golden scales

"At the time of Hongwu, this place was [-] miles long, narrow and desolate. In the early years of Zhengde, the earthen city was built, with a circumference of two miles. In Wanli, it was covered with bricks, and the circumference was extended to four miles. It is still so big today." Jiang Chen Walking beside Zhu Cihong to introduce, he casually pulled a handful of thistles: "Look, Your Highness, it is still desolate."

Standing on this mound, Zhu Cihong looked around and saw water all around.I also heard Jiang Chen say: "Only in the south during the spring and autumn season, there are embankments for people to enter and exit."In summer, the water floods all sides, making it extremely inconvenient to go in and out.It is autumn now, and it is a drought year, but the embankment to the south is still in the water. It seems that it will take time to get through.

"I chose this place because it is easy to defend and difficult to attack." Jiang Chen said: "There is a lot of money in the bank. With this natural moat, it is safer. If you are worried about inconvenience, you can build another bridge or two in the future. Just like two checkpoints, it is not afraid of people thinking about it."

Zhu Cihong nodded, motioning for Jiang Chen to continue.

Jiang Chen threw the thistles in his hands, and said: "The canal is three miles to the west, which is also a geographical choice. And because the land is barren, the land price is cheap, so it is easy to move people and merge the land. The residents here all have the custom of fishing and hunting, which is very professional. In the future If it prospers, it will just be hired as a labor force. It is only 260 miles away from Tianjin, and the water and land routes are both cheap."

"That's right, it's very thoughtful." Zhu Cihong said with a smile.He needs this kind of person who is good at thinking and can make proper arrangements.If you change your mind and put the bank's headquarters in the capital, it is certainly not wrong, but the development costs and expenses will increase a lot.

"Your Highness, if the headquarter of the bank is located in Huo County, it is just right to place the banknote factory in Wuqing County." Jiang Chen said: "This county is connected by a canal, and the transportation from north to south is convenient. It is also located between Tianjin and Tongzhou, so it is convenient to make banknotes and transport them to Huo County. , and it is also convenient for tissue paper and ink to be transported to the factory. Especially since this place is originally where the flow of goods converges, it will not make people suspicious."

The location of the banknote factory needs to be kept strictly confidential, so it cannot be in a crowded place.And because of the import of manufacturing materials.So it can't be too remote.Jiang Chen first decided on Huo County as the bank's headquarters, then traveled a hundred miles around, and finally chose Dameng Village in Wuqing County.

Zhu Cihong was not as careful about guarding against theft and banditry as Jiang Chen, and he firmly believed that under his rule.I dare not say that the road does not pick up lost things, but it is still no problem to clean up the bandits and stabilize the place.So he pays more attention to traffic and cost.Fortunately, Jiang Chen also took these two considerations into consideration, which is still reassuring.

"I've seen the banknote sample, can it be made smaller?" Zhu Cihong said: "If it is made into a palm length and width, then the paper material can be saved in half."

The newly made banknotes have absorbed a large number of "Daming Tongxingbao banknotes" designs, and their surface area is larger than the A4 paper of later generations. It is obviously more than three inches longer, but narrower by an inch and a half.Most of the content on the paper is patterned and has no practical significance.

"I have also read the appearance sent by His Highness." Jiang Chen said: "It is too small, I am afraid that the merchants will not believe it."

"The banknotes are so big. Didn't they end up being hung at home as awards? Whether they are trustworthy or not doesn't matter. As long as we use them to collect taxes, the people will definitely know the benefits of the banknotes." Zhu Cihong said: "Look at the money. Isn’t the ticket even smaller? How many people are scrambling to get it now. A few days ago, the Ministry of Officials even went to the echelon to ask for a part of the food stamp in the salary of officials.”

Jiang Chen has seen food stamps, which are real three-finger long and wide, and the paper is not good, so it is easy to be forged.It's just because few food stamps have been distributed.The food collection points are fixed at the few official warehouses, and the name and surname of the ticket holder are on it, so there has not been a large number of counterfeit and fraudulent food.

Nowadays, the hardest currency in Ming Dynasty is grain, and with the change of seasons, the price of grain has ups and downs.Even if it falls to the lowest point in the market, it is still more economical to exchange food stamps for food.There are also people who want to buy food stamps secretly, but the amount will not be large at first.Second, the punishment is too heavy, and at most they can only do something sneaky.

"Your Highness, the interest rate of banknotes is already high enough. It's better to do it decently." Jiang Chen decided to persuade him at last. It doesn't matter if the crown prince insists, and it's justified to save as much as possible.

Zhu Cihong thought about it.Said: "If you really think it looks good and generous, it's not a big problem to continue using it. But don't waste space."

"space?"

"It's okay to have some patterns on the four sides, and the ticket amount should be written more eye-catchingly. Besides, I want to print a sentence on it." Zhu Cihong said.

"Your Highness, please give me instructions."

"It must be written clearly on the face of the banknote: this banknote is the legal currency of the Ming Dynasty, and it is fully exchanged for silver as the banknote. All government agencies, merchants and people in our Daming territory are not allowed to refuse or discount the banknotes under any excuse." Zhu Cilang paused: "If necessary, you can Written in the form of an oracle."

Zhu Cilang waved to Lu Suyao who was behind her, and Lu Suyao immediately put a pen and paper on the ground.Zhu Cihong drew a simple diagram with charcoal, and fixed the position of this passage in the middle and lower part of the face.

