After all, it is still the thinking of the medieval era. After all, it is still a thought that was brought up by Confucianism. The Manchu and Qing court, including Zaichun, certainly knew the benefits of money, and also knew that the court would never be able to do without money.
But their thoughts are still stuck on old physical objects and gold and silver. Silk is wealth, porcelain is wealth, and tea, jewelry, and spices are of course wealth.
Fields, pastures, mountains, forests, lakes, rivers...even cattle, sheep, and population were all considered wealth of the imperial court, but no one would consider this to be wealth except this man who was heavily in debt to the Qing Dynasty.
This kind of thinking is not unique to the Qing Dynasty. Financial thinking in Asia is basically still at the most primitive level of running accounts. The so-called household department of the Qing Dynasty is just a calculation of addition and subtraction.
How much are the commercial taxes, agricultural taxes, and customs taxes of each province in a year? Add them together to calculate a total. Then it depends on how much each province owes, and what is the actual number of people deported to Beijing in the end.
After calculating the income, it is time to calculate the expenses. The salaries of the officials, the salaries of the army, and the silver of the river workers cannot be left behind. The indemnities to the great powers must be calculated clearly... one item after another, and finally the total amount is obtained. , that is a loss.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the word surplus, because the Qing Dynasty has not seen a surplus for decades. According to the records of the Ministry of Household Affairs, it seems that there were several times of balanced revenue in the early years of Daoguang. As for the future, it will be Wang The waiter’s New Year is getting worse every year.
The debt problem has actually begun to trouble the imperial court since the Daoguang period. Emperors of the five generations of Daoguang, Xianfeng, Tongzhi, Guangxu, and Xuanyi have never heard of anyone not being troubled by debt for another year.
The imperial court was poor. It needed money to fight wars, to support the ancestors of the Eight Banners, and to pay reparations to foreigners. But another confusing phenomenon is that throughout the late Qing Dynasty, China's silver was actually flowing in net.
You heard that right, despite the hundreds of millions of taels of silver being paid as compensation, not much physical silver actually flowed out of the country. The core reason is that silver is not considered currency at all in Europe, and only Asians recognize silver as money.
Silver is a relatively precious ore in Europe. Especially in the 19th century, silver mines in North America and Mexico entered a stage of high production. The global silver supply balance was broken, and oversupply was a long-term phenomenon.
At this time, Europeans had already seen business opportunities from the gold and silver exchange ratios in different countries. They used the silver produced in North American mines to bring it to China to exchange for gold and various precious goods, and then shipped it back to Europe. This way they could not only earn a normal profit business profits, and at the same time, you can also earn profit margins from gold and silver exchange.
To give a simple example, this year the Ministry of Revenue should compensate Britain for the treaty indemnity of 1 million taels of silver. Then the British government will never stupidly take this million taels of silver back to the country.
They would spend this million taels of silver in the Qing Dynasty, part of which could be exchanged for gold, and more of which would be used to buy silk, tea, porcelain, even bristles, leather... and other oriental specialties.
The money stayed in the Qing Dynasty, but the goods were pulled back to London. After these goods were sold in London, the government and contractors received gold standard pounds.
This was the main mode of trade between the East and the West in the 19th century. It is precisely because of this that throughout the late Qing Dynasty, there was more and more silver on the market. If you measure prices based on the silver standard, you will find that things on the market are getting more and more expensive. .
During the Kangxi period, 1,200 taels of silver was enough for a small courtyard house in Sijiucheng. However, during the Qianlong period, the same courtyard house cost 800 to 1,000 taels of silver. By the time of the Tongzhi period, the Qing Dynasty was clearly devastated by war, and prices were very high. But it's even higher. It's absolutely impossible to buy a courtyard like that without three or four thousand taels of silver.
There is also circumstantial evidence. The total cost of building the mansion of red-roofed businessman Hu Xueyan in Yuanbao Lane in Hangzhou was more than 500,000 taels of silver. In the early years of Kangxi, the imperial court only allocated more than 1 million taels for the renovation of the three main halls.
Could it be that Hu Xueyan's house is more valuable than the three palaces in the imperial city? Obviously this is not the calculation. How much was the net inflow of silver into China during more than two hundred years of trade, and how much was the slight inflation caused by this silver? The purchasing power of ten thousand liang is completely different from that during the Kangxi period.
Xiao Letian clearly saw the core of the problem. On the one hand, the court had no money. The severe deficit prevented the central government from functioning normally. Just imagine what kind of deterrence a court could have if even the salaries of hundreds of officials were reduced. .
On the other hand, there is a large amount of silver accumulated among the people. This does not mean that China has no money, but that the court cannot mobilize it. This is an endless cycle.
The court needs money, but if there is no money, it can only buy officials and titles, including raising taxes. However, if this behavior is spread to the people, it will naturally cause corrupt officials to run rampant and the people will be miserable.
The extremely poor people were the source of social unrest. Thieves, robbers and even rebels began to cause chaos in the local area, which made the already bad local economy even worse. Local governors could only spend money to purchase weapons and train troops to suppress them.
This is good. The money and food that should have been deported to Beijing was spent locally. As a result, the money and food sent to Beijing became less and less.
Look, the pressure has returned to the capital. Then the court has no more money, so it has to think of more ways. What good ideas can they come up with? The only other option is to raise taxes and buy officials and titles. If that doesn't work, go to foreign banks to lend money. A little, but you still have to pay back the interest in the end.
As a result, the imperial court passed on the pressure to the people, which made the people even more miserable and needed to resist. As a result, the local governments needed to suppress even more. This kind of endless cycle went down again and again, and finally completely destroyed the national destiny of the Qing Dynasty. Dragged to the abyss.
Xiao Letian knew that in fact, this dead cycle was not impossible to break. It was just like a triangular debt. As long as a new amount of capital was injected, the downward spiral could be cut off at once.
Bundling taxes with debt and then issuing credit currency is the best way to solve this dilemma. The account bonds currently issued by Lotte Bank in Gangnam are actually guaranteed by the dual credit of Daqing and Lotte Bank, and their risk resistance can be guaranteed. It is not comparable to ordinary banknotes.
The Ministry of Accounts had previously accepted six million taels, but in fact Xiao Letian issued a total of ten million taels of bonds from Jiangnan. No one knew about the extra four million taels. Anyway, the Ministry of Accounts did not dare to come to check the accounts, as long as Xiao Letian can just ensure that the reserves are sufficient.
Now that the Ministry of Revenue has seen the benefits and wants to give him another 10 million taels of debt to underwrite, Xiao Letian is a little hesitant. It's not that he can't do it, but whether it's worth doing these things.
Xiao Letian was thinking about whether it was right for me to help the Qing Dynasty survive this crisis. Let alone what benefits it would bring to me, what benefits would it bring to this nation and country.
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