Daming: I, the emperor who trains the carpenter

Chapter 785 The silver standard is unreliable, let's change to the gold standard

The next day, Zhu Youjian, His Royal Highness the King of Xin, started his journey of borrowing money.

If you want to speculate in futures, you must have enough cash flow. You can't make money by making small troubles, and it doesn't conform to His Royal Highness Xin Wang's courage. If he wants to make it, Zhu Youjian will make it big!
Speaking of which, Zhu Youjian also has some friends, but he was reluctant to borrow money before.

But now he has finally realized that living in Beijing Normal University is not easy. Zhu Youjian, who has a big family to take care of but has no money, decides to put aside his pride for the time being and earn money first. Once he has money, he can earn it back at any time in the future. .

Nowadays, in the capital, there are many wealthy people, and the ones with the most wealth on the surface are undoubtedly Zhang Guoji and Zhou Kui, the two richest men introduced by the court. The annual income may not be as much as these two people.

But leaving these two richest men aside, Daming still has a lot of rich people.

The important place of the capital, at the foot of the emperor, is a natural political and economic center. The business is so developed and the population is so large. Therefore, there are countless rich and powerful people of all kinds.

If you want to borrow money, the best choice is Zhang Guoji and Zhou Kui, but don't look at them earning money that can't be spent, it's not easy to ask them to lend out, after all, businessmen don't lose money business.

What's more, Zhu Youjian just had a closed door at Zhou Kui's mansion before, and he didn't even enter the gate of Zhou's mansion. How could he go to Zhou Kui's place to borrow money?

Zhou Kui couldn't get through, and Zhang Guoji's was the same, after all, these two people have always vented their anger through the same nostril.

Zhu Youjian took his own Mr. Zhang and didn't think about these two people at all. If there is no hope for these two people, it is better to find his friends.

So the people in the inner city of the capital were able to see the carriages of Xinwang Mansion running around. It was Zhu Youjian who was asking his friends to borrow money.

"Brother Li, Xiao Wang really came here to give Brother Li a fortune. The price of silver in futures is bound to experience a turmoil recently. If you seize the opportunity, you can make a huge profit. Xiao Wang plans to make a fortune in futures. Earn some money, and I hope Brother Li will not hesitate to help."

"Brother Wang, Xiao Wang recently visited an expert. There will be some turmoil in the futures. If you seize the opportunity, you can earn inexhaustible money in this life. Xiao Wang intends to share the wealth with Brother Wang. Brother lend me some money"

"Brother Han, do you know about futures? That's right. Xiao Wang recently discovered that futures are different from the stock market. Buying and selling them in a short period of time can make a lot of money. This futures market has a lot to offer. Would Brother Han be willing to come to futures with Xiao Wang to make a fortune?" Pen?"

Ever since Zhu Youjian thought about it, he felt that the cheeky thing should be like this.

With Zhang Jinrui, his Mr. Zhang, Zhu Youjian was traveling around the capital, and he had a good time to fight with the Confucian scholars, which moved many people.

Although some people are not optimistic about futures, they still have some confidence in Zhu Youjian. After all, he is the prince of Daming, and the blood of the Tian family is serious. The money lent is still guaranteed, so they have lent a sum to Zhu Youjian , as few as tens of thousands of yuan, as many as 10,000+, and as many as hundreds of thousands.

Others planned to partner with Zhu Youjian. They were also persuaded by Zhang Jinrui, and they invested in Zhu Youjian one after another. Youjian established the first company in his life: Daming Xinwang Futures Company.

The office of his company is in Zhu Youjian's Xinwang Mansion.

Most of Zhu Youjian's literati and Confucian friends are rich. After all, those who can be friends with King Xin have no family background.

These 10,000+ hundreds of thousands of treasure banknotes may not seem like much, but with so many issued by one family, it is really a lot of money to accumulate.

Previously, they were limited by the fact that Zhu Youjian had just returned to the capital and did not know what was going on, and that Zhu Youjian was embarrassed to come to them, so they did not dare to help Zhu Youjian easily.

But now it seems that His Majesty the Emperor is thinking about family affection, King Xin is still King Xin, and is still the only younger brother of His Majesty the Emperor. Under this circumstance, Zhu Youjian's futures company was established in this way.

