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Chapter 950: Come and go quickly

"More than 40 taels... If the Mu family wasn't as wealthy as a country, I really wouldn't be a good man! Wang Chengen, pick out some finely crafted items for the queen and concubines, and exchange the rest for silver to fund Nanhaizi, Changping Palace, and the university. Remember not to take out too much at once, otherwise the price will be lowered."

The happiest person was Hong Tao. He originally just wanted to remove an obstacle for Yuan Keli so that the work of converting natives to officials and assimilation of immigrants in Yunnan could proceed more smoothly, and to intimidate the chieftains of various ethnic groups so that they would not always think that the imperial court was a soft persimmon.

Unexpectedly, there was an additional gain, which filled up the treasury in an instant. Not only did it solve the cost of immigration, but there was also a lot of surplus. Hong Tao did not intend to leave this money in the treasury to rust, it had to be spent to be useful.

Give the Navy and the Army one million taels each to modify the percussion cap guns and speed up the installation. Give the Ministry of Construction another two million taels so that Xiong Sanba can hire more people to not only build the tracks to Hami and Ruoqiang, but also continue westward all the way to Kashgar!
The Haihu Division and the newly built Beixing Palace also received several hundred thousand taels to improve the food and accommodation conditions for the students. The university naturally cannot be left behind. Although there are only 31 students now, there may be more in a few months. The necessary teaching equipment and venues must be available, and it should be built according to the scale of people.

"Oh, having too much money is also a problem...how about renovating the three main halls first?" When you have no money, you feel anxious and guilty, but when you can't spend the money, you get even more worried and even start to have wild thoughts.

"Call Prime Minister Oyani and ask her to bring the data and plan for the issuance of the new currency!"

In the end, reason overcame emotion, and Hong Tao decided not to repair the three empty and dilapidated houses, but to take out half of the remaining four million taels in his hand to speed up the issuance of new currency.

Since the establishment of the Sun and Moon Bank, one of its priorities has been to unify the currency system and replace the traditional silver weight with gold and silver currency. However, after six or seven years of unremitting efforts, the progress of popularizing the new currency has not been satisfactory.

The new currency has the highest popularity in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhili, Annan, Luzon and Inner Mongolia. There are very few transactions in the market that use silver weight to count, and only some elderly people are not used to it.

In Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other places, the popularity of the new currency has increased year by year, and it has now reached a state of coexistence with silver. Some people are used to using the new currency, while others are used to using silver, and neither is considered mainstream.

In Zhejiang and Guangxi, the new currency was only circulated near cities and among long-distance traders. In remote villages and towns or ordinary people's homes, they still only used silver and did not recognize the new currency at all.

The most backward provinces were Jianghuai, Jiangxi, Huguang, Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan. Not only were the new currencies difficult to use in the local areas, they were also resisted by the people. There was even a phenomenon of them being melted down and cast into silver ingots.

Faced with such uneven development speed, Sun Moon Bank had no good solution. It couldn't force the people to exchange their silver for silver coins. Even if the court really issued an order, the popularization work would be difficult to complete in a short time.

Because most people simply couldn't calculate the ratio between silver ingots and new coins, and the ratio between silver ingots of different purity and new coins was still floating, which made the ignorant people even more timid. They would rather not exchange for new coins, for fear of being cheated.

Ultimately, it's a policy issue. In provinces that implement the new policy, the issuance of new currency is considered part of the work scope, and there are assessment indicators, and the superiors are responsible for scoring. But in traditional provinces, local officials are not motivated. Not only will they get nothing out of their hard work, but they may also get into trouble. Who would get up early if they don't want to make a profit?

Except for Liaoyang Province, it is a pure military control area. Even if there are economic activities, most of them are related to military farming and transportation, and there is basically no demand for currency circulation. However, the implementation of the new policy cannot be spread to these provinces too quickly, mainly because there is a serious shortage of grassroots officials who are familiar with the new policy and have experience. Without their participation, the new policy is like a moon in the water and a flower in the mirror, and it cannot be implemented at all.

Now Hong Tao can't wait any longer, because he wants to take the opportunity of exchanging new currency to make a rough statistics of the amount of silver in each province, to lay the foundation for the next economic development plan.

But many people don't exchange for new currency or use new currency, so it is impossible to calculate the amount of currency in circulation more accurately. Even if Hong Tao is the governor of the central bank in the future, he can't do anything if he doesn't even know how much money he has at home.

What to do? If soft tactics don't work, then we have to use hard tactics. You don't want to change it, do you? OK, from now on, all the links that require using silver to deal with the government will be changed to using the new currency, and only the new currency.

There is also a specified exchange period. If you don't exchange within a certain period of time, you will have to go to a branch of Sun Moon Bank if you want to exchange new currency later. The office cannot exchange it!
As court officials, they naturally have to take the lead, so starting from a certain month next year, the salaries of officials will also be paid in new currency.

In fact, compared with the reform of the aboriginal system, the reform of the imperial examination system, and the new salt and tea system, the currency reform was much easier. Except for the losses of some private copper mints, it had no substantial impact on most people, and it was just a change of habit.

The reason why the new currency was not forcibly promoted nationwide and was only spread slowly by the Sun and Moon Bank through private transactions was for one reason only: there was not enough silver.

To issue new coins, you must first mint a sufficient number of new coins, and then gradually replace the silver ingots. Although you don't have to prepare all the circulating silver coins at once, you must at least prepare a portion for the first batch of exchanges. Then you will have time to use the exchanged silver ingots to mint new coins.

According to Sun Moon Bank's estimates, there are roughly 2-2.5 million taels of silver in the country, and the amount circulating in the market is roughly equal to the amount stored in the cellar. In order to meet the needs of market circulation, excluding the salaries of officials and princes issued by the Ministry of Revenue, the first batch of new coins must not be less than 1500 million taels.

The Sun Moon Bank didn't have much deposit, nor should it have too much deposit, otherwise it would lose money, so the court had to find a way to raise the money. But the Ministry of Revenue had to pay out the money regularly according to the budget, so it couldn't afford to pay out too much.

Treasury? If there were 1500 million in the treasury... no, if there were 1000 million taels of silver in reserve, Hong Tao would dare to recruit another 50 troops and fight all the way to the Ottoman Empire.

Now, including the gold, silver, jewelry, jade, antiques, calligraphy and paintings confiscated from the Mu family, Hong Tao could barely scrape together 500 million taels. But he had to keep some for emergencies, so the most he could take out was 300 million taels.

The gap between 300 million and 1500 million is too big. Who is going to fill the gap of the remaining 1200 million? Is it possible to find another noble or prince who is rich enough to rival a country and confiscate his property on a random charge?

"These 1200 million taels are paid by the princes. You send people with my handwritten edict to go door to door to exchange them!" Faced with Oyani who was also helpless, Hong Tao had no choice but to use his ultimate move.

(End of this chapter)