Jiang Chen nodded, and said, "Should we also write that those who dare to forge or alter shall be punished by capital punishment?"

"Yes." Zhu Cihong nodded, and under Jiang Chen's reminder, said: "It's easy to check for counterfeiting, but it's troublesome to alter. I thought it might as well make a few more formats. Like this big one is ten taels of silver, and then gradually shrink it , to make five-two votes, one-two votes, or even five cents or one cent. Such traitors will not be easy to change."

Jiang Chen felt quite reasonable when he heard it. Originally, he was thinking about how to distinguish between big and small tickets.

"Colors can also be separated." He originally wanted to use colors to distinguish.

"Yes." Zhu Cihong nodded and said, "Try to use matching colors instead of correct colors. Correct colors are easy to forge."

As long as the formula of the formulated color is kept secret, it will be very troublesome for others to approximate it, but the correct color can be made by anyone.

"Also, the name of the Ming Imperial Bank can also be printed on it." Zhu Cihong said: "The watermark uses fire dragons to spit beads (please refer to the cover of this book)."

Jiang Chen memorized them one by one, and asked someone to change them when he went back to see the effect.The production process of tissue paper is the same as that of ordinary good paper, but the cost is higher, and it is more resistant to folding after being made, and it is not good at absorbing water.The banknote paper made of this kind of tissue paper must use ink, and ordinary smoked ink cannot print the effect at all.

In addition to being a monopoly material, engraving was also changed to gravure printing.It is said that the Thai and Western people had this kind of craft as early as 100 years ago, but even if other people also know the gravure printing technique, it is impossible to reverse the depth of the original groove only by looking at the ticket face, so it is more difficult to forge.

After putting so much effort into the cost, if the banknotes can no longer be circulated, it will be a big loss.

Jiang Chen felt a little heavy in vain.

"What are the thoughts on the website?" Zhu Cihong asked.

"Your Highness, besides the head office, I plan to set up a branch only in Zhangjiakou, which still belongs to the Beizhi branch." Jiang Chen said: "Because Beijing and Zhangjiakou are the places with the most silver deposits, they are not afraid of a run. It’s less than half of the reserve fund, and I’m not afraid of someone making trouble.”

Zhu Cilang took 3000 million taels as the reserve fund of the Imperial Bank, but due to the bottleneck caused by paper and ink manufacturing, the total amount of the first batch of banknotes put into circulation will not reach 1000 million taels.And by that time, there should be 1000 million taels of silver transported to Beijing, so no matter Zhangjiakou or Beijing, there is no need to worry about the problem of being unable to exchange.

Assuming the most extreme situation, that is, someone collects all the 1000 million taels of banknotes and cashes them in any place, and there is no possibility of breach of trust.

What's more, this itself is impossible to happen, because anyone who wants to obtain banknotes must have a cost higher than the amount of the note.Because the channel is very narrow, only depositing silver and selling goods.

Depositing silver must mean that the actual weight of silver taels is higher than the ticket amount, unless the customer can provide pure silver that meets the imperial standard, which is the famous "fire consumption" and "fineness".

The sale of goods in exchange for banknotes is limited to grain and cloth, because the commodity is single, and as the flow of goods concentrates, the price is bound to fall. Therefore, the profit point of merchants is to buy cheap goods in Zhangjiakou after obtaining banknotes.If you just transport the food and cloth to sell, it would be nice to be able to guarantee that there will be no loss in transportation consumption.

Another possible source of banknotes is the prisoners, officials, and military camps.This is also the channel for banknotes to really face the Ming market.However, I believe that no one will be so stupid as to exchange banknotes for silver, because the right of first refusal of carriages, transparent flat glass, mirrors and other in-demand goods can only be purchased with banknotes. It is conceivable that banknotes will become black market darlings after they are invested, and their value will exceed par itself.

Regardless of their final value, these banknotes will eventually return to the bank through the commodity trade.

"The imperial court has exempted the people from all over the world from the agricultural tax for two years. On the one hand, it is to recuperate. On the other hand, I hope that when the next tax is collected, banknotes can be collected on a large scale and deposited directly in the nearest bank. In the future, the country will go to the local government. The appropriation of funds also goes through the banking system, and truly fulfills the wish of Emperor Taizu Gao."

As Zhu Cihong was speaking, he was suddenly startled by a casual sentence.

Later generations often say that Zhu Yuanzhang was a small farmer, and he broke the foundation of Ming Dynasty extremely badly.In fact, it is understandable for people in the Qing Dynasty to say such things, and they did not know the market economy, but people in the later period have to say objectively: Many of Zhu Yuanzhang's ideas are still very forward-looking.

For example, it collects taxes on the spot.The rule established by Zhu Yuanzhang is: After the tax is collected by the prefectures and counties, it will be reported to the Ministry of Households. In addition to escorting a part of the tax to the capital for the imperial court, the rest will be kept in the place for expenses.This is actually a very good idea and saves a lot of shipping costs.It was only later that the whole people became corrupt, so that the tax revenue could not be raised, and the national treasury could not be shipped out.

But that is a problem with the supervision system, and the tax system cannot be blamed.

What is unacceptable in the tax system is the fixed tax of all counties across the country, and even this quota established at the beginning of the country is often difficult to collect later.

Ps:

Ask for a recommendation ticket, ask for a monthly ticket~~!