After listening to Chongzhen's words, although Wang Fengyuan, Chang Wanchun, and Hu Guangyuan forcibly suppressed the excitement in their hearts, their eyes already showed indescribable joy.

Their excitement was not because Chongzhen promised to give them war dividends, but because the emperor was willing to treat them as partners, giving them the equal status they most desired.

Before the establishment of the bank in their hands, these three were already wealthy businessmen, although the money they could use before could not be compared with now, but they could be regarded as one of the top groups of people in the Ming Dynasty.

But no matter how rich they are, and no matter how many gentry and celebrities they hand over with money, they are still just businessmen who are called around in front of a small official. As long as there are no scholars in their families, they will not be able to rise to the top of their class.

And in the face of real power, they can only choose to grovel, because they know that in the face of this kind of power, money will not only not protect them, but will become the cause of their own harm.

Wu Yangchun's private occupation of Huangshan Muzhi case is also always vigilant to these wealthy businessmen, even if a rich businessman donates an official position, once he is targeted by the powerful, his family will be ruined.

The pursuit of wealth is certainly the nature of these businessmen, but how to keep the family property they earn is also a knot that lingers in the hearts of these businessmen all the time.

The whole world is not the king's land, and the shore of the land is not the king's minister. If there is any supreme power in the Ming Dynasty, it is undoubtedly the supreme imperial power. Even the arrogant nine-thousand-year-old Wei Shanggong, after the new emperor ascended the throne, his power disappeared.

This is also why, when Chongzhen ascended the throne and expressed a little to the merchants, the merchants led by Wang Fengyuan immediately pounced on him regardless of it, hoping to grab the rope that Chongzhen dropped and climb to the sky.

The adventures of Wang Fengyuan's Huizhou merchants paid off handsomely, as their fortune was not only protected by the emperor, but they also created a central bank that bordered on a monopoly, and Wang Fengyuan himself was given a knighthood that freed him from his status as a merchant.

It can be said that Wang Fengyuan's experience inspired other Ming businessmen who were originally waiting. Because they found that if they wanted to change their status, it was no longer just a one-way bridge to sponsor scholars or cultivate reading seeds in the clan, as long as they could get in touch with the imperial power and maintain the same steps as the emperor's call, they could also enter the emperor's sight.

Compared with cultivating the next generation of people to study and enter the officialdom, through the efforts of 2 or 3 generations, they will transform their own businessmen. Now in front of these merchants, a wide and fast Zhongnan Avenue suddenly appeared.

This is also why, after Wang Fengyuan, the merchants represented by Chang Wanchun and Hu Guangyuan also began to move closer to the internal affairs government on behalf of the imperial power, and actively responded to the requirements of the imperial court to establish two banks, Shanxi and Jiaojiao.

This is also why, when Chongzhen proposed the gold bill and attacked the salt merchants in Yangzhou, the three major banks and the shareholders behind them firmly stood on the side of the emperor, instead of waving the flag for the merchants as before.

This is also why when the imperial court investigated the case of Zhangjiakou's collaboration with the enemy, Shanxi merchants would rather throw out those scapegoats and accept the emperor's punishment than break with the imperial court.

Because by the end of the second year of Chongzhen, most of the merchants of the Ming Dynasty believed that the reform led by the emperor was steadily increasing their status, and their property had also been guaranteed to a certain extent.

Although this reform caused a small number of officials and merchants to lose their monopoly on salt, iron, and munitions, it did liberalize trade restrictions for the majority of merchants. In the past, the feudal dependency relationship of big businessmen using guild halls and guilds to control small and medium-sized merchants is also gradually being removed.

This change in business and social status led to a split in the loose association of merchants who had been connected by geography and industry, and merchants who wanted to break the old business rules naturally became supporters of reform.

Wang Fengyuan, Chang Wanchun, Hu Guangyuan, and other merchants who were in direct contact with the emperor set their goals higher, that is, to pursue themselves, nay, it should be said that they wanted to pursue the political status of the banks under their leadership.

They want the bank to become a quasi-government under the Ministry of Households, rather than an ordinary firm. If they created the bank, it was only to answer the emperor's call to win the emperor's trust and thus obtain the protection of the imperial power.

Two years later, these businessmen who had been immersed in the business world for many years realized that the bank they created was not simply a thing to repay money to the emperor, but a cash cow that kept devouring money and could continue to create more money.

If the bank can be passed on in their hands, it will be enough for their descendants to eat for generations or even dozens of generations. It is precisely because they see a bright future for the banking industry that the bank's shareholders, including Wang Fengyuan, hope that the bank can develop into a strong institution that can protect itself from the plundering of power.

