Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen had to point out several problems that arose in detail from the process of the application of currency, and it was not only for Hou Yu alone, but also for Zhou Yanru, Wen Tiren and Fan Jingwen, Wang Chengen and Cao Huachun, who were very pursuing in politics, Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen's words were also word by word!

Since the Tang and Song dynasties, the record of "money shortage" has been endless, and the lack of money in circulation has become a 'bottleneck' that has long restricted the development of China's commodity economy. In order to make up for the shortage of coins, the government could only use other commodities such as grain and silk as the medium of circulation, and in fact implemented a parallel standard system of coins and silk, and gold and silver were mainly used for storage. Grain silk, which was not suitable for money in nature, was parallel to coins for a long time, even in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, when the society was stable and the economy was prosperous, and the main reason was the shortage of metal money. However, due to the importance of money and the light of goods, the use of coins in private transactions is preferred, and the government has to come forward to forcibly promote alternative currencies. In the Tang Dynasty alone, in the 20th year of Kaiyuan (732) and 22nd (734), in the 20th year of Dezong Zhenyuan (804), in the 6th year of Xianzong Yuanhe (811), in the 4th year of Wenzong Daihe (830) and in the 8th year, there were several edicts prohibiting the trading of coins only. The Song Dynasty issued repeated orders and set up cards at the border to strictly prohibit the outflow of copper coins. The emergence of the paper money system in the Song Dynasty was to overcome the difficulty of insufficient coins and meet the objective needs of commodity circulation. Although the Yuan Dynasty nominally used silver as the value scale, it has been using non-cashable banknotes since Yuan Shizu issued the Yuanbao banknote in the 24th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1287), and implemented the world's first paper money standard system. However, the ancient paper money system eventually collapsed at the end of the Yuan Dynasty due to its inherent inflationary tendency, although Ming Taizu issued the Ming treasure banknote. But it soon existed in name only. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty. China has made great strides in the production and exchange of goods. As the money shortage continues unabated, the demand for silver, the high-value medium of exchange needed for large transactions, is growing even faster. Due to the insufficient use of coinage copper, the Ming government not only ordered the destruction of folk bronze coinage several times, but also used more than 470,000 catties of old bronze in Nanjing Taifu Temple to cast money, and allowed the old money of the previous dynasty to be put into circulation. Luo excavated so far, the number of coins minted in the early Ming Dynasty to the beginning of Wanli in the 200 years was only 10 million, and the Northern Song Dynasty except for the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China was less than 1 million yuan per year, and the annual coinage was more than 1 million in more than 100 years. After the sixth year of Xining (1073), the annual minting of money reached 6 million. The contradiction between the development of the commodity economy and the shortage of coins has become increasingly acute, and the resulting deflationary effect has hindered the development of the commodity economy. The steady flow of silver from overseas into China eliminated the constraints of the lack of domestic silver ore resources, and finally resolved this contradiction.

Until the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Sino-foreign trade was still dominated by luxury goods. Since the Southern Song Dynasty, China has purchased large quantities of overseas treasures, spices, and medicinal materials, resulting in a long-term trade deficit and a large outflow of gold, silver, and copper coins, which has become a serious problem. Successive dynasties strictly prohibited the export of metal, but it was not very effective. After the westerners came to the east. China's consumer goods have gained a vast new market, and the composition of China's foreign trade commodities has undergone essential changes. The balance of payments reversed.

By the late Ming Dynasty, compared with China, Europe had an advantage in the production of firearms, clocks, "reeds", woolen wool, ships, glass, etc.; However, in the production of daily necessities, which is the largest in the international market, Chinese goods have exquisite craftsmanship developed over thousands of years, and the quality is excellent, which is popular in Europe, the United States and Japan. In addition, partly due to China's abundant labor resources and low costs; Partly because demand for silver in China grew faster than supply during the Song and Ming dynasties, the purchasing power of silver in the Ming Dynasty was twice that of the Song and Yuan dynasties. The United States and Europe are in a period of "price revolution", and the relative prices of Chinese commodities expressed in silver are extremely low, and they have a strong price advantage in the international market. At that time, the price of Chinese silk fabrics in the Mexican market was 1/3 of similar products in Spain, 1/9 in Peru, 1/3 of similar products in the Netherlands in Southeast Asia, and 1/4-1/3 of European products in Europe. European linen fabrics in the Mexican market are almost 8 times more expensive than their Chinese counterparts. In 1621, the Dutch East India Company purchased a batch of Taiwanese raw silk at a price of 4 dong per pound, and after shipping to the European market, the price was 16.8 dong per pound, with a gross profit margin of 320%.

