Chastity Layman

In March, the grass grows and the warbler flies.

Scholars, noble ladies, or soldiers and traffickers all took advantage of the good spring and went out of the city for an outing. The children played and chased the paper kites, and the adults spread blankets on the grass, served meals, and enjoyed the picnic in the spring sunshine.

Qujiang, Furong Garden, a group of knights are wearing special rattan armor, galloping horses, waving crescent sticks to compete for a polo.

Emperor Li Shimin sat on the couch, looking at these strong knights, he was very satisfied.

Qin Lang was reporting the financial report while watching the football next to the emperor.

After the new year, everything went smoothly, and the emperor was a little bit ecstatic.

Originally, there was a catastrophe last year, but this year is the most dangerous time when there is no harvest, but with the full operation of the transshipment department, there is no famine in Guanzhong, and the relief food of the people is mixed with dried locusts and wild vegetables, which is actually slightly better than in previous years. .

Not to mention, during the famine years proposed by the Transshipment Department, the government should use labor as relief and build basic projects, such as building roads, bridges, repairing cities, repairing dams and reservoirs, etc. This is much better than simply distributing food to the people.

If a hungry person can only drink some relief porridge every day, they may have troubles when they have nothing to do. If they are kept busy all day, it will be conducive to stability.

This is not a sophistry but a fact.

Recruit those young and strong people to work, consume their physical strength, and feed them. This ensures their health and at the same time strengthens supervision, so there is no need to worry about someone taking advantage of the disaster year to make trouble. What's more important is that, in addition to the regular service, the working people can also distribute a small amount of money and food to them to support their families.

The imperial court can complete some necessary projects with much less expenditure than usual.

Li Shimin is now earning a lot of money from the elimination of Buddhism and Taoism nationwide, which is more profitable than eliminating several separatist forces in the late Sui Dynasty.

A steady stream of money was collected in the treasury and sent to the capital, not to mention a lot of real estate, fields, slaves, workshops, etc. The economy of the temple was much bigger than he expected. When he was happy, Li Shimin couldn't help sweating in secret. If it wasn't for Qin Lang's strong remonstrance, he wouldn't even realize that the economy of the temple was so strong. It's so bad.

There are no such opponents as Pei Jifeng, Deyi King Wei Ting in the court, and the city ship tariff and industrial and commercial tax have been successfully levied, and the special tax on salt, tea, wine and sugar has started ahead of schedule, and the mining tax is also in preparation.

As soon as the country's taxation machine was turned on, money and silk flowed in continuously.

And the Kaiyuan bank that Qin Lang planned to build before was also officially listed for operation. Just because of the free handling fee and interest for depositing money, the people have attracted people to deposit their money in the bank.

In the past, the favorite thing for landlords to do was to bury money in the ground, even in pigsties.

The court is short of money, the country is short of money, there is a shortage of money everywhere, and there is a shortage of copper coins. On the other hand, the rich have deposited their money underground to rust.

So Kaiyuan Bank announced interest-bearing deposits, and the transshipment department on the other side immediately issued a ban on hoarding money, prohibiting people from hoarding money. If it is found that it exceeds, it will be severely punished, and those in the industrial and commercial industries such as fangshi and shops should not save more than 5,000 guan.

Whistleblowers are rewarded.

It is also stipulated that silk and cloth must be used for transactions of more than ten strings.

Following this strict regulation, the three prohibitions of privately destroying coins, privately making bronzes, and privately minting coins were re-announced. Once discovered, severe punishment will not be neglected.

Of course, there are detailed explanations behind the prohibition on privately hiding more than 1,000 guan for ordinary people and more than 5,000 guan for businessmen. For example, it only targets copper coins. Tibetan column. It also stipulates that copper coins deposited in the Kaiyuan bank of the imperial court are not included in this list.

As soon as such an edict came out, the whole Chang'an was shocked.

Because whistleblowers are heavily rewarded, no one dares to hide money at home.

Although the family of common people has 1,000 guan and the family of industry and commerce has 5,000 guan, the actual decree implemented has little impact on ordinary people, but there are still many rich people.

As a result, families with more than a thousand coins in their private possessions began to take action one after another, trying to exchange their money for silk, cloth, gold, silver, or others within a month.

For a time, the price of silk cloth rose steadily.

It is no longer worthwhile to exchange money for silk.

As a result, more and more people began to use their money to buy land and houses, or to buy relatively conservative products such as pepper. Although many people were wary of Kaiyuan Bank, they still began to try to deposit their money.

