Chastity Layman

  Chapter 275 God of Wealth

   March grass grows and warblers fly.

  Scholars, ladies and gentlemen, or soldiers and traffickers all took advantage of the good spring and went out of the city one after another. The children played and chased the paper kites, and the adults laid out blankets on the grass, served meals, and enjoyed the picnic in the spring sunshine.

  Qujiang, Furong Garden, a group of knights are wearing special rattan armor, galloping horses, waving crescent sticks to compete for a polo.

  Emperor Li Shimin sat on the couch, looking at these strong knights, he was very satisfied.

  Qin Lang was reporting the financial report while watching the ball next to the emperor.

  After the new year, everything went smoothly, and the emperor was a little bit elated.

Originally, there was a catastrophe last year, but this year is the most dangerous time when there is no harvest, but with the full operation of the transshipment department, there is no famine in Guanzhong, and the relief food of the people is mixed with dried locusts and wild vegetables, which is actually slightly better than in previous years. .

  Not to mention, during the famine year proposed by the Transshipment Department, the government should use work as relief to build basic projects, such as repairing roads, bridges, cities, dams and reservoirs, etc. This is much better than simply distributing food to the people.

  If a hungry person can only drink some relief porridge every day, they may have troubles when they have nothing to do. If they are kept busy all day, it will be conducive to stability.

  This is not a sophistry but a fact.

   Recruit those young and strong people to work, consume their physical strength, and feed them enough to ensure their health. At the same time, supervision has been strengthened, so there is no need to worry about someone taking advantage of the disaster year to make trouble. What's more important is that, in addition to the regular service, the working people can also distribute a small amount of money and food to them to support their families.

  The imperial court can complete some necessary projects with much less expenditure than usual.

  The elimination of Buddhism and Taoism across the country has allowed Li Shimin to make a lot of money now, which is more profitable than eliminating several separatist forces in the late Sui Dynasty.

  A steady stream of money was collected in the treasury and sent to the capital, not to mention a lot of real estate, fields, slaves, workshops, etc. The economy of the temple was much bigger than he expected. When he was happy, Li Shimin couldn't help sweating in secret. If it wasn't for Qin Lang's strong remonstrance, he wouldn't even realize that the economy of the temple was so strong. It's so bad.

  There are no such opponents as Pei Jifeng, Deyi King, Wei Ting, etc. in the court, and the city ship tariff and industrial and commercial tax have been successfully levied, and the special tax on salt, tea, wine and sugar has started ahead of schedule, and the mining tax is also in preparation.

  As soon as the country's taxation machine is turned on, money and silk flow in continuously.

  The Kaiyuan Bank that Qin Lang had planned to build before was also officially put into operation. Just because of the free handling fee and interest for depositing money, it attracted people to deposit their money in the bank.

  In the past, the favorite thing for landlords to do was to bury money in the ground, even in the pigsty.

  The imperial court is short of money, the country is short of money, there is a shortage of money everywhere, and there is a shortage of copper coins. On the other hand, the rich have deposited their money underground to rust.

So Kaiyuan Bank announced interest-bearing deposits, and the transshipment department on the other side immediately issued a ban on hoarding money, prohibiting people from hoarding money. If it is found that it exceeds, it will be severely punished, and those in the industrial and commercial industries such as fangshi and shops should not save more than 5,000 guan.

  Whistleblowers will be rewarded.

   It also stipulates that silk and cloth should be used in conjunction with transactions of more than ten strings.

  Following this strict regulation, the three prohibitions of privately destroying coins, privately making copperware, and privately minting coins were re-announced. Once discovered, severe punishment will not be neglected.

Of course, there are detailed explanations behind the prohibition on privately hiding more than 1,000 guan for ordinary people and more than 5,000 guan for businessmen. For example, it only targets copper coins. Tibetan column. It also stipulates that copper coins deposited in the Kaiyuan bank of the imperial court are not included in this list.

  When such an edict came out, the whole Chang'an was shocked.

  Because whistleblowers are heavily rewarded, no one dares to hide money at home.

  Although it is said that the family of the common people has one thousand guan, and the family of industry and commerce has 5000 guan, the actual decree has little impact on ordinary people, but there are still many rich people.

  As a result, families with more than a thousand coins in their private possessions started to take action one after another, and they all wanted to exchange their money for silk, cloth, gold, silver, or other things within a month.

  For a while, the price of silk cloth rose steadily.

  It is no longer worthwhile to exchange money for silk.

  So more and more people began to use their money to buy land and houses, or to buy relatively stable commodities such as pepper. Although many people were wary of Kaiyuan Bank, they still began to try to deposit their money.