In this way, Zhu Youjian has millions of treasures, and the start-up capital is very rich.

But Zhu Youjian was still dissatisfied with this. He listened to Zhang Jinrui's analysis and looked at the plan Zhang Jinrui designed for him. He said cruelly: "Mr. Zhang, Xiao Wang decided to mortgage the palace, and take another sum of money , It’s impossible to speculate in futures if you don’t have enough capital in hand.”

Zhang Jinrui looked at Zhu Youjian with a complicated expression, and deeply admired him: "King Xin has the style of a wise king in ancient times, and Jin Rui admires him."

Immediately doing what he said, Zhu Youjian ran to the Daming Bank, and finally used his identity as the Prince of Daming to borrow a full 5000 million treasure notes from the bank with the deed of Xinwang Mansion as collateral.

Now, Zhu Youjian, who is well-off, has the capital to copy futures.

And those who invested in Zhu Youjian saw that Zhu Youjian had such a big hand, and all of them thought that Zhu Youjian had got some inside information, and they added an additional betting fund one after another, which made Zhu Youjian's start-up capital much more. few.

Looking at the large sum of money in hand, Zhu Youjian smiled confidently. He set up a banquet to drink with Zhang Jinrui in the palace, and ordered the food and drinks directly from the best hotel in the capital for them to eat After a game, thinking about the bright future, Zhu Youjian announced arrogantly: "This king, if you want to do business, you must also be the biggest. What is Zhou Wang Zhu Gongyan, and Zhili Iron and Steel Company is nothing, I believe Wang Futures The company must surpass them and impress Brother Huang!"

Zhu Youjian and Zhang Jinrui are already full of ambitions to recruit talents and prepare to work hard.

And in the palace, Zhu Youxiao was also in a good mood.

In the Hall of Martial Arts, looking at the huge world map in front of him, Zhu Youxiao planted small flags on it.

"Ceylon."

"Mughal Dynasty"

"Safi. I remember correctly, this is Persia, right?"

"Ah, and Ottoman"

"My Ming's merchant ship has traveled so far, it's a good thing."

Standing with his hands behind his back, Zhu Youxiao looked at the location on the world map where Ming's tentacles arrived. South Asia, the Middle East, and even Africa were all within the scope of Ming's exploration, and they were also the areas touched by Emperor Taizongwen's seven voyages to the West. .

It has only been a few years since the sea ban was lifted, and the thriving Daming Shipping has already come so far.

Nodding his head, Zhu Youxiao was very satisfied with all this: "Good thing, good thing, there is nothing better than this. I remember the caravan from the south of the Yangtze River, went to Africa, got a lot of gold and silver, and returned it to me What kind of golden mask was given, this Africa is also a rich land."

Eunuch Wei on the side smiled and said: "No, right now the world will be peaceful and the world will be prosperous. The merchants who come and go in this world send countless silver to my Ming Dynasty. Now the imperial court implements a series of policies, which are all entrusted to me." Your Majesty's blessing."

Zhu Youxiao smiled, and suddenly asked: "How much money has flowed into Daming recently?"

"A lot, a lot, our Daming is like a bottomless pit right now, swallowing as much money as we have, and those foreigners send in boatloads of money without even making a splash." Eunuch Wei said quite proudly.

That's right, Daming is the world's richest man, and it's a huge empire with nearly 4000 million households and thousands of miles of territory, devouring infinite gold and silver. This little silver really doesn't make much noise in Daming.

But Zhu Youxiao still felt a little uneasy. Is it really a good thing that so much money flowed into Daming?

After thinking about it, Zhu Youxiao stretched out his hand and nodded: "Come, call Master, Mr. Lu Ge, and Mr. Qian Ge."

Soon, Zhang Haogu, Lu Xiangsheng, and Qian Qianyi came to the Hall of Martial Arts following the word of the servant.

"See Your Majesty."

"Exemption."

Zhu Youxiao didn't have so much red tape, and he didn't like too much nonsense, so he asked directly: "I heard that more and more money is flowing into Daming, and I always feel that something is wrong, so I came to you, thinking Let's take a look together."

Lu Xiangsheng frowned. More and more money flowed into Daming. This is a good thing, but it is not a good thing. The former is because Daming has become the world's commercial center and the place where the wealth of the whole world gathers; the latter is because of the massive The influx of silver will inevitably cause price fluctuations, especially the impact on the value of treasure banknotes, which is not a good thing for Daming.

