Spoiler History: Starting from the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 747 Three Penny

Everyone in the Huagai Palace could see it clearly.

The young man named Wen Mang counted the banknotes and found that there were about ten of them, or ten strings of cash.

They were also very familiar with the appearance of this treasure note. After all, who among those present had not received a reward from the current emperor?

The only difference is probably that this year, following the incident involving Hu Weiyong, His Majesty issued an edict to abolish the Secretariat.

For this reason, the function of printing treasure notes, which originally belonged to the Secretariat, was transferred to the Ministry of Revenue. Therefore, the heading of the treasure notes on the page has changed from "Printed with the approval of the Secretariat" to "Printed with the approval of the Ministry of Revenue". Apart from this, there is no difference between the old and new treasure notes.

However, the casual words of this junior made everyone worried:

Treasure banknotes? Waste paper?
Feeling that her husband was about to get angry again, Queen Ma grabbed him and said:
"Don't be anxious, wait and see what the younger generation says."

Zhu Biao also followed suit to comfort him:
"The future is not the Ming Dynasty, and no government in the future will accept Dad's banknotes. Although the younger generation's words are a bit excessive, but..."

Tomorrow the emperor's anger subsided a little, and he defended himself:

"I'm not someone who doesn't know right from wrong, I just wanted to get up and stretch my body."

"Besides, this banknote is the national treasure of our Ming Dynasty. How can it be compared with waste paper?"

But as if hearing what he said, Wen Mang on the screen also muttered:
[That's not right. Waste paper is more valuable than this thing.

What did I say before? Hey, what is depreciation? Depreciation means that you print a piece of paper into a treasure note, but this treasure note cannot buy a piece of white paper. This is called depreciation.

What is the level of Ming Dynasty's economy and finance? Can Zhu Yuanzhang play with his level? He can't play with it. You know he doesn't have that level.

How could he know what a credit system was, what value embodiment was, and what a deposit was? It can be said that from the very beginning, it was inevitable that the treasure notes would become waste paper.

Hey, let’s take a look at these handmade boxes and chairs, my friends. These handmade items are really authentic.

So this unboxing vlog ends here, and we can leave the issue of treasure notes aside for now, after all, this is unavoidable when it comes to the Ming Dynasty. 】

Personally, I think it is better to call it Ming counterfeit banknotes rather than Ming treasure notes. I can print them and let people spend them, but people cannot use treasure notes to pay taxes. What a joke.

That's not the case. During the early Hongwu period, the Baochao currency remained strong for a period of time, but it only depreciated tenfold in the 28th year of Hongwu.

It has depreciated tenfold in twenty years...that’s all?

If you understand it, you will know that it is indeed slow. Someone has specifically counted this. In the sixth year of Chenghua, one guan was equal to two wen, a depreciation of 500 times. In the first year of Hongzhi, one guan was equal to one wen, a depreciation of 1,000 times. Only eight years passed. By the time of Jiajing, one thousand guan was equal to 280 wen, a depreciation of nearly 4,000 times. It is an exaggeration to call it waste paper.

How come the Ming Dynasty is not as good as the Song Dynasty? Even the Jin and Yuan Dynasties knew that they needed a deposit.

Let's analyze the specific issues specifically. One thing is that the paper currency of the Ming Dynasty was a successor to the Yuan Dynasty's law that had undergone currency changes. The deposit had actually been abolished by the Yuan Dynasty itself a long time ago. Moreover, during the time of Kublai Khan, there was a practice of frequently drawing deposits. The Ming Dynasty was considered to have abandoned learning. Another and most important thing was that during the Hongwu period, the interest in taxation was far lower than that in corvée. There were artisan households, medical households, and military households. If you wanted to do something, you could just recruit people and give them food. Also, there was a shortage of currency in the early Ming Dynasty. Although the treasure notes were rotten, they also alleviated this problem.

Simply put, the lack of a deposit was not a particularly big problem under the social system at the time, but having only outflows and no inflows was indeed a big problem.

The main feature of the Ming Baochao is that it benefits the emperor at the top, disadvantages the officials in the middle, and disadvantages the people at the bottom.

The emphasis is on using it as you please, without looking at or summarizing success or failure, and just letting nature take its course.

Another problem that cannot be ignored is that the poor output of precious metals in ancient times was not matched with the rapidly booming population and private economy of the Ming Dynasty. There is also an argument in economics that with limited silver production, the price of silver would gradually rise with the prosperity of the economy, which would cause the ancients to reduce their desire to consume silver and instead hoard it, which would eventually cause the country at that time to fall into deflation. I have learned something new. No wonder others say that there is nothing good to say about the well-governed times in ancient China, and that the troubled times were full of ups and downs. Only the Ming Dynasty, although it can be regarded as a well-governed time, was as exciting as the troubled times.

Zhu Yuanzhang stared at the light curtain, and finally landed on the last few words "like troubled times". His eyes followed the line of words from right to left, until they seemed to be rushing to the left and disappeared.

As the voice fell, the image faded, and the words disappeared into the left side of the light curtain. The Huagai Hall was suddenly silent.

Emperor Ming staggered and fell back into his chair, which immediately made Empress Ma, Zhu Biao and other princes worried.

"Dad... Doctor Dai!"

Zhu Biao subconsciously wanted to call the imperial physician to take a look, but was immediately stopped by Zhu Yuanzhang:

"It's fine with us."

Zhu Yuanzhang put his hands on the armrests of the chair and exerted a little force, then stood up and took two steps.

Although the light curtain said a lot of things, it only took a little over an hour in total. Judging from the sunlight outside the Huagai Palace, it was not yet noon.

The door of the palace faces due south. The sunlight at this time only shines light into the palace, but it shines on the floor, making the palace a little brighter. Zhu Yuanzhang can look back and clearly see the back door of Jinshen Palace from here, and he can also catch a glimpse of the flying eaves and carved buildings of other palaces and pavilions out of the corner of his eye.

Although these were all very familiar scenes, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly felt as if he was in another world.

An hour ago, with a bit of boasting intention, he summoned his ministers, brothers and families to watch this true destiny together.

An hour later, he learned about the death of his wife and son, the enemy of a hundred years later, the changes around him, and the competition in the world. Everything he had thought of before was ruthlessly reshaped, and in the end, even the current Hongwu year was clearly ridiculed by future generations as if the treasure notes were no better than waste paper.

He had even prepared his speech, saying that ten strings of coins was already a lot, and that the young man should not indulge in the pleasures of gold and silver, but should work hard to strengthen himself, and that it was not easy for Zhu Yuanzhang to start his career, etc.

But all these thoughts have become empty talk. During the Jiajing period, one thousand strings of coins were worth 280 wen. Then, based on this calculation, the ten strings of treasure notes he bestowed on his descendants were worth... less than three wen?

Then this treasure banknote is indeed not as valuable as the chair and the box, and it is even certainly not as expensive as the ten sheets of high-quality paper used to print the treasure banknote...

"father!"

Zhu Biao's anxious call interrupted Zhu Yuanzhang's reverie. Looking down at the worried eyes of his wife and sons, Zhu Yuanzhang laughed:

"It doesn't matter."

“It is never too late to mend the fence after the sheep has been lost.”

"Now that we know it, we should choose to change it."

"No, Dad."

Zhu Biao said anxiously:

"The light screen hasn't disappeared yet, and there's text on it saying there's a playback function."

"Ah? Oh." Zhu Yuanzhang coughed lightly with a hint of embarrassment:
"Let's take a look."

(End of this chapter)