The reason why the Qing court has been completely defeated since the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom raised its army, and Zuihou even lost Nanjing, in addition to the decay and uselessness of the Eight Banners Green Battalion, the biggest problem is the problem of money and food. The financial system of the Qing Dynasty was a rather backward system: the annual fiscal revenue was fixed, about 40 million taels of silver, mainly from the money and grain of the land; The annual expenditure is also fixed, nearly 40 million taels, mainly for official salaries. Its basic feature is to live within its means, and the biggest drawback that comes from this is the lack of flexibility. Everything is fixed, and politicians have no money to start new businesses, and once they encounter natural and man-made disasters, such as floods, droughts, locusts, wars, and plagues, the government's revenue plummets and expenditures soar, which often leads to a financial crisis.

When this system was first implemented, it seemed that the effect was not bad, and the careful management of the Ming lords of the Kangxi and Yongzheng dynasties made the silver deposit of the household reach 70 million taels at the highest time, but after the Qianlong Emperor who was very happy, he spent a lot of money, and when he arrived at the Jiaqing Emperor, the silver deposit was not much. The Sichuan-Chu White Lotus Rebellion, the Zhanger Rebellion, the Opium War, and the Yellow River burst its banks many times, the Qing government's finances were already in an embarrassing situation. As soon as Emperor Xianfeng came to power, he wanted to clear his family background, and Zhuo Bingtian, a bachelor in charge of household affairs, reported to him that the treasury of silver was only 8 million taels, and "the income has decreased but not increased, and the withdrawal has increased unabated", and the income cannot make ends meet, and the amount is very huge.

War is a monster that eats money, and its consumption is staggeringly large, and the Qing court can be said to spend money like water in order to suppress the rebel army everywhere. However, the lack of financial income of the Qing government did not seem to affect Emperor Xianfeng's determination to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. He disbursed it from the treasury of the household department, mediated it from the sealed silver in various places, and distributed it from the "private money" of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Unlike the emperors of the previous and subsequent dynasties, Emperor Xianfeng did not hesitate or feel sorry when he used the royal private property. Gui Liang, the secretary of the Ministry of War, said that the Internal Affairs Office has three golden bells, weighing more than 2,000 catties. It is worth hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, and please melt it to supplement military expenses. He immediately ordered the Internal Affairs Office to find out and sent his sixth brother Yixun to personally supervise the melting. As a result, these three were refined by the court craftsmen during the Qianlong period, engraved with the imperial inscriptions of the Qianlong Emperor, and the shijie super handicrafts weighing 800 catties, 700 catties, and 580 catties respectively, were melted into gold bars and gold nuggets totaling more than 27,000 taels. The household is requested to send out the surplus bronze objects in the palace garden for the minting of copper coins. He also ordered the Ministry of Internal Affairs to find out, and as a result, 228 pieces of copper bottles, copper furnaces, copper turtles and cranes of the upper grade cultural relics stored in the Old Summer Palace and other places today were turned into 8,747 catties of copper.

For Emperor Xianfeng's many edicts from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the ministers in charge of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are in the ideological realm of resolutely implementing them if they do not understand. By May 1853. That is, after the Taiping Army in the West Palace began its crusade to the east, the Internal Affairs Office finally showed a red light to Emperor Xianfeng, and the deposit was only 41,000 taels, and he could no longer pay any expenses outside the royal family.

The young Emperor Xianfeng seemed to know for the first time that the wealthy and brilliant royal family also had times when their wealth was exhausted. Dig everywhere. Raise money in every possible way to make Emperor Xianfeng from 1850 to July 1853. In total, nearly 30 million taels of silver were obtained to supply the front line. In exchange, Nanjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was obtained. At this time, Emperor Xianfeng was exhausted, and the household only had 290,000 taels of silver, and even the salaries of the Beijing officials and soldiers could not be paid. At this point, Emperor Xianfeng no longer had any tricks.

The most intuitive influence was Qishan's Jiangbei camp, when the initial Qishan troops and horses went south. The supply of money and food is still stable, but then it is getting less and less, which directly leads to those eight generals of the Green Camp Qiu having to think about making money, where do they still have the heart to suppress? Although there are only more than 4,000 long-haired thieves on the opposite side of Guazhou. Qi Shan could only stand still, he knew that with this kind of morale and situation at the moment, if he forcibly sent troops, there would be no second possibility except for a big defeat.

The root of the problem is still in the money and food, and Emperor Xianfeng can only be at the mercy of his courtiers in the case of lack of finances. In order to save the emergency, the suggestions of the courtiers were all very vicious, and Emperor Xianfeng could only follow them one by one.

