The water conservancy grain silver number is located in Baling, the capital city of Yuezhou.

Chongzhen immediately sent a flying horse to Baling, and asked Qian Mo, the big treasurer of the water conservancy and grain silver, to come to Wuling, the city of Changde Mansion, and Qian Mo rushed to Wuling the next morning after receiving the holy decree.

Qian Mo is a Jiashan scholar, only 19 years old this year.

At the beginning, he and his brother Qian Xi and brother-in-law Xia Wanchun were served as King Qin.

It's just that the Qian brothers are mediocre in military talent, but they are quite talented in business, and they were later selected by Chongzhen to serve as the treasurer of the shipping and shipbuilding silver and the water conservancy and grain silver respectively.

"Chancellor Qian Mo, please ask the Holy Jin'an." Qian Mo paid a big salute.

"Get up." Chongzhen waved his hand and said, "Qian Mo, I heard that you used white strips to buy grain from the common people?" ”

"There's this." Qian Mo did not deny it, nodded and said, "Because there are only more than 8 million taels of silver left in the water conservancy grain silver, but the project to strengthen the Yangtze River embankment has been fully rolled out, so the minister does not dare to divert the 8 million taels of silver for other purposes, so he can only give the people a white slip first, and then redeem it after selling the grain." ”

Chongzhen frowned and said, "You can borrow no silver." ”

"The minister went to borrow it." Qian Mo shook his head and smiled bitterly, "But I can't borrow it." ”

"What do you say, can't borrow it?" Chongzhen didn't believe it, "The royal silver horn refuses to lend you silver?" ”

"It's not that I won't, it's not." Qian Mo smiled bitterly again and said, "There are only 40 million taels left in the treasury of the Royal Silver Number, and the crown princess said that it is a reserve, and what you said about the Holy Lord cannot be easily called." ”

"Huh?" Chongzhen said in disbelief, "There are only 40 million taels left in the treasury of the Royal Silver Trumpet? ”

This Chongzhen really didn't expect that when he left Nanjing before, there were still more than 100 million taels of silver in the treasury of the royal silver number, and now there are only 40 million taels left?

All the rest of the money was lent out?

Isn't that too fast?

What is the total amount of currency in circulation in the Ming market?

You must know that the Ming Royal Silver is equivalent to the central bank.

Qian Mo said again: "The minister also asked the industrial and commercial industry silver number and the shipping and shipbuilding silver number to borrow, but they were even tighter, and in turn borrowed silver from the minister, which is really evil, and there is a shortage of silver in the entire Jiangnan this year." ”

"Where is there a shortage of silver in Jiangnan?" Hearing this, Chongzhen suddenly reacted.

Good guy, this is because of the lack of liquidity, the money shortage broke out, and it was a bit unexpected for Daming to break out the money shortage so quickly.

Lack of liquidity, simply put, is a shortage of money in the market.

The currency of the Ming Dynasty was silver, which meant that there was not enough silver in circulation.

The reason for this is that with the vigorous development of the handicraft industry in Jiangnan, all kinds of commodities are produced in large quantities, and then the workers in the workshop have also generated a demand for consumption because they have received wages, and the consumption of workers has promoted the development of the service industry, so that various service industries can also flourish.

This means that the number of people involved in economic life has increased dramatically.

The number of people participating in economic life has increased dramatically, and the demand for consumption has also increased dramatically.

However, consumption requires payment, so the frequency and total amount of silver use has also increased greatly.

A simple calculation can be made, the poor people in the agricultural era lived like livestock, in addition to selling grain for silver when they needed to pay taxes, it was rare to have a few taels of silver in their pockets all year round, and these people almost did not participate in economic life, so there would be no shortage of silver, and those officials, nobles, gentlemen, and businessmen were holding a lot of silver in their hands, and naturally there would be no shortage of silver, so it was impossible for a money shortage to break out in the market.

But now the situation has changed.

Now the 10 million or even 30 million people in Jiangnan are deeply involved in economic life, because they have received wages from workshops or factories, or earned money by opening restaurants, teahouses, restaurants, etc., so they have a few taels of silver in their pockets, and they have even accumulated a lot of net worth.

These small households have not yet developed the habit of depositing silver in the silver number, mainly for convenience, because their total amount of silver is so little, and they can't earn a few interest money by depositing the silver number, and the deposit and withdrawal are very troublesome, so the willingness to deposit the silver number is very low, and the result is that a large amount of silver flows into the people.

There are 30 million people in the south of the Yangtze River, and each person holds an average of ten taels of silver in his hand, which is 300 million!

The total amount of silver in the Ming Dynasty is about 700 million taels, excluding the silver in the hands of Jiannu, Pseudo Shun and Zhang Xianzhong, the total silver stock of the Ming Dynasty should be about 400 million taels.

Among them, a considerable part was hidden in the cellar by the rich man.

The total stock of silver is 400 million, and 300 million taels have been scattered to the hands of the people, and some of them are buried deep in the cellar, so it is no wonder that there will be a shortage of money in the market, and even the royal silver number only has 40 million taels of reserve silver left.

It is precisely because of this that Qian Mo will find people and cannot borrow money to buy grain.

But fortunately, this time I made a lot of money from Yunnan and got a lot of silver.

