Let’s talk about the currency of Ming and Qing Dynasties
First of all, what was the legal currency when the Ming Dynasty was established?
The answer is treasure banknotes and copper coins.
Paper money such as Baochao probably became legal currency during the Jin Dynasty and Southern Song Dynasty.
Of course, there were things similar to banknotes in the Tang Dynasty. For example, after merchants from various vassal towns sold their goods in Chang'an, they received a voucher from Jinzouyuan and exchanged it for copper coins after returning to the town. In fact, they partly assumed the functions of banknotes. The background was that the vassal towns at that time
Copper coins are prohibited from leaving the country.
In Sichuan in the southwest of the Northern Song Dynasty, due to the shortage of precious metals, Jiaozi appeared for a time, which was also a paper currency-like existence.
However, these two currencies were not legal tender issued by the governments of the Tang Dynasty or Song Dynasty. Both of them had only one legal tender: copper coins.
During the Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, the government began to issue banknotes.
In the second year of Zhenyuan (1154), "Cai Songnian, the Minister of Household Affairs, re-introduced the banknotes and introduced the law, so he made handover banknotes and used them together with money." - Jin Dynasty.
The banknotes of the Kingdom of Jin are called "Jiaochao", and they have 10 denominations: 10, 5, 3, 2, 1, 700, 500, 300, 200, and 100 - to be honest, I don't
I don’t know why the strange face value of “700 Wen” is issued. It reminds me of a certain counterfeit currency joke...
So, do the banknotes issued by the Jin Kingdom have anchors?
There was at the beginning.
At that time, it was stipulated that banknotes could be exchanged for copper coins. A certain fee was charged for the exchange, which was about 15 cents per coin.
Only when there is an anchor can the currency value of banknotes be strong, otherwise toilet paper will inevitably collapse.
In the 30th year of Shaoxing (1161), Emperor Gaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty, the government inspected the situation in Jiaozi, Sichuan, and decided to issue banknotes "Huizi" with face values of 3 strings, 2 strings, and 1 string. Later, 500 coins, 300 coins, and 200 coins were issued.
kind.
What was the anchor of Huizi in the Southern Song Dynasty? At first, Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty allocated 2 million copper coins as a reserve. Later, as the circulation increased, the reserves (gold, silver, and copper coins) were added several times.
Of course this amount of money is not enough. In fact, they do not plan to issue as many banknotes as they have reserves. The direct reason for issuing banknotes is to meet military expenses.
By the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, there were more than 600 million Guanhuizi in circulation, causing hyperinflation.
After the Mongols came, they continued to use banknotes.
In order to maintain the face value of banknotes, they learned from the lessons of the Jin and Song Dynasties and completely banned the circulation and trading of gold, silver and copper, and also collected banknotes when taxing. This was more or less effective.
But I couldn't stand the indiscriminate posting, and it ended up being a waste of paper. It didn't last as long as the Jin and Southern Song Dynasties.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, paper banknotes were also issued, called "bao banknotes".
If the Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty still had some conscience at the beginning and pretended to provide anchors for banknotes, then the banknotes of the Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty were very "magical". They did not have any anchors and could be printed as much as they wanted.
Banknotes are used to pay salaries to officials, and banknotes are used for government procurement... and there is not much of a recycling system.
The result was that banknotes in the Yuan Dynasty went bankrupt, and banknotes in the Ming Dynasty went bankrupt.
Here I want to say a few "fair words" for the Jin Dynasty and Southern Song Dynasty banknotes. These two dynasties have made many efforts to restore the credit of banknotes, including recycling, tax deduction, etc., which shows that they have economic concepts.
But the Yuan Dynasty didn't make much effort, or the level of effort was not enough. I don't think the Mongols understood it.
The Ming Dynasty was a Han dynasty, so logically I should understand, but to me, they felt similar to the Mongols.
