Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 74
Because the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty stated that if you exchange silver dollars within the first three months, you can get a reward of one silver dollar for 100 taels of silver.

In addition, the government has issued a notice that only silver dollars will be recognized for tax collection next year in accordance with the official letter of the Ministry of Households.

In order to consider the need to pay taxes next year, ordinary people also began to come to the Daming Central Bank to exchange silver dollars.

However, in the initial stage, ordinary people could only store silver dollars at home as goods purchased with silver taels, and did not take them for shopping.

But then, the imperial court also only accepted silver dollars for the antiques obtained from the auction and the housing property.

Even after looking for girls in the Jiaofang Division began to ask for silver dollars, the common people began to trust silver dollars and accept silver dollars for transactions.

After January, around mid-September.

Most of the first minted silver dollars have already circulated in the market.

With the arrival of autumn, autumn grain was purchased and sold, and silver and gold were recycled by the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty in various ways.

The amount of silver in circulation on the market decreased dramatically.

Therefore, during this period of time, the circulation of silver dollars has also increased.

When Wang Jiaqin put the second batch of silver dollars on the market, he encountered obstacles much faster than the first batch.

The Central Bank of Ming Dynasty also made millions of silver dollars in profits.

In this way, the short-term and urgently needed military salaries and salaries, as well as the repair of cities in various important places, and the funds for the establishment of the defense system have been settled.

That is to say, through this currency reform, Zhu Youjian not only did not reduce the nearly 2000 million taels of gold and silver he earned before due to various state expenditures, but instead made a lot of money out of thin air.

As the market began to circulate and the imperial court clearly recognized the status of silver dollars, officers and soldiers also began to accept silver dollars as military salaries and salaries.

However, Zhu Youjian allocated most of the profits of the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty to Qi Biaojia, the right servant of the household department, except for the small profits earned by the Yang family, the Wang family and Han Shoujing, and ordered him to allocate them to the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Officials.

Only then did Qi Biaojia, the right servant of the household department, realize that reforming the currency can make such money.

Ma Shiying, Minister of the Ministry of War, did not raise any objections, and it was hard to believe that the imperial court could play with money like this.

The civil and military officials who did not expect the imperial court to pay more salaries did not expect that their salaries would be paid in full, and there was a lot more.

Because the exchange is one yuan for one tael of silver, the purchasing power of one silver dollar on the market is equivalent to that of one tael of silver.

This purchasing power is already very large, and obviously cannot meet the small transactions of ordinary people's daily life.

Therefore, the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty also began to issue matching small silver dollars in accordance with the rules.

That is, the diameter of the original silver dollar is reduced in the same proportion, and then the face value of one yuan, one cent, one cent, and one cent is set.

Ordinary people have a soft spot for this kind of small silver dollar, which is convenient for quantification.

After all, the numbers above are marked clearly, and they are also equipped with Arabic numerals. Although people didn’t understand them at first, after a long time, because they knew Chinese characters, they also began to understand Arabic numerals, and the circulation speed in the market was very fast.

Therefore, Zhu Youjian successfully implanted simple, easy-to-remember and easy-to-write Arabic numerals into the lives of ordinary people, and laid the foundation for the rapid development of natural science in the future.

The longer the issuance of Daming silver dollars, the greater the profit of the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty.

Gradually, the officials realized that the new money law that His Majesty asked the inner court to implement could quietly earn money from the common people into their own hands.

Because Zhu Youjian's salary commission is linked to the bank's profits.

Therefore, all officials remained silent about the currency reform of the inner court, and began to actively use silver dollars.

There are also bureaucrats with a keen sense of smell who are beginning to prepare to open private banks.

Other merchants also began to realize that opening a bank is more profitable than traditional banks and banks, and followed the example of the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty to issue currency.

For a while, other coins similar to silver dollars began to appear on the market.

Either it's the lighter weight, or it's the wrong color, or it doesn't sound right when you blow it.

