I want to be emperor

Chapter 597 Legal Currency
The postal department of the Ministry of Communications wants to engage in postal remittances, and rely on postal remittances as a basis to further develop banking services such as savings and loans.

This made the Ministry of Finance very dissatisfied, while the Ministry of Industry and Commerce maintained a cautious attitude.

After there was no conclusion among the departments on this matter, and after the Ministry of Communications was unwilling to give up, the matter naturally escalated gradually, and finally appeared in the council meeting for discussion.

However, the ministers of counselors and co-organizers have different opinions on this.

The first is the military. They don’t care about banks or not, and they have nothing to do with them anyway, but they support the postal service to establish a postal remittance system, because it makes it easier for soldiers to send money to your home.

Today, the soldiers of the Great Chu Empire, in order to avoid local separatism and other negative factors, in principle adopt measures for soldiers to serve in different places, which means that it will be more troublesome for soldiers to send money home.

The previous method adopted by the military was to use financial banks to centralize large amounts of transfers in different places. First, the soldiers in a certain army would collect the money they wanted to send home, and collect the collection information, and then the military division headquarters would send someone to Go to the financial bank to handle large-amount transfers in different places, and the money will be sent to the local garrison command, and then the garrison command will notify the family members of the soldiers one by one according to the collection list.

The whole process is very troublesome and complicated, but it has to be done, because after many soldiers joined the army, they also cared about their parents, brothers, sisters, children and other family members in their hometown. All kinds of stipends and trophies are sent home to improve the lives of family members.

How should I put it, if I can't eat and drink enough by myself, I don't care about my family.

Although the subsidies for the soldiers are not much, they are there anyway.

Furthermore, the troops of the Chu army fought frequently, so that the soldiers could also get some private spoils.

They want to send money home, and the military will naturally do a good job in this service.

Now, the post office wants to open a remittance business, and has made it clear that this postal remittance business will be carried out in the garrison post office.

The garrison post office is an institution in the Great Chu Empire that serves the military and transmits military official documents or private letters of the soldiers. It is undertaken by the postal department and supervised by the military logistics department.

If the post office of the garrison can also start remittance business, it will be much more convenient for soldiers to send money home in the future, and it will also save a lot of manpower and material resources of the military.

Therefore, the military strongly supports the postal service to engage in postal remittances.

It also supports the garrison post office to carry out deposit business. In addition to sending money, soldiers also need to save money. In the past, in order to meet the needs of soldiers to save money, the military did it themselves. Soldiers deposited money directly at the division headquarters In the back office.

But the reputation is not right, and it is also prone to corruption problems. It has happened before that the logistics department officials in charge of depositing money for soldiers of a certain division embezzled the money of soldiers and lost their money by gambling.

In the end, in order to avoid turmoil in the army, the military immediately made up for the shortfall in funds...

This incident also made the military very vigilant about it, so if the garrison post office is engaged in deposit business, it can also help the military solve a big problem.

Even the high-level military officials have planned to cooperate with the garrison post office in the postal department to carry out salary distribution in order to avoid corruption in the payment of salary and other problems.

In this way, the personnel of the military and political department who are responsible for the payment of salaries can directly pay the soldiers by transferring money. When the soldiers want to spend money in cash, they can go directly to the post office to get the money.

This can also prevent soldiers from being lost due to their salary being carried with them. If there is a garrison post office account, after the casualties, the military will cooperate with the garrison post office to transfer the funds in the account to the families of the sacrificed soldiers.

Because of these benefits, the military strongly supports the postal service in remittance and storage business.

As for the loan business...it has nothing to do with their military, and their military keeps silent about it.

In addition to the military, the ministers of counselors and co-organizers in the civil service system have different opinions.

Yuan Gaofeng, the Minister of Counselor in charge of industrial, commercial and economic affairs, reserved his opinions on the postal banking business, and neither supported nor opposed it... However, if it is to be established, it must be established in strict accordance with the regulatory regulations of the Finance Department, and it cannot be messed up.

In this regard, the Finance Department has been working overtime for several consecutive days to review and supplement the existing regulatory rules of the financial industry, further strengthening financial regulation.

