"During the Hongwu period, the households in this place were fifteen miles, narrow and desolate. In the early years of Zhengde, the earth city was built, with a circumference of two miles. Wanli time wrapped bricks, the circumference expanded to four miles, and it is still so big. Jiang Chen walked beside Zhu Cihong and introduced, and pulled a handful of thistles casually: "Your Highness, look, it is still a desolate color." ”

Zhu Cihong stood on this mound, and there was water all around. I also heard Jiang Chen say: Only in the south in the spring and autumn season, there are artificial embankments for entry and exit. In summer, the water floods all sides, and it is extremely inconvenient to enter and exit. It's autumn now, it's a dry year, and the embankment to the south is still in water, so it seems that it will take some time to get through.

"The minister chose this place precisely because he took a fancy to the fact that it is easy to defend and difficult to attack." Jiang Chen said: "There is a lot of money in the bank, and it is safer to have this natural moat. If you are worried about the inconvenience, you can build one or two more bridges in the future, just like two checkpoints, and you are not afraid of people's worries. ”

Zhu Cihong nodded and motioned for Jiang Chen to continue.

Jiang Chen sprinkled the thistle in his hand and said: "Three miles to the west is the canal, and it is also geographically chosen. And because the land is barren, the land price is cheap, which is convenient for people to move and merge with land. The inhabitants of this place all have the custom of fishing and hunting, and they are not very professional, and if they prosper in the future, they will be hired as laborers. It is only 260 miles away from Tianjin, and it is cheap by water and land. ”

"Yes, very well thought out." Zhu Cihong said with a smile. He needs this kind of person who is good at thinking and can make good arrangements. If you change your mind and put the bank's headquarters in Beijing, it is not wrong to talk about it, but the development costs and expenses will go up a lot.

"Your Highness, if the headquarters of the bank is located in Miao County, it happens that the banknote factory will be placed in Wuqing County." Jiang Chen said: "This county is connected by canals, which is convenient for transportation from north to south, and is in the middle of Tianjin to Tongzhou, which is convenient for transporting money to Miao County." It is also convenient for cotton paper and ink to be transported to the factory. In particular, the flow of goods here is not suspicious. ”

The location of the banknote mint needs to be kept strictly secret, so it cannot be in a crowded area. And because the manufacturing materials have to be brought in, it can't be too isolated. Jiang Chen first decided on Miao County as the headquarters of the bank, and then walked around a radius of 100 miles, and finally selected Damengzhuang in Wuqing County.

Zhu Cihong was not as careful as Jiang Chen when it came to anti-theft and anti-bandits. He firmly believed that under his rule, he did not dare to say that the road would not be left behind, but there was no problem in clearing out the bandits and calming the place. So he pays more attention to transportation and cost. Fortunately, Jiang Chen also took into account these two aspects, which is still reassuring.

"I've seen the sample of the banknote, can it be smaller?" Zhu Cihong said: "If it is made into a palm length and width, then the paper material can be saved by half." ”

The newly made banknote draws on the design of a large number of "Ming Dynasty Treasure Banknotes", and the surface area is larger than that of the later A4 paper, which is obviously more than three inches, but only one and a half inches narrower. And most of the content on the paper is patterned. And it doesn't make any practical sense.

"His Highness also saw the appearance of the minister." Jiang Chen said: "It's too small, I'm afraid the businessmen can't believe it." ”

"The treasure money is so big, and it is not hung at home as a certificate after the last day? Trustworthiness or notness is not on that. As long as we use this to collect taxes, the people will definitely know the benefits of this banknote. Zhu Cihong said: "Don't you see that the food stamps are smaller?" Now how many people want to rush to get it. A few days ago, the Ministry of Officials also asked for a part of the food stamps to be added to the salaries of officials. ”

Jiang Chen has seen food stamps, which are real three-finger length and width, and the paper is not good, and it is easy to be forged. It's just that because there are few food stamps scattered out, the grain collection points are fixed in those official warehouses and grain stores. There is also the name and surname of the bearer on it, so I haven't found a large number of forgeries and deceptions.

Nowadays, the hardest currency of the Ming Dynasty is grain. And with the change of seasons, food prices still fluctuate. Even if it falls to the lowest point in the market, it is still more accounting to exchange food stamps for food. There are also people who want to secretly buy food stamps, but firstly, the quantity is not large, and secondly, the punishment is too heavy, and at most they can only do something sneakily.

"Your Highness. The yield of paper money is high enough, so let's do it decently. Jiang Chen decided to persuade him at the end of the day, if the crown prince insisted, it didn't matter, it would be reasonable to save if he could.

Zhu Cihong thought for a while and said, "If you really think it's so good-looking and generous." There is no big problem with the inheritance. Don't waste space, though. ”

"Space?"

"There is no problem with some patterns on the four sides, the ticket amount is written eye-catchingly, and then there is a sentence I want to print." Zhu Cihong said.

"Your Highness, please."

"The face of the bill should be clearly written: this banknote is the legal tender of the Ming Dynasty, which is enough to exchange for silver as the amount of the bill, and all the officials and merchants in the Ming Dynasty shall not refuse to accept or discount the banknotes under any pretext." Zhu Cihong paused: "If you need to, you can write it in the form of a holy oracle." ”

Zhu Cihong beckoned to Lu Suyao behind him, and Lu Suyao immediately put pen and paper on the ground. Zhu Cihong drew a simple picture with charcoal and fixed the position of this passage in the middle of the ticket.

