Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1766 Stabilizing Food Prices
Liu Xiang listened very carefully. It should be said that the plan of the Ministry of Finance and Finance is still very detailed, with rules and regulations, in every aspect, and relatively strong enforceability.It's not a purely theoretical blind command -- this was originally what he was most worried about.

After listening to the introduction of the plan, Liu Xiang coughed and said, "I think the plan of the Ministry of Finance and Bank of China and the Central Bank is feasible. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to implement this plan."

Issuing a new currency requires a huge network to back it up, and none of their "departments" in Guangzhou are enough.Except for the police organization taking shape, the others are basically blank.

Several necessary institutions and enterprises in the plan.Only Delong Bank started its layout half a year ago, adding new branches, roughly covering the commercial streets of the urban area, customs chambers, and major market towns on the outskirts of the city.The others either don't even have a shelf or are too small to be useful at all, and have to be built and enriched one by one.The gap in personnel is not small.

“…My idea is that the state-owned Wanyou and women’s cooperatives should come to Guangzhou to open a branch as soon as possible. The location can be chosen, and as many outlets as possible should be set up to attract citizens to use the new currency.” Zheng Shangjie said, “ Shop assistants can be recruited in Guangzhou, as long as some business backbones are sent over to serve as leaders."

Zhang Yikun also quickly said: "We have a lot of places. The big world is originally a commercial enterprise that mainly absorbs the Senate. Not only these enterprises, I think the commercial port can also open some new commercial enterprises. For example, the catering industry. Increase the channel for currency return .”

Lin Baiguang said: "Is Dachang the same as Delong, setting up some points in the urban area and nearby larger commercial towns--its importance is the same as Delong now. These points can be wholesale or retail, as A weather vane for rice prices."

Chen Ce wrote down a few notes in his notebook: "This needs to be coordinated, but I don't think it's a big problem."

Liu Xiang said: "Actually, I still have one more worrying thing, which is our secondary currency. There is no metal currency in the secondary currency -- are ordinary people willing to exchange copper coins for banknotes? For ordinary people, silver dollars are seldom used by them. , the ones that are in great demand are small payment methods. Now the silver coin with the smallest denomination is almost 2 renminbi—a bit big.”

Chen Ce smiled slightly: "Old Liu, do you know about money raising?"

"Not sure, chips?"

"This is a kind of token. It is issued by the merchants themselves and made of bamboo. It has the same nature as banknotes and is a kind of credit currency. It was very popular in Jiangnan in the middle and late Qing Dynasty." Chen CE said, "You know why Will something like this happen?"

"For lack of petty money?"

"Because the market was full of bad money at that time." Chen Ce said, "It's exactly the same as the situation in Daming today. The merchants and people suffered a lot from it, but micropayments were indispensable. So this kind of money without money appeared. Valueless tokens. Its credit is maintained by the issuing store itself. It can also circulate in a town, and some can even circulate in more than a dozen towns.”

"Are you saying that ordinary people will accept our small coins because there are too many bad money?"

"Yes, not only that." Chen Ce glanced at Meng Xian, "In the financial report Xiao Meng gave us, it was mentioned many times that there is a serious shortage of small-amount coins in Guangzhou and even the whole of Guangdong."

"Yes," Meng Xian said, "Many merchants privately mint silver beans as tokens."

The Ming Dynasty was a dynasty that didn’t pay much attention to minting coins. The copper coins of previous dynasties were mixed in the market. After the banknote law collapsed, in order to solve the problem of insufficient currency, merchants and people were allowed to mint copper coins privately. piece".In order to solve financial difficulties, the Chongzhen Dynasty minted a large number of coins in various places, and the copper coins were excessive and inferior.The currency value of small tokens in the market is extremely confusing.

"...so we think it is feasible to use banknotes for small denominations." Chen Ce said.

This set of rhetoric did not completely convince Liu Xiang, but he could not come up with a better way.

In order to further reduce the outflow of silver and copper coins in the current administrative expenses, the meeting decided to adopt a supply system for all the cadres going north before the new currency was issued, and no cash would be issued; for newly recruited and retained personnel in the local area, only discounted rice and cloth would be issued.Silver and copper coins are not issued.In addition to the necessary project payment settlement and on-the-spot payment for goods and materials, it is strictly forbidden to use silver and copper coins for payment.

Liu Xiang said: "Before issuing the new currency, our other job is to stabilize food prices."

According to the daily price report of the Comprehensive Management Office in the market, the average price of rice in Guangzhou is around one or two or three renminbi per shi—a one-cent increase compared to before they entered the city.This is obviously a "panic rise", because the current situation is turbulent, and citizens rush to buy rice for storage, causing the rise.However, more than half a month has passed, and the market is calm. In theory, it should have dropped somewhat, but the price of rice is still rising steadily.This shows that grain merchants are not optimistic about the subsequent rice supply.However, this is still within the normal range: rice prices go up at this time of year, and will not fall until after the summer harvest, when local and foreign grains are on the market one after another.

