Huang Chengxuan's proposal to mint coins to raise funds was not an empty talk, but a proposal after detailed consideration.
Luo Zhixue also expressed approval of his proposal.
In fact, last year, Luo Zhixue instructed Huang Chengxuan to investigate and study the monetary system and prepare for the issuance of imperial currency.
Luo Zhixue also mentioned at that time that part of the funds could also be raised through the issuance of new currencies.
Because in the process of issuing currency, whether it is copper coins, silver coins or gold coins, it is impossible to use pure copper, pure silver or pure gold. Other metals will inevitably be added to reduce costs and increase the wear resistance of the currency. .
In other words, a copper coin with a face value of one penny contains less than one penny of copper.
The difference in copper content here is the main income from minting.
This time, Huang Chengxuan also explained: "Nowadays, gold, silver and copper coins are widely used in the empire-controlled areas. Among gold and silver, gold is too precious. It is mainly used for bulk transactions and does not circulate on a large scale. The main currency is still silver. And silver is mainly composed of various irregular broken silver, and various silver ingots are rarely circulated on a large scale in the market because of their relatively large amounts."
“We can use the newly launched large-scale hydraulic press from the Ministry of Industry as casting equipment to cast silver coins of exquisite, uniform specifications with face values ranging from one penny to one tael to replace the large amount of broken silver currently used as widely circulated currency. "
"At the same time, we can also use copper coins cast by the same machine as the main auxiliary coins to replace the various complicated copper coins now."
"In this process, if we take appropriate measures, the profit from minting coins is not expected to be too small. It is predicted that we can make a profit of more than 200,000 taels in a month. In a year, we should make a profit of about 2.5 million taels. "
Huang Chengxuan also took out a small wooden box: "This is the first batch of model currency minted by our Finance Department. Your Majesty, please take a look."
After saying that, Huang Chengxuan sent the sample currency to Luo Zhixue, who took it and looked at it.
I saw ten coins of varying sizes lying in the wooden box, one of which was a gold coin, four were silver coins, and four were copper coins. These coins were different from traditional copper coins in that there was no hole in the middle.
Luo Zhixue picked up one of the gold coins with the largest face value. In the middle of the front of the gold coin, there was the word 'One Liang', surrounded by dragon patterns.
Turn over and look at the back. In the middle of the north are the words "Dachu Empire", and above it are the words "Dachu Finance Department Created in the Second Year of Chengshun"
There are also patterns on the edges of gold coins to prevent people from chipping on the edges of gold coins for profit.
The pattern of silver coins is also mainly dragon pattern, while for copper coins, in order to control costs, the pattern is omitted, and the words "Chengshun Tongbao" are on the back.
The face value, the words "and" and the size are not surprising. In fact, Luo Zhixue had already seen it last year and selected the final version among multiple versions.
In terms of face value, the new coins will use gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins that match each other.
The gold coin has a face value of only one tael and weighs 37 grams. It is unlikely that this gold coin will circulate on a large scale in the market in time. Because it is too valuable, it will most likely only be used as a reserve or for large-scale transactions.
Silver coins have face values of one tael, five qian, two qian, and one qian. The weight of a tael silver coin is thirty-seven grams, and the silver content is nine silver and one copper.
Silver coins of five coins, two coins, and one coin are all seven silver coins and three bronze coins.
Copper coins have five denominations: twenty coins, ten coins, five coins, two coins, and one coin, with copper as the main material.
This division of face value still continues the traditional currency units of liang-qian-wen. The copper content of copper coins is formulated to match the silver coins. One tael of silver is equal to one thousand Chengshun Tongbao copper coins. Proportion.
This ratio is also established to end the current mess of private copper coins with different copper contents, which makes the entire exchange system confusing.
Nowadays, under the control of the Dachu Empire, there are all kinds of messy copper coins, and the copper content, size, and weight of these copper coins are different, making the entire trading system very troublesome.
Luo Zhixue hopes to end this copper coin chaos through a copper coin that is exquisitely made, difficult to imitate and wear, and lays the foundation for the next step of real currency reform.
Therefore, in this set of new currencies, the copper coins that Luo Zhixue values most are actually auxiliary coins with a seemingly small face value.
Especially the new one-penny copper coin in his hand.
You can tell at a glance that this copper coin was cast by machinery, and it was directly die-cast by a large machine. The entire copper coin looks smooth, even shiny, and the pattern is very clear.
This is not only true for this copper coin, but also for other silver coins with a face value of five coins, a face value of two coins, a face value of one coin, and the four types of copper coins with a face value of two coins, five coins, and ten coins.
The new coins produced by the Da Chu Empire are very typical industrial products, and are naturally different from hand-cast coins.
Let’s not talk about the silver content and copper content for now. Let’s just say that the craftsmanship is not comparable to that of old copper coins.
If the copper content and silver content are not too different, it will be relatively easy to gain public approval.
Good things, no one will refuse them.
Luo Zhixue continued to play with these silver coins in his hand, and said at the same time: "This coin is quite well made, and the quality is acceptable, but I think the craftsmanship is good, will the processing cost be higher? What is the production capacity?"
