After Liu Bei completely adopted the supplementary plan of Li Su and Zhuge Liang, the construction plan of the Nanyang Canal was adjusted and the stone was produced for urban defense construction in Kunyang and Ye County. These two things were arranged immediately, and construction began quietly in early September.

Anyway, the stones are ready-made and all are cut. If they are piled up, some mud or even Roman cement will be applied. The construction speed will be very fast and will definitely be done in one or two months.

The court also took advantage of the autumn tax collection season to start the pre-sale work of "specialized business tax quotation" at full speed.

Chang'an, Luoyang, Wuchang, Chengdu, and Jianye, all have large amounts of copy-cited inventory directly printed and stamped by the Central Finance Department and distributed to local governments, and led by the pre-sale of the provincial governor.

Of course, the specific work must be the work of Cao Cao, the relevant officials below the governor.

Considering that the face value of the citations is relatively large, anti-counterfeiting is the top priority. Fortunately, this matter was already being deployed at the beginning of the year, so all the technical difficulties have been overcome.

The printing technology of citation has used the best carvings in this era, with fine textures and fine ink colors used. The ink colors used are specially made. Although they are not ink, they are not ordinary pure black ink. The purpose is that the folk recipe for self-adjusting ink is easy to have a color difference from the genuine one. If the difference is obvious, it will be easily compared.

Of course, if it is just a little color difference, it will not be immediately judged as counterfeit money. After all, if paper products are stored for a long time or due to changes in humidity, there will be subtle color changes. Only when the difference is more obvious can the counterfeit money be judged simply by color.

The material of the paper is also specially made, and blended paper with a certain proportion of cotton yarn fiber and linen fiber is used. It is better to say that it is actually a blended fabric of a specific proportion. It has also been tested in advance. The diffusion of the color and halo when this fabric is dyed in ink to ensure that the ink does not leak and the printing marks will be clear.

Although it is so particular about material technology, it will also lead to the cost of citation cloth soaring, and one piece is worth about tens of thousands of yuan, but the problem is that a special textile of this type can make hundreds of citations, each piece with a denomination ranging from a few hundred or more to a few thousand yuan.

Therefore, the cost of materials and printing only accounts for a few to a thousandth of the denomination, which is nothing.

Finally, when Li Su and Liu Ba were making printing and seals, they also specially used the natural layering of wood grain and the natural cracks of stones under the knives to enhance anti-counterfeiting.

Anyone who has played with antique calligraphy and painting knows that an important method for anti-counterfeiting of ancient seals is to use the natural cracks when the rock is knocked by a carved knife. Because when you deliberately fake these small cracks, the direction of the cracks in the stone will not be exactly the same as the cracks you want to imitate.

Homes who play with antique calligraphy and paintings will collect the seals of ancient seals. When they encounter calligraphy and paintings that claim to be stamped with ancient seals, they will compare the seals. After Liu Ba also used this trick, he could leave a genuine copy of the yamen in each county as a record, and then compare the counterfeits.

In the future, when wealthy businessmen want to copy large transactions, they are not at ease about the authenticity. They can also go to the government to compare notarization and give a little money to the notarization fee/appraisal fee.

The entire promotion work was under the control of Li Su's excellent design.

The reason why Li Su did not dare to directly put paper money was because he recognized that a securities that first gained the trust of the people and merchants must rely on a system guarantee that "only using this kind of copy can only operate specific tight commodities."

If paper money is invented directly, then paper money is just the equivalent of metal coins. Things that can be bought with paper money can also be bought with copper coins or Shu brocade. Then the people will definitely believe in copper coins more. After all, copper coins have additional guarantees of their own metal value.

Therefore, it is necessary to allow the copying to have an additional effect that even copper coins cannot do so that this thing can be promoted.

It’s like the ugly Chinese people in the future who engage in oil-dollars. Global oil must be settled by US dollars, and the status of the US dollar will be promoted. Even if the gold standard is abandoned, it doesn’t matter.

The Chinese also had this experience, so the people of the Song Dynasty engaged in the salt industry to copy the citations. Even in modern history and civil war, tickets in some border areas were temporarily stabilized by temporary measures such as "only using the ticket can buy salt".

Li Su would rather spend more time on his hand and spend a few more years on the transition. In the past few years, he sold classified citations in different parts. After merchants got used to it, they would integrate classified citations into "general citations".

...

After the exquisitely designed and well-printed fabric was released, it immediately attracted the attention of merchants from the five major metropolitan cities.

Luoyang, where Li Su was personally in charge, naturally had the best acceptance of new citations. However, Luoyang had only been built for a year, and the population had not yet recovered to its peak. There was also a lack of wealthy businessmen. The people were relatively poor, so the subscription amount was not the highest.