The financial system was completely copied, even less concerned about the devaluation of banknotes than the Yuan Dynasty, without any efforts. Before Zhu Yuanzhang died, the banknotes had almost become toilet paper, and the persistence time was shorter than that of the Yuan Dynasty.
Logically speaking, this would greatly damage the national strength and government credibility of the Ming Dynasty, but they did just that. After overturning all possibilities, I can only think that the people of the Ming Dynasty did not understand, and they just mechanically copied Mongolia.
People don't know the dangers involved.
Zhu Yuanzhang has a very strong personality and likes to design various systems himself.
But he lacked top-level design capabilities. On the basis of the Yuan Dynasty system, he added his own understanding and tinkered with it. The military household system was copied, and the financial system was also copied...
After the vicious depreciation of Hongwu banknotes, Zhu Yuanzhang stopped making copper coins...
Fuck, what should I do? People have no choice but to find substitutes on their own initiative.
As a result, although treasure banknotes are still legal tender at the government level, the people have actually returned to the stage of trading precious metals or even bartering. One of the bad things officials did in the Ming Dynasty was to use treasure banknotes to go to prostitutes, and prostitutes had to accept them.
This kind of legal currency.
During the reign of Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty, he couldn't stand it anymore, so he relaxed the ban on silver and stipulated that silver could be used as currency for circulation.
Please note that silver is only allowed to circulate, but silver is not yet legal tender, and the government does not issue silver legal tender like treasure banknotes and copper coins.
With the prevalence of foreign smuggling trade, overseas silver began to slowly flow into the Ming Dynasty. At this time, the Ming Dynasty's economy had developed to a certain extent, and the demand for currency increased greatly, so the private sector spontaneously used silver as a transaction currency.
However, because the government does not issue silver legal tender, it cannot regulate it, and its value fluctuates greatly - mainly affected by overseas influences.
Here is an explanation of why it is affected by overseas influences.
Silver fiat currency and silver are two completely different concepts.
Take the Yuan Datou silver dollar as an example, it is about 27-28 grams and contains 89% silver. The value of Yuan Datou is only affected by the circulation. If there are more issuances and more circulation on the market, it will depreciate, otherwise it will appreciate.
This is actually the same as banknotes. If banknotes are issued and circulated more, they will depreciate; if they are issued and circulated less, they will increase in value.
But silver is another concept. It serves as both currency and a commodity.
In the Ming Dynasty, it was customary to use the weight of silver to measure its value, so when there was too much inflow of overseas silver, it caused inflation; when there was too little inflow, it caused deflation.
Because of the lack of monetary policy of the Ming Dynasty government, without silver legal tender, you cannot control it, you can only watch.
In other words, the issuers of the de facto mainstream currencies of the Ming Dynasty (silver bars, silver nuggets, silver bricks, silver winter melons, silver beans, etc., all kinds of weird silver) were overseas, not the Ming Dynasty government.
The Ming government had no financial sovereignty.
By the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to the impact of Japan's national lockdown, the amount of silver flowing into the Ming Dynasty was greatly reduced. The silver shortage that did not occur in the middle of the Ming Dynasty actually appeared at the end of the Ming Dynasty!
Why? At that time, the Ming Dynasty's foreign trade was in surplus and silver continued to flow in. How could there be a shortage of silver in the late Ming Dynasty than in the middle Ming Dynasty?
Because many landowners and businessmen cast the silver into silver winter melons and put them away.
The situation was chaotic and there was no good investment direction, so the gentry simply hid the silver.
After the silver was hidden, the market tightened money, triggering the Great Depression. We all know that during the Great Depression, holding currency was king. The gentry expected that silver would continue to appreciate in the future, so they continued to hold currency, further exacerbating deflation.
But people have to use silver to pay taxes. What should I do? Let’s have it cold.
In the final analysis, since the Ming Dynasty chose silver and copper bimetallism, it did not issue silver legal tender, and the tax collection channels were not smooth. There was inflation and deflation in the society, and the government was unable to intervene. With all due respect, Ming Dynasty
North Korean officials did not realize that they had to intervene proactively. They did not have the financial knowledge.
