Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 1164 Rejection
Qian Qianyi suddenly jumped out and said this, and Yang Sichang became angry instantly.

"What do you mean, Mr. Qian?"

Qian Qianyi waved his sleeves and smiled faintly: "Isn't what I said clear enough?"

Yang Sichang suppressed his anger, "Mr. Qian's words are naturally unclear! I am a cabinet elder and I am in charge of the Ministry of Revenue, which is where the money and grain of the court is. All financial affairs should be arranged by the Ministry of Revenue. The Mint was originally formed by the merger of the Baoquan Bureau and the Baoyuan Bureau. It is now under the overall management of the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Zongli Yamen. As the Minister of Revenue, what is the problem with me asking the Mint to turn over the income of the Mint to the Ministry of Revenue? On the contrary, although Mr. Qian is a cabinet elder, he only manages the Ministry of Rites. How can he care about the financial affairs of the court? Aren't you meddling too much?"

"Low? I don't think so." Qian Qianyi smiled and shook his head, turned around and saluted Zhu Shenzhui, saying, "Your Majesty, it is true that the Ministry of Revenue is in charge of the court's money and grain expenditures, but I think the income of the Mint is not the court's tax revenue, and it is not under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Revenue. If you follow what Lord Yang said, all the income of the court departments belongs to the Ministry of Revenue, then what about the internal income of the court departments? Don't forget that the Ministry of Works not only has subordinate workshops and official factories, but these incomes have always been used as internal circulation of the Ministry of Works to fill the shortage of operations. According to custom, if there is any excess, it will be reported to the cabinet first, and then it will be retained according to the proportion after discussion by the cabinet, and then it will be distributed. If there is a need, it will be transferred to the Ministry of Revenue with the approval of Your Majesty."

"In addition to the Ministry of Works, the same applies to other ministries, such as the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Personnel, and even the Ministry of Rites, which I preside over. If, as Lord Yang said, all the income of the ministries will be transferred to the Ministry of Revenue, wouldn't that cause chaos in the world? When will the Ministry of Revenue be able to intervene in the internal expenses of the ministries? Where does the power come from? The Ministry of Revenue has always been only responsible for the expenditure of the ministries, and has no jurisdiction over the operation of the ministries. If this precedent is set, there will be endless troubles!"

Qian Qianyi continued, "In addition, Lord Yang himself admitted just now that the Mint is currently under the joint jurisdiction of the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prime Minister's Office. However, according to the rules set when the Mint was first established, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ming Royal Bank are actually responsible for the actual management of the Mint. The Cabinet is the central authority for supervision and coordination, which shows that the operation of the Mint has little to do with the Ministry of Revenue. Now Lord Yang wants to attribute the Mint's income to the Ministry of Revenue. Isn't this an overstepping of authority? What's more, the Mint has just been established, and the current income is only an estimate. In the future, whether it is to expand or promote coins, the Mint will have to invest funds. Can it be that all the income is handed over and the Ministry of Revenue will allocate funds later? This is really..."

Qian Qianyi couldn't help but shake his head when he said this, with an expression as if he had taken off his pants to fart. Yang Sichang was so angry that his lungs were about to explode. He made this request just for the sake of the court, hoping to fill the emptiness of the national treasury with the income from the Mint. This was a public matter for the country. Could it be possible that Yang Sichang could put this money into his own pocket?

Instead, Qian Qianyi was very eloquent and gave a lot of reasons. These reasons seemed to be reasonable, but in fact, they were not the case at all upon closer inspection.

Yang Sichang admitted that each of the six ministries did have internal financial transactions, especially departments like the Ministry of Industry, because it had workshops, government factories, etc., and because of domestic and foreign trade in recent years, the Ministry of Industry did gain profits from these aspects.

But overall, as one of the six ministries of the imperial court, the Ministry of Works is the department that spends the most money. It is responsible for the construction projects of the entire Ming Dynasty, and there are countless things to do. From arrows and swords used by soldiers to city construction and water conservancy projects in various places, the funds spent every year are countless. The so-called income is not enough to cover the expenses based on this number, and it is completely operated by fiscal appropriations.

Even the Ministry of Works was like this, not to mention the other ministries, so Qian Qianyi's so-called remarks were simply nonsense. Moreover, the Mint Office was not one of the six ministries. It was a newly established special agency independent of the six ministries. According to the operation mode of the Mint Office, there was no other expenditure except the initial investment and the subsequent increase in the cost of the minting machine and personnel. In addition, the profit from coin minting was huge. Could it be that such a large amount of income should be placed in the Mint Office? In this case, why not put these profits in the Ministry of Revenue to fill the gap in the national treasury for the needs of the court?

Yang Sichang did not back down and argued fiercely with Qian Qianyi. The two of them argued back and forth. Seeing them arguing so fiercely, Zhu Shenzhui did not know whether to laugh or cry. He immediately stopped both parties and scolded them with a stern face: "You are ministers of the court and cabinet elders. How can you quarrel over trivial money and property!"

Then, Zhu Shenzhui turned his gaze to the Prime Minister Hong Chengchou and asked directly: "The two gentlemen have different opinions on the ownership of the Mint's revenue. What do you think, Prime Minister?"

