Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 238 Where will Ming Dynasty go next?

Half a month after Zhu Gaoxu reformed the memorial system, he received secret memorials from officials in southern Zhili and surrounding prefectures and counties.

Among these secret reports, someone mentioned that relatives of cabinet advisers such as Fang Xiaoru and Xie Jin had invested their money in various handicraft workshops after receiving huge dividends from bonds issued by the Royal Bank.

Especially Fang Xiaoru's family, relying on Fang Xiaoru as the head of the cabinet bachelor, has developed into the largest clan in Taizhou Prefecture in the past 20 years, with thousands of members.

Moreover, Fang Xiaoru's relatives were engaged in textile, porcelain, bronze, tea making, paper making, printing, shipbuilding and other industries.

Through the extensive construction of workshops and private factories, they have now hired more than 1 workers.

The officials who mentioned these matters expressed deep concern at the end of the secret report, hoping that His Majesty the Emperor would take it seriously.

In fact, Zhu Gaoxu had already learned about these problems through Jinyiwei spies scattered across the country.

In the early Hongwu period, the mainstream currency of the Ming Dynasty was copper coins, supplemented by treasure banknotes. In the middle period, treasure banknotes and copper coins were used in parallel.

In the late Hongwu period, under the operation of Zhu Gaoxu and approved by Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming court began to implement a new currency system, and exquisite new banknotes gradually replaced the old banknotes.

After Yongle opened the sea, with the large inflow of overseas silver, silver yuan gradually became popular and became the mainstream currency of the Ming Dynasty together with copper coins.

By the late Yongle period, that is, after the 16th year of Yongle, small-denomination banknotes of ten yuan or less gradually replaced copper coins.

Small denominations are essentially paper money.

In the late Yongle period, after Zhu Di handed over all political affairs to Zhu Gaoxu, Zhu Gaoxu deliberately issued a large number of this exquisite small-denomination gold banknotes to serve as currency despite insufficient reserves of commodities, silver and gold.

For the construction of four-level official roads, bridges, canals, reservoirs, schools and other infrastructure across the country, the imperial court will pay wages in small amounts of gold banknotes, and at the same time, tax payments in gold banknotes can be reduced by [-]%.

In this way, more and more small-denomination banknotes are distributed to the people in the form of wages, resulting in a lot of money in society.

But in fact, there were not yet a large number of agricultural and handicraft products worth money at this time, which caused commodity prices to rise in many provincial cities, counties and markets.

Zhu Gaoxu deliberately caused inflation in most cities with large populations, especially in coastal cities, in order to increase fiscal revenue.

Because any country that conducts commercial trade with the Ming Dynasty will be plundered by the "commercialization policy" formulated by Zhu Gaoxu just like the common people under the Ming Dynasty.

The prices of agricultural and handicraft products were inflated, causing countries that traded with the Ming Dynasty to transport large quantities of goods to the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty used a large number of gold banknotes representing silver yuan, as well as a small amount of silver yuan and Tongbao (copper coins) to plunder the world crazily.

Around the 20th year of Yongle, the Ming Dynasty once encountered a money shortage. The imperial court produced a large number of silver coins and Tongbao every year, but it was not enough anyway.

One is because agricultural and handicraft products that should not enter the market have entered the market.

Second, the depreciation of silver yuan and Tongbao made it impossible for them to return.

The silver yuan and Tongbao issued by the Ming Dynasty once became international currencies.

In addition to the fact that silver yuan and Tongbao are machine-made coins with exquisite prints, the silver yuan and Tongbao depreciated in the Ming Dynasty, so much that the exquisite silver yuan and Tongbao pressed out of silver alloy and copper alloy are not as good as silver and copper.

Other countries sold their goods to the Ming Dynasty and earned a large amount of silver coins and Tongbao from the Ming Dynasty.

In addition to a small amount of silver yuan and Tongbao purchased in the process of depreciation, silk, porcelain, books and other expensive luxury goods produced in the Ming Dynasty that could not be produced in the country, a large number of silver yuan and Tongbao were used as currency to circulate in the country to disperse the Ming Dynasty silver yuan and Tongbao. Depreciation losses.

