"Your Majesty, your fundamental problem is credibility.
You have no credibility!”
Yang Feng said very directly.
Zhu Yuanzhang took a deep breath, as if telling himself to hold it back...
"It's not just you, in fact any emperor has no credibility, because you have the power of life and death. You can default on the debt, rob, kill the whole family and then lose the country. So if the money is placed with you, if anything happens in the future, the depositor will be responsible."
They can only accept it. Even if you embezzle it directly, they can only tolerate it.
Can't bear it?
You will kill their whole family.
In this case, not only can they not deposit money with you, they can't even let you know that they have money.
I have to guard you like a thief.
It's useless for you to be angry, what I said is all true.
Besides, there is no need for you to be angry. This is not directed at you, but at all monarchs. Even if it were the so-called Holy Lords and Lords, the result would be the same."
Yang Feng continued to stimulate him.
"I came back to you to solve the problem, not to let you talk nonsense here."
Zhu Yuanzhang said.
His grandson stood there with a shocked look on his face.
Someone dared to speak like this to his grandfather, which already shocked him. If he could speak like this without being dragged out to Lingchi, it would shock him even more. Therefore, Huang Zicheng said that Yang Feng was rude to him, which is completely nonsense. Yang
Feng was not rude to him. In fact, Yang Feng was rude to anyone. In comparison, Zhu Yunxi felt that Yang Feng already respected him very much. If Yang Feng really knelt down to him, he would be frightened.
Breaking into a cold sweat.
"It's very simple. I will do it, or Daxia will open this bank."
"Are you more reputable than me?"
"Don't tell me, at least I have more credibility than you.
But my credibility is definitely not good either.
So, I'm going to use something else."
Yang Feng said and took out a grenade.
The Jinyi guards screamed and quickly pulled out their knives one by one, but then Zhu Yuanzhang waved his hand to indicate that they did not need to panic, and then looked at Yang Feng's grenade with interest...
"I can indeed buy it at a high price."
he said with a smile.
"One hundred strings."
"Yes, this thing is worth the price."
"That's enough. You authorize me to open a bank in the Ming Dynasty in the name of the Great Xia Kingdom to absorb private deposits. For every one hundred coins deposited, I will give the depositors a grenade, but I will not give it to them. They will withdraw it later.
When the deposit is made, the grenade must be returned.
If I can't give them the deposit, or can't cash it out with interest, then they can sell you this grenade.
As for those who don’t have enough money, there is no such thing.
But you also need to take a little risk.
Because it is very likely that someone will just throw a hundred coins to me just to get this, and then take this away to do other things."
Yang Feng said.
"I'm not afraid of this yet.
What's more, even if it does exist, if one or two coins are worth ten or twenty coins, what can be done in the end?
How many soldiers can be killed?"
Zhu Yuanzhang took a grenade and said calmly.
"This is the heroic spirit."
Yang Feng quickly eased the relationship.
"But since it's you who opens the business, then any losses are your own. How can you protect yourself from losing money?"
Zhu Yuanzhang said.
"Please tell me the truth!
I will lend these deposits to you. When you need money, instead of continuing to print money, you will borrow money from me for a few years and then repay it with interest. In this way, you can receive the excess private banknotes in the bank.
, the bank then lends you money, and you then distribute it to the private sector. When the private sector saves more, it deposits it in the bank, and the bank lends it to you again, and so on.
As for what I give to depositors, I don’t give it all at once. I give one today and one tomorrow. This way, I don’t need their deposits to be in my hands, as long as what I keep in my hands can meet their daily needs for withdrawing money.
What's more, if it's really not enough, you can print more for me.
This counts as your capital contribution.
In this way, if you have enough money, private banknotes will not accumulate or depreciate in value."
Yang Feng said.
So Zhu Yuanzhang is equivalent to the central bank.
"In this way, all the hard work and sweat of the people are finally gone like water in the middle."
Zhu Yuanzhang said with great interest.
He is a sensible person and can see the key to this operation at a glance.
"What you are saying is called economy. Besides, those who have money in the bank are ordinary people. The money they collect in a year may not be enough to buy clothes and eat more meat. Those who really have money in the bank
They are all rich people.
But you took the money to reward the armed forces, to relieve the victims, and to repair local water conservancy projects.
This is robbing the rich and giving to the poor!”
“Robbing the rich and giving to the poor?”
"Yes, it is absolutely great to rob the rich and give to the poor!"
Yang Feng said with certainty.
"Haha, I like this idea of robbing the rich and giving to the poor!"