Hong Chengchou had been sitting quietly, watching the dispute between Qian Qianyi and Yang Sichang. With his ability, how could he not see the reason for the two people's tit-for-tat? If Yang Sichang was indeed motivated by public interest at the beginning, but since Qian Qianyi spoke out against it, the matter had changed its nature and became a personal conflict between the two people, just to suppress the other.

Hong Chengchou stood up and bowed to the emperor, then said, "Your Majesty, may I ask Lord Kang a few questions first?"

"Can!"

Hong Chengchou asked Kang Youfu, "Sir Kang, I want to ask you, if you are following what you just said, how much will the Mint earn in a year at the current rate?"

Kang Youfu stood up and said, "In reply to the Prime Minister, I have roughly calculated that the revenue alone, based on the current amount of coins minted, should be around 140,000 taels." As soon as Yang Sichang said this, he immediately showed joy on his face and was about to interrupt, but Hong Chengchou asked Kang Youfu before him, "In this case, can these revenues be handed over to the Ministry of Revenue?"

"No!" Kang Youfu refused without even thinking.

"Why?" Hong Chengchou asked back without changing his expression after hearing the answer.

Kang Youfu immediately explained to Hong Chengchou and others that although the Mint did have a profit of up to 140,000 taels based on the current amount of coinage, this profit did not include the Mint's own expenses, but also included other expenses.

Kang Youfu told everyone that although the income sounds like a lot, the expenses of the Mint are also very large. First of all, there are expenses for equipment and personnel, which need to be deducted from the income of the Mint. According to current calculations, the salaries of officials and craftsmen at all levels alone will have a fixed expenditure of more than 10,000 taels each year. In addition, there is the later purchase of equipment. The coin minting machine currently in use was just developed by the Ming Dynasty. The manufacturing cost of the coin minting machine is not low, and more research and development funds will be invested in the later stage to improve it. These have been agreed before, and the Mint needs to be responsible for the expenses.

Apart from these, there is the loss in coinage.

Although there were profits from coin minting in the Ming Dynasty, there were also losses. You should know that the main raw materials for coin minting are gold, silver, copper, tin, lead and other precious metals. The official currency of the Ming Dynasty was copper coins. However, with the increasing proportion of silver and gold used in the past hundred years, the Ming Dynasty has created a monetary structure with copper coins as the main currency and silver and gold as the auxiliary currencies. Coupled with the promotion and use of paper money in recent years, the current monetary system has been formed.

The promotion of gold and silver currency to replace the scattered gold and silver currently used by the people is to unify the currency and facilitate circulation, but to mint coins, one must have a large amount of gold and silver reserves. In fact, Zhu Shenzhu had thought about minting coins as early as when he first became the regent, but the time was not ripe at that time. First, there was no coin minting machine, and second, there was a lack of sufficient gold and silver reserves.

The latter, in particular, was the main reason for limiting coinage. Without sufficient gold and silver reserves, how could one mint coins? At that time, the financial problems of the Ming Dynasty had reached a very serious level. The treasury was so empty that even rats starved to death. How could one mint coins with gold and silver?

If Zhu Shenzhui had not set up the Ming Royal Bank and promoted paper money over the years, and linked domestic and foreign trade and taxation, allowing the Royal Bank to directly exchange currencies, he would not have been able to accumulate a large amount of gold and silver reserves over the years, which would have made the idea of ​​coinage possible.

The gold and silver collected from the people are not only of different sizes, but also of different fineness. In order to mint coins, they must be melted and refined, and then copper and other metals must be added in proportion before casting. This involves fire consumption, and fire consumption is inevitable when doing this. From this point of view, the actual income from coinage must also make up for the fire consumption. In addition, in order to maintain the subsequent circulation and exchange of currency, the Royal Bank of Ming Dynasty must undertake this work, and the cost paid is also unavoidable. From these aspects, although coinage has income, the final income is not much after all the calculations are made. Moreover, the current amount of coins minted is not much, and it has just started. If all these incomes are filled in, it may not be enough. How can the income be directly handed over to the Ministry of Households?

"This..." Hong Chengchou originally just wanted to smooth things over, but he didn't expect Kang Youfu to give such an explanation. Moreover, Kang Youfu's words were meaningful. He explained all the costs in detail in front of everyone, even the fire consumption ratio, etc.

Hong Chengchou had been a local official, so he certainly understood the existence of these costs. After Kang Youfu finished speaking, he had nothing to say. He had no choice but to bow to Zhu Shenzhui and said, "I didn't expect that there are so many details in just minting coins. I have finally understood them today. In this case, I think it is better to postpone this matter and adjust it according to the actual situation after the minting department is up and running in the future."

"Gentlemen, what do you think?" Zhu Shenzui asked Qian Qianyi and Yang Sichang with a smile.

Qian Qianyi would not object, he just wanted to cause trouble for Yang Sichang. Yang Sichang frowned, feeling that something was wrong, but Kang Youfu's answer was impeccable, he could not figure out what was wrong, so he could only sigh and let it go for now.

(End of this chapter)