Since the era of family rule began, the Central Plains courts had always judged emperors based on their literary achievements, military prowess, and even personal conduct, going so far as to scrutinize every flaw, deeming those with even minor imperfections unfit to be called wise rulers or sagely monarchs.
Of course, the twelve imperial locusts of our Great Qing did not conform to the Central Plains courts' criteria for judgment. After all, they were the masters, and slaves were utterly unqualified to pass judgment. Therefore, all twelve imperial locusts were considered wise rulers and emperors for all time.
The standards by which the barbarians of Europe judged whether a monarch was sagely or not were entirely different from those of the Central Plains courts. Regardless of how incompetent their monarchs were in civil administration or how absurd their private lives were, as long as they won wars externally, they were unequivocally wise and sagely rulers.
As for Louis XVI, who had just stabilized the situation in France and gained some favor among the French commoners, whether he seized the opportunity to turn Portugal into a French colony or forced Portugal to pay tribute, either action would have been enough to establish Louis XVI's reputation as a second Sun King.
If, in addition, he were to adopt the principles of diligent governance and care for the people, as well as light taxation, learned from the Ming, in civil matters...
Wouldn't Louis XVI then be a perfect European version of an emperor for all time?
Upon realizing that he had helped Louis XVI become an emperor for all time in Europe, Pierre felt his heart burn with a desire to urinate.
At this moment, money and fiefdoms became trivial matters to Pierre.
To lead the people to the virtuous reign of Yao and Shun!
To achieve the European equivalent of "a minister for all time," Pierre unhesitatingly agreed to Zeng Cheng's request: "Rest assured, Minister Zeng, I will have Louis send someone to inform Portugal of this matter and demand that they dispatch envoys to the Great Ming to discuss war reparations."
Zeng Cheng was very pleased. If Portugal paid tens of millions of taels today, and tomorrow some other "tang" paid tens of millions of taels, and the day after tomorrow, our Tatar Qing paid tens of millions of taels, wouldn't the treasury of the impoverished Great Ming have money?
However, Zeng Cheng's joy did not last long. Before he could even chat with Pierre for a few more sentences, he was summoned to the National Treasury by someone sent by Liu Huaiwen, and then they rushed together to the Jinan temporary palace to seek an audience with Zhu Jinsong.
The problem was simple: after the precious notes had been in circulation for more than half a month, a shortage of precious notes inexplicably appeared in Jinan Prefecture.
The first to discover the problem was the bank in Jinan Prefecture.
Initially, the precious notes were able to circulate in a cycle of being exchanged—taxes paid back to the bank—then exchanged again—and taxes paid again. As days went by, after more than half a month, the precious notes recovered by the bank were no longer sufficient for the remaining merchants to exchange and pay taxes normally. When the National Treasury allocated another batch of precious notes to complete the spring tax collection normally, the bank ran out of precious notes!
The bank immediately reported the problem to the National Treasury upon encountering such an absurd situation right after the issuance of precious notes, and Liu Huaiwen, the head of the National Treasury, was also bewildered.
The Great Ming National Treasury currently held silver and copper coins valued at 150 million taels, but not a single precious note from the ten billion issued remained.
Alright, if these precious notes had all flowed into the hands of the populace, that would have been a good thing, as the Ming itself intended to promote the use of precious notes to replace gold, silver, and copper coins. If they ran out this time, they could simply print another batch next time.
However, after Liu Huaiwen sent people to investigate, he discovered that only a small amount of low-denomination precious notes were circulating in the Ming market.
This made Liu Huaiwen panic. Had the precious notes not circulated? Where had the money gone? Moreover, what would happen during the autumn tax collection? Would they really have to print another ten billion?
After racking his brains and finding no solution, Liu Huaiwen, completely panicked, had the Grand Secretary of the Great Ming, Zeng Cheng, summoned, and then they jointly reported the matter to Zhu Jinsong.