A large amount of copper coins began to pour into the Kaiyuan bank, and even among the money brought by many people, there were actually many old coins such as five baht coins, and there were also a lot of privately minted coins. When casting coins, the imperial court will break and recycle them all, and the loss ratio is not high.

  The interest given is quite considerable. For example, the annual interest of a demand deposit is 1% per annum. If you deposit 10,000 yuan, you will get 100 yuan interest a year, which can be withdrawn at any time, and the interest is paid on a daily basis.

  The interest rate is much higher for fixed deposits, and the three-month fixed interest rate is 2%. The longer the fixed deposit period, the higher the interest rate.

  In the past, people hid a small amount of money at home. If they had more money, they could lend it to a loan or store it in a gold and silver shop, but a storage fee would be charged for this. And if the money is not too much, ordinary people don't have any good channels to lend money. After all, there is a risk of not being able to recover the loan.

  Now the interest-bearing deposit launched by Kaiyuan Bank is the same as lending directly to the bank. You don’t have to worry about not getting back the loaned money all day long.

   This kind of interest-bearing deposit is naturally the most suitable for the middle class and ordinary people.

  Of course, the current limited private possession of money orders has caused many rich people who originally had a lot of money to deposit part of their money in the bank.

  Qin Lang asked Kaiyuan Bank to collect so much money, of course it is impossible to put it in the treasury for nothing, as interest will be paid in that case.

  He started lending as soon as he changed hands.

  For a six-month loan, the annual interest rate starts from one cent, which is double the interest on deposits for five years and above, and ten times the interest on current accounts.

  The loan for one year is 1 cent, and the loan for more than five years is directly 2 cents per annum.

  The left side accepts deposits, and the right side begins to lend.

  However, at the beginning, Qin Lang was more cautious, and the lenders were more strictly reviewed, and they had to be guaranteed by assets, and did not do pure credit loans.

   On the other hand, it introduced banknotes to merchants, which are easy to carry, registered banknotes, and can be cashed in the city with the token seal, which is very convenient. Flying money has also been introduced to merchants who trade across regions, which can be redeemed in different places.

  Originally, it was inconvenient and unsafe for merchants to trade large sums of money, but now the imperial court has banned the possession of more than 5,000 guan of money, so the flying money and bank notes are even more attractive to merchants.

  After a bold trial by some people, they found that it was convenient and safe, so merchants began to deposit money in Kaiyuan Bank, and began to use bank notes and flying money.

Li Shimin didn't pay much attention to this bank at the beginning, and he simply classified him as a gold and silver shop in his mind, but who knows, by March, Kaiyuan Bank had quickly spread across Chang'an, Luoyang, Yangzhou, and Taiyuan. , Jingzhou and Youzhou opened six branches.

  The deposits attracted by various regions are even more astonishing. Qin Lang asked each region to keep 30% as a deposit guarantee to prevent redemption risks, and use the rest as commercial loans to earn interest differences.

  Although the loan interest rate is much higher than the deposit interest rate, and the annual interest rate of the loan for only six months is as high as one cent, which is ten times the interest rate of the current deposit, it is still surprisingly low compared to the current private loan.

  You must know that before the imperial government’s public money lending, the annual interest was twelve cents, which was only a one-year loan, but now Kaiyuan Bank’s annual loan is only one cent and two cents, a difference of ten times.

  Under the circumstances that private lending is generally high-interest, and the donkey rolls at every turn, the lamb pays interest, and under the market of nine times out and thirteen returns, Kaiyuan Bank's annual interest rate of one cent and two will undoubtedly make businessmen very excited.

  Even if this kind of loan requires collateral, businessmen are also flocking to it.

  Kaiyuan Bank made a profit of tens of thousands in the first month of its establishment, and by the third month of March, it had made more than 100,000 profits on its books.

   Li Shimin was stunned.

  He looked at the report submitted by Qin Lang and couldn't believe it. Isn't it just a bank, a gold and silver shop? How can you make money so much?

  He is still stuck in the original concept, and has never imagined the power of the behemoth of finance.

   In the past, those who really controlled the finance were actually the tyrants of the aristocratic family.

  Whether it is the court or the emperor, there are not many who are really not short of money.

  Qin Lang told the emperor that Kaiyuan Bank plans to set up at least one branch in every province, including big ports along the coast, and important cities on the canals. By then, it will be able to earn at least two to three million yuan a year.

  And this is only a superficial benefit. In fact, the bank can also regulate the economy, stimulate the development of industry and commerce, and the prosperity of industry and commerce. When the time comes, taxation will increase. This is a hidden income.

