1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 95 Currency ([-])

Luo Shengdong didn't even care about this potentially dangerous situation.The Haihan people are surrounded by mountains, and there are many places where Li and Miao live together. Where can these prisoners escape even if they escape?As for labor costs, Luo Shengdong believed that the Haihan people, who always kept their word, would not break the rules because of this small amount of money. After all, exchanging money for labor was something that the two parties had already secretly negotiated.

On behalf of the Haihan people, Luo Shengdong negotiated with the State Yamen for only one tael of silver per person per year. Even if all the prisoners sent to Yazhou for hard labor were sent to the Haihan people, it would only be two to three thousand taels a year. silver.This may be a very good offer for the state government that provides financial subsidies to the Yazhou Prison every year, but Luo Shengdong is well aware of how much the Haihan people have in their minds, and the salt business alone will have several annual sales in the future. Compared with the income of ten thousand taels of silver, such a small amount of labor costs is really just a drop in the bucket for the Haihan people.

As for the whereabouts of these prisoners in hard labor, the executive committee has already made general arrangements.Although the land transportation between the two bases has been opened up, it is only at the level of opening up. The arrival of these 200-odd laborers can just be used for further leveling the road surface. Large machine tools are sent to the inland areas for preparation.Of course, the children in this road construction team will also be directly included in the education system under the Executive Committee. They will get rid of their status as prisoners and live on this land as naturalized citizens.The fate of the other prisoners will depend on the expansion of the time-traversing crowd in the future - when the time-traveling crowd takes control of Yazhou City, they will probably be able to elute their identities as prisoners.

Luo Shengdong's efforts to send the population to Victory Port is no longer just to fulfill his original promise to the Executive Committee, but more to prove his ability to the Haihan people.The current Luo Shengdong is not the captive officer who bowed to the Executive Committee and begged for a way to survive. He has made great achievements in fighting pirates, and has won recognition and awards from the local garrison high-level officials. He has also helped the local government to solve the employment of the unemployed and the re-emergence of the unemployed. The two major problems of employment also have a good reputation in the local civil service system.Although Luo Shengdong is only a general manager and has little power at hand, the momentum of development is excellent, and how to gain both power and money is Luo Shengdong's personal goal to achieve with the help of the Haihan people.

The two thousand catties of salt that Luo Shengdong transported from Shengli Port a few days ago had already been sold to the counties under Yazhou’s administration in a few days. There are more than 150 taels.Although he has repeatedly calculated the approximate level of income in advance, Luo Shengdong was still very excited when he got the money. The next day, he went to the Yazhou Prison to urge the transshipment of the prisoners, and hurriedly sent them to Haihan. Hong Kong.After Luo Shengdong made up the credit owed in the last transaction, he asked Schneider who was responsible for handing over to him that he hoped to continue to wholesale salt from here, and said that he could settle part of it in cash instead of paying the full amount on credit like last time. up.

However, Schneider did not rush to deal with him, but handed him a small piece of paper: "We will talk about the deal later, you look at this first."

Luo Shengdong didn't know why, so he took a look and saw that this piece of paper was light green, two inches wide or four inches long, with the words "circulation voucher" printed in block letters in the center, and "circulation coupons" printed on the left side. One Yuan", on the right is the appearance of the giant iron ship in the port, with four small characters "Haihan Bank" on the top, and the words "Dang Yin Yiliang" on the bottom.There are very complicated patterns on the paper. In Luo Shengdong's opinion, the printing is very exquisite. Just printing such a small picture, you dare to sell it for a tael of silver. Wouldn't it be too dark?
The slander returned to the slander. Luo Shengdong knew that the Haihan people had a strong purpose in doing things, and would never do something that had no practical significance. He immediately replied respectfully: "I'm stupid, I don't know what's the use of this thing?"

Schneider smiled and said, "It's called a negotiable note, which is used to replace copper coins, silver, and gold."

Regarding the construction of the financial system of the crossing regime, it has been discussed and studied in the Preparatory Committee for many times long before the crossing.But no matter what kind of financial management system and financial settlement system is adopted, there is one thing that cannot be bypassed, and that is the issuance of currency.The direct use of the currency system of the Ming Dynasty will definitely not work for the Preparatory Committee, which wants to establish a political power. Everyone in the Preparatory Committee believes that only by issuing their own currency that crosses the regime can the establishment of a financial system be practical. significance.

