() Wen Tiren replied, "Silver taels are more troublesome than copper coins."
At this time, the people from Shangshan Supervisor came outside Wenhua Hall with food trays.
Emperor Chongzhen signaled, and Wen Tiren also noticed it, so he stopped talking and asked the Shangshan Supervisor to put the dishes on the table.
After all preparations were completed, Emperor Chongzhen said: "My two dear friends, please have your meal first."
But after a while, Emperor Chongzhen couldn't help it anymore and asked: "How troublesome is the silver coin?"
Upon hearing this, Wen Tiren put down his chopsticks and replied sternly: "Your Majesty, besides having several troubles with copper coins, silver coins are much more valuable than copper coins. If you lose even a few centimeters, you will lose a lot, so weighing is also a matter of weight."
Controversial."
Zhong Jinwei listened and ate at the same time. Compared with the ancients, modern people lack the common sense of etiquette and the understanding of the majesty of the king that are engraved in their bones.
"In addition to the above reasons, the exchange relationship between silver taels and copper coins is even more troublesome. The reason is that the quality of silver taels and the quality of copper coins both affect the exchange of the two."
Emperor Chongzhen nodded. These things may seem small, but they have a huge impact on the people.
"Is there any solution?"
"Your Majesty, the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes can solve the problem of using silver and two copper coins. However, the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes have depreciated very much, so the people still mainly use silver and two copper coins. There is no solution yet."
When Wen Tiren said this, Emperor Chongzhen also remembered that the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes could indeed solve these problems, and they had been issued since the time of Taizu. However, because of the rapid depreciation, no one was willing to use them. Therefore, it has gradually been issued since the Zhengde period.
are no longer issued, and for this reason, I ignored the existence of Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes.
When Emperor Chongzhen thought of this, he couldn't help but sigh: "If the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes could be as strong as silver and two copper coins, it would be the best of both worlds."
Originally, the depreciation of the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes could be controlled by following the example of Song Xiaozong and recycling the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes. But now, neither the people nor the officials of the Ming Dynasty believe that this paper has any value at all, so who
No one is willing to use it. Even if the court says it wants to recycle it, no one is willing to believe it. Moreover, the current fiscal revenue is not enough to spend extra silver to recycle it.
When Wen Tiren thought of this, he secretly regretted that if the country was founded and this strategy was used for a long time, there would still be such troubles.
Zhong Jinwei had almost eaten. When he saw this situation, he spoke out: "Your Majesty, what I want to tell you is about this Ming Dynasty treasure note."
Oh, it seems that Zhong Jinwei has a solution, and Zhong Jinwei suddenly becomes the center of attention again.
"Your Majesty, do you remember that when I first came to this world, I carried a wallet with me. The money in the bag did not contain silver coins and copper plates, but banknotes and bank cards."
Wen Tiren interjected: "What is a bank card?"
"With a bank card, you deposit money into a bank. Well, it's a bank. Then the bank will write the amount of your money on the card. It's very convenient to carry it with you." Zhong Jinwei wanted to explain bank cards in this way, but he didn't know if they could.
Understand, after all, this is the result of technology.
"That's just a bank note!" Wen Tiren made a straightforward judgment.
"..." Zhong Jinwei was speechless. When he thought about it, it really was just an ancient bank note.
"Well, let's not talk about bank cards first, let's talk about banknotes first." Zhong Jinwei quickly changed the subject to cover up his embarrassment of underestimating the wisdom of the ancients.
Emperor Chongzhen and Wen Tiren did not realize that they had just been despised by Zhong Jinwei, and continued to listen to Zhong Jinwei's explanation.
"Compared with physical currency, paper money has obvious advantages. Mr. Wen just made a comparison, so I won't go into it. Now I will mainly talk about how to issue paper money." Zhong Jinwei is very shameless. He even knows a little about the economic subject of currency, but he
Act as a master here.
"The reason why the Ming Dynasty banknotes have not become the mainstream currency in the market after its issuance is because of the error in the issuance method."
Zhong Jinwei recalled what later generations saw on the Internet and said: "After the Ming Dynasty's treasure banknotes were printed, they were given directly to ministers and the army, and merchants were asked to exchange them with silver coins. Isn't this the case?"
If you're not sure, it's better to ask first.
"Yes." Wen Tiren responded cooperatively.
"If this is the case, this Ming Dynasty treasure note should be worth that much silver, but the cost of the Ming Dynasty treasure note is actually not much. After ordinary people exchange it, if it cannot be used for transactions, it will be no different from ordinary paper.
