One morning in early May of the eighth year of the Apocalypse, the weather finally began to warm up. Countless peaches and plums in the palace gardens of the Forbidden City began to sprout. The wind from the willows by the pond was not so deep on the face, but it was filled with mist.

Because the queen Zhang Yan occasionally felt a cold, the one who served Zhu Youxiao yesterday was Yao Xuanshi.

Yao Xuan Shishi's little house is gentle and gentle, and he serves Zhu Youxiao for a night.

When he woke up this morning, Zhu Youxiao still felt sleepy and tired. This time he did not choose to walk to the west warm pavilion of the Qing Palace, but chose to sit on the dragon chariot and sit on it and squint your eyes and take a nap.

When I arrived at the West Warehouse, it was already warm spring. The sunlight shone from the Hall of Supreme Harmony and was sprinkled at Zhu Youxiao's feet. Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but look back and then asked Wang Chengen, the chief inspector of the Sili, "Have all the people from the Ministry of Revenue arrived?"

"Report to Your Majesty, you have arrived," Wang Chengen, the chief of the Secretariat, replied.

Although Wang Chengen was a little old because of his work as a lie supervisor, he did not see any negligence when serving Zhu Youxiao. As he said that, he helped Zhu Youxiao's hand into the West Warehouse and shouted loudly: "Your Majesty is here!"

Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, Qian Qianyi, Minister of Revenue Guo Yunhou, Right Minister of the Ministry of Rites Li Mingrui, Doctor of the Ministry of Works and Sergeant of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Hu Shouchun, head of the Ministry of Revenue and President of the Royal Bank, quickly stood up and bowed to welcome him.

Due to Wei Guangwei's fall, Zhu Youxiao asked Qian Qianyi to temporarily handle the cabinet affairs, so the right to enter the Western Warm Pavilion this time became Qian Qianyi.

He had to be busy opening a company and banking company, and expanding the Imperial Guards, which made Zhu Youxiao not yet available to add new cabinet members.

But all officials obviously cared about this more. Many censors submitted memorials and advised themselves to add cabinet ministers as soon as possible so as not to make the center empty for a long time.

Zhu Youxiao understood that entering the cabinet has always been the ideal of many civil servants. The reason why some "rebellious" major events that he could do during this period were carried out so smoothly is that many senior civil servants were unwilling to rebel against him because of these things, which caused his dissatisfaction with His Majesty, the Emperor, and he was not able to enter the cabinet.

In fact, Zhu Youxiao did not think about preventing important officials from entering the cabinet. Since the Xihun Pavilion had integrated the power of the Lijian and the cabinet in disguise, the restrictions on Zhu Youxiao have become smaller and smaller. Zhu Youxiao did not mind taking a few cabinet ministers to win over all officials, but what is more important now is not who can enter the cabinet, but how can it more effectively control the economic lifeline of the Ming Dynasty.

How to improve the monetary policy of the Ming Dynasty is undoubtedly one of the most important reform measures.

To this end, Zhu Youxiao summoned several officials from the financial system to prepare to discuss the issue of reforming the legal currency.

The current monetary policy of the Ming Dynasty can be said to be very chaotic. Whether it is treasure money or copper coins, the credit level continues to decline because it is not linked to gold and silver. Even the imperial court's taxes were always in kind. After Zhang Juzheng implemented the one-whip law, all silver was discounted, but the financial order that had been destroyed was never rectified from beginning to end.

For example, how to deal with the large amount of copper coins and treasure money left by the public and even circulating? When silver is expensive and money is low, will it become further exploitation of the people? After a large amount of hard currency such as silver and gold is hoarded, will it cause a decrease in the market circulation of currencies, and even a barrier to economic development?

In the era of small peasant economy, these things are not caring, because both the country and ordinary people's families are almost self-sufficient. There may be no commodity economic activities in the 360 ​​days a year, and there is no impact on them, whether it is stable or unstable, it will have no effect on them. If it is not possible, it will barter.

But if Zhu Youxiao wants to break this stable small peasant economic model, he must rectify the financial order, and he must choose a general equivalent that can replace gold and silver, so that the country can control the savings of gold and silver through this currency and thus control the national economy.

Zhu Youxiao planned to issue paper money directly, but his idea was strongly opposed by Guo Yunhou, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue. After listening to Zhu Youxiao's words, Guo Yunhou did not fully understand Zhu Youxiao's concept, but took it for granted that His Majesty was in disguise to issue treasure money, so as to achieve the purpose of making money.

Issuing treasure notes has always been considered a harm to the people. Guo Yunhou, who manages the Ministry of Revenue, knows this well, and Li Mingrui and Wang Chengen also tactfully expressed their opposition. In their opinion, even if it is sent eunuchs to collect taxes in various places, it is better than issuing treasure notes. After all, the former is to harm the interests of merchants, but the latter is to harm the root of the people.

Zhu Youxiao understood their views and knew that the indiscriminate issuance of treasure money has reduced the credit of the people's banknotes to an extremely low level. He did not dare to take the risk directly and issue paper money, but he felt that he could take a compromise method and wanted to issue silver dollars that could replace copper coins and treasure money, and gradually make silver dollars the main legal currency of the Ming Dynasty.

Since Zhu Youxiao chose to compromise, Guo Yunhou and others were not able to object anymore, so they chose to make concessions and agreed to cooperate with Zhu Youxiao to implement monetary reform.

With the support of the cabinet and the Ministry of Revenue, this matter was not hindered. The Liu Kelang Officer and the Censors of the Censorate can no longer pose a threat to Zhu Youxiao. The dozens of heads of the Donglin Party who were killed are still deeply imprinted in the minds of the ministers. If anyone really gets angry, he will oppose Zhu Youxiao at this time and gains fame. Then Zhu Youxiao doesn't mind to torture him or his spiritually.

According to Zhu Youxiao's will, this matter was jointly undertaken by the Ministry of Revenue and the Royal Academy of Engineering. The Ministry of Revenue first made a rough estimate based on the amount of silver circulating nationwide, and then determined how many silver dollars to be made. Through market research, the denomination classification of silver dollars and the exchange ratio with gold, silver, treasure banknotes, copper coins, etc. were determined.

This process is not simple. Fortunately, Zhu Youxiao was considered half a financier after learning the information provided by the system. With the help of Hu Shouchun and other Ming financial talents with practical experience, these problems were solved.

The Royal Academy of Engineering wants to determine the ratio of silver to other metals in silver dollars. Doping other metals into silver dollars is to make money by using the difference between the actual value of silver dollars and silver, and to prevent others from committing fraud through this method.

Before this, private money minting was repeatedly banned. Zhu Youxiao now wants to eliminate this kind of behavior that disrupts the financial order by creating difficult-to-imitate silver dollars.

In the end, Song Yingxing determined the metal proportion of silver dollars in various elements of silver tin copper. Each silver dollar contained six cents and five cents per cent of pure silver, and the silver content was as high as more than 90%, which was basically not much different from sterling silver, which was easier to be accepted by the market.

Of course, the specific formula and manufacturing method became top secret after being confirmed by Song Yingxing. Zhu Youxiao even issued strict orders directly. If there is any leakage, the craftsmen responsible for making silver dollars will be executed once verified, including Song Yingxing.
Chapter completed!