Chapter 1934 New and Old Coins, New and Old Wars
Chang''an, the Mansion of the Great Han Hussar General.
Fei Qian played with the newly released gold, silver and copper coins in his hand.
Because metal coins often have the basic conditions of easy recognition, clear markings, and constant weight, after a period of implementation of Jiaozi, Feiqian changed back to the metal currency system.
Huaxia can be regarded as one of the earliest countries in the world to mint coins. At the latest in the middle and late Spring and Autumn Period, large-scale coin minting has begun on the land of Huaxia. There are four stages: type casting, stack casting, mother money foundry, and machine forging.
Qin coins, perhaps because of limited conditions, perhaps because of the pursuit of craftsmanship, or because bronze was considered the most beautiful at that time, so most of the copper coins are mostly copper alloys with high lead content, and the color is black.
The copper coins used by Feiqian are mainly zinc-copper alloys, which appear to be close to the brass of later generations, with a more pleasing color, and are easy to distinguish from the original five baht coins. Copper with similar color and luster is obtained, so it is easier to identify counterfeit coins.
As for silver coins and gold coins, they are about 95% pure, with weight as the unit of measurement. Of course, there will be counterfeit lead coins such as gold and silver, but because the value of silver coins and gold coins is relatively high, generally speaking, they will be more serious in identifying them. , In addition, all major merchants have new-style balances, which use fixed weights to correspond to the weight of gold and silver coins, so the difficulty of imitation is not small. Same weight, different size, same size, inconsistent weight, same weight, same size, so the effort may not be able to earn back the cost...
In addition, the hydraulic steel die forging used by Feiqian is almost at the forefront of the current minting industry. Not only is the outline clear and the font is complete, but it can also be decorated with patterns and year numbers on the front and back. It was still very rough in later generations, but it also raised the threshold of coinage to a certain extent, and then reduced the behavior of scraping copper and cutting edges.
"The sky is round..." Fei Qian chuckled, "It''s just far-fetched. At the beginning of the coin, because it was cast, it needed to be polished. However, it is not easy to fix it with a round hole, so it is fixed with a square wood...not the sky. The coin is determined by the round place, which is the reason why the casting and grinding are difficult...』
Although the hydraulic die-casting is not as good as the steam engine die-casting, but fortunately, the hydraulic power is almost free. After a long time, I have accumulated a lot of coins, and because it is die-casting, there is no need to maintain the original roundness The shape of the place is directly cast into a round solid body, which is more time-saving.
Of course, this kind of behavior was not resisted by Suan Confucianism in the Han Dynasty. The reason is very simple, that is, in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, solid currency actually circulated for a long time. Only with this theory can we mint money according to this standard. It is the casting technology that led to the appearance of Brother Kong Fang.
Feiqian smiled and said: "Since the new coins are issued, the old coins should be collected." People can exchange it by themselves, and the time limit is five years. At that time, the old currency will be abolished and the new currency will be used directly. 』
Xun You was stunned for a moment, then said, "Recycle the old coins? 』
This is not a new thing, after all, it was done when Qin Shihuang was there. Other feudal dynasties that followed did similar things.
Fei Qian asked, "What advice does Gongda have?" 』
Xun You cupped his hands and said, "Don''t dare. Recycling old coins, the loss... I''m afraid it''s not small..." Transportation, doesn''t that require money? Since the weight is about the same, why not continue to use it? It''s like five baht money, it''s not impossible to use it for three or four hundred years?
Feiqian nodded, then sighed slightly, and said, "Recycling old coins is not for profit, but for harm..."
There must also be rules in minting coins. If there are no rules, it will be over. The major developed countries in the later generations then declared that they had no inflation, saying that everything was stable in price, but in fact, even if a moderate inflation of about 5% was maintained, the price of goods would double in ten or twenty years!
But what about ancient times?
It is true that there is always inflation at the end of each dynasty, but in fact, as a whole, each dynasty is doing its best to maintain the stability of the currency.
This is true both at home and abroad.
Although ancient Rome was notorious for its inflation in the third century, on a longer historical scale, this was only a very accidental episode. From around 150 BC to AD 50, the price of wheat in ancient Rome increased by only 50%.
