Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 73

Compared with the high-profile tax reform.

The currency reforms implemented by Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Youjian of the Ming Dynasty were much more low-key.

Because the governor of the newly established Central Bank of Ming Dynasty is the eunuch Han Shoujing, the supervisor of rites and the eunuch of Bingbi, and the vice presidents Wang Jiaqin and Yang Mingshen are both minor officials of the sixth rank.

Therefore, the civil officials of the outer court were not interested in this new thing that suddenly appeared, and in their view it was just a new institution of the inner court.

As long as the Ming emperor does not affect the political system of the civil servants of the outer dynasty, these civil servants don't mind what the emperor's own inner court does.

What's more, now that they are all focusing on tax reform, they don't have the energy to pay attention to the affairs of the inner court.

Only Liu Zongzhou, Minister of the Ministry of Rites, made a memorial to advise Zhu Youjian not to favor Li Zixing and his ilk.

Li Zixing was a lucky minister who was not born as a Jinshi during the Chenghua period. Liu Zongzhou mentioned Li Zixing in front of Zhu Youjian because Zhu Youjian suddenly appointed Wang Jiaqin and Yang Mingshen as the heads of the household department.

However, this kind of official title, which is only the sixth grade, is not a real job, so only Liu Zongzhou, a fussy official with obsessive-compulsive disorder, complained, and the other ministers didn't mention it.

Zhu Youjian didn't bother to pay attention to Liu Zongzhou. After all, the civil servants of the foreign court could not interfere with his own inner court affairs except to force him.

Once he interferes, he can execute them for the crime of usurpation.

Currency reform is thus proceeding smoothly, even more smoothly than tax reform.

Zhu Youjian ordered Qi Biaojia, the right servant of the household department, to hand over all the officials and craftsmen of the Baoquan Bureau who had been in charge of minting coins to Wang Jiaqin, and Wang Jiaqin was responsible for minting coins and managing reserves.

Due to the abuse of Daming treasure banknotes, banknotes have almost no credibility in the current Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, after Zhu Youjian proposed Yuan Datou's two sets of silver dollar and banknote proposals, Wang Jiaqin and others still suggested Zhu Youjian as the new currency.

Zhu Youjian also agreed with this suggestion and asked Wang Jiaqin to be in charge of casting silver dollars.

In the end, Zhu Youjian determined a kind of silver dollar with the emperor's portrait wearing a winged crown on his head as the front and the Chinese character value as the back, similar to Yuan Datou as the currency of Ming Dynasty, and the unit is "Yuan".

Wang Jiaqin is a giant businessman in Ningbo Prefecture. It is already a common practice to investigate the trading volume of commodities in various places in Ming Dynasty and make a budget for the production scale in the coming year. Now, according to the information provided by Zhu Youjian, he investigates the market currency and decides to issue it to the entire Daming commodity economic market. The amount of money is easy to do, and even the personnel are readily available.

However, after Zhu Youjian gave Wang Jiaqin the key to the warehouse with 2000 million gold and silver, he still ordered: "From now on, all the wealth of the entire imperial court is in your hands, Wang Jiaqin. Mishap, it is not an exaggeration for your royal family to be exterminated."

"Your Majesty, please rest assured, I can assure you that the money in this treasury will only increase and never decrease. If by this time next year, my royal family will subsidize [-] cents to the court!"

Wang Jiaqin was indeed very frivolous, and made a big promise in front of Zhu Youjian.

However, although this Wang Jiaqin spoke loudly, he did have some strength, and he insisted on casting the first batch of silver dollars ready to be put on the market within one month.

On Yang Mingshen's side, he has already changed the names of his family's bank accounts in various prefectures and counties to branches and sub-branches in a certain prefecture and county of the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty.

As for the headquarters of the Daming Central Bank, Zhu Youjian directly allocated Qian Qianyi's mansion near Xuanjinqiao Street to Yang Mingshen, asking him to build it as the bank's headquarters.

