In the next half month, the Wang and Hu families continued to sell grain to Nanjing, and they sold it wholesale and not retail at the rice market at a price of five taels per stone.
The grain merchants in Nanjing all bought in one by one.
But eating these grains requires money.
In order to eat the grain trafficked by the Wang and Hu families, the grain merchants headed by the Mao family, the Xu family and the Qian family had no choice but to raise and borrow money from everywhere. However, Jiangnan was already short of money, and now with the large-scale borrowing by grain merchants,
To make matters worse, the overnight lending rate on the market suddenly rose to one penny!
It means that if you lend money to others to cross the bridge, you can get 10% profit, which is an exaggeration.
Under the temptation of this high profit, those wealthy locals who had not moved for thousands of years were alarmed and dug out the money buried deep in their yards to lend it to others to cross the bridge.
In addition to these rich locals, two "fur traders" from Shaanxi also made a lot of benefits.
At this time in the Shaanxi Guild Hall, Luo Zuochang and Luo Zuojiu were taking stock of their income for the past half month.
Luo Zuochang and Luo Zuojiu were both sons of Luo Yangxing, but Luo Yangxing was a relatively low-key person. Therefore, although the two brothers inherited the official status of the Imperial Guard, they rarely showed their faces in front of others.
It is precisely because of this that he was selected by Dorgon and sent to Nanjing to lurk.
However, Dorgon no longer asked the brothers to assassinate Chongzhen.
The two brothers' current public identity is that they are fur traders from Guanzhong. For this reason, the brothers have learned Guanzhong dialect for more than half a year, and even Lao Shaanxi can't detect the flaws.
Since arriving in Nanjing, I haven’t done many fur businesses.
But I did earn a lot of interest by borrowing bridge funds.
The two brothers just completed another business this morning, making a net profit of fifty thousand taels in one day.
As soon as he returned to the upper room, Luo Zuochang sighed: "Second brother, the money in Nanzhi is really easy to make. Sometimes I think we should just stay in Nanjing and not go back to Beijing, right?"
"Brother is joking again." Luo Zuojiu shook his head and said, "This is not okay."
"That's what I'm saying." Luo Zuochang smiled and suddenly said, "But this money is really easy to make, but our capital is a little less, only more than 200,000."
"How about we go find Fan Da?"
"This old guy is the boss of the Fan family."
"The money he can mobilize is at least two million!"
After talking about this, Luo Zuochang said again: "Just say it is to buy food."
Before the Chinese New Year, the brothers received an order from the Qing court.
That is to ask them to help the Fan family purchase grain from Nanming at all costs.
"This is fine." Luo Zuojiu said, "I'll go now."
Watching Luo Zuojiu go out, Luo Zuochang's face turned cold and stern little by little.
…
Three days later, Imperial College Yilun Hall.
"Long live my Lord." Wang Chengen handed a small wax pill to Chongzhen and said, "A secret message from Beijing."
Chongzhen used a little force to crush the wax pill and took out the secret message. After reading it, he couldn't help but said with joy: "Good thing, Dorgon ordered Shanxi merchant Fan Yongdou and others to sneak into Huguang and Jiangnan with a large amount of silver to prepare to purchase grain from the Ming Dynasty.
, this is a gift to Ming Dynasty, haha, we are short of money."
Zhu Cijiong said: "Father, how much money do you have?"
"The letter didn't say anything." Chongzhen shook his head and said, "But I guess it will be no less."
Zhu Cixiang guessed: "Father, the silver in the hands of Jiannu and Shanxi merchants is probably no less than 200 million taels!"
"Two hundred million taels?" Zhu Cijiong's eyes suddenly lit up, he rubbed his hands and said, "That's so much."
"Silly boy, Jianu will not let Shanxi merchants bring all the silver to the Ming Dynasty." Chongzhen said with a smile, "However, based on my father's estimate, there should be 30 to 40 million taels of silver."
Zhu Cijiong said: "Father, you must keep this money."
Chongzhen smiled and said: "Of course, if the money from Jiannu enters the territory of the Ming Dynasty, it belongs to the Ming Dynasty."
Zhu Cijiong said: "Father, you mean to send troops to arrest the Shanxi merchants who sneaked into the Ming Dynasty? To confiscate the stolen money?"
"Hey, you can't be so rude." Chongzhen said with a smile, "Although these Shanxi merchants came to Ming Dynasty to buy grain on the orders of Dorgon and had no good intentions, they were still doing things for the commercial prosperity of Ming Dynasty objectively.
They have made contributions, so as long as they don’t speculate, don’t worry about them.”
"Ah?" Zhu Cijiong said in astonishment, "Then just watch them buy the food?"
Chongzhen smiled and said: "They can buy food, but I'm afraid they can't take it out."
After speaking, Chongzhen ordered Gao Qiqian to invite Ma Mingluan, Kang Xi, Zheng Zunqian, Qian Xi, Xu Guo, Wang Wei and Shen Shaofang, the right minister of the Ministry of Revenue, to the Imperial Academy.
Most of these people are financial giants of the Ming Dynasty.
Among them, Kang Xi is the boss of Royal Bank.
Zheng Zunqian is the head of the Industrial and Commercial Bank.
Qian Xi is the boss of a shipping and shipbuilding bank.
Shen Shaofang is the chief treasurer of the Ming Dynasty Exchange and the Ministry of Household Bank.
Xu Guo now also serves as the chief treasurer of the Ming Dynasty Royal Mint.
