Cai Yanqing rode worriedly on his way to Xizhou. Dusk
He had previously inspected Hezhou and learned that five Tibetan leaders he sent to spy on Taozhou who were friendly to the Song Dynasty were killed by Bian Sibojie, the leader of the Guizhang Tribe, for some reason. The bones of these five leaders are now being hung upside down.
On the top of the city of Yigong City.
Sibojie here is not only capable and ambitious, but also cruel and young. This man is more cunning and dangerous than his grandfather Guizhang, and he will become a serious problem to the Song Dynasty sooner or later. At the same time, Dong Xiang's other general Ji Lengpu also led his tribe south.
Moving to the south of Jishi Mountain seems to have the potential to join forces with Bian Sibo.
After Cai Yanqing learned about this incident, he wrote to Zhang Yue, but the other party did not seem to pay much attention to it.
This time Zhang Yue asked him to go to Xizhou to discuss something important. Cai Yanqing felt that he had to mention the matter to Zhang Yue.
In the past, on the road from Hezhou to Xizhou, Tibetan tribes came and went from time to time to ambush the Song army or caravans and food convoys. Cai Yanqing led more than a hundred riders on the road at night in the rain. Along the way, he saw lanterns shaking and illuminating the surroundings.
The light and dark were uncertain, and the horse's hooves were going in and out of the muddy road. The bumps on the horse's back made Cai Yanqing feel ups and downs. He didn't feel relieved until he saw Xizhou City bathed in wind and rain.
After Cai Yanqing arrived in Xizhou City, he stayed one night in a Buddhist temple in the city. The transit envoy had no fixed residence when he visited various states. Sometimes he stayed in a post house, sometimes in a temple, and sometimes he was hosted by local officials and gentry.
at home.
Cai Yanqing came to Jinglue Mansion early the next morning.
Zhang Yue, Li Xian, and Cai Yanqing had breakfast. Zhang Yue talked to Cai Yanqing for a while to ask for his support, and Cai Yanqing understood.
Afterwards, they went to the hall to discuss matters. Cai Yanqing glanced at them and saw that they were Wang Hou, Zhong Shidao, Zhang Shouyue and Shen Kuo.
Except for Professor Miao and Gao Zunyu who are in Huizhou, all the generals in Xihe Road are here.
Seeing this battle, Cai Yanqing did not rush to mention the matter of the border relationship.
But after hearing Zhang Yue say a few words, Cai Yanqing asked: "Surplus? Deficit?"
Cai Yanqing couldn't help but be confused when he heard Zhang Yue mention this term. Even though he had read thousands of books, he had never heard the phrase "deficit and surplus".
Zhang Yue said: "To be more precise, it is trade surplus and trade deficit. There is also a word called salt banknote reserve." Mu Mu
Cai Yanqing prided himself on being well-educated and had never heard of these. He didn't know any of the three words and was completely confused.
Zhang Yue explained: "What is a surplus? To put it bluntly, the Tibetans buy more of my goods, and we buy less of the Tibetan goods. For the imperial court, this is a surplus."
Zhang Yue directly concealed the price so that several generals would not understand.
Even so, Wang Hou and others still looked confused, and Li Xian didn't understand either. Wang Hou had read a book, and Zhong Shidao had been a civil servant. Unfortunately, Zhang Shouyue was so old that he could only sit and sit completely.
Listen to the Book of Heaven.
However, Cai Yanqing understood somewhat and said: "The surplus is more beneficial than harmful to our court, right?"
That's right, the Song Dynasty's previous strategy for dealing with Xixia and Khitan was to close the market and stop trade, making the other party's trade costs high, and achieving the goal of shaking down the minority political power.
The surplus leads to a problem, that is, there is less goods but more money, causing private prices to skyrocket.
The deficit will also cause a problem, that is, there is more goods but less money, which will lead to extremely low prices.
Zhang Yue said: "Everyone knows that the imperial court has been in a money shortage. Why did the money shortage occur?"
"Some people say that it was because the Xia Kingdom lost its trade income after cutting off the Silk Road. But this is only one source."
