Elegy of Tang Dynasty

Chapter 268 It’s time to give the people of Tang Dynasty a little financial shock

"Ugh!"

The hangover left Fang Chongyong with a splitting headache. After waking up the next day, he sat alone in front of the desk in his bedroom and calmed down for a long time before he recovered.

The wine brewed here in Liangzhou has great stamina and is not very pure. The winemaking process of Datang is based on the techniques from the Western Regions. It is still in the process of exploration, especially the fractionation technology is not very mature yet.

Fang Chongyong estimated that the methanol content in the wine should seriously exceed the standard. You really shouldn’t drink too much of this stuff.

If you want to transform the technology, you must add a precise fractionation process, preferably using activated carbon, and the grape varieties must be screened for a long time. This cannot be done overnight.

It seems that developing the wine economy is not feasible in the short term, at least it cannot be mainstream.

Fang Chongyong sighed, spread out a large piece of paper on the desk, polished the ink, and wrote with a pen: "The aftermath of the soldiers moving to the town."

The movement of soldiers and horses from Hexi to Hedong and Shuofang was the most basic and important part of all his plans. These Qiuba people, who are used to getting smuggling black money, wean off their poisonous milk and move them out of Hexi. This is the first step to change the economic model.

Of course, Fang Chungyong's reason for Ji Ge was: moving soldiers to towns is a good way to prevent local generals from overestimating their troops.

He believed that Brother Ji would never refuse this proposal because of his careful mind.

Without the troops and horses at their disposal, it would be difficult for the middle and high-level generals in Hexi to take advantage of this opportunity to launch an attack.

However, the Hexi soldiers still have several problems to solve before moving to the town.

The first one is who will pay the resettlement fee.

Fang Chongyong has already told Brother Ji that in principle it is a method of "whoever accepts it will settle it". When the soldiers and horses from Hexi arrive in Lingzhou, Shuofang, they will be resettled by the people from Lingzhou; similarly, when the Shuofang army arrives in Hexi, they will be resettled by the people from Liangzhou.

On the surface, this seems to be no different from Liangzhou sending money to Hexi soldiers and horses for travel expenses, but in fact it is buying Liangzhou a month or two on the road!

There is an important hidden attribute in financial operations, which is turnover time. The same loan, repaid one month early or one month late, often has very different effects for a certain regime.

The second is to deal with the problem of local Qiuba participating in "hoarding and speculation".

This is more difficult to deal with.

For example, the mutton-fat jade from the Western Regions was originally worth a lot of money, and the demand in Chang'an was still very strong. Some Qiu Ba families in the border town still had some spare money, so they exchanged it for mutton-fat jade.

But now, the luxury goods market in Chang'an is in chaos, and no one has bought the originally valuable mutton-fat jade! Those who needed it couldn't afford it, and those who wanted to sell it were unwilling to lower the price, so they held on.

These mutton-fat jade cannot be eaten or used in the hands of Hexi Qiuba, just like begging for food with a golden rice bowl. Not only did their lives not get better because of these luxuries, but they were trapped and lacked funds to buy farm tools, making their lives even worse! Even normal farming has been affected.

The key is that these things are so disgusting that no one wants them even if the prices are reduced.

There are too many scalpers in this falsely prosperous market. However, the real demand is suppressed, the price is too far away from the normal scale, and the supply volume is exceeded due to false demand!

If the imperial court rashly moved these Qiu Ba to Shuofang and Hedong, it is conceivable that they would take the opportunity to cause trouble. Hexi Jiedu Mansion takes the lead in relieving their worries, which is the serious thing that Fang Chongyong, the Jiedushi Envoy, has to do.

So, how to solve the real problems encountered by these people?

The answer is very simple, that is, the government set up a trading house to purchase the Western Region luxury goods from these Qiu Ba people at a discounted price, and then exchanged them for hard currency such as silk.

As for the discount, it depends on how conscientious the government is. If you still have some conscience, then give less discounts; if you have no conscience, then break bones.

Of course, whether you are willing to exchange it or not is entirely up to your own free will. Anyway, the Long March athletes from Hexi moved to Hedong and other places, which is an unchangeable reality.

Solving this problem means stabilizing the grassroots in Hexi and the hearts and minds of the people in Hexi. Hexi Jiedu Mansion came forward to clear up the chaos caused by development in the past period, and also re-established the authority to speak out in the Hexi Corridor!

Of course, solving the problems at the grassroots level is just the beginning, and there will be more troubles to come.

