One early morning in the early fifth year of the eighth year of the Apocalypse, the weather finally began to warm up, and countless peaches and plums began to sprout in the palace garden of the Forbidden City. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Because Queen Zhang Yan occasionally felt the cold, it was Yao Xuan's attendant who served Zhu Youxiao yesterday.

Yao Xuan's waiter's small jasper, gentle and charming, served Zhu Youxiao a few times a night in the spring breeze.

When he got up this morning, Zhu Youxiao still felt sleepy and tired, this time he did not choose to walk to the Xinuan Pavilion of Qianqing Palace, but chose to sit on the dragon chariot and sit on it to squint and rest.

When I arrived at the Xinuan Pavilion, it was already a warm spring day, and the sunlight came from the Taihe Hall and sprinkled at Zhu Youxiao's feet, Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but look back, and then asked Wang Chengen, the master of ceremonies: "Have all the people from the household department arrived?" ”

"Back to Your Majesty, it's all here", Wang Chengen, the celebrant of ceremonies, replied.

Although Wang Chengen was a little old because of his entry into the ceremonial supervisor, he did not see the slightest slackness when serving Zhu Youxiao, and as he spoke, he took Zhu Youxiao's hand into the Xinuan Pavilion, and personally shouted: "Your Majesty has arrived!" ”

Qian Qianyi, a member of the Cabinet University, Guo Yunhou, the secretary of the Ministry of Households, Li Mingrui, the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, Song Yingxing, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry and the judge of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Hu Shouchun, the head of the Ministry of Household and the president of the Royal Bank, hurriedly stood up and bowed to greet them.

Due to the fall of Wei Guangwei, Zhu Youxiao asked Qian Qianyi to temporarily manage the affairs of the cabinet, so the right to enter the Xinuan Pavilion this time became Qian Qianyi.

He was busy opening companies and banks, and he was also busy expanding the Praetorian Guard, so Zhu Youxiao still had no time to add new cabinet members.

But the hundred officials are obviously more concerned about this, and many imperial historians have taken the fold, persuading themselves to quickly add cabinet ministers, so as not to make the center empty for a long time.

Zhu Youxiao understood that this entry into the cabinet has always been the ideal of many civil officials, and the reason why some of the "deviant" major events that he was able to do during this period of time went so smoothly and smoothly was also due to the fact that many high-ranking civil officials were unwilling to disobey themselves because of these things, which caused the dissatisfaction of his own majesty the emperor and therefore failed to enter the cabinet.

In fact, Zhu Youxiao didn't think about preventing the important ministers from entering the cabinet, since the Xinuan Pavilion has been disguised to unify the power of the ceremonial supervisor and the cabinet, the cabinet's restrictions on Zhu Youxiao have become smaller and smaller, Zhu Youxiao doesn't mind taking a few ministers to envelop the hundred officials, but now the more important thing is not who to let into the cabinet, but how to control the economic lifeline of the Ming Dynasty more effectively.

How to make the monetary policy of the Ming Dynasty more perfect is undoubtedly one of the most urgent reform measures.

To this end, Zhu Youxiao gathered several officials in the financial system to discuss the issue of reforming the fiat currency.

The current monetary policy of the Ming Dynasty can be said to be very chaotic, whether it is treasure money or copper coins, because they are not linked to gold and silver, the credit continues to decline, and even the imperial court has been taxed in kind until Zhang Juzheng implemented a whip law and began to discount silver, but never rectified the destroyed financial order.

For example, how to deal with the large amount of copper coins and treasure money left in the people and even in circulation, when silver is expensive and cheap, will it become further exploitation of the common people, and will the hoarding of a large amount of hard currency such as silver and gold cause a decrease in the amount of money circulating in the market, so as to form an obstacle to economic development?

In the era of the small-scale peasant economy, these can be ignored, because neither the state nor the ordinary people's families are almost self-sufficient, and there may not be much commodity economic activity at all during the 360 days of the year, whether the currency is stable or unstable, it has no effect on them.

However, if Zhu Youxiao wants to break this stable small-scale peasant economic model, he must rectify the financial order, and he must also choose a general equivalent that can replace gold and silver, and let the state control the amount of gold and silver savings through this currency, so as to achieve control over the national economy

Zhu Youxiao planned to issue banknotes directly, but as soon as his idea was proposed, he was fiercely opposed by Guo Yunhou, the secretary of the household department, and Guo Yunhou did not fully understand Zhu Youxiao's concept after listening to Zhu Youxiao's words, but took it for granted that His Majesty was issuing treasure money in disguise, so as to achieve the purpose of collecting money

The issuance of treasure banknotes has always been regarded as a harmful move to the people, and Guo Yunhou, who manages the household department, is well aware of this, and Li Mingrui and Wang Chengen also euphemistically expressed their opposition, in their opinion, even if they send eunuchs to various places to collect taxes, it is better than issuing any banknotes and treasure money, after all, the former is to harm the interests of merchants, but the latter is the root of the people.

Zhu Youxiao understood their views, and also knew that the indiscriminate issuance of treasure money had reduced the people's credit to paper money to a very low level, and he did not dare to directly issue paper money at the risk of natural risks, but he felt that he could take a compromise approach and wanted to issue silver dollars that could replace copper coins and treasure money, and gradually make silver dollars the main legal tender of the Ming Dynasty.

Since Zhu Youxiao chose to compromise, Guo Yunhou and the others could no longer oppose it, and also chose to make concessions and agreed to cooperate with Zhu Youxiao to implement monetary reform.

With the support of the cabinet and the household department, there is no obstacle to this matter, the officials of the Six Branches and the imperial historians of the Metropolitan Procuratorate are now unable to pose a threat to Zhu Youxiao, and the dozens of heads of the Donglin Party who were killed are still deeply imprinted in the minds of the ministers, if anyone really makes a mistake in his brain, at this time to oppose Zhu Youxiao, in order to gain fame, then Zhu Youxiao does not mind physical and mental torture of him

According to Zhu Youxiao's will, this matter was jointly undertaken by the Ministry of Household and the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Ministry of Household first made a rough estimate of the amount of silver taels in circulation throughout the country, and then determined how many silver dollars to be produced, and through market research to determine the classification of silver dollar denominations and the exchange ratio with gold and silver, treasure banknotes, copper coins, etc.

This process is not simple, but fortunately, Zhu Youxiao is also half a financier after learning through the information provided by the system, and with the help of Ming financial talents with practical experience such as Hu Shouchun, these problems have also been solved.

The Royal Academy of Engineering, on the other hand, had to determine the ratio of silver to other metals in the silver dollar, and to mix the silver dollar with other metals, firstly, to make money by using the difference between the actual value of the silver dollar and silver, and secondly, to prevent others from counterfeiting.

Prior to this, private coinage was repeatedly prohibited, and Zhu Youxiao now wants to put an end to this kind of behavior that undermines the financial order by making silver dollars that are difficult to imitate.

In the end, Song Yingxing determined the metal proportion of silver, tin and copper elements in the silver dollar, of which each silver dollar contains six coins and five cents of pure silver, and the silver content is as high as more than 90 percent, which is basically not much different from pure silver, which is also easier to be accepted by the market.

Of course, the specific recipe and manufacturing method became top secret after being determined by Song Yingxing, and Zhu Youxiao even directly ordered that if there was the slightest leakage, the craftsmen responsible for making silver dollars would be executed once verified, including Song Yingxing.

(To be continued.) )