In order to allow the Ming Dynasty silver yuan and Tongbao to be spent, those in power in these countries required the collection of silver yuan and Tongbao when collecting taxes, so that their people could accept the Ming Dynasty silver yuan and Tongbao and reserve them.

When the Ming Dynasty silver yuan and Tongbao depreciated too much, in order to minimize losses, both the Ming Dynasty people and the people in other countries secretly re-dissolved the silver yuan and copper coins, refined them and cast them into silver and bronze wares, because silverware , Bronze wares are more valuable than silver rounds and copper coins.

This way of plundering wealth by combining capital with the imperial court, backed by powerful military power, supported by continuously developing and advancing science and technology, and using monetary hegemony as a means, is a state monopoly.In other words, the Ming Dynasty was using its financial hegemony to plunder the people and neighboring countries.

Historically, this was also the case for developed countries in the West. They used force as the backing, technology as the support, and monetary hegemony as a means to harvest the leeks of the domestic people while harvesting the leeks of non-developed countries.

It would be a mistake to regard the Ming Dynasty as a state monopoly capitalist country because of this.

Historically in the West, the bourgeoisie sought power through reforms or revolutions to make the country's system more in line with the further development of the bourgeoisie.

At this time, in the Ming Dynasty, the wealthy merchants were complying with the court's system, rather than breaking it.

The current common phenomenon is that businessmen are not keen on technological innovation and expansion of production after gaining wealth. Instead, they try their best to open up joints for their children to participate in scientific examinations. However, they themselves imitate the elegant life of scholar-bureaucrats in order to Seek to achieve class crossing.

"Liu Dian of the Tang Dynasty" stipulates: "Any official who is an official, who has great merit in living together, who is married to a relative, who is engaged in industry and commerce by himself, or whose family is specialized in his own business, is not allowed to enter the official position."

In other words, the children of merchants in the Tang Dynasty could not participate in the imperial examination.

However, in the Song Dynasty, this situation changed, that is, "people such as businessmen and miscellaneous people who have extraordinary talents and outstanding achievements will also be sent away." The meaning of "sending" means that they are allowed to participate in the imperial examination.

The same was true for the Ming Dynasty in history.

This is especially true for the Ming Dynasty businessmen now!
They engage in business either to purchase land or to achieve class transcendence, and do not regard "business" itself as the ultimate goal.

Only a small part of their capital is used for technological innovation and expansion of production, let alone converted into industrial capital.

According to Zhu Gaoxu's knowledge through Jin Yiwei's spies, many big businessmen living in cities have a large part of their property from land rent.

In other words, this type of businessman also has the status of a landlord.

In order to avoid this type of businessmen, through various methods, the commercial taxes, land taxes and other taxes that should be paid to the court were passed on to the farmers.

Zhu Gaoxu attracted more and more nobles into the Royal Commercial Bank, opened new business names, and encouraged the nobles to engage in industry and commerce such as handicrafts and manufacturing.

In this way, such emerging industry and commerce can continue to absorb the labor force from the surrounding areas of the city.

At the same time, as more and more workshops of various types are set up in rural towns and villages around county or provincial capitals, the development of rural towns and villages is further promoted.

The luxury goods industry in the Ming Dynasty was very developed, and almost all overseas trade was dominated by luxury goods, such as porcelain, silk, tea, etc.

During the Song Dynasty, the luxury goods industry served the royal family and the privileged class, and was greatly affected by court policies.

The luxury goods industry has huge profits and plays a major role in promoting commercial development. Currently, the luxury goods industry in the Ming Dynasty is under the control of the royal merchant houses and the imperial court.

Both civil and military officials and ordinary people received luxury goods dividends through related bonds issued by the Royal Bank.

This has also prompted more and more people to invest money in workshops and factories for luxury goods such as porcelain, silk weaving, and tea processing.

Whether it is Fang Xiaoru's relatives or Xie Jin's relatives, they are just examples that will inevitably appear as the Ming Dynasty develops forward.

Merchants like them, who build handicraft workshops and employ people to engage in handicraft manufacturing, exist in almost every town.

Therefore, the question before Zhu Gaoxu, the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty, is - where will the Ming Dynasty go next?

Capitalist road?Going to a club?Or take an unprecedented path?

(End of this chapter)