The copper coin of the Ming Dynasty was minted, which was divided into two parts.

One is Nanjing and the other is Sichuan. Nanjing is located in the prosperous land south of the Yangtze River, and there is a great demand for currency, so the copper coins are minted in Nanjing.

Sichuan transportation is inconvenient, and it is inconvenient to transport copper coins abroad, so an institution for casting copper coins has also been set up in Sichuan, so as to take Sichuan as the center and radiate to the surrounding provinces to meet the demand for copper coins in the west.

"Your Majesty, the casting of copper coins in Nanjing is in the hands of the Nanjing Household Department, and now the Nanjing Household Department has been controlled by the Donglin Party." After Li Chaoqing investigated, he had a general understanding of the personnel situation of the small court in Nanjing.

"It's the Donglin Party again!" Zhu Youxiao was shocked and found that Zhu Youxiao, who was shockingly corrupt in the copper coin minting, immediately asked Jinyiwei and Dongchang to work closely together to jointly use personnel and intelligence to conduct a thorough investigation of the copper coin casting in Nanjing.

Historically, after the Donglin Party successfully squeezed out the Qichu and Zhejiang Party in the third year of the Apocalypse, corruption also became unscrupulous, and the copper content of the 'Apocalypse Tongbao' cast in Nanjing was less than 30%, which caused large-scale protests from the citizens of Jiangnan. Such a protest just allowed Wei Zhongxian to seize the handle and carry out another purge of the Donglin Party, which greatly improved the state finances. However, turning over the history of later generations, the quality of the Apocalypse Tongbao was low, but it became Wei Zhongxian's doing, and the Donglin Party that compiled the history books was simply upside down black and white, shameless.

At this time, Zhu Youxiao because of the early start, the Nanjing small court has not yet eroded to that kind of Cheng dù, although there is some corruption in the casting of copper coins, but the quality of copper coins can still be guaranteed, and Taichang Tongbao is also a rare 'honorary version', the quality is the highest in the copper coins of the Ming Dynasty.

Taichang Tongbao will be minted for at least one year, so it will take a while to mint 'Apocalypse Tongbao'.

In these years, there is a great profit in minting copper coins, the price of 100 catties of copper is about 12 taels of silver, and 16,000 copper coins can be minted, worth 26 taels of silver, with a profit of more than 100%.

As the Spaniards continued to ship silver to Manila and then trade with the Ming Dynasty, a large amount of silver continued to flow in, and the price of copper has risen. Today's market exchange rate is about 600 wen yuan can be exchanged for huàn1 tael of silver, and it was still 700 wen during the Wanli period.

China lacked copper, and in the maritime trade, a large number of copper coins were smelted by private individuals and made into various copper utensils for export, which led to a decrease in copper coins.

The purchasing power of a copper plate in this era is similar to that of a dollar in later generations. Among them, there is also a kind of big money, the face value is five for one, and ten for one. That's five dollars, ten dollars. This kind of big money is naturally impossible to mint with five or ten times the copper coin, and the profit is higher.

Just when Dongchang and Jinyiwei began to thoroughly investigate the Nanjing coinage case, the summer harvest also came.

Cao Jinyu had already made arrangements, and went to the northern states and counties with the holy oracle in his hand to purchase the summer harvest grain from the states and counties. At the same time, the Daming Royal Bank provided Cao Jinyu with sufficient financial support, and lent Cao Jinyu five million taels of silver at one time. With abundant capital, state and county officials around the country were dumbfounded when they looked at the emperor's holy edict.

In previous years, they sold discounted grain, but it was an important gray income for them.

However, the Jimin Grain Bank took the emperor's edict to purchase the discounted grain, but it directly made them lose the possibility of interception. What made these officials even more crazy was that the Jimin Grain Bank even supervised the collection of field taxes on the spot, and the scales used were all the fair scales of the Jimin Grain Bank. They didn't have anything to eat.

Don't want to?

Naturally, 10,000 are unwilling, but do these magistrates dare to stop it? As long as they stop the behavior of Jimin Grain Bank, Jinyiwei or Dongchang will soon come to the door.

At this time, Jimin Grain Bank is the royal capital, but it is the key escort target of Jinyiwei and Dongchang.

Although Cao Jinyu did not do much in the grain business before, he was extremely experienced. When the grain in these prefectures and counties is collected, it immediately begins to be processed in various ways.

Those that are relatively close, or those that are far away but have the advantage of water transportation, are all transported to Beizhili and sold to the imperial court as military rations, etc., to meet official orders.

