Chapter 1014 The confidence brought by extra gold

After staying at the Juzhang Lighthouse for two days, Liu Bei was reluctant to leave the tower. He wanted to stay for a while, which really made Li Su feel a little amused.

This is just a lighthouse, not a palace for people. In a hurry, I couldn't even bring up beds and furniture.

It was just a clean bamboo mat that had been cooked and dried, and then a thick brocade mat was placed. It was like sleeping in tatami at night. Liu Bei was the emperor and didn't feel uncomfortable.

There was no way, after Li Sujing came down and reflected on it, he realized that he was careless - for the ancients who had never seen a skyscraper, living a hundred feet high and opening the window seemed to be able to look flat with the clouds and mist, which was fatal attraction.

Although Liu Bei was the emperor, he had never seen such a spectacle, and he had not taken photos or videos to take them away. He had no more ink marks to try to carve the scenery here into DNA.

He even developed a sense of mentality similar to when Emperor Qin Shihuang and Emperor Wu of Han were seeking immortal medicines to explore immortality. He felt refreshed when living in a high place, and even dreamed at night, there could be immortals who would fall into his dream to chat with him on the road of earth. All kinds of strange fantasies were beyond Li Su's ability to figure out.

At this moment, the emperor was just a countryman who had just entered the city. The freshness brought by the technological generation gap cannot be smeared by political status.

Some subsequent itineraries for the trip to Yangzhou have to be postponed or cancelled. I originally planned to go to Kuaiji, Wujun and Danyang. Now Danyang is afraid that it will not have time to go, so I just need to check out Ji and Wujun.

Officials from all over Yangzhou, who were supposed to take over, changed to Juzhang County to report on their work. Some local governance achievements that were originally intended to be displayed for the emperor also changed from inspection to being sent to wait for inspection.

After all, the date of leaving Yangzhou in the future must not be changed. The Prime Minister personally explained this point that we must respect nature. We must leave Yangzhou before the typhoon season this year, so we can only cut off other local itineraries.

In the following days, Liu Bei traveled around Shanyin in Juzhang, and occasionally took a boat to Wuxian and Haiyan to admire this wonder from all directions and from multiple angles.

Sometimes it is purely for fun, and I want to test "how far the sea boat will drive after leaving the Ningdong Islands, the lookout hand can still see the lighthouse." This is completely the job that the navigator should do, but the emperor is just interested and has to make a guest appearance occasionally, but no one can stop him.

Because the emperor was here, in order to pose for photos and present gifts, Haiyan's business travel and fleet became increasingly prosperous and dense.

Some ships that were originally not necessary to go to Juzhang Port to recharge their supplies, but could directly pass through the Yangtze River estuary, also came to dock for a while. For a moment, Juzhang Port was several times more congested than usual, and the berth could not be stopped at all.

But this kind of joining in the fun also allowed Liu Bei and the accompanying officials to see the freshness every day.

Either a fleet of sea ships transported copper ore from Hanhai, or a fleet of gold and silver ships from Fusang tomorrow, or a fleet full of white sugar from Fujian the day after tomorrow.

There are also sea salt in Penghu, Liuqiu's struvite mines, pickled dried sea fish in Zhuzi and Yiyu's, and whale blubber...

One day in mid-April, Liu Bei also repaired it for ten days after arriving in Juzhang. On that day, another Mi family ship transporting copper and silver from Fuso arrived, which was the kind that had purchased sea transportation insurance from the court.

The ship is the largest sand ship, which takes the Japan Sea-Tsuma Strait-Yellow Sea route, and comes from the north. Because the largest sand ship is smaller than the Fukushi Peace Deck Ocean Ship, it only has a load capacity of more than 400 tons.

However, a 400-ton copper ingot can be equivalent to the value of nearly 200 million copper coins. After all, less than 80% of copper is used when minting coins, and more than 20% are other cheap metals such as tin and lead to enhance the hardness of copper coins.

There are still several tons of silver on the ship, which is worth tens of millions of copper coins in total.

