The use of forging presses to make silver and copper coins was naturally the best way to reform the coin system.

But there is an obvious problem, I have neither eggs nor rice in my hands, how do I cook egg fried rice?

There is indeed a Tongshan County in Sichuan that produces copper, and some areas do produce silver. But that bit of silver and copper production disappeared instantly when it was issued. The more finely the coins were forged, the faster they disappeared, and they were all hidden in the cellars by the rich.

In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, iron coins were circulated throughout the country, and copper coins were issued step by step.

Sichuan just can't change it, because the copper coins of the coinage supervisor are all issued in the nearby copper-producing areas, and the cost of all cross-regional transportation is too high.

As a result, no matter how many copper coins were issued, because the quantity was too small in the market, the coinage supervisors in Sichuan and the surrounding areas would sink into the sea as soon as they were issued, and they could not even see the slightest splash. Those copper coins, as long as they go into the pockets of big households, don't even think about taking them out and using them again.

Even the high-quality iron money, the rich people are stationed at home, and they use those rotten iron money.

This is the literal meaning of bad money driving out good money.

In the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty, due to the shortage of money, the area of iron money use continued to expand.

At first, it was to issue iron money to the western army, and the imperial court used iron money to purchase military supplies in Shaanxi, and then gradually expanded to the Nanxiang Basin. When they arrived in the Southern Song Dynasty, Lianghuai also began to use iron money.

Since Cai Jing is on iron money, he will naturally not let go of paper money.

Jiaozi was completely abolished in the hands of Cai Jing and replaced with the use of money. This is also a kind of banknote, and it is issued throughout the country, with the exception of Gyeonggi, Liangzhejiang, Jinghu, Liangguang, Fujian, and even Jiangdong and Jiangxi are also paper money areas.

And then it blew up, and there was not much reserve at all.

The copper-producing areas of the Southern Song Dynasty were occupied by the Jin State, and Zhao Gou could only use iron money and paper money to support finances. Not only let the iron money circulate in Lianghuai, but also issue paper money nationwide, and the paper money of the Southern Song Dynasty is called Huizi. It was used until the fall of the Song Dynasty, and then it was picked up and inherited by the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty.

In ancient China, paper money was valid for at least 300 years!

"You don't have to use Shu brocade, silk is more common, and it is also hard currency," Zhu Ming suggested, "Salt can also be used for endorsement, and Sichuan salt is an important economic guarantee." ”

Zhu Guoxiang said: "There is also gold. Yangzhou and Jinzhou produce gold, and Fangzhou also produces gold, with gold, grain, silk cloth, and Sichuan salt as reserves, which is enough to ensure the credibility of paper money. There is also the problem of anti-counterfeiting, you have to use special paper, special patterns, special inks to print, and it is best to invent the color printing technology. ”

Fangzhou's gold production ranks first in the country, far greater than that of Yangzhou and Jinzhou.

"Jinghu and Jiangxi have to be taken as soon as possible, both are important copper and silver sources," Zhu Ming said, "and by occupying these two places, copper and silver coins can be forged, and then they will circulate in parallel with paper money." It is better to lay Yunnan, and there are enough copper mines in Yunnan. ”

Zhu Guoxiang shook his head: "It's difficult." ”

At this time, the whole of Guizhou was in the hands of the barbarians, and there were also a large number of barbarians in southern Sichuan, and Yunnan was surrounded by the barbarians.

The degree of sinicization of Dali is extremely high, but it is only in major cities, and its country is also full of barbarians.

It may be easy to fight, but it is extremely difficult to govern, and the administrative cost is too high, so you can only use the toast system to excessively. At the same time as the canonization of Tusi, the migration of troops and civilians to the cantonment allowed the Han people to occupy key areas and radiate influence towards the surrounding barbarians.

This kind of resettlement was very difficult in the early Song Dynasty, mainly because of the high mortality rate caused by miasma.

Now that experience has gradually been discovered, officials have learned how to prevent miasma, and many decoctions have been explored and summarized by doctors.

But even if you want to resettle for settlement, you still give priority to Hunan and Hubei, where the land is still vast and sparsely populated? If there is population, money and food to immigrate, of course, the core areas must be developed first, and southern Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan must be left behind.

The father and son began to discuss this, and Zhu Guoxiang said: "First of all, gradually sinicization in southern Sichuan, especially in the salt-producing areas. Even Yibin and Luzhou are barbarians everywhere, what else is Guizhou and Yunnan talking about? I plan to open schools in these places, and let the barbarian leaders send their children to study, not only as hostages, but also to spread Han culture. All barbarian leaders and familiar barbarians must change their surnames and take Han names. Especially the familiar barbarians who are close to each other must be all organized into households. ”

Zhu Ming said: "It may provoke a rebellion, there are only three armies in the southern Sichuan region, and I don't know if the army is enough." ”

Zhu Guoxiang said: "If a rebellion is provoked, it will be suppressed, and there is still an army in eastern Sichuan, which can be transferred at any time." In the Lizhou you governed, the five tribes were the first to organize households. They are all familiar with Qiang, not only can they speak Chinese, but also have long abolished the hereditary system of leaders, and many of the five barbarian disciples are still serving as soldiers. Let the five barbarian soldiers of Tengxiang's army all write letters to their families. ”

When Zhu Ming was in Lizhou, he had already made the five barbarians into households.

But that's just a façade and a lot of hiding from the population.

This time, however, it is real, and the population and land must not be concealed. But after all, these tribes should not go too far, and the taxes must be reduced accordingly, and they must be given some autonomy.

