Chapter 120: Currency Wars
When the party wishing to control put forward their reasons, they felt that such things that were extremely harmful to the state should be brought under the control of the imperial court, if not banned.
So they were proud that in their imagination, when they would give their reasons, the opposition, as long as they remained loyal to the court, should immediately abandon their opinions and join their ranks.
But they think too simply, the opposition has its own vested interests in opposition, because the source of the officials' gold coins is because of the money in kind. So these gold coins are actually cheaper than exchanging copper coins, and even cheaper than the benchmark exchange is one dollar than usual.
Therefore, when exchanging gold coins in the money bank, some officials are actually quietly exchanging gold coins, and they are slightly cheaper than the money bank's one to one thousand and fifty, about one to one thousand and one thousand and one hundred and fifty. But even so, it's also very profitable.
However, these opponents are not simply for their own vested interests, they also have a great reason, that is, how can the imperial court win this "war" by paying the least price?
For this matter, it must not be treated in a simple and crude form, first of all, this is inconsistent with the consistent image of Huai Rou in the Song Dynasty, and it is also easy to be criticized by outside literati.
Although the literati also looked down on the merchants, the literati did not rely on the merchants, and not every literati was able to turn over and become the landlord ruling class in one fell swoop.
Although more people have some talents, they do not have the strength to pass the imperial examination, but these people also have to eat, but not everyone among these people can live by relying on family support.
Therefore, many of them need to rely on businessmen, and earn pen fees by carrying a plaque to the shop, writing a gift and other activities, or they are really knocked down and enter the business bank to become a bookkeeper, or they also make a western seat for these large merchants.
As a result, the literati look down on businessmen, but they can't do without and don't want to offend businessmen easily, and it is even possible to stand up and shout for businessmen as a last resort.
This also caused the imperial court to use a simple and crude way to solve this matter is definitely not possible, and this matter also involves the Chamber of Commerce, most of the tax revenue of the imperial court today comes from the members of the Chamber of Commerce, and these members also uphold the purpose of the Chamber of Commerce, that is, Energizer does not hide its own property, so as not to evade taxes.
The increase in the income of the imperial court in recent years has to be said to have made a great contribution to the Chamber of Commerce. Therefore, the imperial court will not easily move this chamber of commerce.
Since simplicity and rudeness have been denied, what else can the imperial court do? By the Law? That's all right, but the opposition has also said, how can these things be restricted by law?
Gold and bronze tickets are not allowed? If it was the early stage of the emergence of these things, this might be able to quickly and effectively curb the development of the bank, but now that people have a certain scale, you are doing it.
It can only lead to the imperial court still being controlled by the money bank, because if it is so stipulated, it will inevitably set off a wave of anti-exchange frenzy.
But at that time, the money bank that holds a large number of legal copper coins will become a complete master, because if the money bank does not exchange copper coins, the gold coins are fine, and the big deal is to melt them into jewelry and then go to the pawnshop. But there are also a lot of losses to be lost in this way.
If it is a bronze ticket, once the money dealer does not recognize it, it is a piece of waste paper. Or at this time, the money bank does this, admitting it or recognizing it, but it is not a full exchange.
In this way, who should bear the damage of the people? Themselves? I am afraid that this will lead to another popular uprising. The money bank itself? I'm afraid that people can completely shift the blame to the imperial court. Therefore, the imperial court will definitely become the candidate to take the blame.
If the imperial court takes the blame, it will inevitably do something to the people, and I am afraid that the price paid by the imperial court at that time will not be small.
So in this way, it is not possible to prohibit it by law.
Finally, there is a way, that is, the court comes forward to buy all the copper tickets and gold coins with a large number of copper coins, which may have the least incentive for the people, because although there are no convenient copper tickets and gold coins to maintain their value, at least so far the people have not lost anything.
When the time comes, it will be over to exchange copper coins in the money bank through these copper tickets.
However, there are two risks in doing so, one is that the imperial court will inevitably pay a large amount of government revenue, and there may be some losses in the middle.
There is also a risk that you may not be able to exchange copper coins in the bank.
What's more, judging from the total amount of gold coins and copper tickets circulating in the market today, it is impossible for the imperial court to come up with such a huge amount of copper coins in a short period of time, and if it is newly minted, it may have the opposite effect.
So when the opposition threw out the reasons for their views, the control faction itself was a little shaken, because what the opposition actually said is also very reasonable, that is, how to solve it as smoothly as possible is also a huge problem.
What is placed in front of Zhenzong Zhao Heng is a huge and difficult choice, whether to pay a huge price to solve this matter, or let it develop, but there may be greater harm.