The first thing these ministers thought of was to reduce expenditure, and from 1853 onwards, according to the proposal of the Ministry of Households, Emperor Xianfeng successively issued a decree to deduct the salaries of civil officials and military battalions inside and outside Beijing by 20%, and then deducted them many times later. Because of the reduced salaries, they are often underpaid, especially at the front outside the capital. Later, large sums of money, silver bills, and treasure money were distributed in the salary, which was even more unworthy of the name. The reduction of the salaries of the officials will not make them resign themselves to living without a living. So they intensified their efforts to harness the people. The already corrupt rule of officials is even worse than ever. The soldiers of the Qing army, who had been in arrears for a long time, had many troubles because of the trouble with their salaries, and many of them simply engaged in banditry activities such as raiding homes and robbing houses.

Later, the ministers thought that it was still a big donation, and selling officials and lords to donate was a traditional way for the Manchus to deal with the lack of financial use, and it almost never stopped since the Kangxi Dynasty was created. Emperor Xianfeng's father, Emperor Daoguang, hated this kind of method, and every time he summoned the officials of the donation class, he was displeased, and there were cases of resignation and dismissal of officials because of the rough slang of the donation officials. He confessed his thoughts to an official who came from the imperial examination in private: "I am always not at ease about donating classes, they will seek profit, and their hearts can be known." The subjects may not be all bad, but the heart of courtesy, righteousness and shame is still there, and it will be changed as soon as it is dialed. ”

Although Emperor Daoguang was not satisfied with this, he still had to do it for the sake of financial needs. Emperor Xianfeng did not have the moral scruples of his father. He needed silver, and he couldn't manage so much. In order to attract wealthy gentry and big businessmen to invest in official ranks, he came to a big auction at a reduced price according to the opinions of his courtiers. In 1851, he reduced the donation for 1846 by 10% and received it at a 10% discount. By the end of the following year, the accounts of the household department were three million taels of silver. In 1853, it was reduced by one percent, and the donation was collected at a discount of eight, and the household received 670,000 taels that year, and the number of households was very small. The decrease in the donated silver received by the household department was not a decrease in the total amount of donations received at that time, but mainly because most of the donated silver was withheld by the magistrates, and the whereabouts of the silver were nothing more than the money and grain owed by the magistrates to the imperial court.

Then the ministers suggested that large coins be minted, silver bills were issued, and treasure money was made, and the currency of China at that time was a dual system of silver and copper coins. Silver is measured by weight according to fineness, and the money is minted by the Qing government. In order to obtain greater wealth at a lower cost, Emperor Xianfeng approved the courtiers' proposal to mint large sums of money. From April 1853, the household began to mint ten copper coins, that is, 1 coin to 10 coins. In addition to the household department of the imperial court, 13 provinces have been allowed to start minting big money. In order to make a direct profit, it is not all about mining and smelting copper or importing foreign copper. Instead, it often melts down the original value of the coin, and recasts a large coin. Even so, the cost of minting copper coins was still too high, and copper resources were very limited at that time.

Also in April 1853, Emperor Xianfeng approved the issuance of silver tickets, that is, "household official tickets", with denominations ranging from one tael, three taels, five taels, ten taels, and fifty taels. In addition to the Ministry of Households, the official money number supervised by the Ministry of Household Affairs also issued an astonishing number of Beijing money stamps, with a denomination of up to 10,000 literati! This is a near-no-cost banknote. The profits are amazing. For example, a treasure banknote, the cost of production is only six cents of money, and you can make a profit of one million if you make a million, and you can make a profit of ten million. In addition to the Ministry of Households, 16 provinces and autonomous regions outside Beijing have also set up official banking bureaus. Issuance of "bureau tickets".

From the history of Shijie finance, from the precious metal currency in terms of weight. Developed into precious metals or metal currencies (such as gold yuan, silver yuan, copper coins, etc.) in terms of quantity. The development of paper money is a historical necessity. Judging from the size of the economy and the total amount of commodity exchange in the Qing Dynasty, the emergence of paper money was not a bad thing. In fact, the various bills issued by private banks also make up for this shortcoming. However, the issuance of banknotes must be guided by sound financial theories, and must be carefully designed, with a considerable amount of margin and a strictly controlled amount of issuance. It is a decisive principle that is familiar to those who use paper money today.

