Zhang Hong, who was in charge of money, flipped through the account book and said with some embarrassment: "We have no money." ”

Li Jing was stunned for a moment, and said in disbelief: "How is this possible, where did our money go?" ”

Zhang Hong spread out the account book and said helplessly: "It's really going to run out of money, and now there are only 110,000 yuan left in the account." 110,000 yuan seems to be a lot, but we are not what we used to be, our family is big, and this amount of money is not much at all. ”

During this period of time, Shamen Town has traded with the East China Sea of the town, exterminated the pirates, robbed almost the entire Da Xie Islands, and then recently robbed more than 20 pirates and bandits, and each time there is a lot of income, why is there no money?

Zhang Hong directly poured out the chips in the calculation bag in front of Li Jing, and began to calculate in front of Li Jing with various markings of chips. Salmen Town has indeed made a lot of money in more than three months, and it is estimated that it may add up to millions. However, the money in Shamen Town is easy to come by, but it is also like flowing water.

One of the largest expenditures is military spending, including the salaries of soldiers and the equipment and armor that they have changed. A set of iron armor is 50 times, and a set of leather armor is also 20 times. Another horizontal knife has three crosses, a bow has five crosses, and a crossbow has eight crosses. A spear runs twice, and a lance runs three. A feather arrow is sixty wen, and a crossbow nail is eighty wen. A leather shield should also be consistent with 500 Wen, and a square iron shield should cost 500 yuan. An iron helmet is consistent, and a Mo knife is twenty runs.

Based on the current equipment of the seven main battalions, an ordinary soldier is equipped with an eight-foot three-edged spear, a square iron shield, an iron helmet, and a set of iron armor. There is also a horizontal knife. A bow. A pot of thirty arrows. Calculated down, it is almost 70 guan yuan, a capital of 200 people, that is, 14,000 guan, and three of the seven battalions have 42,000 guan.

The other shield soldiers and crossbow soldiers are similar, and the more expensive ones are the Mo sword soldiers, two pairs of iron armor and a Mo knife. It's already more than 100 times. But the more expensive is the cavalry, although the cavalry wears leather armor, but their horses also wear horse armor, a set of horse armor forty times, not counting the cost of more than 100 times per war horse, and the huge monthly consumption of saddle sheath and war horses. A cavalry costs five times as much as a surprise soldier. That is to say, a strange soldier needs seventy guan, and a well-equipped cavalry plus a consumption may cost three hundred and fifty guan. Now there are three cavalry capitals in the entire Shamen Town, not including the cavalry in the reconnaissance capital, and the number of cavalry has exceeded seven hundred. The cavalry alone, which was less than a thousand, cost nearly 250,000 yuan.

An arrow costs sixty pennies. One million feathered arrows amounted to more than 60,000.

And that's not even counting the warships in Shamen Town now, and the pack horses and donkeys needed for logistics. According to the standard equipment of the Tang Army, 30 percent of the whole army is logistics auxiliary troops, and every 10 soldiers must be equipped with six pack donkeys. Shamen Town now includes the logistics battalion and the transport battalion, which is a full eight battalion heads and more than 8,000 people. In addition to the cavalry's war horses and the private horses of officers and soldiers, the whole army used as many as 5,000 horses and donkeys for logistics alone. If you count the private horses of the soldiers, it almost reaches one person and one head. Although this ensured the strong mobility and transportation capacity of the Shamen Town Army, the cost of these pack horses and donkeys was not low, and a donkey carried thirty or forty times a horse would cost more than 200,000 yuan in logistics.

Eight thousand men and horses, counting the equipment of the whole army, war horses, pack horses, etc., the money spent is as high as 1.23 million. If it weren't for the miraculous looting of so much money in Salmon Town, it would not have been able to arm such a large and well-equipped army. This is a bottomless pit, and it consumes a lot of people to eat and chew every day. This is not all the expenses, after each battle, Li Jing's generous rewards and generous pensions are also an important reason for the huge expenses.

"The monthly expenditure on food supplies and salaries for the soldiers is more than 10,000 guan, and if you add the cost of war horses and logistics pack horses, the monthly expenditure is at least 20,000 guan. This is still the case in non-combat situations, and in the event of a battle, combat consumption and rewards and pensions must be calculated, and the cost is at least five times higher than in non-combat situations. Zhang Hong sighed.

It's not that I don't know the way, but I was shocked when I calculated it, and the army of 8,000 people that maintained it now actually threw in more than one million guan.

