Chapter 775: An Eventful Autumn (II)

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Outside the silent signing room, two trees were planted, one was a persimmon tree and the other was also a persimmon tree. It was almost late autumn, and the leaves on the branches were gone, and they were full of fiery red persimmons like small lanterns, which was very beautiful.

Sitting in front of the bright window with the Hunan curtain straightened, Zhang Juzheng talked eloquently. The 'one whip' method he referred to was to compile all the land endowments, levies, and all kinds of miscellaneous errands and tributes in a state and county into one piece, which was converted into two pieces of silver and paid, and was dismissed by the official. It is called 'a weave', because the weave has the same sound as the whip, so it was later called 'a whip'.

Before the advent of a whip law, the peasants' burden on the imperial court was mainly divided into four parts, one was the field tax on the land, and the other was that the special production areas had to pay tribute to the imperial court...... For example, Hangzhou wants tribute tea, Huzhou wants tribute silk, Yunnan wants tribute wood, and so on...... The third is that the strong men have to serve in the conscription, and the fourth is that in addition to the main service, there are all kinds of additional miscellaneous errands.

This tax system is extremely unreasonable. First of all, the peasants, because the payment of field tax is in kind of grain and wheat, therefore, during the summer and autumn tax payment period of each year, the tax is first collected by each guarantee and sent to the township by car and boat, and then from the township and county, from the county and the government, and by the government to transport the various political envoys, during which they do not know how much transportation capacity will be consumed, and they do not know how much burden the grain households have increased due to the loss along the way, and at the same time, they also have to bear heavy labor. and firmly bound to the land, so that society lacks free labor.

As a result, the peasants were in untold misery, struggling to bankruptcy, fleeing in large numbers, and the country suffered huge losses because of the exploitation of corrupt officials and corrupt officials. In particular, there is a lack of disposable money, and it has been unable to extricate itself from the economic crisis for a long time.

Reform is imperative and has long been the consensus of people of insight. In fact, before the whip law, since the late Hongwu period, in the past 150 years, there have been a series of enslavement reforms in this dynasty, such as the 'Uniform Punishment Law', 'Uniform Silver', 'Gangyin', 'Levy One Law', 'Ten Duanjin Method', 'A String of Bell Method', etc., which were proposed and implemented by different people at different times and in different places.

However, regardless of the name, they regarded 'taxation into silver' as the most important part of the reform, and implemented the principle of 'unity of taxation and unified depreciation of silver', in other words, 'taxation of silver', has become an enduring cry, and it has not faded with time, but has become louder and louder. Because it has changed the traditional method of paying taxes in kind and serving in kind in previous dynasties, it not only reduces the burden on the people, but also helps the court to increase its income, and benefits the country and the people, and no one can arbitrarily erase it.

And a whip law, which is the culmination of many previous reforms, was first proposed by Gui Cao, a cabinet scholar in the ninth year of Jiajing, who conceived that "all the bad silver, regardless of whether there is a service or not, and collect it with the field." Immediately afterwards, the Tuntian Imperial Shi Fu Hanchen officially dismissed Chen: "A whip law is carried out, and the ten jia Ding grain is always in one mile, and the grain in each li is in one county, and the state and county are always in the government, and the government is always in the political department, and the general is a province of Ding grain, and one Shu is served." At that time, the first emperor approved that it should be piloted in more than ten prefectures in Nanzhili, Huguang, Shanxi and other provinces. For nearly 50 years since then, due to the viciousness of the Jiajing Dynasty and the obstruction of opponents, the implementation of this law has been intermittent, and in the last years of Jiajing, there is a danger that it will die down.

But the situation changed after a person stepped onto the stage of power, this person is Gao Gong, although Gao Suqing has a lot of problems, but he is a very pure reformer, and he spares no effort to support a whip law, so from the day he entered the cabinet, Gao Gong began to speak out, demanding that this law be implemented throughout the country.

