Smuggling Daming

Once Zhou Zhong's entanglement with Yan Song was gone, he finally began to use this talent with confidence. Speaking of the guy who can leave his name in the history books, which one would be easy to be with?What's more, Yan Song, known as the first treacherous official of the Ming Dynasty, has an amazing understanding ability and is also very good at absorbing new knowledge. He quickly figured out the responsibilities of the central bank and the operating models of each bank. Now Zhou Zhong has He was trained as a future central bank governor.

In addition, Zhou Zhong, the king of Zhao, is sitting in the town, and other officials in the central bank are also working very hard. After all, everyone is not stupid. He may become the new emperor of Ming Dynasty, if he doesn't show it now, when will he have to wait.

It is also because the officials in the central bank are capable, and the owners of the fourteen banks have also seen the benefits of the central bank's supervision, so they also cooperate with all their strength. As a result, the fourteen banks in the capital were the first to change. They changed the plaque at the same time, turned a certain bank into a certain bank, and also standardized and unified the layout of all banks, so that when people enter any bank, they see the same The layout is convenient for everyone to use the bank.

After the unified planning of the banks in Beijing, under the guidance of the officials of the Central Bank, the fourteen banks began to change little by little from the capital. All the original banks began to transform into new banks. This transformation was very rapid. But it will take quite a long time, it is estimated that it will take at least one or two years, and this is only a superficial change, trying to completely transform the old-style money bank into a new-style bank.I am afraid that it may not be completed in decades.

But it's just a superficial change.It was enough for Zhou Zhong.Fourteen banks have branch offices all over the country, and there are even many banks competing in some big cities, so when these banks all over the country become subordinate institutions of the Central Bank, the first step in rectifying the bureaucracy can be started. It is to separate the salaries of officials from the government. In this way, although corruption cannot be completely eliminated, at least it can regulate the income of officials.Lay the foundation for future government.

Of course, Zhou Zhong would not just sit around and wait for a year or two. After all the money houses in the capital became banks, he immediately started to implement one of the main businesses of the central bank, which was to issue banknotes. Treasure banknotes are changed to banknotes, but the issuance of banknotes is not mandatory, but implemented in a very gentle way.

After all, although the name of the banknote has changed, the common people are not fools, so they naturally know that this banknote is actually no different from the previous Daming Treasure Banknote.There is even the same sentence on both of them, that is, "The Zhongshu Provincial Committee is allowed to print Daming banknotes and use copper coins. The counterfeiters will be beheaded, and the arrester will be rewarded with 250 taels of silver, and the prisoner will still be given property." Except for turning Daming treasure banknotes into Daming banknotes, everything else is basically the same.

For counterfeit money, Zhou Zhong has always hated it. In his previous life, he had seen many people working hard to make money, but they were cheated of all their hard work by a few counterfeit coins. Therefore, he always believed that people who made counterfeit money should see One kills one, and now the law of Daming has finally fulfilled his wish. Since the issuance of the Daming Banknote, it has been clearly stated that those who counterfeit counterfeit coins will be killed, and those who report counterfeit coins will not only be rewarded with 250 taels of silver, but also You can also get the family property of the person who was reported. In this way, the risks taken by those counterfeiters are out of proportion to the profits they get. Therefore, since the issuance of Daming Treasure Banknotes, few people dare to make counterfeit banknotes. Zhou Zhong saw this sentence It was so effective that it was directly used on new banknotes.

Banknotes are divided into four types, namely ten-character, hundred-character, consistent and ten-guan, and the issuance method is also very gentle. Zhou Zhong decided to print twice as many banknotes after counting the silver deposits in each bank. Moreover, these banknotes are not released all at once, but are transported to various banks in the capital first. For example, if someone goes to the bank to deposit silver, the bank used to issue banknotes, but now they have an extra choice. That is, silver can be exchanged for equivalent banknotes.In addition, if someone withdraws silver, they can also choose to withdraw real silver or banknotes. These are all voluntary and there is no coercion.

At the beginning, everyone was very repulsed by banknotes. Even in the first month, the banks in the entire capital did not even issue a single ten-wen banknote with the smallest denomination.However, Zhou Zhong had already expected this, so he didn't worry at all. Instead, when the officials distributed their salaries, they all used banknotes instead of silver, and he also told these officials in advance that if they didn't want to use banknotes, then You can go directly to the bank to exchange for silver and copper coins, and you will definitely not lose a penny.

