Great Warriors of Sui and Tang Dynasties

Chapter 1101

In Luoyang Palace.

Li Fuguo was still floating in the sea, but he sent the express letter to Luoyang first.The emperor looked at Li Fuguo's letter, "Li Fuguo's loyalty is commendable, but his experience is still not enough."

"What's the matter, Your Majesty?" asked Sun Zhaoyi, the head maid of Avalokitesvara who helped the emperor organize the memorials.

"Look at Li Fuguo, who wantonly confiscated the property of rebels in Lingnan, and then made more than 100 boats and shipped it to Luoyang."

"This is a good thing. Isn't the imperial court short of money? Earlier, Commander-in-Su said that Xishan had just set up roads and prefectures, but the roads in Xishan were impassable, and there was no city. It was planned to build a city, a fortress and a post station. The need was huge. Asking for money. Cheng Shuai of Anxi also said that the use of troops against Shekuo is still going on, and money and food are also needed to reward soldiers..."

There are seven things for ordinary people to open the door, salt, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea, but for the imperial court, such a large empire cost even more.

This year is the first year of the imperial examination. All counties and counties across the country have to take the imperial examination. In order to run the imperial examination well, the imperial court attaches great importance to it. It plans to withdraw special funds and use it for the imperial examination in each county, and build tribute courtyards in various places. Examination room, as well as preparing the school for candidates to prepare for accommodation and rest.

From Daojun County to the capital, the Gongyuan Xiuxue Hall must be built up and down, and the cost is not a little bit.

"Money is of course a good thing, the key is that you see Li Fuguo, he abandoned copper coins and silk, thinking they were too heavy and took up space, so he brought all the light items."

"Your Majesty, aren't light goods more valuable?"

Luo Cheng could only teach his eldest grandson a lesson, telling him that money and silk are currency, but gold and silver are not currency. Although gold and silver are considered a natural currency, they cannot be directly circulated.

Not to mention, pearls, ivory, rhino horn, hawksbill, coral, glass, and various spices. These things are indeed valuable, but they are actually commodities in essence.

Since it is a valuable commodity, there are quantity and price commodities.

Just like the pearls produced in Hepu, they are rare in quantity and high in quality, so the price is extremely high.But in addition to high quality, the price is high, and the most important thing is low quantity.

If a large number of pearls suddenly appeared in Luoyang City, the price of these things would naturally drop.

Even the spices are the same.

When Li Fuguo took it from Lingnan, they were very valuable in themselves, because they were only placed in the hands of those handsome and powerful people, and they were not circulated in the market. At this time, their value was very high.

But most of these treasures and spices in Lingnan flooded into Luoyang at once. If the emperor wants to cash them out, these things will be listed on the market. The supply exceeds demand. You can keep calling down.

Light goods worth 1000 million guan in Lingnan are gathered in Luoyang at once. If they are sold in a short time, they may only be worth 900 million or 800 million or even 700 million guan.

And if these things don't materialize, and don't flow into the market for sale, then to the imperial court, they are just a bunch of good-looking things with no practical effect.

Changsun seems to understand but not understand.

"Is this really the case?"

"Yes, it will. This is the law of the market. Even the emperor can't interfere. Li Fuguo must be stopped and those things cannot be transported to Luoyang immediately. Those that are also depreciated.”

The eldest grandson thought it was absurd that the emperor was not happy that a large amount of gold, silver, jewelry and spices had to be shipped.

"Your Majesty, can't you just use these things to pay officials' salaries or serve as rewards for soldiers?"

"Foot trick."

Luo Cheng pointed out her mistake.

"It's still the same problem, the problem of market circulation. Even if these light goods are used in another way, such as being used to discount the salaries of officials or the rewards of soldiers, these things still flow to the market in the end. There is a large increase in the market. In stock, the supply is still greater than the demand, so it will not depreciate."

"The only difference is that it was originally in our hands, and we lost money, but now it has become a loss for the soldiers and officials. Originally, the official got [-] guan, we gave him [-] guan of pepper, and then the market A lot of pepper was put on, and in the end, the one hundred peppers in the hands of the officials were only sold for seventy or eighty peppers, and he lost money."

"Doing this will make everyone dissatisfied and resentful, especially if these are given to the soldiers as rewards, but the result is that they are less rewarded to the soldiers in disguise. What kind of bad consequences do you think will be?"

The Ming Dynasty liked to do this kind of thing. For example, when the imperial court issued precious banknotes, it was enforced that the banknotes were issued at a ratio of one to one. However, due to the large amount of excessive issuance, the banknotes were actually very worthless, but the imperial court still issued them to officials and soldiers at a ratio of one to one. They are tantamount to embezzling the salaries and rewards of officials and soldiers in disguise.

Another thing is to use pepper and other goods from the sea trade to exchange money and send them to officials as salaries.

Luo Cheng definitely couldn't do this, it was digging a hole for himself.

In fact, even money, silk, and even gold and silver coins, which are the legal currency of the imperial court, have such problems. For example, why are the prices in the capital expensive?
It is because there are a large number of salaries and salaries in the capital, and they hold a lot of cash in their hands. More money will naturally lead to higher prices.But in the countryside, the common people get wages and have less cash in their hands, so there are fewer transactions, less purchases, and naturally lower prices.

These are very simple economic principles, but not many people really understand this in this era.

"Let Li Fuguo slow down on the way back, trade along the way, trade all these light goods, and exchange them for money, silk, even gold, silver and copper. If you can't finish the transaction, you can also separate the fleet and go to Jiangnan and Huainan respectively. , the Central Plains, and even Hebei, Guanwai, Bashu, Guanlong and other places."

"Won't that lead to depreciation?"

