My father is Yongzheng, and I am Qianlong?

Chapter 103 reminds Emperor Yongzheng to be aware of the hidden dangers in copper coin minting.

Hongli was also very happy, and rubbed his hands together with delight.

With the increase in the Imperial Household Department's revenue, as a prince, his living standards would naturally improve significantly.

This is because the Imperial Household Department supplied not only the emperor's personal needs, but also the needs of his concubines, princes, and other members of the imperial family.

The Imperial Household Department decides everything from how many eunuchs and maids to assign to members of the imperial family, to how much tea, charcoal, and wax to provide, and how much salary to give them.

If the Imperial Household Department's revenue increases, its officials will naturally be happy to improve the treatment of the emperor and his relatives and nobles.

The reason is simple: they can take the opportunity to make more money themselves.

Anyway, it's the emperor's money he's spending.

What pleased Hongli even more was that this time, the Imperial Household Department increased its fiscal revenue not through the traditional model of expanding the scale of the Imperial Household Department's estates by annexing land, but by using financial means to increase fiscal revenue.

This is undoubtedly a step forward in terms of the methods of exploitation.

This way, the Imperial Household Department would not conflict with the court's fiscal revenue in the struggle for interests.

After all, the main source of revenue for the imperial court was land tax.

This is related to the fact that the current economy is still dominated by small-scale farming, and the tax collection capacity is still relatively traditional and inefficient, mainly relying on land tax.

Therefore, as long as the Imperial Household Department does not annex land, it can prevent more land from being incorporated into the imperial estates and thus stop the Ministry of Revenue from paying land tax, thereby not affecting the Ministry of Revenue's land tax revenue.

In this way, the emperor and members of the imperial family would be more inclined to curb the annexation of land.

Because they could see that the Imperial Household Department, which originally supplied their various needs, could increase its revenue in other areas without having to acquire land.

"Fortunately you reminded me, otherwise I wouldn't have thought of using this method of lending money to increase revenue while making up for the deficit."

At this time, Yongzheng affirmed Hongli's earlier suggestion that he set up silver shops to lend money in order to solve the problem of deflation caused by the large amount of silver money being collected into the national treasury.

Hongli also intended to gradually guide Yongzheng to have a new understanding of currency, and said with a smile: "This is because money can only create wealth when it circulates! If it is kept in the treasury and does not circulate, it is just money and cannot increase the amount of food that can be eaten or the amount of cloth that can be worn."

"Well said!"

Yongzheng stood up, patted Hongli on the shoulder, and then began to carefully review the accounts again, seemingly discovering a new problem.

Didn't watch it for long.

Emperor Yongzheng asked Changling, the manager of the bank, with a puzzled look, "Why do you receive mostly silver but lend out mostly copper coins?"

"Your Majesty, this is because the people borrow copper coins more often, but prefer to repay in silver."

"Some even borrowed copper coins and returned silver on the same day."

"The reason is that copper coins become more valuable the longer they are kept, while silver becomes less cheap the longer they are kept. Currently, silver is generally cheap and copper is expensive, and this has been the case since the time of the late emperor."

Changling then said.

At this point, Hongli interjected, saying, "It should have started during the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty that silver was cheap and money was expensive."

After hearing this, Yongzheng looked at Hongli and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Father, your son has done some statistics. Since the Wanli era, more and more silver has been flowing into our land, so silver is becoming less and less valuable."

"This led to the situation where, during the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty, a border soldier's monthly salary of six qian of silver was enough to motivate him to fight to the death for the court, while during the Wanli era, it rose to one tael per month, and now in our Great Qing Dynasty, it is two taels per month."

"But ordinary people mostly pay taxes in copper coins. I have done some statistics. In a county, most people pay no more than one tael of silver in taxes a year, and most people spend no more than five taels of silver a year. So the demand for silver is not enough, but the demand for copper coins is very high."

Emperor Qianlong is not currently in power and spends his leisure time reading. Therefore, he has time to conduct relevant statistics and has discovered that the devaluation of silver and the appreciation of copper coins have indeed been the mainstream monetary trend since the mid-Ming Dynasty.

And this is indeed the case.

From the mid-Ming Dynasty onwards, due to the great geographical discoveries, the Age of Exploration began, and a large amount of silver from the Americas flowed into China.

According to later historians, most of the world's silver flowed into China through trade at that time.

Unfortunately, in China during this era, the emergence of terraced fields and manual labor with oxen led to increasingly refined land cultivation and atomized economic production units.

In many southern regions, a single woman can handle all the farm work at home.

