Yue Wangfu. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Cheng Qian came to the door with a smile on his face, and as soon as he entered the door, he gave Li Chao a box.

"What is this?"

"It's the money that His Majesty paid back to the Taishi."

When I opened the box, it was full of stacks of golden coupons. The gold ticket is brand new and smells of ink.

"Taishi, there are eight million in total, and there are many boxes in the back. The money borrowed from the Taishi before, plus the special reward from His Majesty, is here. ”

It is all a large amount of gold coupons, one hundred yuan, one stack of 100 pieces of ten yuan, and one box is a thousand stacks of 10,000 yuan. Eight million pieces, a full 800 boxes.

This is still paper money, if it is exchanged for copper coins, it will have to be piled up in the courtyard of the Li family.

Li Shimin was indeed generous, not only repaying the millions he owed before, but even rewarding him with a large sum of money. However, looking at these banknotes, especially the new banknotes, Li Chao couldn't help frowning slightly.

The emperor wouldn't have just turned on the money printing press and printed eight million guan for himself, right?

"Does the imperial court have so much money now?" Li Chao asked.

Cheng Qian smiled, "Father said that when the prince saw this money, he would definitely be worried that it was printed indiscriminately. His Majesty told the Taishi not to worry, the money can be cashed out in the bank at any time. Although there are many places where the imperial court uses money, there is no shortage of money now. ”

As soon as he said this, Li Chao immediately remembered that the imperial court was indeed rich now. In the last turmoil, the imperial court suffered great losses, mobilized so many troops, and spent a lot of money, and rewarded a lot afterwards. But the emperor thundered afterwards and took the opportunity to purge countless nobles, bureaucrats, clans, big landlords and businessmen, and he really washed it to the end, killing people and exiled them to their homes.

The confiscated property is quite amazing, and those properties are equivalent to the annual financial income of the imperial court for more than ten years after disposal. It is with this money that the emperor can repay Li Chao so arrogantly.

"However, most of the property confiscated last time was land, shops, mansions, and workshops, and there was not much cash." Li Chaodao.

"But there are also a lot of them, and shops, houses, fields, and workshops are also on sale."

"Then I'll take the money."

Li Chao made up his mind, and when he turned around, he asked the housekeeper to take the eight million gold coupons, but he bought the criminals' family property sold by the imperial court, shops, mansions, manors, workshops, slaves, what to buy, anyway, Li Chao didn't believe in this banknote.

That's too much, eight million.

Speaking of which, Datang's current paper money circulation is very prosperous.

Li Chao made a good start, especially after strictly controlling the issuance of banknotes and ensuring the credit of Li Ji's treasure banknotes, the people accepted the treasure banknotes, after all, the use of treasure banknotes is so convenient.

Li Jibao banknotes have high anti-counterfeiting performance, and they are easy to use, which is just like the mobile phone payment in later generations, which is too convenient and everyone is willing to use it.

After the imperial court set up a bank, began to do deposit and loan business, and issued banknotes and gold bills, it was far inferior to Li Ji's treasure banknotes at first. But after all, it is also paper money, and it is issued by the imperial court, and in the case that paper money has been accepted by everyone, the promotion of gold coupons is very fast.

In particular, it was more convenient for the imperial court to implement gold coupons than Li Ji, and after they printed the gold coupons, they directly issued them to the officials, paid salaries to the soldiers, and even used the gold coupons when the government and the court procured. Although only some of the money is distributed and salaries and purchases are replaced by gold coupons, they are also quite large.

Fortunately, Li Shimin still listened to Li Chao's suggestion, and he didn't do it, but he couldn't get in or out.

Now that the new two-tax law is implemented, the summer tax is levied, and the people can pay both money and money. The government does not refuse to pay taxes in banknotes, and there is no discount for these. Because of this, people are now very fond of banknotes, and it is convenient to buy and sell transactions, and it is also convenient to pay taxes.

Nowadays, the central bank entrusts Li Kee's banknote printing factory to print gold coupons, and then distribute the salaries and government procurement, and the gold coupons are circulated in the market, and finally collected in the form of taxes.

It's a healthy model.

However, Li Chao has always been more worried about the discipline of the emperor and the court, in case the emperor is short of money, he will stick to his bottom line and not overissue banknotes? Li Chao thinks this is difficult, maybe Li Shimin has a farther vision and will not mess around, but who will say what will happen in the future.

They are no better than Li Ji, Li Ji does not dare to mess around, there is the court to supervise, but who will supervise the court.

Fortunately, this purge of the imperial court made a windfall, and Li Shimin's treasury is now full, so he doesn't have to worry about these for the time being.

But Li Chao still didn't plan to keep these gold coupons, and the gold coupons themselves were not worth anything, so it was more cost-effective to buy those physical properties of the imperial court, even if he bought some mines, he was not afraid to smash them.

Cheng Qian was amazed by the golden coupons.

"The gold coupon is really a good thing, now the imperial court prints and distributes the gold coupons, the copper coins and gold and silver are stored in the Zuozang Treasury, and it is much more convenient to pay the salary at ordinary times, and the local summer tax is directly charged into Beijing, which also greatly saves the trouble of transportation."

Li Chao smiled and nodded.

In the past, due to the lack of copper, the Datang Dynasty had a shortage of money, and it could only be used for money and silk, and even cloth and grain also served as physical currency, which was of course a great obstacle to the commodity economy. And today's paper money, although it is not a direct credit currency, but at least it is slowly changing the problem of money shortage.

