Section 50 Bonds (I)
Although everyone else regarded the land as Yongli or Dengming's, Deng Ming did not think that the land belonged to the emperor or to himself, so he gave it to veterans who were willing to emigrate without any psychological burden. But in addition to land that doesn't cost money, there are a lot of things that cost money. For example, food, seeds, various tools, vehicles, and livestock for immigrants cost Chengdu's financial resources.
"Anything that can be solved with money is not a problem." Deng Ming's first reaction was that this was not a big problem, if it had been placed three years ago, it would definitely be a worrying thing, but now the horse shops and blacksmith shops in western Sichuan have begun to produce a steady stream. With the influx of immigrants into Chengdu, the proportion of the non-agricultural population has risen sharply, and even labor is not a big problem. There was no problem at all in supplying the veterans -- if it weren't for this production capacity, the Western Sichuan clique would not have considered reoccupying Mianzhu, Jiangyou, and other places, and Chengdu had to move everyone to the city when it was too busy to take care of itself.
However, Deng Ming soon found out that there was actually a big problem, the last time he went to Zhejiang, the West Sichuan Group did not earn money at all but pasted a large amount of money, and Deng Ming did not hand over the spoils of Burma to the treasury, but used it to build the Fifty-One Pavilion, so the West Sichuan Group had very strict financial difficulties. Chengdu and Xuzhou have a large number of immigrants who need to be resettled, and military spending cannot be cut, and education funds Deng Ming does not agree to cut.
But Chengdu has already printed a lot of IOUs in recent years, and now that the immigrants have just arrived, there has been no significant increase in taxes, and a lot of things that can be realized have been sold - such as the boats sold to the Yamen of Premier Deng.
The consequences of large-scale printing of IOUs were difficult to predict, and Deng Ming did not study economics, but only qualitatively knew that increasing the amount of currency issued would cause inflation, and he did not understand at all how to quantitatively control the amount of IOUs issued. The rest of the men, such as Governor Xiong, didn't know anything about it either.
The immigration funds needed seemed to be quite a lot, which made Deng Ming a little shocked, and after spit out the bold words of "not a problem", he was stunned for a long time with the paperwork, and he no longer had the confidence he had before.
"Everything is difficult at the beginning, we need to provide these veterans with the initial necessities of life, in fact, in order to save money, we can already save money." Liu Jinge, Xiong Lan, Qin Xiucai and others saw Deng Ming's weakness and hurriedly explained: "Their rations can be transported by the army, and the farm tools, quilts, and tents given to them can also be transported by the army. But even so, they must carry some luggage, clothes, soft and soft, they have families, some may have children, they don't know when they will be able to come back after leaving Chengdu, and they will definitely spend all their money to buy daily necessities. ”
The military also participated in this discussion, and they have accumulated a lot of valuable experience in the last Zhejiang migration, which can be regarded as being used in this migration operation. If it is a military tun, it is simple, but these people are the same Xiucai in Chengdu, and Western Sichuan does not allow forced immigration, they all have complete citizenship rights, if it is just to save money, the result is that the immigrants can't survive and plan to migrate back, then Western Sichuan will lose money this time.
Mu Tan pointed out, "As Governor Liu said, everything is difficult at the beginning, because the road is completely deserted, the wear and tear along the way will be very alarming, and there will be a large amount of road repair expenses; But in the future, people will come and go, and the roads will continue to be repaired, and the cost will definitely not be so much next year. ”
Deng Ming turned the document back two pages, and saw that there was a budget for the next few years in the back, and there were many unknowable factors, but the cost in the future was indeed greatly reduced. One of these expenses was a subsidy for caravans, and the immigrants moved there and could not be left to fend for themselves. They can hunt, provide furs and other goods to Chengdu, and exchange daily necessities from the caravan - this kind of caravan is likely to lose money, but it cannot do without, so the Chengdu government will give them a guarantee, and all the money earned belongs to the merchants themselves, and if they lose money, the government will give subsidies - now the Chengdu government does not know how much it will lose, so it can only overestimate the losses and list them in the budget, and wait until the caravan has come and gone several times, and the government can have an accurate figure.
Deng Ming carefully examined the documents, and felt that it was indeed as his subordinates said, it was full of necessary expenses, and he also adhered to Deng Ming's consistent line of thinking, that is, the government and the army did their best to withdraw from the transportation work and leave the work of supplying immigrants to the merchants. Deng Ming believes that businessmen know very well what is most popular with immigrants, and they also know what products are needed in Chengdu, and they will calculate the cost carefully. In this process, the government only plays a role in auditing and supervising, so as not to give rise to any messy problems, or rigidly let the immigrants produce what local products, and then spend a lot of money to transport these goods that the Chengdu officials came up with back to Chengdu and backlog.