"The sudden influx of a large amount of light goods and treasures into one place will inevitably lead to depreciation, but if they are dispersed, they can still be absorbed, especially in the short term. The information is not so smooth, and the market does not know that all places are pouring in. There are so many goods, so the impact on the local area is not big, but when the market news from various places is combined, it will definitely bring about an overall price drop."

But that was just a market reaction. Luo Cheng's things have already been sold, so there is no need to worry about depreciation. He didn't give money to officials as salaries or as rewards to soldiers, so there was no loss for the court, nor for officials or soldiers. , Maybe the merchants have losses, but this is a market business behavior, there are losses and gains, and no one can be blamed.

Another thing is that these light goods are not necessities for people's livelihood, but mostly luxury items, so they will not actually affect ordinary people.There is even one. After these light goods are sold in the national market, they are bought by a large number of people. In fact, they will not flow out again immediately. As long as there are not intensive large-scale transactions in a short period of time, the market response will not be so fast. , driving down prices.

This is the same as a bank run. Under normal circumstances, you are not afraid of cashing out, but you are afraid of a run. No matter how big a bank is, it is also afraid of this.

Light goods are exchanged for copper coins and silk, which are all currency. Even if the currency is concentrated in the hands of the court, it is used in various places after all. Therefore, although the currency is in circulation, the total amount has not changed, and it will not cause damage. What kind of bad effect, at most, is that the officials of the capital and the guards of the capital received more rewards, which led to a slight increase in prices.

And if it is traded into gold and silver, then it will be shipped back to the Royal Mint, minted into gold and silver coins, and then circulated. Those gold and silver coins are actually insignificant compared to the amount of money in the entire world.

After all, if the imperial court was not short of money, that is, the amount of currency was insufficient, it would not use silk as currency.Silk is used as currency not because it is convenient to use, but because the imperial court does not have more copper to cast more copper coins. Copper coins are far from enough, so silk is used as currency.

"The concubine never thought there would be so much knowledge in it."

"That's natural. In fact, it's just a currency, and you have a lot of knowledge. If you can manage the currency well, the court and even the world will naturally be stable. But throughout the ages, there are not many people who can really understand this currency and make it well. Even in many dynasties, copper coins were still at a loss, and the more they were cast, the more they lost. As a result, the imperial court could only cast those coins worth ten or even one worth twenty, or cast those white coins with little copper, which led to extremely low information on the imperial currency. Poor, private castings are everywhere in the market, which eventually leads to market chaos, and at the same time, it also brings out of control of the court's taxes and revenue."

The coinage was at a loss, and the imperial court thought it was because they used too much copper, so they lowered the copper content, or even made ten of them. As a result, there was room for profit from privately minted coins. In the end, the imperial court’s right to issue coins and the profits from minting coins fell into the hands of criminals. The common people are still suffering from it, and the market is also chaotic.

In the final analysis, it is just not grasping a degree.

It is necessary to ensure that the copper coins are of good quality and have sufficient copper content so that they are valuable, and the private minters do not have much profit.This means that there must be sufficient technical advantages and management advantages.

The most important thing is the management of the imperial court, such as cracking down on private casting, cracking down on money destruction, cracking down on money leaving the country, cracking down on hiding money, and strengthening the management of copper. From mining to smelting, there must be sufficient control.The most important point is to mint enough money for circulation, otherwise everything is for nothing.

Without enough money in circulation, other substitutes will naturally appear in the market.

The use of silk to replace money is precisely because the output of silk is large enough, and it is also valuable enough, because silk itself is also a commodity, and it is a negotiation with stable prices.

Now the imperial court is gradually eliminating silk as currency, relying on the continuous increase in copper production and the improvement of the mint's copper coin casting technology, which has greatly increased production and greatly reduced costs.

In the Sui Dynasty, as a unified imperial court, there were a total of [-] money-making furnaces in the court, and each furnace made [-] guan coins a year, and the whole country only made [-] guan coins a year.

But now in Daqin, copper coins are uniformly minted by the Royal Mint, and coin mints have been set up in several copper producing areas. Using advanced new technology, more than 1000 million Kaiyuan Tongbao were minted last year alone, more than 30 times that of the Sui Dynasty.

In addition, the mint continued to mint gold dragon coins and silver tiger coins, so that the money that can be circulated in the market continued to increase. In addition, the rise of banks and banks, and the use of silver notes and bank notes also made the currency circulation much larger. increase.

Now many people are no longer willing to use silk as money, and silk has returned to its commodity itself.

However, the annual circulation of tens of millions of Kaiyuan Tongbao is still far from enough for market circulation, and the lack of currency has always hindered the development of the economy and industry. You must know that in the late Northern Song Dynasty, the circulation of copper coins in the market was hundreds of millions of coins. There are many, but still have to rely on Jiaozi and silver to support the operation of market currency.

"Actually, the really valuable things in Lingnan this time are the fields, slaves, workshops, etc. left by Li Fuguo. Those are the real valuables. Pearls, hawksbill, rhino horn, ivory, and spices are sometimes not as useful as food."

"The concubine feels that His Majesty should teach the officials of the Ministry of Civil Affairs a good lesson. These words of yours are really enlightening, and they are better than reading ten years of books."

"Hahaha, if you have time, it's okay. There are really few people in the Ministry of Civil Affairs who really understand economics. The higher the grade, the worse it is for the junior officials below. They are just housekeepers, and they only know how to collect taxes and look after the government. Ku, who knows the national economy.”

It is precisely because these people do not understand economics that Luo Cheng has not dared to bring up the concept of banknotes until now. Even if 1000 million Kaiyuan Tongbao is minted a year, it is far from enough to solve the money shortage, but Luo Cheng does not want to bring up banknotes either. No matter how good the scriptures are, if you give them to a monk with a crooked mouth, they will still recite crookedly.

(End of this chapter)