In this era, because of Zhang Juzheng's one-whip law reform, all the taxes collected by the court were converted into silver, and labor could be converted into silver to measure. As a result, silver became a common currency. However, in the specific daily transactions of the people, copper coins were mostly used.

However, there are many types of copper coins, some are cast by government officials, some are cast by private secrets; some are cast by emperors in different periods, etc. These copper coins, even if they are cast by government officials, have different colors, that is, the copper content is different, thus forming complex types of copper coins on the market. Different types of copper coins have different purchasing power. This is very inconvenient for the daily trading of ordinary people.

As for silver, it is generally used in taxable silver and relatively large transactions in commercial transactions. Moreover, silver is the same as physical currency, and has inevitable color problems. It is also like copper coins, and it is inconvenient to use, or even more so. Special scissors and scales are required to measure weight to determine its value.

In addition, Emperor Chongzhen remembers that from a paper summarized by later generations, it is not unreasonable to say that the Ming Dynasty was destroyed by silver and Zhang Juzheng's whip method.

Generally speaking, with the progress of society and the total amount of materials is abundant, the corresponding currency must be increased. For example, if the goods are added ten, the currency must also be increased to ten yuan. Only in this way can one purchase one piece of goods be purchased according to one piece of currency and maintain a normal exchange relationship.

But if the currency does not increase accordingly, that piece of currency is equivalent to buying tens of goods (this buying can also be understood as a correspondence), which is equivalent to the value of the currency actually increased by ten times. This is a problem, that is, the value of the currency increases.

And there was this kind of currency appreciation problem at the end of the Ming Dynasty!

Because the silver ore and even copper ore of the Ming Dynasty were all rare, after more than two hundred years of development, the Ming Dynasty had actually been quite prosperous, and the total amount of goods in society had increased many times compared to the beginning of the founding of the country.

Originally, the Ming Dynasty exported goods to European countries and Japan through foreign trade, and received a lot of silver. It can be said that silver from all over the world was flowing into the Ming Dynasty at that time, which made the Ming Dynasty's currency barely keep up with the increase in goods, and did not cause serious imbalances in goods and currency.

However, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, Japan began to close its borders and prohibit external transactions, which reduced the outflow of silver. Europe began its 30-year war, and countries began to fight to the death, with military spending surged, thus limiting the outflow of silver.

Under these two reasons, the silver flowing into the Ming Dynasty decreased dramatically, which immediately caused the proportion of Ming Dynasty goods to silver to be imbalanced.

In addition, there is also a traditional reason, that is, the officials and gentry of the Ming Dynasty, including ordinary people, like to hide all the money earned in the cellar and do not need to be circulated on the market. This further aggravates the imbalance between the ratio of goods and silver. As for the imbalance between regions, there is more silver in the south of the Yangtze River and less silver in the northwest.

In this way, a serious problem arises.

For example, the imperial court stipulated that one tael of silver was collected for one tael of silver on a mu of land. In the past, farmers could exchange half of their grain for one tael of silver, and then pay taxes, and they could still keep half of their grain. But now, because the ratio of goods to silver is seriously out of order, farmers could not exchange half of their grain for half of their grain for sale at all, so they could only continue to sell grain to make up enough money for tax.

So, it was a tragedy.

The more severe the imbalance between goods and silver, that is, the more scarce the silver, farmers may sell all the food and not enough to pay taxes. Then, they either sell other things to make up, and then go hungry, or they do not farm and escape from their hometown to escape land tax. No matter which method, it will cause social turmoil.

In this case, the weather is still good. Assuming that the grain collected per mu has not reduced production, and there are no corrupt officials making things difficult for them to interfere. It is just that the economic relations between the currency and the land can cause social turmoil.

If we add the Little Ice Age in the late Ming Dynasty and the corruption of the late Ming Dynasty, the burden on farmers will be even more intense, and the chaos in the late Ming Dynasty will inevitably start from the northwest.

Of course, in this era, no one has realized that the relationship between money has seriously affected the social stability of the Ming Dynasty. Compared with this consequence, the inconvenience of using physical currency is secondary.

Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen felt that banks must be established and paper money must be issued, which was one of the most important means of ZTE.

Now, taking advantage of the opportunity of the government's layoffs, he feels that he can slowly build the bank without having to get it done in one step, just slowly start to do this.

As an emperor, he has great advantages and many resources can be used.

First, it is necessary to print paper money that is difficult to forge. The paper tributed to the palace is one of the best papers and can be used to print paper money.

Second, the Imperial Horse Supervisor and Jinyiwei obtained a lot of shops and land, which can be used to open banks or stipulate that the purchase and sale of shops must be made of royal banknotes.

Third, the salary issued in the palace, including palace maids and eunuchs, royal relatives and nobles, and military pay for the troops under the Imperial Horse Supervisor, etc., can be used for all such banknotes. After the payment is made, if you feel uneasy, you can go to the bank to exchange for physical currency, such as silver and copper coins.

Anyway, at the beginning, we only established the credibility of such banknotes issued by the palace. We printed as much as the salary we had to issue. All of them were one-to-one relationships and exchanged. We wanted to give people in the capital an impression. It didn’t matter if we got the banknotes, but we could exchange them for physical currency at any time, thus creating trust in the banknotes.

As long as you have confidence in the banknotes, it will begin to circulate, which will have the most basic prototype of establishing a central bank.

Everything is difficult at the beginning, especially in the Ming Dynasty, the reputation that was corrupted by the Ming Dynasty's treasure banknotes increased the difficulty, but Emperor Chongzhen believed that as long as he continued to do it step by step, the reputation of the banknotes would be restored.

Thinking of these things, Emperor Chongzhen felt that this matter must be done immediately. All the money in the future must be paid in this situation, which can speed up the credibility of paper money.

However, the first step now is to find paper money that can be printed and difficult to imitate. At this time, the emperor's power was reflected again. A decree was carried out to let the outer court and factory guards look for talents in this area. Of course, he did not explicitly say that he would print paper money, but just said that he would print something unique and difficult to imitate by others.
Chapter completed!