Chapter 291 Pandora's Box
"Since you have a plan, I won't say much more about this matter. The accumulated accounts in the school library are too involved, so it's better to be gentle." Guan Jia reminded.
Hearing this, Zhao Xing hesitated for a moment and said, "Father should have known about this for a long time, right?"
"Yes."
The official nodded and said: "You want to ask me why I let it go if I knew it?"
"I do have some doubts in my heart," Zhao Xing said.
Gu Yankai married the Bai family, wasn't it because the official family asked those lords to pay back the money.
Since the officials are so tough on the Lord, there is no reason to be so indulgent towards the civil servants.
"Alas." The official sighed and said, "The reason why this matter has reached this point is my responsibility."
The official told the reason for this matter. Zhao Xing said it again.
At that time, the official family had just come into power. I heard that many officials could not afford to buy houses, so they were allowed to borrow money from the inspection treasury to buy houses.
The officials did this with good intentions. The local officials had just been promoted to Bianjing and their official positions were not high.
Salaries in the Song Dynasty were high, but housing prices in Bianjing were also expensive.
The officials did this, firstly, to sympathize with these officials, and secondly, because they were worried about these officials, because they could not afford to buy houses and corrupt the law.
It is not a big problem to lend money to officials to buy houses and pay them back slowly with the official's salary.
It can not only win people's hearts, but also prevent officials from becoming greedy.
At first, some people couldn't pay it back on time, and the officials didn't care.
Firstly, there are not many people, and secondly, it is normal for the officials to feel that some difficulties have been encountered and it is not possible to go up yet.
But I didn’t expect that there would be more and more arrears later.
Many of them are veterans, and some have died due to illness.
Officials have a lenient temperament, but it has been delayed until now.
Zhao Xing was speechless after hearing this. His father's approach cannot be said to be wrong.
After all, even officials in later generations will be allocated houses, and those who are not qualified to be allocated houses will also receive subsidies in this regard.
If the court cannot provide it, it is not impossible to borrow some money.
But the officials were too lenient. At first, some people delayed repaying the money, thinking that the money was not much, so they did not pursue it.
If other officials saw that they could refuse to pay back the money, who would be foolish enough to pay it back?
Don’t take advantage of the public.
The officials still thought that those people would be grateful. Maybe those officials were thinking that the imperial court should allocate houses, why should they return them?
The son did not say anything about his father's fault. Things have already happened, and there is no point in dwelling on them. Therefore, Zhao Xing did not make any more comments, but said: "Father, don't worry, I sent Gao Bo to serve as a deterrent. Did you think about it?" People dare not pay back their debts.”
“It seems that this is also your plan,” the official said with a smile.
Zhao Xing smiled and said nothing. After chatting with his father for a while, he resigned and left.
After leaving the palace and getting on the carriage, Zhao Xing was thinking about how to get some money.
This incident also highlights the current dilemma of the court in collecting money.
It’s just a few million taels of bad debts that make it difficult for the court to make ends meet. It’s simply ridiculous.
He has money. He has accumulated more than 20 million taels over the years.
But if you want to mobilize troops against Xixia and Liao in the future, you will need to spend a lot of money and food.
The imperial court cannot make ends meet without fighting, and cannot provide military expenses.
So the money cannot be moved.
Zhao Xing thought about it and thought of banknotes.
The Song Dynasty had paper money. The Jiaozi circulated in Sichuan and Sichuan and the silver notes used in large transactions on the market today were all paper money.
The banknotes at this time were not printed randomly. For example, Jiaozi had reserves.
A banknote cannot even be said to be a banknote, but more like a passbook.
The earliest origin of silver notes was created by merchants for the convenience of transactions.
In ancient times, silver coins were inconvenient to carry, especially during large-scale transactions. Not only was it troublesome to count, but it was also troublesome to transport.
So some businessmen joined forces and opened banks in various places.
People in need can deposit money in a local bank, get a receipt, and withdraw it from another city with a bank. In the beginning, all transactions were cash withdrawals. Later, as people recognized the bills, they could be traded directly with bills, so they were called banknotes.