At that time, countries in Europe and the Middle East that used metal currencies had seigniorage, which was a very important financial source for the government. However, in the Ming Dynasty, silver was used in large quantities, and the tax collection units and accounting units were even "liang", but this
The piece of fat is indifferent.
Not only is there no seigniorage, but there is also a fucking deficit in fire consumption. What kind of nonsense is this!
After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty almost copied the Ming Dynasty's system, especially the financial system.
There was no silver legal currency in the Manchu Qing Dynasty...
But is this financial system good? Of course it’s not!
By the late Qing Dynasty, a large number of foreign silver coins were circulating in the Chinese market.
Foreign silver coins are uniform, relatively constant in quality and weight, easy to calculate and carry, and are very popular among businessmen.
The most critical point is that you have to weigh the silver.
The number of silver coins, regardless of weight, even if the silver dollar is worn and the weight is reduced, it is still one dollar and its use value remains unchanged, so it is very popular among merchants.
One more thing to say here.
The Qing Dynasty did not always flood the country with silver.
In fact, starting from the 13th year of Jiaqing (1808), due to the reduction in European market demand, China's exports of tea, silk, and porcelain dropped sharply. Coupled with the influx of opium, silver was outflowed for the first time in the history of the Qing Dynasty.
Then it lasted until 1856, which lasted for 48 years. But this was just a return to the past, and soon there was a trade deficit again.
During this period, there was an overall net outflow of silver from China, but a large inflow of foreign silver dollars began probably around 1800.
The first thing to sweep the Chinese market was the Spanish double-column silver dollar.
Do you still remember the "Sino-British Treaty of Nanjing" in 1842? The Qing government paid 21 million silver dollars in compensation. This was the double-column silver dollar minted in Mexico during the Spanish colonial era. At that time, there was a large stock in China and it was widely used.
In 1823, only two years after independence, Mexico began to mint silver coins, the Mexican Eagle Ocean, which soon slowly flowed into China with trade.
Beginning in 1854, Mexican eagle oceans flowed into Guangzhou on a large scale, and starting in 1857, they gradually became the mainstream of the southern market.
At this point, the Mexican Eagle Ocean replaced the Spanish double-column silver dollar and became the most widely used currency in China's commercial field - all seigniorage taxes were collected by Mexico...
During the Guangxu period, silver continued to flow out, but foreign silver dollars continued to flow in. The Qing government completely lost the income from minting. It felt that it was too disadvantageous to continue like this, so it began to mint silver dollars. In 1895, after the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War of 1895-1895, the Qing Dynasty borrowed money from foreign powers for the first time in history.
, that is, Russia and France borrowed heavily, but it is difficult to say whether silver will flow in this year.
In 1882, Jilin Machinery Bureau minted silver coins for the first time, and the quantity was very small.
In 1887, Zhang Zhidong was very sad to see that ordinary people and businessmen did not like to use silver coins or broken silver, but preferred to use convenient foreign silver dollars. He asked to cast silver coins, and in 1888, it was successfully cast at the Guangdong Machinery Bureau.
Subsequently, each province cast "Daqing Longyang" one after another, but the shapes, weights, and qualities were different, making it very messy.
One last thing to mention, the Qing Dynasty officially promulgated the "Currency Regulations" in 1909, which for the first time legally stipulated the silver legal currency "Qing Silver Coin"——
Monetary unit: round.
Weight: Kuping seven cents and two cents.
Color: 90% silver.
In 1911, the Qing Dynasty fell...
Let me conclude by saying that some book friends may not like to hear this.
The financial level of officials in the Ming Dynasty was not as good as that of the late Tang, Song and Jin Dynasties.
The financial level of officials in the Qing Dynasty was about the same as that in the Ming Dynasty.
Did the demise of the Yuan Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty really set back the level of civilization so much that the Ming Dynasty started from scratch on the basis of the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties and slowly made progress?