Zhu Jinsong, who came from an engineering background and later transitioned to the writing industry, was equally baffled.
According to the transmigrator textbooks published by a certain orphanage, the prerequisite for the Central Plains courts to issue currency was a gold and silver standard system. The amount of currency issued should be equivalent to the gold and silver held in the National Treasury. Over-issuance could lead to currency devaluation.
These textbooks even repeatedly cited the case of the Great Ming's continuous issuance of precious notes from the Hongwu to the Zhengde periods, which ultimately led to the complete collapse of the precious notes' credibility.
The dignitaries in the Great Ming court held the same view.
Therefore, when issuing the Great Ming Precious Notes, the principle of issuing an amount of precious notes equivalent to the gold, silver, and copper coins in the National Treasury was strictly followed, to avoid sudden runs and affect the credibility of the Great Ming Precious Notes.
Zhu Jinsong even took ten million taels from the imperial treasury and injected it into the National Treasury, demanding that the National Treasury be prepared to deal with potential runs.
However, it was of no use. No runs occurred; instead, the precious notes became scarce.
Zhu Jinsong, equally unable to understand the root of the problem, ordered the Brocade-clad Guards, the Censorate, and the Imperial Court to investigate the bank's accounts, while also dispatching members of the Heaven and Earth Society to gather information from the populace.
What made things even more bewildering was that after the Brocade-clad Guards, the Censorate, the Imperial Court, and the bank jointly audited the accounts, and after a thorough reconciliation with the National Treasury, they could only conclude that the accounts were flawless. The ten billion precious notes had all been exchanged by merchants in the private sector.
For example: Zhang San needed to pay 180 taels in taxes, so he needed to exchange 1,800 yuan in precious notes. However, Zhang San exchanged 2,000 yuan, of which he used 1,800 to pay taxes, and the remaining 200 yuan was taken home for safekeeping.
Yes, safekeeping.
Zhang San stated that with the serial number "Emperor Huang Year 4487, xxxxxxxxxx," this first batch of precious notes had immense collection value. Why would anyone spend it instead of taking it home to collect? Who was foolish enough to do that?
More importantly, because Zhu Jinsong and the court dignitaries intended to promote the issuance of precious notes through taxation, the issued precious notes were predominantly large denominations, such as one hundred yuan notes, with fifty, twenty, and ten yuan notes being fewer. As for notes with values of fen and jiao, they were even rarer.
This resulted in the collector's value of large-denomination precious notes outweighing their circulation value. It was normal to use a precious note worth one fen to buy a bun or a tea egg, but try buying a tea egg with a hundred yuan note!
Zhu Jinsong and the esteemed dignitaries of the Great Ming court were also extremely vexed by this situation.
Were precious notes issued?
Yes, they were issued, and not only issued, but over-issued in the first instance, reaching ten billion, equivalent to the total spring tax revenue for the year, and were highly recognized by the public.
And the result?
The result was that these ten billion precious notes did not even create a ripple.
It was precisely because of this situation that Zhu Jinsong felt something was amiss, but he could not figure out what the problem was for the time being.
After a long period of silence from the dignitaries, Liu Huaiwen sighed and said, "If only the silver in the hands of those merchants and the copper coins in the hands of the commoners could be directly exchanged for precious note coins."
As Liu Huaiwen's words fell, the dignitaries in the room couldn't help but sigh in unison. Wasn't this stating the obvious? The purpose of issuing precious notes was precisely this!
While the dignitaries sighed, Zhu Jinsong suddenly said, "Wrong, all wrong, I was wrong, and you were all wrong."
"We have always believed that the amount of currency issued should be determined by the amount of silver in the National Treasury. This is wrong. We were wrong from the very beginning. The only correct thing was to pre-calculate this year's spring tax, and therefore over-issue some precious notes."
Zhu Jinsong had always believed the transmigrator textbooks were correct, but when it came to his own experience, Zhu Jinsong realized that there was a crucial prerequisite that these textbooks had failed to mention.
