Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen can only from the history of the Ming Dynasty, to educate a few court ministers who lack economic concepts, the emperor is not a teacher, but for these few of his most important assistants now, Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen has to say in detail, otherwise, there is no way for them to understand economics, there is no way to understand the economy, money, and the relationship between these, and the direction of these developments, this is a very abstract concept, and it is not easy to express it clearly in words!

Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen is undoubtedly a very patient teacher, after grinding with Zheng Yuelin's ears and temples, Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen regained his enthusiasm and his ideal of bringing the Ming Dynasty into the political and economic core of this world!

No matter how powerful a country is, it can never be force that ultimately controls the whole world! It can only be through guò economy, through guò currency, supplemented by force!

In addition, in 1580, Spain and Portugal merged two Macao merchant ships, and according to the "Eight Peace Terms" concluded at the time of the merger, the former Portuguese possessions (including Macao) were free to trade with the Spanish possessions (including Manila), while the Spanish possessions did not have reciprocal rights. Two Macao merchant ships arrived in Manila that year, and the Macao-Manila route was put into operation. The cargo loaded by Portuguese ships from Macao to Manila is mainly Chinese cargo, followed by Japanese and Indian products; The vast majority of the return shipments were silver. In 1610, the Dutch reached a compromise with the Spaniards in the South China Sea and turned to looting Chinese merchant ships, and in 1617 alone, 11 Chinese merchant ships were plundered by the Dutch on their way south to Manila. While Chinese merchant ships heading south to the Philippines were scarce, the Macao-Manila trade expanded rapidly, and between China and Manila was almost monopolized between China and Manila from 1619 to 1631.

Chinese goods imported into Manila include raw silk, silk fabrics, velvet, silk, satin, cotton, linen fabrics, jewelry, handicrafts, iron and steel, tin and lead products, saltpeter, gunpowder, food, poultry, livestock, etc. Textiles in particular are the bulk of the crop. Due to the strong demand in Spanish America. Chinese silk and cotton fabrics soon topped the list of goods shipped to the Americas by Manila's merchants. And it remained until the end of the Great Merchant Sail Trade. Until the end of the 18th century, Chinese silk and other goods still accounted for 63% of Mexico's total imports. The prosperity of trade with China made the volume of trade in the Pacific surpass that of the Atlantic for a time, which can be seen in the direction of trade and investment: between 1618 and 1621, the Americas invested 1.5 million pesos in trade with Europe, and 1.65 million pesos in trade with the East.

As early as the Zhou Dynasty, the "Guanshi Fu" in the "Nine Endowments" of the central government has been levied silk cloth, but until the Tang and Song dynasties, when commodity production and commodity circulation have been quite developed, the dynasties still take physical goods as the positive endowment. Monetary revenues still account for only a small fraction of state revenues. It was not until the Ming Dynasty implemented a whip law and silver became a positive endowment that the fiscal system underwent a fundamental change, in which foreign trade played an important role in this transformation.

First of all, the development of foreign trade has directly increased the government's monetary revenue. In the tributary trade in the early Ming Dynasty, the Ming government exempted all the private goods carried by foreign tribute ships from tax, and the rewards generally greatly exceeded the value of the tribute, and the tributary trade was actually a burden on the Ming Dynasty's finances. Subsequently, the tributary trade declined and the private trade flourished. During the years of Hongzhi and Zhengde. The Ming government implemented a "point drawing" system for imported goods in private trade, and a certain percentage of goods were selected as import taxes. At the latest to the early years of Wanli. The treaty ports have successively changed the currency levied on imported goods. Although smuggling is rampant, and the imported goods are "only 12 out of 10 of those who report to the government to pay taxes", the government's foreign tax revenue is still quite considerable, and only in a port in Haicheng County, Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province, Wanli's 22nd year foreign tax revenue reached more than 29,000 taels. In some areas where foreign trade is developed, foreign trade market income has even become the backbone of local finances. Since Zhengde, Guangdong's civil and military officials have mostly relied on the income of the city to pay on behalf of them. In the early years of Jiajing, after the abolition of the Guangdong Municipal Shipping Division, local officials at all levels below the governor of Liangguang repeatedly requested that it be reopened, and the argument held was that the public and private taxes in Guangdong and Central China were too expensive to pay more than the city's foreign merchants.

What is more important is the close relationship between the monetary system and the fiscal system, and China's delay in establishing an advanced monetary and fiscal system is not unrelated to the impact of the money shortage. The Ming Dynasty's huge foreign trade surplus eliminated the money shortage that had plagued China for hundreds of years, thus indirectly promoting the establishment of a monetary and fiscal system.