However, whether it was Emperor Xianfeng or the officials who asked for the issuance of silver bills and treasure banknotes, they did not have modern financial knowledge. There is no idea of reforming the backward monetary system of the Qing Dynasty. They abused their administrative power to issue large sums of money, silver bills, and treasure money that they were not ready to cash at all, just to meet the financial expenses that they could not afford to bear. Needless to say, the consequence of such an unlimited short issuance of unguaranteed banknotes is inevitably hyperinflation, which is no different from the direct plundering of the people.

The consequences of the indiscriminate issuance of currency were immediately apparent, and Qi Shan and other ministers were not unaware, but Emperor Xianfeng pretended not to see it, and Qi Shan wisely chose not to see it. However, after the outbreak of the Manchu financial crisis in May 1853, the generals at the front could no longer receive the real silver allocated by the household department, and at most it was only an official document from other provinces. However, the provinces are simply not able to fulfill this kind of non-divided and endless allocation, and can only pass the buck. Over time, this kind of imperial order for the appropriation of remuneration became an invalid piece of paper, and the commanders did not expect to get silver with it.

In this situation, it seems that the collection of military salaries is no longer the obligation of the imperial court, but has unconsciously become the responsibility of the magistrate of the war zone. In the reality that the treasury was empty, Emperor Xianfeng only let the generals in front fight, and he refused to take care of the supply in front and had no ability to manage the supply in front.

Therefore, since the imperial court is not responsible for military spending, it is natural that how the local government raises salaries has become a matter that the imperial court cannot control and cannot control. As a result, in the provinces of the war zone, raising salaries became the top priority in the various government affairs of the magistrates. Except for a few provinces, such as Hunan and Hubei, which use the method of sorting out their own finances to increase their fiscal revenues, many provinces have adopted the method of using various items to increase donations and taxes, including Sichuan's grain allowance and grain donations; donations per mu in Jiangsu, Anhui and other provinces; Sha Tin donation in Guangdong; Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Henan's grain folding. Often, the actual levy is several times the quota, and the overcharged money becomes the source of "fullness" for officials at all levels. At the same time that the treasury was depleting, many officials were growing in their pockets, and the war gave them new opportunities to make a fortune. However, the jishu and scale of agricultural production limit its output. No matter how much the agricultural tax increases, after all, the number is limited. The excessive looting made the small people unable to afford to pay for the loss, so they had to follow the Taiping army to revolt and rebel, which further intensified the momentum of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Then the eyes of the provincial magistrates turned to the rich gentry and merchants. The way to deal with them is to persuade them to donate. According to the original donation regulations, each province handed over the amount of donated silver to the household department, and then transferred to the ministry, and Zuihou was approved by the emperor to issue a certificate indicating what kind of official title was donated. This method takes many days, and often after the silver is handed over, there is no follow-up for a long time, and the silver has to be spent to make points to urge the officials. In order to improve efficiency, Emperor Xianfeng, at the request of the magistrate, ordered the Ministry of Officials to directly issue blank certificates, which were filled in by the magistrates, and regularly summarized and reported, and generously treated the state official position as a commodity to wholesale. Since then, donating officials and knights has become a direct business of paying money with one hand and issuing licenses with the other. This kind of high efficiency temporarily promoted the purchase interest of "official consumers"; At the same time, the magistrate had a blank certificate, so he no longer had to wait for the two ministries to forward the documents, and he also withheld the donation of money from the official lord on the grounds of arrears of military salaries.

Door-to-door persuasion is already polite to face, and it is not surprising that there are many soldiers who do not give face. Many gentry and businessmen were afraid of the power of the government, so they had to donate again and again. Exchange the silver for a few yellow pieces of paper with empty titles. After the gentry and businessmen were blackmailed, some officials turned their attention to the officials who had returned to their hometowns who had made a fortune as a big official outside. These families, who had been real officials, looked down on the donation class and had no interest in empty titles, but they had no choice but to hand over part of their family property due to the repeated persuasion of the magistrate.

Qi Shan and his generals and staff have discussed, and methods such as persuasion and donation have also begun to be used, but fortunately, there are many rich salt merchants in Yangzhou, and the money and grain obtained by persuasion are still okay, so the maintenance of the camp in Jiangbei has not yet been a big mess. But Qi Shan also knows that this method can be used once or twice, and if he persuades too much, the rich will also be squeezed dry. Therefore, he was not very interested in Rong Lu's suggestions such as organizing regimental training, training new troops, and buying foreign guns and artillery, but he was most interested in how to raise money and food.