Because Chang'an is the capital, Chengdu is Liu Bei's earliest base and the earliest developed metropolis in commerce. Therefore, those two places performed well. Although the acceptance rate was not as high as Luoyang, its absolute sales significantly exceeded that of Luoyang.

Especially in Chengdu, wealthy businessmen gathered, and the surrounding industries were developed, and the sales of the country were the highest.

The current governor of Yizhou is Sun Qian, the former Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs who just changed his post with Zhuge Jin this year. Because the Ministry of Civil Affairs and Finance were both separated from the Ministry of Revenue, when Sun Qian was the Minister of the Court of Revenue two years ago, he had a good relationship with Liu Ba and had many experience in discussing.

Therefore, after receiving the task from the court, Sun Qian also attached great importance to it, wanting to share His Majesty's worries and achieve some results. He knew that Yizhou's industry and commerce have always been the most developed in various states.

After the reform of industrial and commercial tax, Liu Ba also showed that the expected accounts of Yizhou's commercial tax should account for half of the total total of the seven prefectures that are actually controlled by the imperial court (Bingzhou was not yet restored when Liu Ba made the budget at the beginning of the year, and Jiaozhou was not split, and he would not sell the quotation of the franchise business tax in Bingzhou this year)

Therefore, since we are going to pre-sale the next year's citations and attract merchants to subscribe with interest, Sun Qian also feels very worried that he should complete half of the total amount of the court in order to be worthy of the prosperous and prosperous situation in Yizhou.

A few days after the start of the sales service, the offices of the governor's yamen and the servants in Chengdu were surrounded by merchants who came to subscribe.

Sun Qian was also quite diligent and took care of all wealthy merchants with subscription amounts of more than 10 million yuan. He, the governor, personally met with him and supervised in person, and was sure to serve these patriotic people.

For small businessmen with subscription amounts below 10 million yuan, they will be handed over to Cao's servants in the lower house for handling.

After the policy publicity was in place, as industrial giants in Jianwei County sent representatives to Chengdu, the sales work went smoothly.

On the tenth day of September, when his subordinates reported the accounts to Sun Qian again, the oversubscription of the salt tax had exceeded the one-year quota, which means that the salt that had been sold, which was enough to subscribe to all Yizhou Jingshen produced next year, was sold, with a total price of 1.2 billion yuan.

The second highest is the loom tax and the third is the water energy fee, which was pre-sale of more than 800 million and 500 million respectively. The iron tax is sold well, but the iron smelting industry is small in scale and the amount does not seem to be large.

The monographs of other industries are relatively less effective.

"The 25 billion yuan has been completed, which is still a gap compared to the target of 4 billion yuan. Moreover, this goal is only 'pre-sale for one year'. If Wancheng is better in other places, it can pre-sale for two or even more, where will I put my face?

We are an old minister who followed His Majesty in the fourth year of Zhongping. We also served as the Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. We couldn’t even sell a copy, so wouldn’t it be ridiculed? But Sikong took care of him and could not force his levy. We should prevent the rich businessmen from rebelling and suspicion. Alas, it’s difficult to deal with it."

Sun Gan was very unwilling to give up and decided to find the officials under him to investigate, understand the situation, and see where the main problem lies.

He first recruited Yang Hong, the prefect of Shu County who was familiar with money, grain, tax and tax, as well as Wang Lian, the Yan and Iron Captain, and related Cao Zheng, to discuss the promotion of subscription and citation.

"Everyone, what are the concerns about continuing to subscribe to salt indices in major Sichuan at present? Why did salt indices sell the fastest at the beginning, but after only selling a one-year share, no one continued to buy more?

The court's interest policy was not fully promoted? Businessmen should know that every year you buy in advance, there will be an additional year of interest, right? The annual interest is 10% of the principal and denomination. If you have spare money, you can try it.

Also, why are the sales of sugar, wine, and porcelain not good? At present, there is only loom tax and water energy charges. Alas, Yizhou is indeed the most reliable industry in Shujin. If you don’t do anything, you can only count on Shujin to support half of the country this year.”

Yang Hong and Wang Lian are also people who understand the economy. They also discussed the reform of the tax adjustment system with Liu Ba. They also happened to have their own problems with Sun Gan.

After some discussion, Wang Lian took the lead in answering: "Encourt, wealthy businessmen actively subscribe for the next year's salt tax quotes, but they also clicked and stopped subscribed to the next year. I know a little about the reasons.

First of all, some very smart wealthy businessmen seem to have seen that the pre-sale of the imperial court's citation is settled at 10% of the annual interest rate, and the principal is 10% of the year, and it will not make a profit, so if you buy too much, you will suffer a loss.

They only buy next year's ones this year, and sell them next year. After making money, they will subscribe to next year's quotes. In the following year, they will earn one percent more than they can buy directly this year for two years."

