Luoyang Palace.

Li Fuguo was still floating on the sea, but he asked people to send the letter to Luoyang first. The emperor looked at Li Fuguo's letter, "Li Fuguo is loyal, but his experience is still a little insufficient. ”

"What's the matter, Your Majesty?" Sun Zhaoyi, the chief of Guanyin, who helped the emperor sort out the chapters, asked.

"Look at Li Fuguo, he wantonly confiscated rebellious property in Lingnan, and then got more than 100 ships of things to be shipped to Luoyang."

"This is a good thing, the court is not short of money now, before Su Shuai played, said that Xishan has just set up a county, but the road in Xishan is not passable, the city is not there, the plan is to build a military fort and post station in the city, the need is very great, ask for money. Cheng Shuai of Anxi also said that the use of soldiers for shooting is still continuing, and he also needs money and food to reward the soldiers."

Seven things for ordinary people to open the door, salt, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, but for the imperial court, such a large empire, the expenses are even greater.

This year is the first year of the implementation of the imperial examination, all counties in the country have to take the imperial examination, in order to do a good job in this imperial examination, the imperial court attaches great importance to it, and plans to pull out special funds for the use of the imperial examination in various counties, build tribute examination rooms in various places, and prepare a school hall for candidates to stay and rest.

From Daojun County to Jingshi, all levels have to repair the Gongyuan Academy, which is not a little expensive.

"Of course, money is a good thing, the key is that you look at this Li Fuguo, he gave up copper coins and silk, and thought that those were too heavy and took up too much space, so he brought all the light goods."

"Your Majesty, isn't light goods more valuable?"

Luo Cheng could only teach the eldest grandson a lesson, telling him that money and silk are currency, and gold and silver are not currency, although gold and silver are a natural currency, but this thing cannot be directly circulated.

Not to mention, pearls, ivory, rhino horn, tortoiseshell, coral glass, and all kinds of spices, these things are indeed valuable, but in essence they are actually a commodity.

Since it is a valuable commodity, it is a commodity with quantity and price.

Just like the pearls produced in Hepu, this thing is rare in quantity and of good quality, so the price is extremely high. However, in addition to high quality, the most important thing is that the quantity is small.

If a large number of pearls suddenly appear in Luoyang City, then the price of this thing will naturally fall.

Even spices are the same.

When Li Fuguo seized them from Lingnan, they themselves were very valuable, because they were only in the hands of those handsome and powerful people, and they were not circulated in the market, and their value was very high at this time.

But most of the Lingnan treasures and spices poured into Luoyang at once, if the emperor still wants to realize, then these things will be on the market, oversupply, a large amount of stock will inevitably lead to more than demand, so from a seller's market to a buyer's market, so buyers can continue to shout down.

Light goods worth 10 million guan in Lingnan are gathered in Luoyang at once, and if they are thrown out in a short time, they may only be worth 9 million or 8 million or even 7 million guan.

And if these things do not appear and do not flow into the market for sale, then for the imperial court, it is just a bunch of good-looking things that have no practical effect.

The eldest grandson seems to understand whether he understands or not.

"Really?"

"Yes, it will, this is the law of the market, even the emperor can't interfere. Li Fuguo had to stop, and he couldn't transport those things to Luoyang immediately, otherwise, the things on the ship would have to depreciate a lot, even those in the inner library. ”

The eldest grandson thought it was ridiculous, how could a large amount of gold, silver, jewelry, and spices be transported, and the emperor was not happy.

"Your Majesty, can't you just use these things for officials or as rewards for soldiers?"

"Faint."

Luo Cheng pointed out her mistakes.

"It's still that problem, the problem of market circulation, even if these light goods are used in a different way, such as the rewards of the hundred officials or the soldiers, but in the end these things still flow to the market. There is a large increase in stock in the market, and the supply is still more than demand, so it will not depreciate. ”

"The only difference is that it was originally smashed in our hands, and we lost, but now it has become a loss for the soldiers and officials, originally the official got a hundred yuan of money, we gave him a hundred yuan of pepper, and then a large amount of pepper in the market, and finally the one hundred percent of pepper in the official's hand, only sold seventy or eighty percent, and he lost."

"Doing this will make everyone dissatisfied and resentful, especially if these are given to the soldiers as a reward, but the result is equivalent to giving less rewards to the soldiers in disguise, what kind of bad consequences do you say?"

The Ming Dynasty liked to engage in this kind of thing, for example, the imperial court issued treasure money, and the mandatory stipulation was that the money was one to one, but because of a large number of over-issuance, in fact, the money was very worthless, but the court still issued it to officials and soldiers according to one to one, which was equivalent to deducting the officials and soldiers' money and rewards in disguise.

Then there is the situation of taking pepper and other commodities from sea trade to discount money and send it to officials, acting as a bargain, which is also a high discount money, but the actual depreciation is in hand, which makes people complain, which is a trick of the imperial court.

Luo Cheng definitely can't do this, that's digging a hole for himself.

In fact, even the legal tender of the imperial court, money, silk, and even gold and silver coins also have such problems, such as why are the prices in the capital expensive?

It is because there are a large number of people in the capital who receive salaries, and they have a large amount of cash in their hands, and the amount of money naturally leads to high prices. In the countryside, the people have less cash in their hands to get their wages, so there are fewer transactions and fewer purchases, and prices are naturally low.

These are very simple economic principles, but not many people really understand this in this era.

"Let Li Fuguo slow down on the way back, trade along the way, trade these light goods, and exchange them for money, silk, even gold, silver and copper, if the transaction is not finished, you can also separate the fleet and trade to Jiangnan, Huainan, Central Plains and even Hebei, Guanwai, Bashu, Guanlong and other places."

