At the end of the first month of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen.
Liu Yan led the battalions of the new army to Qingzhou Fucheng. The officers and soldiers of the army, especially the officers of the former battalion led by Chen Xun, were warmly welcomed by the shogunate and the people of the city.
Liu Yan ordered each battalion to have a three-day holiday, allowing the officers and soldiers to spend money, have fun, and have a good year in the city.
However, Xun Jingyun still reminded the generals of each battalion that during the holidays, the officers and soldiers of each battalion must strictly abide by military discipline. If anyone bullies the people or violates military regulations, as the governor and deputy minister of war, he will definitely punish him severely!
In the General Military Mansion, Liu Yan celebrated the New Year with Wang Yunhe, Shang Shan, Ruoshui, and his son Liu Sheng. The hard work and hardships of being away for most of the year disappeared with the sound of firecrackers.
Watching Liu Sheng playing happily in the snow, with Shang Shan and Ruoshui chasing each other, Liu Yan was happy, and suddenly thought of the tragic situation in Henan, and those who were driven by bandits and desperately rushed to the New Army Battle The dead soldiers of the formation.
"After the beginning of spring, Li Zicheng should have recovered from his injuries. It's time to make a comeback, right?"
Thinking of this, Liu Yan's good mood also ended. Liu Yan had no hope at all for Gao Mingheng and Chen Yongfu. The two of them still had some abilities, but they were not enough against Li Zicheng. The end game in Henan was not for them. People can settle it.
"Husband?"
Wang Yunhe wore a bright red hood and stood very clearly in the snow. At this moment, he noticed Liu Yan's frown and said, "My husband is thinking about those military affairs again?"
"It's okay, just thinking about it."
"It's Chinese New Year, don't think about all the troubles. Let's go to the theater later, okay?"
Liu Yan smiled and was about to agree
, but saw Xun Jingyun approaching with a straight face. He first saluted Wang Yunhe, and then said: "Headquarters, my subordinates have something to report."
Wang Yunhe said with a smile: "Let's pack up and go to the theater. My husband is busy first."
"good."
Seeing Wang Yunhe and the other two leaving chatting and laughing, Liu Yan glared at Xun Jingyun with some disappointment and said, "Tell me, what's the matter?"
"Say it here?"
"Then go into the house and tell me, and I'll serve you a pot of hot tea!"
In the main hall, Xun Jingyun took a sip of hot tea, then exhaled comfortably and said: "Headquarters, my subordinates have been inspecting military discipline in each camp these past two days, and found that the reward money and pension money issued by the imperial court are very large. has a problem."
Liu Yan was suddenly startled and asked, "Tell me more details."
"yes."
"Because the silver issued by the imperial court was raised temporarily, only a small part is official silver, that is, snowflake silver. The vast majority is private silver in various shapes, or even broken silver."
"There are silver ingots, mountain-shaped silver, silver beads, and silver cakes, and the fineness and weight of the silver are also different, which is very troublesome. The silver in the hands of the soldiers in each battalion is nominally the same, but in fact, because The size and quality of the silver varied greatly, so many soldiers suffered losses, and many soldiers received insufficient silver."
"Especially those private silvers with a lot of impurities. They are obviously worth ten taels of silver, but after being smelted, only eight or nine taels of silver are left."
"After the soldiers of each battalion went to the street to spend money to buy things after their holidays, they also encountered many disputes, all because of the quality of the money issued by the imperial court."
Liu Yan was silent for a long time after listening, and then said: "Actually, this town
The disadvantages of using silver for circulation have long been seen, but due to lack of strength before, the town's ideas have never been able to be realized. Now it seems that the opportunity has arrived. "
Xun Jingyun was a little confused and said, "General Town, what should we do now?"
"This town knows about this matter. As the governor of the town, you must first stabilize the morale of the soldiers in each battalion. The court is indeed in a hurry to raise money this time. Try not to let the soldiers in each battalion have anything happen to them because of the money. Conflict comes.”
“As for the others, the town needs to think about it carefully.”
"yes."
That day, Liu Yan stayed alone in the study to think about countermeasures.
As early as when Liu Yan was still working at Qianhu Office in front of Xiahe Village, he already had the idea of opening a bank. Money banks are the banks of this era. They can lend money, support merchants, and mobilize the financial resources of the people. There are many benefits.
But Liu Yan never took action because he didn't have enough money and the plate wasn't big enough.
Now that the time was ripe, and with the current opportunity, Liu Yan decided to take action and open a bank in Qingzhou City.
Regarding how to open a bank, Liu Yan had already made a comprehensive plan before. After a whole night of sorting out, Liu Yan formulated a feasible strategy.
Early the next morning, Liu Yan summoned Finance Minister Yue Ming, Commerce Minister Song Gongming, Chamber of Commerce President Wang Jing, Government Affairs Minister Wang Wenzhen, and staff officers Li Jiwen and Hu Zongming.
At present, these people are all senior officials of the shogunate. They all work and live in Qingzhou City, and they arrived soon.
Liu Yan said with a smile: "It's not the first lunar month yet, it's still the New Year, but you guys have to get busy.
Zhenxian said sorry. "
Everyone laughed, and Wang Wenzhen even said: "It doesn't matter. We saw that the town chief has invited Lao Taishan. We feel more balanced and have more strength to work."
"Ha ha."
Liu Yan also laughed, and then started talking about business: "The thing is like this: the silver circulating in Qinglai Town is uneven, with all kinds of fineness, all kinds of styles, and all kinds of sizes. Military It is very inconvenient for the central government to distribute military pay, pensions, salaries of shogunate officials, etc. Therefore, the town decided to open Shandong Bank and issue silver coins through Shandong Bank."
