Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

The Ming Dynasty has always lacked copper mines, so iron was basically used instead to cast cannons.

The saved copper, in addition to being used in some ritual vessels, was mostly used for minting coins, or copper coins.

"Lord Hai, instead of looking for His Majesty, you might as well just tell me my ID number." Zhang Shikang teased.

All the copper mines were used by the General Manufacturing Bureau headed by Zhang Shikang to cast cannons. Hai Zhongqi said that he would let Emperor Chongzhen make the decision. Didn't he just want Emperor Chongzhen to stop the General Manufacturing Bureau from casting copper cannons?

Hai Zhongqi didn’t know what an ID number was, but he understood its meaning.

"Now that Lord Zhang knows where the problem lies, how do you plan to solve it?"

"Let's not talk about the copper mine for now. Let me ask Lord Hai, how much profit does the Ministry of Revenue currently make from producing copper coins?" Zhang Shikang looked at Hai Zhongqi with interest.

Hai Zhongqi frowned. He didn’t like Zhang Shikang’s expression, but he still said:

"The imperial court mints coins to facilitate the daily lives of the people. How can it be based on profit?"

“Oh! All businesses in the world are for the purpose of profit, especially after the tax system reform, even coinage is no exception.

Isn't it true that we in the Ming Dynasty are losing money by minting copper coins?" Zhang Shikang continued to ask with a smile.

He actually knew the answer in his heart. For a long period of time, including the Song Dynasty, minting copper coins was a loss-making business.

Yes, that's right, making money is still losing money.

This is mainly due to raw materials, labor costs and losses. The Ming Dynasty was originally short of copper, with low production efficiency and high losses.

A copper coin has little purchasing power, and its lifespan is short, so it needs to be melted down and recast at any time.

This results in the cost of producing a copper coin being higher than the coin itself.

"You ask even though you already know the answer. If there were no copper coins, people's lives would be extremely inconvenient. What would they do?" Hai Zhongqi said in a muffled voice.

Although the Ming Dynasty had already adopted the silver standard, ordinary people basically had little silver at home, and their daily living mainly consisted of copper coins.

It is indeed very inconvenient without copper coins.

"Then use other money instead, such as... paper money," Zhang Shikang replied.

As soon as these words were spoken, the expressions of the elders present changed.

"Paper money is absolutely unacceptable. The people of the world will not accept it, and even the officials of the court will not agree to it." Li Banghua said first.

As early as more than two hundred years ago, the Ming Dynasty issued paper money, which is the famous Baochao.

At the beginning, Baochao did have good purchasing power, but not long after, due to the Ministry of Revenue's crazy printing of money, Baochao soon began to rapidly inflate.

At that time, the imperial court had a regulation that half of the officials' salaries would be paid in the form of treasure notes, which made the officials miserable.

Of course, the common people were also greatly affected. Many people responded to the call and exchanged their family money for treasure notes. In the last stack of treasure notes, they could not even buy two kilograms of rice.

"Your Majesty, the issue of Baochao is a lesson for us. I believe that this is a move that will bring disaster to the country and the people. Please, Your Majesty, reject the request of Lord Zhang." The Minister of Revenue Hai Zhongqi also said.

"I second the motion." The other ministers expressed their opinions one after another, and they were surprisingly unanimous.

Emperor Chongzhen actually felt that the treasure notes issued at the time were too ridiculous, but he also believed that Zhang Shikang would not arbitrarily change the national policy.

In view of the success of previous reforms, Emperor Chongzhen was more willing to believe that Zhang Shikang must have a new idea, so he asked:

"Wuji, this is a financial meeting. You should respect the elders. If you have any opinions, please speak clearly. Don't keep us in suspense!"

Although Hai Zhongqi and other cabinet ministers always targeted Zhang Shikang, Emperor Chongzhen knew that it was more accurate to say that they had no other choice rather than targeting Zhang Shikang.

The biggest reason why these ministers were dissatisfied with Zhang Shikang was not his cynical attitude, but his title of Marshal of the Army.

They always believed that it was a very dangerous thing for the emperor to hand over military power to a minister alone.

Theoretically speaking, if this minister who holds the military power of the world wants to overthrow the court, it is not a difficult task.

This is crazy and too dangerous.

However, Hai Zhongqi and others knew the temper of Emperor Chongzhen, so they had to vent their anger on Zhang Shikang and force him to resign voluntarily.

No matter what, Hai Zhongqi and others really have the Ming Dynasty in their hearts.

"Oh." Zhang Shikang responded honestly, and then said:

“I think when doing something, you can’t just give up because you didn’t succeed. You need to sum up your experience and lessons and find out what caused the failure.

Take the treasure notes of our Ming Dynasty for example. They were in good condition at the beginning, but why did they become useless later?

I think you all know this very well. Too many were printed, right?"

"But Lord Zhang, the question is, how much is too much? And how much is too little? The difficulty lies in defining this amount!" said the Minister of Works Fan Jingwen.

This problem is indeed a difficult one in the current era when there is almost no economics.

Everyone thought that this question would stump Zhang Shikang, but Zhang Shikang quickly said:

"This problem is easy to solve. Just print as much paper money as there is silver in the treasury."

Copper coins are not suitable as general equivalents because they are not even precious metals.

Looking at the entire world, only the Ming Dynasty and the surrounding small countries influenced by Chinese culture used copper coins as currency.

Moreover, this thing is extremely easy to counterfeit. Among the copper coins in the Ming Dynasty alone, many were secretly minted by the people, and the quality of the coins varied greatly.

There was another reason why Zhang Shikang wanted the court to abolish copper coins, and that was that the Ming Dynasty would definitely open up to sea trade in the future.

The Ming Dynasty has now banned sea trade, so European goods cannot enter. If European goods can be imported in the future, who can guarantee that they will not directly sell them for copper coins?

You have to know that the Ming Dynasty was short of copper, which led to the high cost of minting copper coins and losses.

Europeans controlled many copper mines with low costs, and the technology for casting copper coins was not difficult. If ordinary people could replicate it, Europeans must be able to replicate it as well.

If that time really comes, the Ming Dynasty's monetary system will collapse. After all, selling goods cannot make as much money as selling them.

Of course, this was Zhang Shikang's preventive measure, but no matter what, using copper as currency, or the main currency, was inappropriate.

However, Zhang Shikang's brief answer seemed to break a window paper, causing the Minister of Finance Hai Zhongqi to fall into deep thought.

Although he did not receive systematic education in finance and economics at that time, Hai Zhongqi was the Minister of Revenue after all, and he had a deep study of currency.

Zhang was thinking that it was feasible to print paper money based on the silver in the national treasury.

“In fact, it’s not just paper money. After all, paper money is easily damaged. If we find a more suitable and easier-to-obtain metal, we may still be able to produce coins, oh, that is, a substitute for copper coins.

It is also possible for banknotes and coins to coexist. Of course, this is not something that can be achieved overnight and requires a long time of preparation.

Last year, when I was a child, I ordered two ships of copper ore from the French. Let's put this batch of copper ore first to Mr. Hai for minting copper coins.

The most urgent task should be the preparation for issuing paper money.

For example... first establish a state-owned bank in Ming Dynasty."

……