The second benefit Yang Rong talked about was their franchise. Since Yang Rong said that the court wanted to rectify the bank and pawnshop industry, it was definitely not just talk, the court would definitely take action; and rectify this
The business is very beneficial to both the court and the officials who deal with it. They also have the motivation to take action, so they will definitely rectify it. Without Yang Rong's words, the bank and pawn shop they opened may be allowed to continue to open, or they may be closed down.
, this is impossible, but with these words, they will definitely be able to continue operating.
This is a great benefit! There are now thirty or forty money shops and pawnshops in the capital. Although the business of other shops is not as good as theirs, they can still take away some customers. If they are banned, their business will double
Not only that, even if you pay all the current profits to the court, you will still make money.
Since there are not only threats but also benefits, how can the leaders of these sects present not agree?
When Chen Di heard Yunxi's confident words at this time, although he still didn't believe it, he couldn't continue to question it. He could only say: "Your Majesty, even so, I'm afraid many people are more willing to come to the Yamen to exchange gold coins. In this case,
I ordered the Banknote Exchange Department to prepare a lot of gold coins first."
"It's okay, it's better to be safer, but there may be many people coming to exchange in the days when exchange is just allowed, but there won't be too many people after that. Even if a gold coin is worth forty gold coins, but for big business
Merchants also need to carry a lot of gold coins when they go out to do business, which is far less convenient than treasure banknotes. I only allow gold coins to be exchanged, not silver coins or copper coins. Small businessmen and ordinary people cannot exchange them. At most, only officials can exchange many and keep them at home.
, so there won’t be too many people replacing them, so you don’t have to prepare a lot in the future.”
Chen Di coughed. After listening to Yunxi's words, he planned to send his family to exchange all the treasures at home into gold coins. Although their salaries were all paid in silver coins, they would inevitably receive money when buying things in the house.
I have accumulated a lot of precious coins and change, and I will exchange them. At this time, I felt guilty after hearing Yunxi's words.
However, as an important minister of the imperial court, he had already developed his face, so he just coughed and continued to discuss the exchange of treasure banknotes with Yunxi.
"Your Majesty, I'm confused about something. Why do you only allow people to exchange treasure banknotes for gold coins, but not allow them to exchange treasure banknotes for silver coins?" Chen Di asked again.
He can understand that people are not allowed to exchange treasure banknotes for copper coins. After all, copper coins are too fragmentary. If the exchange of copper coins is allowed, the people in the banknote exchange department will be exhausted. Half the people in the capital may go to exchange them, and there will be no free time.
time; this will also cause the problem of too many accounts that are difficult to count, and it is easy for officials in charge to become corrupt. In the past, when exchanging grain, it was at least half a stone, and even less often the court would not exchange it.
But he couldn't understand that silver coins were not allowed to be exchanged. According to the exchange regulations, one gold coin could be exchanged for forty guan of treasure banknotes. According to the market price in the capital at this time, it would be five silver coins. Ordinary people could save a few silver coins in a year.
The exchange amount of treasure banknotes will not be very large, and the trouble caused will not be big, so it can be overcome.
Looking at Chen Di's eyes looking at him, Yunxi smiled and said nothing. Because he could not explain this problem to Chen Di. The reason why he only allowed treasure banknotes to be exchanged for gold coins was to save trouble and to implement the gold standard.
.
Yunxi's sudden permission to exchange treasure banknotes for gold coins was not a whim. In the 25th year of Hongwu, the Baochao system had already caused big problems. In order to save the credibility of Baochao, Yunxi could only exchange Baochao with
Grain-linked, stable currency value.
What he did at that time was successful. Rural landowners who could hoard large amounts of grain would not use Baoqian to begin with, while merchants and urban residents who used Baoqian did not have such a large space to store much grain in their homes, and storing grain was not without cost.
If it is not stored well, it may become moldy and deteriorate, so after they are sure that the treasure banknotes can indeed be exchanged for food, they are not in a hurry to exchange them and continue to circulate them in their hands.
However, after this system was implemented for more than ten years, the disadvantages gradually emerged. First, because it can only be exchanged for grain, and the price of grain is different in different seasons of the year, the currency value of the treasure banknote is also unstable, and it is relatively difficult to use.
trouble.
Secondly, in order to prevent corruption, the places for exchanging treasure banknotes are only in the capital city, provincial capitals, where the provincial capitals are located, two municipalities and a few prefectural cities. Not to mention remote places, even most prefectures do not have them. This is a limitation.
The scope of circulation of treasure banknotes has been improved.
In order to further promote the treasure banknotes, two problems must be solved. The first is to link the treasure banknotes to something of stable value, and the second is to allow more exchange points for it. Not to mention that there are them in every county across the country, at least in every county.
Every prefecture and city must have it.