The economy of the Song Dynasty has been increasing for so many years, and more and more goods were produced as the economy grew, but the growth of money could not keep up with the growth of the economy, which would lead to a money shortage."
The Song Dynasty minted only 1.8 million copper coins every year, which was far from keeping up with the Song Dynasty's GDP growth.
There was no shortage of copper in the Song Dynasty, but if copper was used as currency, it was very scarce. The government had been casting iron coins to replace copper coins, but the people did not buy it. Therefore, people often melted copper vessels to cast private money, which eventually led to the Song Dynasty
It is forbidden for private people to melt copper and make money.
The reason why the Song Dynasty instituted a sea ban was also for this reason. When Fan Xiang made salt banknotes, it was also to alleviate the lack of large iron coins in the northwest. This was the idea of using banknotes to make money.
Salt banknotes can slightly alleviate the money shortage in the Song Dynasty, but in the final analysis, it only treats the symptoms rather than the root cause.
Xue Xiang transferred the salt banknotes from Shaanxi to Ren Sansi Envoy and transferred the minting rights of salt banknotes from the local to the central government.
In another time and space in history, due to the opening of the Xihe River, the average annual salt output of Shaanxi Salt Lake was 1.175 million seats, and the average annual salt banknote printed by the imperial court was 1.77 million seats, an average of more than 1.77 million seats.
There are 590,000 seats available.
According to the official selling price of five guan and 500 yen per seat, it is more than 3 million guan.
However, for the excess salt banknotes, the imperial court prepared money in the capital to recycle and purchase them from the Capital Salt Institute.
Of course, this time and space was collected by Jiaoyin, and the imperial court was also very restrained in printing money, so the price of salt banknotes has always been above five hundred and five hundred yuan, but after the opening of the Xihe River, there was no way to restrain it.
After the Zhangyue restructuring, the well salt in Xizhou, Minzhou was also settled with salt banknotes. After the well salt in Xizhou, Minzhou was mined using Zhuotong wells, a total of more than 300 well salts were drilled. Now the well salt produced in a year has been in
Around 70,000 seats. Dusk
As soon as this news came out, the price of salt banknotes in Yongxing Prefecture and Qinzhou suddenly rose, reaching seven or eight dollars apiece. Zhang Yue asked Cai Jing to sell a large amount of salt banknotes on the market.
Just three months later, Xue Xiang shamelessly increased the court's annual salt banknote printing by 150,000 seats... As soon as the news came out, the price of salt banknotes plummeted, as low as five coins per seat. Cai Jing bought back all the salt banknotes he had originally sold.
, and made a fortune.
No matter what, the price of five guan and one salt banknote is still very firm, even though it is lower than the original price of 5 guan and 500 yuan.
The most important thing is that the additional salt banknotes issued by the imperial court every year have actually become revenue. Now the imperial court issues more than 1.2 million salt banknotes from the Xieyan Salt Pool and Xizhou Minzhou Salt Bank, but the three companies issue nearly 2 million salt banknotes every year.
of salt banknotes.
Cai Yanqing listened to Zhang Yue talk about the salt banknotes, when Shen Kuo spoke.
Shen Kuo had been building a stronghold in Minzhou and had just returned to Zhang Yue after building an iron castle.
Shen Kuo was the minister of economics. Before Zhang Yue traveled through time, he first learned about salt banknotes from his Mengxi Bi Tan. In the book, he praised Fan Xiang's salt banknote reform.
Historically, Shen Kuo once advocated setting the annual additional issuance of salt banknotes at two million guan, and at the same time issuing an additional 200,000 guan each year for emergencies, making this a permanent system.
Shen Kuo handed over the document and stammered: "What the commander-in-chief ordered... is up to the lower officials... That's about it. The establishment of the Xizhou Forging Market can export 1.1 million guan of goods and import 1.3 million yuan every year."
Goods worth 128,000 guan, in other words, the court in Ganchang has a deficit of 220,000 guan salt notes every year."
Cai Yanqing was confused when he heard this. Didn't he agree to have a surplus, so why did it turn into a deficit?
