Although Tangshan County is only a small county that has just been established, it has become the de facto political center of the Ming Empire because Emperor Zhu likes to live in the beautiful Tangshan Hot Spring Palace in recent years. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ。。 The hot spring town outside the hot spring palace has become a place where powerful people gather because of the large number of yamen of the central government and the residences of high-ranking cabinet officials. According to the jokes of the people who live here, if a stone falls from the sky and kills three people in Hot Spring Town, two of them are likely to be Hou Ye, and the other will probably be Wang Ye, right?

At the door of a Western-style mansion in Dagongfang (road name) in the hot spring town, a horse-drawn carriage slid over. There were already people waiting at the door for the carriage to arrive. Three men wearing single-gauze Confucian costumes got out of the car, it was two marquis and one prince. Among them, the prince is Zuo Zongtang, the king of Xiangyin County, and the two princes are Lin Zexu's third son, Hou Lin Gongshu and Linxiang Hou Liu Xuan. Lin Gongshu is a civil official, because the loyal and filial father Lin Zexu can be a man, so he got a marquis, and he has been an official in the court for so many years, and now the official worships the Ministry of Finance, and is also the leader of the Donglin Party in Fujian. Liu Xuan was a Xianghu scholar who came to take refuge when the Ming Army's Northern Expedition to Hunan, but he did not serve as a civilian official but served in the army, and only recently retired from the army and became a civilian, and now he is a squire of the Ministry of Finance.

Can an officer be a chamberlain in the treasury? Well, in fact, Liu Xuan is not a serious officer who leads troops to fight, but an officer in charge of logistics and military salary. It is also meritorious to keep the logistics management of the army in order, so he was named a marquis, and he is a member of the Ming Dynasty.

Emperor Zhu is different from his ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang, and he is very generous to the heroes below. Therefore, there are more nobles in the Ming Dynasty, and now the marquis and below are a bit indiscriminate. However, the three levels of Marquis, Duke, and Princesse are still very rare. In particular, there are very few princes of the highest rank. Even Zuo Zongtang is just a county king.

Stand at the door to greet this king and two princes. is a duke. Li Hongzhang, Duke of the Western Kingdom. Li Hongzhang's current Duke of Xiguo comes from the Xihua Kingdom, which is the original Kazakh Khanate. After the Mongols entered China, the historical inventors of the Hongru Academy of the Ming Empire quickly verified that the Kazakh steppe is the birthplace of the Western Queen's Mother Country in history, and it has been a member of the Chinese civilization since the Zhou Dynasty, or the result of dynastic marriage. Anyway, that's what is written in the history textbooks of the Ming Empire.

Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang and others smiled and said hello. Then he led them into the hall of his mansion. It was already the summer of 1865, and although Tangshan was cooler than Nanjing, Zuo Zongtang and his family were still sweating profusely when they came all the way. When I sat down, I was busy wiping my sweat with a cold towel. Prime Minister Zuo smiled bitterly: "It's so hot this summer that it's deadly!" It's better to stay here in Tangshan, but the old man has to go to Nanchang to canvass for votes in a few days, which is really tiring. Think about it, the old man is already a hero who has gone down in history, and future generations will enjoy inexhaustible credits, so why bother running around like this. Shaoquan, after a while, you are familiar with the government affairs of the DPRK and China. You will take over the position of prime minister. ”

Zuo Zongtang said this sincerely, but Li Hongzhang didn't dare to take this stubble. Prime Minister Zuo's penchant for power is well known. So it's not easy to be his deputy. Characters like Liu Peng and Zheng Hong were all driven away by him, not to mention a Li Hongzhang?