Of course, if only from the perspective of price stability, the centuries before the implementation of the gold standard in China are no less than the two hundred years after the implementation of the gold standard. During the five hundred years from 1200 to 1700, except for the average annual increase of 1.5% in the 16th century, the price change of wheat in other centuries was almost zero.
That is to say, in terms of China, physical evidence can explain the problem better than general impressions from historical books.
The copper coins of the Song Dynasty were marked with the year number, and the year number was updated frequently in the Song Dynasty, which enabled researchers of later generations to use the remaining Song Dynasty copper coins to construct quasi-annual data of currency fineness. During the more than three hundred years in the Song Dynasty, the weight and fineness of the one-wen and two-wen copper coins that were the main body of circulation were extremely stable.
Even in the terrible braid dynasty, the price of grain only increased by 3.5 times in the two hundred years from the founding of the country to the middle of the 19th century, which is equivalent to an average annual inflation of 0.6%...
Of course, the most foolish thing is the Dameng Dynasty, printing desperately, resulting in the Dameng treasure banknotes being destined to be inferior to waste paper from the very beginning, and it is too hard to wipe the ass. The Yuan Dynasty was so confused, and they all knew that the annual printing volume needed to be controlled, and it was maintained at about 200,000 ingots. One failed to control and printed 1.5 million ingots, and then forced out Zhu Chongba. 5.15 million ingots, in the 23rd year of Hongwu, the Lianjiazi of the central bank directly increased the circulation to 15 million ingots...
"At the time of Dong Thief, evil money was rampant..." Speaking of the events of the year, Fei Qian somewhat lamented that in this link, he was actually the little black hand behind the scenes, but Fei Qian was reaching out to the gentry family, and the gentry family It is just added to the people.
Strictly speaking, Feiqian did not mint bad money at that time, but just collected low and sold high, lent currency when the value of currency was high, and then purchased goods, and then settled in currency when the value of currency plummeted, earning the difference That''s all, although there are some suspicions of taking advantage of the fire, it still belongs to the commercial category.
Dong Zhuo wanted to make bad money, not because Dong Zhuo liked bad money, but because of the huge military and financial expenditures at that time, and Dong Zhuo kept a large amount of money privately and did not take it out for circulation, so there was no copper in the court to make money to pay The corresponding costs were such that lighter or lower-quality coins had to be minted to pay the salaries and salaries of officials and soldiers.
Dong Zhuo''s behavior opened the prelude to large-scale coin piracy.
Because it is very simple, small-scale imitation is actually not very profitable, and because of the profit-making of imitation coins, there will inevitably be certain differences, and this difference can be noticed even by the illiterate folk Qianshou, so small-scale imitation In fact, counterfeit coins are not easy to circulate, and it is impossible to bring great economic benefits to the counterfeiters. Only when the court blatantly creates large-scale evil money and implements it with mandatory orders, is the best time to counterfeit coins!
So in fact, the amount of bad money minted by Dong Zhuo was not the largest at that time, and the so-called "folk stealing" of the Shandong gentry was the root cause of the collapse of the five baht coin currency system.
It is manifested in price inflation, which is different in ancient times and later generations. In ancient times, it was mostly trapezoidal, with a plateau period, while in later generations it was a slope, rolling all the way down.
Because in ancient times, unless the central court had premeditatedly accumulated a large amount of old coins in advance and quickly melted them into new coins and put them on the market in a short period of time, the so-called "people" would have enough time to purchase private minting tools to compete with the central court. Compete for minting profits. However, the reason why the central court casts indiscriminately is often due to financial pressure. If there are already a large number of old coins in the national treasury, how can they be used indiscriminately?
Therefore, most of the central courts who choose to mint indiscriminately are unable to compete with the "folk" pirates, and they cannot grab much profit from minting. This also explains the trapezoidal feature of the ancient currency value change. In the ancient mint economy, unless the central court was extremely short-sighted, it would not lightly start indiscriminate casting. Rapid inflation.
Then is it useful to rule by law?
Works, but won''t stop the desperadoes rolling in...