This is the largest precious metal plundering ship by the port after Liu Bei came to Yangzhou. It also opened his eyes and intuitively saw the richness of precious metal products in Fusang.

Li Su and local officials obviously knew what the emperor was interested in, so after the ship was approached by the port, he immediately asked the guard to take over the guard, seal it up, and then asked the emperor to board the ship for inspection.

Liu Bei was a little embarrassed at first, but he was not embarrassed to watch it, but he felt a little ostentatious and didn't want to bring more people.

As an emperor, it is not good to leave people with the impression of being greedy for money. It does not conform to the character of a benevolent monarch, so he should appear a little indifferent. Anyway, the world belongs to him.

However, this time Li Su was abnormal and advised him to visit openly and high-profilely, and to take all the senior officials who accompanied him to board the ship to inspect. If there are too many people who can't stand, then go in batches.

After hearing the Prime Minister's suggestion, Liu Bei was a little surprised: "This time on this tour, my brothers in the past advised me not to seem greedy for pleasure and value money. Why is it abnormal today?"

Li Su smiled and explained: "One time, another time, and ordinary pleasures have no effect of boosting people's morale, but today is different.

Your Majesty still remember the reasons I secretly mentioned when I supported Your Majesty on a tour?"

Liu Bei was stunned and thought about it for a long time before he could remember it.

He had been playing in time for too long and forgot about the serious matter.

After recalling it, he smiled awkwardly: "Didn't my good brother say that the emperor's patrols and hunts all over the world, and the first thing is to intimidate the reluctance and promote the power of heaven to the new barbarians.

Secondly, we will take this opportunity to let me and all officials understand the situation better, and the upper and lower levels share the same desires, so that after inspecting and returning to Luoyang, we will further implement several reforms?"

After hearing this, Li Su was quite comforting. After all, Liu Bei did not completely forget the serious matter. He followed this sentence and continued:

"So, it was all trivial matters before. The tour of the northern border was mainly to show off martial arts and shock the Qiang and Di. The key to the trip to the South China Sea and Fujian was to let the accompanying officials witness the spices, sugar and tea trade, and tax sources.

Now that we are in Kuaiji, we have reached the top priority: Your Majesty must not only know the wealth of Fusang gold and silver minerals, but the key is to let important officials and aristocratic families know it.

Because the reforms after returning to Beijing were the first key to finance and currency. Now that Fusang gold, silver and copper mining has been on track, the people in the Central Plains will have more and more silver in the future, not just gold and copper.

Therefore, the coexistence of the three mints of gold, silver and copper in the future will inevitably exist. The court can only guide and regulate, but cannot completely eliminate the use of one of them.

The coexistence of three coins will definitely bring harm, that is, no matter how the imperial court stipulates the official exchange ratio between these three metals, the price ratio of gold, silver and copper will eventually fluctuate back and forth due to changes in actual output and scarcity.

In the end, it will lead to bad money driving out good money. What kind of thing is actually worth higher than the official price of death. After receiving that kind of money, the powerful and wealthy businessmen in the aristocratic families store it and store it and no longer spend it out.

In the end, it will lead to a shortage of money after a long time, and even gold and silver are buried by generations, or because the rich and landlords die old and forget to explain their descendants and bury them. In general, it is not conducive to the country's economic stability and finance."

Liu Bei was also very clear about the truth mentioned by Li Su. After all, he was an emperor from a poor family, and he knew very well about the sufferings of the people at the bottom.

Not to mention anything else, when Li Su made friends with him in the first year of officialdom, they received a reward of 50 kilograms of gold because of exposing Zhang Chun's rebellion.

But then there was a wave of "firstly converting it into copper coins according to the official exchange, and you think it is important to get gold, and then pay back gold according to the black market exchange rate." The reward was 60% off when you enter and exit.

At that time, Liu Bei still pinched his nose and accepted it because this is the social reality. If there are official exchanges and black market exchanges, he must bear all the disadvantages of the dual-track price system.

Only those who have been exploited personally know the suffering. Liu Bei will definitely not tolerate that the future countries have too high flexibility and freedom in financial speculation.

