eldest son of Ming dynasty

Chapter 846 The Ming Dynasty under the silver currency

How to understand currency is actually a very important topic that cannot be explained clearly in one or two sentences.

Putting aside theory, let’s talk about our own experience. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, ancient China has long faced a shortage of silver, gold, and copper.

On the one hand, there are indeed not many mineral deposits in China.

For example, most of China's silver mines contain less than 1% silver.

However, the silver content of the Potosi Silver Mine, a super silver mine in South America, is more than 50%.

This is a huge innate gap.

On the other hand, rulers in the past dynasties would restrict the mining of mineral deposits for many reasons. For example, in the early Ming Dynasty, the two emperors Hongwu and Yongle took the initiative to restrict gold and silver trading and directly judged it illegal.

In order to implement this regulation, the source of mining must naturally be controlled.

Modern monetary theory tells us that if an economy lacks sufficient money supply for a long time, it will experience deflation. In this unhealthy state, it will naturally not be able to develop an economy.

Fortunately, we are not a country with a commercial economy, so we have survived like this.

But this situation was fundamentally resolved in the late Ming Dynasty, that is, after the Longqing Switch.

Because the porcelain, tea, and silk of the Ming Dynasty were too dominant in foreign trade, and their prices were far lower than in other parts of the world,

So when the Spanish first arrived in the Philippines,

They found out right away,

If the silver mines in South America were mined,

Go to the west coast of the Pacific to exchange for various supplies for the Ming Dynasty, and then transport them back to the mainland or other countries.

They will have to gain more than 200% immediately.

In addition, the ratio of gold to silver in the Ming Dynasty was 1:4, while the ratio in the West during the same period was 1:12. The benefits were also huge.

A simple conversion is enough. If you arrive in the East carrying 400 taels of silver, you can convert it into 100 taels of gold, and then return to the west and it will become 1200 taels.

These are just two of the ways to make money, there are actually many more.

All in all, driven by huge interests, in the hundred years after the Longqing switch, the Ming Dynasty was like a silver black hole, swallowing up the influx of silver from all over the world.

The sudden and abundant money supply has a very obvious direct impact on society.

The first is the rapid prosperity of the commodity economy.

Because there is more money entering the market, some of the people who own a large amount of money, or the rich, will carry out reinvestment economic activities.

After the boom period passes, excessive money supply will cause the price of silver to fall and prices to rise.

This is what Wang Shouren faced.

Having said that, during the 20th year of Zhengde's reign, the imperial court requested that the fish scale atlas be updated, but most of the prefectures in southern Zhili under his rule did not complete this work.

Shandong Kuai is partly due to Liu Jian, but objectively, that is because Shandong's economic pattern has not changed much and the scale of land transactions is limited.

But Wang Shouren couldn't complete it, not because he had no merit, but because the land in Jiangnan had changed too much.

From spring to summer, when there was no movement, Wang Shouren became anxious.

So he began to go out of the governor's yamen and began to go to various places to learn more about it. While he was an official, he also carried out large-scale academic dissemination activities in Jiangnan. He advocated the unity of knowledge and action, and he was by no means just sitting in the yamen and working. , but will understand the current changes based on actual needs.

All the way from Nanjing to Songjiang Mansion, he heard the same situation.

The current magistrate of Songjiang Prefecture is Wang Yiqi, who was a Jinshi in the sixth year of Zhengde. He reported to Wang Shouren, "Since the imperial court improved the tax law in the Jiangnan area in the sixteenth year of Zhengde, the phenomenon of changing farmland to mulberry fields has occurred frequently. The court now wants to renew it. Fish Scale Atlas, but we don’t have the manpower support we had at the beginning, so we are already working on it in a hurry.”

Wang Shouren has been in Jiangnan for so many years, and he understands this situation. "If Suhu is familiar with it, the world is sufficient. This statement really needs to be changed. I am visiting various counties this time to understand all these clearly so that I can report to the emperor." Report.”

It is true that one cannot be rich without business, but one cannot be stable without farmers. The land in the south of the Yangtze River is planted with mulberry trees instead of grains. It is fine on weekdays, but one is afraid of something unexpected.

Speaking of which, Zhu Houzhao's economic reforms in the Jiangnan region were the most 'radical'.

The first is the abolition of the road guide system, because business society requires rapid circulation of materials, personnel, and capital, and slowing down is a cost.

The second is tax system reform.

Because the road guides have been cancelled, the authorities no longer control the flow of people, and naturally there is no way to collect the poll tax.

Therefore, the integration of land tax and poll tax had to be implemented.

In fact, land tax is levied and the term Ding tax is cancelled. The imperial court no longer has accurate data on the actual population among the people, but actually don’t think too highly of yourself, it’s not accurate either. This matter is another social system reform, let’s not mention it for now.

In short, this is about tax proportion.

The court also made changes in the form of tax collection.

In the 16th year of Zhengde, Zhu Houzhao first implemented the "one whip method" of later Zhang Juzheng in the southern Zhili area. In the 17th year of Zhengde, the scope expanded to Hangzhou, Huzhou and Ningbo.

However, the whipping method he practiced was not exactly the same as Zhang Juzheng's whipping method.

What Zhang Juzheng saw was the shortcomings of the traditional taxation law. All taxes were collected in the form of silver, which was convenient for the government and the court. But his forced implementation of taxation based on silver will cause many problems for the people.

