My life skills in Daming Liver

When Li Chengliang's envoy found Zhang Juzheng, he said that his son was escorting his parents back to Huguang to worship their ancestors, but the envoy had no choice but to return empty-handed.

After hearing the news, Li Chengliang had no choice but to give up his plan. After all, he could not really let Zhang Juzheng come back.

Prices in the capital were still rising, and Li Chengliang had no choice but to make repairs and stabilize the army and bureaucracy first.

Li Chengliang restored the tradition of distributing grain to officials and the army. During the Gao Gong era, officials' salaries were converted into silver dollars based on the price of grain. Now it has been changed to distributing in kind, which can be said to have stabilized the bureaucracy and the army.

However, the production of the arsenal was still affected. Li Chengliang once again asked these places to change the collection of silver dollars to the collection of raw materials to ensure that these arsenals could not stop working, and sent officials to forcibly purchase the raw materials needed by the arsenals.

After this, the inflation in the capital continued, but at least the key departments of the Ming court were stabilized.

As for the rest, Li Chengliang had no choice.

A strange phenomenon occurred among the people.

The silver coins issued by the Ming Dynasty were compiled crazily, and the silver coins in the southeast were appreciating crazily. Those merchants who had southeast silver coins in their hands, or who could get silver coins from the southeast, quickly began to buy other people's assets at the bottom.

Among them, the Qingyuan uncle's Southeast silver coins have the largest number.

No one knows why Uncle Qingyuan’s family had so many Southeast Asian silver coins, but Li Wei and his son used the money to frantically acquire other people’s assets and bought several high-quality workshops and shops in one go.

Large-scale assets were traded with Southeast silver dollars, and small-value commodities were bartered. The economic system built from Gaogong finally collapsed.

However, this matter cannot be blamed on Li Chengliang, because the Ming court's monetary policy, including Gao Gong himself, was very short-sighted. The issuance of silver coins was not for commercial circulation, but only to alleviate financial problems.

Gao Gongming knew that the silver coins issued by the Ming Dynasty were of insufficient quality, so he still used silver coins to pay officials' salaries and forced the circulation of silver coins.

Zhang Juzheng also knew the value of the Ming court's silver coins, but admitted that the silver coins issued by the Ming court could be used to pay taxes, and determined the currency value of the silver coins through a whip method.

Li Chunfang continued the style of the previous two terms, but he needed to spend more money to support the army, so he issued more silver coins.

By the time Li Chengliang took over this mess, it was already hard to get back.

It can be said that the Ming Dynasty issued silver coins because of financial constraints. It was only by mistake that they adapted to the development of the Ming Dynasty's commodity economy and allowed these bad coins to circulate normally.

Strictly speaking, the depreciation of Ming court's silver coins only allowed these bad coins to return to their due value.

To sum up, if Li Chunfang stays in power longer, this thunder will explode in his hands.

News of the price chaos in the capital spread to the southeast, but Su Ze was not happy and immediately convened a cabinet meeting.

For a long time, Su Ze has pursued the idea of ​​"crossing the river by feeling the stone of the Ming court." The various problems exposed by the Ming Dynasty may also be problems that the Southeast will encounter now or in the future.

After the Ming Dynasty thunderstorm, the southeast also needed to quickly clear mines.

Spam issuance of currency occurs almost everywhere.

It's just that the economy in the southeast is more developed and the demand for currency is still great, so it is necessary to continue to issue silver dollars.

But this kind of thing must have an end, and the economy cannot develop forever. Even for precious metal currencies such as gold and silver, one day there will be a large inflow of silver, causing the currency on the market to exceed the demand for currency.

Of course, this may be twenty or even thirty years later, but as Su Ze said in his book, hyperinflation is almost unsolvable. If such a problem really breaks out, there will be no solution.

After sending the Ming court's inflation report to everyone in the cabinet, Xu Wei said happily:

"Sure enough, as the governor said, the excessive issuance of currency and the decline of the Ming Dynasty's credit will inevitably lead to inflation. The current situation is more convenient for our military plan in Henan."

Everyone also laughed. Because of the hyperinflation in the Ming Dynasty, some of Li Chengliang's trump cards were now used to maintain the stability of the capital, and he had no ability to support Henan.

Su Ze said:

"Mingting does not have these problems, and we also have advantages in Henan. However, Mingting's inflation also gives us a warning. Maybe one day in the future, we will encounter the same problem."

Everyone stopped smiling.

Su Ze continued: "When the Ming Dynasty was first established, Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, issued Baochao. During Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, Baochao could still remain stable. By the time of Zhu Di, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, Baochao was close to bankruptcy. Later, he launched a rescue operation. Bao Chao’s campaign has had little effect.”

"The current silver dollar crisis in the Ming Dynasty is just the reappearance of treasure banknotes."

"As long as the Ming Dynasty continues to think of issuing money indiscriminately, this is almost unsolvable."

"But it's not just the Ming court? No government will stop the urge to issue currency."

Fang Wanghai lowered his head. In fact, the Ministry of Accounts in the Southeast was also constantly issuing silver coins. Even because the currency in the Southeast was the settlement currency in the entire Asia, the circulation was much larger than the Ming court silver coins.

A large number of mints work day and night. The Southeast Mint Bureau can be said to absorb silver from all over the world. This silver is minted into silver dollars and quickly flows into the market.

The Ministry of Revenue checked this year's minting records and found that they had increased three times compared to last year. Such a shocking amount also horrified the officials of the Ministry of Revenue.

The reason why the Southeast is so wealthy is that the income from minting has surpassed the land tax, commercial tax and municipal shipping tax, and has become the largest income in the Southeast.

This phenomenon also shocked all the scholars from the Ministry of Revenue and Tiangong Academy. There has never been a country in the world that relied on coinage to survive.

The income from minting is indeed very satisfying, but Su Ze's words also sounded the alarm to everyone that currency has its limits.

Even the value of precious metal currencies is actually based on confidence.

Strictly speaking, the fineness of the Southeast silver dollar is not as good as the Spanish silver dollar. The exchange ratio between the two is close to one to one. The excess value is supported by the trust of businessmen and people in the Southeast currency.

Su Ze said: "The currency issue is actually a confidence issue. We need to let the people and businessmen know that the government in the southeast will not issue money indiscriminately because of financial problems, so that the people can maintain confidence in the stability of the currency value."

Su Ze said: "I plan to separate the Mint Department from the Ministry of Household Affairs and establish a specialized agency responsible for currency issuance and monetary policy."