Sun Gan thought about this and realized it after a little thought, but it was definitely easy for modern people to understand it. Isn’t that a compound interest issue?

Li Su insisted on not giving profits to the top, which was also considering the horror of compound interest, especially the longest redemption period of war treasury bonds was as long as ten years. The little addition of compound interest would lead to a significant increase in the debt repayment pressure of the court in the future.

Fortunately, there were not many people good at math in the Han Dynasty. Most of them were rich businessmen who were not necessarily so eager to calculate compound interest. Those who know how to calculate compound interest may not necessarily tell their peers, who do not want to make a fortune in a quiet voice and stumbling to their peers.

After hearing this, Sun Gan frowned and thought for a while: "This matter is so carefully calculated that it should not account for the majority. What's more, we have not promoted it. This kind of extra year number and interest-based quotation will not be released every year.

Maybe next year, they will only be released and not printed, and there is no interest. They can only buy salt citations at the original price? Then if they missed the opportunity this year, wouldn’t they earn 10% less interest?"

Wang Lian waited politely for Sun Gan to finish this sentence before he tactfully poured cold water on his face:

"I am so frank, the top wealthy businessmen in Yizhou are still well-informed. They also saw clearly that the court lacked money to borrow money this year. There are many major construction projects in Luoyang.

Obviously, these civil engineering cannot be completed within one year, which means there is still a huge gap next year. How could the court stop selling borrowing loans with interest? Therefore, they are sure that they can buy them next year. Those who can calculate profits will tighten the money.

What's more, there is another reason, that they will not show off their eagles until they see each other. This reason is that no matter whether they are profitable or not, they will hesitate. They are worried that after the court oversells salt, the output of well salt will not be enough for them to pick up the goods next year. How should they allocate their share?

There are already several wealthy businessmen who have just participated in the sale of well salt this year complaining to me about this. They think they should queue up according to the order of selling and citations to ensure their pickup volume next year."

After listening to this, Sun Gan and Yang Hong also realized that this issue is very important.

The salt tax and loom tax and water energy fees are different. One of the important reasons why Shujin Industry has subscribed for more years and can subscribe at one time for two years or even longer is that those things have "unlimited production capacity", or that as long as the operator has money, it can "invest and expand reproduction."

The production capacity of the well salt industry is relatively stable. It will not be because of the influx of capital this year, and the amount of salt will be increased if it sells. Next year, it will be waiting for so much salt to increase production. Moreover, salt is a stable demand. If the production is really increased a lot, it will not be sold or even drop in price.

What's more, the current salt induction system is still "official production and private sales". Private merchants only get the right to resell, while the production management of the salt farm is still under the jurisdiction of Wang Lian, the salt iron lieutenant, and private capital cannot be inserted in the production process.

Of course, merchants have to worry about "there is not enough goods for them to enter after the salt induction is sent, so how to allocate the specific proportion."

After thinking about it, Sun Gan realized that Liu Ba and Li Su had forgotten to plug this when designing the system. After it really started to sell well, the officials and businessmen competed for a round before they discovered the problem.

Even if you promise to "sell it to you sooner or later", there is still a difference between morning and evening, and you cannot mix it with it. For businessmen, time is life.

Sun Gan deserves to be a two-year senior citizen minister. After thinking about it over and over again, he thought of an idea and discussed it with the other two:

"I see, I immediately wrote to the court to point out this issue. I also asked the court to clarify the "come first and then queue up system" for copying. In the future, if any ordinary copying of the goods without the year number and interest is used, the court must also ensure that the goods can be purchased.

However, if there is a temporary shortage of supply and insufficient production capacity, and many merchants bid, they should use the quotation with the year number, especially the early quotation with the quotation. For example, three merchants come to buy salt in the next year, and the monthly salt output has been subscribed, so they have to queue up.

Then take the salt quotation in Zhangwu for the third year, and the salt quotation in Zhangwu for the fourth year, followed by the ordinary quotation in Zhangwu for the fourth year, and wait for the ordinary quotation in front of the line to get the goods before they can get the goods. It is not that they don’t give it to him, but that they don’t have time to produce it. It is his turn to finish the previous quotation. This must be made clear.

Of course, it can also be discussed in detail, mainly based on the decisions of the court, such as the distribution of production capacity and supply in a certain proportion. If someone makes an appointment to queue for more than three months and has not mentioned the goods, then you can apply for the fourth month to allocate 20% to 30% from the production capacity, and specifically give these merchants who have been queuing for too long with low priority tickets."

When Wang Lian heard this, his eyes lit up: This is a wonderful method for the governor! He directly gave the copy of different issuance years to order the pickup priority.
Chapter completed!