golden scales

In the workplace, the lowest-level clerks need knowledge; middle-level managers need knowledge and experience; high-level managers need knowledge, experience, and contacts; when they reach the positions of partners and bosses, all these elements must give way to ideas. .

The source of thought is thinking.

Who is Daming? As a boss and partner like the emperor and crown prince, how should he lead this huge empire, and how to determine the correct direction and strategy.

These are by no means problems that can be solved by book knowledge and seniority experience.

Chongzhen's thirst for knowledge ranks high throughout Chinese history, and his 17-year career as emperor has also accumulated a certain amount of experience and insight for him, at least now he is more sensitive to party struggles.However, with regard to the empire, the emperor, the four directions of the world...the thinking of these retreat issues, Chongzhen is still at the lowest stage: echoing what others say.

What the sage says, so does the same.

The sage said that the son of heaven should have the world in mind, be the ruler of all the people, take care of the people, and treat the people like children.So Chongzhen just repeated it over and over again in his mind, and never went further to think about: how many kinds of people are divided into, and how to balance the various types of people.A bowl of water is flat, some people die of thirst and others choke to death, how should the rain, dew and thunder be distributed...

The 400 million taels of stolen money this time opened the door for Chongzhen to think, and made Chongzhen realize that he was so unfamiliar with the affairs of the world.I used to only know that life without money is sad, but now I really have so much money, but I find that I don’t know how to use it!

At that time, more than 900 million Liao stipends were spent, and there was not even a splash. In the end, Wu Xiang even said that only [-] elites could serve as kings, and they had to get more than [-] million military stipends first.

How should the 400 million silver be used?

"What do you think about this money?" Chongzhen asked.

"My son has already discussed the idea with the Ministry of Cabinet, and plans to use this money to start a bank." Zhu Cihong said.

"bank?"

"It's the government office that issues treasure notes." Zhu Cihong said: "Its position is equal to that of the Ministry of Household Affairs, and it also reads and acts."

"Precious banknotes have always been issued by the Ministry of Households, why do you have to read them out?" Chongzhen asked.

"Because the name Baochao can no longer be used." Zhu Cihong sighed.

The Ming Dynasty’s treasure banknotes are almost as famous as the gold yuan coupons of later generations, and they will be infamous for thousands of years.

Emperor Taizu Gao followed the Song and Yuan systems, thinking that precious banknotes could save manpower and metal currency, but he didn't know that the original intention of paper money was to solve the problem of inconvenient circulation and insufficient currency circulation in the market, and mistakenly believed that Tongxing Baochao was An inexhaustible gold and silver mine.

As a kind of non-convertible banknotes, Daming Tongxingbao banknotes cannot be exchanged for real money, relying on the authority and credit of the government.However, the government does not allow the people to pay taxes with precious banknotes, and they must pay in kind. This is simply pushing the precious banknotes to a dead end.

What's more, the exchange of old banknotes for new banknotes requires extra money, even the function of banknotes replacing natural currency to reduce natural wear and tear is deprived.

This alone does not explain the tricks of the "economic helm" in the early days of the country.In order to ensure the status of treasure banknotes, the imperial court banned the circulation of silver for a long time, and the ban was not gradually lifted until a large amount of silver poured in after Jiajing.This has led to the need for precious banknotes in the market, and the continuous depreciation of precious banknotes due to insufficient credit.

For all these reasons, in addition to being used as a currency symbol, Baochao also refers to the toilet paper used by the imperial family in the palace.

It is estimated that people also think so.

During the Tianqi period, some people proposed to reissue the treasure banknotes to solve the problem of insufficient treasury.In the 16th year of Chongzhen, Jiang Chen brought up the old matter again when the country was in the most difficult time. With the support of Emperor Chongzhen, he was promoted to secretary and participated in the issuance of banknotes.It's just that the Jiashen state change soon ushered in, and it was aborted without even buying the wood for making treasures.

Emperor Chongzhen was very surprised when he heard that the crown prince intended to issue treasure notes: "Since there is already silver, why should we issue treasure notes?"

Earn interest of course!

Zhu Cihong herself is not a finance or economics major, and her understanding of the currency market can only be regarded as a small bottle of water.But he knows one thing, the minting of silver coins and gold coins is to mix other cheap metals to gain the interest between the denomination and the actual cost.For example, half a tael of silver is mixed with lead, and the minted silver coin is written with "one tael" and circulated as a tael of silver, and the court earns the silver after the cost is removed.

This kind of cleverness was used by the ancients a long time ago, and Wang Mang took it to the extreme. A small copper coin can be used as five or ten lands, which eventually led to economic collapse, and was dubbed by historians as a bad name for exploiting the people.

Paper money costs less than gold and silver coins, so the yield it can get is higher.A thin piece of paper, if you say it can be used as 100 taels of silver, it is 100 taels of silver.All fools know that this is a huge profit, even a great thing that is almost worthless.

The key is to have someone believe.

"In order to release the principal in the future, you must first establish credit. If you want to establish credit, it is undoubtedly the most convincing to exchange real money for banknotes." Zhu Cihong said: "Give the people one or two silver banknotes, so that they can Really get a tael of silver, and really convince him that banknotes can be used as silver! After more than ten years, people feel that banknotes and silver are no different, and they will naturally use banknotes."

"If the people took the banknotes and exchanged them for silver, wouldn't there be only a pile of waste paper in the treasury?" Chongzhen was puzzled.

"So the key points need to be circulated." Zhu Cihong said.

This time, the money copied in Zhangjiakou was not all the assets of JI Shang.Because before the Donglu fled, they had already sold a large amount of goods to them, and what they really took away were daily necessities such as silver, grain, and silk.The silver that Zhou Yuji copied was just the savings of the merchants for the purchase of summer grain, and a large part of antiques, cultural objects, and furniture were piled up in the warehouse.

"I thought that I could go to the Jianghuai and Huguang areas to purchase grain and cotton cloth, and have them transported to Zhangjiakou for stockpiling. The merchants would certainly not want to return empty-handed, so they just sold the seized stolen goods to them at a low price, but only charged banknotes." Zhu Cilang said: "In order to obtain banknotes, these merchants can only exchange them from banks, or accept the imperial court to use banknotes to buy grain and cotton cloth."

Chongzhen's fingers couldn't help beating slightly, and he finally figured out the schematic diagram of banknote circulation.

"This is just one aspect of circulation. If the imperial court collects taxes and only collects banknotes, farmers can only sell the harvested grain to the official warehouse to obtain banknotes. As long as the price of grain collected from the official warehouse is fair, how many farmers are willing to sell the grain at a low price?" In exchange for silver?" Zhu Cihong said.

In Chongzhen's mind, he couldn't help but compare the banknotes proposed by the crown prince with the Ming Tongxing treasure banknotes.It was found that there are only two links in Tongxingbao banknotes, manufacturing and issuing.However, this kind of banknotes has formed an endless loop from the government to the people, and then from the people back to the government.

——Analyzing only from the theory of change, banknotes go round and round, and they are endless, which is more in line with the principle of the avenue of circulation.

Chongzhen thought to himself. (To be continued.)