallen into unprecedented deflation. Many places even only It is even more a sad regret for us to be able to barter."

Everything that Ernst said was not coherent, not to mention the chaotic language, but also mixed with many personal emotions, so not to mention those ministers, even Ning Yu himself felt a little headache.

But he understands some basic things, that is, China in this era, even though there is a large amount of silver flowing in, is still caught in a terrible deflation.

The so-called deflation, that is, the amount of money circulating in the market is less than the amount of money needed in the circulation of goods, resulting in currency appreciation and a general and continuous decline in prices.

According to Ning Yu’s understanding, the demise of the Ming Dynasty had a lot to do with deflation itself. Before the whipping law, all dynasties taxed in kind (cloth, grain) as the regular tax, and currency revenue only accounted for the country’s fiscal revenue. A very small portion, essentially due to a lack of sufficient currency.

After a large amount of silver from the West entered China, silver became a regular tax, and people had to pay national taxes to be converted into silver in advance. Only then did the financial system undergo a fundamental change, which essentially established the "silver standard" system of finance in the Ming Dynasty.

However, it should be noted that as currency, silver itself is used for tax payment, bulk trading and foreign trade, while the currency circulation of the people is still dominated by copper coins.But the problem is that, as a currency, the value of copper coins is not stable enough, and it often fluctuates up and down due to the ratio of silver to silver.

Therefore, silver will not essentially become the main currency in daily circulation and will not cause deflation.However, as silver is the standard currency, and China itself does not produce silver, its supply mainly comes from foreign trade. Once foreign trade stops, silver will be tightened, and correspondingly more copper coins will be needed to match the position. silver.

But the problem is that China is not a big copper-producing country, coupled with the huge consumption, so there has been a "money shortage" in all dynasties. , so-called money shortage.”

It can be said that the emergence of Jiaozi, iron money, and Daming treasure banknotes was essentially to deal with the copper shortage problem of the Ming Dynasty.

"Tongchang, in the early Ming Dynasty, only Dexing and Qianshan in Jiangxi. Later, Liangshan in Sichuan, Wutai Mountain in Shanxi, Ningqiang, Lueyang and Yunnan in Shaanxi... Chenghua closed Yunnan Road Nanzhou Tongkeng in 17 years... Jiajing, Because of drum casting, Long and Wanjian repeatedly opened copper factories in various places in Yunnan, but the harvest gradually decreased over time. During the Chongzhen period, ancient coins were included for furnace smelting."

Under such circumstances, the copper coins in the hands of the common people are becoming scarcer and scarcer. Once natural disasters, man-made disasters and wars occur, the value of copper coins will fluctuate. Money, that is, one stone of rice is 120 two hundred cash, which is equivalent to one tael of silver, which is about the same as the current grain price.

However, in the 15th year of Chongzhen, due to the war, the price of white rice rose to five taels of silver per stone, which is strange to count as [-]. This is an uncomplicated mathematical problem. However, it increased by a full ten times in terms of copper coins. The change in the ratio of silver prices to copper prices in the late Ming Dynasty was the result of a sharp drop in silver imports.

Therefore, in the future, the decoupling of the gold and silver standard from currency is itself an inevitable thing, but this time will be delayed for a long time. It will not be until the 20th century, that is, after the complete disintegration of the Bretton Woods system, that society will get rid of it. The restrictions of the gold and silver standard have been lifted. At that time, the currency used by human beings is actually the credit currency issued by the government.

Of course, in this era, it is impossible to develop these things in one step, but this does not mean that Ning Yu cannot use some means to amplify the capital magic power of the entire Great Chu.

Among them, banknotes were originally a good means, but due to various reasons in history, Jiaozi and Daming banknotes were completely reduced to waste paper, so that the status of banknotes in people's minds gradually declined, and they were almost reduced to the same nature as scammers. thing.Therefore, before Ningchu has completely stabilized its foundation, it cannot directly issue banknotes.

However, the inability to issue banknotes does not mean that there is no other way to go.

"Your Majesty, now that I want to realize the reform of the financial system, I first need to understand that it is useless to bury silver in the ground. Only by circulating it can the value be realized. Therefore, the process of spreading requires our bank Come and finish." Ernst waved his hands with enthusiasm.

Deng Boran, the governor of the central bank, nodded lightly, "The bank mentioned by Grand Master Ernst refers to our central bank?"

"No, the central bank in the future will not focus on private lending, but on issuing currency. The rest of the business will be distributed to some other state-owned banks and royal banks, and a small part will also be opened. private bank."

Ning Yu interjected, he had to set a tone for everyone first, no matter what, the court and the royal family will take a bite of this cake first, and the rest will belong to you big families.

It's just that as soon as these words came out, Ning Zhongjing and Cui Wancai were the first to smile, and Cui Yu, the representative of the royal consortium, also looked satisfied. On the contrary, it was Cheng Moran, the representative of the Cheng family, and some representatives of other big families, who had a happy expression on their faces. It was a little nervous.

They don't dare to compete with the court and royal family for food, but if they can have some soup, they can do business when they go back.

Ernst smiled softly at this time: "Everyone, capital itself is full of infinite imagination, and it needs the help of countless people to make it bigger. You don't have to worry about not having sufficient benefits. You will only hate your own interests before the benefits come. I don’t have enough money in hand.”

"To understand how this works, we need to understand an effect in Europe, which is the Netherlands."

When Ernst told the story, Ning Yu didn't look dazed like the others, but had a look of understanding on his face. When it comes to manipulating capital, the Netherlands went earlier than other countries a lot of.

"The Netherlands is a very, very small country. How small is it? It is only about half the size of Jiangsu, and its population is even more pitifully small, only 150 million people, far inferior to the great China, but it has created a very The advanced system is the joint-stock company.”

"More than 100 years ago, the Netherlands was much weaker than it is now, and it can be said that it was very poor. Later, they created the world's first joint-stock company-the Dutch East India Company. It was raised by social financing, they issued shares to everyone, a piece of paper worth 150 Dutch guilders, about 40 taels of silver."

"What? Just a piece of paper is worth 40 taels of silver?"

Although all the people present were smart people, there were still some people who raised questions. This was even darker than the Daming Treasure Banknote back then!
"That's right, for 40 taels of silver, there is only one stock. They promise that every Dutchman, as long as he buys the stock, can become an investor or shareholder of the joint company voluntarily, and will share in the future the joint company's ocean-going trade. Profits," Ernst said with a smile.

Cui Wancai looked puzzled, and said softly: "But who can guarantee that after making money, they will distribute the money to these shareholders? What if they lose money? Can shareholders get their money back?"

Ning Yu nodded secretly when he heard the question from his old father-in-law. The question was indeed more direct and to the point.

"Master Jifu, your questions are great, and I will answer you one by one."

Ernst nodded, and then said: "First of all, I would like to explain to everyone that the Dutch United Company issued a notice to all shareholders, that is, the company will not pay dividends to shareholders for ten years at that time. The profits will be used to continue to build ships, hire people, open up the ocean trade market, and then expand. This sounds really crazy, just like the world's craziest liar, doesn't it?"

The big guy couldn't help but nodded, whoever would buy the so-called stocks is a fool!

(End of this chapter)