Because Yang Mingshen's family is a big Shanxi merchant who issues money, they have bank accounts in almost all prefectures and counties, so the bank was built very quickly.

However, there were no people who were familiar with banking business. Yang Mingshen had to follow Zhu Youjian's request to gather shopkeepers from all over the country for half a month of short-term training, and then the shopkeepers went back to train the people under them.

After spending a month in this way, the central bank of Daming has completed the construction from the external building to the internal staff.

In mid-August, Yang Mingshen and Wang Jiaqin met Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian again, and Wang Jiaqin stood up first: "Your Majesty, the first batch of the first set of silver dollars has arrived at the Central Bank of Daming, with a total value of 500 yuan." Ten thousand silver dollars consumes 1000 million taels of silver, once it replaces silver, the treasury can make a profit of 500 million taels!"

"Reply, Your Majesty, all the distributions have been made on Weichen's side. Just wait for His Majesty's decree, and the exchange can begin in Yingtian, Suzhou, Songjiang, Hangzhou and other places!" Yang Mingshen also replied.

Zhu Youjian nodded, and ordered the cabinet to draw up an edict to announce to the world. From now on, the silver coins engraved with the image of our emperor will be used as currency in Daming, and the Central Bank of Daming will be ordered to recycle the gold, silver and copper coins that are in circulation in the city. Publish the exchange rules.In addition, the content of the decree also includes that from the first day of the first month of next year, only silver dollars will be recognized for tax collection and military salary distribution.

At this time, the bureaucrats, gentry and common people in the entire Jiangnan discovered that His Majesty had changed the money law unknowingly.

However, no one knows what a silver dollar is. Although Yingyang has appeared on the market in this era, people are habitually more willing to believe in gold and silver.

And now the tax has not yet started to be collected, so although banks everywhere have opened, there are very few people who come to exchange, let alone big merchants.

Zhu Youjian's ambitious financial reform seems to be in trouble. The new money created by spending a month's manpower, material and financial resources has been directly piled up in the treasury of the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty and local branches and sub-branches, and it is almost dust-free.

Silver, gold, and even copper coins on the market are still in circulation, which even caused panic. Some merchants were afraid of the real loss of silver, and began to refuse to accept copper coins as a transaction method. Influence.

Lu Zhenfei, a scholar of the Dongge University and the governor of Nanzhili, had to report the situation to Zhu Youjian, and also began to ask Zhu Youjian euphemistically if the pace of money law reform was too big.

Zhu Youjian was very depressed about this. It is too big to use banknotes. If you still only change the ratio of copper coins, it will be the same as not changing.

However, the lack of trust in the new currency by all classes in the entire Ming Dynasty is only one aspect of the problem. Another aspect is that a group of military officials such as the Minister of War Ma Shiying and the civil and military officials who lead the troops said that silver coins instead of silver taels for military pay are likely to arouse the morale of the soldiers. Instability, etc., also questioned Zhu Youjian's implementation of the new currency.

The person in charge of the Shanxi merchant Fan family in Nanjing who formed a competitive relationship with Yang Mingshen also began to laugh at Yang Mingshen for betting on the wrong treasure. The name of the bank account under it was changed.

However, when all parties were questioning and laughing at this low-key and high-profile currency reform, several major tea, porcelain, and silk merchants in Ningbo Prefecture suddenly appeared at the central banks of various prefectures and counties to demand exchange.

At the same time, Wang Jiaqin, the planner who called on several giant merchant families in Ningbo to take the lead in exchanging money, also directly demanded that the Zheng family buy tea, silk and porcelain from them, and they had to use silver dollars instead.

In this way, a new channel has been opened for the implementation of the new currency.

The silver dollars hoarded in the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty in various places also began to slowly flow into the market.

　I wish you all a happy New Year’s Day. Today, the text is serious, and I have chatted for a long time with my classmates who have not been in touch for more than a year, so I have delayed the code words. I will only write a chapter tonight. I will fill up the chapter that I owe today.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)