But silver and copper coins are different. Even if they cannot be used for trading, their value is still there, and they can be used to make silverware, copper dishes, etc., right?"
The vernacular is easy to understand. No one can deny that both Emperor Chongzhen and Wen Tiren understood it.
"Why were the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes usable at the beginning? It was because the imperial court forced its use. The imperial court said that a consistent treasure banknote is worth a consistent amount of money. But gradually, there are more and more treasure banknotes, and I still have a lot of unused ones in my hand.
As a result, I received a lot more. Okay, then I will go shopping with my treasure money. Anyway, there are a lot of them and I can’t spend them all. I do this, you do this, and in the end everyone does this, and there is only one final result.
, the things that treasure money can buy will become less and less. And precisely because the things that treasure money can buy are getting less and less, people will become more and more distrustful of treasure money, and they can’t wait to take action right away and start using treasure money to buy things again.
So, one after another, the treasure money is just a piece of paper."
Wen Tiren basically understood the principles of these devaluations, but Emperor Chongzhen did not understand it very well. To be honest, there were no dedicated people in ancient times who studied the economic system and laws of currency. The emperor of the Ming Dynasty did not understand it very well.
, it’s all about printing treasure banknotes when you need money.
"So how do you change the treasure banknotes from paper to currency again? I think now is a good time."
"What do you mean by Zhongxing Bo's words?"
"The Ming Dynasty banknotes have not been printed for many years. In this way, the historical burden of re-introducing the Ming Dynasty banknotes will be much lighter. We can do it in several steps."
"The first step is to recycle the old Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes and then destroy them all to get rid of the historical burden."
Emperor Chongzhen shook his head: "The imperial court does not have the ability to recover the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes now."
"It's not a one-to-one recycling. You can recycle it at market price. For example, one tael of silver can be recycled into thousands of Ming Dynasty treasure notes."
Emperor Chongzhen still shook his head. All my silver containers were melted down and used as military pay, so there was still extra money to recycle the previously issued Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes.
"Forget it, let's just cheat. Let's issue another set of banknotes, so that there is no historical burden." Zhong Jinwei thought that feudal society still has advantages. Even if it is cheating, nothing seems to happen.
"Master Zhong, please continue."
"The first step is to gather the best craftsmen in the country to use the most advanced printing technology and the best special paper for banknotes to print banknotes, and try our best to eliminate the possibility of counterfeit banknotes."
A major shortcoming of paper money is the fear of counterfeiting. People in the Ming Dynasty were very knowledgeable about this. The previous Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes directly stated that counterfeiters will be killed, and those who accuse the arrest will be rewarded with 250 taels of silver, but the prisoners will still be given.
The penalties for property and counterfeiting are not light.
Therefore, there is no problem with this first step, and both Emperor Chongzhen and Wen Tiren understand it.
"The second step is to establish a reserve system."
Unable to understand this, Emperor Chongzhen asked: "What is a reserve fund?"
"It means that as many banknotes are issued as there are physical objects in reserve. For example, if the court wants to print banknotes worth one thousand taels of silver, it must have a reserve of one thousand taels of silver."
"Why?"
"In order to establish a credit system for banknotes, the imperial court issued banknotes worth one thousand taels of silver, and the people were worried that the banknotes would depreciate and not be worth that much. Then there is no problem, the people can exchange the banknotes for real silver. The purpose of this is,
It means that people don’t have to worry about the depreciation of the banknotes in their hands.”
"Master Zhong, if you do this, what's the benefit to the court? The banknotes issued have corresponding silver reserves. It's better to just issue silver taels."
"Your Majesty, the circulation of banknotes in the market can solve the problems encountered by ministers when going to restaurants to eat. It reduces a lot of troubles. People will naturally be willing to trade. Once money circulates, business development will be more prosperous, and the court will naturally be able to obtain from it.
More benefits.”
There was a lot involved in this, and Zhong Jinwei was not very clear about it. He just explained it briefly. However, even though the explanation was so simple, Emperor Chongzhen and Wen Tiren were not very clear about the relationship. They just saw Zhong Jinwei taking it for granted.
It seems that the truth is very simple and easy to understand, and there should be nothing wrong with it.
"Of course, the most important benefit that the imperial court can obtain is not this."
"What is that?" Emperor Chongzhen asked quickly as he threw away his chopsticks when he heard that the court had greater benefits.