I want to be emperor

Chapter 596 Imperial Finance
Compared with later generations, the financial industry of the Great Chu Empire is naturally very primitive and backward, but after several years of development, a basic financial network system has basically been built.

This financial system is centered on the financial bank affiliated to the Ministry of Finance, and at the same time, there are government-run banks established by other local finances, and many private banks participate in it, thus forming the banking industry in the Great Chu Empire.

The core of this banking system is the financial bank!
The Finance Bank is directly managed by the Ministry of Finance. Its main businesses include currency issuance, savings, loans, and checks.

Savings is the basic business of banks, and it is worth noting that there is no interest in depositing money in the banks of the Great Chu Empire... Let alone interest, if people can not charge you for storage fees, that is a great reform and progress up.

As for loans, we mainly provide policy loans, especially industrial loans.

This deposit and one loan also allowed the circulation of funds in the Great Chu Empire, and the business community could also gather more funds for development.

Money is of no use in the cellar... it has to be circulated to be able to generate value to society.

Currency issuance is also the main business of the Finance Bank. It not only undertakes the issuance of national currency, but also undertakes the responsibility of recycling countless old and messy currencies.

The current currency issue includes coins and banknotes, and the face value is based on the currency face value formulated in the second year of Chengshun.

There is only one kind of gold coin, a gold coin with a gold content of 37 grams, but this kind of gold coin is often not used in daily life, and is basically used as a large amount of trade or bank reserves

Silver coins have three denominations, including standard silver coins with a silver content of 37 grams and a denomination of one tael;

Between the two corners of the silver coin, the decimal system is adopted.

Further down are copper coins, with a face value of twenty, ten, five, two, and one.

However, it is worth noting that the Great Chu Empire is currently implementing a standard silver standard, and the statistics of various taxes and economic data are all based on silver as the standard unit.

However, it is not mandatory to link gold to silver, nor to link silver to copper coins.

How many copper coins can be exchanged for one or two denominations of silver coins, and how many silver coins can be exchanged for one gold coin, let the folks figure it out, and the government will not interfere...

However, the Finance Bank will adjust the exchange ratio between copper coins, silver coins, and gold coins in a timely manner according to the price changes of precious metals in the market.

At present, one tael of gold can be exchanged for about ten taels of silver, and one tael of silver can be exchanged for one thousand coins of the newly minted standard copper coin of the Great Chu Empire.

The ratio between gold and silver has been relatively stable in the past ten or twenty years, maintaining at about 20:[-]. Although the price of silver has dropped, it will take a long time for this level to rise.

The standard exchange between copper coins and silver coins is because when the copper coins were first minted, the mint had already considered the issue of linking with silver coins, and basically adopted the metal content of one tael of silver equal to one thousand copper coins to mint. .

That is to say, when it was first issued, one thousand Wen could be exchanged for one tael of silver.

However, in the past few years, with the increase in overseas trade, a large amount of silver from the Americas has been imported into China, which to a certain extent has caused the price of silver in the Great Chu Empire to fall. Now one tael of silver can only be exchanged for nine hundred and ninety-nine in China. Ten copper coins.

However, the ratio between gold and silver has maintained an initial stable level, because in the foreign trade of the Great Chu Empire, not only silver was accepted, but gold was also accepted.

In the huge trade surplus, a large amount of gold and silver continued to be imported into China.

However, copper as the material of copper coins has not been imported in large quantities, which is why the price of copper coins has risen.

Because of the huge surplus in foreign trade, a large amount of silver was imported, which in turn led to the depreciation of domestic silver and inflation. I also learned that the exchange ratio between gold and silver in Europe is even more fearful... A large number of European merchants are transporting silver to trade. When the goods and gold were exchanged, the Great Chu Empire also responded in the winter of the 12th year of Chengshun.

Gold is used for pricing in foreign trade instead of silver as in the future, and the ratio of gold to silver is increased in international trade, and gold is given priority.

This is when the Ministry of Finance began to increase the amount of gold input, increase gold reserves, and prepare for the subsequent gold standard system.

As a large amount of silver was mined from the Americas and even Fuso, the depreciation of silver has become irreversible. In order to avoid large losses, it has become a necessary choice to abandon the silver standard and adopt the gold standard.

And if you want to adopt the gold standard, let alone other things, at least you must have a large amount of gold reserves!

Before establishing the gold standard, the Great Chu Empire needed to reserve a sufficient amount of gold, and at the same time further promote the issuance of banknotes.

