I

The salary of the village head is set at two buckets of rice per month, which is more than 30 catties, enough to feed a strong rural laborer.

I can only feed myself and cannot feed my family.

Because the village chief spends most of his time farming by himself.

Persuading people to collect food and organizing road construction, these activities are all in the slack season, so there is nothing to do.

As for mediating disputes, I went there with a bowl during meal time, and the disputes could be settled while grilling rice. If you are big-hearted, you can let the villagers do it first, and then talk about it after you finish the meal.

This level of salary is equivalent to raising one more teacher per village.

By the way, the salaries of rural teachers are now provided by villagers in each village, mainly to relieve financial pressure. You may question that this is not compulsory education, but this is how New China came about. Farmers are willing to support teachers in their own villages, and they respect teachers very much.

Even so, the financial expenditure is still too high, because this year there is a need to provide relief to the disaster-stricken people in Huguang and Guangdong, and to immigrate a large number of people to areas severely affected by military disasters.

"Baoquan Bureau has been built, and several kinds of money molds have been made, and money can start to be minted this month."

Fei Chun and Song Yingxing came to discuss the matter with Zhao Han, and they also dragged Li Banghua and Huang Shunfu along.

Fei Chun said: "The Department of Finance and the Department of Government Affairs have disputes over which kind of money should be minted more. To be honest, there is no way to discuss this issue. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages."

"You can't make too many ten coins, otherwise the people will suffer." Huang Shunfu, who is in charge of the Department of Administrative Affairs, said.

Fei Chun argued: "Even if you don't mint ten coins, you should mint five more. Otherwise, if you mint flat coins or two coins, we will lose as much as you cast!"

Li Banghua suggested: "It is too much to exploit the common people by discounting 10 yuan, and it is bound to lose money if it is equal to 20 yuan. In my opinion, it is 5 yuan for all castings, and it is announced that all grain stores will not accept 10 yuan discount."

"If the grain bank announces that they won't accept ten percent discounts, who will use them? The ten percent discounts in the hands of ordinary people will be thrown into their hands?" Huang Shunfu is concerned about people's livelihood.

Fei Chun said angrily: "If we accept it, Chongzhen will keep making it. Why should we be used to Chongzhen?"

The two chief officials of finance and civil affairs quarreled in front of Zhao Han, and each had their own reasons.

The root cause was the financial distress of the Ming court, so printing money became more and more outrageous, divided into flat money, two-fold, five-fold, and fourteen-fold. Not only are the denominations of copper coins getting bigger and bigger, but the quality is getting worse and worse, which leads to a crazy decline in the purchasing power of copper coins.

Coupled with the deflation of silver, the copper-silver exchange ratio is very outrageous in some places, and one tael of silver can even be exchanged for four thousand copper coins!

If Zhao Han's Baoquan Mint dared to mint a large number of flat coins and double coins, it would definitely lose as much as it minted. The better the quality and the smaller the currency value, the more merchants like it. They must sweep up the goods in the market, store all the good money, and then let Chongzhen's bad money circulate in the market.

This is a typical example of bad money driving out good money!

And there is no solution, because the circulation of Chongzhen's rotten money is too large. First, Zhao Han's coinage is too small to hold Chongzhen Tongbao; second, the circulation of Chongzhen Tongbao cannot be directly banned, otherwise Zhao Han's territory will fall into economic chaos.

After all these people had finished arguing, Zhao Han made a final decision: "Baoquan Bureau casts coins, and I have three requirements. First, a large amount of castings will be discounted at five coins, and a small amount of castings will be discounted at two coins. The quality of coins is comparable to that of Nanjing in the fourth year of Chongzhen; Second, use the current money models first, and immediately start making new models. It is still called Chongzhen Tongbao, but the word "Datong in the World" must be added; "

The quality of Nanjing copper coins in the fourth year of Chongzhen is worse than that of Beijing coins in the same period, but much better than that of the later ones. It can be regarded as a medium-valued copper coin.

As for still casting Chongzhen Tongbao, it is mainly to facilitate circulation in other provinces.

Adding the words "Datong under heaven" does not hinder the use of copper coins.

At the end of the Chongzhen period, there was also a kind of copper coin, which was of very poor quality and was cast with a galloping horse pattern, commonly known as "Racing Horse Chongzhen". This is a kind of private money. Some people think that it was minted by Li Zicheng. It is normal for Chuang Wang to ride a horse. When a horse enters the gate, it is a breakthrough. When a horse breaks into the Forbidden City, Li Zicheng will destroy the world.

Huang Shunfu reminded: "In the main town, if the grain store refuses to accept the ten-dollar discount, I am afraid that the ten-dollar discount among the people in Jiangxi will cost six thousand to eight thousand cash to exchange for one tael of silver."

"Even so, I still have to reject it," Fei Chun immediately snapped back, "Long-term pain is worse than short-term pain. We can't keep letting Chongzhen mint money to suck our blood. This is also sucking the blood of the people of Jiangxi. If we let it circulate again, Chongzhen is afraid that he will be able to make a lot of money worth hundreds of words!"

Zhao Han stopped and said, "Okay, don't say any more, it's settled like this. As for the people who have 10 cents in their hands, they can only consider themselves unlucky, and there is nothing we can do to help."

There is really no way, it is impossible for Zhao Han to take it back.

Once Zhao Han recycles it, the merchants will make a profit. They will deliberately go to Nanjing to buy it at a discount of 10 yuan, and then ship the whole ship to the grain store to exchange it.

Now that Zhao Han made a decision, everyone had no objection and immediately went to work on their own.

Song Yingxing was left behind by Zhao Han.