The purpose of precious notes and coins was to replace the original gold, silver, and copper coin system. Therefore, the total amount issued should not be referenced against the amount of gold and silver in the National Treasury. How much money could the National Treasury have?
Liu Huaiwen had been frugally saving for many years, and the National Treasury only had about ten million taels of silver. This was because projects like road construction, river dredging, and the building of community schools were all massive consumers of funds. Tens of millions of taels of silver poured into them were merely a drop in the bucket.
Moreover, although the Great Ming did not have merchants with assets in the tens of millions of taels, those with assets in the thousands or tens of thousands were as numerous as cattle. Ten billion precious notes, distributed across the Great Ming, would barely make a splash.
Don't forget, Heshen, a high official, had a personal fortune of 800 million taels, equivalent to 8 billion precious notes. The economic scale of the entire Great Ming could be imagined.
Ten billion precious notes, while appearing to be a large sum, equivalent to 100 million taels of silver, was, in fact, insignificant compared to the economic demand of the entire Great Ming.
Therefore, currency issuance should be determined by referencing the current economic scale, in conjunction with the current fiscal situation, while ensuring credit. xxs1
After realizing this, Zhu Jinsong felt he had been misled.
He then consulted with Zeng Cheng, Liu Huaiwen, and other dignitaries, and Zhu Jinsong decided to issue another ten billion precious notes, primarily in smaller denominations, to increase the amount of precious notes circulating in the market and accelerate their adoption.
...
Recently, the common people of the Great Ming have been well-fed. There have been one major scandal after another, ceaselessly providing entertainment. Even if they wanted to go hungry, they couldn't.
First, the Great Ming decided to take military action against the Portuguese barbarians occupying Macau and annihilate them. The speed of the operation, starting in the morning and finishing in the afternoon, brought the common people joy for several days. Many families with sons were considering sending them to the army, and those with daughters were thinking about finding a soldier for a son-in-law.
However, such matters did not hold much appeal for the common people of the Great Ming, as it was a foregone conclusion that the Ming army would win battles; losing battles would be the unusual occurrence.
Relatively speaking, what captured the public's attention more was the Emperor and the court's decision to issue Great Ming Precious Notes to replace the existing gold, silver, and copper coins.
Out of trust in the Emperor, the people and merchants of the Great Ming were willing to try using the precious notes. Even if these things turned out to be as deceptive as the precious notes of the Hongwu period, the common people would accept it, considering it support for the Emperor.
The key was that the court only accepted precious notes for taxes and not silver or money. Merchants were also willing to accept precious notes; there was no way to avoid it.
However, what bewildered everyone was, where were the precious notes? Who possessed them?
If you don't have them, what's the point of talking?
What was even more frustrating was that it was already ten months into the fifth year of the Holy Emperor's reign, and the barbarians occupying Portugal had been reduced to a pile of skulls, yet the new precious notes were finally emerging after much anticipation.
And then? Then there was nothing more.
Upon the issuance of the new precious notes, the wealthy merchants and magnates each exchanged some for safekeeping. Only small-denomination coins flowed into the hands of the common people, and their quantity was not large.
Therefore, the people of Jinan Prefecture became dissatisfied. Why should wealthy merchants have precious notes while the common folk like them did not? This matter should be taken to the Farmers' Association to decide!
However, after the National Treasury printed an additional ten billion small-denomination precious notes, the people of Jinan Prefecture found that the precious notes were still insufficient.
Ten billion, while appearing to be a large number, was insignificant when spread across the entire Great Ming. Even Shandong, given its special status, only received a little over a million more, totaling eight million. After distribution to Jinan Prefecture, only over six million remained.
Over six million, distributed among the entire Jinan Prefecture, how much would be left in Jinan city?
If Jinan Prefecture was like this, the prefectures and counties elsewhere would not be any different.
In short, there was an uproar.
The critical issue was that the merchants were also dissatisfied.