After taking care of the eight major merchants, Zhang Lei used all means to publicize this matter all over the country. The purpose was to prevent other businessmen from using any crooked ideas. According to Zhang Lei's words, you'd better not do it. I'll know it if you do it, in a way you don't.
Later, Zhang Lei returned to Shanhaiguan with a large amount of money, and wrote a letter to arrange the work of the slaves after they arrived at Taiping Island. Most of the women were ordered by him to marry bachelors, and the young and beautiful ones were all After entering the Taiping Palace as servants, adult men were dragged to work in the mines, while minors were sent to schools to study popular science books that Zhang Lei and William spent a lot of time and effort writing.
Returning to Shanhaiguan, Zhang Lei immediately began an even more shocking act, which was to issue gold, silver, and copper currencies to replace banknotes.
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????OUT out of the blue, only countries can issue currencies, but in fact, some regions also have regional currencies. Of course, the reason why what Zhang Lei is doing now is surprising is that in such an imperial country with a centralized system, the decision to issue currency can only be made by the emperor to show his supreme power. However, the monetary system of the Ming Dynasty did not seem to be very stable from the beginning. In the early years of the founding of the People's Republic of China, when the country was poor, Zhu Yuanzhang came up with the bad idea of ??issuing treasure banknotes for circulation. Later, the country gradually became richer, and the treasure banknotes were in people's minds. Its status has been greatly reduced, and in the end it has become almost useless paper. After all, this symbolic currency is far less tangible than metal currencies such as gold and silver.
By the middle and late Ming Dynasty, because of the war, even this real money and silver stuff was a little unreliable. The price difference between gold and silver varies from place to place. It is very inconvenient to conduct trade.
That is why. Zhang Lei decided to issue currency, but there is also a prerequisite for issuing currency, that is, the issuing currency must be an institution that is generally recognized and has strong strength. This institution has been the government for thousands of years, and Zhang Lei is going to issue currency privately. For the first time, not only that, he also wants to make the currency he issues the main currency in circulation and stabilize the current chaotic financial situation. This is his ideal. With the continuous financial support from overseas and reasonable and effective means, he believes that it is not difficult for him to achieve this.
Therefore, not long after returning to Shanhaiguan, Zhang Lei immediately established the Daming Business Development Company as an institution to issue currency. At the beginning, he planned to call it the Daming National Bank, but later he thought about the name. If it gets a little older, Chongzhen might not be able to bear it any longer. If he randomly sends troops to fight with him, the situation will probably become uncontrollable.
The third day after the establishment of Daming Business Development Company. Zhang Lei issued an order that all people's currency near Shanhaiguan should be replaced with newly minted gold and silver currency. These currencies are divided into ten types. The cheapest is naturally one cent of silver, then ten cents of silver, one tael of silver, ten taels of silver, and then one hundred taels of silver can be exchanged for one tael of gold. Originally, the exchange rate of gold and silver was not one to one hundred, but Zhang Lei made it mandatory for the convenience of conversion. At the same time, in order to make this ratio worthy of the name, he also improved the purity of gold. After issuing gold and silver currency, he directly issued an order to prohibit the use of treasure banknotes within Shanhaiguan. People who have treasure banknotes can go to the Daming Commercial Development Company to exchange for equivalent amounts of gold and silver currency.
Of course, these actions of his not only attracted the attention of people from all walks of life in Shanhaiguan, but also spread to the capital. Regarding his actions, Chongzhen finally broke out.
On this day, during the morning court, the people below brought up the memorial. When Chongzhen saw it, he couldn't sit still. Zhang Lei actually wanted to invent a new currency? What on earth does he want to do? For such a long time, Zhang Lei has been approaching his psychological defense line step by step. Zhang Lei has the final say in fighting, and Chongzhen has no control at all. Now Zhang Lei has actually switched from military to economics, which makes him unable to ignore it. Once Zhang Lei is in control of the economy, so why should he be an emperor? When the time comes, all Zhang Lei needs to do is raise his arms, and he can separate one side from another without the need for soldiers!
"Zhang Lei is really going too far. Doesn't he care about me as the emperor? It's okay to punish officials and businessmen on his own initiative. After all, the evidence is conclusive, but he actually issues currency by himself. What does he want to do before he gives up? He is so powerful, do you want me to give him the position of emperor?" Chongzhen shouted loudly.
