Under the rule of the People's Army, the common people have their own farmland, and this year is another bumper year, with a bumper grain harvest.

The harvest will not only feed the family for the next year, but it will also be used to sell some food, buy cloth to make new clothes, replace tattered clothes that have been worn for several years, sew and mend them, or buy new farm tools to replace old farm tools that have been used and are about to be scrapped.

Merchants are a very important profession, they are the middlemen in the trade of goods, they buy a commodity and sell it to people who need it.

Whether it is buying cloth or buying farm tools, it is a commercial business, and without merchants, it will be a lot more difficult for ordinary people to buy what they need.

When the People's Army occupied Guangdong, a large number of merchants were raided by the People's Army, or executed, or punished as coolies, the number of merchants decreased, and the commerce under the rule of the People's Army was greatly reduced compared with the reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Not everyone can become a merchant, let's consider a merchant as a high-level form of a merchant, and a merchant as a low-level form of a merchant.

Just put up a stall on the street in the city to sell vegetables, sell candy or something, these are all vendors, their income is not high, more importantly, they are illiterate, simple arithmetic can still be known, more complex ones do not understand, the upper limit of knowledge makes them can only be small merchants and hawkers, it is difficult to become a businessman.

The scope of activities of the traders is often within a county, or only in the city, or leaving the city to go to the countryside, but the scope of the merchant's activities can cross counties and cities, and transport the specialties of the next county back to their own county for sale.

There is no doubt that merchants play a much greater role in the development of commerce than merchants, and the two are not the same level.

However, under the rule of the People's Army, there were so many fewer merchants, and it was difficult for the merchants to be promoted to merchants, and the number of merchants could not increase much in a short period of time.

The establishment of the People's Chamber of Commerce is only one of the purposes of developing commerce, but also serves the common people, earns money for the People's Army, and checks and balances the merchants under the rule of the People's Army.

Although the People's Chamber of Commerce was established for a short time, relying on the People's Army, it has become the largest commercial organization under the rule of the People's Army, and the Wenhua Bookstore, the cement factory, and the glass factory are all subordinate to the People's Army Chamber of Commerce, but important factories such as the Foshan Arsenal are under the direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry.

At present, under the rule of the People's Army, the salt and iron monopoly is monopolized, and other businessmen cannot interfere, and the salt and iron trade has become the most profitable item of the People's Chamber of Commerce, bringing a large amount of income to the people's military government.

Unlike the army, the People's Army does not pay soldiers for the time being, but officials and factory workers need to be paid, and the People's Army also needs money.

At present, the business scope of the People's Chamber of Commerce is very large, and even some projects do not make money at all, and with the development of commerce under the rule of the People's Army, the People's Chamber of Commerce will gradually abandon some projects that do not make money.

The People's Chamber of Commerce wants to make money, and there will be methods in the future, glass, soap, soap, etc. are all projects that can make a lot of money, and other businessmen cannot participate in them.

Although the agricultural tax will be higher than the commercial tax for a long time, the commercial tax will definitely be higher than the agricultural tax in the end, and the development of commerce has become a very important project of the people's military government.

However, the number of businessmen is relatively small, and the number of literate people is relatively small, if those businessmen become big businessmen one by one or even monopolize an industry, it is not good for the people's army and the common people, and the people's military government formulates rules, coupled with the emergence of the people's chamber of commerce, can control the development of businessmen to a certain extent.

When there are more and more literate people under the rule of the People's Army, then business will gradually enter the era of great development, and at present, the commercial development under the rule of the People's Army is more partly placed on the People's Chamber of Commerce, of course, other businessmen also play some roles.

In addition to business development, Fang Nan is also working on a project that is very important to business or the economy, that is, currency.

Whether under the rule of the Ming Dynasty or the People's Army, there were two main currencies used for trading, silver and copper coins.

Both silver and copper coins can be traded, but they are more cumbersome to use.

Silver is mainly in two forms, ingots and scattered, no matter which form, when trading, you have to weigh it with a scale to determine the weight of silver, which undoubtedly adds some trouble to the transaction, and a waste of time is a waste of life.

The exchange ratio of copper coins, silver and copper coins will change, when it is low, one or two silver can be exchanged for more than 900 copper coins, and when it is more, one or two silver can be exchanged for more than 1,200 copper coins, the exchange ratio does not matter, the most important thing is that one or two silver can be exchanged for about 1,000 copper coins.

If a person buys something that costs a few copper coins for two pieces of silver, the vendor needs to find two hundred copper coins, and this kind of transaction is very troublesome for both the vendor and the buyer.

Fang Nan very much wanted to change the currency under the rule of the People's Army, mainly to make the transaction more convenient, and the People's Army could also make some money in this item, as for the Ming Court to control the economy of the People's Army because of silver and copper money, this is simply impossible, the Ming Court does not understand economic warfare, and the Ming Court and the People's Army have very little trade.

Changing the currency, if you can replace the metal currency with paper money, it is definitely the best thing, but the possibility of success is pitiful, paper money appeared in the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, and finally it was abandoned, people are very distrustful of paper money, even if the people support the People's Army, the People's Army can not use paper money to replace metal money at will.

What's more, the KPA has almost no research on paper, and it is impossible to make a banknote that cannot be copied by outsiders in a short period of time.

So in terms of the monetary plan, Fang Nan decided to take three steps.

In the first step, the irregular silver and very low-value copper coins were changed, and the KPA could mint a regular silver coin and mint several copper coins of different specifications and values to replace the silver and copper coins currently in circulation.

The second step is to issue token coupons, which have no value compared to silver coins, but can be exchanged for a certain number of silver coins at a bankery run by the People's Army.

The third step is to increase the frequency of use of token coupons, reduce the frequency of use of metal currency, and finally change the use of token coupons to official currency.

The first step of the monetary plan is already underway, and in a maximum of a year, the KPA will introduce silver and copper coins.