On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year of the 15th year of Taisheng, the Shengjing of the Chinese Empire was the headquarters of the Central Bank of the Chinese Empire.

Emperor Feng Yunshan, accompanied by Li Hongzhang, vice premier of the cabinet, Wu Chongyao and Zhou Shengkun, members of the cabinet, Yan Jingming, minister of finance and taxation, and Xu Youren, governor of the Imperial Central Bank, inspected the mint and the largest treasury of the central bank's headquarters.

Nowadays, only the central bank of the empire can issue the common currency of the Chinese Empire, the holy coin, and the central bank has a total of three mints, one here at the headquarters of Shengjing, and the other two branches in other places, namely the Shanghai branch and the Guangzhou branch of the central bank, and among them, the mint mints of metal coins and printed banknotes are the largest mint in Shanghai.

According to Xu Youren, governor of the Imperial Central Bank, Feng Yunshan learned that the scale of the holy coins issued by the central bank and the scale of the annual release to the market are subject to relatively strict control. Because people in the world are based on the thinking of gold and silver, they believe that in addition to metal currency gold, silver and copper coins, the issuance of paper money must depend on the amount of gold and silver in the vault, and must not be issued indiscriminately, resulting in currency depreciation and inflation. This was undoubtedly the right choice at a time when the Chinese Empire had just been established and the economy was still unstable.

"Your Majesty, our central bank put a total of 1.7 billion saint dollars into the market last year. Combined with the amount of holy coins released over the years, the circulation of holy coins in the entire market should be estimated to be around 8.9 billion holy dollars. However, there is still a huge shortage of money, so Wechen suggests issuing more currency to increase circulation. Xu Youren reported.

Feng Yunshan knew that the channels for the central bank to put holy coins in the current two major parts, one was the wealth of precious metals such as gold and silver earned from the surplus in foreign trade, and the other was the imperial bonds issued by the Ministry of Finance and Taxation. And both of these are actually inseparable from the empire's growing economic aggregate, that is, the total GDP growth. Only when the precious metals and other currencies earned from foreign countries enter the internal circulation of the empire, or the imperial bonds issued by the Ministry of Finance and Taxation are sold and exchanged, the central bank will issue holy coins and put them into the four major state-owned commercial banks, and then lend them to the demanders through mutual lending between the state-owned commercial banks and private commercial banks, and gradually put them on the market.

Seeing that the emperor was thinking, Yan Jingming, Minister of Finance and Taxation, who had been in charge of finance, and Zhou Shengkun, a member of the cabinet, reported at the same time: "Your Majesty, according to the preliminary estimate of the Ministry of Finance and Taxation, the total tradable wealth of the empire at the end of last year should have reached more than 24 billion holy yuan, and according to the current level of currency circulation, the theoretical circulation of holy coins should be more than 120-15 billion holy yuan. At present, there is only 8.9 billion syrup, and the gap is very huge, and even the loans for infrastructure and railway construction in some areas cannot be satisfied, and the construction is slow, and some transactions in remote areas are carried out with informal credit guarantees such as white slips from the local government, which has a very negative impact on economic development.

Moreover, with the development of the economy and the development of transportation, as well as the circulation of industry and commerce and the popularization of infrastructure, the figure of the total amount of money in circulation is still increasing at a rate of 30% per year, that is to say, the money supply gap in our market last year was still about 5 billion holy dollars, and by the end of this year, if the current method and volume of currency issuance are still used, the currency gap will reach 7.5 billion billion holy dollars.

Your Majesty, with the suggestion of Wei Chen and others, it is time to change and abandon the holy currency system of the gold and silver standard. ”

Feng Yunshan nodded, and said to Wu Chongyao: "Wu Aiqing, what do you think of the financial information of Western countries that I asked you to collect?" ”

Wu Chongyao thought for a moment and reported: "Your Majesty, Weichen generally agrees with the opinions of Commissioner Zhou and Minister Yan, however, according to the current stage of development, the gold standard still cannot be abandoned, and only when the empire basically controls most of the world's gold in its hands, can it be changed to the imperial court credit paper money system proposed by His Majesty."

At present, the major European powers, such as Britain, France, Austria, Germany, and Italy, basically implement the gold standard monetary system, while our Chinese Empire and the United States, Mexico, and other countries in the Americas still have a gold and silver double standard system. In fact, in recent years, the three major trading companies of the East, South and West have tried their best to settle in gold when settling foreign trade, but there is still a lot of silver flowing into the empire, and once the silver standard is abandoned, the empire will suffer certain losses. This loss is mainly caused by the difference between the value of silver itself and the value of silver as a currency, fortunately, the current value of silver is not much lower than the value of silver, but once the monetary properties of silver are abandoned, the value of silver will definitely fall. But in any case, silver is always silver, in the eyes of our Chinese people, even as jewelry, it is extremely popular, and the price will not be very low, this loss is acceptable.

Therefore, Wechen suggested that the empire should first suffer a little loss, and the empire would change the current gold and silver dual-standard monetary system to a single gold standard monetary system, and when the time was right, the gold standard system would be changed to the monetary system of the imperial court's credit banknotes, and at that time, as long as the people and foreigners accepted the credit of the imperial court and accepted the form of holy money, we could not only solve the problem of money shortage, but also grab the wealth of all countries in the world through the issuance of holy coins. ”

Feng Yunshan said appreciatively: "What Wu Aiqing said is deeply in line with my meaning! I thought that this was the case, and that the imperial court credit banknote system must also be carried out on the basis of the gold standard, that is, the gold reserves in the treasury. I have thought about it, first through the gold standard system to absorb a lot of the world's gold, even if I suffer some losses, I will have to hoard gold at any cost. When the empire's gold reserves reach more than half of the world's total reserves, or even more than 60 percent, the national credit paper money system will be implemented in the form of all the gold stored in the imperial treasury as a reserve and physical gold as a reserve on the basis of the gold standard system. When the time came, when those Western countries followed suit, their coffers no longer had much gold reserves, and they had to be drawn by the paper money issued by the empire.

I thought about it, this is a financial reform, and at the same time a war. The end result must be achieved, and the Imperial Sacred Currency will completely replace the British pound and strengthen the British Pound as the world's most common currency, equivalent to physical gold.

By the way, Li Aiqing, Wu Aiqing, do you know how much gold reserves the Western powers have? ”

Li Hongzhang hurriedly reported: "Your Majesty, after more than ten years of guidance and development of the empire, now the empire not only ranks first in the world in terms of annual gold output, but also keeps catching up with Britain in gold reserves.

According to estimates by the Ministry of Finance and Taxation, the total amount of official gold reserves so far is about a quarter to one-fifth of the world's total gold savings, that is, about 4,500 tons, of which the United Kingdom accounts for nearly half, about 2,100 tons. But now, after a series of expansions, the Chinese Empire has collected the seizures of the imperial people, especially the Manchus, Japan, Nanyang and India, plus the mining in the territory of the empire, a total of about 1,320 tons of gold.

Moreover, more than 100 tons of gold from the London gold exchange market flow into the empire every year through trade and other means, and in addition, as of this year, nearly 200 tons of gold can be mined every year in the entire Chinese empire, that is, one drop and one rise, as long as two years of work, the gold reserves of the Chinese empire can surpass that of the United Kingdom. In four or five years, the empire's gold reserves will account for half or even more than 60% of the world's official gold reserves. ”

Feng Yunshan nodded: "In this case, we will implement the gold purchase plan as soon as possible, make every effort to promote the early victory of the financial war, and lay a thousand-year-old foundation for the empire!" ”（）