The money proposed by this kid Rong Lu made Qi Shan's eyes shine, and this method seemed to be much more feasible than the above unreliable methods. But what Qi Shan didn't know was. Li Jin's first line in the original history was his own Jiangbei camp, and the founder was his own Jiangsu political envoy Lei Yiyan and his staff master Qianjiang.

Year 1853. Lei Yi, the servant of the Criminal Department, was ordered to assist in the military affairs of the Jiangbei camp in Yangzhou. The main task is to raise salaries. This is an extremely difficult and laborious errand. However, one of his aides, Qian Jiang, a legendary figure at the time, came up with an idea to the Lei clan to send officers and soldiers to various land and water stations to set up checkpoints, and forcibly distribute donations to the goods passing through according to their value, which was actually a commodity transit tax. At that time, it was also called "Xingli"; In addition, the merchants who opened shops and sold goods were forced to pay a donation according to their sales, which was actually a commercial tax, and at that time it was also called "sitting li". The giver of the donation will also receive a photo of the meritorious name of the donation, just like other donors. It's just that there's no more voluntariness in it.

In October 1853, Lei Yiyun first set up an organization in Lixiahe to send subsidies to the rice shops in the towns of Fairy Temple, Shao Bo, Yiling and Zhangwanggou near Yangzhou City, and the initial standard was to donate 50 wen for every stone of rice. Lei Yiyan had the idea of giving it a try at the beginning, but he thought that in half a year, he would collect a total of 20,000 strings. In April of the following year, he reported to Emperor Xianfeng that this method would neither disturb the people nor burden the merchants, and for several months, the merchants and the people had nothing to do. He also saw the long-term stability of this method, saying in his compromise: "And the water flows for a long time, and the supply is inexhaustible, which is really beneficial to military supplies." As a result, Lei Yixuan declared that he would implement this law in all the prefectures and counties of Lixiahe, and on the other hand, he proposed that the governor of Jiangsu and the governor of Nanhe should "donate the regulations according to the proposed regulations and persuade them to do so" in their respective areas of blockade.

After Emperor Xianfeng received this setback, he ordered the governor of Jiangsu and the governor of Nanhe to discuss the local situation, and if the matter was feasible, it could also be handled according to Lei's method. This is the first time that Emperor Xianfeng has expressed his stance on the matter of Li Jin.

In May 1854, after Lei Yijun received the edict, he set up a branch in Taizhou and paid salaries with great fanfare. The scope of centigold has expanded from rice to all kinds of grain, poultry, livestock, oil, salt, tea, sugar, alkali, cotton, silk, cloth, clothing, wine, lacquer, paper, medicinal herbs, pots and bowls, and all kinds of groceries. In addition, the silver number and money bank are also divided according to their turnover. The governor of Jiangsu and the governor of Nanhe also began to set up card draws in the second half of the year. At the beginning of 1855, someone reported to Emperor Xianfeng that "there were too many donations from the north and south of the river", which shows the rapid development of its scale.

At the end of 1854, the Minister of the Imperial Mission, the Cabinet Minister, Shengbao, discovered the peculiar function of the Lijin, and proclaimed its various benefits, and asked all localities to imitate it: Can I ask the ministers of the various provinces to be sent to the army, together with the governors of the neighboring provinces of the province, together with the magistrates and the fair gentry, to imitate the regulations of Lei Yixuan and the Taizhou Public Bureau, and carefully prepare for it. The official is the supervisor and the businessman is the manager, and there is no risk of leakage without the hands of the officials. The provinces that use troops will be relieved at the same time, and other provinces will also temporarily store the treasury to meet the needs of various military salaries.

From this decision onwards, the governors of each province under the rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty could make decisions according to the situation in their own provinces and make decisions at their discretion. This decision of the imperial court delegated the power to collect the levy to the provincial governors, which was a revision of Shengbao's policy, but there were no clear regulations on the methods and standards of expropriation. The household department does not have a comprehensive design for this, and Emperor Xianfeng is even more ignorant. All he had in mind was to get the silver to meet the huge shortfall in military expenses, and as for the origin of the silver, he didn't want to ask about it, and he couldn't figure it out. As a result, the provinces have imitated the gold.

It can be said that the widespread implementation of the centigold system began, which gave blood to the depleted provincial finances. According to the fiscal system of the Qing Dynasty. All financial revenues belong to the imperial court, and the provinces, governments, prefectures, and counties can only make up their minds in the name of "consuming envy" and so on. After the summer of 1853, the imperial government could no longer allocate military expenditures, and the provincial finances, which had no legitimate financial resources, had to bear a huge amount of military expenses for the military camps. Now that there is finally a justifiable channel for expropriation, no one is willing to hand it over to the imperial treasury. As a result, the gold became a large source of wealth that was not controlled by the imperial court, and was controlled by the governors of the provinces. It was also during this period that the centigold gradually broke away from the scope of "donation" and clarified the identity of "tax".

