Wang Yuansi bowed his head to Chongzhen and replied, "No, Your Majesty." This is the conclusion reached by all colleagues of the Duzhi Division, after studying the private commodity trading in Liaoxi Town. ”

Food, clothing, shelter and transportation are the most basic needs to meet a person's survival. Around these four basic needs, humans have ended up creating as many commodities as grains of sand on a beach.

In an agrarian society, the latter three items have limitations when they are circulated as commodities, but only textiles that are easy to wear and transport are the best commodities for circulation.

Therefore, the household official is right, as long as the grain and cotton are mastered, even if the state does not control the reserves of precious metals, it has the qualifications to issue currency.

But grain and cotton are still appearances in the end, in fact, in the final analysis, it is the land. Only by controlling land, the most basic means of production, can Zhu Youzhen shout that gold and silver are just a pile of useless sand and gravel, and only land is the source of wealth.

Of course, Chongzhen can't shout such a thing now, and even if he shouts it, these feudal bureaucrats will think that he is nervous, and he actually wants to nationalize all the land in the world.

Zhu Youzhen shook his head and threw out some crazy thoughts in his head. He looked at Wang Yuansi with a straight look and said, "Your idea is very interesting, but the imperial court has established a grain bureau to regulate the production and transportation of grain in the world.

You might as well talk about the other one, how the imperial court should start with cotton, and ensure that paper money can buy enough cotton in the market. ”

Wang Yuan thought about it and said: "The cotton producing areas in the world are one in Susong and the other in Shandong. There are about one million acres of cotton in the land of Susong, with an average yield of 80 catties per mu, about one-third of the net flowers, and an annual output of about 250,000 quintals of net flowers.

The cotton field in Shandong is about twice that of Susong, but the yield per mu is only 65 catties, the net flower is about a quarter, and the annual net flower is about 320,000 quintals.

The above two places account for about one-third of the world's cotton production, and although the climate in the south of the Yangtze River is suitable for cotton planting, the land is narrow and densely populated, and it is difficult to continue to expand the area of cotton planting.

However, Shandong, and Shandong's adjacent northern, southern, and Henan regions are also suitable for planting cotton, and there are also some areas in Shaanxi and Shanxi that are suitable for planting cotton.

There are more than 616,700 hectares of cultivated land in Beizhili, 1,166,500 hectares in Shandong, and 1,004,600 hectares in Henan, but the fields for cotton cultivation in the three provinces have never exceeded 5 million mu in the past.

This year, because the government took the lead in carrying out a rice-cotton rotation system on the 540,000 mu of newly opened fields between Shanhaiguan and Tianjin, the cotton fields of Beizhili surpassed that of Shandong for the first time.

For the first time, the area of cotton fields in the three provinces has reached more than 7 million mu, but along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the area south of Baoding, there are still large areas of land that can be converted to cotton fields.

In the triangle west and north of Henan, west and north of Shandong, and south of Beizhili, there are nearly 30 million acres of land suitable for cotton planting.

Cotton can be harvested in October after planting in May, and the growing period is short and less affected by the climate. In recent years, the weather in the north has been volatile, with droughts and floods, or locusts.

If this area can be replanted with cotton, it will not only greatly reduce the losses caused by the disaster, but also allow the imperial court to control the cotton market.

The minister thought that as long as the Grain Bureau set up a cotton storage bureau to encourage the three places to expand the area of cotton planting, as long as the cotton planting area of the three places expanded to more than 10 million mu, then the paper money issued by the imperial court would not be at risk of depreciation. ”

Zhu Youzhen turned his head to look at Guo Yunhou and said: "Set up a cotton storage bureau and use paper money to buy cotton, is this what Mr. Guo means?" ”

Guo Yunhou nodded rather calmly and said, "According to the investigation report on the possible outbreak of locust plagues in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River forwarded by His Majesty, the minister has carefully read it.

According to Tian Wenming's report, there is a high probability of locust plagues breaking out in the next year in areas where a major drought is followed or where there is a flood followed by a drought.

Shaanxi has been in drought for two years, and the water volume of the Yellow River has plummeted. The middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River up to the Bohai Bay are famous locust areas, and from the Wanli year to today, a total of 7 locust plagues have occurred in more than 40 years.

Since Tian Wenming believed that the construction of water conservancy, the reclamation of barren lands and the planting of trees in locust areas could control locusts. Then the minister thought that it would be better to try to grow cotton in this area, which might reduce the losses of the local people, and secondly, encourage the people to open up land in these areas and reduce the places where locusts can breed. ”

Huang Liji also thought deeply when he heard this, as a celebrity of the Hebei People's Congress, his hometown is in the locust area, and basically a small locust plague will break out in a few years. It's just that as long as this locust doesn't take off, it won't be very harmful, so everyone will get used to it.