What could be better than an institution that is needed by the court, but independent of it, to protect their people's property from the threat of power.

Wang Fengyuan, Chang Wanchun, and Hu Guangyuan, the first businessmen to wake up, chose to support the reform promoted by the emperor, and their efforts finally got a preliminary return.

Chongzhen was willing to give them war dividends in the form of a return on investment, and they were far happier when they heard this sentence than when Chongzhen told them about the war dividends, because this was the beginning of the establishment of new rules.

And Zhu Youzhen didn't notice the complex psychological changes of the three of them, he thought about it and said to himself, "... In the past two years, I believe that you have a preliminary understanding of the banking industry.

Since the beginning of last year, the gold and silver exchange exchange transactions have been implemented, and everyone has a basic understanding of what currency it is. I also have a copy of "The Wealth of Nations: A Study of the Causes and Nature of the Wealth of Nations," an economic discourse that I have compiled over the past year by surveying hundreds of scholars and investigators in the northern provinces.

Of course, this is still the first draft, and there are still many errors and omissions in it, but our scholars are still investigating and researching, and the next version will be more complete. If you have any questions after reading them, you can also write them down and give them to Lu Qi, and he will arrange for scholars to discuss them with you. ”

Wang Fengyuan, Chang Wanchun, and Hu Guangyuan took the books handed to them by Wang Chengen, and subconsciously flipped through a few pages.

Zhu Youzhen looked at the actions of the three of them, and couldn't help but smile and said: "You can take it back and look through it slowly, what I want to tell you is that currency is not wealth, but a tool for valuing wealth."

The real wealth is the crops that the peasants grow in the fields, and the handicrafts that the workers produce in the workshops, not gold, silver, copper coins, and paper money.

As a money business, the first task of the bank is to understand what the essence of money is. If you just treat currency as a simple exchange game, then it will be a disaster for both the bank and the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, due to historical reasons, our country, from the princes to the common people, regarded gold and silver as wealth, and had no understanding of the nature of money. This also leads to the fact that we must have gold and silver as reserves for issuing banknotes in Daming.

Because if we can't convince the people that the banknotes we issue can be freely exchanged for gold or silver, the credit of the banknotes will go bankrupt, the banks will be run, and the Ming Yuan will become the second Daming treasure banknote.

But we should have the foresight that, over time, the wealth we create will sooner or later grow faster than the accumulation of precious metals we have, and that the amount of banknotes issued in reserve, whether silver or gold, will be able to meet the needs of the market.

Once there is a shortage of money in the market, then the money is expensive and cheap, which will inevitably greatly hit the people's enthusiasm for production, and you should be very clear about the harm of the money shortage, and I will not talk about it anymore.

Therefore, the issuance of banknotes without precious metals, with national credit as a guarantee, the issuance of banknotes equivalent to the value created by Daming Wealth, this is the task of the bank's account department. Although the bank was not a branch of the imperial court, it was impossible for a bank to be independent of ordinary firms outside the imperial court. Do you understand what I'm saying? ”

Wang Fengyuan, Chang Wanchun, and Hu Guangyuan glanced at each other, and then got up and said to the emperor: "Your Majesty has spoken very thoroughly, although the ministers are dull, they also understand most of them. ”

Zhu Youzhen nodded at the three of them before continuing: "It's good that you understand this, the bank must abide by the rules set by the imperial court in Daming, and you have the right to put forward opinions, but you don't have the right to break the law." This is my advance advice to you, and I hope you will take it to heart.

Next, I will tell you what I intend to give you a bonus. Within the borders of our Ming Dynasty, in order to protect the social stability of the Ming Dynasty, the issuance of banknotes must comply with a strict reserve system.

However, outside the borders of my Ming Dynasty, the people there are not protected by me, and their degree of civilization and civilization is also high and low, so they do not adhere to the theory of precious metal currency.

Therefore, I allowed the three major banks to issue banknotes without reserves overseas, of course, if we want these banknotes to be recognized by the locals, first, they need to be able to buy the products of our Ming Dynasty; Second, we need the political guarantee of the Ming court.

Therefore, the three banks should set up a new bank together with the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which will be used exclusively for the settlement of overseas trade, and the distribution of profits will be discussed with the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Internal Affairs after you go back, so I will not say more.

What I want to say is that the first countries where you can promote their currencies are Korea, the Ryukyus, Thailand, Cambodia, the Western Regions and Outer Mongolia..."