After reading the documents twice, Deng Ming sighed lightly again: "In this case, immigrants will still have a hard time, if they have more money in their hands now, their lives will be better soon." If you only think about saving a little now, you may have to slow them down for years. ”
"Then we'll need to print more IOUs." Xiong Lan said in a low voice. From the very beginning of the issuance of IOUs, the Bank of Sichuan was committed to keeping the print run on par with taxes. But this goal is becoming increasingly elusive, and Chengdu's expanding economy will require more currency to sustain it. Relying on trade revenues and the constant flow of immigrants into Sichuan, IOUs did not depreciate despite the increasing circulation of IOUs. However, if you have to rely on printing more IOUs every time to improve the livelihood of Deng Ming, who is "spending a lot of money", then inflation is inevitable, which does not require much economic knowledge to understand.
"What if you use the tax revenue of the newly developed area as collateral?" Deng Ming pondered for a moment, asking the opinions of the officials around him. After the land is developed, there will definitely be new taxes - Deng Ming not only does not think that the resettlement plan they have formulated is extravagant, but also wants to allocate more subsidies to the immigrants: "Besides, if they buy more goods, won't it also stimulate Chengdu's industry?" I seem to have heard that many people complained that hundreds of thousands of strong men and women had come here all of a sudden, and that jobs were not as easy to find as before. ”
"Tens of thousands of veterans, thousands of immigrants every year in the future, when will such a large subsidy be repaid?" Qin Xiucai asked rhetorically, he is now an expert in taxation: "It is impossible to have ten or ten years." ”
"Well, that means that in the past ten years, this burden has to be borne by Tongxiu, who has not left." Deng Ming knew very well that printing such a large amount of IOUs at once was an overdraft of the tax revenue of these newly developed areas for many years to come: "Rising prices are tantamount to plundering the savings of the people under our rule." They don't have a lot of savings, most of them still owe huge debts, and every little savings they save is saved by frugality. ”
The people around Deng Ming didn't talk to him. Printing IOUs is the same as making coins, and if the government strives to maintain credit, the interest on the money is the service fee for the government to provide credit currency; If the government allows the currency to depreciate, it is robbery. For example, the minting of money at the end of the Ming Dynasty was no different from robbery, and as soon as the wealthy merchants heard that the emperor had minted money again, they rushed to escape from the capital.
"The depreciation of savings is equivalent to someone else helping immigrants, and it is not entirely unreasonable to ask them to bear a little bit. These immigrants will make the area around the capital safer. But we should do our best to make amends. Deng Ming thought about it for a while, and finally made up his mind: "Let's issue bonds." ”
"What is a bond?"
……
At the emergency meeting of the Imperial Assembly, Bao Guogong once again made a report to all the imperial parliamentarians, and he asked the Imperial Assembly to agree to issue the "Ming Sichuan Construction Bond". The Treasury bond is for a period of three years and pays three percent interest per year. In this day and age, it is normal to deposit money and pay a custodian fee, so most people prefer to dig a pit and hide their money under the ground of their homes at the risk of being stolen.
Under the influence of this tradition, even if the banks in Sichuan do not charge custody fees, the interest rates are very low or no at all, and many people who save money still think that it is quite cost-effective -- to avoid the danger of theft and rat bites, and it is not necessary to spend money to let others take charge of the safekeeping.
Although Deng Ming thought that this trend was wrong, he did not intend to use administrative means to reverse it. However, when the national debt appears, probably those commercial banks will have to change -- they will not be able to do business so well in the future.
This time, Deng Ming demanded the issuance of 50 million yuan of treasury bonds, which was theoretically equivalent to 500,000 taels of silver. Deng Ming guaranteed that every penny of the construction bond would be used for the needs of the resettlement work. At the same time, Deng Ming also asked the Imperial Diet to set up a special committee to supervise the use of this construction fund.
"This batch of bonds can be purchased in the same amount as an IOU, or with silver, and it can be converted according to the ratio of one tael of Kuping silver to one hundred yuan. The 50 million yuan is used to pay for road repairs, daily necessities and immigration subsidies. In the future, the taxes paid in both places will first be used to pay interest before they can be used by the government. If Jiangyou and Mianzhu encounter war, or there is a natural disaster, or the reclamation fails, Tongxiucai will return to the capital one after another, and the imperial government will also guarantee that Tongxiucai, who buys bonds, will not suffer losses......
After Deng Ming finished speaking, a congressman soon asked: "I have several puzzles about what Guogong just said, the first is what does it mean to buy silver?" Isn't there no silver circulating in the empire now? "Many people have equated Deng Mingkong zhì district with the territory of the empire, and this councillor is one of them. Regarding Deng Ming's two consecutive emphasis on guaranteeing Tong Xiucai, this congressman also has his understanding: "Is it true that if there is a military disaster or a natural disaster, the bonds purchased by Quan Ru Xiucai and Xiucai will be invalid?" ”
"Oh, I made a mistake here, just like Xiucai and Quan like Xiucai are also fully guaranteed by the imperial government." Deng Ming hurriedly made up for his mistake: "Sir, please sit down, let me explain this problem." Our bonds are also planned to be issued overseas......"
〖