908, The second reason why Yang Fan wanted to touch the eight imperial merchants
Anyway, Yang Fan had long seen that the eight imperial merchants were dissatisfied, and this time he wanted to deal with them. Why not take the money that Zhang Shize squeezed out with his ability?
If you don't take it for free, keeping the money will not do any good to the Ming Dynasty or the people.
If the eight imperial merchants are willing to use their money to circulate or even set up factories, Yang Fan will forget about it. He will also create some factories for them to invest in equity and make them rich.
If they are willing to transform and become industrial and financial capitalists, Yang Fan would be happy to see it happen.
What they hated most about Yang Fan was that they cast the silver into lumps of silver and buried them deeply in the ground. This caused serious deflation in the Ming Dynasty.
In a country that uses silver as its currency standard, the emperor and the central government do not have the right to supply and issue this currency. This weird thing made Yang Fan speechless.
There are three forces that control the issuance of silver currency: Europeans, Japanese, and gentry (especially the southeastern gentry group.)
There is actually no Ming Dynasty cabinet and emperor. The cabinet and emperor only have the right to issue copper coins. Of course, they also have the right to issue treasure banknotes.
However, Baobao, the first paper currency in the world to be endorsed by the credit of the government and the emperor and circulated throughout the country, has long since become something that looks angry and is too thin to wipe the butt due to irresponsible hair.
Even if it is used as toilet paper, it will be too fine and too thin, which will lead to the tragedy of forgetting to take the paper with you when you poop, and the paper will be torn when the money is picked out.
In fact, both the cabinet and the emperor understood that there were huge hidden dangers in using a currency that they could not control. Therefore, in the early Ming Dynasty, silver was banned as currency. But guns cannot defeat the laws of economics. Likewise, the emperor and the cabinet cannot ban silver.
Circulation. Later, I had to let it go.
Most of the Ming Dynasty's silver was imported, and many local mineral deposits were not discovered or could not be extracted because of associated ores.
One-third of the imported silver came from Japan. However, after the end of the Warring States Period, Japan began to isolate itself and the outflow of silver was cut off.
One-third came from Europe and its overseas colonies. Especially the silver transported by Spanish galleons from the Americas to Manila and then traded with the Ming Dynasty. This part also came to an abrupt end.
Because the Thirty Years' War broke out in Europe, this war lasted from 1618 to 1648.
This year is 1628, and the war has been going on for ten years. The huge consumption of the war and the loss of population have led to a serious shrinkage in consumption. The number of merchant ships in Europe has decreased sharply, resulting in insufficient silver import.
However, the gentry of the Ming Dynasty sold physical goods to obtain silver and then stored it in hoards. This resulted in a serious shortage of silver in the circulation chain.
If the total money supply is less than the total social production, it will cause deflation and cause a serious fall in prices. This will lead to low prices and harm to farmers.
After Zhang Juzheng's reforms, farmers needed to sell their grains into silver to pay taxes.
However, the circulation of silver continued to decrease, and even began to decrease sharply in the late Wanli period. As a result, farmers had to sell more grain than before to collect enough tax money.
All this led to financial difficulties. The Ming Dynasty was a country with agricultural taxes as the main tax, which also greatly increased the burden on farmers. The increase in the price of silver led to high living costs for citizens, service industry personnel and craftsmen, etc.
, life gradually fell into trouble.
In fact, the emperor and ministers knew the principles, causes and consequences of all this. They also made efforts. The first was to target overseas silver.
Yongle made seven voyages to the West in order to exchange silver, gold, and even goods that were lacking in the country through trade for barter, strengthen the circulation of domestic goods, stabilize prices, and ensure people's livelihood.
Emperor Yongle's voyage to the West, Xuanzong and Zhu Zhanji also prepared to go to the West, but he died before it could be completed. Yingzong also prepared to go to the West. The preparations took half a year, but before they started, they encountered the Tumu Fort Incident.
Emperor Wuzong not only enjoyed himself in the Leopard Room, he also defeated Dayan Khan who unified Mongolia in the Battle of Datong, which led to the re-division of Mongolia. He was also preparing to sail to the West. But he soon fell into the water and the matter was over.
Of.
In the Jiajing Dynasty, the emperor once again prepared to open the sea and hired Yan Song and others. Yan Song and others finally failed in the political struggle and were labeled as traitors and traitors. Kaihai was stillborn.
Jiajing understood that the deflation problem in the Ming Dynasty had reached a point where it could not be solved without solving it. The rise in silver prices directly affected people's lives.
Yan Song forced the southeast coast to convert grain-growing land into mulberry fields for the production of silk. This caused many farmers to starve to death and even led to riots. On the surface, it seems to be a completely bad government. Why did Jiajing do such a notorious thing?
Woolen cloth.