After all, Datang's real economy problem is still very high, and in the past, it was just a lack of sufficient money to match this economic aggregate, so there were various problems caused by money shortages.

The issuance of money and salaries, government procurement, and the collection of taxes and taxes by the imperial court are a huge boost for the entire economy.

In particular, the people's use of money to pay taxes is a huge progress. In the past, it was very troublesome for the people to pay in kind. Because the people in various places grow different things, there are millet and wheat and rice, so there must be different collection standards. In addition, when all kinds of grain are collected, it is also troublesome, and the people have to transport their own grain to the government to pay, and when the government collects grain, it will inevitably increase a lot of fire consumption in vain, and eventually increase the burden on the people.

But now it's different, the people just take the money directly to the government to pay taxes, the tax rate is clearly publicized, and the conversion of grain money has already been announced, and it is good to pay according to the number of announcements, and there is no need to worry about how much food is collected by the government officials when it is dry and wet.

In the past, there was no imperial court for the official servants, and even the local officials did not have a direct salary to take, and the officials relied on the office field and the public office field to do the money and office expenses. As for the servants, they are mostly a kind of service, they are servants, and they have no money.

It is precisely because of this system that it leads to local corruption, because they also have to survive, the court does not care, and they have the power in their hands, of course, they take it themselves.

And now, the imperial court has officially incorporated the officials into the civil service system, and they have a salary. Their salaries are paid by the local government. Local officials were paid directly from the imperial treasury.

Nowadays, the imperial court collects taxes, and the local taxes are no longer all escorted to Beijing, and then transferred by the central government to the localities, but a new system of one-third staying in the state, one-third paying the road, and one-third going to the central government. This system guarantees that the localities also have financial power, that the localities can support the officials, and that the localities will no longer levy additional fees and reduce the burden on the people.

Of course, some taxes are completely paid to the imperial court, such as customs duties and various monopoly taxes. The taxes that can be distributed locally are mainly the local tax and household tax of the two taxes, as well as some industrial and commercial taxes.

This set actually has the meaning of imitating the division of national and local taxes in later generations, and it was Li Chao who first proposed it.

"The next step for the imperial court is to completely stop collecting taxes in kind."

Li Chao said that now the imperial court collects money in summer and collects things in autumn. However, it is still more troublesome to expropriate in kind, because it consumes a lot of manpower, and second, it is easy to disturb the people and corruption.

"The imperial court does not levy goods, so how can we ensure the bad grain?"

There are still a lot of people in the Tang Dynasty who eat official meals, and this part of the people in the imperial court has to issue rations, including officials, officials, army soldiers and court personnel, etc., the number is still very large, even if the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty do not need to be paid by the imperial court, but now the standing army of the forbidden army has reached 80,000 horses.

There are a lot of 80,000 standing troops alone, not to mention that there are also permanent troops on the frontier, which are guarded by the government soldiers and the forbidden army in turn, and these soldiers guarding the border also have to be provided by the imperial court. And in the event of a war, more food is needed.

Even the officials had to distribute silk cloth and other physical goods in addition to food.

In the past, these were taken out by the imperial court from the physical objects expropriated by the local government. Now Li Chao said that the imperial court will completely cancel the expropriation of physical goods in the future, so how can these come about.

"A market economy." Li Chao said with a smile, "The imperial court collects taxes and pays money, and you can purchase it directly after collecting the money." Buy what you need, buy food when you need it, and send notices to grain merchants to bid for it. Wouldn't it be nice for the merchants with the lowest price to win the bid, and then they themselves would transport the grain to the place designated by the imperial court? ”

"But, but food is a very important thing." The prince wanted to refute, but he couldn't find any good reason.

Li Chao said with a smile, "Grain is indeed a strategic material of the country, so we must strengthen supervision, such as setting a good price for grain protection, so as not to let grain merchants join hands to suppress grain prices and harm farmers." At the same time, the imperial court could also set a maximum price to prevent grain merchants from raising prices to the detriment of the people who bought in the towns. ”

"Of course, for such an important material as grain, the imperial court's standing position should also play a greater role, and the grain should be purchased and stored at a parity price every year. The imperial court should set up large-scale grain warehouses throughout the country, especially in some important transportation areas, to reserve grain, and formulate a complete set of procedures for the transfer and distribution of grain reserves in times of war and famine, so that all localities can store grain in peacetime, and once war or famine occurs, local warehouses do not need to report and review at various levels, and can directly transfer and distribute grain according to the predetermined process. ”

At the end of the Sui Dynasty, a lot of grain was stored in the granaries of the imperial court, but there was no grain, and as a result, the hungry people were everywhere, and even the grain in some warehouses was still old when the Tang Dynasty Zhenguan.

This is the irrationality of the food system.

The Sui Dynasty levied grain every year, and part of the collected grain was transported to the capital, and the rest was concentrated in several large granaries on both sides of the canal. This approach is not good.

The court does have grain in its hands, but the place is empty, the people have no grain in their hands, the local prefectures and counties have no food, and the people's righteous warehouses don't have food for long. As a result, once a disaster is discovered, the local food is insufficient, and those large warehouses have to report to the imperial court layer by layer, and finally miss the best opportunity for disaster relief.

Li Chao hoped that the imperial court would have a new set of grain collection and reserve mechanisms.