Zhu Yuanzhang said with great satisfaction.
Then the two guys who met each other's moral limits laughed at the same time.
However, the grenade standard system is indeed the most effective method that Yang Feng can think of. After all, they cannot come up with enough gold and silver, and even if they take over the Japanese gold and silver mines, they will not be able to obtain the gold and silver to support the monetary system in a short time. Development.
It takes enough time, and the output also needs a long process to increase. The gold and silver mines there can indeed support the gold and silver bi-standard of Ming Dynasty banknotes, but they will not be able to do so within the next ten years at least.
This requires a transition.
Zhu Yuanzhang wanted something that could be maintained in the short term.
He wants to issue treasure money to maintain expenditure.
Every year's rewards to the army, disaster relief, court construction, etc. all rely on treasure money, but it is a process of only releasing but not collecting. He even collects taxes directly from grain, so treasure money will inevitably increase among the people.
Eventually devaluation is inevitable.
The role of banks is to provide a buffer.
Let those excess treasure banknotes be locked in the bank's warehouse. Once the bank is recognized, it can act as a regulator. Zhu Yuanzhang does not need to print more treasure banknotes, but he can turn private treasure banknotes into his own use through the bank.
In this way, the total amount of banknotes in the private sector will be maintained within a moderate range, and it is not important whether the bank is profitable or not. What is important is that it is, and there is no problem that Yang Feng cannot maintain it.
Because when he didn't have enough treasure banknotes to cash out, he could ask Zhu Yuanzhang to print new ones.
but……
How to get people to accept it?
How can people believe something that appears out of thin air?
In this way, there must be something rare, irreplaceable, and something that can be used to ensure credibility.
grenade.
The most perfect choice Yang Feng could think of.
Scarce, irreplaceable, and more importantly, Zhu Yuanzhang will definitely buy it at a high price. Besides, even if he doesn't buy it, for many people, the grenade is definitely worth a hundred gold coins...
This is especially true for businessmen.
It’s only a hundred guns. If you encounter bandits, a grenade can save your life!
This is life saving stuff.
The grenade standard was born.
So it doesn’t matter what standard a currency is. What’s important is that this kind of thing is important. It can be a millet standard, a salt standard, or a gold standard. The key is to see what the situation requires. Similarly, under the current circumstances, the grenade standard is the best choice. It cannot be said to be a currency.
After all, Yang Feng is not issuing banknotes. At most, it is a grenade-based deposit certificate, or it can be called banknotes. This name is very reasonable. After all, the current currency is treasure banknotes. When someone else deposits treasure banknotes, the deposit certificate issued by him is banknotes.
He has now accumulated a large box of grenades.
It's enough to fight a war.
More than a thousand pieces!
In other words, it can be used to store hundreds of thousands of banknotes.
A little less.
But at least it's enough for the initial stage.
Moreover, this also prevented him from leaving too many grenades in his hand and alerting Zhu Yuanzhang.
Mutual trust between the two sides is very important, and Zhu Yuanzhang cannot be allowed to suspect that he is stockpiling arms for rebellion.
The impact of these grenades scattered among the people on Zhu Yuanzhang was minimal. It was a joke to expect a few grenades to rebel. These grenades were not heavy bombs. They could not even blow up a city gate. At this time, the fighting will of the Ming army was not enough to allow the people to rebel.
A few grenades can frighten someone, but at most they can only be used for assassination.
But assassination was none of his business.
No matter how hard you try, you can't kill him on the head. He is very safe in the palace.
“But you also have to understand that this is just a means of adjustment.
Valid in the short term.
But as long as you still need your treasure, there will eventually be times when it exceeds your capabilities.
So first, you have to quickly seize the gold and silver mines in Japan, and then develop them there, and use gold and silver to support your treasure banknotes. This is the most effective way. Second, you have to expand consumption, that is, let people
More people will spend money and put more treasure money into circulation. If you issue a single banknote, someone should use this banknote. If you issue a hundred banknotes, someone should use this hundred banknotes. If you issue a hundred banknotes, someone should use it.
For a hundred-guan note, only ten people will use it in the end. Even if the bank can accept another ten or twenty-guan note, there will still be a large amount of banknotes sitting idle outside.
Then it will inevitably depreciate.
Therefore, people must be allowed to spend money and commercial restrictions must be relaxed.
Of course salt won't work.
Your salt industry system is very reasonable.
But in other aspects, you might as well reduce some restrictions.
Let more merchants increase the number of things that people can buy. Paper money started in the Song Dynasty. Initially, it was not even issued by the court, but was made by Sichuan businessmen themselves. It was because business was prosperous, but iron money was too inconvenient.
