Chongzhen Daming: Starting from Coal Mountain

Chapter 424 Money Shortage Relief
In the next half month, the Wang and Hu families continued to sell grain to Nanjing, and they all sold it at the rice market at a price of five taels per shi.

The grain merchants in Nanjing all eat in one by one.

But it takes money to eat these grains.

In order to eat the grain trafficked by the Wang and Hu families, the grain merchants headed by the Mao family, the Xu family, and the Qian family had no choice but to raise money for loans. To make matters worse, the overnight lending rate on the market soared to [-] yuan for a while!
It means that you can get [-]% of the income by lending money to others to cross the bridge, which is an exaggeration.

Under the lure of this high-yield, those wealthy landowners who had been immobile for thousands of years were alarmed, and dug out all the silver buried deep in their own yards and lent it to others to cross the bridge.

In addition to these rich locals, two "fur traders" from Shaanxi also made a lot of money.

At this time in the Shaanxi Guild Hall, Luo Zuochang and Luo Zuojiu were taking stock of the earnings of the past half month.

Both Luo Zuochang and Luo Zuojiu are the sons of Luo Yangxing, but Luo Yangxing is a relatively low-key person, so although the two brothers have inherited the official status of Jinyiwei Qianhu, they rarely show their faces in front of people.

It is precisely because of this that Dorgon was selected and sent to Nanjing to lurk.

However, Dorgon no longer asked the brothers to assassinate Chongzhen.

The two brothers' current public identities are fur traders from Guanzhong. For this reason, the two brothers have learned Guanzhong dialect for more than half a year, and even Lao Shan can't tell the flaws.

Since coming to Nanjing, few fur businesses have been done.

But by borrowing bridge funds, he earned a lot of interest.

This morning, the two brothers just completed another business, and they made a net profit of 5 taels in one day.

As soon as he returned to the upper room, Luo Zuochang sighed: "Second Brother, Nan Zhi's money is really easy to earn. Sometimes I think we should just stay in Nanjing instead of going back to Beijing?"

"Brother is joking again." Luo Zuojiu shook his head and said, "That's okay."

"That's what I mean." Luo Zuochang smiled, and then said suddenly, "But the money is really easy to earn, but our capital is a little less, only about 20."

"Why don't we go to Fan Da?"

"This old thing is the big treasurer of the Fan family."

"The money he can mobilize is less than 200 million!"

After talking about this meal, Luo Zuochang said again: "It is said that it is to buy food."

Before the new year, the brothers received an order from the Qing court.

It is to let them help the Fan family buy grain from Nanming at all costs.

"This is fine." Luo Zuojiu said, "Little brother, go now."

Watching Luo Zuojiu go out, Luo Zuochang's face became cold and stern.

……

Three days later, at the Yilun Hall of the Imperial College.

"Long Live Lord." Wang Chengen handed a small wax pill to Chongzhen, and said, "A secret letter from Beijing."

Chongzhen made a little effort to crush the wax pills, took out the secret letter from it, and couldn't help saying after reading it: "Good thing, Dorgon ordered Shanxi merchant Fan Yongdou and others to sneak into Huguang and Jiangnan with a large amount of silver, and planned to buy grain from Daming." , This is to send money to Daming, hehe, we are short of money."

Zhu Cijiong said: "Father, how much money do you have?"

"It wasn't mentioned in the letter." Chongzhen shook his head and said, "But I guess it won't be less."

Zhu Cihong guessed: "Father, the money in the hands of Jiannu and Shanxi merchants is probably no less than [-] million taels!"

"Two hundred million taels?" Zhu Cijiong's eyes lit up, rubbing his hands together and said, "That's a lot."

"Stupid boy, Jiannu won't let Shanxi merchants bring all the silver to Daming." Chongzhen laughed, "However, according to father's estimation, there should be 4000 to [-] million taels of silver."

Zhu Cijiong said: "Father, you must leave this money."

Chongzhen smiled and said: "Of course, if Jiannu's money enters the territory of Ming Dynasty, it belongs to Ming Dynasty."

Zhu Cijiong said: "Father is saying, send troops to arrest the Shanxi merchants who sneaked into Daming? Fine and confiscate the stolen money?"

"Hey, you can't be so rude." Chongzhen said with a smile, "Although these Shanxi merchants said that they came to Daming to buy grain at the order of Dorgon, they didn't have any good intentions, but objectively, they still did their best for Daming's commercial prosperity. Contributed, so as long as they don't speculate, don't worry about them."

"Ah?" Zhu Cijiong said in amazement, "Then watch them buy the food?"

Chongzhen smiled and said, "They can buy grain, but I'm afraid they can't take it out."

After finishing speaking, Chongzhen ordered Gao Qiqian to invite Ma Mingjue, Kangxi, Zheng Zunqian, Qian Xi, Xu Guo, Wang Wei and Shen Shaofang, the right servant of the household department, to the Imperial College.

Most of these people are financial giants of Ming Dynasty.

Among them, Kang Xi is the treasurer of the Royal Bank.

Zheng Zunqian is the big shopkeeper of Industrial and Commercial Bank.

Qian Xi is the treasurer of the shipping and shipbuilding bank.

Shen Shaofang is the big treasurer of the Daming City Exchange and the Bank of the Ministry of Households.

Xu Guo is now also the chief treasurer of the Daming Royal Mint.