The fundamental reason is that silk can exchange for much-needed silver for the Ming Dynasty from east-west trade.
Only when the imperial court had enough silver in its hands, and through salaries and projects, could silver be injected into the circulating blood vessels like blood, the anemia of the Ming Dynasty could be cured.
After the failure of Jiajing, Jiajing's son started Longqing Kaihai, but it was canceled after a short period.
By the Wanli Dynasty, the war in Japan ended, and Japan began to isolate itself from the country. (Japan's Warring States Period 1467-1615. It happened to be the period after the Chenghua Ming Dynasty.)
During the war, various forces exchanged urgently needed war resources through trade with the Ming Dynasty. As a result, a large amount of silver flowed into the Ming Dynasty, and the era of the Ming Dynasty was completely ended.
At that time, five to six million taels of silver flowed into the Ming Dynasty every year, which greatly eased the court's tax difficulties. The private sector also benefited greatly, stabilizing the value of the currency.
As Japan closed its doors to the outside world, only Nagasaki was left for foreign trade. The amount of silver flowing into the Ming Dynasty decreased sharply.
Wanli had no choice but to look for money from within, and sent out mining supervisors and eunuchs to various places to supervise the mining. They mainly opened gold, silver and copper mines. These three types of mines are related to the amount of money invested.
By the time of the Apocalypse, the situation became even more serious. Because of the Thirty Years' War in Europe, the finances of various countries were depleted by the war. Private wealth was also heavily lent to governments in the form of financial financing. As a result, the supply of silver from European and American colonies was also interrupted.
We are experiencing great financial difficulties.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! In less than a month after Emperor Taichang reigned, in order to reward his heroes, he handed over the 7 million taels of silver left by Wanli to the Donglin Party.
Everything was squandered. Before Tianqi came to power, the internal treasury and household department were all empty.
Tianqi had no choice but to use Wei Zhongxian to tap the potential from within, increase revenue and reduce expenditure, and maintain the court's shaky finances.
Now in the Chongzhen Dynasty, the two major overseas sources of silver have been cut off, and internal tapping of potential has been forced to stop with the fall of Duke Wei. In the end, we can only resort to the method invented by Sun Chengzong to increase war taxes on land across the country. This is called
For Liao’s salary.
After the Qing Dynasty was established, it was discovered that the Liao salary used to annihilate itself was a good thing. It could increase the court's fiscal revenue and alleviate the problem of deflation caused by private hoarding of silver. Not only was it not abolished, it was also carried forward. However, in order to look good, the name was changed.
Lijin.
The Qing Dynasty developed dozens of types of linjin tax, a military war tax that was temporarily allocated on land, and continued until the Republic of China. In the third year of Xuantong (1911), the last year of the Qing Dynasty, the total linjin tax nationwide was,
A total of more than 43.18 million taels of silver.
On January 1, 1931, the Nanjing National Government abolished the Lijin system. Afterwards, it completely reformed the currency system by abolishing the two and changing the Yuan (abolition of scattered silver and use of silver dollars), and the issuance of banknotes and legal tender.
In the 1930s, the National Government carried out two currency reforms, namely the "abolition of the two currencies and the reform of the yuan" in 1933 and the implementation of the legal currency policy in 1935. The first currency reform abolished the silver tael, established the silver dollar standard, and unified the silver dollar. However,
Before consolidating the National Government, it carried out a second reform, forcibly confiscating the country's silver, selling it in the international market, exchanging it for gold-standard pound banknotes, and then using pounds as reserves to issue banknotes and legal tender.
The biggest feature of banknotes is that they can be printed without restrictions. With banknotes, deflation and deflation are no longer a problem. Inflation will become a big problem later.
Yang Fan attacked the Donglin Party's financial center in the north, Zhangjiawan Town in Tongzhou, and robbed a total of nearly 20 million taels of silver, gold, jewelry, and other equivalent materials. This time, from the eight major imperial merchants,
They robbed Zhangjiakou of nearly 20 million worth of property.
Yang Fan will use this money to carry out engineering and infrastructure construction and provide more employment opportunities. Only when people have money can they buy industrial products and support Yang Fan's factories.
Invest in building factories and then go public. Invest in industry by buying stocks, and use the money of the Ming Dynasty landlords, officials, and gentry to build industry.
As the bank's capital, it provides loans to industry and commerce and forcibly increases the circulation and velocity of currency.
Yang Fan alone cannot change the Ming Dynasty. Yang Fan must cultivate an emerging industrial and commercial group to fundamentally change the direction of this country.
Yang Fan was a little funny. Now Zhang Shize had accepted the money. The army also set off as scheduled. When they arrived at Zhangjiakou, they found that there was only an empty city left there. I wonder what the expressions of these old Shanxi thugs who were bleeding would be.
