The village chief's salary was set at two buckets of rice per month, that is, more than 30 catties, enough for a strong rural laborer to eat.

I can only feed myself and cannot feed my family.

Because of the village chief's time, most of it is farming by himself.

Persuading grain and organizing road construction, these activities are all in the slack season, and there is nothing to do.

As for mediating disputes, I went with a bowl at meal time, and I could settle the dispute while picking up the rice. If you have a big heart, you can let the villagers fight first and finish the meal yourself.

This level of salary is equivalent to one more teacher per village.

By the way, the salaries of village teachers are now supported by the villagers in various villages, mainly to relieve financial pressure. You may question that this is not compulsory education, but this is also the case in New China, where farmers are willing to support teachers in their own villages and have special respect for teachers.

Even so, the financial expenditure is still too great, because this year it is necessary to provide relief to the people affected by the disaster in Huguang and Guangdong, and a large number of people will have to migrate to areas where the war has been seriously affected.

"The Baoquan Bureau has been built, and several money molds have been made, and we can start minting money this month."

Fei Chun and Song Yingxing came to find Zhao Han to discuss matters, and also pulled Li Banghua and Huang Shunfu.

Fei Chun said: "The Finance Secretary and the Chief Secretary for Administration have disputes over what kind of money to mint more. To be honest, this question cannot be discussed, and each has its own pros and cons. ”

"You can't mint too much to get ten cents, otherwise the people will suffer." Wong Shun-fu, who is in charge of the Chief Secretary for Administration, said.

Fei Chun argued: "Even if you don't mint ten coins, you should mint five more coins." Otherwise, if the money is flat and folded in two, we will lose as much as we cast! ”

Li Banghua suggested: "It is too much to discount ten dollars to exploit the people, and if you break two dollars, you will definitely lose money." In my opinion, all the minting should be discounted by five coins, and it was announced that the grain bank would not charge ten discounts. ”

"If the grain bank announces that it will not accept a discount of ten, who will use it among the people? Isn't the ten dollars in the hands of the common people smashed in their hands? Huang Shunfu is concerned about people's livelihood.

Fei Chun said angrily: "If we accept it, Chongzhen will always cast, why should we get used to Chongzhen?" ”

The two chief officials of finance and civil affairs quarreled in front of Zhao Han, and each of them made sense.

The root cause is the financial embarrassment of the Ming court, so the printing of money is becoming more and more outrageous, divided into flat money, folded two, folded five, folded fourteen. Not only are the denominations of copper coins getting bigger and bigger, but the quality is also getting worse and worse, causing the purchasing power of copper coins to decline wildly.

Coupled with the deflation of silver, the exchange ratio of copper and silver is now very outrageous in some places, and one or two silver can even be exchanged for four thousand copper coins!

Zhao Han's Baoquan Mint, if he dares to mint a large number of flat coins and fold two, he will definitely lose as much as he mints. The better the quality and the smaller the currency value, the more merchants like it, and they must sweep the goods in the market, store all the good money, and then let Chongzhen's rotten money circulate in the market.

This is a classic example of bad money driving out good money!

And there is no solution, because the circulation of Chongzhen's rotten money is too large. First, Zhao Han's coinage was too small to carry Chongzhen's treasure; Second, the circulation of Chongzhen Tongbao cannot be directly banned, otherwise Zhao Han's territory will fall into economic chaos.

After these people finished arguing, Zhao Han clapped his hands and said: "The Baoquan Bureau mints money, and I will give three requirements." First, a large number of minting five coins, a small number of minting two coins, the quality of the coins is comparable to that of Chongzhen's four years of Nanjing; Second, the current money model is used first, and immediately set out to make a new model, which is still called Chongzhen Tongbao, but it is necessary to add the four words of the world's great harmony; Third, after the new money came out, the grain bank immediately refused to accept Chongzhen's discount of ten yuan. ”

The quality of the Nanjing copper coin of Chongzhen's four years is worse than that of the Beijing coin of the same period, but it is much better than that of the later one, and it is a copper coin of medium value.

As for the still casting Chongzhen Tongbao, it is mainly convenient to circulate in other provinces.

The addition of the words "the world is the same" does not hinder the use of copper coins.

At the end of Chongzhen, there was also a kind of copper coin, the quality was very bad, and it was cast with a galloping horse pattern, commonly known as "running horse Chongzhen". This is a kind of private money, some people think that it was cast by Li Zicheng, and it is normal to ride a horse. A horse is a breakthrough, a horse breaks into the Forbidden City, and Li Zicheng, the destroyer of the world.

Huang Shunfu reminded: "General Town, if the grain store refuses to accept ten yuan, I am afraid that the ten yuan of Jiangxi people will cost 6,000 to 8,000 wen to exchange for one or two pieces of silver." ”

"Even so, we have to refuse to accept it," Fei Chun immediately replied, "Long pain is better than short pain, we can't keep letting Chongzhen mint money to suck our blood." This is also sucking the blood of the people of Jiangxi, if it is allowed to circulate again, Chongzhen is afraid that he will be able to cast a lot of money! ”

Zhao Han stopped: "Okay, don't say anything more, it's settled." As for the people who have ten cents in their hands, they can only consider themselves unlucky, and we can't help them. ”

There's really no way, it's impossible for Zhao Han to recycle.

Once Zhao Han recovered, the merchants would be profitable, and they would deliberately go to Nanjing to buy ten yuan, and then transport the whole ship over to find a grain store to exchange.

Since Zhao Han made the decision, everyone had no objections, and immediately went their own way.

Song Yingxing was left behind by Zhao Han.

