"Your Majesty, you said you want to give England, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal a taste of the sweetness? But how can there be so much sweetness to give?"
The speaker was Zheng Zhilong, the richest man in the Ming Dynasty, but he did not say it at the court meeting, but at the dinner table. After the court meeting, both Zheng Zhilong and Grand Duke Luo "stayed in the hall", and Emperor Zhu invited them to have lunch together.
"Your Majesty," Archduke Luo also spoke, "is this sweet spot for Luzon? Are we going to let Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal jointly manage Manila?"
Zhu Cixi laughed after hearing this and said to Grand Duke Luo: "Grand Duke, you, the Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, still don't know enough about foreign affairs! Can the four countries of Britain, France, the Netherlands and Portugal co-administer Manila? They must not fight? And Manila is still in Spain. It’s in someone’s hands!
This is the oil and water I’m talking about! "
As he spoke, Zhu Cixiang took out a "one tael" silver coin minted by Maritime Bank and placed it on the dinner table.
"One tael of silver" is a struck silver coin that weighs one tael and contains about 90% silver. It was not issued by the Ministry of Household Affairs of the Ming Dynasty, but was entrusted by the Ministry of Household Affairs to be issued by the two major banks of Maritime and Salt Merchant. In addition to the "one tael of silver", there is also the "half tael of silver", which is also a hand-struck silver coin issued by the two banks.
In addition, the two banks were commissioned by the Ministry of Household Affairs to cast and make money. One side of the money had the words "Hongxing Tongbao" and the other side had the name of the foundry.
Of course, when the Ministry of Accounts entrusted commercial banks to mint silver coins and make money, it did not allow private minting, but allowed the two most powerful, advanced, and efficient "imperial banks" in the Ming Dynasty to share some of the benefits of minting. At the same time, we are responsible for a lot of troubles caused by coinage - coinage is of course troublesome, not mechanical, but hand-made, and silver coins are particularly troublesome!
All kinds of counterfeiting, all kinds of private coining, all kinds of destruction (scraping off a little bit of money), are endless, and there is no way to stop them!
Therefore, the coins (copper coins) created by the two banks are legal tender recognized by the Ministry of Accounts, but "one tael of silver" and "half a tael of silver" are not legal tender. The legal currency is "bank liang".
That is to say, silver with a purity of more than 90% is calculated in "liang".
However, these "bank taels" will not be minted into large silver ingots and sent to the accounts department warehouse for hiding. Instead, they will be stored in the account accounts of the two banks.
The exchange price of bank taels and one taels of silver coins will be determined based on the silver content of one tael of silver, and is currently fixed at one to one.
This arrangement seems a bit redundant. Wouldn't it be more convenient for the Ministry of Accounts to issue silver coins directly? But Emperor Zhu was very aware of the ethics and efficiency of the Ming Dynasty bureaucrats... If they were given the task of minting silver coins, maybe the silver would be gone while the coins were being minted!
Moreover, no one dares to question the fact that the silver coins issued by the Ministry of Accounts are adulterated. Moreover, the financial system with the two major banks as its core has not eliminated the motivation for privately minted and adulterated currency. Maybe they will join the ranks of privately minted silver coins.
Therefore, Zhu Cixi simply contracted out the minting rights, and then collected seigniorage taxes based on the amount of coins minted. At the same time, he also passed on the responsibility of maintaining the silver coin market to the two banks and their associated small banks, banks, pawnshops and other financial institutions.
In the financial system of Ming Dynasty, the two banks are the main gates, controlling the capital flow and interest rate of a bunch of small and medium-sized financial institutions below. Therefore, the two banks can easily use their monopoly position to isolate privately minted, counterfeit, and damaged silver coins from the financial system. These silver coins can only be recycled by the two banks at a discount based on weight and purity, but cannot be deposited in banks. The bank becomes the base currency.
These "one tael of silver" and "half-good silver" were only used as large amounts of cash in the industrial and commercial activities of the Ming Dynasty. But really big transactions still require the use of "notes", and all "notes" are in units of "bank liang".