If you use today's perspective, centigold should belong to commercial tax. It appears. There is a historical inevitability. Although in ancient Chinese history, commercial tax often became the main tax of the state, especially in the Song Dynasty, the commercial tax exceeded 11 million yuan, becoming one of the most important fiscal revenues. But since the Ming Dynasty. This has changed. Zhu Yuanzhang was born in a peasant family, limited to his personal experience. Doesn't recognize the meaning of business. The state tax revenue was mainly the land money and grain, that is, the agricultural tax, but the commercial tax weakened, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty inherited the practice of the Ming Dynasty, and the commercial tax was also very little. It can be said that the establishment of the centijin system is of great significance, and the centijin was still practiced from 1853 to the Republic of China. It provided financial vitality for the warlords of the Republic of China for more than 100 years in the future, and the warlords of the provinces all obtained money and grain through the centijin to supply them with armed liliang, and the armed liliang ensured that these warlords had the right to collect centijin from the people under their rule, so China's troubled times were after the fall of the Qing Dynasty. It has been around for decades, and the root cause of it is the harm caused by this centigold system.

Rong Lu is not unaware of the possible consequences of the Li Jin system, but his eyes are red now, and he can't care a lot about it in order to get on the throne, anyway, even if he doesn't put forward this strategy, it will be created by Lei Yiyan and Qian Jiang in a few months, since they are all things that will inevitably appear, why not use them for the top position?

Sure enough, when Rong Lu finished speaking, Qi Shan sat up straight and said with great interest: "Zhonghua's strategy is outstanding, and later the old man asked the Jiangsu political envoy in the camp to raise money and food, Lord Lei Yilei, you and him have a good discussion, draw up a charter, and the old man will play the court." ”

Rong Lu's face was happy, and he stepped forward and bowed: "Lao Zhongtang Mingjian, although the kid is young and shallow, but after the gate, his father and uncle died at the hands of the long-haired thief, and the kid is only willing to stay in the camp to help with military affairs, and I implore the old Zhongtang to play on his behalf!" ”

Qi Shan stood up tremblingly with a smile, personally helped Rong Lu up and said: "Jiangmen Huzi, your grandfather is an old general under the old man, so he will naturally take care of you, the golden strategy you proposed is very good, and the old man also wants to keep you, and the old man then went to the excerpt to ask the emperor to release you and stay in the old man's camp to help with military affairs, and the old man also needs a few caring people." ”

Rong Lu was overjoyed, Cheng En knelt down and said that he wanted to stay, he also knew that once he returned to Beijing, he would become a thorn in Su Shun's side, Rong Lu would not return to Beijing, and Su Shun's anger was only afraid that it would be on his body. After Rong Lu also said good things for Cheng En, Qi Shan immediately agreed, and Rong Lu stayed with the guards and himself, Cheng Enjiao, and Zabu Donake, the son of the Eight Banners of Mongolia.

Later, the political envoy of Jiangsu, Lei Yixuan, arrived, and talked with Rong Lu for two hours, Rong Lu directly moved some mature regulations in the Li Jin system, so that Lei Yi's eyes lit up, and immediately convened his staff to discuss together, and finally negotiated a Li Jin charter to report to Qi Shan. Because Rong Lu embezzled the money policy of Qian Jiang, a staff member under Lei Yiyan, which directly caused Qian Jiang, who had just joined Lei Yiyan's command, to be at a loss, Qian Jiang left the camp with his half-finished draft of the donation policy that night and went elsewhere.

After Qi Shan got the Li Jin charter, he was overjoyed after reading it, and immediately folded the report, and at the same time set up a banquet to entertain Rong Lu and others, and introduced the generals in the camp to Rong Lu during the banquet, Qi Shan took Rong Lu as his old descendants, and regarded it as his confidant, and the generals in the camp did not dare to underestimate Rong Lu and others. So Rong Lu relied on the strategy of donating money to solve the problem of raising money and food in the Jiangbei camp, and he stayed and began to embark on the road of leading the army to fight. (To be continued.) )

PS: This chapter has a lot of words, referring to the research of many scholars, in order to better explain the current financial crisis in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and also to better explain the necessity of Rong Lu's advice.