Regarding Zhang Lei's behavior, even Wang Chengen, who had always been on Zhang Lei's side, did not speak for him this time. After all, he really couldn't find any reason to speak for Zhang Lei's behavior, but he still He said: "Your Majesty, please be patient. You should understand the ins and outs of the matter before drawing any conclusions. Maybe Mr. Zhang has his own plans. Your Majesty, we might as well write an edict to him. Let's see??How to say. If he is really not rebellious, then he will definitely explain why he did what he did. If he continues to ignore it, then we will have enough reasons to punish him, and then we will stand on the commanding heights. Condemn him. If he dares to continue to act his own way, the emperor can send troops. "
"Isn't it okay now? Look at what he has done. I'm afraid if I continue to indulge him like this, when I open my eyes tomorrow morning, the whole world will become his!" Chongzhen said angrily.
Wang Chengen then said: "Your Majesty, the matter is not that serious yet. Let's take it step by step. Send someone over first to have a look. Also, we must ask Mr. Zhang to keep our people by his side so that we can get it as quickly as possible." The best news ever.¡±
"Well, other than that, what else can I say? Just do as you say. Who should I send? Well, I think about it carefully. I want to find out more about Zhang Lei." Chongzhen thought. After thinking about it, it seemed that this was all he could do at the moment, so he sighed and said helplessly.
Speaking of Zhang Lei, he did not expect that Chongzhen would send people to his place to supervise the work. Since he gave the order to let people go down to exchange currency, he has regarded this matter as the most important task. As long as the currency is unified , the benefits are naturally self-evident, and gradually promoting it in the future can stabilize finance to a reasonable level. At the same time, when currency prices stabilize, Zhang Lei plans to specify commodity prices. The purpose of stabilizing currency prices is to stabilize commodity prices. This is a step-by-step process that cannot be achieved overnight. Even if Zhang Lei is anxious, he will not be in a hurry. .
On this day, he inspected the work of his subordinates in his Daming Business Development Company, which looked like a pawnshop. Feng Yong, who was transferred from Songjiang Prefecture, quickly adapted to the rhythm of work here, and everything seemed just orderly. . He was doing currency exchange and registration work for a person who came with treasure banknotes. When he saw Zhang Lei coming, he greeted: "Master Zhang, you are here."
Zhang Lei smiled and said, "How are you? Have you been going well in the past few days? Has anything happened?"
Feng Yong said: "Well, the order here is very good, maybe because of Mr. Zhang's reasonable jurisdiction, but speaking of it, there are a few interesting things that happened. It was when gold and silver recycling just started here. One person brought a Maitreya Buddha statue about a foot long, carried it in, and said that he wanted to exchange it for gold coins. I was surprised at that time, it was a gold Buddha statue, so how many gold coins would it cost to exchange a large group of Buddha statues? Besides, someone who can come up with such a big golden Buddha statue is definitely not an ordinary person. Moreover, Mr. Zhang thought, would a Buddhist bring a golden Buddha statue in exchange for gold coins? So we were more cautious at that time. We weighed it at that time There was no problem with the weight when I bought it, and I used a knife to scrape some powder off, and it was undoubtedly gold, so I exchanged it for him, giving him a thousand taels of gold in exchange."
"What happened next? Where is the Buddha statue? I'll go take a look." Zhang Lei suddenly felt strange and asked.
Feng Yong continued: "No more, no more. Didn't I feel strange at the time? While I was holding his golden Buddha, I was holding him back. At that time, I hurriedly went into the yard with my things in my arms. , didn¡¯t Mr. Zhang specially invite a master to come over to test the purity? I went to him and asked him to take a look. Unexpectedly, when I entered the yard, I fell across the threshold and the golden Buddha was It fell to the ground. Of course, this is not the point. The point is that the golden Buddha actually broke to pieces, and the big black ball inside was actually lead! Those people are really smart, they actually made the weight so heavy that even I can't notice it. There was a big difference. At that time, I knew I had been cheated, so I hurried back, but luckily the person hadn't left yet, so I got the money back."
"Where is that person?" Zhang Lei asked.
Feng Yong said: "I let that man go. He confessed that he came here just to take advantage of others. I didn't think there was any problem, so I let him go."
Zhang Lei's expression changed and he said: "No, this is absolutely not possible. He can't deceive you by himself. There must be a gang. Although this time you are lucky enough to see through it." I have discovered his conspiracy, but what if he uses this trick to deceive others? Then everything I have done will be in vain. You quickly go to draw people's portraits and catch the liar. No matter what, it must be Dig out this gang and kill them all!" (To be continued, please search Piaotian Literature for better and faster novels!