"Silver standard?"
"What does it mean?"
Zhou Chen looked at Zhu Gaoxu with a blank look on his face.
Although he has learned a lot of political experience from Xia Yuanji over the years, he has gradually become a qualified financial and taxation expert.
But the problem is that no matter how outstanding Xia Yuanji is, he will still be limited by the era of the Ming Dynasty.
This is the limitation of the times!
Zhu Gaoxu looked at Zhou Chen with a smile, and simply walked into the VIP room of the Ming Dynasty Bank, preparing to teach the future Minister of Household Affairs of the Ming Dynasty a lesson.
The VIP room of Daming Bank, also known as VIP in later generations, can only be entered by rich or noble people, and the confidentiality is extremely high.
The employees of Daming Bank naturally did not recognize Zhu Gaoxu, and they did not know that the person standing in front of them was His Majesty the current emperor.
But they knew Zhou Chen. This Nanjing Minister of Household Affairs was an old acquaintance of Daming Bank. He liked to come over and have tea and chat with the manager of the bank, Huangfu Yunhe.
It's just that Huangfu Yunhe happened to be not in Nanjing at the moment. Such a big thing happened at Daming Bank in Yangzhou. He, the general manager of Daming Bank, also had an unshirkable responsibility, so during this period Huangfu Yunhe has been leading a team to personally inspect Daming Banks all over the world. , to avoid the recurrence of bad incidents like Yangzhou Daming Bank.
You know, the gold-lettered signboard of the Ming Dynasty was built by Zhu Gaoxu, the king of Han Dynasty, with countless money, and even emptied the national treasury and the internal funds of His Majesty the Yongle Emperor!
And now the King of Han, Zhu Gaoxu, has transformed into His Majesty the Wude Emperor, the master of the Ming Dynasty!
If the golden name of Daming Bank is smashed and its credibility is reduced, Huangfu Yunhe Wan will not be able to atone for his sins!
After learning these secrets from the bank staff, Zhu Gaoxu was a little bit dumbfounded.
Huangfu Yunhe was his confidant, and he had indeed done well over the years. However, Zhu Gaoxu, the Ming Emperor, was too busy, so the emperor and his ministers never had time to see each other.
Originally, Zhu Gaoxu wanted to have tea and chat with this old friend, but it turned out that it was not a coincidence.
In this case, let's just talk about business.
Zhu Gaoxu looked at Zhou Chen and explained patiently: "Xun Ru, you must have seen that the importance of Daming Bank is not just to stabilize the value of treasure banknotes, but also to bring convenience to the people for deposits and withdrawals!"
"Actually, Daming Bank is responsible for the issuance of currency. Its main task is to ensure the stable operation of currency. What is currency? Zhou Chen, have you ever thought about this issue?"
currency?
It's just gold and silver coins, right?
Zhou Chen did not say a word, but chose to listen silently.
"Currency is a special commodity that serves as the equivalent of all commodities, including but not limited to coins, gold and silver, treasure notes and other items."
Zhu Gaoxu took a sip of tea and patiently explained: "Why did we save the treasure back then? What would be the consequences if we allowed the treasure to continue to depreciate?"
"There will only be one consequence, and that is that the currency established by the imperial court, that is, treasure banknotes, will be completely reduced to waste paper, and the people who will suffer the most from this will be ordinary people, because those high-ranking officials and wealthy businessmen will We have hidden the gold and silver at home a long time ago, so they won’t be greatly affected!”
"However, in this case, the currency loses its meaning of existence, which is circulation!"
The essence of currency existence lies in circulation.
Zhou Chen was confused when he heard this, and it was hard to understand.
Upon seeing this, Zhu Gaoxu gave an example.
"The silver standard that I just mentioned is to treat silver as the mainstream currency. I know that you have been working hard to complete this step, but I want to tell you now, you must not do this!"
Zhou Chen was confused when he heard this.
Indeed, he and Xia Yuanji had discussed many times that they were committed to making silver the mainstream currency of the Ming Dynasty. The fundamental reason was that silver would not depreciate, and it was a currency that ordinary people were accustomed to.
Because the Ming Dynasty's silver output has never been too much, the silver mines in Ningguo, the former Japanese country, were gradually mined. In addition, during the years of Zheng He's voyages to the West, the Ming Dynasty's silver was a little more.
In fact, the reason why the Ming Dynasty did not use silver as its main currency was not because the reserves of silver were too small to circulate throughout the world.
In addition, these dignitaries and wealthy businessmen have always had the habit of hiding money at home, so the Ming Dynasty simply did not have enough silver for circulation, let alone depreciation due to too much silver.
Zhou Chen and Xia Yuanji's assumption is that as the skills of the master craftsmen in the Royal Manufacturing Bureau continue to improve, the court's silver mining technology will also continue to improve, which will bring about an increase in silver tax revenue year by year. This is why the two of them The reason why a minister of household affairs and a finance and taxation expert dared to do this.
But now His Majesty the Emperor finds it difficult to use silver as the mainstream currency!
Zhu Gaoxu recognized his confusion and gave another rough and specific example.
"Let's put it this way, for example, Zheng He embarked on a long voyage to do business with Western countries. How much money do you think they can bring back?"
"I'm afraid it will be an astronomical number!"
Zhou Chen replied very honestly.
As a confidant of Emperor Wude, he naturally knew that the royal family and the noble group had been preparing for this voyage for several years, just to make money from the foreign barbarians!
"We assume that Zheng He can bring back 50 million taels of snowflake silver this time, and then the royal family will use it to spend military expenses and distribute it to every Ming soldier, and the wives and families of these soldiers will take the silver Go buy cloth, food and other daily necessities, and eventually the money will fall into the hands of wealthy businessmen!"
"What will happen next? Most of these 50 million taels of silver will be buried in the courtyards of wealthy businessmen and dignitaries. They will not circulate at all and cannot be circulated. So what does this 50 million taels of silver mean to our Ming Dynasty? What’s the point?”
Zhou Chen thought along this line of thought and gradually figured out some flavors.
"The 50 million taels of silver that entered the Ming Dynasty did not play the role that currency should have. On the contrary, they became the main culprit of the loss of the Ming Dynasty's wealth, because the navy was doing business with foreign barbarians and would also pay for the Ming Dynasty. porcelain, tea, silk and other specialties, but the silver exchanged for it was eventually buried underground. Do you think Ming Dynasty made a profit or a loss?"
"In the final analysis, whether it is gold or silver, it is just a relatively rare metal. Its value is artificially assigned and depends on how much grain, cloth, etc. can be exchanged for one tael of gold and one tael of silver. Practical product!”
"Let's just imagine, if all the overseas trade of Zheng He's navy were settled in silver, at least tens of millions of silver would flow into the Ming Dynasty each time. Not to mention too much, how much silver would flow in after ten times? Plus Silver mines are being mined all over the world, and within twenty years there will be hundreds of millions of taels of silver in the Ming Dynasty!"
"The surge in silver in a short period of time will not bring any benefits to the people of the Ming Dynasty. On the contrary, it will push up prices to a certain extent. Correspondingly, the purchasing power of silver will begin to depreciate, falling several times more than before. That's why I They would say that the silver standard is undesirable and is more fragile than treasure money!"
Zhou Chen's face changed drastically after hearing this, and he finally realized the seriousness of the problem!