Only Wang Wei is not a financial practitioner, but he is also closely related to the financial industry.

Chongzhen first asked Xu Guodao: "Xu Guo, how is the production of silver notes, silver dollars, and copper dollars?"

"Returning to the Holy Lord, almost 3 million yuan of silver notes have been printed." Xu Guo hurriedly said, "The casting of silver and copper coins is relatively slow, and only more than 3000 million yuan has been minted so far."

"It's almost there." Chongzhen said thoughtfully, "The silver shortage in the south of the Yangtze River is intensifying now. The overnight lending rate has risen to two yuan, and all walks of life have already suffered from it."

"The launch of silver notes, silver coins and copper coins at this time can be said to conform to the hearts of the people."

After saying this, he added: "The resistance you will encounter will be much smaller."

Except for Shen Shaofang who didn't say anything, the others naturally agreed unanimously.

It is not surprising that Shen Shaofang refused to make a statement, because the silver tickets, silver coins and copper coins were all issued by the Royal Bank, but the Household Bank did not even get a sip of soup, so he was naturally dissatisfied.

"Shen Shaofang, what do you think?" Chongzhen called his name directly.

What else could Shen Shaofang say, but he could only say helplessly: "The minister seconded the proposal."

"Very good, unanimous approval." Chongzhen nodded happily and said to Wang Wei, "Wang Wei, tomorrow's Huangming Times will use the entire front page and the entire fourth page to introduce the entire silver ticket system."

"It must be made clear that bank notes cannot be issued indiscriminately."

"For every dollar bill issued, the Royal Bank must reserve one tael of silver."

After a pause, he went on to say: "Businessmen or ordinary people can go to the bank and branches in various places to exchange the corresponding amount of Zuse silver after taking the bank notes. No bank or branch can refuse for any reason."

"Your minister leads the decree." Wang Wei got up and said again, "I will ask someone to write an article when I return."

Chongzhen also said to Zheng Zunqian, Qian Xi and Shen Shaofang: "For the 3 million yuan bank note, the industrial and commercial bank, the shipping and shipbuilding bank and the household department bank each borrowed 1 million yuan, and the silver dollar and copper dollar each borrowed 1000 million yuan temporarily."

"As for the interest rate..." Speaking of this, Chongzhen turned his head and asked Kang Xi again, "Crown Princess, what is the interest rate for the royal bank to lend money to other banks?"

Kang Xi hurriedly said: "Returning to my father's words, the monthly interest for one year is two cents."

"It's high." Chongzhen said, "From now on, let's set the annual interest rate at five cents."

"Huh? Five cents per annum?" Kang Xi was dumbfounded and couldn't believe it.

Is it really good to cut off [-]% of the interest income of the Royal Bank at once?
Qian Xi, Zheng Zunqian and Shen Shaofang were also very surprised. Is the Holy One going to send money to each account?
But in the next second, the dream of Qian Xi and others came to nothing, and Chongzhen said again: "The interest rates of all commercial banks will also be reduced. Nowadays, the industry and commerce in Jiangnan have made great progress, and the demand for silver has also greatly increased. The loan scale of each bank has also increased a lot compared to before, so the interest should not be set so high."

After a pause, he continued, "The maximum interest rate for one-year loans in the future shall not exceed one yuan."

The annual interest rate does not exceed one penny, that is, 10%, which can be said to be a great benefit for industry and commerce in this era. After all, the standard interest at this time is nine out of three within three months.

According to the standard of 145 out of [-] returns, the annual interest rate is [-]%.

Before that, the annual profit of each commercial bank was around 40%.

However, Chongzhen directly lowered the annual interest rate to 10%, which is really ruthless.

Of course, Chongzhen did this to support the faster development of industry and commerce.

In a word, Chongzhen still felt that the industrial and commercial development in Jiangnan was not fast enough.

The direct manifestation is that there has not been a negative force on the improvement of production efficiency.

Of course, this is also related to the stage of development. At present, the large-scale upgrading of various industries such as the textile industry, silk weaving industry, printing and dyeing industry, and grain processing industry has just begun, and it is still in the stage of barbaric growth.

A major feature of the barbaric growth stage is that the industry is in an incremental game.

In other words, the market capacity of the entire industry is large enough that practitioners have enough to eat, and even if the production efficiency is lower, they can still make money, nothing more than making less money.

But after the barbaric growth stage and entering the stock game, we have to fight for production efficiency.

At that time, handicraft workshops with low production efficiency will close down in large numbers, and only those handicraft workshops with higher production efficiency will survive.

Then these surviving handicraft workshops will rack their brains to improve production efficiency.

At this stage, all kinds of machines that can improve production efficiency will spring up like mushrooms.

And what Chongzhen is doing now is to make all walks of life in Jiangnan go through the stage of barbaric growth as soon as possible, and then enter the stage of stock game as soon as possible.

……

The next day, the Huangming Times published many articles on the front page and the fourth page, explaining in detail the banknotes just launched by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and at the same time issued a proposal to let the common people take the silver in their hands to the Royal Bank as soon as possible. No. or other commercial bank numbers in exchange for bank notes and silver dollars.

The people in the south of the Yangtze River are of course extremely resistant to this.

And those local rich men who hold a lot of money in their hands are even more disgusted.

Because after the introduction of the main bank note, there will be no shortage of silver in the whole of Jiangnan overnight, and the local rich will no longer be able to earn high profits.

(End of this chapter)