For example, the margin system was proposed for the first time, in order to ensure the safety of depositors' funds, to prevent banks from having insufficient funds to pay due to bad loans or other problems, and to avoid the risk of a run on the bank.

All banks are required to pay a certain percentage of margin.

This point is actually not aimed at the Finance Bank or the Postal Bank under discussion, but at some government-run local banks and private banks.

Government-run local banks are generally funded by provincial industrial departments.

In principle, all enterprises established with official funding, whether they are directly funded by the Ministry of Industry or financed by local governments, are managed by the Ministry of Industry and local industry departments and departments. It is under dual management with the Ministry of Local Affairs and the Ministry of Industry.

Except for central institutions, in principle, local institutions not directly under the Ministry of Industry are not allowed to establish and manage enterprises.

If you want to start a business in your locality, no matter what kind of business it is, you can only let the local industrial hall or industrial department and other institutions directly under the Ministry of Industry establish and manage it, and other institutions are not allowed.

This is to avoid administrative and commercial entanglements.

Government-run enterprises are a double-edged sword. If used well, they are the pillars of national defense and people's livelihood.

Because government-run enterprises naturally have an official background, it can easily lead to unfair competition, squeeze the living space of private capital, and cause the industry to lose competition.

And an industry, especially the development of industry, cannot lose competition, otherwise there will be a situation where people eat and wait to die.

This is what Die Yu An Le said!

Therefore, the officials of the Great Chu Empire have maintained great restrictions on government-run enterprises, and they cannot be established casually. Even if they are to be established, they must be limited to the Ministry of Industry.

The same is true for the banking industry. Officials of the Great Chu Empire did not restrict local governments from creating local banks, but they all required them to be operated under the Ministry of Industry. At the same time, the number was not too large. At present, there are only six local government-run banks, mainly concentrated in the economy. in more developed areas.

In addition, there are a large number of private banks in the private sector. These private banks were reformed from various old-style financial institutions, such as banks.

So far, these private banks are relatively small in scale. Many of the early banks were not professional banks, and more of them were run concurrently by other private shops or wealthy businessmen.

Until the Great Chu Empire promulgated formal financial laws and regulations, and with the establishment of financial banks, a small number of these private money shops and other institutions saw opportunities, actively carried out reforms in accordance with financial laws, and registered as Formal banks, legally engaged in banking business.

So far, there are more than 100 private banks in the Great Chu Empire. These private banks are generally small in scale, relatively large in size, and relatively weak in anti-risk capabilities.

In order to further regulate the banking industry, improve the ability to resist risks, and avoid the economic crisis caused by bank problems, the Finance Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the Great Chu Empire successively issued a series of policies and regulations.

But this time, it is to further strengthen the supervision.

As long as the postal service's banking business complies with regulatory regulations, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce will give too much interference.

As for whether it can be done, it will be a game between other parties.

After all, once the post office opens a bank, it is destined to be a large-scale nationwide bank, second only to the financial bank, and its tentacles may penetrate deeper into the grassroots than the financial bank, which will cause a certain impact on finances.

Naturally, the finance department is firmly opposed to this!
But there are also people who support it, such as Guo Quanshu, Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, who expressed support for the postal service to open banking business.

Guo Quanshu’s starting point is naturally not something like industrial and commercial development. He doesn’t understand these things at all. Guo Quanshu, as the Minister in charge of the Ministry of Gifts, has long been at the top of the imperial cabinet. His starting point is more to balance all aspects. The power of the empire allows the various factions of the empire to maintain a delicate balance.

This is also the main reason why he has been trusted and reused by Luo Zhixue for a long time.

In other aspects, Guo Quanshu is actually not very good, but he is still a bit capable in playing power.

He has seen that the finance department relies on the finance bank, especially the loan business of the finance bank, which has affected the direction of local construction many times.

Local construction, especially when some large-scale projects are to be carried out, requires financial support. In addition to policy appropriations, policy loans from financial banks are also very important.

And the funds of the financial bank are not unlimited. It is very particular about where it is used and where it is used. This also creates a space for power rent-seeking.

In this regard, Guo Quanshu naturally wants to suppress one or two, otherwise it will be difficult to balance.

