Chapter 120 Currency War
When the party who hopes to control brings out their reasons, they feel that even if things that are extremely harmful to the country cannot be banned, they should be included in the control of the court.
So they are very proud that in their imagination, when they express the reasons, as long as the opposition is still loyal to the court, they should immediately give up their opinions and join their team.
But they thought it was too simple. The reason why the opposition opposed it was because the source of gold coins was because of the salaries of the officials. Therefore, these gold coins were actually cheaper than exchanged with copper coins, and even cheaper than benchmark exchange than one yuan.
So when the money shop exchanges gold coins, some officials are actually quietly exchanging gold coins. They are slightly cheaper than the money shop's one to one thousand and fifty, probably around one to one thousand and one to one thousand. But even so, it is still very profitable.
But these opponents are not just for their vested interests. They also have a glorious reason, that is, how can the court win this "war" by paying the smallest price?
This matter must not be treated in a simple and crude way. First of all, this is inconsistent with the Song Dynasty's usual image of Huairou, and it is also prone to criticism from outside literati.
Although literati also look down on merchants, literati do not rely too much on merchants, and not every literati can turn over and become the ruling class of landlords in one fell swoop.
Although more people have some talents, they do not have the ability to pass the imperial examination. However, these people also have to make a living, but not everyone can live by relying on the support of their families.
Therefore, many of them need to rely on merchants, earn money by placing plaques to shops, writing essays and other activities, or they can actually get rid of them, enter the business bank and become an accountant, or serve as a western meal for these big merchants.
This causes literati look down on businessmen, but they cannot do without them and do not want to offend merchants easily. It is possible to stand up and shout a few words for merchants when they have no choice.
This also caused the court to solve this matter in a simple and crude way, which would definitely not work. Besides, this matter also involved the Chamber of Commerce. Most of the tax revenue of the court today comes from members of the Chamber of Commerce, and these members also adhere to the purpose of the Chamber of Commerce, which is to strive to not hide their own property and not evade taxes.
The increase in the imperial court's income in recent years has to be said to have made great contributions from the Chamber of Commerce. Therefore, the court will not easily move the Chamber of Commerce.
Since simple and crude have been denied, what else can the court do? Pass the law? This is OK, but the opposition also said, how to limit these things through the law?
Gold coins and copper not allowed? If these things were in the early stages of their appearance, doing so might also quickly and effectively curb the development of money houses, but now they have a certain scale, and if you are doing this.
This will only lead to the court being controlled by the money shop, because if such a regulation is made, it will inevitably set off a wave of anti-exchange frenzy.
But at that time, the money house that holds a large number of legal copper coins will become a complete master, because if the money house does not exchange copper coins, the gold coins will be fine. At worst, they can be merged into jewelry and then go to the pawn shop. However, this will also cause a lot of losses.
If it is a copper ticket, if the money bank refuses to recognize it, it is a piece of waste paper. Or at this time, the money bank does this, recognize it or recognize it, but it is not exchanged for the full amount.
In this way, who should bear the harm of the people? They themselves? This may cause another civil rebellion. The money house itself may be able to put the blame on the court. Therefore, the court will definitely become the candidate for the blame.
If the court takes the blame, it will inevitably do something to the people. I am afraid that the price the court will pay at that time will not be small.
So in this way, it will not work by law forbidden.
There is another way, that is, the court will use a large amount of copper coins to purchase all copper tickets and gold coins. This may have the least stimulation to the people, because although there are no convenient copper tickets and gold coins for preservation, at least the people have not suffered any losses so far.
Then, you will go to the money shop to exchange copper coins through these copper tickets.
However, there are two risks to do so. One is that the court will inevitably pay a lot of treasury income, and there may be some losses in the middle.
Also, getting copper tickets also has the risk of not being able to exchange copper coins in the money house.
What's more, judging from the total amount of gold coins and copper notes circulating on the market today, it is impossible for the court to produce such a huge number of copper coins in a short time. If they are newly minted, it may have a counterproductive effect.
So when the opposition put forward their reasons for their views, the control faction itself was a little shaken, because what the opposition actually said was very reasonable, that is, how to solve it as smoothly as possible is also a huge problem.
Now what is placed in front of Zhenzong Zhao Heng is a huge and difficult choice. Should we pay a huge price to solve this problem or let it go, but there may be greater harm.
But at the same time, the money shop is also discussing what to do next.