If it is not convenient to transport, it will be hoarded. When the price of food rises, it can be sold to other merchants, or it can be used to make shochu and then sold everywhere.

In the Ming Dynasty, the commercial sale of liquor was very developed, and at the same time, a lot of food was consumed. However, in the era of underdeveloped transportation, it is really not cost-effective to transport surplus grain out in some places, and it is indeed a more suitable choice to make wine and sell it. However, the consumption of a large amount of alcohol is indeed one of the main culprits of food shortage.

The Qing Dynasty promulgated a ban on the long-distance trafficking of alcohol. So that the common people could not buy wine, so they could only make their own wine, so later China, almost all the rural areas had the habit of making wine. This was not the case in the Ming Dynasty, where many rural areas did not make wine, and the phenomenon of peasant alcoholism was not as strict as that of the Qing Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, the peasants in the North China Plain basically had nothing of value in their homes, and some were soju and roast chicken.

The wine system of the Ming and Qing dynasties has its own advantages and disadvantages, and it cannot be said which system is better. It's just that the prohibition of alcohol in the Qing Dynasty did not succeed in curbing the consumption of food by liquor brewing.

In the Ming Dynasty, the commercialization of alcohol was relatively high, and long-distance trafficking of alcohol was extremely common.

After some purchases, Jimin Grain Bank purchased 6 million stone of grain in the north alone, and the cost was only more than 3 million taels of silver.

When these grains are unprocessed, the price of one stone is normally 1 tael of silver. When it is processed and retailed, the price is 1.5 taels of silver (the number jù above is wrong).

Of the 6 million grains, more than 4 million stones were transported to Beizhili, Denglai, and Liaodong, and after some processing, they became commercial grains to meet official orders. Just the official order will make Jimin Grain Bank return to its original cost. And the Jimin grain stores are in various places, and there are still two million stone grains in stock.

The official grain business is simply a huge profit.

There is another bigger move that has already begun to be moved, and that is to monopolize the retail market. Jimin Grain Bank purchased and hoarded a large amount of grain in Shuntianfu, Baodingfu, and Jifu, and opened a large number of grain stores in various towns and cities in these three prefectures, and strongly entered the grain retail market.

Less than half a month after the end of the summer harvest, the 'tax bureau' jointly established by Jinyiwei and Dongchang began to fully collect the grain retail tax in the towns where the grain stores of Jimin Grain Bank were opened, and the grain tax was 2 yuan (0.2 taels of silver) per stone of grain.

These grain banks will not be able to buy cheap discounted grain this year, and their profit margins have been greatly compressed. And during the summer harvest, those landlords and peasants are not fools, as long as they are not in a hurry to use the money, who will sell grain at a low price at this time?

The purchase price of 1 tael of silver for one stone of grain, after drying, grinding and transportation, each stone of grain is sold at a price of 1.5 taels of silver, and the profit is generally only 1~2 taels of silver. At this time, the tax collected by the tax bureau on the retail sale of grain reached 2 cents per stone, so wouldn't there be no money to be made?

The annoyed grain merchants also have policies and countermeasures, if you want to levy taxes, I will raise prices and pass on the cost to consumers, don't we still make money?

However, it was not long before the grain merchants suddenly realized how naïve their ideas were. While these grain merchants raised the retail price of flour and rice by 2 taels of silver, the price of flour from Jimin Grain Bank remained at 1.5 taels of silver, and the price of rice increased with the tide.

The common people in the towns of Shuntianfu, Baoding, and Jifu are naturally unwilling to buy the sudden increase in grain prices. However, the price of flour in Jimin Grain Bank was not to raise the price, and immediately a group of ordinary people went to Jimin Grain Bank to buy flour.

The price of flour in Jimin Grain Bank does not increase, not because it does not have to pay taxes, but on the contrary, it pays taxes to the tax bureau. However, the Jimin Grain Bank has an internal subsidy, and the tax from the tax bureau goes into the emperor's internal fund. The internal subsidy of the Jimin Grain Bank is just a change of left hand for right hand, and there is no difference between the Jimin Grain Bank and the failure to pay taxes.

The price of rice from Jimin Grain Bank has been raised together, mainly because the price increase of rice does not affect the lives of ordinary people. The price of rice itself is more expensive than flour in the north, and classes without a certain income do not eat rice. The increase in the price of rice will not affect the lives of ordinary people, but can increase the profitability of Jimin Grain Bank.

At this time, a group of grain merchants were all dumbfounded, watching the people all run to Jimin Grain Store to buy grain, their grain shops have little business, and they will not close down if they continue like this! PS: Ask for tickets, ask for collections! Rolling all over the ground~~!