Of course, this kind of reason cannot be stated. His reason is that there is currently only one financial bank in the domestic national banks, and experience tells us that an industry needs sufficient competition to better promote the development of the industry.

To this end, he moved out the national defense industry, using several major arsenals as examples to illustrate.

It is said that the reason why the domestic defense industry can develop rapidly today is that the purchase price of flintlock guns can continue to decline, from the previous price of 20 taels of silver to the current price of 20 taels of silver each; The previous 12 taels of silver has been reduced to the current [-] taels of silver;
And not only the price has been reduced, but the performance of muskets and plate armor is getting better and better.

These are all because there are many arsenals in China that can produce flintlock guns and plate armor at the same time. As a purchaser, the military has sufficient choices. In order to compete for orders from the military, major arsenals have to upgrade their technology and lower their prices. Wait.

Based on the needs of competition, he supported the establishment of a second national large bank. Now the postal service relies on post stations in various places and has sufficient conditions and manpower to open a national bank.

And with Guo Quanshu, a heavyweight minister of counselors, expressing his support, the discussion on the postal service's preparation for banking business in the meeting also came to an end.

办！
The question now is what to do?
And this naturally led to a wider range of discussions and competition.

In the end, the discussion came to the discussion area, and after many ministers exchanged political interests in private, they finally finalized a detailed plan.

Do it, let the post office do it!

After all, the post station itself is owned by the post office. It is too difficult to run a national bank without the post office, and the foreign exchange business is not easy.

However, the specific business operation should be independent from the post station, and a government-run bank enterprise should be established separately, but the ownership does not belong to the Ministry of Industry, but to the Postal Department of the Ministry of Communications.

After all, the banking business will be very large, and there will be a lot of people, and the people in each post station are actually people with official status, even if they are messengers, they also have official status from the ninth rank, and they eat the emperor's food!
The postal personnel gave the official body, because this thing has a strong administrative and military role. In the early years, the post station system was directly under the management of the military.

In order to ensure the speed of transmission of urgent official documents and military documents, the post station system cannot be used as an ordinary commercial organization, and it cannot even be managed by an ordinary government-run organization. Instead, it needs a special agency to manage it.

But the banks, let alone the Postal Bank, even ordinary employees and middle and low-level managers in the financial bank are ordinary employees, and only senior managers have official status.

Therefore, it is very necessary to separate the postal and banking businesses, and then set up a separate government-run banking enterprise. Only with the name of this government-run enterprise can they employ a large number of ordinary employees.

At the same time, the finance department has also benefited from them, that is, to allow the post office to open up the post station channel, so that the financial bank's remittance business can also borrow the post station system, and implement the remittance business better and more conveniently. Of course, since the post station is used Place and manpower, they naturally have to give money.

Regarding the liberalization of remittance and postal channels, the postal department has to agree if it does not agree. The above-mentioned counselors and co-organizers have already finalized the plan. As a subordinate organization, they can only handle it according to the regulations.

Ever since, in February 13 of Chengshun, the Dachu Mansion Newspaper officially issued an announcement to prepare for the establishment of the 'Dachu Postal Bank'.

The postal department also took advantage of the trend to carry out certain reforms. The postal department continued to directly manage the postal business and newly established the Dachu Post Bank.

The postal bank will be directly managed by the postal department, but the financial department will give business guidance, and the financial department of the Ministry of industry and commerce will supervise it.

The purpose of the postal service to engage in banking business is to fill the huge shortfall of the post station. As long as it can make money, they have no objection to anything else.

Well, it's useless to have opinions, this is the highest decision of the empire, and you have to hold back any opinions.

After the finalization of the Postal Bank, the Great Chu Empire also took advantage of the opportunity to carry out further reforms to the empire's financial system, such as the full mandatory implementation of the deposit system and the deposit insurance system.

The most important thing is to merge the Finance Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and part of the financial supervision functions of the Ministry of Finance, and set up an independent Financial Supervision Bureau.

Responsible for all financial supervision and regulation functions of the empire.

Immediately, the financial bank was split up, mainly to take back a series of powers such as currency issuance rights and financial supervision to establish the Central Bank of the Great Chu Empire, which was under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Financial Supervision Bureau.