Zhang Yue said: "Like silk and tea, they were common items in the Song Dynasty. However, the medicines, spices, gold and silver traded from other countries were rare and valuable items, so it was a deficit!"
Cai Yanqing nodded. The same was true for the Song and Liao trade. It was said that annual tribute was paid every year, but the Liao Kingdom used the annual tribute to buy things from the Song Dynasty. It was like the Song Dynasty gave you money to the Liao Kingdom, and the Liao Kingdom used the money from the Song Dynasty to buy the Song Dynasty.
of goods. This maintains a nearly balanced trade balance.
However, the Qing, Tang, Tibetan tribes and other countries in the Western Regions did not receive the same treatment as the Liao Kingdom.
But during Zhang Yue's reign, he asked Wang Shao to promote salt banknotes in the northwest. When he invaded Hezhou before, Zhang Yue used salt banknotes to buy grain from the Qing and Tang Dynasty Tibetan tribes, not to mention that the rewards of the Tibetan generals and Tibetan soldiers were all gone.
It is distributed with salt banknotes.
When the Xihe market opened, these salt banknotes flowed back to the Song Dynasty due to the huge trade surplus.
Everyone doesn’t understand why in the end, the Song Dynasty benefited, the Tibetan people benefited, and the Han merchants also benefited. What happened in the middle?
Cai Yanqing had some understanding. He exchanged silk and tea bricks, which were not in short supply in the Song Dynasty, for horses, cattle and sheep, while the Tibetan tribe used horses, cattle and sheep, which were not in short supply, in exchange for silk and tea bricks in the Song Dynasty.
He had vaguely glimpsed that the way to increase wealth was through exchange.
Cai Yanqing understood it, and Shen Kuo also understood it. He was clumsy in his words, but at this moment he wished he could take a small notebook and write it down.
At the same time, Shen Kuo also thought that Zhang Jinglue wrote a book on economics when he was idle, and later dedicated it to the emperor. Now it is hidden in the emperor's library. It is said that no other person is allowed to read it. If he can
Just borrow it and read it.
But Shen Kuo changed his mind and thought, it doesn't matter. Zhang Jinglue's knowledge is as vast as the sea. I learn more every day by his side, and I must have benefited a lot.
Zhang Yue looked at the crowd. The greatest significance of the circulation of salt banknotes in the northwest is that the world's largest trade surplus country also controls the settlement currency. What will happen?
Just think about the soft currency replacing the U.S. knife in international circulation, or a country trying its best to return to the number one surplus country.
If salt banknotes are to become a settlement currency, military exchanges must be prohibited. A comprehensive strategy has been developed, can it be implemented?
Zhang Yue sat down and said: "Nowadays, all the troops stationed in Xihe are returning to the trade. I think the disadvantages are huge. Emperor Taizong and Emperor Zhenzong have strict decrees not to allow the border troops to return to the trade. Later, because of the war with Xixia, this happened
Let go. Now the soldiers and horses of Xihe Road are treated as forbidden troops by the imperial court, and at the same time, they plan to reward the soldiers and horses of this road with 200,000 guan of salt banknotes from the surplus of the Yi Department every year."
"What do you think of canceling the trade deal?"
Wang Hou and Zhong Shidao stood up one after another and said: "Since the commander-in-chief has spoken, we will follow the commander-in-chief's lead and look forward to it."
Zhang Shouyue was the only one left in the field.
Zhang Shou made an appointment to meet with Wang Hou, and it was no surprise that he received support from Zhongshi Dao. Both of them were promoted by Zhang Yue. In fact, each year of 200,000 guan, each army on Xihe Road gets a share, which is actually the same as the money earned through hard work.
It's almost the same, except that what others give to you is not as reliable as what you earn on your own.
Zhang Shouyue was unwilling to agree, but this time some situations were stronger than others. He looked at Cai Yanqing, who had just arrived, and wondered what the other party's attitude was. Cai Yanqing smiled and said: "If the trade can be banned, this matter can be solved
Very good!"
Li Xian also expressed support.
Zhang Shouyue had no choice but to bite the bullet and said with some reluctance: "I don't care about the final general, but I'm afraid Deputy General Manager Gao and General Miao won't agree, right?"