Cai Yanqing rode worriedly on his way to Xizhou.
He previously inspected Hezhou and learned that the five leaders of the Fan tribe who were friendly to the Song Dynasty in Taozhou were killed by Bian Sibojie, the leader of the Guizhang tribe, for some reason. The corpses of these five leaders are now hanging upside down on the top of Yigong City.
Sibojie here is not only capable and ambitious, but also cruel and young. This man is more cunning and dangerous than his grandfather Guizhang, and will become a serious problem for the Song Dynasty sooner or later. At the same time, Ji Lengpu, another general of Dong Fei, also led his tribe southward and moved to the south of Jishi Mountain, seeming to be joining forces with Bian Sibo.
After Cai Yanqing learned about this incident, he wrote to Zhang Yue, but the other party did not seem to pay much attention to it.
This time Zhang Yue asked him to go to Xizhou to discuss something important. Cai Yanqing felt that he had to mention the matter to Zhang Yue.
In the past, on the road from Hezhou to Xizhou, Tibetan tribes came and went from time to time to ambush the Song army or caravans and food convoys. Cai Yanqing led more than a hundred riders on the road at night in the rain. Along the way, he saw lanterns shaking and illuminating the surroundings. The light and dark are uncertain, and the horse's hooves move in and out of the muddy road. The bumps on the horse made Cai Yanqing feel ups and downs. He felt relieved only after seeing Xizhou City bathed in wind and rain.
After Cai Yanqing arrived in Xizhou City, he stayed one night in a Buddhist temple in the city. The transit envoy had no fixed residence when he visited various states. Sometimes he stayed in a post house, sometimes in a temple, and sometimes he was hosted by local officials and gentry. at home.
Cai Yanqing came to Jinglue Mansion early the next morning.
Zhang Yue, Li Xian and Cai Yanqing had breakfast. Zhang Yue talked to Cai Yanqing for a while to ask for his support, and Cai Yanqing understood.
Then he went to the hall to discuss matters. Cai Yanqing glanced at them and saw that they were Wang Hou, Zhong Shidao, Zhang Shouyue and Shen Kuo.
Except for Professor Miao and Gao Zunyu who are in Huizhou, all the generals in Xihe Road are here.
Seeing this battle, Cai Yanqing did not rush to mention the matter of the border relationship.
But after hearing Zhang Yue say a few words, Cai Yanqing asked: "Surplus? Deficit?"
Cai Yanqing couldn't help but be confused when he heard Zhang Yue mention this term. Even though he had read thousands of books, he had never heard the phrase "deficit and surplus".
Zhang Yue said: "To be more precise, it is trade surplus and trade deficit. There is also a word called salt banknote reserve."
Cai Yanqing boasted that he was well-educated and had never heard of these. He didn't know any of the three words and was completely confused.
Zhang Yue explained: "What is a surplus? To put it bluntly, the Tibetans buy more of my goods, and we buy less of the Tibetan goods. For the imperial court, this is a surplus."
Zhang Yue directly concealed the price so that several generals would not understand.
Even so, Wang Hou and others still looked confused, and Li Xian didn't understand either. Wang Hou is still educated, and Zhong Shidao has also been a civil servant. Unfortunately, Zhang Shouyue is already old and can only sit and listen to the scriptures.
However, Cai Yanqing understood somewhat and said: "The surplus is more beneficial than harmful to our court, right?"
That's right, the Song Dynasty's previous strategy for dealing with Xixia and Khitan was to close the market and stop trade, making the other party's trade costs high, and achieving the purpose of shaking down the minority political power.
The surplus leads to a problem, that is, there is less goods but more money, causing private prices to skyrocket.
The deficit will also cause a problem, that is, there is more goods but less money, which will lead to extremely low prices.
Zhang Yue said: "Everyone knows that the imperial court has been in a money shortage. Why did the money shortage occur?"
"Some people say that it was because Xia lost its income from trade after cutting off the Silk Road. But this is only one source."
