After the promulgation of Money Law in the Tang Dynasty, the scale of the turmoil caused was so large that perhaps the people at the middle and lower levels did not feel it urgently, because most of the people in this group were farmers. They depended on the weather for their livelihood, and any financial reforms carried out by the higher-ups had nothing to do with them.
It's big, at best, it's just not very convenient when exchanging copper coins.
But for the recent rapid development of industry and commerce, the turmoil caused is much greater.
Of course, this kind of turmoil is not a financial crisis. The money industry in its nascent stage does not yet have the scale to cause a so-called financial crisis.
The biggest impact is the inconvenience of large-amount payments. At the same time, it becomes difficult and troublesome to exchange gold, silver and copper coins, which directly leads to an increase in the value of copper coins. Most ordinary people use copper coins daily, which means that
It means deflation. In other words, there are not enough copper coins on the market.
The Taxation Department of the Tang Dynasty had already anticipated this, so when the Money Law of the Tang Dynasty was issued, the Royal Banks in various places were also open at the same time. A large number of copper coins had been minted in advance, and the silver coins were exchanged in the Royal Banks in various places.
!
The issuance of currency is also one of the cores of this financial reform!
The currency issued refers to the previous monetary system and is reformed.
The currency issued in the Tang Dynasty was mainly coins, including one liang, five qian, one qian, ten Wen, five Wen and one Wen, a total of six denominations.
One tael of them is actually a silver coin minted with reference to one tael of silver. The published silver content is one tael, the five-cent silver coin has the published silver content of five taels, and the one-tael silver coin has the published silver content of one tael.
In other words, one tael of silver coins is equal to ten one-penny silver coins!
The three types of ten coins, five coins, and one coins are used as auxiliary coins, mainly made of copper, with metal added to them. The exchange price with silver coins is, one thousand cents is equal to one tael.
In fact, the lowest currency value of a penny is equivalent to the current popular standard penny.
However, it is worth noting that these auxiliary coins are not cast purely from copper, which means that the actual copper content does not reach the face value, but a large amount of other metals are also added.
If the Tang Dynasty does not provide regulations, it is still unknown whether the people will recognize these new copper coins, so an official guarantee must be given: the above-mentioned silver coins and copper coins can be used to pay taxes.
If people use other types of copper coins, silver nuggets, gold nuggets or even other physical objects when paying taxes, they need to be exchanged according to a certain ratio.
The Tang Dynasty issued silver and copper coins not just to unify the currency, but also to make money!
Minting is actually a very profitable industry. Otherwise, why would there be so many people privately minting silver nuggets and copper coins? Because they make money!
How to make money is very simple: the actual value of pure copper contained in a copper coin with a face value of one penny is less than one penny, but in actual transactions, it is calculated as one penny.
There are price differences here, and these price differences are profits.
At the same time, the Tang Dynasty used Tang silver coins and copper coins as standard currency, while other types of silver bullion and copper coins were converted according to the actual silver and copper contents.
This entry and exit, even if the casting processing costs are added, is actually profitable.
It’s just that the profit from each copper coin is relatively small, but the amount cannot be large!
When you make tens of billions of copper coins, the profit will be huge!
In the same way, making silver coins is also profitable!
The Tang Dynasty's acquisition of the right to mint money simply meant that the profits from privately minted currency were transferred to the official hands!
If this kind of thing were carried out in the Ming Dynasty, it would probably be sprayed as "stealing profits from the people."
But Li Xuan is not afraid of criticism, so he can feel at ease with the money he earns.
In addition, coinage, in addition to making money, is also preparing for subsequent in-depth financial reforms, especially the issuance of banknotes.
In fact, Li Xuan had thought about issuing banknotes directly in this financial reform, but as soon as he expressed this idea, he was dissuaded by a group of ministers, who all said, "Your Majesty, think twice."
This is because the current paper currency has already been ruined by the Ming Dynasty. There are too many treasure banknotes issued, and the government still does not acknowledge them. Therefore, once the Tang Dynasty issues treasure banknotes, it will basically be considered a money trap.
Since the Tang Dynasty was just established, doing this now would easily cause trouble and ruin the reputation, so Li Xuan simply gave up the idea.
However, although the year of issuing official banknotes has been cancelled, Li Xuan is also preparing to find another way.
The Ministry of Finance does not issue banknotes because the public does not trust the government. To put it bluntly, the credibility of official banknotes is too low!
But if the banknotes are changed into another form, such as turning them into banknotes, then this loophole can be bypassed.