Strictly speaking, there are no banknotes or banknotes directly issued by the government, but only financial banknotes issued by the Finance Bank that has obtained the franchise of banknotes!
This thing is essentially a certificate of deposit, one is a registered bank note, and the other is an unregistered bank note.

A registered bank note is a bank note with a fixed object, which has no circulation value and is different from the concept of banknotes.

What truly possesses the concept of banknotes and has circulation value is the bearer bank notes issued by financial banks.

People can go to the financial bank, deposit a certain amount of cash, and then get a bearer bank note of the corresponding denomination.

These bearer banknotes have complex anti-counterfeiting measures, and use very special paper and watermark technology, steel plate engraving gravure technology and specially developed confidential ink. Many technologies are added together to ensure that this bearer banknote is not Will be easily cracked and imitated!
Of course... In fact, relying on these anti-counterfeiting measures alone is still unreliable. After all, there are always smart people, and there are many of them. At the same time, it is a small skill to distinguish authenticity from falsehood. Not everyone can accurately distinguish true from false.

Therefore, the anti-counterfeiting technology of the bearer bank notes of the Great Chu Empire is only to prevent gentlemen, but the real protection against villains is the law!

The punishments of the Great Chu Empire clearly stipulated: Once the personnel in the manufacturing, transportation and other counterfeit industrial chains are discovered, the lightest is to search the family and exterminate the family. The main culprit will punish the three clans.
There is clear evidence that knowingly using counterfeit banknotes will result in the death penalty, and in serious cases, family and family extermination. Those who maliciously use counterfeit banknotes in large numbers will be regarded as counterfeiters, and the three clans will start to be punished!
The laws of the Great Chu Empire have always been so strict, not to mention the laws of the Great Chu Empire are even inhumane, the law is not about humanity, it is about deterrence!
How should I put it, when any law-maker makes laws, it is not to punish those who break the law, but to make people fearful and not to break the law!

Everyone knows that killing people pays for their lives, so people don't kill people casually.

If people know that killing people doesn't cost them their lives... then it's over, you're on the street, you look at a certain big brother one more time, and then he cuts you straight away without saying a word... you don't even bother to say "what are you doing" to you Say……

At the same time, the concept of family and clan in the Huaxia region is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Sometimes it doesn't work if you threaten to kill him, but if you threaten to kill his whole family, the effect is much better.

Before people do something, they will consider the cost.

You catch all those who spit everywhere and fine them one by one, and those who refuse to mend their ways are sent to prison. In a few years, all of China will be full of people who would rather swallow a mouthful of thick phlegm than spit anywhere!

Whether it is illegal behavior or morality, they are actually similar things.

Therefore, whether people will break the law cannot depend on their self-awareness, but depends on the deterrence of the law... So you can see that among the many laws of the Great Chu Empire, it is always a matter of copying the family and exterminating the family!

So... In the matter of forgery, the idea of ​​the finance department is: if you have the guts to forge banknotes, if you don't punish your nine clans, I will lose!

With sufficient anti-counterfeiting measures, once the bearer bank notes issued by the Finance Bank, the Finance Bank will recognize the votes but not the person. Even if a dog comes to exchange the bearer bank notes for the corresponding gold and silver, the Finance Bank will exchange it for...

At the same time, in order to ensure the circulation and credit value of banknotes, the tax agencies of the Great Chu Empire also collected bearer banknotes issued by the Finance Bank when collecting taxes.

The official tax collection directly ensures credit, and at the same time, they can go to the local financial bank to exchange for cash at any time. Therefore, the effect of issuing bearer bank notes in the financial bank of the Great Chu Empire is not bad.

In addition to bearer bank notes, there are also registered bank notes, which are actually deposits and have been gradually replaced by passbooks in deposit accounts.

Then there are checks for large-value transactions. This kind of checks is generally only used by merchants and individuals with strong strength and reserves in the bank. They deposit a certain amount of funds in the bank in advance, and then get a check with anti-counterfeiting technology Then the businessman writes a check to others, and the recipient goes to a fixed bank to exchange it. After the bank checks that the drawer's bank account has sufficient funds, it then deducts and cashes it.

What is questionable is that all the above-mentioned financial businesses, except for the unregistered bank notes that are circulated nationwide, are basically limited to the opening bank.

For example, deposits and registered checks can only be withdrawn or exchanged at the bank where the account is opened.