But the power was still in the hands of Xu Jie, the first assistant of the cabinet, and Xu Jie's view of a whip law was diametrically opposed to Gao Gong's, and he believed that this law was not advisable. As a result, the peasants, who do not cover their bodies and work hard all year round, suffer alone. And because the new law only judged the amount of land in the new law, many of them gave up their land to avoid servitude. Moreover, a whip method, regardless of the warehouse, does not open the number of stones, only a certain amount of silver per mu, resulting in the cause of the secretary to be treacherous, increase or decrease the sprinkling faction, and there are many drawbacks. Again, the reasons for his opposition were so good that Gao Gong could not convince him.

But Gao Gong's call, just like a stone stirred up a thousand waves, many local officials have gone up to the book to echo, there are Gao Gong for their reason, even if it is Xu Jie, can not turn a blind eye, can only agree to Jiangxi political envoy Song Yiwang, Guangdong Governor Pang Shangpeng, respectively in Jiangxi and Guangdong, the number of government implementation, speaking of which, it has only been a few months.

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Zhang Juzheng's sense was extremely keen, and he realized that the implementation of a whip law, while 'monetizing taxes', would inevitably be accompanied by a good opportunity for monetary reform - as long as a certain currency can be used to pay taxes, the legitimacy of this currency will be quickly established, and if the Ming treasure banknote is to be reformed, this is a golden opportunity.

It was not negotiated, but first negotiated. Zhang Juzheng's reform of treasure money gave people strong confidence as soon as it came up...... He believed that in order to make the people have confidence in the treasure banknotes, and then make the whole society generally accept and circulate, the best way is for the imperial court to stipulate that all taxes must be paid with treasure money. If you use silver, you have to buy money first, and then use it to pay taxes. He believes that if the government takes the lead in collecting the money, the people's confidence in the treasure money will be built in less than a year.

Of course, the treasure money he was referring to was a product of the so-called 'currency reform', and it is more appropriate to call it the 'new treasure banknote'.

It should be said that Zhang Juzheng's plan is of a very high level, first of all, he pertinently summed up the failed experience of the past dynasties and contemporary banknotes, and came to the basic principle of 'seeking no burden on the people first, and then seeking benefits for the country', so that he would not fall into the likes of Sang Hongyang and Wang Mang who compete with the people for profit.

Then, on the reform of the Ming treasure banknote, he put forward three specific principles:

First, the status of the newly issued treasure money should only be used to 'supplement the money', not to 'give up the silver money and follow the money'. After the issuance of the new treasure banknotes, the silver coins were not withdrawn from circulation, but circulated at the same time as the treasure banknotes at a certain value ratio.

Second, treasure banknotes should be issued by, and can only be issued by households, and should be issued in a limited manner. Otherwise, there is no fixed number of banknotes, it will be endless, and it seems to be a big profit, but I don't know that the more it is, the cheaper it is.

Third, the banknotes must be cashable and officially acceptable. Specifically, in addition to allowing the people to pay for money and grain with banknotes, they are also allowed to exchange cash with banknotes to the ticket number...... Of course, the imperial court would pay a certain fee to the ticket number as compensation; Shops are allowed to exchange money for silver; Pawn shop money is allowed to enter and exit with treasure money......

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Shen Mo held the teacup and sipped lightly before the Ming Dynasty, which was shipped from Hangzhou, he had a habit of always resting his hand on the edge of the teacup when he had more important meetings with people. In this way, when the other party's topic is more complicated, you can take a sip of the teacup before you speak, so that in addition to moistening your throat and keeping your voice soft, you can also create opportunities for yourself to think.

Now, Zhang Juzheng is presenting the plan of currency reform to himself and Panpan. Obviously, his aim was to construct a monetary system with the household as the absolute leader and widely recognized by all levels of society. Zhang Juzheng has realized that currency cannot be issued indiscriminately, must be convertible, and must have a certain degree of credit, and it should be said that he already has the basic elements for establishing a monetary system.