Only Wang Wei is not a financial practitioner, but he is closely related to the financial industry.
Chongzhen first asked Xu Guodao: "Xu Guodao, there are silver coins and silver coins. How is the production of copper coins?"
"Back to the Holy Spirit, nearly 300 million yuan of silver coins have been printed." Xu Guo said hurriedly, "The casting of silver coins and copper coins is relatively slow. Only more than 30 million yuan have been minted so far."
"It's almost done." Chongzhen said thoughtfully, "Right now, the silver shortage in Jiangnan is intensifying. The overnight lending rate has risen to two yuan, and all walks of life have been deeply affected."
"The introduction of silver notes, silver coins and copper coins at this time can be said to be in line with the public sentiment."
After saying this, he added: "The resistance encountered will be much smaller."
Except for Shen Shaofang who didn't say anything, everyone else was naturally in unanimous agreement.
It is not surprising that Shen Shaofang refused to express his position, because the banknotes, silver coins, and copper coins were all issued by the Royal Bank, but the Household Bank did not even get a sip of soup. Naturally, he was dissatisfied.
"Shen Shaofang, what do you think?" Chongzhen directly named him.
What else could Shen Shaofang say? He could only say helplessly: "I second the proposal."
"Very good, the vote passed unanimously." Chongzhen nodded happily and said to Wang Wei, "Wang Wei, tomorrow's Huangming Times will use the entire front page and the entire fourth page to introduce the entire banknote system in great detail."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "It must be made clear that banknotes cannot be issued indiscriminately."
"For every one dollar of silver notes issued, the Royal Bank must reserve one tael of silver."
After a pause, he continued: "Businessmen or ordinary people who take the banknotes can go to banks and branches in various places to exchange for corresponding amounts of silver. No bank or branch is allowed to shirk or refuse for any reason."
"I accept the decree." Wang Wei stood up, bowed his head and said, "I will have someone write an article when I get back."
Chongzhen also said to Zheng Zunqian, Qian Xi and Shen Shaofang: "Three hundred million yuan in silver notes, industrial and commercial bank, shipping and shipbuilding bank and household bank each borrowed 100 million yuan, and silver yuan and copper yuan each borrowed 10 million yuan temporarily."
"As for the interest..." At this point, Chongzhen turned to Kang Xi and asked, "Princess, how much was the interest rate for the Royal Bank to lend money to other banks?"
Kang Xi hurriedly said: "As my father told me, the monthly interest rate for one year is two cents."
"That's too high." Chongzhen said, "Let's set the annual interest rate at five cents from now on."
"Ah? Five cents of annual interest?" Kang Xi was dumbfounded and couldn't believe it.
Is it really a good idea to cut Royal Bank’s interest income by 80% in one fell swoop?
Qian Xi, Zheng Zunqian and Shen Shaofang were also surprised. Is the Holy One going to send money to various accounts?
But the next second, the dream of Qian Xi and others came to nothing. Chongzhen said again: "The interest rates of various commercial banks will also be reduced. Nowadays, the industry and commerce in Jiangnan have made great progress, and the demand for silver has also increased greatly.
The loan scale of each bank has also increased a lot than before, so the interest rates should not be set so high."
After a pause, he added: "From now on, the maximum interest rate for a one-year loan shall not exceed one yuan."
The annual interest rate does not exceed one penny, which is 10%, which can be said to be a great benefit to the industry and commerce of this era. After all, the standard interest rate at this time is nine out and ten out within three months.
According to the standard of nine out and thirteen returns, the annual interest rate is 145%.
Before this, the annual profits of various commercial banks were around 40%.
But Chongzhen directly lowered the annual interest rate to 10%, which is really cruel.
Of course, Chongzhen did this to support the faster development of industry and commerce.
In a word, Chongzhen still felt that the industrial and commercial development in Jiangnan was not fast enough.
The direct manifestation is that it has not yet exerted any pressure on the improvement of production efficiency.
Of course, this is also related to the stage of development. At present, the large-scale upgrading of various industries such as the textile industry, silk weaving industry, printing and dyeing industry, and food processing industry has just begun and is still in the stage of barbaric growth.
A major feature of the barbaric growth stage is that the industry is in an incremental game.
In other words, the market capacity of the entire industry is large enough, and all practitioners can make a living. Even if the production efficiency is lower, they will still make money, but they will just make less.
But after passing the barbaric growth stage and entering the stock game, we have to fight for production efficiency.
By that time, handicraft workshops with low production efficiency will close down in large numbers, and only those handicraft workshops with high production efficiency will be able to survive.
Then these surviving handicraft workshops will work hard to improve production efficiency.
At this stage, various machines that can improve production efficiency will spring up like mushrooms after a rain.
What Chongzhen is doing now is to encourage all walks of life in Jiangnan to pass the stage of barbaric growth as soon as possible, and then enter the stage of stock game as soon as possible.
…
The next day, the front page and the fourth page of Huangming Times published a number of articles, which provided detailed explanations of the banknotes just launched by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At the same time, they issued an initiative to let the people take their silver coins to the Royal Bank as soon as possible.
or other commercial bank accounts in exchange for banknotes and silver dollars.
The people in Jiangnan were of course extremely resistant to this.
And those rich people who hold a lot of money in their hands are even more disgusted.
Because after the introduction of the main bank note, there was no shortage of silver in the whole Jiangnan overnight, and the local rich could no longer earn high profits.