Zhu Guoxiang said: "This year, I plan to set up a department of agricultural persuasion and train special agricultural officials. Priority was given to the promotion of corn and sweet potatoes in the mountainous areas, and most of the barbarians were in the mountainous areas, and when the core areas were promoted, agricultural officials were sent to the barbarian settlements. You can't be tough on barbarians, especially the familiar barbarians, who were oppressed badly by the officials of the Song Dynasty. Give them benefits, so that they can be fed, and surely some barbarians will be grateful. With the existence of this kindness, we will win over and divide and crack down on die-hard elements. ”

Zhu Ming's thinking was extremely jumpy, and he was still talking about barbarians just now, when he suddenly thought of somewhere else: "Get me some horses, I want good horses in the northwest." ”

Zhu Guoxiang said with a smile: "This has to make friends with Yao Gu, and also with the newly appointed Lifting Capital Tea and Horse Division." ”

It is to cooperate with the tea and horse division of the imperial court, exchange Sichuan tea for the northwest war horse, and smuggle it all the way.

The tea and horse division is very oily and watery, and the last few promotions are all big tea and horse divisions, all of which are the prime minister's henchmen. In order to make money, most of them are willing to cooperate, and when the time comes, they will buy horses in the mutual market, and they will definitely sell good horses to Sichuan, and then hand over the bad horses to the Great Song army.

This kind of operation is too normal, like those warlords in the Ming Dynasty, who quietly sold the sturdy official horses, claimed to the outside world that they were dead and bad, and constantly begged the court to allocate funds to buy horses. Then cooperate with Mongolia and Houjin, first sell the inferior horses to Mongolia and Houjin, and then use the silver of the imperial court to buy inferior horses and eat kickbacks.

Anyway, one is more fun than the other, and in the end they are too lazy to complicate the operation, omit all kinds of intermediate links, and directly ask for silver to buy horses and be greedy for money.

Zhu Ming said: "The Nanxiang Basin is vast and sparsely populated, and many places are barren and grassy. In addition to distributing the land to soldiers and homeless people, I also plan to set aside some for pasture for the time being. Teng Xiangjun was transferred over, and there was a large pasture for them to enjoy. But this is only light cavalry, and I still want to get some heavy cavalry, so I need a lot of northwest war horses. Forming elite cavalry is not an overnight thing, and it must be put on the agenda now. What is the best pasture? ”

Zhu Guoxiang said: "Alfalfa is found everywhere in the country, and this thing was originally introduced as pasture. ”

"Then arrange some homeless people to be horse breeders and let them grow alfalfa in large quantities," Zhu Ming asked again, "What happened to the ordnance factory?" ”

Zhu Guoxiang said: "The Ordnance Department is about to be formally established, and Qian Chen is good, let him be in charge of the Ordnance Department." You can rest assured, and I can rest assured. In the state capitals and counties, I intend to set up seven armoury stations, issue private mining and smelting licenses, and provide them with advanced smelting technology. Half of the privately smelted pig and wrought iron must be sold to the government. The government only needs to purchase raw wrought iron, and then let the ordnance institute build armor, which can not only improve efficiency, but also reduce financial expenditure. Moreover, when smelting licenses are issued, they can also reward and control local wealthy households, so that they can cooperate with the inventory of population and land. ”

The Northern Song Dynasty also thought about the salt and iron state-run, but it turned out that the efficiency was extremely poor and corruption was rampant.

After each rectification, it broke down again for a maximum of ten years.

In the end, it could only be changed to a salt and iron franchise, and merchants were issued business licenses, and the imperial court only controlled the key processes, which could immediately increase the production of salt and iron.

Even Song Huizong's imperial tea garden is now in a mess, and a large number of private teas are purchased as imperial tea tribute.

Because the quality of the tea leaves in the Imperial Tea Garden is far inferior to that of private tea.

Even if many new teas are actually developed by the Royal Tea Garden, after two or three years of new product development, private tea gardens can complete learning, imitation and surpassing.

The father and son chatted for several hours, and the final conversation was about dividing the acres.

Zhu Guoxiang already has a plan, and after the land inventory is completed, he will immediately implement the full implementation of the apportionment of the land into mu.

This is a disguised increase in land endowment, but it can reduce apportionment, which has advantages and disadvantages for landlords.

If the government can ensure that there is no indiscriminate apportionment, the landlords are extremely willing and supportive, but unfortunately the ancient dynasty could not do it. The final result is that the apportionment will gradually recover, resulting in the landlord having to pay two shares. This is the fundamental reason why the landlords oppose the apportionment of the land to the mu.

Various military and political measures, the father and son exchanged views for several days.

After confirming each other, each will do its own thing, and at the same time there will be a certain amount of cooperation.

Now, the armor factory in the territory has temporarily stopped making ordnance and is frantically building farm tools.

There are also a large number of ploughing cattle, and each county provides 10 to 50 cattle according to the degree of affluence, all of which must be transported to the Nanxiang Basin together with farm tools. Some cattle and farming tools have already arrived, and a large number of displaced people are waiting for spring ploughing.

The captives from Jingnan Road have all been released to their hometowns.

The local displaced people were also resettled, and every day the peasants on the Jingbei Road fled from the territory of the imperial court in droves to the territory of the Zhu thief.

In particular, the landlords of Jingnan Road are extremely loyal to the Zhu thief.

Just because Zhu Guoxiang ordered that there would be no more things like Xicheng, and the taxes of many landlords were directly halved.

The landlords who received the benefits sent their children to Hanzhong, first, to express their loyalty, and secondly, to seek official positions.

(End of chapter)