Fang Chongyong continued to write on the paper: "Restore commercial taxes, restore tariffs, crack down on smuggling, and rebuild healthy finances."

In the past few years, Tang Jun personally participated in smuggling. Now, in order to correct the chaos, it is necessary to strengthen the government's management and hematopoietic capabilities. Customs duties and commercial taxes are the bulk of the revenue here. In the past, risks were simply transferred, but it does not mean that these taxes are unnecessary.

Unlike the bitter cold land in Longyou, the grain produced in the fields in Hexi is enough to supply tens of thousands of local garrison troops.

"It will be easy if there is no shortage of food."

Fang Chongyong took a deep breath and continued to write on the paper: "Establish a standard system for silk and western region luxury goods, open pawn shops, banks, commercial banks, and provide low-interest loans."

In his opinion, the central officials of the Tang Dynasty still had a very superficial understanding of "money". Even in the Ming Dynasty, the official who proposed the "Open China Law" did not fully understand what money meant to the country.

Because for individuals, no matter how big a family they are, money is just hard currency used to sell things. But for the country, the so-called "money" is just the abbreviation of "liquidity".

Whether there is more money or less, what style is the mainstream depends only on everything in the circulation link, and has nothing to do with social wealth itself.

The better the liquidity and the smoother the circulation, the more beneficial it is to the development of the economy. People's understanding of this process has gone through three stages: "money is just wealth", "money is not wealth", and "money is still wealth".

The first stage is easy to understand. To put it bluntly, it means bartering.

The second stage is easy to understand. Whether it is banknotes or precious metals, as currency itself, there is a process of "the use value gradually approaches nothing", and it changes from physical currency to credit currency.

As for the third stage, in fact, until the establishment of macroeconomics, humans who invented banknotes generally believed that money was useless. In other words, everyone agrees with the "monetary veil" theory, that is, currency has no practical use for the economy, and currency is just a physical veil.

The core view of macroeconomics is that money is useful to the real economy.

In other words, whether it is virtual currency or bonds, as long as it can circulate smoothly, it will be beneficial to the real economy!

Although silk was the main body of circulation in the Tang Dynasty, in fact, silk also had widespread use value, and was essentially not much different from "bartering". The circulation efficiency of such coins is very low.

We are still in the stage of "money is just wealth".

If some kind of "note" can be used to replace the circulation of silk in a small area, then it will essentially "liberate" a batch of silk in circulation, making more items available for use in society. As society as a whole has more currency that can be used for transactions and circulation becomes smoother, living standards will naturally rise.

Fang Chongyong felt that this was the key to Hexi's solution.

To "issue" such bills, an astonishing amount of silk must be stored in the treasury, which can be "exchanged" at any time. Similar to the gold standard, but using silk. Or they are luxuries from the Western Regions. Or a mixture of the two.

It is there and can be used at any time, but ordinary people will not take it or use it. This is the ideal state that Fang Chongyong hopes to see.

To put it bluntly, these items are only used as "collateral" for issuing bonds. Fang Chongyong's original intention was not to encourage such items to be circulated in the Hexi market in the form of currency.

So, where did the huge amount of silk required come from?

You know, it is common for caravans traveling between the Western Regions and Shazhou to be accompanied by thousands of camels, transporting a huge amount of goods. Even if Brother Ji tries his best to transport silk and silk to Hexi, he may not be able to meet the demand.

Therefore, there must be corresponding supporting policies to make this set work successfully.

Thinking of this, Fang Chongyong wrote on the paper again: "Silk export rationing system, import and export equal quota system, and pledge deposit system."

Different Western Regions caravans have different silk import quotas each year based on their different "contribution levels." How the "contribution degree" is determined is decided by the Hexi Jiedu Prefecture, which has a relatively clear standard.

Anyway, the Hexi Jiedu Prefecture stipulates that in order to prevent Western Regions merchants from doing evil in the Tang Dynasty, when Hu merchants bring goods from the Western Regions into the country, they must also pay a part of the "pledge deposit" to the Hexi Prefecture Government based on the value of the goods they carry. .

In other words, it is okay for Mr. Hu to come empty-handed, but if he brings goods, he must pay a deposit. And this deposit is only for goods, not precious metals. When the Hu merchants return to the Western Regions, the money will be returned to them.

These "deposits" were originally meant to be sold, and they would certainly not be brought back intact. Therefore, this was actually a disguised form of forcing Hu businessmen to purchase and sell goods locally in Hexi, stimulating the local economy.

The so-called import and export equalization means that as much goods as Hu merchants bring into customs, they can bring silk tea and other special products of the Tang Dynasty to customs at the same price.