The economy of the Song Dynasty has been increasing for so many years, and more and more goods were produced during economic growth. However, if the growth of money cannot keep up with the growth of the economy, a money shortage will occur. "
The Song Dynasty minted only 1.8 million copper coins every year, which was far from keeping up with the GDP growth of the Song Dynasty.
There was no shortage of copper in the Song Dynasty, but if copper was used as currency, it was very scarce. The government has been casting iron coins to replace copper coins, but the people don't buy it. Therefore, folk often melted copper to cast private money, which eventually led to the Song Dynasty banning folk melting copper to cast money.
The reason why the Song Dynasty instituted a sea ban was also for this reason. Fan Xiang's original creation of salt banknotes was also to alleviate the lack of large iron coins in the northwest. This was the thinking of using banknotes for power.
Salt banknotes can slightly alleviate the problem. In the final analysis, the money shortage in the Song Dynasty is still treating the symptoms rather than the root cause.
Xue Xiang transferred the salt banknotes from Shaanxi to Ren Sansi, and then transferred the minting rights of salt banknotes from the local to the central government.
In another time and space in history, due to the opening of the Xihe River, the average annual salt output of Shaanxi Salt Lake was 1.175 million seats, and the average annual salt banknotes printed by the imperial court were 1.77 million seats, an average of more than 1.77 million seats. There are 590,000 seats.
According to the official price of five guan and 500 yen per seat, it is more than 3 million guan.
However, for the excess salt banknotes, the imperial court prepared money in the capital to recycle and purchase them from the Capital Salt Institute.
Of course, this time and space was collected by Jiaoyin, and the court was also very restrained in printing money, so the price of salt banknotes has always been above five hundred yuan, but after the Xihe River was opened, there was no way to restrain it.
After Zhangyue's restructuring, the well salt in Xizhou, Minzhou was also settled with salt banknotes. After the well salt in Xizhou, Minzhou was mined using Zhuotong wells, a total of more than 300 well salts were drilled, and now the number of well salt produced per year is around 70,000.
As soon as the news came out, the price of salt banknotes in Yongxing Prefecture and Qinzhou suddenly rose to seven or eight dollars apiece. Zhang Yue asked Cai Jing to sell a large amount of salt banknotes on the market.
Just three months later, Xue Xiang shamelessly increased the court's annual salt banknote printing by 150,000 seats... As soon as the news came out, the price of salt banknotes plummeted, as low as five coins per seat. Cai Jing bought back all the salt banknotes he had originally sold. , took advantage of the trend and made a fortune.
No matter what, the five-string salt note is still very firm, although it is lower than the original price of five hundred coins.
The most important thing is that the additional salt banknotes issued by the imperial court each year have actually become revenue. Now the imperial court issues more than 1.2 million salt banknotes from the Xieyan Salt Pool and Xizhou Minzhou Salt Bank, but the three companies issue nearly 2 million salt banknotes every year. of salt banknotes.
Cai Yanqing listened to Zhang Yue talk about the salt banknotes, and then Shen Kuo spoke.
Shen Kuo had been building a stronghold in Minzhou before. After building the iron castle, he had just returned to Zhang Yue.
Shen Kuo was the Minister of Economics. Before Zhang Yue traveled through time, he first learned about salt banknotes from his Mengxi Bi Tan. In the book, he praised Fan Xiang's salt banknote reform.
Historically, Shen Kuo once advocated setting the annual additional issuance of salt banknotes at two million guan, and at the same time issuing an additional 200,000 guan each year as emergencies, making this a permanent system.
Shen Kuo handed over the documents and stammered: "What the commander-in-chief ordered... is up to the lower officials... That's about it. The establishment of Xizhou Forex Market can export 1.1 million guan of goods and import 1.1 million guan every year." Goods worth 328,000 guan, in other words, the court in Ganchang has a deficit of 220,000 guan salt notes every year."
Cai Yanqing was confused when he heard this. Didn't he agree to have a surplus, so why did it turn into a deficit?