"Hanshu" records that during Wang Mang''s period "every money was exchanged, the civilians went bankrupt, and they were severely punished." Reckless cast money privately to death... Those who privately cast spring cloth were confiscated with their wives as official slaves; officials and rivals, who knew but did not give up, and fellow criminals... The offender Yu Zhong, and five people sat together and all were confiscated. The sill car is iron-locked, and sent to Chang''an Zhongguan, and the sad dead are even sixty-seven. 』
『Therefore, collecting old coins can eliminate the disadvantages of private casting and stealing, and can also measure the price of copper dishes and copper wares. ’ Fei Qian concluded. Of course, there are other additional effects of recycling old coins...
Xun You naturally has a vague understanding of advanced economic theories, but he also guessed some potential intentions of Fei Qian, which probably pointed to the direction of the gentry, so he showed that recycling also requires expenses and costs, but since Fei Qian Xun You would not object to Qian Qian''s insistence.
Xun You sighed in his heart, a wise ruler and a minister naturally dare not fall... A monarch like Fei Qian is too shrewd. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
In fact, the first purpose of recycling coins is to stimulate the economy.
There is an old saying in China that if you plant melons, you will reap beans if you plant melons, so there is a joke that someone planted coins into the soil, praying for more money, but the irony is that in ancient times, when some people did this, Indeed, there are a lot of benefits to be gained.
Because of money shortage.
The Chinese feudal dynasty had a very difficult problem, which was the shortage of money. When the economy has developed to a certain stage and more money and coins are needed, but the central court cannot provide so many coins and has to start minting some low-quality and light-weight coins for emergency, these "folk" Guys who grow coins will flock to dig out copper and silver melons from the ground, and then compete with the central court for the profits of minting coins.
Regardless of the issue of private coining and stealing, these big gentry families accumulated money from generation to generation, melted it into copper, silver, melons and fruits, and then buried them underground, which invisibly reduced the number of coins circulating on the market. The final result is that the amount of silver and copper produced by the central court has increased year by year, but it just can''t keep up with the demand, resulting in a long-term money shortage in the market, which eventually leads to economic damage.
For example, after Liu Daer entered Sichuan, it was also because of the large amount of rewards that the original copper coins in Sichuan and Shu became the inventories of heroes, which made the market short of copper, so Liu Daer had to come up with something straight. Hundreds of dollars, and the economy suddenly collapsed. Brother Zhu spent more than ten years collecting money before he barely returned to normal.
Naturally, Fei Qian couldn''t explain this question clearly, because he knew that the more it was banned, the more these wealthy nobles would be aware of the mystery, and the more they would do it!
It''s like private casting.
The second purpose of Feiqian is to preserve.
The third purpose is to promote earlier and faster entry of silver and gold into the market.
In the Han Dynasty, silver and gold were basically rewards. Even if the silver coins and gold coins were used in Feiqian today, they were still rarely used for specific transactions among the people, so only copper coins were withdrawn in rotation, so that more people would subconsciously use them. Choose high-value currencies with longer trading hours. When silver and gold become members of the monetary system from precious metals, the demand for silver and gold will surge.
However, there are not many silver and gold in China, or not enough to meet the economic needs of the general public, so if they are guided, these greedy nobles will inevitably turn their attention to places rich in silver and gold. like a big voyage...
Otherwise, at this stage, if you talk about silver and gold with noble families, these families may not find it too attractive. It would be more realistic to continue to think of various ways to embezzle the land.
Pang Tong is good at military affairs, and his resourcefulness is excellent, but he also has flaws. He basically doesn''t understand any economic and commercial issues, while Xun You knows a little about basic economic knowledge, but there are still some deficiencies at a deeper level, so all of them are concerned about Feiqian''s new regulations did not have much feeling or reaction, and he was not very clear about Feiqian''s deep-seated purposes.
Fei Qian divided the new coins into small gifts for Xun You and Pang Tong, and then talked about the next topic, "Li Changshi sent someone to send some BMWs and various utensils from the Western Regions. I wonder what you two have?" idea? 』
Pang Tong shook the coin in his hand, made a slight jingling sound, and then said: "My lord, do you want to sell it?" 』
"Ok? Fei Qian looked at Pang Tong and said with a smile, "Exactly!" 』
Xun You frowned slightly at the side, and said softly: "Now that the war in the Western Regions is starting again, I''m afraid it will hurt the food and grass again..."