At the same time, this also resulted in a reduction in the per capita arable land area for ordinary people to satisfy their basic needs. However, under the guidance of Confucianism, which advocated for light taxes and levies, the tax rate did not actually change significantly, even though the Qing Dynasty's tax rate was based on the additional three taxes levied during the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, most ordinary people need to pay taxes of less than one tael of silver.

It should be noted that in many cases, the annual land tax of a county was only a little over ten thousand taels of silver, and this was in relatively wealthy counties. On average, people who needed to pay one tael of silver a year were considered wealthy families. However, the Qing Dynasty stipulated that taxes could be paid in silver, while large amounts could be paid in copper coins.

Large sums mainly require the payment of taxes exceeding one tael of silver.

Since ordinary people rarely had to pay more than one tael of tax, they needed copper coins even more.

Of course, ordinary people generally have little wealth and are very vulnerable to risks. If officials and powerful figures extort more than five taels of silver from a household, it can easily lead to the household going bankrupt or even forcing them to take desperate measures.

In addition, people preferred to pay with copper coins.

The reason is that copper coins have a fixed face value and are also engraved with the year, so officials cannot collect extra fees through the method of fire loss.

Moreover, even when accepting in-kind gifts like rice, officials could extort extra money by kicking the rice, exchanging a small measure for a larger one, or claiming the rice was moldy.

On the contrary, copper coins left officials with very little room for manipulation.

Therefore, people preferred to pay with copper coins, even if they had grain at home.

Because people paid taxes in small units and preferred to use copper coins, the demand for copper coins was very high, and copper coins became increasingly expensive.

Since the mid-Ming Dynasty, the trend of silver being cheap and money being expensive has become the mainstream.

This trend would not change until the late Qing Dynasty when large amounts of silver indemnities were paid out.

However, the low price of silver and the high price of money are not conducive to the struggle of ordinary people, but rather to stimulating the consumption of the wealthy and powerful.

After all, wealthy people have a lot of money, but it depreciates if they just keep it, so they can only spend more.

The common people need silver in fewer places, but copper coins in more places. When they have copper coins, they don't spend them, but hoard them and wait for them to appreciate in value.

Therefore, industrialization would be difficult to achieve.

It is important to understand that industrialization is predicated on increased consumer spending, which in turn stimulates the mass production of various goods.

Increased consumption by the wealthy will only stimulate the production of handicrafts. However, handicrafts that prioritize exquisite craftsmanship over human and material resources cannot be mass-produced.

For example, porcelain must be fired by a certain master, and clothes must be hand-cut and designed by a certain master.

Therefore, the massive influx of silver from the West into China unknowingly hindered China's industrialization, prevented China from increasing its productivity, and consequently deprived the entire Eastern civilization of its original driving force for progress.

After Hongli said that, Yongzheng looked at him in surprise.

"rare!"

Emperor Yongzheng was pleasantly surprised and exclaimed in admiration.

He truly hadn't expected that Hongli would pay attention to these practical academic topics concerning the national economy and people's livelihood in his spare time.

This made him even more convinced that his son truly cared about the fate of the Qing Dynasty, as he even paid attention to the situation of money and military pay in ancient and modern times when studying history.

Although Emperor Yongzheng was only an emperor of his time, after being reminded by Hongli, he was able to discern the impact of "cheap silver and expensive money" on the national economy and people's livelihood through this situation.

At this moment, Emperor Yongzheng sighed and said, "It's clear that the people still prefer to borrow copper coins!"

"Our Great Qing Dynasty is short of copper, so it is better to purchase copper mines from abroad in large quantities. This way, the people can collect their taxes by hunting, buying some medicine, and weaving some homespun cloth."

"If we collect more copper coins, we can distribute them again, allowing the people to earn more silver for our Great Qing Dynasty."

Yongzheng then stated this a few more times, and asked Hongli and Yinxi, "Don't you agree?"

Yinxi deliberately rubbed the back of his head and looked at Hongli.

Hongli grinned and bowed respectfully, saying, "Your Majesty is wise!"

Yongzheng smiled slightly and asked Hongli, "I remember you said that Westerners can sell us very few things, right?"

"Yes, our people are generally self-sufficient. Besides, Westerners don't produce many good things themselves, and the spices they can provide are only needed by high-ranking officials and nobles."

Hongli lowered his head and replied.

Yongzheng said, "Then it's perfect to have them sell us copper mines!"

"However, the wealthy households in the country may not be happy. If the imperial court has more copper, won't the copper they have hoarded soon depreciate in value?"

"Furthermore, copper coins should not be made too high in copper content just for the sake of appearance. It is best if the copper content is just slightly lower, as this will affect the purity. This can prevent bad money from driving out good money and giving big money the opportunity to exploit the people."

(End of this chapter)