Zhao Han asked, "What about Fei Ruyi?" ”

"It's quite talented, but it's not well-received." Song Yingxing replied.

When Fei Ruyang was in Hanzhu Academy, he was already studying "Mengxi Writings", and went to Suzhou to learn strange and skillful skills from craftsmen.

However, the route of this goods has deviated, and his main direction is cloth dyeing, studying how to dye brightly colored cloth at a low cost. At the same time, he likes to design his own clothing styles, jewelry and hats, which perfectly fits his title of "Costume Demon".

At the end of last year, Fei Ruyang came to Zhao Han, and after learning about the recent situation, Zhao Han threw him to Song Yingxing as an assistant.

Zhao Han said: "The affairs of the Public Works Department have always been Tian Younian's agent, and I decided to promote him to the head of the department. ”

"The town doesn't have to ask me, I won't mind." Song Yingxing said with a smile. He is now living a very fulfilling life, taking craftsmen to engage in research and development all day long, and even the daily affairs of the armory are managed by his henchmen.

Song Yingxing didn't care, but Zhao Han had to be appeased: "You are still in charge, but the affairs in charge are different." This is a special case and will not be repeated. ”

Song Yingxing arched his hand and said, "Thank you for your concern." ”

"Look at this." Zhao Han threw over a silver dollar.

This is a Spanish silver Baliel coin, literally "8" on one side and "P" on the other, which together is actually "8 pesos".

This kind of silver coin exists in large quantities in Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. Merchants were especially fond of using it, as it had a fixed denomination and no longer had to weigh the silver when trading.

Why didn't the Ming court mint silver coins?

Because Zhu Yuanzhang has a rule that gold and silver are not allowed to be used to mint money!

Silver ingots are not money, at least not legally.

However, after Zhang Juzheng's reform, the Ming Dynasty levied taxes, only collecting silver, not copper coins.

Song Yingxing asked, "The town wants to mint silver coins?" ”

"That's the plan." Zhao Han nodded and said.

Song Yingxing played with the Spanish silver coin and commented: "This money is of inferior quality, if we mint silver coins, we should make it more exquisite." ”

The Spanish silver dollar is really inferior in quality, so don't substitute it for the late Qing Dynasty.

At this time, the Spanish silver dollar had a very high silver content and was filled with very few impurities. This is for the convenience of casting, the purer the silver, the softer, and the more rubbish the machine can complete the pressing.

However, the pressed silver coin is not guaranteed to be perfectly round, and there are even various gaps and cracks that have not been flattened.

After a long period of use, the soft texture of the silver coin is even more unshaped.

The silver coin in Song Yingxing's hand has become an irregular oval.

Zhao Han said to Song Yingxing: "This kind of silver coin is not minted, but machine-pressed. I wanted to make a machine that would hammer out harder silver coins. ”

Song Yingxing said: "If you want the silver to harden, you have to add a lot of impurities, will the people recognize it?" ”

"Yes," Zhao Han said, "adding impurities to silver coins has three benefits. First, it makes the silver coin more exquisite and not easy to deform after a long time; second, if you can rely on coinage, you can get more income, and what you earn is the difference in impurities; Third, to prevent the people from scraping off the silver edge, the silver coin in your hand, the outer circle is scraped off. ”

Never underestimate the people's love for money, not to mention the silver dollar scraping, copper coins they all scrape.

Jiajing Tongbao has several high-quality models that are often scraped off the edges of copper coins. It is mainly scraped by illegal merchants, and after scraping it off, the copper is melted and used for other purposes.

Adding more impurities to the silver coin can effectively prevent the silver coin from being scratched: first, the texture becomes hard and difficult to scratch. The second is that there are too many impurities, and they have to be refined. Dramatically reduce illegal profits.

Song Yingxing nodded and said, "When I go back, I will organize people to develop a coin press." ”

Zhao Han said: "Jiangxi's water network is vertical and horizontal, and it is best to make a hydraulic coin press. In the future, I would like to suppress not only silver coins, but also copper coins. The Ming copper coin is too chaotic, at least half of the country has to be accounted for, in order to start reforming the currency value, and then the coin press will be of great use. I'm going to gradually replace copper coins with copper coins! ”

Song Yingxing felt that it was of great significance, and immediately stood up and arched his hand: "I must do my best." ”

Zhao Han sighed, looking forward to taking Guangdong as soon as possible.

The significance brought by Guangdong can not only meddle in maritime trade, but also alleviate the silver shortage.

From the middle of the Ming Dynasty, silver flowed into China in large quantities.

It is difficult to say whether there is inflation or not, because the economy of Daming at that time was also developing rapidly, and the rise in prices was certain. In particular, the provinces in the south of the Yangtze River are experiencing continuous social and economic growth, and there are problems with prices instead of rising.

Much of this silver flowed into the cellars of wealthy merchants, which also promoted the industrial and commercial upgrading of the Jiangnan provinces.

After Zhang Juzheng's reforms, instead of inflation, there was a shortage of silver across the country, because the government only collected money when it collected taxes.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Spanish Empire had declined, and the inflow of silver had decreased, and now there was a general silver shortage.

On the one hand, silver is scarce, and on the other hand, copper coins are indiscriminately mined, resulting in an increasingly outrageous ratio of silver to copper coins.

According to statistics in later generations, in the four years of Chongzhen alone, the silver imported from the Philippines to Macao was as high as 14 million taels. Regardless of whether the data is true or not, one thing is certain, Macau is the most important silver importer of Daming.

As long as Guangzhou is occupied, the silver shortage under Zhao Han can be alleviated, and the impact of Chongzhen's indiscriminate issuance of copper coins can also be slightly offset.