In the 51st year of Qianlong (1786), the proportion of silver money finally dropped to 1:1000, to 1:1300 in the 57th year of Qianlong, and to 1:1400~1450 in the 59th year of Qianlong. The government immediately tightened the coinage, and soon rose to 1:900 in the 60th year of Qianlong, and after the second year of Jiaqing, it was maintained in an ideal state of 1:1020~1030, and by the fourth year of Jiaqing, it was also 1:1080, which can be said to have been controlled.

The most fundamental reason why the price of money was controlled during the Qianlong period was that the government finally controlled the supply of copper.

Later generations of experts believe that the Qing Dynasty mining is a peak in the history of China's mining development, the Qing Dynasty in the early "one hundred years of growth rate, greatly exceeded the previous two thousand years", the development of Qing Dynasty minerals, indeed than the previous generation greatly increased.

But this is not the result of innovations in mining policy, or technological breakthroughs, but mainly because of population growth and the exploitation of rich mines in the frontier. Among them, the development of copper mines in Yunnan has greatly alleviated the problem of insufficient copper ore imports caused by Japan's trade restrictions. Because the Qing government still had very strict management of mineral development, often prohibiting private mining, most of the copper mine development was in the hands of the government. The private use of copper is still insufficient, so the phenomenon of private casting has been repeatedly banned, but because the copper production in the hands of the Qing government is very sufficient, in the middle of the Qianlong period, it has been able to offset the impact of private casting.

Zhou Lang's preparations for the minting of coins were very sufficient, at least to collect various economic data of Fujian over the years, and compare and analyze them.

He found that the proportion of silver money has been controlled over the years, but the price has increased a lot compared with the Kangxi period.

The most important price of rice and cloth, an old man recalled: "Forty or fifty years ago, when my ancestor was my father, the money of rice was only six or seven liters, and the money of cloth was only thirty or forty. This is not the case today, for those who used to be counted in the ascending need to have thirty or forty dollars; In the past, the money needed to be one or two hundred. ”

The price of rice has risen four or five times, and the price of cloth has also risen four or five times, and this neat ratio is obviously not caused by the shortage of materials, and there is often only one reason for the general increase in prices, that is, inflation.

Zhou Lang immediately reacted to a problem, the Manchu court controlled the issuance of currency by controlling the proportion of silver coins, but the copper output in silver coins could be controlled by the Qing government, but the import of silver was because of trade, which was beyond the control of the Qing government.

As a result, in order to maintain the proportion of silver coins, the more silver was imported, the more copper coins were minted by the Qing government, resulting in over-issuance of money and causing inflation. In the 50th year of Qianlong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang suffered from drought and grain failure, which led to the rise in rice prices, but in the spring and summer of the 51st year of Qianlong, the wind and rain in Jiangsu and Zhejiang were smooth, and the price of rice not only did not fall after the summer harvest, but rose. Everything rice and wheat and so on. The market price has gradually decreased. That is, it may not be reduced. It should not be as before. There is no reason to increase the number of times compared to the previous month". And questioned "It seems that this is increasing unabated." What is the bottom of it? ”

Qianlong did not understand why the price of rice would increase after a bumper grain harvest. The courtiers suggested that it might be that the government collected too much grain, resulting in a scarcity of rice in the market, and then Qianlong stopped collecting rice for a year, but the price of rice was still rising. Qianlong could only sigh and say, "The price of rice is so expensive, it is not a one-year-old growth, but it can't be a one-year-old flattening." Qianlong did not understand the principle of money, and only thought that the growth of rice prices was the result of long-term accumulation, so it took long-term efforts to stabilize rice prices.

This discovery made Zhou Lang very entangled, and he thought of the monetary policies of many countries linked to the US dollar in later generations, resulting in the more US dollar reserves, the more currency issued in China, and the more serious the inflation. It is the same reason that the more silver imported by the Qing Dynasty and the more copper coins were minted, which led to an increase in prices.

Sure enough, trade is better balanced.

On the one hand, the war has affected production, resulting in the scarcity of goods, and on the other hand, Guangzhou has siphoned off too much silver, but the money has not been less, and it has remained in the past state of over-issuance, which has almost brought Guangdong's economic system to the brink of collapse.

In this case, coupled with long-term preparations, Zhou Lang is ready to mint money.

Drawing on traditional experience, Zhou Lang intends to adopt a modern approach to integrate the issuance of money with banks, rather than letting a civil affairs agency similar to the household department manage the minting of money.

As for the banking institutions, Zhou Lang has been established, named the goods and silver money bank, the meaning of goods can basically represent commerce, Sima Qian's historical records have a biography of goods and colonies, in which the meaning of goods has included a variety of handicrafts, as well as agriculture, animal husbandry, fishery, mining, smelting and other industries. Zhou Lang's goods colonization refers to industry and commerce, but China has not yet introduced the term industry and commerce, so it simply borrows ancient words. The business objects represented by the word silver money are mainly silver and money. The public bank means that this institution is not private, but it is not official, but a guild like the Thirteen Banks, which is concerned with all industries such as commerce, handicrafts, and mining.

The purpose is to exclude the influence of the government from monetary management, so as to avoid the crisis of indiscriminate issuance, and to adopt the traditional form of commercial organization such as the public bank, which is easier to win the trust of businessmen and more acceptable.