Zhao Han asked, "How is Fei Ruyi?"

"Quite talented, but the reputation is not good." Song Yingxing replied.

When Fei Ruyi was in Hanzhu Academy, he was already studying "Mengxi Bi Tan", and went to Suzhou to learn strange skills from craftsmen.

However, this guy's route has gone astray. His main direction of attack is fabric dyeing, and he studies how to dye brightly colored fabrics at low cost. At the same time, he likes to design his own clothes, jewelry and hats, which fits perfectly with his title of "clothes demon".

At the end of last year, Fei Ruyi came to find Zhao Han. After learning about the current situation, Zhao Han gave Song Yingxing the job as his assistant.

Zhao Han said: "Tian Younian has always been the agent for the affairs of the Department of Public Works. I decided to promote him to head."

"You don't have to ask me, the chief, I won't mind." Song Yingxing said with a smile. He is living a very fulfilling life now, leading craftsmen in research and development all day long, and even leaving the day-to-day affairs of the weaponry to his confidants.

Song Yingxing didn't care, but Zhao Han had to reassure him: "You are still the boss, but you are in charge of different affairs. This is a special case and will never happen again in the future."

Song Yingxing cupped his hands and said, "Thank you so much for your concern."

"Look at this." Zhao Han threw a silver dollar over.

This is a Spanish eight-riel silver coin with "8" on one side and "P" on the other side. The combination actually means "8 pesos".

This kind of silver coin exists in large numbers in Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. Merchants especially like to use it because it has a fixed denomination and does not have to weigh the silver when making transactions.

Why didn’t the Ming court mint silver coins?

Because Zhu Yuanzhang has regulations, gold and silver cannot be used to make money!

Silver bullion is not money, at least not legally.

However, after Zhang Juzheng's reforms, the Ming Dynasty levied taxes and only collected silver, not copper coins.

Song Yingxing asked: "The town wants to mint silver coins?"

"I have this plan." Zhao Han nodded.

Song Yingxing played with the Spanish silver coins and commented: "This coin is of poor quality. If we mint silver coins, we should make them more exquisite."

The Spanish silver dollar is indeed of poor quality. Do not substitute it for the late Qing Dynasty type.

The Spanish silver dollar at this time had a very high silver content and very little impurity filling. This is for the convenience of casting. The purer the silver, the softer it will be. Even the most useless machine can complete the pressing.

However, the pressed silver coins are not guaranteed to be perfectly round, and there may even be various gaps and cracks that have not been flattened.

After a long period of use, the soft silver coin became even more disfigured by the collision.

The silver coin in Song Yingxing's hand has turned into an irregular oval shape.

Zhao Han said to Song Yingxing: "This kind of silver coin is not cast, but pressed mechanically. I hope to make a machine that can hammer out harder silver coins."

Song Yingxing said: "If you want silver to become hard, you have to add a lot of impurities. Will the people recognize it?"

"I'll admit it," Zhao Han said, "adding impurities to silver coins has three benefits. First, it makes the silver coins more beautiful and less likely to deform after being used for a long time; second, you can get more income from minting coins. The first is the price difference of impurities; the third is to prevent people from scratching off the silver rim. The outer ring of the silver coin in your hand will be scratched away."

Never underestimate the people's love for money. Not to mention the scraping of silver coins, they also scrape the edges of copper coins.

There are several Jiajing Tongbao coins of high quality that are often scraped off the edges of their copper coins. It was mainly scraped by illegal merchants. After scraping it off, they melted the copper and used it for other purposes.

Adding more impurities to silver coins can effectively prevent silver coins from being scratched: First, the texture becomes hard and difficult to scratch. Second, there are too many impurities, and they have to be scraped off and re-refined. Greatly reduce illegal profits.

Song Yingxing nodded and said: "I will organize people to develop a coin pressing machine when I get back."

Zhao Han said: "Jiangxi's water network is crisscrossed. It would be best to make a hydraulic coin press. In the future, I will not only press silver coins, but also copper coins. The copper coins of the Ming Dynasty are too chaotic. At least half of the country must be occupied before we can start to reform the currency value. By then The coin press is of great use. I will gradually replace copper coins with copper coins!"

Song Yingxing felt that it was of great significance, and immediately stood up and handed over his hands: "I will do my best."

Zhao Han sighed, hoping to win Guangdong soon.

The significance brought by Guangdong is that it can not only intervene in maritime trade, but also alleviate the silver shortage.

Starting from the mid-Ming Dynasty, silver flowed into China in large quantities.

Whether there was inflation or not is difficult to say, because the Ming Dynasty's economy was also developing rapidly at that time, and rising prices were certain. Especially in the Jiangnan prefectures, the social economy is constantly increasing, but if prices do not rise, there will be problems.

Much of this silver flowed into the cellars of wealthy merchants, and it also promoted the industrial and commercial upgrading of the Jiangnan prefectures.

After Zhang Juzheng's reforms, instead of experiencing inflation, there were gaps in silver across the country because the government only collected money in taxes.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Spanish Empire declined, the inflow of silver decreased, and now there is a general silver shortage.

On the one hand, silver was scarce, and on the other hand, copper coins were manufactured indiscriminately, resulting in an increasingly outrageous exchange ratio between silver and copper coins.

According to statistics from later generations, in the fourth year of Chongzhen alone, 14 million taels of silver were imported from the Philippines to Macau. Regardless of whether the data is true or false, one thing is certain, Macau was the main importer of silver during the Ming Dynasty.

As long as Guangzhou is occupied, the silver shortage under Zhao Han's rule can be alleviated, and the impact of Chongzhen's excessive issuance of copper coins can also be slightly offset.