I'm sure of the prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong!

Chapter 592 Inflation and Monetary Revolution

The Yinzhou expedition fleet led by Kang Zifei returned to Asia one after another with the Spanish galleons, which spanned less than half a month.

Because the routes are different, the Spanish's two routes are equivalent to a big detour, while the Ming's route has become almost a straight line.

The Ming Dynasty fleet docked at the port of Minbu (Manila), while the Spanish galleons docked at Cebu Island.

Many Chinese maritime merchants who had returned from a trip to Yinzhou could not wait to return to the mainland. They registered and established the Yuanhang Yinzhou Trading Association at the Governor's Mansion in Minbu City.

These chambers of commerce basically have some of the characteristics of later joint ventures. A group of insufficiently powerful maritime merchants jointly set up a chamber of commerce. The merchant ships are used together, the profits are divided according to the proportion of capital contribution, and everyone pays for the losses together.

Of course, this situation should be difficult to happen. The Spaniards in Yinzhou are too rich. Even if we don't mention Yinzhou, the news about sandalwood is still a huge profit.

This really wasn't a deliberate leak by the merchants, because even Kang Zifei's big ship contained some sandalwood brought from Hawaii.

Not only to make money, but also brought here specifically to show to the emperor.

Hawaii was valuable as a colonial port.

These sandalwood trees do not need to be transported back to Guangzhou for auction, they can be sold directly in Luzon. The profit is not too high, it is probably more than ten times!

Not much money can be made, and there are still goods in the warehouse that Yinzhou brought back from his return voyage.

But it will be better next time. If these businessmen are prepared, they will be able to transport more sandalwood. And many of them have decided not to go to Yinzhou next year, but to go directly to Hawaii to make money by reselling sandalwood. This way, the voyage is also close. It was also easier to recruit crews to go to sea.

It is conceivable that the sandalwood trade in the Ming Dynasty will usher in rapid development within a few years.

But in the past few years, with the large influx of Hawaiian sandalwood into the Chinese market, the value of these sandalwoods will rapidly depreciate after a short period of emptiness.

Historically, Hawaiian sandalwood was brought to Guangzhou in large quantities by the British in an attempt to reverse the trade deficit, resulting in a flood of sandalwood in the market.

There was a popular saying among Pacific merchants at that time: "Sandalwood is worthless in Guangzhou. Even if it is given to you for free, don't touch it."

Moreover, such large-scale logging of sandalwood also brought serious famine to the native Hawaiians, because in order to achieve his ambition to dominate the South Pacific (and indeed he had the strength), the king ordered all islanders and slaves across the country to log and plant sandalwood. This resulted in a large number of fields being abandoned.

An American businessman traveling to and from Hawaii said: "On this day we passed several small Indian villages and saw some cultivated farmland, but most of it has been abandoned."

In order to solve the dilemma, King Kamehameha I ordered the disbandment of the islanders and let them go back to farming and planting sandalwood seedlings. This made the situation better.

But the product died the next year. After the new king Liholiho came to the throne, he was bewitched by the chiefs and started harvesting sandalwood again.

Finally, in the following years, all available sandalwood on the Hawaiian Islands was cut down, causing thousands of islanders to starve to death.

The Luzon Governor's Office is happy, because many maritime merchants have set up ocean trading chambers of commerce in Minbu. Even if nothing is done, Minbu Port will inevitably usher in a period of rapid development in the next few years.

The Ming Dynasty's ocean-going exploration fleet brought back at least 100,000 taels of silver from Yinzhou this time. Not only was the price of goods in Yinzhou too high, but also because the Spaniards preferred to pay in silver.

Because there was too much silver in the Yinzhou continent, it was not valuable at all. This was a particularly serious problem in the silver trade in the pre-Ming Dynasty.

A large amount of silver continued to flow into the Chinese market under the Spanish galleons. Even if the Spanish governor later controlled the Chinese commodity silk, it could not stop the colonial officials from engaging in smuggling.

Moreover, the Spanish governor who banned Chinese silk from entering the American market was assassinated that year.

Now, the silver wire trade has reopened, and the amount of Yinzhou silver flowing into China has increased dramatically in just a few years. Coupled with the prosperity of maritime trade in the Ming Dynasty, especially last year when the imperial court took the opportunity to conduct a thorough inspection of customs duties along the coast, many mainland merchants took the opportunity to dig out silver from their cellars. There are already signs of inflation in the coastal provinces of the Ming Dynasty, and these signs are gradually spreading to the interior through river transport.

The price of rice in Nanjing has risen to 73 cents per bucket of rice, which makes some rice prices falsely high.

If you choose to change it, it will cost at least five or six qian per stone meter.

You know, from last year to this year, the imperial court did not fight any major wars, the Korean War did not spend much money, and the overall impact on the people was not too great.

This is simply too much silver in the market, which leads to currency devaluation.

The citizens of Nanjing complained endlessly about this. Many workers working in shops asked for a salary increase, and other prices also fluctuated on a small scale.

This is still the early stage of inflation, and the cabinet is discussing how to solve the problem of excessive inflows of overseas silver.

The solution adopted by the former Ming and Qing dynasties was to initiate a maritime ban and block sea trade to prevent the continued influx of large amounts of overseas silver, and then slowly digest the excess domestic silver.

The Ming Dynasty definitely could not adopt these methods. After all, maritime trade was one of the foundations of the Ming Dynasty's prosperity and founding of the country, and the emperor would not allow it.

Forbidden City.

"Your Majesty, these are the latest silver and gold dollar samples minted by the Mint."

"Well, present it!"

Zhu Yijiong picked up the sample coins of silver and gold coins, looked at them carefully, and broke them twice with his hands while looking at them.

Both silver and gold coins are engraved with the standard words "Jianwu Tongbao", and unlike the previous copper coins issued by the Ming and New Dynasties, these gold and silver sample coins not only have a solid center, but also have small characters writing the minting time.

There is not just one gold and silver sample coin, but more than ten, all of which are exactly the same, exquisite and round, and have acceptable hardness and quality.

Silver itself is very soft, and pure silver coins will only break easily. Therefore, these Jianwu Tongbao silver coins are made of 89% silver and 11% copper.

In this way, the hardness of the silver coins can be guaranteed while ensuring normal circulation.

"Yes, it seems that the minting of silver and gold coins this time is considered qualified. With this coin, we can officially start minting money!"

The circulation of silver coins has been around since the Tatars first took over Beijing, but at that time it was always Tibet and Nepal that were circulating among each other.

It was not until Qianlong that a mint was established to mint silver coins. This was done to maintain the stability of the snowy area and respect the customs of local commodity trading.

In the current Ming and New Dynasties, due to the prosperity of maritime trade, domestic commercial capital has sprouted and developed rapidly, and it is not suitable to use simple copper coins and silver ingots. A monetary revolution must be launched, and the sooner it is done, the better. It is definitely too early to issue banknotes (banknotes are not banknotes, at most they are passbooks), and there is no guarantee of anti-counterfeiting, but silver coins can be implemented.

The latest model of steam engine improved by the Ming Academy of Sciences from the steam cotton spinning machine was not used on battleships. Instead, it was first used in the Mint, and the Jianwu Tongbao silver dollar that was about to enter the market was minted.

The gold dollar is just a trial casting, and it is not yet planned to be officially thrown into the market. After all, the value of gold is too high, and hastily casting gold coins will easily destroy the monetary system constructed by silver coins.

The cabinet must carefully discuss how to mint new money and how to allow it to flow smoothly into the market without affecting market prices.

　It’s the Chinese New Year, Kavin ing

　　

　

(End of this chapter)