Banknotes, or banknotes, have already appeared, and are widely accepted by merchants and used for large transactions. After all, when doing business, merchants cannot directly carry hundreds of kilograms of gold and silver to trade.
Yes, most of the time we just take out the banknotes to make the transaction.
All those banks can do this, especially the Royal Bank.
In addition, in order to improve the credibility of the bank notes issued by the Royal Bank, the official directly guaranteed that when paying Datang taxes, the Royal Bank can be used to issue bank notes.
After the Royal Bank's banknotes gain credibility and are widely circulated, they can actually be used as banknotes.
Although this series of financial reforms also caused some turbulence and impact, due to the existence of the Royal Bank and sufficient preparations, there was no large-scale turmoil. That is, problems occurred in a few areas, but they were quickly resolved.
solve.
But soon, the Finance Department discovered a very strange thing. After the officially issued silver coins and copper coins entered the market, the waves were not turned out, and then they quickly disappeared. Especially the silver coins, which flowed out in large numbers through the Royal Bank every day.
, but not much can be recovered.
Did these silver coins disappear out of thin air?
However, an investigation revealed that these silver coins had not disappeared, but had been collected by someone!
The reason for collecting is that these Tang Dynasty silver coins are real materials, well-made, and have exquisite patterns. People think that this kind of silver coins are worth more than those ordinary silver nuggets, so once they receive this kind of silver coins, they will not spend it.
!
This made the people in the Finance Department laugh bitterly!
Brother, do you know that the silver content in this silver coin is not as much as one tael of pure silver, and it is even less than the silver nuggets on the market!
Originally, people in the Finance Department were worried that the silver and copper coins would depreciate after they were issued and people would not recognize their face value, but they did not expect that they would be popular among people.
What to do?
What else can we do? This is a good thing, a great thing!
Issue silver coins and copper coins, then take back all the gold, silver and copper coins on the market, and then mint city silver coins and copper coins. Every time you go in and out, it's all profit!
What, the Mint didn't produce enough?
expansion!
One family is not enough, two!
Two families are not enough, five families, ten families!
As the saying goes, if you don’t make money, you’re a bastard!
When the Finance Department of the Ministry of Taxation reported that the profit from coinage this year was expected to reach 500,000 taels of silver, Li Xuan and a group of friends were shocked!
This money seems a bit easy to come by!
How can we make such a huge profit just by collecting the silver and copper on the market, casting them and then distributing them?
If the bosses of those money shops knew about it, they would definitely be sad. You fools, you have such good channels and technology, and you only made five hundred thousand taels of silver this year? Are you stupid? It would be me.
, If you don’t make more than a million taels of silver a year, I will pluck off your head and play it as a ball for you.
The issuance of currency has caused some disturbances, but it has not caused much movement. Even the opening of the Royal Bank has had too much practical impact. The only one with a relatively big impact is those money shops.
However, money shops were not very developed under the rule of the Tang Dynasty. It can only be said that there were some, but they were not mainstream in finance, so they could not cause trouble.
And those money shops are not stupid either. The money shops that are bold, flexible and confident in Datang have all obtained banking licenses, and then transformed into private banks, even if they have to pay some deposits.
No matter what.
Of course, there are also some who are timid and worry about the demise of the Tang Dynasty and directly change their careers!
Don't be surprised either. Many money shops these days are actually part-time. Exchange and coinage are not their only jobs. Many of them are just part-time jobs. The fake Tang Dynasty won't let them do it, so just quit.
As a result, overnight, many money shops changed businesses directly, and at the same time, dozens of private banks emerged to continue operating. Of course, although these private banks were registered, they also changed their names to banks.
, but the business model is still the traditional one.
The impact on the Royal Bank is not great. Although the Royal Bank has just been established, the preparation period has already been more than a year, and in Datang's effective control area, there is basically a Royal Bank branch in every county.
This Royal Bank is also responsible for the storage of official funds. To put it simply, the local taxes of the Tang Dynasty are directly deposited in the Royal Bank. Even the silver in the treasury is also placed in the Royal Bank.
In the bank of the head office.
At the same time, it was stipulated that the salaries of officials in the Tang Dynasty would no longer be paid in cash, but instead would be paid in silver notes from the Royal Bank.
This method is to preserve the gold and silver holdings in the Royal Bank, because as long as the person holding the banknote does not exchange it for cash, the cash will always be in the Royal Bank.
The number of officials is huge, and their salary expenses are also a huge number. If the officials use banknotes to spend directly, then the cash can continue to be retained in the Royal Bank.
And these methods are all to increase the Royal Bank’s gold and silver reserves!