And what is even more rare is that he is also soberly aware that the infamous Daming treasure banknotes that have been implemented for nearly 200 years have made the people lose their trust in the imperial court. In addition, the government itself is corrupt and inefficient, and cannot win the trust of the people. However, the money bank ticket number has a high credit among the people, so he came up with the idea of using the credibility and institution of the ticket number to implement monetary reform.

Silent even thought of a villain, if it weren't for the power of the ticket number, I'm afraid Zhang Juzheng wouldn't have come to discuss with him, and he would have finalized the matter by himself.

But since he came to talk to himself, there was a chance...... Persuade him to dispel this thought.

Yes, the silence is not in favor of such a monetary reform.

Everyone is shouting for reform, as if reform is the trend of the times, but how many people can understand what this 16th-century China needs? What is not needed? If you don't understand this problem, what you do will be half the result or even counterproductive.

To put it mildly, there is no one who really understands everything, including himself, and even more so Zhang Juzheng. Social reform is a systems engineering project involving a wide range of issues, and the supercomputer of the 21 st century cannot be regarded as an exhaustive solution.

At such times, the knowledge that Shen Mo brought from five hundred years later is invaluable. Although he didn't do anything practical in the past two years, he also gained a lot of time to recall the knowledge he had learned in his previous life, and then apply it to reality, carefully thinking about the politics, economy, military, ideology, culture, and other aspects of the Ming Dynasty.

For example, Zhang Juzheng's views on this currency reform are already extraordinary, but he is still limited by his own official position, knowledge, vision, etc., which is not in line with the general trend, and will even hinder the development of history.

Silent view is that from the government's point of view, this reform will bring about many benefits, such as an increase in fiscal revenue, an increase in the ability to regulate and control the economy, and so on. But from a national and historical point of view, this reform is actually unnecessary, or redundant.

He has good reason to support his judgment:

First, what kind of reforms are meaningful? It is necessary to carry out reforms that are necessary to address the problems that cannot be adjusted by society itself. So is the treasure money really to the point where it has to be changed? From its own point of view, as well as from the point of view of the household, the treasure money that is so rotten that it is too hard to wipe the butt, of course.

But what about society as a whole? It doesn't seem to be the case. Throughout Chinese and foreign history, it is because of the lack of sufficient hard currency in social circulation that paper money will appear as a supplement or even a substitute.

Why did banknotes first appear in China? From the Tang Dynasty, to the Song, Yuan, and Jin, there are various forms of paper money? It is not that the Chinese have advanced financial ideas, but that China has never been the source of precious metals such as gold, silver and copper, and when the social and economic development reaches a certain level, the precious metals representing value are seriously scarce and have to be supplemented with paper money.

After the founding of the country, the dynasty faced a 'money shortage' that was extremely scarce of precious metals for a long time and could not meet the needs of social production and exchange, resulting in a serious deflation and a serious hindrance to the development of the commodity economy. If the situation remains unchanged, then monetary reform is imperative, and silence will help him implement a reliable monetary system at any cost.

But the current situation is that with the advent of the Age of Discovery, the development of South America, and the discovery of silver mines in Japan, the world's silver stocks are extremely abundant, although none of this silver belongs to China. However, in foreign trade, China is in an incomparable advantageous position, and a large amount of silver has begun to flow into China through a trade surplus.

As the initiator of the foreign trade of this dynasty and the founder of the city shipping division, Shen Mo has the most authoritative data in his hands to prove his point - in the 44th year of Jiajing alone, through normal trade, the silver imported from Malacca to Macao reached 14 million taels, which is about twice the total output of China's official silver mines during the 30-year heyday of the Ming Dynasty from the first year of Yongle to the ninth year of Xuande. And that's not even counting the silver that flows into China from Japan, and the more silver that arrives in the Spice Islands from the Americas and then into China.

