Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 208: The Plan of the Jin Army Media
After completing the enrollment of his younger brother and sister at Fangshan School and having a discussion with the school's researchers and teachers, Zhu Youdong hurried back to Xinghua Palace, where Cao Sanxi, Li Shizhong, Li Guozhu and Zhang Shize were already waiting there.
"You guys are all old acquaintances, so I don't need to be so serious in front of you."
"Haha, please feel free to do as you please, Your Highness."
"Okay." Zhu Youdong said without any pretense, and lay down on a recliner: "Wang Chengen, come over and give me a head massage. Hey, this position is too tiring!"
"Your Highness, although we are tired, we can finally show our skills, right?"
"Well, that makes sense. Cao Sanxi, you go first."
"Yes, Your Highness. I plan to establish the Ming Royal Bank with the more than 100 professional financial personnel I had when I was in Nanhua Palace as the backbone. The first rule I set for the bank is that employees of the bank are not allowed to participate in the imperial examinations. If you want to participate in the imperial examinations, you must resign."
"...I have no objection to this one, but in view of the reality, I will modify it slightly: not being allowed to participate in the imperial examination. After all, with the imperial examination currently unavailable, the status of a juren is too important for ordinary people in my Ming Dynasty."
"Okay, I understand. Your Highness, let's move on to the second point. The greatest power of a bank is to mint coins. I plan to mint one 900-carat gold coin, one silver coin each of nine silver and one copper, two silver and eight copper, and one copper coin of six copper and four tin. There are four currencies in total. They are called gold coins, silver dollars, silver corners, and copper coins."
"Okay, how do you determine the exchange rates between these four currencies?"
"Your Highness, I have tentatively decided that the exchange rate between gold coins and silver dollars is 1:7, the exchange rate between silver dollars and silver dimes is 1:5, and the exchange rate between silver dimes and copper coins is 1:60. But in fact, a large amount of silver has been pouring into our Ming Dynasty in recent years, and this exchange rate is difficult to sustain. The bank will continue to make fine adjustments."
Cao Sanxi is really amazing. He actually noticed that the value of silver in the Ming Dynasty was constantly depreciating.
When the Ming Dynasty was founded, the gold-silver exchange rate was set at 1:4, meaning one ounce of gold could be exchanged for four ounces of silver. After the opening of the border in the Longqing reign period, a large amount of silver from overseas poured in, and silver began to depreciate continuously. The gold-silver exchange rate began to change constantly.
The book, which was written in the late Wanli period and features Ximen Qing as the male protagonist, states that the exchange rate of gold and silver was one to six or one to seven (this book is truly an encyclopedia of folk life in the middle and late Ming Dynasty).
In the first eighty chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber, written during the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, Lin Daiyu was once rewarded , and her maid said, "It's just 1,000 taels of silver." This shows that silver was still depreciating at that time, and the exchange rate with gold dropped to 1:10.
When Gao E continued the Dream of the Red Chamber during the Jiaqing period, he changed this paragraph to "only more than one thousand taels of silver". This shows that from Qianlong to Jiaqing, in just a few decades, silver continued to depreciate, and the depreciation rate was extremely fast!
In short, before opium was introduced into China, the Chinese Empire was always in a trade surplus position thanks to silk, porcelain and tea. A large amount of silver poured in from overseas, and domestic silver continued to depreciate. Now that there is a super-powerful product like antibiotics, the depreciation of domestic silver is likely to be even faster!
"Well, with the acumen of Manager Cao, er, no, President Cao, I believe he can always work out the most appropriate currency exchange rate. Okay, I agree to this."
"Your Highness, I have another request."
"speak."
"Please transfer some military households and craftsmen from Fangshan to become permanent employees of our bank. They will be engaged in coin minting, security and other work."
"Yes. In addition to the mint and the business office, you will also have to build large warehouses in the six cities where the bank is scheduled to open. This is what I think. When the bank is running smoothly, I will order the closure of all government warehouses. Whether it is grain or money, they can only be kept in the bank's warehouses. Only the accounts will show which department these things belong to. In the future, when paying salaries to officials at all levels, the government offices at all levels will have to issue bills to the bank, and then the bank will pay them out."
"Your Highness, you have such a long-term plan. I am short-sighted. But Your Highness, this can certainly solve many problems in Ming Dynasty, such as too many government offices collecting money, too scattered storage of materials, and local areas being overwhelmed. But our cost... uh, Your Highness, we have money, but we have to save a considerable part of it to deal with various crises after the currency reform."