In order to further win the trust of the businessmen and integrate into the business of Guangzhou more quickly, Zhou Lang also invited the children of the Wu family of the Thirteen Banks to serve as the head of the public bank, this person was the famous Wu Bingjian in later generations, and he was still an ambitious young businessman at this time.

It was in the hands of Wu Bingjian that Jardine Matheson became the first trading house, and later Jardine Matheson & Co., which was located in Hong Kong, borrowed the name of Jardine Matheson.

At this time, Wu Bingjian was still a young man less than thirty, and he and his brother Wu Bingjun had been running Jardine House for five or six years, and had miraculously escaped the catastrophe of several thirteen merchants, and now with the withdrawal of the Pan family, Jardine House has become the de facto No. 1 trading house in Guangzhou.

It is impossible for the two brothers to achieve such an achievement by attributing it entirely to luck. It's that the two of them have the courage, dare to create, and can seize the opportunity. They have the temperament of a pioneering businessman, which is very similar to Zhou Lang.

In fact, they started Jardine House, and their father Wu Guoying did not support it. Wu Guoying used to be a businessman, but she couldn't stand the endless blackmail from the government, and even absconded with the money for a while. Later, he quit the Thirteen Lines and operated as an ordinary tea merchant, and his family business was also very large, as high as millions of taels of silver. It is one of the big suppliers of the Pan family.

Wealthy businessmen like Wu Guoying and Pan Zhencheng are no longer optimistic about the prospects of the Thirteen Trades, but the two brothers are very eager to join this industry, and they think that foreign business has a lot to offer. The two began to help their father run a business before they were twenty years old, and they had the ability to do business, but their father was not optimistic about their vision and resolutely did not support them to become merchants.

couldn't resist the two brothers, so he only gave them 10,000 taels of silver, and then he got angry and ignored them. In the 57th year of Qianlong (1792), the two brothers jointly recruited foreign merchants, and only had 10,000 taels of silver in their hands, which could only be used to make dots up and down, and even the money for obtaining licenses was not enough, and the licensing fees of the merchants were between 30,000 taels and 100,000 taels, and the working capital of the two was all solved by themselves.

The biggest opportunity for the two of them was that they established close ties with American businessmen, and each of the thirteen banks had its own regular customers, the Pan family did business with the largest foreign merchants, the Swedes who imported the most tea, and the British were all guests of the Pan family, while the Wu brothers, who were short of capital, were also interested in American businessmen who were also new to trade.

As a result, the trade of the United States developed rapidly, surpassing other countries in just a few years, and became the second largest force in the trade of Guangzhou after the British, and the Wu brothers also became the second largest merchant after the Pan family.

So the last time Zhou Lang invited the thirteen businessmen to go out of the mountain, only the Wu family and the Cai family came forward, Cai Shiwen was forced to be helpless, he was already insolvent, what else could he do if he didn't do business, but Wu Bingjun was relatively proactive.

As for Zhou Lang's request for Wu Bingjian to help him do things this time, it was the first opportunity for the Wu family. Wu Bingjun strongly supported his younger brother to serve as the head of the Bank of Goods, and used his connections and capital to actively help him. As for Jardine Matheson's business, it is not in the way without Wu Bingjian, the host has always been Wu Bingjun over the years, and people at the time commented that Wu Bingjun is a business wizard, if it is not short-lived, Wu Bingjian's later achievements should belong to his brother.

Wu Bingjian also lived up to expectations, and he quickly mastered the principles of various standard business account books established by Zhou Lang, and then made the accounts clear. And by lending to the best-run commercial banks, in a short period of time, not only did the business of the bank of goods and silver money, but also lent out more than 20 million taels of silver, and has been able to recover the principal and interest as scheduled, and at the same time helped the commercial banks in the foreign trade industry to quickly resume their operations, the biggest beneficiary is the Cai Shiwen family, they finally breathed a sigh of relief, first borrowed 800 taels of silver, paid off the previous arrears of usurious loans, and then used these loans to quickly resume their own business, although the scale is not as large as before, But the turnaround was made.

Supporting domestic businessmen is Zhou Lang's original intention, Wu Bingjian also opened up foreign business, using his own personal connections, he first persuaded the Americans to provide guarantees through the goods and silver money bank, to carry out various transactions, due to the sudden withdrawal of the thirteen banks, the guarantee system that foreigners were accustomed to in the past ended, they could not find a reliable source of goods for a while, a large number of small and medium-sized businessmen were willing to do business with them, but they were not at ease, there were goods and silver money bank to provide guarantees, and the transactions were mainly based on account transactions, which reduced the trouble of cash delivery. At the same time, the quality is guaranteed by Wu Bingjian, and it can also be trusted. Therefore, the Americans immediately handed over their money transactions to the Goods and Banks Bank. Later, when other foreign merchants discovered the mystery, they also actively adopted it.

As a result, a large amount of foreigners' silver was deposited into the account of the Bank of Goods, and while Wu Bingjian lent a large amount of money, not only did not reduce the inventory of silver, but also kept it at a sufficient level, which was more than Zhou Lang's expectations, and capable people were always able to stand out.

Of course, the Bank of Goods and Money, not completely become a stand-in for the past thirteen banks, first of all, this is a modern bank, Zhou Lang invited the Dutch as a consultant, and the operation has always been very regular. As for the trade guarantee business developed by Wu Bingjian, it is actually one of the banking businesses, but the general bank guarantees funds, not the quality of goods.

In addition to developing its business, the Bank is also responsible for the management of the banking industry in Guangzhou.