Chongzhen thought for a moment, then nodded and agreed with the opinion of the Ministry of Households, "It's okay, then do what you want, the Ministry of Households can cooperate with the Ministry of Agriculture to establish a cotton storage bureau."

First, to encourage the people of the three provinces to expand the area of cotton planting, and second, to use it as a reserve material for the circulation of paper money..."

Guo Yunhou and Wang Yuansi achieved their goal, and finally put down a stone in their hearts. As more and more public bonds were issued, the status of the central bank also rose.

Regardless of whether the officials of the household department admit it or not, the financial power of the Ming Dynasty has begun to slowly transfer to the hands of the central bank. This situation is obviously not something that these officials can be happy to see, they may not mind associating with businessmen in private, but they will never tolerate letting businessmen interfere in public power, which is also the bottom line of scholars.

Don't look at the Donglin Party and the Jiangnan gentry who usually speak for businessmen, and blame the imperial court every day for charging too high commercial taxes, which leads to the withering of private commerce, which is not the way to govern the country.

However, in terms of defending the political rights of scholars, both the south and the north have the same goals. Therefore, when the businessmen gradually gained Chongzhen's trust by establishing banks and cooperating with the internal government to set up industries and commerce, the public opinion of the government and the opposition also criticized the conduct of these businessmen.

If it weren't for the establishment of the two subsequent banks, which shared the attack power of these officials, and the fact that most of the money spent by the imperial court now came from the public bonds subscribed by the central bank, I am afraid that the impeachment of businessmen for interfering in politics would have flown towards Chongzhen like snowflakes.

And Guo Yunhou and his protégés, in order to maintain their authority in the household department and the court, naturally have to find a way to offset the influence of the bank's wielding money.

In their view, the growing importance of the three banks, represented by the central bank, mainly comes from the funds owned by the three banks.

The three banks used the silver of their shareholders and depositors as reserves, and issued banknotes that seemed worthless in the market as currency in circulation.

Originally, they thought that this problem was almost unsolvable, because in order to regain the imperial court's right to issue paper money, it was necessary to have silver or gold reserves first. But with the current economic situation of the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that it will never be possible.

However, after the three banks jointly proposed the issuance of banknotes in excess of the reserve principal, Guo Yunhou and the officials of the household department found that the issuance of banknotes did not necessarily require silver reserves.

Issuing banknotes in excess of the reserve principal amount is tantamount to creating something out of nothing. However, because paper money in the market can still buy the same number of items as before, these paper money made out of nothing has become a truly valuable currency.

These banknotes, which look like waste paper, are completely indistinguishable from those that were previously exchanged for a full amount of silver.

As a result, the officials of the household department believed that the value of the banknotes issued by the imperial court had nothing to do with the denomination on the banknotes and the amount of silver that could be exchanged.

What determines the value of a banknote is how much value the note can buy in the market. In other words, if the household wants to regain the right to issue paper money, it does not necessarily have a huge amount of silver reserves, as long as there is enough grain and cotton.

One yuan can buy a load of cotton, then this yuan is worth a load of cotton. If one yuan can buy one stone of rice, then it is worth one stone of rice. As long as the goods in the market can be bought with paper money, then it is valuable.

As long as the Household Department controls these two departments, the paper money will break away from the current silver standard and become the value expression of the materials controlled by the imperial court.

Compared with grain, cotton seems to be more suitable for imperial control, after all, cloth has a much longer shelf life than grain.

For Guo Yunhou and Wang Yuansi, Zhu Youzhen has no intention of guessing, their ideas are correct in terms of thinking, but whether they can do it is another question.

When the People's Republic of China was founded, in the face of the hoarding of the capitalists in Shanghai, didn't they just use the grain, cloth, and coal controlled by the state, and forcibly broke the pockets of these capitalists, so as to regain the right to speak economically?

With the current execution ability of the household officials, Zhu Youzhen is not optimistic about what they can do. But they were able to think like this, which had already given Zhu Youzhen a good surprise.

Isn't it macroeconomic regulation and control to manage the flow of materials related to the national economy and people's livelihood from the national level, so as to firmly grasp the lifeline of the economy.

After agreeing with the suggestion put forward by the Ministry of Households, Zhu Youzhen turned his head to Huang Liji on the side and said: "Mr. Huang, since we have talked about the control of locusts, I think it is better to settle down today, and the cabinet will take the lead in setting up a locust control team to carry out special locust control work in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.

Whether it is the development of wasteland to grow cotton, or the planting of trees, or the preventive culling of locusts, I think it is better to plan in a unified manner and take responsibility for the zoning. Otherwise, once the locust plague rises, it will be too late for us to do anything, right? ”

Huang Liji naturally had no objection to Chongzhen's proposal, and he said quite briskly: "The minister is willing to put forward this proposal at the cabinet meeting, and then the minister will personally serve as the person in charge of this locust control team..."