Because of the influence of the Daming Banknotes, not only the ordinary people of Daming had no confidence in the newly issued banknotes, but even the officials also had no confidence. So after they got the banknotes reluctantly, they almost ran to the nearest place in a race. In the bank, they patted all the banknotes in their hands on the counter to change them into silver, but they were very surprised to find that the banknotes in their hands could really be exchanged for real gold and silver, and there was a lot of money.

But even so, almost all the banknotes issued to officials for the first time were replaced with silver and copper coins, but there were also some people who were determined not to change them in order to show their loyalty to the court, such as officials in banks like Yan Song, There are also several ministers in the cabinet, and finally Zhou Zhong himself.

Although the effect of issuing banknotes as salaries for the first time was not very good, it also conveyed a message to the outside world, that is, the court counted on what it said this time, and banknotes can indeed be exchanged for equivalent silver or copper coins, although they have not I don't know how long this policy can last, but at least it is still possible for now. In addition, the officials are more informed. They have obtained a lot of internal information from the central bank through their relationships. So repelled.

It is precisely because of this that when the officials received their salaries full of banknotes for the second time, although most of them still chose to exchange them for silver and copper coins, the number of those who did not exchange them increased a lot. So there was no exchange, not just because they believed in banknotes, but because some well-known merchants in Beijing began to announce their willingness to accept banknotes. For example, Wanghaige, the largest restaurant in the city, was the first merchant to publicly announce that they would accept banknotes.

Banknotes can be exchanged into silver and copper coins anytime and anywhere, and there are merchants who are willing to collect them, which means that banknotes have credit and circulation value, and banknotes are indeed much more convenient than copper coins and silver, so from the very beginning Only a few people use it, and it gradually became popular. Some people in the bank began to exchange silver and copper coins into banknotes. Of course, some people prefer to use banknotes issued by various banks, but although banknotes can also be used as Paper money, but it has certain limitations, especially the face value of silver bills is generally at least one tael, which is not as convenient to use as banknotes.

It took the bank more than half a year to slowly make banknotes a currency in circulation in the market. However, although banknotes have been recognized, silver and copper coins are also circulating in the market. If silver notes are added, then Daming will A situation in which four currencies are in parallel has formed. Regarding this situation, Zhou Zhong is not in a hurry, because he has already set a timetable for the bank to abolish other currencies. Among them, bank notes, as banknotes issued privately by various banks, will be issued in a few days. It was banned from circulation after one year and can only be used as a bill for people to save money.

The next step is silver. In fact, before the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, silver could not be circulated as currency, but a kind of precious metal. Even in the early Ming Dynasty, silver was also banned from circulation, and it was only silver in private. The transaction was never prohibited, and until the reign of Zhengde, silver had been used as a common currency.

But now that there are banknotes, silver can be withdrawn from the circulation of the market. Of course, this will take a long time, otherwise it may cause chaos in the market, so Zhou Zhong feels that it is very important to be able to prohibit the circulation of silver before his death. Not bad.As for the last copper coins, there is no need to ban them at all, but as a supplement to banknotes. Will there be coins in future generations as a supplement to banknotes?

Since the promotion of banknotes, the central bank of Ming Dynasty has finally been on the right track, especially after the central bank conducted a census of the accounts of [-] banks in the first year, the accounts of each bank are very clear, thanks to Zhou Zhong's forced Implement Arabic numerals in the bank and tabulate the accounts, so that the accounts are very clear. Although it is still unavoidable to avoid fraud, it brings great convenience to those who check the accounts. In the past, it took several months to check It only takes more than ten days to check the accounts.

After checking the accounts, each bank will transfer a quarter of this year's income to the treasury as tax money according to the previous agreement. In addition, during this year, the central bank will also protect the assets of [-] banks in various places in accordance with the agreement. When encountering officials who make things difficult for them, the officials of the central bank will go to preside over them, and even bring the lawsuit to the capital. Zhou Zhong protects them. Naturally, the bank wins these lawsuits. After all, those local officials stretch their hands. is too long.

Seeing that everything in the bank is on the right track, Zhou Zhong's investigation of Yan Song has also ended. Leaving aside his personal morality, Yan Song is indeed a remarkable talent. He has absorbed all Zhou Zhong's knowledge about banking in just one year. It was completed, and it was applied according to the situation of Ming Dynasty, and even had a new idea on the functions of the bank. Zhou Zhong was very relieved about this, so he finally handed over the position of governor of the central bank to him.

However, there was another reason why Zhou Zhong handed over the central bank to Yan Song, and that was that Zhengde was making a lot of noise in the Xuanfu, and he had to devote part of his energy to Zhengde, so he had no time to take care of the bank affairs. (to be continued..)