At that moment, Chongzhen asked Qian Mo: "Have you counted the guard, how much silver do you need?" ”

Qian Mo said: "The minister has made a rough estimate, according to the fish scale book of Wanli, the total area of cultivated land in Huguang Province is more than 91 million mu, before because of the military disaster and tax evasion, the cultivated area was once less than 30 million mu, but in the past two years, especially this year, the situation has greatly improved, before the autumn harvest, the minister has gone to the prefectures to walk around, nearly half of the wasteland, but most of the abandoned are barren mountains, and the fertile paddy fields are basically cultivated. ”

Chongzhen said: "That is to say, nearly 50 million acres have been planted, is that what it means?" ”

"Yes." Qian Mo said, "And basically one season of wheat and one season of rice are planted, and this year's year is good, and there is no problem with an average harvest of three stones per mu." ”

"So even if it is calculated according to 40 million mu, it can collect 120 million stones of grain."

"According to the number of dings contained in the fish scale atlas, there are more than 4 million dings in Huguang Province, and the number of mouths should be about 12 million, taking into account the loss of population, the number of mouths in the entire Huguang Province should be about 10 million now, even if it is calculated according to the per capita ration of four stones, leaving 40 million stones is enough to eat."

"Therefore, the surplus grain in Huguang Province is at least 80 million stones."

After a pause, Qian Mo said again: "Even if it is at the price of one stone, one dollar and five cents, it will require at least 12 million taels of silver, and the minister really can't afford to make up such a large amount of silver now." ”

"How can one stone, one penny, and five cents." Chongzhen said, "This price is too black-hearted. ”

"The minister also thinks that this price is too black." Qian Mo said, "But this is the only grain price in Huguang this year." ”

"If the price of grain is too low, it will hurt the enthusiasm of farmers, so they will not grow any more grain next year, which is not good." Chongzhen said categorically, "I will buy grain at the market price of previous years." ”

Qian Mo said: "In previous years, the market price was five yuan per stone, so it would take 40 million taels. ”

Chongzhen said: "40 million taels is 40 million taels, I will find a way to deal with the silver, you just have to buy it, I want all the 80 million stone grain to enter the granary of the Internal Affairs Bureau, and not a single grain is allowed to flow into the hands of black-hearted grain merchants." ”

"Command." Qian Mo respectfully agreed, and said, "But the saint, the matter of silver?" ”

Obviously, Qian Mo was still worried that if there was no silver, he would still have to make a blank slip to the people.

Chongzhen said: "That's the case, I got more than 8 million taels of silver plus 50 million taels worth of jewelry from Yunnan this time, so you don't need to worry about the silver." ”

Qian Mo really put his mind at ease now.

After sending Qian Mo away, Chongzhen began to think about how to solve the money shortage.

To be honest, the arrival of the money shortage caught Chongzhen a little off guard, he thought that the money shortage would not break out until the end of next year, but he didn't expect it to be more than a year ahead of schedule.

However, this is enough to prove how rapid the development of Jiangnan handicraft industry is.

Chongzhen is even a little eager to go back to Nanjing now to see how much has changed?

As for how to solve the money shortage, the silver standard has to mine a large amount of silver, and the gold standard has to mine a large amount of gold, as long as the supply of silver or gold in the market is sufficient, the phenomenon of money shortage will naturally disappear.

The Ming Dynasty was based on the silver standard, but the idea of mining silver to alleviate the money shortage obviously did not work.

Because even Yunnan, which produces the most silver, only mined more than 100,000 taels in a year, how can this bit of silver alleviate the money shortage? I'm afraid it's not enough to plug the gaps between my teeth.

So now there are only two ways.

The first is to plunder the silver of the pseudo-Shun and Jiannu.

plundered all the 300 million taels of silver in the hands of Pseudo Shun and Jiannu.

However, this method can only alleviate for a while, but it can not cure the symptoms, even if all the 300 million taels of silver are plundered, it will not last long, and at most there will be a money shortage in a year.

Therefore, the most fundamental way is to issue silver tickets and give them the attributes of circulation.

Only by adopting the silver bill system can the Royal Silver Signal become a central bank in the true sense of the word, and as long as the Royal Silver Ticket puts 100 million equivalent silver bills into commercial banks such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank, the Shipping and Shipbuilding Silver Bank, and the Water Conservancy and Grain Silver Bank, it can generate 300 million or even 400 million yuan of liquidity in the market.

The multiplier effect of the base currency can be up to 7.5x.

But with the level of industrial development of the Ming Dynasty, it would be good to have a threefold multiplier effect.

Chongzhen estimated that the royal silver horn needs to put at least another 100 million silver bills, so that it can generate 300 million to 400 million taels of liquidity in the market, so that the total amount of money circulating in the market will change from 300 million taels of silver to 600 million taels of silver, and this money shortage will disappear, and it may even be reversed to inflation.

The so-called silver ticket is actually the Ming version of the RMB, about this, Chongzhen even has the banknote printing technology in reserve.

Once necessary, you can directly let the bond printing plant print a large number of prints, of course, anti-counterfeiting technology, especially the ciphertext technology needs to be further optimized.

[Note: Some readers have reported that the author has deviated from the main line and is too locked, but there is really not, because now the plot has been fully rolled out, and the people and things that should be explained must be explained, otherwise it will appear abrupt when used later, so it is recommended that those who like to watch the plot of Jiannu can skip chapters to read]

(End of chapter)