At first, most people believed that silver, copper and hard alloy coins should be issued directly. Such circulating currency is easier to be recognized by the public and more in line with the settlement needs of international trade in the 17th century. Great profits are generated, which is also an important reason why new currencies will be launched after each new generation of power comes to power.The preparatory committee at that time also conducted a special investigation for this purpose, prepared several sets of coinage design plans, and even secretly made several sets of original dies for stamping coins in the metal processing factory of Baixing.

But when financial expert Schneider joined, he quickly rejected the preparatory committee's previous plan.Schneider also held a special briefing session for this, and gave a popular science class on financial knowledge to the cross-trainers who were in Guangzhou at that time.

In Schneider's view, there are several fatal problems in the original currency issuance plan of the Preparatory Committee.First, the precious metal reserves of the group itself are too small. Even if a coin is barely created, its circulation is not very large. Although some people think that other metal currencies can be continuously collected through trade to supplement the precious metal reserves, but Schneider pointed out that according to Gresham's Law, when two currencies with different actual values ​​and the same legal ratio are circulated in the market of a region at the same time, the currency with higher value will inevitably withdraw from the circulation basin due to melting, export or collection. The last remaining currency is still low-value currency, which is the famous phenomenon in the financial field that bad money drives out good money.No matter how much precious metal currency is issued by the Cross-border Group, they will not be able to stop the market’s misappropriation of good money, which will inevitably happen and the Cross-border Group cannot resist.

The second reason is that the economic aggregate of the Transit Group itself is too small, and after the issuance of precious metal currency, the ability to deal with market risks is obviously insufficient.In the future trade, a large amount of precious metal currency is imported and exported very frequently, which will easily cause fluctuations in prices across the group's controlled areas, and even cause financial crises in some areas in some special periods.

Third, Schneider believes that if the Crossroad Group wants to establish a modern financial system, it must rely on the issuance of debt-based currency to achieve it.The so-called debt currency is relative to the non-debt currency of precious metals. Precious metal currencies such as gold and silver can be circulated across eras and borders without relying on anyone’s promise or the coercion of government power, while debt currency is. Excessive issuance of currency by means of linking with precious metals, national debt, etc. can artificially increase the total economic volume, which is very useful for the financial system in the early stage.

But some people immediately questioned Schneider's statement - after all, you are suggesting the issuance of banknotes. The notorious Damingbao banknotes in history are a lesson from the past. Although Chuanzhong can use modern financial management knowledge to avoid the appearance of Damingbao The situation of indiscriminate issuance of banknotes, and using their good reputation and absolute authority in the jurisdiction as a guarantee, but the people of the Ming Dynasty who have suffered a lot may not recognize the emergence of another new paper currency.

For this kind of doubt, Schneider came up with his own currency solution-the value of paper currency is linked to the precious metal reserves of the Trans-Group, and it is only circulated as currency in the internal settlement system, and this currency must be forced to replace precious metal currency.

Seeing that many people were puzzled by this plan, Schneider gave a more detailed explanation.The Crossover Group can issue a voucher-like currency in its own jurisdiction, and the currency value of this currency, or the actual purchasing power, is directly linked to precious metals. For example, one yuan of currency has the same purchasing power of one or two silvers.So far, it does not seem to be different from the Daming Treasure Banknotes, but the total amount of paper money issued by the Chuan Group has been rigorously and scientifically calculated. maintain the stability of the currency value.

The mandatory implementation of this currency system will ensure that almost all the precious metal currencies in the jurisdiction are concentrated in the hands of the cross-border group to deal with the market turmoil caused by the shortage or excess of currency that may appear in large foreign trade in the early stage.

If you change it elsewhere, forcing this kind of untrustworthy paper currency will probably only have one end - in a short time, this thing will be reduced to waste paper that no one wants in the market.However, the Cross-border Group has an incomparable advantage, that is, a considerable proportion of employees in the early cross-border jurisdiction have no monetary income at all. This is the conclusion drawn by the Preparatory Committee after repeated deductions, and in this near-zero It is much less difficult to enforce paper money in the financial markets of today's financial markets - something is better than nothing, which is a normal thought that everyone will have.

The situation after crossing also confirmed the correctness of the original deduction. The vast majority of people who came to the site of the crossing group to work are just for a bite to eat, or to exchange labor for the various commodities provided by the crossing group, only very few of people will ask to settle their wages in currency.After the establishment of the commune, the people who joined the commune only had the accumulation of labor points, and there was no monetary reward at all.For these people, if they can receive more practical monetary remuneration, whether the currency is paper money, copper coins, or silver taels, they are equally welcome.

(End of this chapter)