In addition, the cash portion of taxes and land rent collected by the Ming Dynasty government was also calculated in terms of "bank liang", so taxpayers must deposit the corresponding silver coins, silver, and money in banks and banks in exchange for bills, and then hand them over tax collector.
During the entire tax payment process, the tax official (Military Field Division) cannot see the silver and copper coins...
Another advantage of using "bank liang" as the currency unit is that it is easy to establish an internationally accepted currency system.
Even Spain, a Western imperialist country that is at war with China, cannot deny the "silver taels"!
As long as everyone recognizes the bank, then tomorrow's dynasty will be able to take advantage of its economic scale advantages and the efficiency and perfection of its financial system to gradually establish a global financial system with itself as the core!
"Your Majesty," Zheng Zhilong looked at the silver coin and already understood Emperor Zhu's thoughts, "do you want to lend money to Britain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and other countries?"
"Haha," Zhu Cixiang smiled, "the poor devils of Britain, France, and Portugal are all craning their necks waiting to borrow money! Without this advantage to hang them, how can we take advantage of it in America?"
Emperor Zhu added: "As for the Netherlands, they are rich! Although they cannot compare with our Ming Dynasty, but considering the size of the Netherlands, they definitely have a lot of money. But there are also difficulties with having too much money... The most difficult thing for the Dutch is probably to transport so much money to us! During the Anglo-Dutch War a few years ago, I don’t know how many ships containing silver were sunk and robbed by the British, resulting in losses What a tragedy! If there could be a bank that could conduct remittance business between Europe and China, the Dutch would be happy, right? How much trouble would it save them?"
In today's East-West trade, the East has a continuous surplus, while the West has a continuous deficit.
As the Netherlands accounts for the largest share of East-West trade, it has to transport a lot of silver to the East every year. This work is time-consuming, laborious, and very dangerous - even without English privateers, there are still wind and waves on the sea, and sometimes there are If you hit a rock, you will still get lost!
It would be very beneficial to Dutch businessmen if a bank worthy of the trust of the entire Europe could engage in cross-continental exchange business.
And this bank can also turn itself into an international settlement bank by conducting business with the two major banks in Ming Dynasty and local banks in Europe.
In addition, long-distance remittance these days cannot be completed by sending an electronic signal. Someone must carry the bill across the ocean, so it will take a long time to complete the exchange. In this process, the bank will not pay interest to the customer. Not only does it not pay interest, but it also charges remittance fees. If currency exchange is involved, another fee will be charged...
You can imagine how big the profit margin is!
And there are so many chaotic parties in Europe now, almost in every country!
There is the Stone-Throwing Party in France, the Catalan Rebel Party in Spain, the Royal Party in the UK (the Cromwell family will have to run away when the Royal Party comes to power in the future), the Orange Family in the Netherlands, let alone the Holy Roman Empire. Yes, there are a lot of gangsters!
So all kinds of gangsters are not allowed to deposit some money in foreign banks?
And on the stage, who knows if he will turn around and become a rebel and go into exile? Wouldn't it be wrong to save some money in a foreign bank?
For various rebellious parties and preparatory rebellious parties in Europe, it should be absolutely safe to deposit money in a bank endorsed by the Ming Dynasty of the Eastern Silver Empire, right?
Therefore, Emperor Zhu did not have to borrow money from the account of the Ministry of Household Affairs to lend to foreigners. It was enough to lend them money they had saved themselves...
"Old Taishan," Zhu Cixiang said to Zheng Zhilong, "you have a good relationship with the Dutch. Go talk to Bruce Van Diemen... This bank can provide 20% of the shares to the Dutch East India Company, guaranteed Just make money and wait for the dividends.”
The Dutch East India Company must be tied down, they are a big customer in the international exchange business!
"I will go to Nanjing right now."
Emperor Zhu then said to Grand Duke Luo: "Grand Duke, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should send someone smart to go to Japan... The memorial from the Marquis of Xiamen said that the Tokugawa family wanted to send me a princess. It seems that She is quite beautiful, but I am not good at beauty, so I cannot accept it unless this marriage can be beneficial to the union of the two families!"