"The Money Casting Supervisor of the Transshipment Department recently found a new method of casting money. Through this casting method, compared with the traditional sand casting method, it can save a lot of cost. There are hundreds of money casting furnaces in various parts of the imperial court. Each furnace It can cast 3,300 coins a year, and more than 330,000 coins can be cast in one year."

"One furnace casts 3,300 coins at the age of 3,000. It requires 30 miners, 21,200 jin of copper, 3,700 jin of lead, 500 jin of tin, and 750 jin for every thousand coins. , In addition, the minted money needs to be transshipped, and the cost of transshipment is expensive. In fact, the cost of casting and transshipping coins is more than one thousand, and the imperial court has been in a deficit."

The method currently adopted by the Transshipment Department’s Minting Bureau is to change the copper-lead-tin ratio of the money; One point is to reduce the cost of copper.

  Now Kaiyuan Bank is used to use flying money and silver notes to make the newly minted money not need to be transshipped to the capital, which saves a lot of transportation costs.

Furthermore, the imperial government has now strengthened the management of copper mines. All copper mines are allowed to be mined privately, but businessmen must first obtain a license to get a license, and then pay contract taxes, and the copper they mine can only be sold to the government. Private sale is prohibited, which is the same as salt.

  On the other hand, the imperial court banned the casting of bronze wares, especially large-scale bronze wares. In addition, after the elimination of Buddhism and Taoism, the imperial court also obtained a large number of bronze wares, most of which were melted into copper.

As a result, the cost of copper began to be greatly reduced. It used to be about 80 yuan a catty of copper. After this operation, the price of copper has plummeted now, and it has been directly suppressed to about 50 yuan. Moreover, the government has completely controlled the raw materials of copper. For 3,300 coins, the cost of casting is 750, not counting the transshipment fee.

But now, through various improvements, one furnace can cast 5,000 guan coins a year, labor costs have not increased but decreased, and copper raw materials and copper prices have dropped, so the consistent cost has dropped from the original 750 to 1000 yuan. About four hundred and five yuan, in fact, casting a consistent money is equivalent to earning three hundred yuan, and when the transportation costs are greatly reduced, the actual casting one can get about five hundred yuan in profit.

  100% profit.

  If you can mint 500,000 coins a year, you can earn at least 250,000 coins.

  Now casting money and supervising hundreds of furnaces consumes three million catties of copper material a year, which is still a lot of consumption. However, 500,000 new coins are added to the market every year. In addition, under the current policy, the people no longer hide too much money, and the gap of melting money castings is blocked and the money is banned from going abroad. The amount of coins is gradually increasing. among.

"Your Majesty, I request an edict to prohibit the private casting of common people. In the past, there was a serious shortage of money, so we had to forbid private casting. Now we must plug this gap. At the same time, the circulation of illegal money and private money in the market is prohibited. money and private money, and the Kaiyuan Bank is allowed to exchange the private money and bad money in the hands of the common people."

For private money and bad money, it is not as simple as a simple one-to-one or one-to-a few exchange, but directly weighed and recycled. Copper coins are discounted at half the weight of copper materials. For example, if a thousand private coins weigh six catties, it is calculated as three copper At present, the price of copper is fifty-one catties, so the one thousand private money is only discounted at one hundred and fifty yuan and given back.

On the one hand, private money and evil money are prohibited and prohibited, and on the other hand, they are recycled at half the price of copper. The evil money and private money can be circulated in the market. Private money, more than 1,000 Wen, can be criminalized, and there is a reward for reporting, which also forces them to hide these private money and increase the risk of bad money.

   Bad money drives out good money, and there are also basic conditions. If bad money cannot be circulated, then good money will naturally not be hidden for use.

   It is forbidden to make bronze wares all over the world, it is forbidden to send copper coins abroad, it is forbidden to cast coins privately, and it is forbidden to circulate private money.

  Copper mines are owned by the government, while private mines are collected by the government.

  Multi-pronged approach, since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, this troublesome problem that has plagued the court has been solved. Copper is no longer rare, the more money is minted, the more money will be lost, if not minted, there will be a shortage of money, and if money is scarce, private minting will become more rampant, and when bad coins prevail, good coins will be treasured and not circulated. These vicious circles have finally been broken.

   "How many copper coins do you have at home?" Li Shimin asked Qin Lang with a smile?

"Your Majesty, I only keep a hundred copper coins in my family, and the rest are deposited in the Kaiyuan Bank, or silk cloth." What Qin Lang didn't tell Li Shimin was that his family actually had a lot of gold and silver. Official currency is also not included in the ban.

   "You are really the God of Wealth of my Tang Dynasty!" Li Shimin exclaimed loudly.

  (end of this chapter)