"It's okay. If you don't have enough money, just borrow it! We can use equity, future profits, and even the proprietary product production methods of various Fangshan grocery stores as collateral to borrow money from major merchants and royal families in our Ming Dynasty. In addition, we don't have to spread the new currency across the country at once. Let's start with the two Zhili, Sichuan, Huguang, and Shaanxi. If it's still not enough, we can also think of a way to deal with the salt administration."
Yes, Zhu Youdong didn't want to wait any longer. The original plan of his group was that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would take the throne in 20 to 30 years, and during this period, they would slowly save up tens of millions of taels of silver and then carry out currency reform. But now that Wanli has pushed him to this position, he really doesn't want to wait any longer - the Chongzhen in the historical dimension couldn't borrow money because everyone knew he couldn't pay it back. I'm different!
Therefore, as long as he is willing to ask for a loan, he will definitely get it. And this is a good opportunity to force the dignitaries and merchants of the Ming Dynasty to take sides: those who want to lend money, we will be good friends after I calm down. Those who don’t want to lend money, hmph…
"I understand. I will send a letter to invite all the wealthy merchants in Ming Dynasty to come to Beijing for a gathering."
"Yeah." Zhu Youdong nodded slightly. Feeling a little better, he waved his hand to let Wang Chengen back off, then stood up and said, "Li Shizhong, Li Guozhu."
"I am here."
"I plan to find a place outside Beijing to build the Ming Imperial Military Academy."
"Your Highness! This thing is great! We will fight to the death for it!"
"This is what I think. This place needs to be big. The infantry, cavalry, artillery and other armies will need to train in the future, so the space needed cannot be small."
"Your Highness!"
"Don't be anxious, Guozhu. Beijing certainly can't train a navy . My point is that the country's army and navy are natural enemies in terms of military expenditure. In order to avoid conflicts between the army and the navy in the future, in the first two years of this military academy, all students will study together regardless of whether they are navy or army. In the third year, they will be divided into navy and army, and those who choose the navy will go to Tianjin. I will also build a Daming Royal Naval School there in a year or two."
"Oh, that's what I said. Uh, I'm sorry, Your Highness, please continue."
"Well, after the location is selected, let's build this area. Shizhong, pull out all your Beijing camps. If necessary, let Liu Shimin (Imperial Horse Supervisor) cooperate with you. This Beijing camp is known as a hundred thousand elite troops, but in the Liaodong War, after careful selection, only three thousand capable soldiers were finally selected. Although they were not too bad on the battlefield, they did not show the strength of the country's top camp. Therefore, this time when building the military academy, the court will not send corvée labor, and all the soldiers of the Beijing camp will be pulled out to work instead of training."
"Yes! I obey your command."
"The teachers of the academy will be mainly retired veterans of the Ming Dynasty, such as Ningyuan Bo, Ma Gui, Liu Jing, etc. The current generals of various towns and guards will take turns to serve as teachers in the academy, and then gradually train new teachers. For other teachers of liberal arts and science subjects, Fangshan will provide some support first. After that, the academy will slowly train its own relevant teachers.
As for students, we will tentatively recruit 500 people in the first term. The quota will be allocated to 60% of the candidates from various places and 40% from the military garrisons. You can decide on the specific plan, Shizhong."
"this……"
Everyone knows that His Royal Highness likes warriors. If this person enters the military academy, he is destined to be successful in the future. Therefore, the allocation of this quota is a great privilege. But the pressure brought by it is also unprecedented.
"Don't worry. Isn't your grandfather still alive? Ask him. He knows the most reasonable way to distribute the money."
"Oh, I feel much more relieved now."
"Shizhong, although we have known each other for more than eight years, and I am very confident in your character, if I knew that you were cheating in the enrollment process or even auctioning off places..."
"Please rest assured, Your Highness. I will go to the Censorate and the Imperial Guards later and ask them to send someone to supervise the entire process."
"Yes." Zhu Youdong nodded and finally turned to Zhang Shize and said, "Shize, our Mr. Zhang is now the prefect of Yingtian Prefecture, and he is too busy to take care of everything. From now on, I will let you take charge of the newspaper business."
"Your Highness wants me to return to Nanjing?"
"No, no, no, what I mean is that just like banks opening branches in six major cities, this newspaper should also be published in each of the six major cities. I want to control public opinion across the country as much as possible."
"Hiss~ I understand. I will prepare a draft for Your Highness to review after I return."
"Well, you go back and come up with a plan first. Okay, that's all for today. You guys can leave first. Wang Chengen, you can leave too."
Why did His Highness end this meeting in such a hurry? However, Zhu Youdong's prestige has been growing in recent years, so the five people didn't say anything. They all bowed and retreated.
After the five people left, Zhu Youdong said to himself with a puzzled look on his face: "Strange, hasn't Yuheng always been in the south? How come I can sense that this guy has gone to the east and is so close to Yaoguang?"