"Wouldn't that lead to depreciation?"

"A large number of light goods and treasures suddenly poured into one place, which will inevitably lead to depreciation, but if it is dispersed, it can actually be absorbed, especially in the short term, the information is not so smooth, and the market does not know that so many goods have poured into various places, so the impact on the local area is not large, but the market news around the country is summarized, and it will definitely bring about the overall price decline and depreciation."

But that's just a market reaction, Luo Cheng's things have been sold, don't worry about depreciation, and he didn't discount money to officials as a reward or a reward for soldiers, so the court has no loss, and there is no loss for officials or soldiers, maybe businessmen have losses, but this is a market business behavior, there are losses and gains, and no one can be blamed.

Again, these light goods are not people's livelihood products, but mostly luxury items, so they will not affect ordinary people. There is even one, after these light goods are sold in the national market, they are bought by a large number of people in a dispersed manner, in fact, they will not flow out immediately, as long as it is not a large number of intensive transactions in a short period of time, in fact, there will not be such a quick market reaction, driving the price down.

This is the same as a bank run, under normal circumstances, I am not afraid of cashing, I am afraid of a run, and no matter how big the bank is, I am also afraid of this.

Light goods are exchanged for copper coins and silk silks, which are all currency, even if the currency is concentrated in the hands of the imperial court, but after all, it is to be used out, it is used in various places, so although the currency is in circulation, the total amount has not changed, and it will not cause any bad effects.

And if it is traded into gold and silver, then it will be transported back to the Royal Mint, minted into gold and silver coins, and then circulated, and the gold and silver coins are actually insignificant for the amount of money in the whole world.

After all, if the imperial court was not short of money, that is, the amount of money was insufficient, it would not use silk as currency. Silk currency is not because it is easy to use, but just that the imperial court does not have more copper to cast more copper coins, and copper coins are far from enough to use, so silk is used as currency.

"The concubine didn't expect that there was so much knowledge in this."

"That's nature, in fact, it's just a currency, it's very knowledgeable, if you can manage the currency well, then the court and even the world will naturally be stable. However, throughout the ages, there are not many people who can really understand this currency and do a good job of this currency, and even many dynasties have lost money when they cast copper money, and the more they are minted, the more they lose, resulting in the imperial court can only mint those coins that are ten or even twenty, or those white coins that contain less copper, resulting in extremely poor information about the imperial court's currency, and the market is full of private minting, which ultimately leads to the chaos of the market, and also brings about the loss of control of the imperial court's taxes and revenue. ”

The coinage loss, the court thought that it was too much copper, so it reduced the copper content, and even simply became ten, as a result, the profit margin of private coinage, and finally the court currency issuance rights and coinage profits fell into the hands of lawbreakers, the people also suffered from it, and the market was also chaotic.

In the final analysis, it is that I have not grasped a degree.

It is necessary to ensure that the copper coins are in good condition, and there must be enough copper content so that they are valuable, and it also makes the private miners not much profit, but at the same time, they must not let the imperial court mint coins at a loss, and there must be profits. This means having a sufficient technical advantage, as well as a management advantage.

The most important thing is the management of the imperial court, such as cracking down on private casting, cracking down on ruining money, cracking down on money leaving the country, cracking down on hiding money, strengthening the management of copper, from mining to smelting, there must be enough control. The most important thing is that enough money must be minted to circulate, otherwise everything will be in vain.

Without enough money in circulation, there will naturally be other alternatives in the market.

The use of silk instead of money is precisely because the output of silk is large enough, and at the same time, it is valuable enough, because silk itself is also a commodity, and it is a stable price negotiation.

Now the imperial court is gradually eliminating silk as currency, relying on the continuous increase in copper production, as well as the improvement of the mint's copper coin casting technology, the output has increased greatly and the cost has been greatly reduced.

During the Sui Dynasty, as a unified imperial court, there were a total of 100 coin-casting furnaces in the imperial court, and one furnace minted 3,000 yuan a year, and the whole country only minted 300,000 yuan a year.

But now, the copper coins are minted by the Royal Mint Bureau, and coinage fields are set up in several copper-producing places, using advanced new technologies, and more than 10 million new Kaiyuan Tongbao were minted last year alone, which is more than 30 times that of the Sui Dynasty.

In addition, the Mint also continued to mint gold dragon coins and silver tiger coins, so that the money that can be circulated in the market continues to increase, coupled with the rise of money banks and banks, the use of silver bills and bank bills, but also greatly increased the currency circulation.

Now many people are reluctant to use silk as money, and silk has returned to his goods themselves.

However, the issuance of tens of millions of yuan Tongbao a year is still far from enough for market circulation, and the lack of currency has always hindered the development of economy and commerce, you know, at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the circulation of copper coins in the market is hundreds of millions of yuan, but it still has to rely on Jiaozi and silver to support the operation of market currency.

"In fact, the really valuable things in Lingnan this time are the fields, slaves, workshops, etc. left by Li Fuguo, which are really valuable, pearls, tortoiseshells, rhino horns, ivory, spices, etc., sometimes they are not as useful as grain."

"The concubine thinks that Your Majesty should teach the officials of the Ministry of Civil Affairs a good lesson, your words are really shocking, better than reading a book for ten years."

"Hahaha, it's okay if you have time, there are really few people in the Ministry of Civil Affairs who really understand the economy, the higher the grade, the less as good as the young officials below, they are just housekeepers, they only know how to collect taxes and look at the treasury, which one understands the national economy."

It is precisely because these people don't understand the economy, so Luo Cheng has not dared to put forward the concept of paper money until now, even if it is far from enough to solve the money shortage by minting 10 million Kaiyuan Tongbao a year, but Luo Cheng does not want to propose paper money.