Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

Using forging presses to make silver and copper coins was naturally the best way to reform the currency system.

But there is an obvious question. I have neither eggs nor rice. How do I cook egg fried rice?

There is indeed a Tongshan County in Sichuan that produces copper, and it is true that some areas produce silver. But the little silver and copper output disappeared immediately after it was released. The more exquisitely forged the coins were, the faster they disappeared, being hidden away in cellars by wealthy households.

In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, iron coins were circulated throughout the country, and copper coins were gradually issued.

Sichuan just can't change this, because the copper coins produced by the Money Making Supervision are all issued close to the copper-producing areas, and the cost of transporting them all across regions is too high.

As a result, no matter how many copper coins were issued by the money-making supervisors in Sichuan and surrounding areas, because the quantity was too small compared to the market, once they were issued, they would sink into the sea, and not even a splash would be seen. As long as those copper coins go into the pockets of wealthy households, there is no way they can be used again.

Even the high-quality iron coins are kept at home by wealthy households and they are exclusively used for the rotten iron coins.

This is the literal meaning of bad money driving out good money.

In the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty, due to the shortage of money, the area where iron money was used continued to expand.

At first, iron money was distributed to the Western Army, and the imperial court used the iron money to purchase military supplies in Shaanxi, and then gradually expanded to the Nanxiang Basin. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Lianghuai also began to use iron money.

Since Cai Jing is targeting iron money, he will naturally not let go of paper money.

Jiaozi was completely abolished in the hands of Cai Jing, and Qian Yin was used instead. This is also a kind of banknote, and it is issued nationwide, with the exception of Gyeonggi, Zhejiang, Jinghu, Guangdong and Fujian. Even Jiangdong and Jiangxi are also banknote areas.

Then it exploded and there was not much reserve fund at all.

The copper-producing areas of the Southern Song Dynasty were occupied by the Jin Kingdom, and Zhao Gou could only use iron money and paper money to support his finances. Not only did iron coins circulate in the Huaihe River, but banknotes were issued nationwide. The banknotes in the Southern Song Dynasty were called Huizi. It was used until the fall of the Song Dynasty, and was picked up and inherited by the Yuan and Ming dynasties.

In ancient China, the effective use time of banknotes was at least three hundred years!

"It is not necessary to use Sichuan brocade, silk is more common and is also a hard currency," Zhu Ming suggested. "Salt can also be used as an endorsement, and Sichuan salt is an important economic guarantee."

Zhu Guoxiang said: "There is also gold. Yangzhou and Jinzhou produce gold, and Fangzhou also produces gold. Using gold, grain, silk cloth, and Sichuan salt as reserves is enough to ensure the credibility of banknotes. There is also the issue of anti-counterfeiting, which must be adopted For printing on special paper, special patterns, and special inks, it is best to invent overlay color printing technology.”

Fangzhou's gold output ranks high in the country, far greater than Yangzhou and Jinzhou.

"Jinghu and Jiangxi must be captured as soon as possible. They are both important copper and silver producing areas," Ju Ming said. "By occupying these two places, copper and silver coins can be forged and circulated in parallel with banknotes. It would be better if we can capture Yunnan. Yunnan There are enough copper mines.”

Zhu Guoxiang shook his head: "It's difficult."

At this time, the entire Guizhou was in the hands of barbarians, and there were also a large number of barbarians in southern Sichuan. Yunnan was almost surrounded by barbarians.

The degree of Chineseization in Dali is extremely high, but it is only in the major cities, and barbarians are everywhere in the country.

It may be easy to conquer, but it is extremely difficult to govern, and the administrative cost is too high, so the only way to overcome it is to use the chieftain system. At the same time as the chieftains were canonized, the army and people were moved to settle the land, allowing the Han people to occupy key areas and radiate influence towards the surrounding barbarians.

Immigrant settlement was very difficult in the early Song Dynasty, mainly due to high mortality caused by miasma.

Now gradually gaining experience, officials already know how to prevent miasma, and many decoctions have been explored and summarized by doctors.

But even if we want to immigrate to settle the land, priority will be given to Hunan and Hubei, which are so vast and sparsely populated? If there are people, money and food to immigrate, of course the core areas must be developed first, and places such as southern Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan must come later.

The father and son began to discuss this. Zhu Guoxiang said: "First of all, we should gradually sinicize in southern Sichuan, especially in the salt-producing areas. Even Yibin and Luzhou are full of barbarians, so why Guizhou and Yunnan? I plan to open schools in these places and let the barbarian leaders send them When children come to study, they serve as hostages and can also spread Chinese culture. All barbarian leaders and familiar barbarians must change their surnames and take Chinese names. Especially the familiar barbarians who are close to each other must all be registered as households to integrate the people."

Ju Ming said: "It may provoke rebellion. There are only three armies in southern Sichuan. I don't know if the army is enough."

Zhu Guoxiang said: "Suppress the rebellion if it arouses it. There are still troops in eastern Sichuan that can be transferred at any time. In Lizhou you governed, the five tribes were the first to establish households. They are all familiar with Qiang. Not only can they speak Chinese, but they have already The hereditary system of chiefs has been abolished, and many of the Five Barbarians are still serving as soldiers. As long as certain tax exemptions are given, it will be relatively easy to organize households and people. Let all the Five Barbarians of Tengxiang Army write letters home."

When Ju Ming was in Lizhou, he had already organized the five tribes of barbarians into unified households.

But that's just a show of concealing a large amount of land from the population.