"This kind of silver coin weighs one tael and has a face value of one tael..."
Liu Yan then took out the drawing he drew and passed it to everyone for circulation: "The silver coin is round, with no holes in the middle, and is larger than the ten coins. The front of the silver coin is engraved with the face value, the words issued by Shandong Bank, the time and year of issuance, etc. On the north side of the silver coin is a complex pattern and an anti-counterfeiting code. The code is different every year. The town will develop a code book and change it every year to prevent counterfeiting."
The code word is actually a password using Chinese characters as a carrier. The code word could have been any book.
The code word is divided into three sections of numbers. The first section is the page number, the second section is the column number, and the third section is the specific number.
In this way, the secret code of each silver coin is different. If someone wants to forge it, the secret code cannot be forged.
After hearing Liu Yan's idea, everyone immediately started talking. Wang Wenzhen asked: "This is really convenient for the general town. In the future, military pay and salary will be distributed. Say how many taels it is, just give a few silver coins. There is no need to worry about quality, size." , weight error and other worries.
Just doing this would cost the shogunate too much. "
Liu Yan said: "The role of Shandong banks is not only to issue silver coins, but also to lend money, absorb deposits, etc. People can deposit their spare money in banks, and the banks will pay a certain amount of interest to the people on a monthly basis, allowing the people to make profits. . Merchants who have cash flow difficulties can borrow money from banks, and pay the bank interest rates higher than those on deposits, but it is definitely more cost-effective than the high interest rates of private loans... In addition, banks can also exchange broken silver or silver ingots, silver coins, and copper coins. It can be exchanged with each other, which is convenient for the people and merchants. The bank charges a certain amount of water, which is the fee..."
Liu Yan patiently explained the role of the bank and various related businesses to everyone. Everyone was fascinated. How did the town come up with such a novel way of making money?
In fact, in the late Ming Dynasty, Shanxi merchants had already opened banks, but it was still in its infancy, and the rules and business were definitely not as complete as the Shandong bank that Liu Yan planned to open.
As for banknotes, money orders, etc. in later movies and TV shows, they still don’t exist in the troubled times of the late Ming Dynasty. They will not really become circulated until the middle and late Manchu Qing Dynasty.
Moreover, Liu Yan will not promote banknotes, money orders, etc. for the time being. Although they are very convenient, the lessons learned from Ming Baochao are so profound that everyone from the emperor to the common people are afraid of paper financial methods such as Baochao. Liu Yan was too lazy to get into trouble at this time, and his top priority was to promote silver coins first.
"Shandong Bank is subordinate to the Ministry of Finance in the shogunate. The specific preparations for the establishment are the responsibility of Minister Yue and must be completed within a month."
“The preparation of a bank is not only
It is as simple as finding a shop, the training of clerks and shopkeepers, the establishment of various systems, the location and defense of the bank, the batch casting of silver coins, etc., must be done carefully. "
Yue Ming clasped his fists and said, "Please rest assured, Commander, my subordinates will definitely do their job well."
"Um."
Liu Yan said with a smile: "This town is very confident about Minister Yue's work."
Then Liu Yan made a request and ordered the Ministry of Finance to mint all the 500,000 taels of silver allocated by the imperial court into silver coins for future use. Everyone was shocked. The general was really generous.
Liu Yan looked at everyone's surprised look and said: "This is just the beginning. Shandong Bank will open in a month. All expenses of the shogunate and the new army battalions will be settled in silver coins."
"Today I called two people from the Ministry of Commerce and the Chamber of Commerce to inform you that this town will give you a one-year transition period. After one year, all the income from various industries in the Ministry of Commerce will only be collected in silver coins. Various forms of broken silver. As for the Chamber of Commerce, this town hopes that all merchants who join the Chamber of Commerce will fully support the promotion of silver coins and support the various businesses of Shandong Bank."
Song Gongming and Wang Jing took orders one after another.
"Minister Wang, the Ministry of Government needs to do a good job in publicity and explanation. After the silver coins are promoted, there will definitely be many people and shogunate officials who can't figure it out. You will be under great pressure by then."
Wang Wenzhen said with a smile: "Don't worry, sir. In fact, silver coins are just silver that has been changed into one form. It is not difficult to promote it. What is difficult is to gradually ban the circulation of other forms of silver."
Liu Yan nodded approvingly, and Wang Wenzhen hit the nail on the head.
"In the main town, it's just that all the money circulating in various parts of the Ming Dynasty is a mess of broken silver.
, after all, we cannot completely ban the use of silver coins in the four prefectures of Qinglai Town. "
"Don't worry about this. From now on, the silver allocated by the imperial court will be put into the Treasury first and will not be released until the Shandong Bank re-mints it into silver coins."
"As for the silver coins flowing in from the private sector, there is no need to worry. After the silver coins are circulated on a large scale, this town will issue an order to completely ban the circulation of broken silver among the private sector. If people want to use it, they must go to Shandong Bank to exchange it."
Liu Yan said with a smile: "In fact, the common people use copper coins the most. They have very little contact with silver, so the impact is not very big. The real ones affected are merchants, officials, New Army soldiers, etc., so you all have a heavy burden. "
Everyone took orders one after another.
Later, Liu Yan ordered his advisers Li Jiwen and Hu Zongming to participate in the preparation of Shandong Bank, check for Yue Ming's deficiencies, and communicate with him in a timely manner.
"Everyone, you must be quick. The reason why this town only gives you one month is because Yanzhou Prefecture and Dengzhou Prefecture have just been merged. There are too many things to do. This town must rush to implement it in the two prefectures. Before the New Deal, we must set up banks in Shandong to avoid the losses caused by miscellaneous money to the people. You must hurry up!"
Everyone suddenly accepted the order.