As European goods could not compete with cheap and high-quality Chinese goods, the Spaniards, Portuguese, and later the Dutch and British, who later entered the trade with China, had to buy Chinese goods with coins, and the huge foreign trade surplus remained until the eve of the opium trade in the early 19th century. The sails returning from Acapulco to Manila carried mainly silver for the purchase of Chinese goods. The flow of silver from Spanish America to Manila began at about 1 million pesos per year, and later reached 2 million to 3 million pesos, and sometimes even more than 4 million pesos. Between 1571 and 1821, 400 million pesos of American silver was imported into Manila, the vast majority of which (1/2 or 1/4) was transferred to China. Some foreign scholars estimate that 1/3 to 1/2 of the total silver production in the Americas goes to China. In addition, some of the American silver pass guò trade imported into Europe was transshipped to Macao and then flowed into Chinese mainland. Chinese and foreign historical documents abound about the flow of silver from the Americas into China. W.L. Schurz records in The Grand Merchant Sail of Manila that the Spaniards complained on several occasions that 'the Chinese merchants had taken almost all the silver that had been brought from New Spain'; A Spanish admiral exclaimed, "The Chinese king can build a palace out of silver bars from Peru." In 1631 alone, 14 million taels of silver were imported into Macao from the Philippines, which was about 2.1 times 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 (1403-1434), and 3.8 times the annual revenue of the Ming Dynasty during the Wanli period.

The large amount of silver flowing into China from the Americas once caused a sharp decline in the import of precious metals from Europe. The American economic historian Hamilton has pointed out that between 1641 and 1650, the amount of gold imported into Europe in the Americas decreased by 92% and silver decreased by 61% compared with the period 1591-1600, which was related to the expansion of China-America trade. Due to the large influx of the Philippines into China, some Spaniards in the first half of the 17th century went so far as to abandon the Philippine colony.

Another major source of overseas silver flowing into China is Japan. Japan not only used silver to buy Chinese goods, but also exchanged silver for Chinese coins. Japanese silver flowed into China earlier than American silver, and the inflow was through both the private smuggling trade and the entrepot trade carried out by the Portuguese. In the Ming Dynasty, Sino-Japanese relations were not warm, and the frequent troubles and Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea made the relations between the two countries fall below the freezing point, so the Ming court suspended a strict ban on trade with Japan, and Japan was still excluded when the sea ban was reopened in the first year of Longqing. However, the profit-seeking nature of the merchants eventually made this kind of sanctions a mere piece of paper to a large extent, and the smuggling trade was repeatedly prohibited, becoming the main form of direct trade between China and Japan. During the Jiajing period, before the Spanish conquest of the Philippines, the Sino-Japanese smuggling trade had brought a lot of Japanese silver into China at a time when the demand for silver in China was increasing. Nonetheless, direct trade between China and Japan was greatly restricted by the Ming court's ban. The Portuguese, who had good relations with the Ming court and the major names along the coast of Japan, took advantage of the preferential treatment given by China and Japan, and played a greater role in Sino-Japanese trade. In the 32nd year of Jiajing (1553), after the Portuguese occupied Macao, they took the initiative to attract the Japanese to trade in Guangdong, and finally established a Portuguese-Japanese trade network with Macao and Nagasaki as the axis. Chinese scholars Quan Hansheng and Li Longhua estimate that during the last 25 years of the 16th century, half of the silver produced in Japan was shipped out of Japan, most of which was shipped by Portuguese merchants, amounting to 500,000-600,000 taels per year; By the first 30 years of the 17th century, more than 1 million taels were shipped out each year, sometimes as high as 2 million to 3 million taels. Portuguese historians estimated at the beginning of the 17th century that the silver exported by the Portuguese merchant sails from Japan was worth more than 1 million gold coins per year. According to the survey of Japanese scholar Arai Shiraishi, in the 47 years from the sixth year of Keicho to the fourth year of Zhengbao (that is, from the 29th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty, 1601-1647 in the Western calendar), the total export of silver from Japan reached more than 7,480 taels, most of which were imported into China. The amount of Japanese silver flowing out of China has made the Japanese government uneasy. In order to reduce the outflow of silver, the Japanese government issued two decrees in 1689 and 1715 to limit the number of Chinese merchant ships and the volume of trade to Japan.

China's trade with Japan, there are many things that have not yet happened, Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen did not explain, but only explained to everyone in a hypothetical way, he does not need to say very specific, nor does he need to say very responsible, he only needs to describe the specific situation, roughly described, he is the emperor, he does not need to explain anything to anyone? That's where it's easy for him to be a teacher.

"The Japanese have stopped trading with the Ming Dynasty, this small country is too presumptuous, and their pirate raids have had such a great impact on the Ming Dynasty!" After listening to Emperor Chongzhen's Zhu Youzhen's explanation in simple terms for a long time, the topic of trade with Japan was raised.

Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen nodded, "Yes, Lord Hou's words are to the point, only the Ming Dynasty himself has the leading power of overseas trade, can fundamentally reverse the situation of foreign trade!" (To be continued......)