Qian Qianyi also smelled something, and the three of them looked thoughtful.

Zhu Youxiao asked: "But what did you find?"

Lu Xiangsheng explained: "Your Majesty, if the imperial court originally had 100 million taels of silver, in terms of the abundant supplies of the Ming Dynasty, the 100 million taels of silver would be very valuable and a hard currency. But later came 1000 million or more silver, There are still so many supplies in Ming Dynasty, but the value of silver is not as good as before, so the common people need to spend ten taels of silver to buy things that used to be one tael.”

"People's income has not increased much, but their expenses have increased."

Zhu Youxiao nodded: "Yes, if there is too much money, it will be worthless."

Qian Qianyi added: "Your Majesty, I have seriously studied the treasure banknote strategy formulated by Your Majesty and Yuan Fu. Based on the gold and silver in the treasury of the Ming Dynasty, the treasure banknotes were issued and popularized in the 24 provinces of the two capitals of the Ming Dynasty. The popularization of North Korea, Toungoo, Dacheng, Nanzhang, Sulu, Brunei and other countries in Southeast Asia, and even the Wa country in the east are now using our Ming Dynasty's treasure banknotes, which shows the circulation and reputation of our Daming treasure banknotes."

"Among them, half of it is because Daming is rich in the world and has a lot of gold and silver, and the other half is because of the reputation of the court itself. The court ruled the world, and all countries surrendered, and Daming's products are rich. All countries need my things from Daming. Naturally, they need to use I trade the money of the Ming Dynasty, so that the imperial court’s treasures will naturally circulate smoothly.”

"Nowadays the imperial court lends to Nanyang, how many precious banknotes are lent to the people? If more and more silver is added, is it necessary to print more precious banknotes? Then the value of the precious banknotes will inevitably depreciate. The imperial court’s treasure banknotes will also face a shock. The most conspicuous thing is that the treasure banknotes lent to Nanyang before are all valuable, but as the treasure banknotes depreciate, they return the same amount of treasure banknotes, but that number is only equal to One-tenth or even less of the imperial court’s previous investment.”

Zhang Haogu nodded: "Yes, as Daming owns more and more silver, these are unavoidable."

"Your Majesty, today's Ming Dynasty's banknotes seem to be based on gold and silver, but in fact, they are mainly based on silver, because whether it is in Southeast Asia or Western countries, all transactions with Ming are silver and commercial goods. The silver and the goods have already been linked, and if there is too much silver, the imperial court’s treasures will inevitably face shocks and even depreciation.”

"The silver standard is ultimately unfavorable to the imperial court. For example, the Wa country has so much silver and is born with a large silver mine. How much silver can it mine?"

"And now that the money from various countries is flowing into Daming, then the countries will definitely change in the future. If all the Western countries change and Ming remains unchanged, then Daming's financial collapse may occur if he is not careful."

Listening to the cabinet's analysis, Zhu Youxiao also frowned. Today's Daming is not the previous Han, Tang and Song Dynasties.

During the Han, Tang and Song Dynasties, the Central Plains was still short of silver. Why copper coins have always been used as the main currency in circulation is not because the Central Plains lacked silver and gold was too precious.

During the Han and Jin Dynasties, gold was to be buried in the ground as burial objects of the ancestors, and those princes and generals brought a large amount of gold to the ground one by one, which made gold even rarer and more precious. Otherwise, how did the word "Jingui" come about?

But compared with gold, silver is even more scarce, and it is even called platinum.

Even in the Tang and Song dynasties, copper coins were still the most mainstream currency, and silver was still scarce. Silver was not used for eating and drinking, but was used for bulk transactions like gold.

That is to say, in the Ming Dynasty, with the trade between various countries and Ming Dynasty, more and more silver became the main currency now. Daming also started to issue a new treasure banknote system based on the massive amount of silver.

It can be said that the treasure banknote system is built on silver.

But the banknote system based on silver is really unstable, because the world situation changes too much, and silver is far less stable than gold. Therefore, the gold standard currency is the most stable. Currency is issued with national credit, but it is also an implicit gold standard.