Feiqian nodded, "Gongda''s concerns are not unreasonable... This is also the difference between Hu and Han. If we talk about wars, they all consume money and food. Why do Hu people get more and China lose more?" So maybe from now on, it should be different...」
Xun You said: "My lord''s intention is to make up for the loss with the things from the Western Regions?" 』
Fei Qian waved his hands and said, "This is one of them." If we only know how to plunder, how are we different from barbarians? In the past, when Emperor Xiaowu defeated the Xiongnu, he won millions of cattle and sheep, so what''s the benefit? Is the treasury so rich? Therefore, looting can be obtained for a while, but not for a lifetime...』
Although there are differences in farming and nomadic habits, or in technology, it also reflects a common problem in Chinese tradition.
Just like some people, when evaluating affairs, they often say that this is **** and that is also sexy. They seem to despise everything, but some people can turn waste into treasure, and then find business opportunities. From now on, those who dislike this one is garbage and that one is also **** are still with garbage, while those who find business opportunities have become rich and become environmental protection guards.
Therefore, before Fei Qian was unable to make proper arrangements because of insufficient conditions, but now for the Western Regions, he can implement what Fei Qian has always wanted to do.
『Someone wants to hold a business invitation...』 Fei Qian said slowly.
Fei Qian looked around and seemed to see question marks above the heads of Pang Tong and Xun You, so he stopped again and explained the meaning of the word "investment".
According to the bearded horse''s point of view, human labor can create value, so no matter which dynasty it is, it will definitely increase the overall social wealth with the continuous labor of its people, especially for a hardworking nation like China. It should be that the wealth is constantly accumulating and increasing, but why do you always see many descriptions in history, that the treasury is short-lived at every turn, and there is nothing but rats in the warehouses of the household department?
Then some people say that the emperor spent money indiscriminately and extravagantly, but from another point of view, the money spent should have been in the emperor''s treasury and was not in circulation, but now it is bought at high or low prices. , and finally flowed to the market, supplementing the currency in circulation in the entire market. According to the so-called left pocket and right pocket theory, shouldn''t it reduce the country''s wealth?
So it is obvious that the theory of left pocket to right pocket is false. In actual reality, the money will be continuously embezzled and reduced in the process of circulation until there is nothing left. The officials at all levels took the card and asked for it, and then when it came to the common people, not only did they not get the corresponding monetary compensation, they even posted it upside down!
As for the embezzled accounts, it is inconvenient for the officials to spend them directly, which leads to three results. One is that the luxury goods are inflated, especially those broken stones in the Western Regions; the other is that a large amount of money is stored. The third aspect is that these funds have no suitable place to go, and naturally flow to the most important resource of the farming nation, the land.
Looking at Fei Qian, Pang Tong suddenly had a bad premonition, and said tentatively, "Could it be that...my lord wants to..."
Feiqian laughed loudly and said, "Those who know me are Shi Yuan!" However, Shi Yuan does not need to do it himself, just need to control and manage it... This matter can be handed over to Cui Pei and others to organize, and issue bonds on the grounds of the Western Regions for a period of five years...』
Pang Tong seemed to feel a little more relaxed when he touched his chin.
Xun You twitched his eyebrows, because he thought that the year of this so-called bond seems to be the same as the time limit for exchanging old and new coins. Is it something set by Feiqian again...
The war horses and utensils sent from the Western Regions will be a window to show the wealth of the Western Regions.
Fei Qian plans to issue commercial bonds for this war in the Western Regions, not only to solve the problem of self-consumption, but also to absorb the idle wealth of the people and provide a channel for financial management, so that the wealth accumulated by the rich gentry is not entirely the only option for land.
From a certain point of view, it can be regarded as a carrot handed out after beating, but at the same time it is another means to strengthen the control over the big gentry.
As the saying goes, it is the grandpa who owes money, and the grandson who borrows money. If you hold all the money of the gentry in your hands, it is almost tantamount to holding the lifeline of the gentry. Isn''t it true that if you want the gentry to be hard, you should be hard, and if you want to make it soft, you should be soft? Later generations have seen the financial and diplomatic strategies of the United States for more than ten years. It makes no sense to only understand how to use them?
The issuer of the bond is handed over to the current four major merchants, Cui Pei Zhenzhuo, and Bai Shiqiang...
Well, why are there five people in the Big Four?
This seems to be a common practice...
(end of this chapter)