Zhu Cijiong's face fell, his father was bullying him.
Chongzhen turned to Kang Xi again and asked: "Princess, has the Royal Bank been bankrupted?"
"Yes." Kang Xi nodded, "In less than half a month, more than 200 million taels were paid. Now the only large sums of money on the bank cabinet are 60 million taels from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and one from my father.
million."
It has to be said that Kang Wanwan, the uncle of the state, is quite interesting. On the first day of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty Royal Bank, he took the lead in depositing one million taels of silver into the cabinet.
Fang Wenzhen and several others also saved several hundred thousand taels each.
"The Ministry of Internal Affairs will soon pay 30 million," Chongzhen said.
"Ah?" Kang Xi said sadly, "In this case, there may be less than 30 million taels of silver left on the Royal Bank's cabinet, and the three semicolons are not included."
In less than half a month, the amount of money on the bank account dropped sharply from 300 million to 30 million. This gap was so big that even though Kang Xi was from a wealthy family and was used to seeing large sums of money, he couldn't accept it for a while.
"There's nothing to be sad about." Zhu Cixiang advised, "The money didn't belong to the bank in the first place, so it would be troublesome to put it on the bank's counter. Now I don't have to worry about it anymore."
Zhu Cihong never thought of taking the bank's money as his own.
I have to say that the character of the Ming Dynasty prince is still very reliable.
However, limited by time and vision, Zhu Cixiang felt that so much money was a burden.
"Hong'er, this is a sign of your lack of ambition." Chongzhen waved his hand and said, "Of course, the more money, the better. Only a fool like you would worry about too much money."
Zhu Cixi was still a little unconvinced: "The more money, the better. Of course I know this, but the problem is that the money on the bank cabinet does not belong to our family and will be taken back by others at any time."
"How about taking it as your own directly?" Zhu Cijiong suddenly suggested.
"Nonsense!" Chongzhen and Zhu Cixiang scolded almost at the same time.
"Ahem, that's what I said." Zhu Cijiong quickly scratched his head.
Chongzhen said with a serious face: "Jiong'er, have you forgotten what my father told you before? The higher you are in a high position, and the more power you hold over life and death, the more you must have a sense of awe in your heart and act accordingly.
The more we must abide by the rules, the more we must not rely on the power and force in our hands to do whatever we want, otherwise the power will backfire."
Zhu Cixiang continued: "Most of the people who deposited money in the Royal Bank are powerful and prestigious gentry merchants from eight prefectures and one state in the south of the Yangtze River. If we really take this money as our own, the hearts of the people in the south of the Yangtze River will be wiped out overnight.
If it is lost, then when Jiannu goes south, the Jin gentry and the people of Jiangnan should prepare pots and pans of food to welcome the king's army."
"Father, brother, I know I was wrong." Zhu Cijiong's face fell again.
"It's good to know your mistake." Chongzhen touched Zhu Cijiong's little head affectionately, and then said, "It's definitely not okay to take the money from the Royal Bank as your own, but it's okay to use the money to do things for the Ming Dynasty.
, and this is the real purpose of my father’s establishment of the Royal Silver Account.”
"Did Father mean misappropriation?" Zhu Cihong asked.
"Borrowing." Chongzhen said, "Xian'er, you used the wrong word."
Kang Xi also said: "Yes, it is indeed a loan, and the bank paid the interest."
Zhu Cihong said: "Of course there is no problem in borrowing, but what if after lending a large amount of money, we encounter a run like this again? What should we do if we still can't pay back the money?"
"Don't worry, the cash-out phenomenon is only temporary." Chongzhen said.
"Once these depositors have run on the bank several times and found that the Royal Bank can always return their money, they will gradually stop running on the bank and become accustomed to depositing their money in the bank. Besides, runs can also be prevented by finding ways.
.”
"Eh? Can the run be prevented?" Zhu Cihong and Kang Xi were stunned at the same time after hearing this.
"Of course." Chongzhen said with a smile, "You can set a period for depositors, such as one year, three years or five years. The longer the period of deposit, the higher the interest. If you deposit and pay as you go, there will be no interest."
Kang Xi's beautiful eyes lit up, the method his father said was really a good idea.
"Well, even if there is no bank run problem, there are still other problems." Zhu Cihong said again, "Then the question now is, where should the borrowed money be used? To pay for the army?"
Kang Xi's pretty face turned pale immediately after hearing this. This was what she was most worried about.
Kang Xi was afraid that Chongzhen would use the royal silver as his own money, saying he was borrowing it but actually taking it.
When there are holes that cannot be filled in the future, the Kang family or the salt merchants will pay to fill the holes.
"Prince Princess, don't worry, my father will not take money from the bank randomly." Chongzhen was a man of two generations, so he couldn't see Kang Xi's little thoughts. He immediately said with a smile, "I won't do it now, and I won't do it in the future.