, so they wanted to issue banknotes like Jiaozi themselves.
Look, there is no need for the court to force anyone to use it.
People figured it out on their own.
As long as you can make business prosper and increase the circulation of transactions, even if you ask merchants to use copper coins, they will not use them. Copper coins usually weigh several kilograms. If you go to trade with a hundred copper coins, you have to find someone.
The donkey carries it.
Not only is it inconvenient, but it's also easy to get targeted.
But just put a hundred guan notes in your pocket and pretend that no one will notice.
If you bring a thousand guan, you really have to bring a large group of guards and packers. If you take the mountain roads in Guizhou, it will not be easy just to reach the destination, and you will have to pay more extra costs. Just the guards and packers may go all the way.
You have to eat hundreds of guan. If you change it into banknotes, one thousand guan will cost fifty-one, which is only twenty. You can still go wherever you want by just putting it in your pocket.
Banknotes are the most convenient.
It can be said that as long as you allow private commercial circulation to reach a certain level, businessmen themselves will choose banknotes.
Don't forbid people from wearing this or that, don't prohibit them from using this or that, don't give them all kinds of restrictions on going out, just let them go out to do business. There is no need to strictly guard city gates in various places, and the curfew can be later at night.
It's totally okay to have a curfew after midnight.
You can also collect more taxes.
Your world is very stable now. It can be said that there has never been a more stable time than yours since ancient times.
Then give people more freedom.
If you don’t give it now, your descendants will give it to you in the future. You are forbidden to wear double-breasted clothes now. Not to mention that these things existed in the Shang Dynasty. There are figurines of double-breasted clothes in the tomb of a good woman in the Shang Dynasty that we dug out.
It is almost universal for women to wear double-breasted clothes. Your descendants will not care about it until the end. Double-breasted clothes are still popular among the people. Even the armors in the military are cloth armors and cotton-padded armors with double breasts. Including those restrictions on fabrics, accessories, shoes, etc.,
You can let go of everything. In the later stages of your descendants, people will even dare to wear python robes, and these all cost money.
This is consumption.
And the more people consume, the more money they can hold."
Yang Feng said.
“What about the food?
Silk requires land, and cotton requires land. Did you know that for every inch of people's clothes in the world, how much fertile land must be turned into cotton?
It doesn't matter if the clothes are an inch too short, but if the food is short of a bushel, people will starve to death.
There are only so many people in the world, and there are only so many fields that can be cultivated. We must maintain a certain line. Those of you who have never experienced famine, how can you know that starving people will turn into wild beasts, let alone kill and plunder, cannibalize people and even eat themselves?
Even the closest relatives don’t care about it, so just to stabilize the treasure, they destroy the foundation? The treasure is nothing more than leaves, and food is the foundation.
When it comes to business, Hu Yuan's business can be said to have no scruples, and his lustful eyes can be found everywhere.
There is nothing that cannot be traded.
But what’s the result?
Mulberry cotton was planted in the fertile fields in the south of the Yangtze River, and silk was sold overseas. However, the mulberry cotton land was deprived of food. In the end, the people had no food to eat. The merchants made money, but the people starved to death in the fields, were forced to rebel, and then slaughtered the merchants.
Can their money be eaten at that time?
You think I have a lot of restrictions, but I'm just trying to keep a line.
A line that doesn’t lead to starvation all over the place.”
Zhu Yuanzhang said.
"So, what you need is to develop productivity.
There is actually a lot of land in the Ming Dynasty, but it is all wasteland. These wastelands need to be reclaimed and cultivated. However, the country's population is so large, and the land that can be cultivated and cultivated is limited. This is a fact. But if the amount of wasteland that one person can reclaim and cultivate increases and doubles, then
You can increase food production when the population is limited, and then increase the production of others when food is abundant.
So that more people can consume it?”
"Is there such a good thing?"
"Yes, to put it simply, it means increasing the use of machinery. One person can plant several acres in a day, a seeder can plant dozens of acres in a day, one person can cut an acre of wheat in a day, and a harvester can cut ten acres in a day.
, with the current population of the Ming Dynasty, tens of millions of acres can be cultivated, and hundreds of millions of acres can be cultivated with extensive use of machinery.
People still eat the same food.
The excess grain can be used to increase cotton planting or even feed livestock.
People can buy more clothes and more meat to eat.
And if they buy more clothes and more meat to eat, they need more treasure money to trade.
Your problem is solved.
And it can still be said to be a perfect solution.”