A large amount of copper coins began to pour into the Kaiyuan bank, and even among the money brought by many people, there were actually many old coins such as five baht coins, and there were also a lot of privately minted coins. When casting coins, the imperial court will break and recycle them all, and the loss ratio is not too high.

The interest given is quite considerable. For example, the annual interest of the demand deposit is 1% per annum. If you deposit 10,000 yuan, you will get 100 yuan interest a year, which can be withdrawn at any time, and the interest is paid on a daily basis.

For fixed deposits, the interest rate is much higher. The three-month fixed interest rate is 2%. The longer the fixed deposit period, the higher the interest rate.

In the past, ordinary people hid a small amount of money at home. If they had more money, they could lend it to a loan or store it in a gold and silver shop, but a storage fee would be charged for this. And if the money is not too much, ordinary people don't have any good channels to lend money. After all, there is a risk of not being able to recover the loan.

Now the interest-bearing deposits launched by Kaiyuan Bank are equivalent to lending directly to the bank. You don’t have to worry about not getting back the loaned money all day long.

This kind of interest-bearing deposit is naturally the most suitable for the middle class and ordinary people.

Of course, the current limited private possession of money orders has caused many rich people who originally had a lot of money to deposit part of their money in the bank.

Qin Lang asked Kaiyuan Bank to collect so much money, of course it is impossible to put it in the treasury for nothing, as interest will be paid in that case.

He changed hands and started lending.

For a six-month loan, the annual interest starts from one cent, which is double the interest on deposits of five years and above, and ten times the interest on current accounts.

The loan for one year is 1 cent, and the loan for more than five years is directly 2 cents per annum.

Deposits are absorbed on the left, and lending begins on the right.

However, at the beginning, Qin Lang was more cautious. He had stricter review on lenders, and they had to have asset guarantees, and he didn't do pure credit loans.

On the other hand, it introduced silver bills to merchants, which are easy to carry and can be cashed in the city with the token seal, which is very convenient. Flying money has also been introduced to merchants who trade across regions, which can be redeemed in different places.

Originally, it was inconvenient and unsafe for merchants to trade large sums of money, but now the imperial court has banned the possession of more than 5,000 guan of money, so the flying money and bank notes are even more attractive to merchants.

After some people tried it boldly, they found that it was really convenient and safe, so merchants began to deposit money in Kaiyuan Bank, and began to use bank notes and flying money.

Li Shimin didn't pay much attention to this bank at the beginning, and he simply classified him as a gold and silver shop in his mind, but who knows, by March, Kaiyuan Bank had quickly spread across Chang'an, Luoyang, Yangzhou, and Taiyuan. , Jingzhou and Youzhou opened six branches.

The deposits attracted by various regions were even more astonishing. Qin Lang asked each region to keep 30% as a deposit guarantee to prevent redemption risks, and use the rest as commercial loans to earn interest differences.

Although the loan interest rate is much higher than the deposit interest rate, and the annual interest rate of the six-month loan is as high as 1 cent, which is ten times the interest rate of the current deposit, but compared with the current private loan, it is still surprisingly low.

You must know that before the imperial government’s public house lent money, the annual interest was twelve cents, which was only a one-year loan, but now the Kaiyuan Bank’s annual loan is only one cent and two cents, a difference of ten times.

Under the circumstances that private lending is generally high-interest, donkeys roll around at every turn, lambs pay interest, and thirteen returns out of nine, Kaiyuan Bank's annual interest rate of one cent and two undoubtedly makes businessmen very excited.

Even if this kind of loan requires collateral, businessmen are also flocking to it.

In the first month of Kaiyuan Bank's establishment, it made a profit of tens of thousands of coins. By the third month of March, it had already made a profit of more than 100,000 yuan on its books.

Li Shimin was stunned.

He looked at the report that Qin Lang presented, and couldn't believe it. Isn't it just a bank, a gold and silver shop? How can you make money so much?

He is still stuck in the original concept, and has never imagined the power of the behemoth of finance.

In the past, those who really controlled finance were actually the tyrants of the aristocratic family.

Whether it is the court or the emperor, there are few people who are not short of money.

Qin Lang told the emperor that Kaiyuan Bank plans to set up at least one branch in every road, and even establish a branch in a big port along the coast, or an important state city on the canal, and at that time, it will have at least two to three million yuan in revenue a year.

And this is only a superficial benefit. In fact, the bank can also regulate the economy, stimulate the development of industry and commerce, and the industry and commerce will prosper. When the time comes, taxes will increase. This is a hidden income.