Li Jing took a breath of cold air, "We won't really go bankrupt, will we?" ”

Li Chun, the military officer, smiled and said, "Zhang Bingcao just reminded the general in advance. Judging from the current situation, we don't need 8,000 soldiers and horses to defend this town, two forts, nine forts, and seventeen islands. I think it is enough to maintain a standing army of about 3,000, and the rest can be used as soldiers, and they can return to their families to work as farmers in peacetime, and it is not too late to recruit them if there is a war. The cost of raising troops is too great, but it has been raised without war, and it is really not worth it. ”

Li Jing rejected Uncle Cong's proposal, and the war was coming soon, how could there be too many soldiers. Now I look at these soldiers, but as soon as the fight starts, no one will say that anymore.

"We still have the money." Zhang Hong finally said something that made Li Jing feel a little more relaxed: "But we have no cash, the copper coin is only 110,000 yuan, and there are more silk coins, there are more than 300,000 horses, and there are more than 200,000 yuan." Now the town's liquor workshop, perfume workshop, rock sugar workshop and even ordnance workshop, as well as the newly built lighter workshop, canning workshop, and salt factory, are very profitable. However, according to the general's orders, all the shops are now bartering the goods that have been prepared, exchanging liquor for food, and ordnance for materials, etc., and there is really no money to buy. A large amount of the money in our hands went to the soldiers and the workers of the workshops on the island, and it was all paid to the soldiers. Seeing that we have no cash in the treasury to use, we are short of money. ”

Zhang Hong is also talking about the current situation on the island, the salaries of the soldiers and workers in the workshops in Shamen Town are higher than those outside, and the army and workshops in Shamen Town are all provided with meals. As a result, everyone did not spend much after receiving their salaries, and they all kept the money in their hands. There is no cash flow in Shamen Town's external business, and the money in the hands of the people continues to flow into the hands of the people and is no longer used, this money is used less and less, and even the silk that goes hand in hand with money is getting less and less, and then it will not be long before Shamen Town has no money available, and there is no money to pay the salaries of soldiers and craftsmen.

"Or, half of the money is collected when trading with foreign countries?" Zhang Hong asked. In the late Tang Dynasty, there was already a shortage of money, and now the money shortage in Shamen Town is even more serious.

"No, I can't. It's still March. The spring drought is severe. Seeing that this year is definitely another year of great drought in the north. Food is in short supply, and it will become more and more difficult to buy food in the future, and even if you have money, you may not be able to buy it. Therefore, while these commodities in our hands are still selling hotly, we have to take the opportunity to exchange these commodities for grain and raw materials. The armory should also continue to exchange raw materials, although we have a lot of weapons in stock, but those that have been seized are not of great use, and I plan to sell them all. We use it ourselves, and we build it with precision. ”

"Our existing grain is enough for the military and civilians to eat for two years, and now the price of grain is getting higher and higher day by day, so we will go all out to exchange grain and hoard it, if there is a bumper harvest next year and the grain falls, then we will lose money." Li Chun reminded Li Jingdao.

Li Jing shook his head and said slowly: "You have to believe me, the price of grain in the future will only be higher than now, it will be more expensive than now, and it will never be cheaper." From now on. We can buy as much as we can, and exchange as much as we can. Hoard with all your might. And whether it's rice, corn, wheat, or even sorghum, barley, and soybeans, as long as they can be eaten, we do our best to buy them and stock them up. The canning workshop should also step up and catch more fish to make canned food for storage. ”

Everyone was a little surprised by Li Jing's comprehensive preparation, but considering the current drought for two consecutive years, they also felt that there was nothing wrong with doing so.

"What about the money shortage?" Zhang Hong asked with a headache, last time they got back three coinage furnaces from the Cat Island of the Feng clan in Liaohai, as well as more than a hundred craftsmen. Li Jing secretly started minting private money, and for every 1,000 yuan minted, the profit could be almost 150 yuan, and the profit of 15 percent seemed to be very high. However, a coinage furnace can only mint 3,000 yuan when it starts all year round, and the three furnaces add up to only 10,000 yuan. If you do the math, it's only a profit of 1,500 yuan. This is really a bit of a chicken rib in Li Jing's opinion, and he also thought about adding a coinage furnace, but casting money requires a lot of copper coins, lead and tin, and the money has always required nearly four catties of copper, and 10,000 guan is more than 40,000 catties of copper. However, copper, lead and tin are all metals controlled by the imperial court, and it is difficult to get them.

Li Jing also frowned, if the money shortage continues, the people on the island will have to barter, which will be a serious blow to the island's economy.

Zhang Chengye, who had been attending the meeting as an observer, suddenly said, "After we went to the island, we saw that the sergeants on the island took money to go to the military to exchange for a piece of paper, and then used the work recorded on this piece of paper to buy a house, which has always been strange." Now that there is a shortage of money, can we temporarily replace it with this piece of paper on the island? ”

Li Jing's eyes flashed, and he couldn't help but slap him heavily. This Zhang Chengye really woke up the dreamer with a word, how could he forget this. The money shortage is because the copper money itself is of high value, and the copper production is small, and the money minted by the imperial court is small, and more than 300,000 yuan of new money is minted a year, and it is often melted and cast into bronze by the people, or even directly traded to foreign vassal countries.