In the future, the Central Bank of the Great Chu Empire will undertake a series of tasks such as financial supervision, currency issuance, and financial regulation. For example, the deposits in each bank are paid to the Central Bank for preservation.

After the finance bank is split, it will evolve into a pure commercial bank and continue to be owned by the finance department. After all, this is the purse of the finance department. Anyone who dares to take the finance bank will have to fight directly with the finance department.

As for Tang Fengze, the minister in charge of taxation and finance, he is not dead yet.

Around the establishment of the Postal Bank and the subsequent establishment of the General Administration of Financial Supervision, as well as the split of the Finance Bank, these all caused some turmoil in the financial industry of the empire in the spring of Chengshun 13.

However, these turbulences are not major and are all controllable.

Moreover, after the establishment of the General Administration of Financial Supervision, the financial industry of the Great Chu Empire has also embarked on a fast track.

The General Administration of Financial Supervision issued a series of financial-related policies and regulations, and began to implement their first major project.

On February 13th, [-]th year of Chengshun, Wang Dehua, the first director of the State Administration of Financial Supervision, wrote a letter, formally requesting the abolition of the two yuans and changing the yuan, and the issuance of the first official banknotes of the Great Chu Empire.

The purpose of abolishing the two and changing the yuan is to establish a legal currency and standardize the casting and circulation of currency.

The most important thing is that the new legal currency unit 'Yuan' will adopt the silver standard, and one legal dollar can be exchanged for 37 grams of pure silver, which is also the silver content of one or two silver coins of the previous face value.

To put it bluntly, in order to avoid trouble, continue to use the original currency specification, just change the name!

More importantly start issuing official banknotes!

The banknotes of the Great Chu Empire used to be only banknotes in various banks. At the beginning, there were banknotes in circulation among the people. However, the Great Chu Empire severely cracked down on the private issuance of banknotes. The banknotes of the Finance Bank are recognized, so in the past ten years, the most banknotes in circulation in the Great Chu Empire are actually the banknotes of the Finance Bank.

And this bank note, to some extent, has actually become the official banknote.

Fixed face value, bearer, and official recognition can be used to pay taxes, which makes the bank notes of Finance Bank have a basis for wide circulation.

The General Administration of Financial Supervision of the Great Chu Empire is going to formally create the first set of officially issued banknotes of the Great Chu Empire on this basis.

Throughout the development of banknotes, many rulers in ancient Chinese history lacked basic financial concepts, or believed that people’s money was their own money, and did not care about issues such as inflation and credit value of banknotes, especially those issued by the Ming Dynasty. The so-called banknotes are even more stinky...

The government doesn’t even need paper money issued by the government to collect taxes... how can you expect the people to accept it?

So by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the reputation of banknotes was already notorious. The credit of the official banknotes of the Ming Dynasty was not as high as the various convertible paper coupons issued by private wealthy businessmen. Bank notes issued by private individuals.

This is also the reason why the Great Chu Empire officials did not directly issue banknotes at the beginning, but used financial banks to issue bearer bank notes, and used curves to save the country.

If the government issues banknotes directly, the people will not take it for granted...

Relatively speaking, the credit issued by the financial bank is still higher. After all, the name used is not banknotes or precious banknotes, but directly in the name of an unregistered deposit certificate.

In this way, it can be regarded as reopening the gradual trust of the people of China in banknotes. Of course, in fact, there is not much trust. Many people still do not trust the bearer bank notes of the Finance Bank. They are more willing to trust real money.

However, at any rate, a certain foundation has been laid. The Bank of Finance has issued tens of millions of taels of banknotes. Therefore, the officials of the Great Chu Empire are finally preparing to implement official legal paper currency.

In order to avoid turbulence, to avoid public panic, and to allow the public to accept it, the Financial Supervisory Bureau intends to use a certain amount of time to gradually promote the new first set of currencies, and to allow the unregistered bank notes previously issued by the Finance Bank to continue to circulate. One proceeds to exchange for official banknotes.

Of course, after these bearer bank notes entered the bank, they could only enter but not exit.

The General Administration of Financial Supervision is very cautious in order to abolish the two reforms and issue official banknotes, and this cautious attitude has also won Luo Zhixue's approval!
(End of this chapter)