Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 743: Ming Dynasty Issues Paper Money
May 10, 1643, regular cabinet meeting.
"Okay." Ma Shiying, who was presiding over the meeting, took a deep breath and said, "Dear colleagues, let's stop here for the discussion of disaster relief in the northern provinces. The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Construction must work together and the money that should be paid must be in place in advance. The Ministry of Construction should send out the drawings of the reservoirs and thermal power plants to be built as soon as possible so that we can implement work-for-relief."
"I obey your command."
The Little Ice Age was still raging, and the northern provinces of the Ming Dynasty had continued to suffer from poor harvests in recent years.
In the northeast, after the Ming Dynasty established Jilin Province, it stopped expanding northwards: it was not because they did not want to, but because the weather was too cold and too dry. Even with the unified management of state-owned farms, and even with the cold-resistant rice varieties introduced from Hokkaido, Japan, and corn from America, Jilin's agricultural development still did not meet expectations. This is the case for Jilin, and Heilongjiang, which is further north, is even less suitable for large-scale development in this era...
In the north, the Mongolian Autonomous Region suffered from cold waves for three consecutive winters: a large number of cattle and sheep froze to death, but the key point was that the weather was cold, but it just didn't snow! Because of the lack of snow water in winter, the grass on the grassland grew poorly the following year, resulting in insufficient nutrition for the surviving cattle and sheep. In recent years, all kinds of smoked beef and mutton, milk powder, and sweaters in Daming have become more and more expensive, so that ordinary working class people can't afford them at all...
In the Central Plains, Henan, Shaanxi, Shanxi and even parts of Shandong continued to suffer from drought. Although the Ming government had already built many reservoirs and canals in preparation for a rainy day, agriculture as a whole still depends on the weather. No matter how hard people try, they are still unable to completely eliminate the adverse effects of the climate.
However, for the current Ming Dynasty, the above difficulties are just a cause for frowns among the cabinet ministers.
Thanks to the improvement of the Yellow Book, the relatively reasonable taxation and distribution system, the industry absorbed the surplus labor in the countryside, the large amount of grain imported from the Southeast Asian countries, and the fact that the Ming government was already proficient in using work instead of relief... Now, although ordinary farmers in the northern provinces of the Ming Dynasty are in a bad mood and curse the heavens when they are idle all day long, they are still far from starving to death. As in the original historical plane, Li Zicheng came out of Shangluo Mountain, ran to Henan and waved his hand, and millions of disaster victims responded in droves. This will never happen.
"Next, let's discuss the last item on the agenda of this meeting, the approval of the banknote design. Ladies and gentlemen, with the widespread use of steam engines and electricity in recent years, the amount of things produced by the people each year has increased, far exceeding the amount of gold and silver that enters the market each year. The bank has gradually reduced the silver content of silver dollars from 70% to 50%, but the purchasing power of silver dollars has not decreased. Such deflation is extremely harmful to the country's economic development. Therefore, the issuance of paper money was proposed by my colleagues many years ago.
Now, we have South America, and a large amount of gold and silver is produced every year. The reserve problem can be solved. So, Cao Situ, President Li, how much gold and silver have the Ministry of Finance and the bank prepared? "
"Prime Minister Ma, colleagues. As of today, there are 121 tons of gold bars and 3,352 tons of silver bars stored in the central vault of the bank. According to the current calculation that the actual silver content of a silver dollar is only 25 grams and one gold coin is equivalent to ten silver coins, this batch of reserves can be converted into 180 million silver dollars. In addition, considering that except for a very small amount of hydroelectric power generation, other machine drives are ultimately mainly coal-based. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance has also included the current year's coal production of the 20 large coal mines currently controlled by the court into the deposit, which can be converted into 150 million silver dollars."
"Then the total is 330 million, which is equivalent to 55% of the court's annual revenue last year."
"Yes, Prime Minister Ma, colleagues. Using more than half of the court's annual revenue as a deposit is very conservative."
"We have to be conservative. The paper money of the Northern Song Dynasty, the paper money of the Yuan Dynasty, and the treasure notes of our Ming Dynasty... the lessons are too profound. Okay, everyone, in short, this paper money must be issued, otherwise if deflation continues like this, the economy of the Ming Dynasty will be very dangerous.
After repeated and thorough preparations, the government is preparing to issue paper money nationwide starting on October 18 this year, the day of His Majesty’s 43rd birthday. The total amount of this first batch of paper money is 3 billion. In order to avoid causing panic among the people, His Majesty has made it clear that starting from this year, within three years, paper money and precious metal currencies can be interchangeable. After three years, precious metal currencies will be withdrawn from the circulation market. "
"This method is already extremely reliable, and we have no objection."
"Okay." Ma Shiying waved to the secretary who was in charge of recording, and asked him to open the curtain behind him: "Everyone, please look, this is the banknote sample produced by the bank and the Ministry of Finance some time ago. That, Cao Situ, you come and introduce it."
"Yes." Cao Sanxi stood up and walked to the huge poster behind Ma Shiying: "Everyone, the paper money issued by the Ministry of Finance and the bank is divided into yuan, jiao and fen in terms of currency value. Basically, one yuan is equivalent to a silver dollar in the past, jiao is equal to the silver jiao in the past, and fen is equal to the copper coin in the past. In terms of value, jiao and fen have three values of one, two, and five. In addition to one, two, and five yuan, there are also ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred yuan."
"Huh? President Li is a mathematician after all. These three numbers, one, two, and five, can be used to make up any value."