To some extent, each branch of a financial bank is actually operated independently... There is no way, the information exchange is too slow these days, and the bank has no way to report the flow of funds between accounts in a timely manner!
If you dare to play cross-bank withdrawals, some people will dare to travel hundreds of miles a day, and then use the information time difference to carry out large-scale fraudulent cash out.

This also makes the long-distance capital flow very troublesome, which is not a problem for enterprises. Financial banks have special money order services for corporate customers.

To put it simply, the enterprise opens a special money order account in the local area, and after depositing the corresponding funds, obtains a large-value money order in empty name with an anti-counterfeiting mark. Information such as withdrawal time, financial bank branch, etc.

Customers from other places return to the local area after receiving the money order, and take the company's foreign money order and corporate certificates to the designated branch for exchange and withdrawal.

Because the amount of long-distance bills of exchange is huge, and because they are relatively complicated and cautious, in addition to watermarks, steel plate printing, and specific paper, there are also traditional seals, handwriting comparison and identification, and digital passwords that are changed regularly to ensure nothing goes wrong.

In order to ensure the operation of the money order, the financial bank needs to regularly organize personnel to recognize and memorize handwriting, and as much as possible to write with fixed personnel, and then change the password regularly.

This strict measure ensures the safety of funds, but at the same time it also limits the scope of business development. Basically, this kind of long-distance draft is only limited to provincial-level branches, and is divided by region. Guangdong, Guangxi, Huguang, The Pan-Jiangnan region, East China, and North China are all separated.

Cross-region transfer of money order can only be carried out in specific provincial branches or branches in a few big cities, which is very troublesome.

In the era when there was no telegraph, the transmission of information was too troublesome, and the financial industry was correspondingly limited.

This also made it very troublesome for small businesses in the Great Chu Empire to transfer funds across regions.

If ordinary people simply earn money from family members far away... let alone, the financial bank's money order business is not open to them at all if the funds are not up to a certain level...

Therefore, in the past, when ordinary people sent money, they literally sent money... direct coins or banknotes were mailed through the post system, but the cost was not low, and it was prone to risks and troubles.

After all, money is not a bearer. If it is lost in the mail or there are other troubles, it is easy to get entangled.

In order to avoid this kind of trouble, but also to open up new business, the post office applied to the superior to open a new business: remittance!
The remittance business is actually a bit similar to the money order in the financial bank...but there is a difference here!
The remittance business opened by the postal service is an internal process, and it is registered in both directions.

The sender sends money to the big post station in the local county town, gives the money to the post station, and leaves the payee's address, name and other information.

Then the post station will issue a remittance slip, which will be sent to the payee as a letter.

In addition, inside the station, a receipt with remittance information will also be issued to the receiving station.

In this way, the synchronous arrival of information is implemented, and there is only internal circulation within the post station.

After receiving the remittance slip, the payee takes the remittance slip and identity certificate to the local post station to withdraw the funds, and then issues a receipt and mails it back to the sender.

If no one comes to withdraw money for a long time, then the local station will send a receipt of unsuccessful payment to the sender, and the sender will re-adjust the collection information to send money or get back the funds.

The internal accounts of the post station are regularly compared and balanced.

This completes the entire remittance business!
From this, the post station naturally wants to make money, and the remittance is charged according to the distance and amount.

If this system is done by the postal service...it is not as simple as sending money, but a bank that covers the whole country can be built in minutes by relying on this system...

This can send money, and there is no problem with saving money and lending...

In this regard, the Ministry of Finance has a lot of opinions, thinking that the post office of the Ministry of Communications has overstepped the limit: as soon as you deliver the letter, it will deliver your letter well, and it is a wool bank... This is not a joke!
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce expressed cautiously that the financial risks here are not small, and they need to consider carefully.

This kind of national bank now has a financial bank, and the supervision of this has made the Ministry of Industry and Commerce a big headache. The financial system of this kind of national bank is extremely risky.

If there is another one, the financial regulatory agency under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce will be even bigger, so they are extremely cautious about it.

What needs to be made clear here is that in the Great Chu Empire, the Ministry of Finance is responsible for treasury management, revenue and expenditure, and currency issuance, and directly manages financial banks, etc. To put it bluntly, it is the money bag of the empire...

But the supervision of the entire financial industry is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance, because it cannot manage itself, and by the way, a large number of private competitors...

The regulatory powers of the financial industry, like the regulatory powers of other industrial and commercial industries, belong to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

(End of this chapter)