Father can be an enemy to the country

His Royal Highness the King of Chu is only responsible for the general direction. The general framework has been finalized. As for the specific terms, naturally someone will negotiate with them.

In the next few days, Zeng Tai led provincial government officials to conduct arduous negotiations with the Suzhou Weaving and Dyeing Bureau on the long-term lease of 300,000 hectares of official land.

Regardless of how generous and righteous Gu Yuanchen and others were in front of the King of Chu, when they actually discussed business with these people, they showed another attitude of being careful about every penny spent and only wanting to take advantage and not wanting to suffer a loss. .

With His Royal Highness the King of Chu as the backstage, ordinary officials would not argue with them and would just give in if they gave in.

But unexpectedly, they met Zeng Tai, who was tougher in the background, and he was also a good stickler. Now the two sides were going back and forth, refusing to give in an inch.

The two sides disputed almost all terms, but the biggest differences were on two points.

One is the 300,000 hectares of farmland. The Weaving and Dyeing Bureau hopes to concentrate it as much as possible and divide it into three or five pieces at most, so that it is easier to assign people to manage it.

Zeng Tai said how could it be possible? The source of the 300,000 hectares of land was confiscated hidden fields, scattered in every county in the province. There must be hundreds of places, how can they be concentrated into three or five pieces?

When the matter came to Lao Liu, it was His Highness the King of Chu who reconciled them and asked both parties to take a step back. The weaving and dyeing bureau should not be so demanding; Jiangxi Province should not just try to save trouble. It must be replaced when it needs to be replaced.

At least it is necessary to ensure that the official fields in each county are concentrated together. It would be better if the official fields in neighboring counties could be connected as much as possible.

This is finally settled.

~~

Another more troublesome point is the payment method. Jiangxi Province only wants copper coins, not treasure notes!

The government of a province dared to refuse the treasure banknotes issued by the imperial court, which was simply outrageous. Naturally, the Dyeing and Weaving Bureau would not tolerate them, and brought the complaint to Lao Liu.

"Zeng Tai! You have gone too far! The Chief Secretary of Jiangxi Province is not a government official of the Ming Dynasty, but he dares to refuse the Ming Dynasty's treasure banknotes!" Lao Liu was also very angry after hearing this. He called Zeng Tai and cursed him.

Zeng Tai waited for His Highness to finish scolding him, and then explained with a grimace: "Your Highness, if this money is given to the official, then I will definitely not say anything, but the problem is that this money is used to purchase resettlement materials and pay directly to the immigrants. , those people won’t spoil us.”

"What, will they refuse to accept it?" Zhu Zhen said with a dark face.

"It's not a big deal if you refuse, but you're definitely not willing to accept it." Zeng Tai smiled bitterly and said: "And it will definitely have to be discounted. At the current market price in Jiangxi, a regular banknote can only be exchanged for 800 copper coins. This discount is 20%. It’s such a shame.”

"That's because His Highness helped with the patching and persuaded the Emperor to issue free banknotes, which stabilized the value of the banknotes." Gu Yuanchen seized every opportunity to flatter Lao Liu. "No one knows the art of banknotes better than His Highness. The value of the treasure banknotes will soon rise back."

"Don't dare to say this nonsense." Zhu Zhen rolled his eyes at Gu Yuanchen.

Although the people have no choice but to use banknotes due to deflation. However, after the collapse of the banknote law at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, ordinary people were always wary of treasure banknotes. Use it but don't want to keep it. Instead, he tried every means to convert his treasure notes into copper coins and keep them at home.

There is a professional saying for this in later generations. It seems to be called ‘mooncake expels cold skin’?

Therefore, in the long run, it is still a general trend that money is expensive and banknotes are cheap.

And what drives Zhu Zhen most crazy is that the old thief's stingy character is simply Baoqian's natural enemy. Although Boss Zhu on the one hand announced free banknote reversal, on the other hand, he did not allow the Baobao Bureau to invest too many new banknotes into the bank's treasury...

Because Boss Zhu discovered that as soon as free banknotes were announced, people swarmed in with their precious banknotes. Many of the intact banknotes, which were obviously only slightly stained and wrinkled but did not affect their use at all, were exchanged for new ones.

