Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1801 The Eve of Issue
The letter was written to his benefactor, Mr. Liang.The Liang family has always been his backstage and his important client.As soon as the news of the currency reform got out, Mr. Liang was very interested and asked him to keep an eye on the movements of the Australians.

In the letter, he wrote in detail the process of the meeting and everyone's attitudes, especially mentioning Gao's attitude of sparing no effort to stand up for the Australians.It seems that the currency reform of the Australians is imperative.At the meeting, everyone has initially reached an agreement, and the trade associations will share the amount of new currency exchange according to their scale and capital strength.The money industry guild had the largest apportionment amount, which was 20 yuan in silver dollars, which the guild thought was acceptable—after all, the exchange conditions offered by the Australians were fairly fair, and the amount was considered good.It is not a disadvantage to exchange silver for silver dollars.

However, Liang Chenlong also wrote down his worries in the letter. He was worried that exchanging silver coins for silver coins was only the first step, and the next step was to ask them to accept a certain amount of silver dollar circulation certificates.

As he wrote this, he sighed deeply, thinking that the next step would inevitably involve the exchange of the received copper coins into tokens—this was almost a certainty.Although copper coins are not very valuable, they are still money, and he really feels heartbroken to exchange them for paper.

After writing the letter, he sealed the letter, sealed it, called a confidant, and whispered a few words.

As usual, the letter was not delivered to Liang's residence, but to Wenchunyuan to find Miss Yuewan. Yuewan was "combed" by Liang Cunhou, which is like his outer room raised in the courtyard.Many things that are not easy to be aboveboard are discussed through her.

The servant took the order and went, Liang Chenlong looked at his back and couldn't help letting out a sigh of relief.

Liu Xiang sat at his desk and looked at the latest population statistics table on the desk. According to the first household registration data after the Guangzhou police system was established, he knew the exact population of Guangzhou Special City for the first time.

According to the administrative divisions of Nanhai and Panyu counties left by the Ming Dynasty in the past, plus the area outside the city that is expected to be classified as "suburbs", including Henan Island and other places, the registered population has a total of 28 people.It includes all permanent residents who have fixed residence in Guangzhou.Excluding the "floating population" such as the Guandi Temple people and horses-this part of the population is at least 700.

The new hukou registration does not distinguish between non-agricultural and agricultural, because the distinction between the two populations was not so clear-cut in the 17th century.In addition to the shopkeepers and shop workers in the city who return to their hometowns to help when they are busy, farmers from the countryside come to the city for a short time to work. There are also many genuine farmers living in Guangzhou and farming in the city.Therefore, only major occupational registrations are made-after all, in this era, a person's occupation is basically life-long.

The registered population figures do not include the Danmin population. The Danmin data received by Hebo is very old, and it is still the statistics of Zhang Juzheng's era.According to this outdated data, there are 2000 Dan people registered in Hebo.However, the old officials of the Hebo Office who were retained said that the number of Danmin was far more than that.Because they lived in no fixed place and wandered around, it is difficult to accurately count the number of people, but there are no fewer than 4 Dan people who have been active on the waters of the Xijiang and Pearl Rivers outside Guangzhou for a long time.

It is necessary to thoroughly find out how many Dan people there are, unless they are allowed to settle ashore. In 1950, the first large-scale practical project of the Guangzhou Municipal Government was to build Danmin residences and allow Danmin to live ashore, thereby controlling this group that was outside the mainstream society for the first time.

Controlling the Dan people and allowing them to live ashore and live in the households of Qimin is of great benefit to the security of the Pearl River system, even to the security of Guangzhou: rivers and lakes have been natural hiding places for criminals since ancient times.

But now Liu Xiang's Guangzhou Special Municipal Government is unable to do so, so he has no choice but to temporarily give up his attempt to control the Dan people.Focus on the issuance of new currencies.

The key to the credit of the new currency lies in whether the purchasing power can be guaranteed.Liu Xiang is very clear that once the new currency is issued, the issuance of banknotes will be like a flood breaking the embankment.

One is the currency circulation demand in the Guangzhou market itself.No one knows exactly how much this number is - there is no statistics bureau in Ming Dynasty, and there are no banks in the modern sense. No one can figure out how many silver and copper coins are circulating in the market.The Ministry of Finance and Finance can only roughly estimate that about 100 million yuan in circulation notes will be needed.Fearing not enough, the Ministry of Finance and Economics has ordered the printing of several million more banknotes at the Hong Kong Mint.Followed by the Guangzhou Municipal Government spending.Compared with the Guangzhou government in the past, the expenditure of the Guangzhou Municipal Government has swelled by more than a hundred times.Many institutions were newly built and maintained in operation, rapidly expanding public officials, old personnel taken in, disaster relief, municipal works... plus the ever-increasing demand for military expenditures.Both have dramatically enlarged the number of new coins that need to be put on the market.Liu Xiang and the Ministry of Finance and Economics commissioner's team have made rough calculations and have already become concerned about the inflation of the new currency.