In the Tang Dynasty, taxes used both coins and grain, and one of the countermeasures proposed by Yang Yuling, the head of the household department during the Changqing period of Muzong, was that "it is advisable to make the two taxes in the world, wine, salt, supply and stay in the state, send money, and lose cloth and grain millet", which is essentially an attempt to reduce the demand for coins with the retrogression of the fiscal and taxation system, so as to alleviate the money shortage. In the first year of the founding of Tang Dezong (780), Prime Minister Yang Yan implemented the two tax laws and unified taxation with money. Due to the shortage of coins, the implementation of the two-tax law has increased the demand for coins, resulting in the phenomenon of heavy money and light goods becoming more and more strict. In the first year of Muzong Changqing (821), in 40 years, rice fell from 200 Wen to 50 Wen, and silk fell from 400 Wen to 80 Wen, the actual burden of taxpayers increased exponentially, and the government and the opposition complained, and the Tang Dynasty finally had to abolish the two tax laws in the first year of Changqing. In view of the hyperinflation at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Ming Taizu regressed to the implementation of the financial system in kind, and the field was mainly levied on rice and wheat, with silk, hemp, cotton and other native products and currency, the former is called the true color, the latter is called the folded color, and the people also have to bear the conscription. With the development of the commodity economy and the increasing exposure of the shortcomings of the financial system in kind, from the middle of the Ming Dynasty, some places have successively expanded the collection of discounts and reduced the nature of taxes. In the first year of Yingzong's orthodoxy (1436), the Ming court allowed Nanjing, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Huguang, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian to convert the original 4 million quintals of rice and wheat into more than 100 taels of "gold and silver". In the first year of Zhengde, the official officially recognized the "silver difference" and allowed some conscripts to be levied in silver. In the ninth year of Wanli (1581), Zhang Juzheng carried out a historic reform of the fiscal and taxation system, and comprehensively implemented a whip law created by Pang Shangpeng and others in Zhejiang.

The reason why the whip law did not cause a price collapse like the two tax laws failed was that silver continued to flow inward, and although the implementation of the whip law increased the demand for silver, the supply of silver was still relatively abundant. It is no accident that a whip law originated in Zhejiang, Guangdong, Gannan and other places where foreign trade is developed.

The full implementation of the whip law showed that the central government of the Ming Dynasty officially recognized the status of silver as the standard currency.

The monetary and fiscal system itself was established on the basis of a fairly developed commodity economy, and the payment of taxes and forced labor in silver directly expanded the scope of use of silver currency, and at the same time greatly weakened the personal dependence of peasants on the feudal state, and more peasants were able to get rid of the shackles of land to engage in industry and commerce, which further promoted the development of industry and commerce, and also indirectly expanded the scope of use of silver currency. All of this has strengthened the position of the silver standard.

The development of foreign trade in the Ming Dynasty led to a large inflow of silver into China, which promoted the establishment of the silver standard in terms of both supply and demand.

Under the premise that the development of productive forces reaches a certain level, the material premise for silver to become the standard currency is that the stock of silver in the domestic market is sufficient to meet the needs of circulation. In the Western world, gold and silver coinage was widely circulated as early as the ancient Greek period. In China, although platinum coins were minted as early as the fourth year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (119 BC), silver has not been able to get rid of its status as an auxiliary coin, or even mainly used for storage. Since Qin Shi Huang swept away the Six Kingdoms and unified the currency system, the copper coins on the outside and inside have gone through dynastic changes and have been entrenched in the standard currency throne for more than 1,000 years. The reason for this is that China's gold and silver deposits are relatively poor. According to the calculation of the income of the silver class contained in the Ming historical books, since the thirteenth year of the Ming Dynasty (1500), the annual output of silver in China has been hovering around 100,000 taels, and about 200,000 taels in the early Ming Dynasty, which is only a fraction of that compared with the Americas, Japan, and Europe. Moreover, the grade of silver ore in China is not high, and the gains and losses of mining often outweigh the losses. According to the statistics of Quan Hansheng, the silver content of silver mines in China in the Ming Dynasty was between 0.003% and 12.5%, generally less than 1%; This compares to 50% silver in the Potosi silver mine in Peru and 5%-25% silver in New Spain during the same period. History of the Ming Dynasty. Food & Commodities. "Kengzhi" left this record: "In the twenty-fifth year of Jiajing (that is, in 1546 in the Western calendar), mining was ordered in July, from October to thirty-six years, with more than 40 members, 1,180 defense soldiers, about 30,000 gold, and 28,500 silver ores, which outweighed the losses. Liang Fangzhong pointed out: "China has always been a country that does not produce much silver. Since modern trade with European countries, the supply of silver has mostly relied on foreign sources; Domestic production is not important. ”

For Zhang Juzheng's reform, everyone here is a learned minister who is familiar with the scriptures and history, of course, it is very clear, but when he heard the specific analysis of Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen in simple terms, he suddenly realized!

Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen said lightly, "Take good notes, whether you understand it or not, I hope that you will be able to understand what I am talking about slowly?" ”

Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen's tone was light, and everyone was confused at the same time, diligently recording what the emperor said, and the ears of Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen himself, but he did not prepare any speeches. (To be continued......)