"The Money Casting Supervisor of the Transshipment Department recently found a new method of casting money. Through this casting method, compared with the traditional sand casting method, it can save a lot of cost. There are hundreds of money casting furnaces in various parts of the imperial court. Each furnace It can cast 3,300 coins a year, and more than 330,000 coins can be cast in one year."

"One furnace casts 3,300 coins at the age of 3,000. It requires 30 miners, 21,200 jin of copper, 3,700 jin of lead, 500 jin of tin, and 750 jin for every thousand coins. , In addition, the minted money needs to be transshipped, and the cost of transshipment is expensive. In fact, the cost of casting and transshipping coins is more than one thousand, and the imperial court has been in a deficit."

The method currently adopted by the Transshipment Department’s Minting Bureau is to change the copper-lead-tin ratio of the money; One point is to reduce the cost of copper.

Now Kaiyuan Bank is used to fly money and bank notes so that all the newly minted money does not need to be transshipped to the capital, which saves a lot of transportation costs.

Furthermore, the imperial government has now strengthened the management of copper mines. All copper mines are allowed to be mined privately, but businessmen must first obtain a license to get a license, and then pay contract taxes, and the copper they mine can only be sold to the government. Private sale is prohibited, which is the same as salt.

On the other hand, the imperial court banned the casting of bronze wares, especially large-scale bronze wares. After the elimination of Buddhism and Taoism, the imperial court also obtained a large number of bronze wares, most of which were melted and cast into copper.

As a result, the cost of copper began to be greatly reduced. It used to be about 80 yuan a catty of copper. After this operation, the price of copper has plummeted now, and it has been directly suppressed to about 50 yuan. Moreover, the government has completely controlled the raw materials of copper. For 3,300 coins, the cost of casting is 750, not counting the transshipment fee.

But now, through various improvements, one furnace can cast 5,000 guan coins a year, labor costs have not increased but decreased, and copper raw materials and copper prices have dropped, so the consistent cost has dropped from the original 750 to 1000 yuan. About four hundred and five yuan, in fact, casting a consistent money is equivalent to earning three hundred yuan, and when the transportation costs are greatly reduced, the actual casting one can get about five hundred yuan in profit.

100% profit.

If you can mint 500,000 guan coins a year, you can get at least 250,000 guan in revenue by minting coins.

Now casting money and supervising hundreds of furnaces consumes three million catties of copper material a year, which is still a lot of consumption. However, 500,000 new coins are added to the market every year. In addition, under the current policy, the people no longer hide too much money, and the gap of melting money castings is blocked and the money is banned from going abroad. The amount of coins is gradually increasing. among.

"Your Majesty, I request an edict to prohibit the private casting of common people. In the past, there was a serious shortage of money, so we had to forbid private casting. Now we must plug this gap. At the same time, the circulation of illegal money and private money in the market is prohibited. money and private money, and the Kaiyuan Bank is allowed to exchange the private money and bad money in the hands of the common people.”

For private money and bad money, it is not as simple as a simple one-to-one or one-to-a few exchange, but directly weighed and recycled. Copper coins are discounted at half the weight of copper materials. For example, if a thousand private coins weigh six catties, it is calculated as three copper At present, the price of copper is fifty-one catties, so the one thousand private money is only discounted at one hundred and fifty yuan and given back.

On the one hand, private money and evil money are prohibited and prohibited, and on the other hand, they are recycled at half the price of copper. The evil money and private money can be circulated in the market. Private money, more than 1,000 Wen, can be criminalized, and there is a reward for reporting, which also forces them to hide these private money and increase the risk of bad money.

There are also basic conditions for bad money to drive out good money. If bad money cannot be circulated, then good money will naturally not be hidden for use.

It is forbidden to cast bronze wares in the world, to ban copper coins from going abroad, to ban private casting of coins, and to prohibit the circulation of private money.

The copper mines are owned by the government, and the miners are collected by the government.

With a multi-pronged approach, this troublesome problem that has plagued the court since the founding of the Tang Dynasty was easily solved. Copper is no longer rare, the more money is minted, the more money will be lost, if not minted, there will be a shortage of money, and if money is scarce, private minting will become more rampant, and when bad coins prevail, good coins will be treasured and not circulated. These vicious circles have finally been broken.

"How many copper coins do you have at home?" Li Shimin asked Qin Lang with a smile.

"Your Majesty, I only keep a hundred copper coins in my family, and the rest are deposited in the Kaiyuan Bank, or silk cloth." What Qin Lang didn't tell Li Shimin was that his family actually had a lot of gold and silver. Official currency is also not included in the ban.

"You are really the God of Wealth of my Tang Dynasty!" Li Shimin exclaimed loudly.