Hearing Zuo Zongtang's complaint, Li Hongzhang just smiled faintly: "Old Ji, our emperor can't do without you, the first assistant of the cabinet." These days, you are often not in the court, and when you ask the right question, the emperor will not talk about you less. The day before yesterday, I asked vigorously: When will the left minister still be in court? This Ming Shoufu, no one can do it except you. ”

Zuo Zongtang waved his hand and said with a smile: "Thankless errand." The emperor knows our diligence, but what about the people below? They all feel that we are not helping them speak for profit, and want to change the Shabaab to be the first assistant...... Hmph, they don't want to think about what the roots of those Shabaab are. If they come to power, they will only benefit industry and commerce, where will they make decisions for the peasants? ”

His tone gradually became deeper: "In the current Han land, industry and commerce are above the nine heavens, but ordinary farmers are below the nine heavens. The farmers in the land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River rely on cotton, raw silk, tea, vegetables, livestock and poultry, etc., and their lives are still passable. But further west and north, it will be bitter. The rent has dropped again and again, and it is often impossible to collect it, the fields above are urgent, and there are often evil tenants who owe debts and flee to the northwest and northeast, all of which are bitter water! But what can the cabinet do about reducing the land endowment? Is the emperor willing? He was still thinking about how many big cities with a million people, how many big towns with ten thousand people, and how much money would it cost...... Now the annual income of the imperial court is only 50,000, which is unprecedented since ancient times. However, a townhouse project costs 3 million, which is really unheard of. Even if all the money in the world is gathered, there may not be three million! ”

When it came to money, Zuo Zongtang and the Ministry of Finance Shangshu Lin Gongshu and the Ministry of Finance squire Liu Xuan brought him couldn't help sighing. They couldn't be more aware of how much money the Ming Empire had, and there was definitely no number of three million. At the time of the Pseudo-Qing Dynasty, the amount of silver in circulation and non-circulation in the whole country was 3 billion taels, and even if HSBC collected it and minted it into silver dollars, it would only be 4.5 billion silver dollars—in fact, of course, there could not be so many. According to HSBC's report, they have issued about 2.8 billion silver dollars and 20 million gold coins over the past 20 years. This figure already includes the gold and silver coin issuance figures of the Ming vassal states of Japan, Korea, Siam, Xihua, Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and Western Qing Dynasty. Even if you include the issuance of convertible banknotes and copper dollars, the total amount of currency in Greater China is equivalent to 5 billion silver dollars. How is it possible to spend tens of billions of dollars on construction at once?

Thinking of this, Zuo Zongtang couldn't help but smile bitterly: "Shaoquan, today I brought Xinbei and Lanzhou over to discuss money with you." The prince's 'terraced house' asked for money, and the emperor's peasant bank also needed money. But our Ming court has no money, which is really worrying. ”

Zhu Jishi was also worried about money at this time, and he was summoning Liu Peng, general manager of the royal consortium, and Tang Qiwen, general manager of HSBC, to discuss the matter of "turning money". Although Zhu Jishi did not study economics in later generations, he knew a little about economics. He also knows that the empire he ruled is now experiencing deflation - many economic problems, including the continuous decline in the price of agricultural products, are not actually caused by insufficient demand, but by insufficient currency, to put it bluntly, too little money and too many products. Daming's agricultural products have increased by at least 100% compared with the time of the Pseudo-Qing Dynasty. The output value of the Ming industry's industry has increased by at least dozens of times compared with the original pseudo-Qing industry, which only had a handicraft industry.

And such a huge increase in supply naturally makes the currency based on the gold and silver standard seem insufficient. In fact, this kind of deflation is not unique to China, and it was not uncommon in the era of the gold and silver coin standard. In times of economic expansion, the finite base money can also be amplified by the multiplier effect of banks. In the event of an economic contraction, banks tend to tighten monetary policy, resulting in a scarce money supply in the market. As a result, the economic crisis, which was not serious, has been exacerbated. Until the end, the entire capitalist world had to abandon this practice of pegging money to precious metals.

Zhu Jishi, who has known about this trend for a long time, naturally wants to decouple the currency of the Ming Dynasty from gold and silver...... This is actually a matter of time or time, and now the industrial and agricultural production of the Ming Dynasty is growing rapidly. Even if it doesn't reach the level of 10 years, 15 years is stable. But the gold and silver reserves of the Ming Empire can be used for 15 years? It's a fantasy! But decoupling money from gold and silver is not something that can be implemented with a single edict, because it is still difficult for ordinary people to accept non-convertible currencies. So there has to be a transition, preferably to find a monetary base in addition to gold and silver. (To be continued.) )