The exact population figures for the entire urban area of ​​Guangzhou have not yet been released, but according to existing figures and estimates, the permanent population of Panyu and Nanhai counties in Guangzhou City is around 30.Even according to the standard of 14 kilograms per person per month, the monthly consumption exceeds 4000 tons.This is an astonishing number.

Liu Xiang didn't know the situation of folk grain storage in Guangzhou, but there was one thing that the veterans knew: Guangdong was a traditional grain-deficient area, and the harvest in good years in the late Ming Dynasty was only enough to last half a year.Although Huguang in Jiangxi was the main grain-producing area in the Ming Dynasty, it was blocked by Wuling, so it could not effectively supply Guangdong.The bulk grain is basically supplied by Guangxi.Therefore, the food stock in the city will not be very large.At present, the grain transportation from Guangxi has been interrupted, and the food supply of Guangzhou, a mega-consumer city, has all fallen to the head of the new government.

Now it is March again, and it is the time when the rural areas are starving and the food is insufficient to supply the cities.In the past, the traditional foreign grain trade was interrupted, and the grain seized was very limited. If the grain price cannot be effectively stabilized, let alone the issuance of new coins, a "rice riot" will make the Senate lose face in Guangzhou!
But panic has crept in.Some rice shop owners who have business dealings with Dachang are already worried about the arrival of rice from other places this year-the rice in Guangxi obviously cannot be counted on, and in Guangdong, only Lei, Lian, and Gao are the main food production areas, and the supply in the second half of the year is scarce. It's already a done deal.

At the meeting, it was decided that Dachang would act as the general grain wholesaler in Guangzhou after the banning of the dental shops, and wholesale grains to the rice shops at the "guidance price".Stabilize the market first.

"The Planning Institute has promised to transport 5000 tons of brown rice this month first, and another 20000 tons next month. These grains are exclusively for Guangzhou, and the goal is to ensure that Guangzhou has four to five months of reserves." Chen Ce said.

Liu Xiang was taken aback: "Does the Planning Institute have so much food?"

He remembered that food has always been a relatively tight "control material" of the Senate. After all, in terms of their agricultural production capacity, it is already a big burden to support the huge industrial population, administrative personnel, military police and students.Without food imports, it would be impossible for the Senate to feed such a high proportion of the non-agricultural population.

Although the system of unified purchase and marketing was not implemented under the rule of the Senate, food was always the first-level controlled material.

"Of course." Chen Ce said, "I can also tell you the truth. This is the result of the full coordination of the Government Affairs Council. From this month, the staple food in all public canteens in Hainan Island, Taiwan, and Jeju has changed to rice noodles. At the same time, the Planning Institute also increased the quota for rice imports—so we can only succeed and not fail in Guangzhou.”

From these words, the elders at the meeting realized the weight of the burden on them.Dried rice noodles are mixed with 25% dried potato powder; as more rice is imported, the import of other raw materials will inevitably decrease.This is equivalent to sacrificing the interests of the public to support the currency reform in Guangdong.

Liu Xiang said solemnly: "This is supporting us with the power of the whole country."

"That's right, it's good if you realize it." Chen Ce himself said with a heavy tone, "We have just liberated Guangzhou, people's hearts are unstable, and we need to reform the currency system, which is a good opportunity for speculators to make waves. Things will not be smooth sailing .”

……

The Dachang Guangzhou branch was originally just a front door outside the Guangzhou East Gate near the Pearl River waterway.The front door is not big and not conspicuous, but the warehouse yard and dock behind it are surprisingly large.Every summer and autumn, there are a lot of people here, and the pier at the back door is also full of grain transport ships.

Dachang has almost never been involved in the rice trade in Guangzhou, neither buying nor selling, and it only accepts the grain sent by the four towns and eight towns.Sometimes they also receive cash and various local groceries.The received goods are directly loaded onto the ship and shipped to Hong Kong.

March was originally the coldest time in Dachang, but at this moment the pier was full of boats.The waterline of the barge pulled by a small steamer from Hong Kong Island is very low, and the top is tightly covered with reed mats.

The porters worked day and night to carry straw bags into the warehouse -- needless to say, they were filled with rice.

Not far from Dachang, the special wharf of Dashijie is also full of barges from Hong Kong Island. The steam crane makes a puffing sound, lifts the goods and puts them on the iron wheeled cart, and sends them into the warehouse one by one. area to go.

Lin Baiguang watched this scene from the observation deck at the highest point of the Great World.Since the liberation of Guangzhou, the frequency of tugboats from Hong Kong has doubled several times.A large amount of grain, cloth, salt and groceries were transported from Hong Kong Island to Great World, and the originally empty warehouse has now been filled to half.Follow-ups are still coming.

(End of this chapter)