Liu Xiang picked up another secret report, which was the latest grain inventory statistics in Guangzhou.After canceling the tooth merchants and establishing two wholesale markets for bulk goods, it is mandatory to stipulate that all bulk grain transactions must be sold in the market.Foreign long-distance grain merchants, farmers and landlords who sell grain in batches, and local grain banks and grain stores engaged in wholesale and retail business all operate in the market.State-owned grain enterprises of the Senate, cooperatives and Dachang Rice Bank also opened business offices in the market.As a window for operating and intervening in grain trade.

At the same time, through the Federation of Industry and Commerce and the trade associations, the inventory statistics of large and small grain shops engaged in grain wholesale and retail in the city are carried out. In this way, the city government has roughly figured out the bulk grain storage in Guangzhou. Traffickers, local wholesalers, Retailers' total stocks of brown rice are about 2600 tons.This number can supply the entire Guangzhou market for about one month.

According to the city government's previous estimation of the population, 2600 tons cannot be supported even for a month.However, Lin Baiguang believes that the past estimates are unscientific.Although there is not much difference between the total population estimates and statistics, the amount of grain eaten per person per month at 14 kg is on the high side.First of all, the elderly and children cannot eat so much, and secondly, 11 kilograms per month is barely enough for urban residents.The impoverished population in this city accounts for more than half, and their daily food cannot reach the level of 11 kilograms per month.In addition, most of the big families in Guangzhou had a considerable amount of food in storage—this was the custom at the time, and the big families often stocked up enough food for the whole family for two to three months.In addition, they can also get food supplies from tenants in the surrounding suburbs.Food supply is no problem.Since the household registration of large gentry households also included a large number of servants, the population of each household ranged from 30 to [-] people to as many as several hundred people, which can be said to have relieved a considerable part of the supply pressure.

In addition, in the past, the government granaries left by one prefecture and two counties in Guangzhou confiscated the "adverse production" of grain, and there were seven or eight hundred tons of bits and pieces.Part of this food has already been set aside as staff salaries and funds for the Guangzhou Municipal Government.Now there are about 200 tons

In addition to these local grains, 10000 tons of brown rice shipped from Southeast Asia and Hainan in the past three months are also stored in the warehouses of Guangzhou World and the warehouses on Hong Kong Island.This is the trump card held by Liu Xiang and the Ministry of Finance and Economics.In order to deal with food speculation.

Almost every major reform of the currency system is accompanied by a frenzy of speculation on daily necessities such as food.Especially in the case of Guangzhou City, even Liu Xiang, who has never been a businessman, knows that it is a good opportunity for grain speculation.

Guangdong's grain needs to be supplied by Guangxi. June and July in Guangdong and Guangxi are the time for early rice harvesting. In previous years, grain prices should have fallen by this time, but Guangdong itself is short of grain, and Guangxi is still under the rule of Ming Dynasty. The water card is strictly prohibited for all ships to go up and down-the grain trade through Wuzhou has also stopped.Normally, just the news that Wuzhou's grain water transportation has been suspended is enough to trigger a sharp rise in food prices.

Fortunately, the Senate was rewarded by the Chaoshan Grain Gang for banning dental merchants and clearing up the debts owed by the dental firms. Although the Chaoshan Grain Gang’s wholesale grain prices in the market have risen slightly, they have always remained stable.The Chaoshan gang also took advantage of its own business gang network to transport grain from other places in Guangdong to supply Guangzhou.This has greatly reduced the pressure on food supply.Chen Ce, who is fully in charge of economic and monetary policy in Guangzhou, will not use reserves on a large scale, but occasionally sells a small amount of grain through cooperatives to curb the rise in grain prices.

However, relying solely on the "return" of the Chaoshan Gang is not enough. The morality of businessmen is profit-oriented. They are sacrificing profits now, not only out of gratitude, but also because they know that the violent machine of the Senate is far from comparable to that of Ming Dynasty.However, once the profit is large enough, neither conscience nor fear is a problem.Therefore, in curbing speculation and ensuring the value of the currency, it must be based on the Senate itself.

In addition to storing a large amount of grain in Hong Kong Island, the Planning Institute also transported salt, cotton and linen cloth, salted and dried seafood, and tea from various regions to Hong Kong Island, which could be transferred to Guangzhou at any time to stabilize prices.

In order to have enough channels to launch, in addition to wholesale channels, commercial cooperatives, Dachang, and Wanyou have opened more than 40 branches in the whole city of Guangzhou by means of receiving orders and direct purchases. The retail network basically covers the entire The urban area of ​​Guangzhou and major towns in its suburbs.In order to ensure the supply in the villages and towns, [-] mobile vending ships were refitted, all equipped with shop assistants and sources of goods, and went to the countryside for mobile sales in the already basically calm towns and towns.Zheng Shangjie instructed the sales ship to purchase rural local products according to market conditions, further activating the rural economy, and making preliminary preparations for the currency to go to the countryside.

(End of this chapter)