But at the same time, Qian Zhuang is also discussing what to do next.
Because although Zhao Weiji is not here on the Qian Zhuang side, the whole script is still proceeding step by step according to Zhao Weiji's original arrangement.
In recent years, although Zhao Weiji is not in the Central Plains, but the development of pigeons has not been stagnant, at this time the power of pigeons has even penetrated into the palace, although it is not yet possible to influence the political situation, but to get first-hand news in the court can still do.
Therefore, when Zhenzong Zhao Heng proposed the matter of Qianzhuang at the court meeting and asked the ministers of the court and the central government to discuss, the main treasurers of Qianzhuang who got the news also began to hold a meeting.
Naturally, the person presiding over the meeting is Feng Yun, the actual controller of the entire Qianzhuang in the Central Plains, as the biggest talent who graduated from business in Xinhua City, he naturally has to do this kind of thing when he returns to the Central Plains to open the Qianzhuang.
However, even after graduating from business, the original business department of Tsinghua Academy still could not teach as profound financial and economic knowledge as the business department of later generations, and it was more successful businessmen of this era who taught these children how to do business.
So for this kind of problem of designing currency, Feng Yun is still a little tricky. However, Zhao Weiji had already thought of this, so when Feng Yun returned to the Central Plains, he gave him a few envelopes and asked him to open the corresponding envelopes when he encountered a situation similar to that written on the envelope. It's a bit similar to Zhuge Liang's seminal vesicle trick.
The first time was when he was just starting out, Zhao Weiji's advice was to start with officials, so there was the move of exchanging gold coins for physical goods.
At this time, it happens to be exactly the same situation as what Zhao Weiji wrote on the second envelope once the imperial court pays attention to Qian Zhuang.
So Feng Yun opened the second envelope.
The envelope also contained a letter, which began with four large characters bribing the imperial court.
At the bottom of these four words is written the reason why the imperial court pays attention to the money village, which aspect of the money village it pays attention to, and the specific steps of how to bribe the court.
In Zhao Weiji's letter, he mainly analyzed that the reason why the imperial court suddenly began to pay attention to Qianzhuang is because it is estimated that copper money panic has begun to appear in these major cities in the Central Plains.
The appearance of this copper coin panic caused a certain degree of panic in the imperial court. However, Zhao Weiji also wrote in the letter that even so, the imperial court could not come up with a way to deal with them for the time being.
However, this should not be taken lightly, because if the court is forced to be in a hurry, it is difficult to guarantee that they will not do something, so now the last resort is to bribe the court.
Since you want to bribe the imperial court, you must know what the imperial court lacks now?
What is the court now? One is the lack of understanding of the unknown, they don't know how much impact the money bank has already had gold coins and bronze tickets.
There is also a lack of money, although Zhao Guangyi left a rich and powerful country, but did not leave a rich treasury, although in recent years the imperial court has received the vast majority of the income of the original Zhao Weiji's industry, but the imperial court is still not rich.
This was due to years of conquest, an ever-expanding army, the size of officials, and the ever-increasing expenses to support the incorruptible.
No matter how outstanding the emperor is, as long as the basic system of the Great Song Dynasty does not change, he will not be able to change the dilemma of long-term lack of money in the treasury.
Therefore, Zhao Weiji was ready to use these two points to fool the court.
First of all, since the imperial court wants to control the copper tickets and gold coins of the money bank, let it control it, but this control is only superficial.
Zhao Weiji was ready to let Feng Yun go to the imperial court, give all the account details of the money village to the imperial court supervision, and then let the copper tickets and gold coins nominally become the things of the imperial court.
Although nominally these became the things of the imperial court, the technology of how to print anti-counterfeiting copper tickets would not be given to the imperial court, and as for the minting technology of gold coins, even if they were given to the imperial court, they did not have so much gold.
Therefore, although the imperial court nominally controls the money bank, it actually can't get anything.
Don't look at this as a nominal gift to the imperial court, but the imperial court will definitely agree, because instead of presenting the current state, it is better to nominally bring these under the control of the imperial court, and have a name to be afraid of subsequent development? The imperial court must think so. It is a Chinese tradition to be famous.
On the other hand, on the issue of money, the money bank will provide a working capital for the imperial court, and once the court urgently needs money, the money will be provided to the court unconditionally and immediately, and there is no interest. As long as the imperial court can slowly pay it off later.
In Zhao Weiji's description, it is unlikely that the imperial court will refuse the existence of this money, after all, God knows if there will be a time when this money will really be used.
After reading the plan given by Zhao Weiji, Feng Yun knew what to do. So the second wave of calculations Zhao Heng's actions were about to begin.