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. The basic feature of pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info is to live within your means, and the biggest drawback caused by 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. But when this system was first implemented, it seemed that the effect was not bad, Kangxi and Yongzheng two dynasties of the careful management of the Ming lords, so that the highest silver deposit of the household reached 70 million taels, but after the great joy of the Qianlong Emperor spending, to the Jiaqing Emperor, the silver deposit was not much. The Sichuan-Chu White Lotus Rebellion, the Jungar Rebellion, the Opium War, and the Yellow River burst its banks many times, the Qing government's finances were in a quandary. As soon as Emperor Xianfeng came to power, he wanted to clear his family's background, and Zhuo Bingtian, a bachelor in charge of household affairs, reported to him: the national treasury of silver was only 8 million taels, and "the income has decreased but not increased, and the withdrawal has increased without decreasing", and the income cannot make ends meet, and the amount is very huge.

War is a money-eating monster, and its consumption is staggeringly large. However, the lack of financial resources 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 Liangzuo, the secretary of the Ministry of War, said that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has three golden bells, weighing more than 2,000 catties and worth hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, and please sell them to supplement military expenses. He immediately ordered the Internal Affairs Office to find out and send Prince Gong Yixun to personally supervise the melting. As a result, these three were refined by the palace craftsmen during the Qianlong period, engraved with the imperial inscriptions of the Qianlong Emperor, weighing 800 catties, 700 catties, and 580 catties respectively, and 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 copper bottles, copper furnaces, copper turtles and cranes were stored in the Old Summer Palace and other places. It turned into 8,747 pounds of copper.

In August of the fifth year of Xianfeng, the Ministry of Internal Affairs finally showed a red light to Emperor Xianfeng, and the deposit was only 41,000 taels of silver, and he could no longer pay any expenses outside the royal family.

The originally prepared Mulan Autumn Hunt was also forced to cancel, and the emperor held an excerpt in the Qinzheng Hall and Xingzhen sighed for a long time, "From the first year of Xianfeng to this year." 40 million taels were raised for the military expenses in the south, but now it really can't be moved anymore, and there are only 290,000 taels left in the deposit of the household department, but what can I do! ”

"The military aircraft came up with three methods, reducing the salary, issuing donations, and issuing silver tickets. I have no other way, the gold and bronze artifacts that the Internal Affairs Office can find have all been found and melted by me, so I can only listen to the methods of outsiders, what do you think, Queen? ”

Xingzhen took a closer look at the folds on the military plane, most of which were thought out by Su Shun, and couldn't help but secretly praise in her heart, it was really Su Shun with outstanding talent.

"All three of these methods work, but none of them are very useful!" Xingzhen said that the emperor did not draw any nail marks on the fold, which means that the emperor still has to discuss with the military aircraft. So Xingzhen said these words, put down the fold, can you help a little is a little, the emperor nodded, and said, "Queen, you talk about it." ”

"First of all, this reduction in the salaries of the officials will not make them resign themselves to living without a living. They intensified their raiding of the people. Your Majesty, don't blame the concubines for speaking ugly," Xianfeng smiled bitterly, "like that." The already corrupt government is even worse. If the soldiers fighting in the front are in arrears for a long time, they will inevitably cause trouble or harm the local area because of the trouble, so that the local people's hearts and minds will be lost. You must know that although there are many petty officials and officials, and they also spend a lot of money, these money is their source of livelihood, if they can't sustain their lives, how can they be expected to serve the country loyally. If all the local officials have gone bad, this will be the situation of the whole country! ”

"The second is to open a donation example. Spend two or three thousand taels of silver to donate a top of Qipinzhi County, the initial self-feeling is naturally excellent, we can be on an equal footing with the county master! But when the neighborhood magistrate and county walked all over the streets, and even the prefect and Taoist staff met day by day, it set off the eight-sided majesty of the real county lord. How can a false title compare to a real deficiency. "Selling officials and donating money is the traditional method of the Qing government to deal with the lack of money, and it has almost never stopped since the Kangxi Dynasty was founded. 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 financial needs.

"What's more, the excerpt says that the household department will distribute the blank official documents to the provinces for sale, which is even more inappropriate, the emperor, think about it, if the local government prepares its own army, and the military salary is handled by itself, in the long run, I am afraid that the internal and external trends will be reversed, and the country will not be blessed."

Xianfeng nodded, "That's right, what about the silver ticket?" ”

Xingzhen is not a graduate of economics after all, and she knows only half about issuing currency, but she also knows the dangers of indiscriminate currency issuance, "If the silver ticket is executed properly, it is better than copper money!" However, the emperor, these silver tickets, treasure banknotes, and big money cannot be issued indiscriminately, let alone entrusted to a place to issue them! If it is overdone and prices are soaring, I am afraid that the commercial bills in this place will not be recognized, and this silver ticket will be a piece of waste paper as soon as it comes out! ”

"I also know that I am drinking to quench my thirst now, but what if I don't come up with some countermeasures?" Emperor Xianfeng, who gradually began to slack off in government, really wanted to listen to the drama in the same paradise forever, and he didn't have to pay attention to the things outside.

From the perspective of world financial history, it is a historical necessity to develop from precious metal currencies in terms of weight to precious metals or metal currencies (such as gold yuan, silver yuan, copper coins, etc.) in terms of quantity, and then to paper money. 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 paper money must be guided by sound financial theories and must be carefully designed, in which a considerable amount of margin and a strict control of the issuance amount have become the decisive principles that are familiar to those who use paper money today. (To be continued.) )

PS: What about the recommended monthly passes, dear ones.