If Hu merchants come empty-handed, they can only spend money within the Tang Dynasty and cannot take away a single leaf. What is considered a commodity requires "customs declaration". Only after customs declaration and "export quota" are in place, can Hu merchants take the goods out of the Hexi Corridor.

Of course, there must be some "little clever ghosts" who carry a large amount of goods from the Western Regions, but in the end they do not declare customs or return to the Western Regions via Hexi!

Fang Chongyong didn't care about this. He only regarded those people as contributing to the construction of Datang. In fact, it is impossible for there to be such stupid businessmen from the Western Regions.

The current situation in Hexi is that customs and commercial taxes have been abolished, and official smuggling channels have been completely destroyed. It is an era of chaos. No one abides by the original rules. Everyone hopes that the Hexi Jiedushi will come out to take charge of the overall situation and restore the previous "glorious days"!

Hexi, which became a "free port", was unable to provide the government with sufficient financial resources due to trade chaos, which also aroused the dissatisfaction of many people in the government and frontier army bosses. Therefore, when the Hexi Jiedu envoy took the lead and corrected the chaos, he had to go too far.

Now is the time to tighten trade policies and set rules for Hu businessmen in Hexi. The policies envisioned by Fang Chongyong have a lot of room for manipulation, and he can do whatever he wants.

These fancy policies were not something he thought of on a whim, but he had gained experience from long-term practice in Hexi, but he had never had time to implement them.

Fang Chongyong recalled that when he first became the "hand-off governor" in Shazhou, the local government office in Dunhuang was actually implementing the Changpingcang policy of "exchanging silk for grain". The government uniformly used the silk and silk transported to Shazhou, and exchanged the silk and silk in the treasury for grain and fodder in the hands of the people of Shazhou.

The excess silk was used as a loan to Hu merchants to revitalize local business. When repaying the debt, Hu merchants had to repay the loan with food.

This move can effectively control local food prices and prevent Hu merchants from hoarding.

At first, this policy seemed commonplace, but slowly, the situation began to become skewed.

Later, after long-term observation of economic circulation in Shazhou, Fang Chongyong discovered that the loan notes signed by the Shazhou government office had become a kind of "currency" for large transactions in the local area. Hu merchants who held the government loan contract were conducting private transactions. When the time comes, make a separate contract to conduct the transaction.

This is completely different from the original intention of the government when borrowing money!

In disguise, it became Fang Chongyong's "debt-based anchor" that people are familiar with in his previous life!

Bonds can be exchanged for grain or silk. When the contract expires, the party holding the bond can just come to the Shazhou government office to pay off the debt.

The Shazhou government ensured the creditworthiness of the bonds because of its long-term normal lending.

Later, even a certain Hu businessman could take the short-term debt that was about to expire due to turnover difficulties, and under the guarantee of the commercial guild, after paying a certain amount of money or trading conditions, find someone to replace the long-term debt.

In a limited area, bonds replaced silk and food, which were inconvenient to carry, and became a currency in disguise.

In fact, this is only one step away from the modern banking system before the advent of telegraphs and telephones.

Fang Chongyong himself had signed many large-amount debt contracts back then, and he knew the private operation model very well.

And those who failed to repay their debts ended up physically disappearing. In the vast desert, no place is absolutely safe. It is normal for a dead person to bury his bones.

The core of being anchored by debt is to use debt as "collateral" to create "currency". The key to using debt as an anchor is that this debt relationship is safe and the bonds can be converted normally after maturity.

It needs two things to protect it. One is a strong army to ensure the collection of debts and physical elimination of defaulters; the other is a strong economic strength to ensure repayment of debts.

It just so happened that in the Tang Dynasty during the Tianbao period, Hexi had both of these things! Liangzhou's frontier army was powerful, and even if they had no money, they could still take advantage of Datang's power.

In fact, playing this trick only requires "wealth expectations" and does not require real wealth.

It's the same principle as a bank run. As long as not everyone comes to withdraw money at the same time, the bank can always handle daily business. As long as Datang is still strong, this game can continue to be played.

It’s time to give the people of Datang a little financial shock.

Fang Chongyong thought to himself, and he did not hesitate to write the four powerful characters "use debt as anchor" on the big paper!

As for how long this move can last, he can't care so much.

Life is only a few decades. If you don’t play like this, you might not be able to survive for a month. What will you do with the remaining decades?

Don't worry about so many things, just be reckless!

Fang Chongyong decided to stud first.

(End of this chapter)