Jiang Chen nodded and said, "Do you still want to write that those who dare to forge and alter will be divided by capital punishment?" ”

"Yes." Zhu Cihong nodded, and said under Jiang Chen's reminder: "Forgery is easy to check, but it is troublesome to alter it." I thought I might as well have a few more layouts. Like this big one, it is ten taels of silver, and then gradually shrinks, and is made into five taels, one or two votes, and even five cents and one cent. It's not easy for such a traitor to be transformed. ”

Jiang Chen also felt quite reasonable when he heard it, and he was originally thinking about how to distinguish between large and small tickets.

"Colors can also be separated." Originally, he wanted to distinguish by color.

"Yes." Zhu Cihong nodded and said, "Try to use color matching, don't use positive colors." Positive colors are easy to fake. ”

As long as the formula is kept secret, it is very troublesome for others to approximate it, but anyone can make the positive color.

"Also, the name of the Ming Imperial Bank can also be printed on it." Zhu Cihong said: "The watermark is spit out with a fire dragon (see the cover of this book). ”

Jiang Chen wrote them one by one, and went back to let people change them and see the effect. The production process of cotton paper is no different from that of ordinary good paper, but the cost is higher, and it is more resistant to folding after being made, and it is not good at water absorption. Banknote paper made of this cotton paper must be made of ink, and ordinary smoked ink cannot print at all.

In addition to being a monopoly material, the engraving was also changed to intaglio printing. It is said that the Taixi people had this craft as early as a hundred years ago, but even if others also know the intaglio printing technique, it is impossible to reverse the depth of the genuine groove just by looking at the face of the ticket, so it is more difficult to forge it.

With so much effort put into the cost, if this banknote can no longer be circulated, it will be a big loss.

Jiang Chen felt a little heavy pressure in vain.

"What's in mind at the outlet?" Zhu Cihong asked.

"Your Highness, in addition to the head office, the minister plans to set up a branch only in Zhangjiakou, which still belongs to the Beizhi branch." Jiang Chen said: "Because Beijing and Zhangjiakou are the places with the most silver deposits now, they are not afraid of a run. The first batch of banknotes put into the banknote is not even half of the reserves, and there is no fear of someone making trouble. ”

Zhu Cihong took 30 million taels as the reserve fund of the Imperial Bank, but due to the bottlenecks caused by the manufacture of paper and ink, the total amount of the first batch of banknotes put into circulation would not reach 10 million taels. And by that time, there should be 10 million taels of silver shipped to Beijing, so neither Zhangjiakou nor Beijing is worried about the problem of not being able to exchange.

Suppose that in the most extreme case, even if someone collects all these ten million taels of banknotes and cashes them in any place, it is impossible to break the word.

Not to mention the fact that this in itself cannot happen, because anyone who wants to get a banknote will inevitably need to cost more than the amount of the banknote. Because the channels are narrow, there is only the deposit of silver and the sale of goods.

The actual weight of the silver taels deposited must be higher than the ticket amount, unless the customer can provide pure silver that meets the standards of the imperial court, which is also known as "fire consumption" and "fineness".

The sale of goods in exchange for banknotes is limited to grain and cloth, because the commodity is single, with the concentration of goods, the price is bound to fall, so the profit point of merchants is to buy cheap goods in Zhangjiakou after obtaining banknotes. If you just transport the grain and cloth to sell it, it would be good to be able to ensure that there is no loss of transportation.

Another possible source of money is the convicts, officers, and barracks. This is also the channel for banknotes to really face the Daming market. However, I believe that no one will be stupid enough to exchange banknotes for silver, because of the right of first refusal of horse-drawn carriages, transparent flat glass, mirrors and other in-demand goods can only be purchased with banknotes, it is conceivable that banknotes will inevitably become black market darlings after investment, and their value will exceed their own faces.

Whatever their final value, these banknotes eventually return to the bank through commodity trade.

"The imperial court exempted the people of the world from agricultural taxes for two years, on the one hand, to recuperate, and on the other hand, I hope that when the next tax is levied, banknotes can be collected on a large scale and deposited directly in the nearest bank. In the future, the state's appropriation to the local government will also go through the banking system to truly achieve the wish of Emperor Taizu Gao. ”

Zhu Cihong said, and suddenly he was startled by his casual words.

Later generations often said that Zhu Yuanzhang was a small farmer, and he beat the foundation of the Ming Dynasty very badly. In fact, this kind of thing is understandable in the Qing Dynasty, and they don't know the market economy, but people in the future can't help but say objectively: Many of Zhu Yuanzhang's ideas are still very forward-looking.

For example, taxes are levied on the spot. The rule set by Zhu Yuanzhang was: after the taxes were collected by each prefecture and county, the accounts should be reported to the household department, except for escorting a part of the tax to Beijing for the imperial court's use, and the remaining part was retained in the local area for expenses. This is actually a very good idea, and it saves a lot of shipping costs. It was only later that the whole people became corrupt, so that the tax revenue could not come up and could not be transported, and the national treasury was completely empty.

However, it is the monitoring system that has gone wrong, and the tax system cannot be blamed.

What is unacceptable in the tax system is that the fixed tax in the prefectures and counties of the country, and even if it is based on the fixed amount set at the beginning of the country, it is often difficult to collect it in the future. (To be continued......)

PS: Ask for a recommended ticket, ask for a monthly pass~~!