In an instant, the banknotes in the bank bank were completely changed. The cost of printing banknotes was so high that Boss Zhu was reluctant to part with it, so he stipulated that any banknotes with a "clear outline and all four corners" would not be counted as faint banknotes and would not be poured out for free.

But there are policies from above and countermeasures from below, so the common people will crush the treasure banknotes that do not meet the conditions until they meet the standards and then exchange them...

Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that he thought this was malicious counterfeit money, so he had to strictly control the amount of counterfeit money, so that there would be a long queue in front of the bank every day. He felt that those people whose precious banknotes were still "new" would find it troublesome and give up on pouring money...

For this reason, Lao Zhu still complained a little about Lao Liu, feeling that this boy was not a good man and did not know how expensive firewood and rice were, so he gave himself a bad idea.

In fact, in Zhu Zhen's view, this was just a normal manifestation of the people's lack of confidence in the court. They don't know how long this free money transfer will last, so they flock to it. First I changed my mind.

As long as the imperial court insists on "exchanging all the banknotes" for a period of time, up to a year and a half, the people will know that they can change banknotes at any time, so they will not be in a hurry to change them, and they will not worry about receiving old banknotes. This is the peak period of this wave of banknote exchanges. It's over.

As now, by controlling the number of new banknotes in the bank's bank account to slow down the flow of banknotes, it will only aggravate the people's distrust of precious banknotes and greatly reduce the effect of free banknotes...

~~

Bao Chao is in such a disgusting situation right now. What's more, the transaction amount between the two parties is so huge. There is a price difference of seven to eight million dollars between collecting banknotes and collecting money. No one can do it.

It is understandable that Zeng Tai is unwilling to accept treasure money.

In fact, the reason why the Weaving and Dyeing Bureau insists on paying with treasure banknotes is also for the same reason.

"I don't understand. Just like His Highness said, how dare you, a provincial government, to refuse to accept treasure money?" Gu Yuanchen flattered the horse's leg and quickly changed his target.

"If it's true what you said, why do you insist on giving me the money but not paying it?" Zeng Tai said arrogantly.

"Because they're all the same, I'll pay whatever I want!" Gu Yuanchen argued.

"Then we want whatever we want!" Zeng Tai confronted him again...

"Okay, okay, shut up!" Seeing the two sides arguing again in front of him, Lao Liu was furious. He really wanted to say how about you pay with food stamps. It's a pity that people here in Jiangxi don't even recognize the receipts he issued. Lao Liu is just thinking about Taozi.

"Let's do this." Lao Liu finally gave them an idea angrily: "The Dyeing and Weaving Bureau will pay with half copper coins and half treasure notes."

"Your Highness, there is no way to reconcile this kind of thing!" Zeng Tai was not satisfied, because then they would still have to break three to four million yuan.

"His Highness has taken care of you enough, and you are not satisfied yet?" Gu Yuanchen said angrily, obviously not satisfied either.

"Why are you so anxious? Listen to what I have to say!" Zhu Zhen glared and said:

"Most of the money received by the Chief Secretary has to be spent! When buying seeds, farm tools, cattle, rations, etc., these businesses can be given priority to the inspection team!"

"Aha, Your Highness, what a good idea." Zeng Tai immediately became energetic and smiled at Gu Yuanchen: "Since you said there is nothing wrong with the treasure banknotes, then I will use treasure banknotes to pay you!"

"You!" Gu Yuanchen felt depressed for a while, but couldn't refute. If he said there was something wrong with the treasure notes, how could he explain his previous insistence on paying the treasure notes? But if he just agreed like that, he would be scolded to death by the people below him later.

However, a veteran like him has always been quick-witted. After mumbling for a long time, he finally managed to say: "We want food stamps!"

"Food stamps?" Zeng Tai had heard about this thing, but he had never seen it before.

"Okay." Lao Liu's face was so realistic. How could treasure notes be as important as his food stamps?

"Okay, as long as you promise to collect as much as you can, you can use part of the food stamps instead." Zeng Tai still trusted King Chu, and believed that with him around, these Suzhou guys wouldn't dare to play any tricks.