This time it is serious. Population and land must not be concealed. But after all, these tribes were the first to surrender, so they couldn't go too far. Taxes must be reduced accordingly, and some autonomy must be left for them.

Zhu Guoxiang said: "This year I plan to establish an agricultural promotion department and train specialized agricultural officials. Priority will be given to promoting corn and sweet potatoes in mountainous areas. Most of the barbarians are in mountainous areas. Once the core areas are promoted, agricultural officers will be sent to barbarian settlements. Treat the barbarians. The barbarians cannot be stubborn, especially the mature barbarians. They were oppressed miserably by the officials of the Song Dynasty. If you give them benefits and let them eat well, some barbarians will definitely be grateful. With this kind of kindness, you can win over the differences and fight against the stubbornness. molecular."

Ju Ming's mind was very fast. He was talking about barbarians just now, but suddenly he thought of something else: "Get me some horses, good horses from the northwest."

Zhu Guoxiang said with a smile: "I have to make friends with Yao Gu, and I also have to make friends with the newly appointed tea master of Tijidu."

He cooperated with the tea and horse department of the imperial court, exchanged Sichuan tea for northwest war horses, and smuggled them all the way over.

The tea horse department is very rich, and the recent promotions have all been promoted by the tea horse department, all of which are the prime minister's confidants. In order to make money, most of them are willing to cooperate. When the time comes to buy horses from each other, they will definitely sell the good horses to Sichuan, and then give the bad horses to the Song Dynasty army.

This kind of operation is too normal, like those warlords in the Ming Dynasty who secretly sold their strong official horses, claiming to the outside world that they had been nourished to death, and kept begging the court to allocate funds to buy horses. Then he cooperated with Mongolia and Houjin. He first sold bad horses to Mongolia and Houjin, and then used the court's money to buy bad horses and receive kickbacks.

Anyway, each one was more playful than the other, and in the end they were too lazy to do complicated operations, so they cut out all kinds of intermediate links and just asked for money to buy horses.

Ju Ming said: "The Nanxiang Basin is vast and sparsely populated, and many places are barren and grassy. In addition to allocating the land to soldiers and refugees, I also plan to temporarily set aside some for pasture. Tengxiang's army will be transferred there, and there will be large tracts of pasture for use. They are having fun. But this is just light cavalry. I also want to build some heavy cavalry, so I need a large number of northwest war horses. Establishing elite cavalry is not something that happens overnight, and it must be put on the agenda now. What is the best pasture? "

Zhu Guoxiang said: "Alfalfa is found all over the country, and it was originally introduced as pasture."

"Then arrange some refugees to be horse farmers and let them grow alfalfa in large quantities," Ju Ming asked again, "How is the ordnance factory doing?"

Zhu Guoxiang said: "The Ordnance Department is about to be formally established, and Qian Chen would be a good candidate. Let him be in charge of the Ordnance Department. You can rest assured, and so can I. I plan to set up seven ordnance stations in each state and county, and issue private mining and smelting licenses. Provide them with advanced smelting technology. Half of the pig iron and wrought iron smelted by private parties must be sold to the government. The government only needs to purchase raw wrought iron and let the Ordnance Institute make armor, which can not only improve efficiency, but also Reduce financial expenses. Moreover, when issuing smelting licenses, we can also reward and control wealthy local households so that they can cooperate in the census of population and land."

The Northern Song Dynasty also wanted to run the Salt and Iron State Corporation, but facts proved that the efficiency was extremely poor and corruption was rampant.

After every rectification, it would break down again within ten years at most.

In the end, it could only be changed to a salt and iron franchise, and business licenses were issued to businessmen. The court only controlled key processes, and the output of salt and iron could be greatly increased immediately.

Even Song Huizong's imperial tea garden is now in a mess, purchasing large quantities of private tea as imperial tea as tribute.

Because the quality of the tea from the Royal Tea Garden is far inferior to that of the private tea.

Even though many new tea products were actually developed by Imperial Tea Gardens, private tea gardens can complete learning, imitation and overtaking after two or three years of new product development.

The father and son chatted for several hours, and the last part of their conversation was about sharing the same family.

Zhu Guoxiang already has a plan. After completing the land inventory, he will immediately implement allotment of land into acres.

This is a disguised increase in land tax, but it can reduce apportionment, which has both advantages and disadvantages for the landowners.

If the government could ensure that no random allocations were made, the landowners would be extremely willing and supportive, but it is a pity that the ancient dynasties could not do this. The final result is that while the land must be apportioned per acre, the apportionment will gradually be restored, resulting in the landlord having to pay twice. This is the fundamental reason why landowners object to dividing the land into acres.

The father and son exchanged various military and political measures for several days.

After confirming each other, we can each do our own thing while still having some cooperation.

Now, the armor manufacturing factory on the site has temporarily stopped making ordnance and is frantically making farm tools.

There are also a large number of cattle. Each county provides ten to fifty cattle depending on its level of wealth. All of them must be transported to the Nanxiang Basin together with farm tools. Some cattle and farm tools have arrived soon, and a large number of refugees are waiting for spring plowing.

All the prisoners of origin on Jingnan Road have been released back to their hometowns.

Local refugees were also resettled. Every day, farmers from the North Road of Beijing fled in groups from the imperial territory to the Zhuthi territory.

In particular, the landlords on Jingnan Road are extremely loyal to the Red Thief.

Just because Zhu Guoxiang ordered that there be no more things like Xicheng Institute, many landlords' taxes were halved.

Landowners who received benefits sent their children to Hanzhong one after another to express their loyalty and to seek official positions.