Zhang Haogu thought about it, and said: "Your Majesty, I think that treasure banknotes can no longer be bound to silver. If this continues, it will be bad for the court, and it will be bad for the treasure banknotes. It would be fine if the value of the currency simply plummeted, but If someone with a heart takes the opportunity to make trouble, the court may go bankrupt."

Zhu Youxiao nodded: "Master is right. The link between silver and treasure banknotes is suitable for the former Ming Dynasty, but now the imperial court has more and more silver, and more and more silver is scattered around the world. The court would be too passive if it was hooked up."

"It is necessary to turn passivity into initiative and keep the initiative in the hands of the court. Do you have any good suggestions?"

Lu Xiangsheng said: "Returning to Your Majesty, I think it is better to link the banknotes with gold."

"Gold?" Zhu Youxiao thought about it.

Zhang Haogu's original idea was to directly establish the Daming credit system. After all, now that Daming has ruled the East, it is also the world's business center and the place where wealth is deposited all over the world. With Daming's national power and credit, it should be possible to promote treasure banknotes.

But Lu Xiangsheng wants to link the banknotes with gold, which is also a proper way.

After all, there must always be someone with enough weight to sit in charge. A pure credit system is really not as good as the gold standard.

After all, gold is always scarcer than silver, and the price of silver is far less than the value of gold.

Zhu Youxiao said slowly: "Speaking of which, before the Western countries traded with our Ming Dynasty, there were gold and silver, but now, it is mainly silver, and gold is rare. That's right, every country needs gold, and everyone needs it. Keep it, this gold is always worth more than gold. No matter what time it is, gold is a hard currency, and it is reasonable to link the banknotes with gold."

Zhang Haogu also said: "I agree with Lu Xiang's opinion. There are many places that produce silver in this world. For example, there is a huge silver mine in Japan. It's just that my Ming Dynasty lacks enough silver mines. But in the world, silver There will always be more than gold. Gold is scarcer than silver, and more valuable than silver, and linking gold to banknotes can better reflect the weight of banknotes."

Qian Qianyi added: "I also agree with gold. Daming currently has too much silver. If so much silver hits the market, the market that Daming has worked so hard to build now will collapse directly. It is better to exchange silver for gold. As a result, the circulation in various countries is also smoother.”

Zhang Haogu said with a smile: "That's exactly the case. By linking the banknotes with gold, the imperial court's currency will have a wider circulation. The surrounding countries can use the banknotes as the main currency. Even my Ming Dynasty can harvest coins from various countries." Taxes make the banknotes more legal."

Seeing that all three of them agreed that gold should be linked to treasure banknotes, Zhu Youxiao also nodded along the trend: "Well, since you all agree that treasure banknotes are linked to gold, then let's do it this way."

After leaving Wuying Hall and returning to Wenyuan Pavilion, Qian Qianyi couldn't help asking: "It's not a small change for the court to link the banknotes with gold, not to mention the fact that the court and the people hold too much silver now, so much money. Silver, what can I do?"

Zhang Haogu said: "Silver is still valuable, but not as much as before."

"If it weren't for the fact that Daming has too much silver now, I don't want to link the banknotes with gold now."

"But Qian Xiang, think about it these years, from Nanyang, from the West, from Japan, how much silver has flowed into my Ming Dynasty, and how much gold has flowed into my Ming Dynasty?"

"Previously, the policy of the imperial court was that gold and silver should not be circulated among the people, and all gold and silver should be returned to the imperial court. But now gold is easy to talk about, but what about silver? The southeast coast, northern provinces, major chambers of commerce, gentry everywhere, who doesn't have a lot of silver at home? "

"There is too much silver held by the people, and the value of silver is not as good as before. If all these silvers are exchanged by them to the imperial court in exchange for precious banknotes, how much more precious banknotes will the imperial court issue? Is the court's money still money?"

Lu Xiangsheng said: "In this way, fortunately, it is these gentry merchants."

Zhang Haogu smiled: "You can't let the court suffer, right?"

"As I said before, folks are not allowed to store large amounts of gold and silver. They insist on keeping them in their own homes. Who can blame them for the depreciation?"

"Let's go back and have a meeting to discuss the link between the treasure bill and the gold. Right now, one tael of silver is still worth a thousand treasure bills. Later, it may be a hundred treasure bills."

Qian Qianyi shook his head: "Those who save money will regret it."

(End of this chapter)