Because although Zhao Weiji is not here at the money shop, the entire script is still proceeding step by step as Zhao Weiji arranged it.
Although Zhao Weiji is not in the Central Plains in recent years, the development of pigeons has not stagnated. At this time, pigeons' power has even penetrated into the palace. Although they cannot control the political situation, they can still obtain first-hand news from the court.
So when Zhenzong Zhao Heng proposed the money shop at the court meeting and asked the ministers in the court to discuss it, the main shopkeepers of the money shop who received the news also started to hold a meeting.
The person who presided over the meeting was Feng Yun, the actual controller of the entire Zhongyuan Money House. As the biggest talent graduated from Xinhua City Zhong, he naturally had to leave the things like opening a money house when he returned to Zhongyuan.
However, even after graduating from business, the business department of Tsinghua Academy still cannot teach as profound financial and economic knowledge as in later business. More so, successful businessmen in this era teach these children how to do business.
Therefore, Feng Yun is still a little tricky about designing currency. However, Zhao Weiji had thought of this a long time ago, so when Feng Yun returned to the Central Plains, he gave him several envelopes and asked him to open the corresponding envelopes when he encountered similar situations to those written on the envelope. It was a bit similar to Zhuge Liang's trick.
The first time was when he was just starting out, Zhao Weiji gave advice to start with officials, so he had the move of exchanging gold coins for real salary.
At this moment, the situation is exactly the same as what Zhao Weiji wrote on the second envelope that the court should pay attention to the money house.
So Feng Yun opened the second envelope.
The envelope also contains a letter, and the beginning of the letter is four big words to bribe the court.
Below these four words, it is written that the court pays attention to money shops, which aspect of money shops, and the specific steps of how to bribe the court.
In Zhao Weiji's letter, he mainly analyzed that the reason why the court suddenly began to pay attention to money shops was because now it is estimated that copper coins have begun to appear in these major cities in the Central Plains.
The emergence of this copper coin panic caused a certain degree of panic in the court. However, Zhao Weiji also wrote in the letter that even in this way, the court could not come up with a way to deal with them for the time being.
However, we cannot be taken lightly because if the court is forced into a hurry, it is difficult to guarantee that they will not do anything, so the last solution now is to bribe the court.
Since we want to bribe the court, we must know what the court is missing now?
What is the court now? First, it lacks understanding of unknown things. They do not know how much impact the money house has already had gold coins and copper notes.
There is also a shortage of money. Although Zhao Guangyi left behind a prosperous country, he did not leave a wealthy treasury. Although the court has obtained the vast majority of the income from the original Zhao Weiji's industries in recent years, the court is still not rich.
This is because of years of war, the ever-expanding army, the size of officials, and the increasing salary expenses for maintaining integrity.
The system of the Song Dynasty laid the foundation for the Song Dynasty's court to be impoverished and weak. No matter how outstanding the emperor was, as long as the basic system of the Song Dynasty did not change, he would not be able to change the dilemma of the long-term shortage of money in the treasury.
So Zhao Weiji was going to use these two points to fool the court.
First of all, since the court wants to control the copper tickets and gold coins in the money house, let it control it, but this control is only superficial.
Zhao Weiji planned to ask Feng Yun to submit a memorial to the court, and to supervise all the accounts of the money house to the court, and then make copper notes and gold coins nominally turn them into things for the court.
Although these have become things from the court in name, the technology of how to print anti-counterfeiting copper notes will not be given to the court. As for the technology of minting gold coins, even if they are given to the court, they do not have that much gold.
Therefore, although the imperial court nominally controlled the money house, it actually couldn't make anything.
Although this is just a nominal gift to the court, the court will definitely agree, because instead of presenting its current state, it is better to nominally incorporate these into the control of the court, and be afraid of subsequent developments in name? The court will definitely think so. Being famous in the army is a tradition in China.
On the other hand, regarding the issue of money, the money shop will provide the court with a turnover funds. Once the court urgently needs money, the money shop will provide the money to the court without any condition, and there is no interest. As long as the court can pay it back slowly in the future.
In Zhao Weiji's description, it is unlikely that the court will refuse the existence of this money. After all, God knows whether there will be a time when this money is really needed.
After reading the plan given by Zhao Weiji, Feng Yun knew what to do. So the second wave of calculating Zhao Heng was about to begin.
Chapter completed!