I Build an Aircraft Carrier in the Ming Dynasty

In addition to strengthening the control of the army, Wu Changqing's most important thing is to develop the economy.

Only by developing the economy can the people live a good life.

To this end, Wu Changqing began to promulgate the currency law.

He's about to start with the currency.

Before he started, he couldn't help being a little nervous. After all, this matter had a great impact, and it might even cause social unrest.

The new currency law stipulates that only the imperial court has the power to mint coins, and it is illegal for other private institutions to mint coins, and it is a serious crime of raiding and beheading.

Of course, privately minting copper coins was also a felony in the past.

However, in the past, private copper coins were minted, and the supervision of the imperial court was extremely difficult.

The difficulty of casting copper coins is extremely low, and any bank with a little strength can do it.

Moreover, the copper coins they cast will contain less copper than the imperial copper coins.

Don't look at the fact that a copper coin can only be a little less copper, but the number of casts is large, millions of coins, and after tens of millions of coins, the profit in it is quite considerable.

For silver, there was no fixed standard in the past, and its value was determined by weight.

Many black-hearted merchants melted silver blocks and mixed them with other metals.

Eight coins of silver can also be used as one or two.

The collapse of the Ming Dynasty actually had a lot to do with the currency of silver.

With the massive inflow of silver, Daqing established a system of silver standard.

However, the Ming court did not have the corresponding means to control the silver.

This led to the fact that the value and direction of silver could not be determined by the government, and then there was a 'money shortage' in the imperial court.

On the one hand, more and more silver is in the hands of private merchants, and prices have risen sharply.

On the other hand, the main tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty came from farmers who did not have much silver, and they did not receive much silver tax at all.

In addition to the years of war, the imperial court was getting poorer and poorer, and in the end, even the army could not be paid, and the soldiers were naturally unwilling to give their lives.

And when the money was in the hands of the merchants, they had nowhere to spend, so they could only hoard it and hide it in the cellar.

Wealth that does not participate in circulation actually has little meaning and cannot promote economic prosperity.

According to authoritative statistics, as many as 250 million taels of silver were stored in folk hoards in the late Ming Dynasty.

If it weren't for these animals hiding so much money, Dahua's current economy would not have taken off so fast.

In the past, businessmen had money, but they had nowhere to spend, and they could invest in unprofitable projects.

Now Dahua has more projects and more luxury goods. Then they dug up the silver in the cellar, either for pleasure or for investment.

Silver flowed into the market, creating an unprecedented boom.

If it weren't for the wealth hoarded by these businessmen in the past, no matter how profitable Dahua's current projects are, it will take time to make money, and it is impossible to skyrocket so many taxes overnight.

These money are all the wealth that the landlords and gentlemen had saved in the past, and now they are just taking it out.

From this point of view, Daming is actually quite pitiful, and made a wedding dress for Wu Changqing.

Earning so much money has nothing to do with the court, and now it's all cheaper for Dahua.

In order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Ming Dynasty, Wu Changqing must control the currency in his hands, and coinage is only the first step.

In order to prevent private minting of money and increase the difficulty of minting money, Wu Changqing stipulated the standard of currency in the future.

The government ordered several coin-minting machines for this purpose, and made some moulds with very complicated patterns.

Such complex touch tools are temporarily not produced by the folks, which means that they cannot imitate and forge. The minted currency can be seen by others at a glance.

The newly minted currency of the government is round, which is similar to the ocean of later generations, but it does not exceed three specifications.

The maximum face value is ten yuan, which corresponds to the previous ten taels. There is also one yuan and five cents, which correspond to the previous one tael and five coins.

However, the face value is ten yuan, but its silver content is far less than ten taels, at most nine taels.

The government will also use this wave of casting money to make a financial income.

This income is not to be underestimated, it is equivalent to a 10% profit.

If you cast one hundred million yuan, you can earn ten million yuan.

This is only silver coins. In terms of copper coins, Dahua will also use new touch tools to increase the difficulty of coinage.

Then, the Yongxing Tongbao was cast in a unified manner. One thousand Yongxing Tongbao was equal to one yuan. The official exchange rate was established. The exchange price of copper coins and silver was no longer fluctuating as before.

If there are fluctuations, businessmen can take advantage of the fluctuations in exchange rates to make money.

By setting a fixed exchange rate now, this problem can be solved.

Of course, there is also a risk with a fixed exchange rate, that is, as the amount of silver on the market increases, the value of silver itself will decrease.

At that time, there may be a very funny scene, a commodity worth one dollar, you need one dollar to buy it with silver coins, but you only need nine hundred pieces to buy it with copper coins.

And the official exchange rate is one to one thousand, which will cause people to deliberately collect copper coins, and are reluctant to receive silver coins in transactions, and are unwilling to spend copper coins.

This situation will inevitably affect the economy.

After all, in a large number of business activities, change is needed.

The issuance of currency often affects the whole body.

Therefore, Wu Changqing put the coinage right in the hands of the government.

Only the government can control the amount of silver and copper coins on the market.

Quantity controls prices.

Then, by increasing the amount of money or reducing the amount of money to control inflation and deflation, appropriate inflation can stimulate the economy, and appropriate deflation can improve the quality of life of the people.

These are all very complex and macro-level means, and Dahua cannot play for the time being, and lacks corresponding economic talents.

Hasty regulation and control may cause problems.

However, after the coinage is firmly in their hands, they have the means to control it at any time.

In addition to silver and copper coins, Wu Changqing also launched an official unified silver ticket.

Wu Changqing defines a bank note as a kind of bill, not a currency. But in fact, this is paper money, it's just a different way of saying it.

This is to pave the way for a full-scale paper currency in the future, first let a small amount of paper currency circulate on the market, and re-establish people's confidence in paper currency.

When the time is ripe in the future, a full-scale paper currency will be implemented.

Wu Changqing stipulated that in the future, private banks shall not issue banknotes without permission.

All bank notes can only be issued by Royal Bank.

The silver notes issued by the Royal Bank have the characteristics of beautiful appearance and strong anti-counterfeiting ability.

At the same time, the Royal Bank promises that the banknotes can be redeemed for the equivalent amount of silver coins at any time.

With the royal credit as a guarantee, as long as this banknote comes out, there is no room for the banknotes of other banks to survive.

After all, how can the reputation of private banks be compared with Wu Changqing, the first emperor of the ages.

There are currently three denominations for silver notes: ten yuan, one hundred yuan, and one thousand yuan.

A thousand yuan is already quite a lot of money, and only the super rich can use this face value.

As for the face value of 10,000 yuan, there is no need at all.

Businesses of more than 100,000 yuan at a time are very rare, and 100,000 yuan is only 100,000 yuan face value silver notes, which is very convenient.

The issuance of bank notes can bring a huge amount of income to the court.

After all, there was no need for the Royal Bank to hoard the same amount of silver as long as those holders of the silver notes did not run simultaneously.

Generally speaking, it is enough to prepare one-fifth or even one-tenth of the amount of silver coins.

And the extra silver coins can be spent.

This means that as long as the government issues 100 million banknotes, 180 million yuan can be used, and 80 million yuan has been made in vain.

Of course, Dahua needs to ensure that the economy can continue to grow and that there are abundant investment opportunities to play like this.

If the economy stagnated, investment opportunities diminished, and merchants had nowhere to spend their money, they would continue to hoard silver as before.

At that time, there will be a large number of runs, which will exaggerate the Royal Bank, lead to the bankruptcy of the Royal Bank's credit, and cause social unrest.

At present, Dahua's economic situation is very good, but there is no need to worry about this problem.

To increase the mining of private capital is what they should do now.