Because the higher the freedom of financial speculation, the stronger the Matthew effect will definitely be. As the emperor of imperial centralization, who would like "financial freedom".

Even if they don’t know what “virtual economy” is, they will still instinctively hate it.

Li Su actually disliked it, not to cater to the emperor. He felt that the superiority of ancient society than modern society was that there was no purely virtual financial derivatives, which slowed down the exploitation of society.

Otherwise, the speed of the gap between the rich and the poor will definitely double, and the cycle of dynasty changes will be more intense.

However, it is another matter to recognize the problem if you understand the problem and find a solution.

After Liu Bei realized the speculative space brought about by the coexistence of three metal currencies, he couldn't help but worry: "Will the Prime Minister have a good idea for this question?"

When he talked about serious matters, he was very serious and his title changed from a virtuous brother to a prime minister.

Li Su talked: "It cannot be cured, but it can be solved. I think the speculative space brought about by the coexistence of two local currencies is still tolerated. Therefore, the future idea is to make the coexistence of three local currencies and convert them into actual conditions that there are still only two local currencies in circulation.

The specific approach that I thought of was to allow silver and copper to gradually circulate normally, while gold was converted into a state reserve, and only proof of rights notes were issued, but not actual delivery.

Considering that gold is the least and is most convenient for unified management, and it will not rust for how long the gold is stored, and even if it does not turn black like silver, the reserve loss is also the smallest, so this approach should be quite operational."

Liu Bei didn't understand at first. After thinking about it for a while, he thought of the "country quota of treasury" that had been in public for more than 20 years, so he naturally understood the "golden rights certificate" mentioned by Li Su as the kind of "paper currency treasury bond" that made money by nothing.

That thing is easy to over-issue? Even if it is nominally guaranteed by gold, as long as it is not accepted, it is still a mess. In the end, there is a high probability that the credit will collapse. How can we win the trust of the merchants and the public?

Liu Bei was not worried about printing money indiscriminately, but he felt that his descendants would not be able to bear it after a long time of peace and would not be able to bear it, and there would be no constraints.

For a moment, Liu Bei even had an idea: It would be great if the emperor's power was not absolutely limitless... Don't limit too much, it would be better to have a transcendent existence. When his descendants of Liu Bei came to the future, they would help step on the brakes and don't make a fuss.

Unfortunately, this kind of detached power is not possible for the emperor to exist at all. If the power is greater, it will be replaced. If the power is less, it will be useless.

Only Li Su and Zhuge Liang can absolutely trust these two generations, so what can we do in the future?

After seeing Liu Bei's reaction, Li Su knew that Liu Bei had misunderstood, so he explained in detail to him: "Your Majesty, don't worry too much. The 'golden rights certificate' I mentioned is not the kind of thing that was quoted from the previous treasury bonds.

Although there are denominations and court tax deduction rights as the final guarantee, they will still be over-issued after all. After printing too much, merchants may not know whether it will take ten or twenty years before they can enter enough official specialized goods to use up these citations.

The gold rights certificates I mentioned are never issued more than they are issued. The amount of gold is printed and issued must be strictly numbered. For example, in a certain period of time, the imperial court statistics showed that the total amount of gold produced in Fusang was 1,500 kilograms, so three hundred gold tines weighing five kilograms, and each official set the price to be 100 kilograms of silver, or one million coins.”

When Li Su said this, the price of gold was set a little higher. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, one or two pounds were only 10,000 yuan, but now Li Su directly raised it to 20,000 yuan, which is actually a bit exploited.

But he and Liu Bei also saw the actual price comparison of Huan Ling Shiwei. At that time, the black market price was indeed 16,170,000 and 10,000 yuan, which was far more than 10,000 yuan, but closer to 20,000 yuan. Li Su forced his reservation this time, which was to give him some pleasure.

In addition, as for the ratio of gold and silver, although the Central Plains dynasties in later generations had an era of 1 to 4 gold and silver, those currency systems would soon collapse, and the consequence was that gold was generally hidden.