The reason why you are asked to establish a bank account is, firstly, for the sake of the Ming Dynasty, and secondly, to save a family fortune for future generations of the royal family."
Kang Xi said with some embarrassment: "My daughter-in-law has absolutely no such intention."
Zhu Cihong said: "Father still hasn't said where the money will be used?"
"Of course the money is used to support industry!" Chongzhen straightened his face and said solemnly, "Since ancient times, there has been no stability without farmers, and no wealth without business. If a country wants to be rich and powerful, it must have prosperous commerce, but if you want to
For business to flourish, a strong industry must first produce enough goods."
"For example, cotton, you have to produce enough cotton so that everyone can have clothes to wear."
"Another example is food. You have to grow enough food so that everyone can eat."
"Another example is houses. You have to build enough houses so that everyone can have a house to live in."
After talking about this for a while, Chongzhen said again: "However, the reality is that there is not so much cotton to make clothes, there is not that much food to eat, and there are not that many houses for everyone to live in."
"Then a new problem arises. Do we have too few fields to grow so much cotton?"
"Do we have too little land to grow that much food? Do we have too little land to build that many houses? None of them."
"Let's not talk about food and houses today, let's talk about cotton, Xun'er, Jiong'er. You should have read the memorial of Songjiang Prefecture, but do you still remember how many acres of cotton fields there are in Songjiang Prefecture?"
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "This?" Neither Zhu Cihong nor Zhu Cijiong could answer.
Finally, Kang Xi answered: "Songjiang Prefecture and nearby prefectures and counties have a total of about 1.6 million acres of cotton fields, which can produce 960,000 dans of seed cotton, 320,000 dans of net cotton, and an annual output of about 28 million pieces of various cotton cloths."
[Note: Qun is the unit of weight, 1 Qun = 100 kilograms]
"Okay." Chongzhen nodded happily and asked, "How many acres of cultivated land does Songjiang Prefecture have?"
"This son knows," Zhu Cihong said hurriedly, "Since Zhang Juzheng cleared the land, the cultivated land area of Songjiang Prefecture has been maintained at about 4.7 million acres."
"Then the question comes." Chongzhen asked again, "Songjiang Prefecture obviously has enough farmland, why can't it grow one million acres of cotton and produce 20 million more pieces of cotton cloth?"
"This?" Zhu Cixiang was asked again by Chongzhen.
Because this issue is beyond his knowledge.
But Kang Xi deserves to be born in a merchant family, and said: "Because the eight prefectures and one state in the south of the Yangtze River can only sell about 28 million pieces of cotton cloth, and if another 20 million pieces of cotton cloth are produced, there will be a backlog or they will be sold at a loss, so
Cotton farmers, weavers and merchants selling cotton cloth will all lose money when doing business."
"How come?" Zhu Cijiong said, "Eight prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River cannot use so much cloth, as well as Jiangxi, Fujian, Huguang, and the Chief Envoys of Guangdong and Guangxi. There are still many people in the world who have no clothes. Why don't cloth merchants sell the cloth?
Going to another province?"
Kang Xi sighed: "Because transporting cotton to other provinces requires transportation, the price will skyrocket. A piece of the most common Songjiang cotton only sells for 1 to 1 and a half cents in Jiangnan, but when sold to Huguang, it costs 3
If it is sold to Yunnan and Guizhou, it needs to be sold for more than 1 tael, otherwise you will lose money."
"But let alone 1 tael or 3 yuan, ordinary people can no longer afford it."
"So the people there would rather wear local linen or kebab, because the local hemp and kebab are cheap, although the workmanship is very poor and they are not warm."
"That's not right." Zhu Cihong said, "Why don't cloth merchants directly find farmers in Huguang or Yunnan and Guizhou to grow cotton, and then find local weavers to weave cotton cloth? Wouldn't the price of the main sample cotton cloth come down?"
"Things are not that simple." Kang Xi smiled bitterly, "Because there are not enough looms in the local area, and building one requires a lot of expense."
"And there is no precedent for local people to make a profit from growing cotton, so they usually need to pay a deposit before they are willing to grow cotton, which further pushes up the cost of local cotton production for cloth merchants."
"And this is not the most terrible thing. The most terrible thing is that it takes several years for a weaver to become a skilled weaver. Before that, the products weaved are either residual products or defective products, which cannot be sold at a good price. That is to say
Within a few years, cloth merchants will need to operate at a loss, so no cloth merchant can afford it."
Speaking of this, Kang Xi's expression suddenly changed. Could it be that?
Chongzhen smiled and said: "Princess, do you know how to spend money now?"