Zhang Yue said: "Like silk and tea, they were common items in the Song Dynasty. However, medicines, spices, gold and silver traded from other countries were rare and valuable items, so it was a deficit!"
Cai Yanqing nodded, and so did the Song and Liao trade. It was said that annual tribute was paid every year, but the Liao Kingdom used annual tribute to buy things from the Song Dynasty. It is equivalent to the Song Dynasty sending money to you, the Liao Kingdom, and the Liao Kingdom using the money from the Song Dynasty to buy the goods from the Song Dynasty. This maintains an almost balanced trade balance.
However, the Qing, Tang, Tibetan tribes and other countries in the Western Regions did not receive the same treatment as the Liao Kingdom.
But during Zhang Yue's reign, he asked Wang Shao to promote salt banknotes in the northwest. When he invaded Hezhou before, Zhang Yue used salt banknotes to buy grain from the Qing and Tang Dynasty Tibetan tribes, not to mention all the rewards from the Tibetan generals and Tibetan soldiers. It is issued with salt banknotes.
When the Xihe market opened, these salt banknotes returned to the Song Dynasty due to the huge trade surplus.
No one understands why in the end, the Song Dynasty benefited, the Tibetan people benefited, and the Han merchants also benefited. What happened in the middle?
】
Cai Yanqing had some understanding. He exchanged the Song Dynasty's abundant silk and tea bricks for horses, cattle and sheep, and the Tibetan tribe exchanged the Song Dynasty's abundant horses, cattle and sheep for the Song Dynasty's silk and tea bricks.
He had vaguely glimpsed that the way to increase wealth was through exchange.
Cai Yanqing understood, and Shen Kuo also understood. He was clumsy in his words, but at this moment he wished he could take a small notebook and write it down.
At the same time, Shen Kuo also thought that Zhang Jinglue wrote a book on economics when he was idle, and later dedicated it to the emperor. It is now hidden in the emperor's library. It is said that no other person is allowed to read it. If It would be great if I could borrow it and read it.
But Shen Kuo changed his mind and thought, it doesn't matter. Zhang Jinglue's knowledge is as vast as the sea. I learn more every day by his side, and I must have benefited a lot.
Zhang Yue looked at everyone. The greatest significance of the circulation of salt banknotes in the northwest is that the world's largest trade surplus country also controls the settlement currency. What will happen?
Just think about the soft currency replacing the U.S. knife in international circulation, or a country trying its best to return to the number one surplus country.
For salt banknotes to become a settlement currency, military exchanges must be prohibited. We have a comprehensive strategy. Can it be implemented?
Zhang Yue sat down and said: "Nowadays, all the troops stationed in Xihe are returning to the trade. I think the disadvantages are huge. Emperor Taizong and Emperor Zhenzong have strict decrees not to allow the border troops to return to the trade. Later, because of the war with Xixia, this happened Let go. Now the soldiers and horses of Xihe Road are treated as forbidden troops by the imperial court. At the same time, they plan to use the profit of 200,000 salt banknotes from the surplus of the Yi Department to reward the soldiers and horses of this road every year."
"What do you think of canceling the trade deal?"
Wang Hou and Master Zhong stood up one after another and said: "Since the commander-in-chief has spoken, we will follow the commander-in-chief's lead and follow his lead."
Zhang Shouyue was the only one left in the field.
Zhang Shou made an appointment with Wang Hou, and it was no surprise that Zhong Shidao supported him. Both of them were promoted by Zhang Yue. In fact, one cent of the 200,000 guan given to the troops on Xihe Road every year is almost the same as the money earned through hard work, but what others give to oneself is not as reliable as what one earns.
Zhang Shouyue was unwilling to agree, but this time some situations were stronger than others. He looked at Cai Yanqing, who had just arrived, and wondered what his attitude was. Cai Yanqing smiled and said, "It would be great if we could ban the exchange!"
Li Xian also expressed support.
Zhang Shouyue had no choice but to bite the bullet and said with some reluctance: "I don't care about the final general. I'm just afraid that Deputy General Gao and General Miao won't agree, right?"
