Chapter 483 Money shortage(1/2)
Emperor Su He looked through the carriage's glass and saw the peasants kneeling outside asking for money.
He asked: "Are all the commercial tickets worth tens of millions of taels money owed to farmers?
We farmers in Dahua can be so wealthy, yet we are owed tens of millions of taels."
Chen Zhenhui quickly explained: "Your Majesty, most of the debts owed by commercial banks to farmers are less than ten taels of silver coins.
I estimate that the total amount will be around 800,000 taels of silver coins.
The main amount of commercial bills is mostly owed by commercial banks to each other.
Many of them are triangular debts, which are extremely troublesome to deal with.
During this period at Dali Temple in Shuntian Prefecture, 80% of the cases were dealing with payment disputes between merchants."
When Emperor Su He heard this, he smiled. The amount was almost what he thought.
Just a vegetable farmer around the capital, or a vegetable farmer who accepts debts from commercial bills, how can it be possible for someone to owe tens of millions of taels of silver coins?
The vegetable farmers sold all their assets, but they couldn't raise so many silver coins.
Emperor Su He ordered: "
The main disputes between commercial banks and farmers are usually worth less than 10 taels.
You Shuntian Prefecture should intervene as soon as possible and let the commercial banks resolve the commercial tickets of less than 10 taels as soon as possible.
The peasants who drank everything they had to pay for ten taels of silver must put their affairs first.
You, Shuntian Mansion, will ignore the disputes between the trading houses for the time being.
Whether it is selling off the assets of the firm or asking the owner of the firm to pay.
All commercial bills owed by farmers must be exchanged in full by these commercial banks."
Emperor Su He looked at the farmers outside. Most of them were wearing patched clothes.
Peasants holding commercial bills of less than ten taels.
They all hope to earn a living by farming.
This money is necessary to maintain their survival. Once it is cut off, they will sell their cattle and sheep to pawn their property, and they will be on the verge of bankruptcy.
Peasants who had nothing were forced to do anything.
The government must give priority to safeguarding the interests of this vulnerable group.
For a businessman with tens of thousands of assets, if they are owed thousands of taels of silver coins, it will not affect his life or death at all.
Chen Zhenhui, the prefect of Shuntian, understood what His Majesty the Emperor meant.
Things should be prioritized, and if farmers' problems are solved, other problems can be easily dealt with.
He cupped his hands and said: "I will arrange it now and let these commercial banks give priority to repaying the farmers' business notes.
For businesses that are unable to repay, Shuntian Prefecture will force them to sell off their property to repay.
I will do my best to resolve this matter and appease the emotions of these farmers."
Emperor Su He hummed, and Shuntian Magistrate Chen Zhenhui understood it very well.
He saw Magistrate Chen Zhenhui about to get off the carriage, so he called him back and asked: "Prefect Chen, do you know the whole story of the business ticket incident.
Why is it that commercial invoices are widely used in the capital, with the scale reaching tens of millions of taels?
Is it possible that commercial bills are more useful than silver coins?"
Chen Zhenhui's body that had just turned around turned back again.
He respectfully introduced: "Your Majesty, I am also aware of the relevant situation.
There are two main reasons why chambers of commerce use commercial tickets in large quantities.
Commercial notes are definitely not as useful as silver coins, but there are too few silver coins circulating in the market now.
Except for the companies under the Shaofu, it was difficult for some small commercial banks to exchange sufficient silver coins from banks.
Silver coins are very scarce, and copper coins on the market are even scarcer than silver coins.
These trading houses did business with farmers and small businessmen.
They needed a large amount of copper coins, and the copper coins supplied to the market by banks simply could not meet the needs of the market.
In the past few years, the market was not prosperous, and products were mainly concentrated in a certain area.
Cloth and grain could both serve as coins, and the shortage of copper coins was not as serious as it is now.
With the construction of railways, goods from all over the country can be easily sold to other regions.
Coupled with the fact that the military purchased a large amount of copper, there was a serious shortage of copper on the market.
The number of copper coins released by banks decreases a lot every year.
The circulation of goods becomes faster, and the prices of goods move with the market.
Barter transactions cannot replace the role of money because commodity prices fluctuate rapidly.
At first, some chambers of commerce were forced to have no choice, so they used themselves as credibility, gradually accumulated arrears by issuing commercial tickets, and exchanged silver coins for these people.
After the success of this chamber of commerce, chambers of commerce across the country rushed to imitate it.
There is another important reason why the Chamber of Commerce does this.
That is, after doing this, they can save a lot of money and use it for other purposes.
Chamber of Commerce borrows from banks, which requires extremely troublesome procedures and requires a large amount of interest.
Through commercial paper, it is equivalent to borrowing money from other people without paying interest."
Su He listened to what Magistrate Chen Zhenhui said.
He knew that the important reason for the emergence of commercial tickets was that there was a money shortage in the market.
Because these merchants lacked copper and silver coins, they had to use the chamber of commerce's own reputation as a guarantee to create commercial bills.
There is a shortage of copper in the market, and Su He knows the specific reason.
One reason is that during the Dahua Dynasty, the main copper producing area was Yunnan.
There is no train service there yet and the roads are difficult to navigate.
Even if steam engine technology is used to speed up the mining of copper ore.
These copper mines are also unable to meet the demand for copper coins in Dahua's huge domestic market.
Another reason is that the Metropolitan Governor's Logistics Department has been preparing for war and purchased a large amount of supplies.
Among them, copper, the raw material for making bullets and artillery shells, has always been a raw material purchased in large quantities by the Logistics Department.
Many copper mines have not yet been mined and have been ordered by the logistics department.
Emperor Su He asked in surprise: "If copper coins lack true understanding, there should be no shortage of silver coins.
There are many silver mines in the country that could not be mined before. After the advent of the steam engine, they became able to be mined.
The Japanese country also brought a large amount of silver from the country every year to mint silver coins.
A large silver mine was also discovered on Luzon Island, plus the silver coins we captured from Westerners.
After being simply melted and minted, these silver coins have been put on the market.
Why is there such a serious shortage of silver coins in the market now?"
Prefect Chen Zhenhui heard what Emperor Su He said.
He smiled bitterly and said: "Your Majesty, our country can obtain a large amount of silver mines from the outside world.
One of the most important channels is businessmen from the West.
The imperial court shut out Spanish merchants, Dutch merchants, and Portuguese merchants, and this channel was basically cut off.
With the advancement of steam engine technology and mechanical processing in China.
A large number of goods are produced, covering all aspects of people's clothing, food, housing and transportation.
The silver coins on the market can buy all the goods produced.
In this way, goods can circulate normally.
The current situation is that a large amount of goods are backlogged in the chamber of commerce's warehouse.
The people wanted to buy goods, but they were reluctant to spend the silver coins in their hands.
Because as the circulation of silver coins decreases, silver coins continue to increase in value and can purchase more goods.
The imperial court had discovered this problem some time ago and invested a large amount of silver coins in the market.
But the people were stimulated by the previous stimulation. After they exchanged materials for silver coins, they stored them all and prevented these silver coins from circulating.
Such a series of reactions caused many commercial banks to be unable to survive.
The situation in Beijing is not serious yet, but signs of this have just emerged.
I used to serve as the prefect in Liaodong, and the situation there was even more serious.
To be continued...