But it's a different story when you use banknotes, which are worthless in themselves. Looking at history, during the anti-Japanese period, the Japanese also issued military coupons, and our army also issued border coupons. Li Jing can also issue banknotes in Shamen Town to upgrade this work point and use it to temporarily replace money.

Of course, it is not possible to issue banknotes directly for future generations. After thinking about it for a long time, Li Jing put forward the idea of paper money.

"We set up a money bank and issued two kinds of banknotes, one is an anonymous banknote, which is divided into four types: 100 wen, 200 wen, 500 wen and 1,000 wen. It is directly used to replace copper coins, but it is only used in the thirteen islands of the town, and one hundred wen is equivalent to one hundred copper coins. In the future, salaries in the army and salaries in workshops were paid directly. The other is the issuance of registered notes, which are similar to flying money, which are always up to 100 denominations. ”

"Will everyone not accept it, after all, a thin piece of paper represents a month's hard-earned money."

Li Jing smiled, "The key is that this piece of paper has purchasing power, just like work, not a piece of paper, but everyone uses money to exchange work to buy a house." In the future, the shops on our island will also be unified, and the money will be used to settle the bill when selling goods. In this way, we can not use money, but only use money to circulate on the island, and solve the problem of money shortage. ”

"Are the merchants willing? If they want to go out to buy goods, don't they have to pay cash? ”

"This can be exchanged by them, and according to the actual purchase situation, we will take back the banknotes from them and exchange them into copper coins or silk for them."

The idea of this bank's banknotes made everyone present actively participate in it, and constantly put forward various opinions. Li Jing was very happy to see this, and came up with solutions to some of the problems raised by everyone one by one. Although the issuance of this banknote is still a little immature at the moment, Li Jing believes that this is definitely an excellent strategy to stimulate the island's economy and avoid the loss of money.

Let's try it first, the Northern Song Dynasty can circulate all the country, Li Jing doesn't believe that his banknotes will not circulate in the hundreds of thousands of people on such a dozen islands.

There was already a paper mill and a printing workshop in Shamen Town, which was originally Li Jing saw that the people worshiped Buddha in the late Tang Dynasty at this time, and the incense in each temple was prosperous, and even the Buddhist scriptures were also selling well. Li Jing himself is a non-believer in Buddhism, but in order to make money and accumulate food, Li Jing is now working hard. Seeing that the Buddhist scriptures were so popular, I couldn't help but have the idea of printing Buddhist scriptures for sale.

He inquired a little and found that the business of this Buddhist scripture was promising, especially in Japan, which is separated by a sea, the most revered Buddha, and every year the merchants of the Tang Dynasty had to export a large number of Buddha statues, Buddhist scriptures, sandalwood and other items, and the profits were amazing. After knowing this situation, Li Jing naturally would not miss it. A group of paper workers were recruited, and the printing workers pulled up the workshop.

But since Li Jing wants to do this, of course it won't be a petty fight. Using his knowledge, Li Jing has taken the papermaking workshop process to several levels, creating several new and better paper varieties at a lower cost. Li Jing even specially asked the craftsman to make a straw paper for going to the toilet, and finally ended the sorrow of going to the toilet in Datang.

In terms of printing, Li Jing introduced the printing of movable type, because the printing is a Buddhist scripture, each of which is printed in large quantities, so this engraving movable type printing is very suitable, and the cost is greatly reduced. At the moment, this new business is in full swing, and the first batch of Buddhist scriptures has been stored in a warehouse.

With the convenience of a paper mill and a printing shop, Li Jing simply worked with the craftsmen to make a better paper for banknotes. Each of the new banknotes is five paper sizes, and the five-color overprinting technology is adopted, and the anti-counterfeiting performance is extremely high. However, Li Jing was also very cautious about issuing banknotes, and set up a special bank and appointed many officials in charge. In the first batch, Li Jing did not dare to print more, but only printed 500,000 banknotes, which were issued according to the 100,000 copper principal he deposited in the bank.

When the new banknotes were shipped, Li Jing immediately ordered the whole town to issue banknotes, and all the salaries of all soldiers and workers in the future would be paid according to the proportion of 50 percent of banknotes, 30 percent of silk, and 20% of money. In addition, all shops on the island are open on the island, and priority is given to collecting money. Banknotes and copper are exchanged for one to one, and people can exchange money and silk for banknotes at any time, but there are restrictions on the exchange of banknotes for copper coins, and the amount that can be exchanged every month is limited, and there must be special needs to apply for exchange. (To be continued.) For mobile phone users, please go to read. )