Eight hundred and eighty-fifth chapter new money plan
The wharf of Chang'an East City was cleared early in the morning, all ships had temporarily left, and idle vendors were not allowed to enter. Three thousand soldiers had one sentry every three steps and one post every five steps, and the security was very tight.
The outer perimeter of the distant police line was filled with people watching, and everyone was talking. No one knew what was going to happen. Is this a big shot coming to Chang'an?
Guo Song and a group of officials were already waiting in front of the dock. They were waiting for the fleet from Hebei. More than a month ago, the first fleet from Hebei arrived in Chang'an, carrying 300,000 shi.
Sea salt, that was Zhu Tao's stock of sea salt, and it was shipped directly back to Chang'an.
Today will usher in the second salt fleet, but what they bring is not sea salt, but 10 million taels of silver, 1.5 million taels of gold and a large amount of jewelry and jade from the Youzhou Treasury.
The wealth stolen from Chang'an and Luoyang was transported back to Chang'an after decades.
Prior to this, the gold and silver wealth in Xindu's warehouses had been transported to Taiyuan by camels, and then transported by water from Taiyuan to Chang'an. However, the wealth of Xindu was far from comparable to the wealth stored in Youzhou.
This time, Guo Song adopted a trick to transport gold and silver, using salt ships to transport the gold and silver. The specific method was to transport the gold and silver to the Juma River first, and at the same time, a salt ship fleet from Pingzhou also arrived.
Arriving at the Juma River, this salt fleet has already registered with the State of Wei.
Just at the Juma River, the two fleets exchanged goods. The Youzhou fleet transported salt back to Jixian, while the salt fleet that exchanged it for gold and silver continued south, passing through the Wei-controlled area without any danger, and sailed into the Yellow River.
, sail directly to Guanzhong.
Guo Song was waiting at the Dongshi Pier for the arrival of the salt fleet.
Next to him, Pan Liao smiled and said: "Your Highness, we mentioned the new plan to expand currency before, and I think it can be officially implemented."
The new currency plan Pan Liao mentioned was the introduction of gold and silver coins. They actually tried it as early as Hexi, but stopped later.
There were two reasons for the stoppage. On the one hand, the gold and silver coins issued were not circulated in the market at all. They were all collected by businessmen or people. The gold and silver coins became commemorative coins because the quantity released at that time was too small.
On the other hand, and the main reason, their gold and silver reserves and silver mine output are not enough to support the large-scale implementation of gold and silver money.
Now that their gold and silver reserves are gradually increasing, and they have dug several large silver pits in Guanzhong and Taiyuan, they have the opportunity to issue gold and silver coins again.
Guo Song nodded, "This matter is of great importance and needs to be carefully considered. However, Chang Shi can arrange for the Council of Ministers to discuss the matter together, and even implement the resolution."
The Jin Palace's signature meeting is an alternative to the court meeting. There is no court meeting in the Jin Prince's Palace. However, in order to mobilize the enthusiasm of all officials, Guo Song started to implement the signature meeting last year and sent drafts of opinions on some major matters to various departments to solicit the opinions of the officials.
The most typical ones are the renovation of Han Chang'an City, the construction of Xi'anmen Street, and the opening of three sections of Weiyang Palace. Hundreds of opinions were collected.
At this time, someone shouted: "Your Highness, the fleet seems to be coming!"
Guo Song took a step forward and looked towards the waterway in the distance. He saw a black spot in the distance. Gradually, the black spot became bigger and bigger. It was a mighty salt fleet. This fleet was composed of
An eight-wheeled chariot and ship were towed, and eight big men on the ship stepped on the runner. The eight paddle wheels installed on both sides of the ship rotated rapidly, driving the ship forward.
Of course, it is impossible for one car and ship to tow a thousand salt ships. In fact, after arriving in Chang'an, the thousand salt ships were divided into ten teams. One car and ship towed a hundred ships. What they saw was the first team.
Amidst the cheers, the first batch of salt fleet slowly docked. Wang Shixun, the escort officer, stepped forward and bowed, "Your Majesty, Mr. Wang Shixun, the Prime Minister of the Salt and Iron Administration, greeting His Royal Highness the King of Jin!"
"Thank you for your hard work, Wang Shucheng. Is your journey going well?"
Guo Songxiao asked: "Didn't Tian Yue send anyone to board the ship for investigation?"
"Reporting back to Your Highness, the journey went very smoothly. We are a salt ship and they are not interested. I am afraid that they will be interested in the Youzhou cargo ship behind us."
Guo Song knew about the Youzhou cargo ship. They injured nine people and killed three people. Guo Song had sent envoys to negotiate, claim compensation, and demand severe punishment for the murderers.
Guo Song nodded, turned around and ordered: "Unload the goods!"
