"What a sweet burden! To be honest, I regret extorting so much silver from France. This is a sudden over-issuance of currency. Once it hits the circulation market, it will be a disaster!"
"Our China is actually still very backward. Now Europe has entered a capitalist society, but in our motherland, many villages are still stuck in the medieval century!"
"As you know, the Chinese have currently sent many expedition teams to the interior of mainland China to measure the latest maps. They are also our spies!"
"There were countless feedbacks, and I selected the important ones to look at... In fact, there are currently very few areas in the Qing Dynasty where effective commerce can be implemented!"
"Only in the areas south of the Yangtze River, both sides of the Grand Canal, and the Gyeonggi Province...that is, in the eastern region, commercial activities are relatively frequent and currency circulation is still smooth!"
"But once you go down, to the mountainous areas in the northwest, southwest or even central part! Many people's lives are stuck in the Middle Ages, and barter is still used in the countryside!"
"This is no joke. Both the old shopkeeper and Mr. Long have relatives doing business outside the country. On the vast and vast Mongolian plateau, 70% of the economic activities are completely dependent on barter!"
"Zhili is supposed to be under the emperor's feet, right? But when I was writing a book in Taibai, I also secretly visited the grass markets and markets of the mountain people!"
"I have seen with my own eyes that in those markets, eggs, grain, and cloth are the main currencies. The circulation of copper coins is very low. You can't see any silver at all!"
"What does this mean? This shows that the entire Qing Dynasty's economic scale is not entirely dependent on currency!"
Xiao Letian rubbed his temples, "We Chinese still lack economists and there are too few talents..."
"How much GDP was there when the Qing Dynasty was strong? It had to account for 40% of the world's total, right? That was during the prosperous period of Qianlong... It's no longer possible now, but 30% of the economy is still there!"
"But with such an economic scale, the annual treasury revenue is only tens of millions of taels... Think about it, how can such a small amount of money support such a large economic scale?"
"Actually, it's very simple. It's because the economy of the Qing Dynasty was not entirely based on currency! The wealth created by people was not marked by the same gold and silver currency!"
"Do you understand? If the Qing Dynasty's GDP this year is one trillion taels of silver, the silver circulating in the market will only be 300 billion at most!"
"The remaining 70% of the national wealth was created through the most primitive barter model! Therefore, the entire Qing Dynasty has been experiencing a money shortage!"
"Old Taishan! You had been doing foreign business before you met me. What was your main business at that time?" Xiao Letian asked the old shopkeeper.
Fan Yan closed his eyes slightly and recalled the history of struggle back then. He sighed, "At that time, my Fan family was already in decline! My eldest brother was not economical, so the burden of making money for the family was all given to me!"
"But the benefits of salt and iron cannot be enjoyed by my Fan family, and they are all monopolized by others! So I can only sell bits and pieces of general merchandise on the grassland, such as needles, threads, pills, and ointments, all of which make a lot of money!"
"As the business grew, I gradually got some salt coupons. Later, I added some dry tobacco leaves from the pass, which are also the favorites of the prairie people!"
"It was really difficult at that time! I couldn't get involved in Cullen's business at all, so I was forced to go north to Kyaktu to do business with Rakshasa ghosts using needles and threads!"
"I've also done the business of exchanging embroidery needles for leather goods!"
The old shopkeeper was a little verbose when he thought of the hardships he had gone through back then, but he quickly changed his words, "But my uncle is right, our business, whether it is tea, dry cigarettes, or needles and threads, cannot be converted into money!"
"If you don't have money, those women will be even poorer. They just use leather goods to trade with you! Sometimes they quarrel and rob us of our things!"
"Everything is as my uncle said. Most of the economy of the Qing Dynasty was supported by barter, and the remaining half was made of silver!"
Bang bang bang... Xiao Letian clapped his hands, "Yes, so European economists don't understand. The national power of the Ming and Qing Dynasties was so strong, but the annual treasury revenue was really not much!"
"That's because they didn't see that there were a lot of real objects in the Qing Dynasty's taxes!"
"Grain, tea, cloth, silk, leather goods, jewelry... these miscellaneous items are also part of the imperial court's taxes. Don't you think this is wealth?"
"What do the eight-banner brothers get for their hard-core crops on a monthly basis? It's not all money, it's actually rice and grain!"
"After thoroughly studying this large economic structure, we understand that the entire Qing Dynasty and even ancient China were actually in a state of deflation!"
"The amount of money is always not enough, and it cannot reach the total annual GDP at all... This is called deflation, and it is a situation that very restricts economic development!"
"But there is also a benefit, that is, prices are stable, very stable, and there may even be a crash!"
"Forty-nine cities are at the feet of the emperor, but buying a one-in-one courtyard house in Nancheng costs only five or six hundred taels of silver. What is this little money? What kind of mosquito leg is it compared to our huge compensation?"
Xiao Letian looked at the old shopkeeper and smiled, "Father, in fact, your own private money is enough to buy the entire Nancheng now, right?"
The old shopkeeper laughed, "It's impossible, that's just a theoretical calculation, it's impossible to operate!"
This is indeed the case, the ideal is full but the reality is very bare bones! A courtyard house in Beijing costs a few hundred taels of silver. This is the price after the price of silver has increased due to the large inflow of silver in recent years. It was even lower before!
Even if the average price is five hundred taels, what about ten sets of five thousand, one hundred sets of fifty thousand, one thousand sets of five hundred thousand, and ten thousand sets? Only five million!
For a god of wealth like Fan Qian, is five million taels of silver considered money?
But for the entire capital Nancheng, if someone continues to buy 10,000 courtyard houses, what do you think the market will be like? This house price must not go up and down!
Everyone laughed, but the head of state's face darkened at this moment, "There is nothing funny, what I said is actually terrible!"
Closing his eyes, Xiao Letian remembered the historical records of the Republic of China in his previous life!
In 1919, Lu Xun bought a courtyard house in Badaowan, Xicheng, Beijing. It had three entrances and more than 20 houses for a total price of 3,500 yuan.
Three entrances to the courtyard cost only 3,500 silver dollars, and one entrance together cost just over a thousand silver dollars!
You must know that the Republic of China was different from the Qing Dynasty. At that time, international silver production had already doubled countless times, and a considerable amount of silver continued to flow into the Republic of China.
The money supply in the Republic of China has been continuously increasing, so prices have increased!
What if we go back to the Tongzhi period? The economy had just begun to recover just after the war, and you could already buy a courtyard house with 500 taels of silver in a good location in the capital!
Now that the Frankfurt Treaty has compensated a small 300 million taels of silver, once such a huge money supply appears on the market, it will not only be the stock market and bond market!
The first real estate company in the country must go crazy first!