It must be set to at least 1 to 10 to maintain it and avoid the large amount of gold withdrawal from circulation. Later, modern capital paid attention to the implementation of the "gold standard" by the state. After silver lost its monetary attributes, silver fell to the level of 14 to 17 times the weight in the 19th century to exchange for 1 times of gold.

In modern times, gold is more than 300 yuan per gram, and silver is less than 10 yuan, which is fifty times the difference. This is the power of the country to master gold reserves and create gold scarcity.

Therefore, Li Su set the gold and silver at twenty times, and as long as he could control the gold, there would be no problem.

Liu Bei had nothing to say about this pricing ratio. He just didn't understand what Li Su said, "Gold vouchers should be numbered to prevent over-issuance", so let Li Su explain in depth.

Li Su didn't hide it, and tried to make it easier to understand.

It turns out that his idea is actually similar to modern "paper gold". As mentioned earlier, "Zhangwu casts five kilograms of gold in 23 years, 300 pieces of gold tins were printed from 001 to 300, and 300 anti-counterfeiting certificates were printed in two batches.

The first print is the shading table, and the second print is the content filled in, that is, the number of the year number and number.

In the past, the citation of treasury bonds were not numbered, while in the future, the paper gold was numbered like the RMB. It corresponds to which one was in the Luoyang Palace vault.

The numbered vouchers designed in this way are not afraid of forgery, because the court also had a set of accounts that the number minted to a certain number of Jinying was rewarded to a certain minister when and where, or which wealthy businessman was paid for a certain government procurement.

When others take this voucher to cash in the future, if it is not the original primitive right holder, but has been circulated, a series of circulating vouchers must be filled, such as transaction contracts.

This thing is very inconvenient to circulation, and only very large transactions can be used. However, its "own circulation voucher" feature is safer than bills of exchange, and it is even a bit like Bitcoin, which naturally brings an account book. It has traces of how many people have taken it from the date of its birth.

Of course, the accounts left by the court will not be investigated frequently. If there is no forgery or dispute, there is no need to investigate. This is a state of "the people will not procure officials and not investigate", and they will not be ignored.

When a dispute arises, if two certificates with the same number appear on the market, one must be forged. Only then will the imperial court be powered by the government to examine the reasons and find out which one is forged.

Liu Bei thought about it and thought it was more reliable, but he still didn't believe that this thing could be strictly implemented: "What should I do if the wealthy businessmen and powerful families don't believe it?"

Li Su: "The court can legislate and set up a site outside the Nangong to specialize in the world's vault. The gold cast in each year is stored in a separate warehouse, and it cannot be confused. When casting gold tins, the year number and number must be cast, and the seal must be complete and sealed.

If a wealthy family of private businessmen gets a large piece of paper gold, they feel worried and can pay a handling fee and request a check, and then they can see the gold that their family has in theory. This handling fee is regarded as a resealing work, and it will be charged one percent of the inquiry amount.

If you are willing to pay another amount of fire consumption, you can cut it in public under the supervision of the officials and check the authenticity of the burning gold syringe. The fire consumption should be charged more. After all, after the gold syringe is destroyed, it will be charged at 5%. If you want to save trouble, you can collect 10% of the money.

In addition, in order to show the magnanimity and confidence of the court, you can give them some sweetness. For example, once the right holder of the treasury paper gold checks whether the corresponding real gold in his coupon is true, the result is that there is no, or the corresponding gold is fake.

Then, according to the seal of gold in the accident, the officials in the voucher management will be executed, the property of the custodian or the over-issued officials will be confiscated, and the part equivalent to double the price of the gold will be withdrawn, and additional compensation will be given to the theoretical gold holders who have suffered losses."

The paper gold designed by Li Su can be seen in real terms by paying the handling fee, and can be cut and burned through the fire, which should reassure most people. As long as the system is implemented smoothly, credit will be gradually established over time.

Although there must be various doubts at the beginning, there is no way to do so. After all, even in the 21st century, most people do not believe in paper gold, but only believe in the gold they can get in real touch at home.
Chapter completed!