Huang Chengxuan: "Your Majesty, our Finance Department has conducted preliminary negotiations with the Ministry of Industry and entrusted several machinery factories under the Ministry of Industry to build several sets of mechanical equipment dedicated to minting for us. These equipment are powered by hydraulics. , once it is really started, the output will be very high, and at the same time, it can also effectively reduce the cost of each unit."
"If His Majesty approves it, the Hanyang Mint under our Ministry of Finance will be able to officially operate and start large-scale issuance of new currency next month."
Luo Zhixue said: "In that case, let's go ahead and mint and issue new coins as soon as possible!"
After thinking for a while, he added: "The issuance of the new currency will start with the distribution of official salaries and promote its use in tax collection!"
"In the future, we must recycle all kinds of gold, silver and old copper coins from the private sector as much as possible and replace them with new currencies!"
"In order to cooperate with the issuance of currency and the recycling of gold, silver and copper coins, the Ministry of Finance is preparing to allocate manpower to establish an official bank to facilitate deposits, withdrawals and exchanges."
"Implement strong supervision of various financial institutions such as banks and banks in the private sector, formulate relevant financial policies, guide private financial institutions to formalize their experience, control risks, and prevent them from absconding with money or blindly lending money, causing unfavorable operations and bankruptcy, and then Causing social unrest."
"If the order continues, the private manufacture of copper coins and silver coins will be completely prohibited. Violators will be severely punished."
"I will ask the Justice Yuan to formulate relevant laws and regulations immediately."
The integration of the financial system is not something that can be accomplished in just one or two sentences. Luo Zhixue is just going to give an introduction today. If it is really implemented, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Finance and other departments will have to conduct extensive research first and then formulate relevant regulations. Only after policies and laws can be truly implemented.
Now, it's still early. It would be nice to be able to issue the new currency first.
After finalizing the issue of new currency and taking this opportunity to make money to enrich the finances, Luo Zhixue and others did not stop the meeting and continued to discuss several other matters to raise funds.
For example, the Ministry of Taxation has proposed to further strengthen indirect taxation, reduce direct taxation, reduce the tax burden on small businesses, and effectively increase tax revenue.
It may sound contradictory to reduce the burden on small businesses while increasing taxes, but in fact it is not contradictory at all.
Because wool will always come from sheep, it is okay for the Chu Empire to reduce taxes for small merchants while looking for big merchants or to increase taxes on the upstream circulation of goods.
Nowadays, the people in the tax department have a lot of experience in taxation. They think that collecting taxes means taking money from other people's pockets.
Except for the agricultural tax, which needs to be directly oriented to the public, they believe that other taxes can be collected in the mid-to-upstream links, while the downstream channels will not care about them...
The cost of collecting taxes in downstream channels is too high and difficult, and it can easily cause public backlash. It is better to abandon the downstream channels and directly increase taxes in the midstream and upstream...
This is indirect taxation.
How to put it, taking the textile industry that is currently vigorously supported and cultivated in the Dachu Empire as an example, the tax department will collect taxes on almost all aspects of the textile industry's raw materials, processing, transportation, channel sales, etc. that enterprises participate in.
However, in the final retail stage, it seems that there are also taxes such as business tax on retail stores, but in fact they are superficial. Almost all street stores do not honestly report their true sales and pay taxes.
However, it is difficult to tax such small shops because the tax department does not have enough manpower and material resources to fully supervise such a large retail industry.
Not to mention the ancient times of the 17th century, even in the modern countries of the 21st century, almost all countries are unable to regulate and collect taxes on small-amount cash transactions.
In response to this problem, the Taxation Department of the Dachu Empire simply collected taxes from the lower reaches at the middle and upstream stages...
After all, it is unrealistic to ask ordinary retailers to collect taxes, but it is much easier to ask factories to collect taxes.
This is the real reason proposed by the Ministry of Taxation to strengthen indirect taxation and reduce the burden on small businesses.
According to the plan submitted by the Ministry of Taxation, they estimate that after taking a series of new measures, the amount of industrial and commercial tax revenue will increase by about 15 percentage points based on the existing industrial and commercial tax.
To put it bluntly, it’s a tax increase…
But ordinary people are unlikely to notice this tax increase in the Chu Empire.
After all, the tax department will not raise taxes at retail terminals or for individuals, nor will it even announce it on a large scale to the outside world. Even if it does, it will only announce and promote the tax reduction and exemption policy for small businesses...
Ordinary people feel that the prices of some daily necessities, such as cloth, may have increased a little.
And there is a high probability that they will think that those merchants are too evil and want money to increase prices...
When Chen Xingkai from the Ministry of Taxation proposed strengthening indirect taxation, he said proudly: "This move will not only increase taxes for the empire by millions, but it will not cause public backlash, nor will it affect people's livelihood..."
At this time, Guo Quanshu, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, looked at Chen Xingkai who looked very proud, and couldn't help but sigh inwardly: "Compared with your tax department's false and excessive taxation, it's just children's play, not worth mentioning! "