Guo Song stepped aside with important officials, and hundreds of strong men boarded the boat. They lifted the oilcloth, revealing the camouflaged salt sacks underneath. After removing the sacks, large wooden boxes were revealed, and the strong men put them one by one.
The large wooden boxes were carried ashore and soon piled up like a hill.
There was a slight commotion among the people watching around. With so many large wooden boxes, everyone realized that they must contain various treasures.
At this time, hundreds of oxcarts came to the dock, and large boxes bumped into the oxcart. This kind of oxcart has a carriage and a lock on the back door, and is specially used to transport valuables.
At present, there are three property warehouses in the Jin Palace. One is the original two inner warehouses of the Daming Palace, which is now renamed the Youzang Treasury. One is the Zuozang Treasury of the Daming Palace, and the other is the treasure house of the Jin Palace. Each of the three warehouses
It works.
The left Zang warehouse mainly stores copper coins and copper ingots. The right Zang warehouse is the largest and is also called the light goods warehouse. It stores silks, cloths, cotton, spices, precious wood and various utensils, including porcelain, bronze ware, lacquerware, woodware, and tin.
Devices, etc.
The treasure house of Jin Palace stores valuables such as gold, silver, jewelry, and jade.
Of course, these are official treasury, not Guo Song's own private treasury. Guo Song's private treasury is located in the inner palace of the King of Jin. It is a secret treasury built with large bluestone and has three iron gates.
In addition to these three property warehouses, there are also more than a dozen professional warehouses outside the city such as grain and grass warehouses, weapons warehouses, salt warehouses, pig iron warehouses, lumber warehouses, oil charcoal warehouses, etc.
In the afternoon, in the original hall of the Counselor Hall, convened by Pan Liao, seven counselors began to discuss the plan to introduce money and silver coins.
In fact, this plan was handed over to everyone a month ago. Taking advantage of the arrival of Youzhou Gold and Silver today, everyone sat down to discuss the feasibility of the plan.
Guo Song was also present, and he supported this plan. After all, they had accumulated a huge gold and silver inventory through their wars in the north and south. It would be a waste to not use this wealth.
Pan Ning took the lead and said to everyone: "Everyone has already seen the plan. Including the gold and silver shipped today, our current silver inventory is 37 million taels and gold 2.8 million taels. Of course, it is impossible to do it all at once
All the money will be put on the market, and the plan is to launch two million taels of silver and one million taels of gold every year, that is, two million taels of silver and one hundred thousand taels of gold."
Baihutang Sima Liu Zi raised his hand and asked, "Excuse me, Pan Changshi, what is the basis for setting this amount?"
Guo Song also said: "Pan Changshi, can you talk about the fiscal and tax balance first, so that it will be clearer."
Pan Ning nodded and said calmly: "Everyone should have seen the annual report given to you by the branch office. In the past, our revenue and expenditure were very balanced, with revenue slightly exceeding expenditure. However, for the past three consecutive years, our tax revenue and expenditure gap has been even greater.
Around 1.5 million yuan, most of it is the renovation of the new city and the construction of official residences. Although the construction of Xi'anmen Street and official rental housing also cost a lot of money, this can be earned back slowly from the rent, so it is not considered a gap.
Cumulatively accumulated over the past three years, our debts totaled 4.5 million guan. After offsetting the previous year's savings, we actually owed 3.6 million guan.
So we auctioned off treasures from the inner treasury at the beginning of last year, including official kiln porcelain, jade, etc., and the income was 3 million yuan, plus some confiscated income, which can be regarded as completely making up for this debt.
Then we won Youyan and gained sea salt production, which greatly reduced the cost of salt production. From this, we can increase our income by two million yuan a year, but at the same time, our expenditures will also increase. Building roads and bridges is
A big head. Just the widening and repairing of official roads in Hexi and Beiting will last for ten years. We will spend at least 500,000 guan every year. In addition, the official salary increase is also a big head. It will also increase by a million guan every year. There are also
There are some sporadic increases in expenditure, so our fiscal and tax expenditures are basically balanced and there will be no excess."
After saying this, Pan Liao glanced at the crowd and saw that everyone had no doubts, so he continued: "Everyone has to ask, since the finance and taxation expenditures are balanced, why do we need to mint gold and silver coins? The reason is very simple. We need to start to
Cangzhou is building sea-going ships to build a strong navy to prepare for our future recovery of the south. This is one reason.
Secondly, we need to purchase 50,000 to 100,000 Bactrian camels to prepare for our future westward expansion. We have already reached an ordering contract with the Sogdian Business Group. Our tax revenue and expenditure have been balanced and we can no longer spend additional money, so we need
Use gold and silver to raise the money.
If everyone has no objections to my above explanation, let’s take the first vote. Should we issue gold and silver coins? Let’s set this principle and then discuss the details.”