There are even engraved portraits, characters and decorations that are different from those of the Ming Dynasty silver dollar.

In particular, Shanxi merchant Fan, as Yang Mingshen's old opponent, also relied on his extraordinary financial resources, and also had a not simple background relationship.

This Shanxi merchant, the Fan family, no longer laughed at Yang Mingshen for changing his time-honored bank to open a bank, but also began to unite with several honored officials and gentry to open a Daming Bank, which was also named as Daming.

Zhu Youjian was unknown in the deep palace.

Yang Mingshen was busy promoting currency and exchanging silver coins, but he didn't realize that Fan's, a Shanxi merchant, actually made a lot of profits because of it.

However, when Zhu Youjian was going to inspect the Central Bank of Daming in micro-service that day, he accidentally found a person paying for the meal with a silver coin of one cent.

Immediately, Zhu Youjian took the silver coin and found the words 'Daming Bank' written on it, and his expression became serious.

"Call me Wang Chengen, Admiral of the East Factory!"

Zhu Youjian suddenly said this in a cold voice to Li Ruolian, the commander of Jinyiwei who accompanied him.

Li Ruolian was a little surprised, but when he saw that the silver coin was not issued by the central bank, he also knew that the matter was not simple, so he immediately ordered someone to look for Wang Chengen.

At this time, Zhu Youjian was already very angry.

It is forbidden to mint money privately.

Now there are actually people who are blatantly issuing currency, blatantly defying the will, and even dubbing it the word Ming.

Zhu Youjian is not opposed to private banks, but the currency can only be issued by the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty controlled by himself!

Therefore, he will strictly resist this kind of behavior of issuing silver coins privately and using bad coins to drive out good ones to disrupt the financial order.

Zhu Youjian, who was in a bad mood, came to the headquarters of the Daming Central Bank:

"Where is Yang Mingshen, head of the household department?"

The shopkeeper of the central bank headquarters of the Ming Dynasty, the old shopkeeper of the Yang family who was in charge of the reception, saw this person directly calling his lord by his name, and he had an extraordinary bearing, so he asked politely:

"My master went out early in the morning, I wonder if you are?"

"Jinyiwei!"

Li Ruolian first threw the badge in front of old shopkeeper Yang, who was so frightened that old shopkeeper Yang sat on the ground.

"Let your people look for it, we'll wait for your master here, and tell him that if he comes an hour late, his head will be taken!"

Zhu Youjian said something sharply.

……

At this time, Yang Mingshen didn't know that Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Youjian had arrived at the headquarters of the central bank of Ming Dynasty.

He is now discussing with Fan Sanba, the young leader of the Fan family, in the main hall of the Daming Bank.

"Fan Sanba, I advise you to close down your Daming Bank immediately, stop exchanging and issuing silver coins, and take back the silver coins that have been circulated, otherwise I will expose your affairs to you, and when the time comes you If you can’t eat it, walk around!”

Yang Mingshen flicked his sleeves angrily after speaking.

If it wasn't for the Shanxi merchant Fan's powerful influence in the court, he would have liked to report directly to the imperial court about Fan's sale of iron weapons, firearms and gunpowder outside the pass.

But as a businessman, no matter how much he hates the other party in his heart, what he pays attention to is to be a human being and keep a line, and show respect in everything.

Therefore, even when Fan's family threatened the interests of the royal family and his Yang family, he did not directly report to Zhu Youjian, but came to reason with Fan Sanba, the son of Fan Yongdou.

"Yang Mingshen, you took refuge in Eunuch Han, the supervisor of ceremonies, and became a false official in charge of the household department. You dare to call me the master in front of me. It's really a dog with a pointed tail and it's up to the sky. Why can you do this at Daming Bank? Open, I can’t open, you can issue coins, but I can’t issue them?”

Fan Sanba touched the back of his head and said.

(End of this chapter)