"My daughter-in-law knows." Kang Xi had fully reacted at this time, her big eyes sparkling, "It is to lend money to those cloth merchants who want to produce Songjiang cotton in Huguang, Yunnan and Guizhou but have no capital! Help them get through the most difficult period.
, wait until they start making profits and then repay the money from the bank with interest.”
"It's not just cotton." Chongzhen waved his hand and said, "There are also various industries such as silk, porcelain, pottery, glass and colored glaze. It not only supports off-site production, but also supports the improvement of production technology to make production costs lower. In this way
Regional restrictions on products will be smaller, and commodity circulation will become more prosperous."
Well, to put it bluntly, this is the Ming Dynasty version of industrial replication and industrial cultivation.
The cultivation and replication of industry has always been a vast and arduous project.
If the government does not provide targeted financial support and provide sufficient preferential policies, industrial replication and cultivation will be pure wishful thinking.
In fact, the most effective government investment is infrastructure construction.
It's a pity that not to mention cars, not even trains have appeared now. So even if Chongzhen wanted to build infrastructure in the Ming Dynasty, he couldn't find a way to build it. He couldn't build another Grand Canal, right?
Therefore, we can only start with industrial replication and cultivation.
Let the small commodity economic circles in each province prosper first.
The prosperity of eight prefectures and one state in the south of the Yangtze River is not enough.
Then after the steam engine appears in the future, we will build railways and carry out infrastructure construction.
By that time, the Ming Dynasty will enter the fast lane of development, the commodity economy will usher in unprecedented prosperity, and the comprehensive national strength will increase exponentially.
Then it can form a crushing advantage over the entire world.
Of course, this is only Chongzhen's long-term plan.
For this plan to become a reality, it will take at least fifty years!
As for now, let's defeat Jiannu's second march south first and then talk about other things.
With a slight sigh, Chongzhen said: "But all of this must have a prerequisite, that is, the Ming Dynasty must survive this hurdle!"
The expressions of the Zhu Cixi brothers and Kang Xi also became solemn.
Because Jiannu's march south was really a big deal.
…
Let’s talk about establishing slaves.
In the past two months, Jiannu has not been idle.
Let’s talk about Azige first. Before receiving Dorgon’s order, Azige’s army on the west route was confronting the Dashun army led by Gao Yigong and Li Yan in Yulin.
Because the more than one hundred red barbarian cannons carried by the Azige tribe were blocked by the Great Wall and could not reach northern Shaanxi, they were unable to open up the situation. They even sent a partial division to make a detour, but in the end they were hit by a big enemy.
The Shun army ambushed the Mongols and suffered heavy casualties. Thousands of Mongols were killed and wounded.
Later, Azig learned from Huang Taiji and dug trenches around Yulin.
This method is stupid, but it does work. Although Gao Yigong and Li Yan counterattacked many times, they all failed because Jiannu's field battle was indeed better than Dashun's army.
As a result, there was a confrontation in both directions, Yulin and Luoyang.
Then at this time, Dorgon's decree reached Azig and Duduo's armies almost at the same time. Although Azig and Duduo were very reluctant in their hearts, they had no choice but to withdraw their troops.
Duduo withdrew his army to Weihui Mansion in Hebei for temporary rest and reorganization.
Azig was directly recalled to Beijing by Dorgon on the charge of "treating Mongolia as a foreign vassal". The army of more than 100,000 was handed over to Leke Dehui and a few Baylors, and went south to Weihui Mansion to join Duduo.
By the end of February, the army from the West Route successfully arrived at Wei Hui Mansion.
The food and fodder baggage transferred by Dorgon from Beijing arrived at almost the same time.
So at this time, Duduo already had 80,000 Manchu troops under the Eight Banners, more than 20,000 Mongolian troops under the Eight Banners, more than 10,000 Han troops under the Eight Banners, more than 30,000 Mongolian cavalry from the outer vassals, and more than 50,000 Ming troops from Wu Sangui, Jiang Xiang, Tang Tong and others.
In addition to the surrendering army, there are more than 80,000 coated slaves accompanying the army, with a total strength of 270,000!
In order to boost the morale of the army, Duduo captured several bandit leaders, pretended to be the commander-in-chief of the Ming army, and beheaded them in public to sacrifice the flag.
After offering sacrifices to the flag, Duduo lit up an army of 220,000 horse and infantry, and marched southward along with more than 100,000 horses, more than 2,000 sidecars and more than 200 red cannons.
Because the previous more than one hundred red cannons have been lost,
So Dorgon specially transferred more than 100 more schools from Beijing.
At the same time that Duduo led an army of more than 200,000 people to rush to Xuzhou, the Qing government delegation headed by Zuo Maotai, the left minister of the Ministry of War, also arrived in Xi'an, met with Li Zicheng, and sought to establish an alliance with the Dashun Army.