Moreover, the flow of silver into China is not only a way of trade, because there is a large difference in the price of gold and silver in China, Japan and Europe, and the price of gold and silver in China is between 1:5 and 1:7; In Japan, the ratio of gold and silver is between 1 to 12 to 1 to 13; In Europe, it is between 1:10 and 1:15, and as long as silver from Japan and the Americas is imported into China to exchange for gold, the profit can be more than doubled. Of course, only a few giant merchants are qualified to play this kind of high-end game, such as Wang Zhi, such as the Governor of Portugal...... For example, the Shen family.

All in all, in the case of a large influx of silver into China and sufficient national money supply, it is the right thing to actively promote the establishment of the silver standard.

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Since society can digest the contradictions through self-regulation, there is no need for further reform. If reform is necessary at this time, it will only increase the burden on the imperial court, add trouble to the society, and create opportunities for corrupt officials to enrich their own pockets.

"And even if you can resist the urge and not go overboard? And how can you ensure that your successor will not be sparing? When the time comes, your kindness will become an accomplice to the plunderers of the people's wealth" When Shen Mo told Zhang Juzheng his views in depth, he saw this deep and introverted young reformer, and his face was obviously a little pale.

Silence, long silence, one is thinking, the other is thinking.

After a long time, Zhang Juzheng woke up from his contemplation and picked up the teacup, but found that it was already empty, so he went to get the teapot silently and found that it was also empty.

Not wanting people to come in and interrupt his thoughts, Zhang Juzheng stopped Shen Mo from calling people, looked at him with a terrible gaze and said, "In terms of currency, I admit that you are my teacher." ”

"Don't dare to be." Shen Moxin said, your expression is like you are going to eat my teacher.

"But you dare to say that you are thinking from the standpoint of the people of the world, not for some people?" At this moment, Zhang Juzheng is like a sword out of its sheath, and the cold light is pressing, scaring the little dog's guts.

Shen Mo still looked at him without waves, and said lightly: "Lingtai has no plan to escape from the gods, and the wind and rain are like a dark homeland." Sending cold stars to Quan without noticing, I recommend Xuanyuan with my blood. "The ghosts and gods tricked me to my hometown five hundred years ago, even if no one knows, no one understands, for that faint hope, I am willing to sacrifice my flesh and blood to a suffering mother......

Zhang Juzheng didn't understand what kind of belief and sorrow was hidden behind this poem, but he could hear that this was silent Mingzhi, so he said in a deep voice: "Then please tell me honestly, since there is no need to make money, then why do you want to let Huilian issue silver bills in the southeast?" ”

"It's not paper money, it's a bank note that can be exchanged for cash at any time." Shen Mo was not surprised that he knew such a secret, so he naturally guessed that he would have such a question.

"Just another way to put it, huh?" Zhang Juzheng's Danfeng eyes narrowed, and the cold light flashed.

"It's too different." Shen Mo was still not in a hurry and said: "From the point of view of issuance, if Huilian wants to issue a certain amount of bank bills, it must first receive a sum of gold and silver of the same amount, which is kept in the treasury of Huilian, and people can exchange it at any time. As soon as the bill number pays for the gold and silver, the same amount of bank notes will be destroyed immediately to keep the number of bank notes in circulation equal to the amount of gold and silver in stock. Speaking of this, he turned his head to Rishenglong and said: "So, even if there is a run on Rishenglong, Huilian is not worried, and it is a big deal to take back all the bank bills and return the gold and silver to everyone." ”

"This is again the difference between bank notes and paper money, paper money is required to be recognized throughout the country, but bank notes are only accepted by the issued ticket number. The silver ticket of the Conjunction is not recognized by Sunrise and vice versa. "Looking at Zhang Juzheng with a silent smile, you have the foresight of a genius, I have more than five hundred years of your knowledge, let's see who can say whom-

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