For example, although the Ming Dynasty experienced the monetization of silver, the Ming Dynasty was too big and more than 9% of the population was poor. These people relied on farming to make a living. The nature of the smallholder economy has not changed, nor are they deeply embedded in commercial transactions.

So the question is - where do farmers get their silver?

What should I do if I used to farm to collect grain, but now I have to farm to collect money?

Then the only option is to sell the grain and exchange it for silver. In this process, you will be exploited.

In fact, this is just the first step of exploitation, and there are more to come.

For example...

The poor people pay only broken silver, but your family pays three taels.

If you bring over a pile of silver that is the same as pebbles, who knows if it is just a few or two?

So it's time to weigh.

This can also be done by manipulation. Just use a lighter weight, and the people will not dare to resist.

Also, these huge amounts of broken silver are inconvenient to transport and are easily stolen, just like a basket of rice. If one grain is missing, who knows?

So later the imperial court stipulated that local governments should refine the broken silver into unified silver ingots and then hand them over.

However, there will be inevitable losses in the refining process, so another cost is added, which is called [fire loss].

Zhu Houzhao's method is essentially the same, but he is much gentler.

He does not impose force, but adopts a voluntary principle.

To put it simply, if your family farms and you are willing to pay tax credits in kind such as grain, this is fine. If your family has enough silver, you can use silver to pay taxes.

Please note that when Zhu Houzhao led here, the first very important revolutionary change brought about by the silverization of currency to the Ming Dynasty society appeared.

For those who used silver to deduct taxes, they were freed from the shackles of the land and freed their feet from the farmland for the first time.

In terms of the nature of their occupation, they are fully qualified to no longer be farmers, but to be craftsmen, or workers.

What's this called? This is called the sprout of capitalism.

Some people even sell their land directly and no longer need to pay taxes after they no longer occupy the land. This part of the tax is passed on to the person who buys his land.

And the people who were transferred out were completely citizens.

Cities inevitably began to expand.

Not only that, food prices were low in the prosperous times, but low prices hurt farmers. After farming became unprofitable, a large number of people began to grow mulberry and cotton, or simply find a factory to work on their own to make money.

Farming is still hard work.

Facing the loess and back to the sky, it is hard even with modern big machines, let alone all manpower.

This is what Wang Shouren is worried about now. There is a large-scale phenomenon of changing rice to mulberry and changing rice to cotton in the Jiangnan area. This must be changed in the fish scale album. Otherwise, a county has 10,000 acres of paddy fields but cannot hand over so much. Too much rice, isn’t this unfair?

What worries him even more is that the Jiangnan region needs to purchase grain from outside.

……

……

In the Rehe Palace.

Zhu Houzhao was also discussing the same topic with his ministers, "...gold and silver are wealth, and everyone loves them. But have you noticed that memorials from various places, especially those in Jiangnan, all show the price of silver? It is decreasing. You have to understand this sentence. For example, if this is ten taels of silver, it itself has an actual value. This value is no longer ten taels.

The imperial court implemented a tax law that combined true colors and folded colors in the Jiangnan area. However, in just three years, the proportion of tax rates that chose to use folded taxes doubled from the original 30% to 60%. The reason for this was probably not only convenience. , as well as the decline in silver prices. "

Wang Qiong immediately frowned, "So, isn't it just a disguised loss of national tax? Wei Chen thinks that an exchange ratio should be set based on real-time grain prices."

Jiang Yong had discussed this issue with the emperor a long time ago, "This matter should be handled with caution. If the exchange ratio is in the hands of the government, it is very easy to set the price at will. The market price itself does not have a unified standard."

The main thing is that the price of silver has not fallen to that level, so the losses are not much.

But ordinary people will definitely choose whichever one is the most cost-effective. They won’t even want to pay you an extra five copper coins.

Zhu Houzhao was too lazy to make the grassroots people upset for such a small amount of money, "The key is not here. It is silver and currency. With this example, the truth should be clear. Currency helps local prosperity, but currency itself has no value. People are willing to give something to exchange for the currency you have, which is what makes it valuable.”

Zhang Zilin, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, frowned and asked: "So, what's the problem?"

Yes, what's the problem?

Jiang Yong replied, "This means that if other countries also have silver mines, then they can easily obtain the food, clothes and ships that our Ming people have worked hard to grow by just mining. But. But My Ming Dynasty has a vast land and abundant resources, and I have exchanged it for a pile of silver, but they can't provide us with anything. What will it do to me if things go on like this?

This also means that the control over the quantity of silver in the entire market of the Ming Dynasty is not in the hands of the imperial court, but in the amount imported from the outside world. For example, if the price of silver in Jiangnan decreases, if it continues, in a few decades, a bucket of rice will cost ten taels of silver. How can the people live? But because we cannot control the amount of silver, we naturally cannot adjust it effectively, which is equivalent to handing over our destiny to others! "

Boom!

This last sentence struck everyone's heart like a heavy drum.

Wang Qiong immediately became anxious, "Your Majesty, this is not possible. This is far more than a small loss of national tax revenue!"

Zhu Houzhao nodded, just to solve this problem, otherwise what would he be doing today?

In fact, in the history of the Ming Dynasty, due to the Thirty Years War in Europe, the import of silver dropped sharply, there was a problem with the money supply, and the economy would naturally face collapse.

This is actually an inevitable event. Because there are always wars and peace in any region.

So there was nothing unusual about the Thirty Years' War.

What is abnormal is that Ming Dynasty handed over the right to mint money to others. Just like...the RMB that everyone uses is provided by foreign countries. Can you imagine this?