"Haha, there, strictly speaking, as long as there is one, any value can be made up , but that is too inconvenient. So after I asked the emperor for instructions, the emperor added two and five."
"Well, that's great. I have no objection."
"Then there are the banknote designs. The bank means that the banknotes have portraits on the front and the great mountains and rivers of our Ming Dynasty on the back. Please look at these banknotes. The front of the 100-yuan banknote is the Emperor Taizu, and the back is Mount Tai. The 50-yuan banknote has the Emperor Chengzu on the front and the Forbidden City on the back. The 20-yuan banknote has the former emperor (Wanli) on the front and the Hukou of the Yellow River on the back. The 10-yuan banknote has the current emperor on the front and the Great Wall on the back.
The portraits of people on the notes below ten yuan are: the five-yuan note is Empress Xiaoci Gao ( Empress Ma of Zhu Yuanzhang), and the back is the Zhongdu City Tower (Fengyang). The two-yuan note is the King of Zhongshan (Xu Da), and the back is the Grand Canal. The one-yuan note is Yu Shaobao (Yu Qian), and the back is the West Lake in Hangzhou..."
“Hiss~!”
Cao Sanxi glanced at his colleagues with bloodshot eyes. He knew what they were thinking. He simply added fuel to the fire: "Everyone, according to the emperor, this is only the banknote of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty will surely last forever, and there will surely be more famous officials and generals in the future. Therefore, the portraits on the new version of banknotes can also be changed."
"Oh! This emperor is thoughtful and far-sighted. We are deeply impressed."
"Yes, after hearing what Situ Cao said, I just want to serve the emperor and the court for a few more years."
"Dong Dong~" After knocking the gavel and restoring order in the meeting, Ma Shiying said with a smile: "I feel the same way as my colleagues, but Situ Cao hasn't finished yet, please be patient. OK, Situ Cao, please continue."
"Thank you, Prime Minister Ma." After bowing, Cao Sanxi continued, "The front design of the banknotes in the range of one yuan to ten yuan is given to a royal family, a military general, and a civil official respectively. As for the range of jiao, the emperor intends to give it to a scientist, an educator, and a doctor respectively. Therefore, on the jiao coin in this case, the front design of the five-jiao coin is Zhao Shizhen, and the back design is Yandang Mountain. The front design of the two-jiao coin is Wang Yangming, and the back design is Ningbo Port. The front design of the one-jiao coin is Li Shizhen, and the back design is Yundan Mountain.
The range of cents. Well, our Ming Dynasty is the Celestial Empire, with countless vassal states, and this Tianqi paper currency is to be issued uniformly in all regions of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, it is appropriate to take care of the elites in the vassal states. Therefore, the front of the five-cent coin is tentatively His Royal Highness the King of Tang. The two-cent coin is Yi Sun-sin. The one-cent coin is Sanada Yukimura. The back of the three-cent coin is naturally the famous places of Tang, Fuku and Japan. "
"Okay, thank you Cao Situ for your explanation. Everyone, what do you think of the characters and background patterns selected by the Ministry of Finance and the bank ?"
When Ma Shiying opened his mouth, everyone stood up, raised their hands, or started shouting.
The civil and military officials here couldn't help but get excited: their portraits would be printed on banknotes, and their names would surely go down in history!
We personally have no idea that money above 10 yuan belongs to the royal family, but what about money below 10 yuan?
Soon, a minister pointed out that although the cents were not valuable, they were actually used very frequently in daily life - definitely much more than the ten-yuan notes. With such a high frequency of use, it was too much to use the characters of the vassal states as the portraits. Change it! As for what to change it to? Hey, aren't there enough famous ministers and generals in the Ming Dynasty? Choose one and print it on it!
After the cents came the dimes. OK, the emperor said he wanted to recruit scientists, educators, and medical scientists, and we have no objection to that. But why should Zhao Shizhen be the representative of scientists? Shouldn't it be Xu Guangqi, who was born into our family of civil officials?
As for Yuan coins, we have no problem with Empress Gao being five yuan. Why is Xu Da being two yuan, while the civil official representative Yu Qian is only one yuan? On the other hand, the military officers in the Privy Council naturally twisted their necks and asked why the King of Zhongshan could not be two yuan? Without the King of Zhongshan expelling the Yuan Tartars, Yu Qian was just a lowly southerner named Yu Sansan or Yu Siwu, how could he be the Shao Bao?
The people at the meeting argued more and more fiercely, and finally argued about large denominations of more than ten yuan. At this point, the ministers agreed: Emperor Gao and Emperor Wen had the largest denominations, but as for the late emperor... take it down, why not make the current emperor's denomination twenty yuan.
The civil officials quarreled with each other, the civil officials and the military officials quarreled with each other, and even the eunuchs in charge of the Imperial Household Department, the Eastern Depot, and the Imperial Horse Administration who attended the meeting also joined in: What? We eunuchs have produced so many famous eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty, can't we have a representative on the banknotes?
Finally, after a lot of arguing and arguing, everyone finally reached a consensus: 100 yuan, Taizu Gaohuangdi. 50 yuan, Chengzu Wenhuangdi. 20 yuan, the current emperor. 10 yuan, Empress Ma. 5 yuan, Xu Da. 2 yuan, Yu Qian. 1 yuan, Zhang Juzheng - although the military generals still outnumbered the civil officials in terms of currency value, but in terms of yuan, the civil officials were two to one, so the civil officials were satisfied.
The dimes remain original.
The original proposal for the cent coin was completely overturned, and the denominations of five cents, two cents, and one cent were changed to Xu Guangqi, Qi Jiguang, Zheng He, etc.