Regarding the second point, Yunxi's method was to use both soft and hard tactics, and let the banks and pawnshops opened by temples and Taoist temples in various places be responsible for the exchange. This kind of thing cannot be left to the government. If it is left to the government, large-scale corruption will definitely occur.
The supervision system is useless at all. Because there are too many places involved, and it is not like there is a relatively fixed amount of tax, not to mention that even if there is a fixed amount of tax, there are countless people putting their hands on it, and there is no way to supervise it.
Therefore, it is necessary to let private individuals do this. Yunxi thought about it and finally chose temples and Taoist temples. First of all, temples and Taoist temples have fixed business premises and will not run away and can become stable partners; secondly,
There are temples and Taoist temples in every county in the country, not to mention the government, which can meet the requirements of Yunxi; thirdly, in addition to profits from the financial industry, temples and Taoist temples have other sources of income, so they will not have to pay an advance by exchanging treasure banknotes.
Fourth, after Yunxi came to the throne, the ropes tied around the temples and Taoist temples were loosened a little, because they all made a lot of money by letting go of business, and they had more trust in the court.
, at the same time, the court now has more important things for them to do, and they know that the court will not easily break its promise, so they are willing to accept this job; fifthly, if they do not agree, the court has ways to force them to agree.
In fact, Yunxi regarded these banks and pawnshops opened by temples and Taoist temples as local commercial banks and rural cooperatives in later generations. Commercial banks and rural cooperatives have blossomed everywhere in later generations. Now Yunxi cannot afford to build a bunch of state-owned ones.
You can get a bunch of private banks. Anyway, except for China, commercial banks in most countries are private, so there is no problem.
Regarding the first point, that is, in order to solve the instability of currency value, it is necessary to link the treasure banknotes to something of stable value. Yunxi thought about it for a long time, and finally decided to link the treasure banknotes to gold, and implement a stable link between the treasure banknotes and gold.
The exchange rate is equivalent to the gold standard implemented by many countries in modern times.
The gold standard should be familiar to those who know the history of world finance. The first country to implement the gold standard was the United Kingdom. In 1717 AD, when the famous physicist Isaac Newton was serving as the director of the British Mint, the price per ounce of gold was
It was fixed at 17 shillings and 10.5 pence in the pound, and the gold standard was born. Until 1971, the United States officially abandoned the gold exchange standard, which was implemented for more than 200 years.
The meaning of the gold standard is to use gold as the country's reserve fund. All other things that can be used as money, whether it is banknotes, silver or copper coins, are all linked to gold. A person holding the above three things can only exchange for gold at the bank.
It cannot be exchanged for others. The gold standard is also divided into gold coin standard, gold nugget standard and gold exchange standard. Some people think it is the best currency system.
It is hard to say whether the gold standard is the best monetary system, but it is indeed a monetary system that can solve the problems faced by Yunxi. Gold is the strongest currency. Except for the Hanzhou continent, which is isolated from the world and has very low productivity,
All other places use gold as currency, and linking treasure banknotes to gold is enough to dispel people's distrust of treasure banknotes. At the same time, because gold is so versatile, at least in the entire Eastern region, there will not be much difference in currency values in different places.
As for making people somewhere suffer.
Of course, in fact, the silver standard can basically do the same thing. The circulation range of silver is not much worse than that of gold, and it is commonly used as currency around the world. However, in modern times, the gold standard is commonly used in all countries in the world, and only a few countries, such as China and Mexico,
Waiting for the silver standard to be adopted. Yunxi's financial studies are not good, and he doesn't know why the gold standard is better than the silver standard, but 'since the gold standard is used in the world, it should be more suitable.' Yunxi thought so and decided to implement the gold standard.
After returning to the capital from Yiwu, he wanted to carry out monetary and gold standard reforms, but the more important thing at that time was military reform, so the monetary reform was pushed back. Xiyao also advised him not to be in a hurry even if he wanted to reform, and not to be exhausted.
Not to mention that he had to make some preparations before implementing the gold standard, so he postponed it to this year.
And just at this time, the second batch of ships returning from the Hanzhou mainland arrived and brought back another 30,000 taels of gold, which gave him more confidence to implement the gold standard, so he decided to formally carry out currency reform and implement the gold standard.
But it was difficult for him to explain all this to Chen Di. Even if he explained it, he wouldn't understand it and could only laugh it off.
When Chen Di saw the emperor smiled and said nothing, he knew that Yunxi would not explain. Although he was a little puzzled, he could only give up the intention of asking and asked about other things. Yunxi attached great importance to this matter and explained it to him in detail.
Chen Di explained.
After Chen Di's questions were answered, Yunxi ordered him again: "After you go down, let the Ministry of Accounts prepare it first. I plan to allow the exchange of gold coins from the beginning of next month. Everything that can be prepared in advance should be done in case the time comes.
Something went wrong while busy.”
"In addition, you must prepare in advance to rectify the bank and pawnshop business in the capital."
"Yes, Your Majesty, I obey your order." (To be continued)