Businessmen deposit money into banks in exchange for bills. Banks are not charitable, so they naturally need to charge a certain percentage of handling fees.
Later, the imperial court saw the convenience of this method, and at the same time, for the convenience of management, the imperial court took the lead and set up bank check services in various places.
What Zhao Xing wants to do is just print some banknotes directly.
At first, banknotes were only used to praise the convenience of regional transactions. With the recognition of banknotes among the people, many people will not exchange banknotes for cash.
Therefore, the imperial court can print a certain number of banknotes. As long as it can ensure that the banknotes can be exchanged in full and money does not occur, there will be no problem.
Given the economic prosperity of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Xing estimated that if tens of millions of taels of silver notes were printed, the bank note system would not collapse.
As long as there are advantages and disadvantages, this method is like Pandora's box. Once opened, it is difficult to control.
If the later emperors were more stupid, they would think of printing banknotes when they were short of money.
Lao Zhu has done this trick before. Whenever there is a shortage of money, he prints as many treasure banknotes as he wants.
As a result, the value of the treasure depreciated so much that no one recognized it.
But Lao Zhu is unreasonable. He pays salaries to officials directly with treasure banknotes, regardless of the depreciation of the treasure banknotes, and calculates them directly according to the face value of the treasure banknotes.
In other words, Lao Zhu was the founding emperor. If someone else had done this, the Ming Dynasty would have perished long ago.
The collapse of the financial system is very scary.
Zhao Xing was very worried that if he did this, there would be unsatisfactory descendants who would mess around and the country would be destroyed.
"I can't control that much anymore. The worst I can do is solve the long-standing malpractices of the court in the future, take back the overprinted banknotes and destroy them, and leave a will when I die. I won't allow future generations to do this." Zhao Xing gritted his teeth and said. .
This method is indeed a way to get a lot of money quickly.
Zhao Xing cannot stop eating because of choking.
Although we have made a decision, this matter cannot be done immediately.
How much printing can be done without causing inflation requires careful calculation.
Back in the East Palace, Zhao Xing stopped thinking about this.
I was so busy during this period that I didn’t even have time to favor the two beauties from the Western Regions given by General Gan.
As a qualified emperor, how could he live up to the good intentions of his ministers?
After Da Shuang and Xiao Shuang became Zhao Xing's personal maids, they thought Zhao Xing would favor them, but Zhao Xing never touched them.
As a personal maid, Zhao Xing usually favored other concubines, and they had to wait and serve.
Even if Zhao Xing is the prince, they can't help but have a hint of resentment in their eyes.
Tonight Zhao Xing did not go to other concubines' courtyards, nor did he summon any concubines to sleep with them. The two of them knew that the opportunity had come, and their eyes were wet when they served Zhao Xing to bathe, which is called a hard work.
This night, Zhao Xing had a good taste of the beauties from the Western Regions.
…………
Zhao Xing was busy handling official duties that day, and Eunuch Liu reported: "Your Highness, Sheng Changsong, a member of the Ministry of Revenue, wants to see him."
"Let him in." Zhao Xing said.
Because he oversees the country, he is basically in the palace during the day.
For convenience, Sheng Changsong was awarded a foreign minister from the Ministry of Household Affairs.
After a while, Sheng Changsong was led in.
"I pay my respects to Your Highness!" Sheng Changsong saluted.
"No courtesy!" Zhao Xing waved his hand and said: "What do you want to do when you enter the palace?"
Sheng Changsong looked around, Zhao Xing understood and sent everyone serving in the palace out.
"Your Highness, Li Ge is here and wants to see Your Highness!" Sheng Changsong said.
“Oh?” Zhao Xing heard this and asked, “Can he tell you the purpose of coming here this time?”
"I asked, and he said that he could only speak after meeting with His Highness," Sheng Changsong said.
"Take him to the East Palace at night." Zhao Xing said.
(End of this chapter)