My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 627: Clearing the troubles in Shu, Jingzhou is in chaos again ( words long chapter)

Zhuge Liang told Yang Hong, Zhang Yi, Wang Lian and others not to worry.

There is no need to worry at all about the government spending large amounts of money to hire corvée labor during the winter farming off-season, which would lead to insufficient silver in the treasury and hard deflation.

The reason why Zhuge Liang dared to say this was naturally because he was really prepared.

Long before he went on this inspection tour, everything had been arranged and he was confident.

Therefore, after returning to Chengdu, Zhuge Liang spent only two or three days to deal with the important matters that had occurred during the tour, and soon began to promote the work of "fully promoting the silver-plated coins of Zhiwubai in Shu County, Qianwei County and Guanghan County."

This type of silver-plated coin was first minted in Wuchang more than a year ago. In June last year, the first batch of silver coins was shipped to Jiangzhou.

Zhuge Liang had been promoting this silver coin in Jiangzhou and Zitong for a whole year. At that time, many Shujin workshops using new looms were built in Jiangzhou, and the wide looms used were designed and improved by Huang Yueying.

As for the core idea of "wide width", it was of course the inspiration given by the eldest brother Zhuge Jin, and Zhuge Liang and his wife were only responsible for the specific implementation. In August last year, Jiangzhou began to sell the first batch of wide width Shu brocade, and only gold, pure silver commemorative coins and silver-plated coins were accepted for purchase.

Ordinary copper coins were not allowed to be used for large-scale trade in Shu brocade, which was equivalent to forcing wealthy merchants in Jiangzhou to accept silver-plated coins. Moreover, the reasons Zhuge Liang gave at the time were very sufficient. He did not ask Jiangzhou officials and merchants to reject copper coins, but said that the value of copper coins was too low and it was inconvenient to transport them. Therefore, they could only be used for small purchases and change, and could not be used for large payments.

After all, copper coins have been the legal tender of the Han Dynasty for four hundred years. Openly rejecting a legal tender that has had credibility for hundreds of years will not be good for the dignity and credibility of the court.

Zhuge Liang had been in charge of internal affairs for ten years and knew best the value of government credit. Of course, he would not make such a low-level mistake.

So according to him, copper coins can also be used to buy Shu brocade, but only for retail purchases below one string of coins.

The newly woven wide Shu brocade is both wide and long, and the total price of each piece is several thousand coins. If you have change within one guan, you can only cut a small piece for it to take away.

Considering that cloth and other things are cut into smaller pieces, their uses are limited and their value is definitely slightly reduced. If you cut off a small piece, who will you sell the remaining incomplete roll to? Therefore, the retail price will definitely be higher than the wholesale price.

A whole piece of traditional narrow-width Shu brocade used to sell for 1,700 to 1,800 coins. A whole piece of new wide-width Shu brocade is equivalent to three pieces of narrow-width Shu brocade, and can sell for 7,000 coins, or two pure silver commemorative coins or 14 silver-plated coins.

If they are cut into pieces and sold retail, they will have to be sold for eight thousand coins each. The extra thousand coins in the price increase is a punishment for retail sales, which is used to guide buyers to buy in whole pieces.

Now, after three quarters of Shujin shipments, Jiangzhou has become accustomed to this method, and the recognition of the 500-yuan silver-plated coin has also been established. The situation in Zitong is slightly worse, but it has also established a circulation foundation in the business community.

What Zhuge Liang had to do now was to apply the successful experience of Jiangzhou and Zitong, add some new combinations of moves, and vigorously promote them to Shujun, Guanghan, and Qianwei.

……

Zhuge Liang's first step in promoting silver-plated coins in Shu County was to announce a decision first, testing the waters and observing the reactions of Shu County officials and aristocratic families.

On the 15th day of July, in Chengdu, Zhuge Liang was originally going to call his subordinates to a meeting to appease the people during the Ghost Festival. He announced:

"Everyone, this corvée conscription at the end of summer consumed a lot of existing money and grain. Now the surplus grain and cloth in the treasury can still meet the expenditure, but copper coins, gold and silver are relatively scarce.

In the winter when farming is not busy, if we want to recruit civilians by giving them money, we will be stretched to the limit. I want to give the civilians 500 silver coins instead. What do you think?

As soon as this was said, many of Liu Zhang's old ministers jumped out to oppose it. Even Huang Quan, who was highly valued and promoted by Zhuge Liang, felt that something was amiss.

Of course, most of Liu Zhang's old ministers who jumped out were from wealthy families in Shu. For example, Huang Quan, they did so out of practical considerations, fearing that Zhuge Liang would leave too quickly and provoke a backlash.

"Your Excellency, please don't do that! We all know that you have been promoting the 500-coin policy in Jiangzhou for a year, and many local wealthy merchants have accepted it. But the situation in Shu County is quite different from that in Jiangzhou. It is too hasty to promote it on such a large scale! It may lead to exploitation and disturbance of the people, which is contrary to the original intention of your Excellency's benevolence!"

Zhuge Liang looked over and saw that the person who spoke was Du Qiong, a famous scholar in Shu, who was from Chengdu County, Shu Prefecture.

This man was famous for his ability to predict the future and to praise and criticize the future. He was good friends with another great scholar in Shu, Qiao Yu. Qiao Yu had a son named Qiao Zhou, who was still a child. In history, Qiao Zhou would become Du Qiong's teacher in the future, learn his predictions and guide the rise and fall of the country. When Sima Zhao sent troops to attack the Later Han Dynasty, Qiao Zhou persuaded Liu Chan why the Later Han Dynasty would perish and strengthen his determination to surrender.

Du Qiong's teacher was also famous. The one who taught him the art of prophecy was the great Confucian scholar Dong Fu during the reign of Emperor Ling of Han. He predicted to Liu Yan that "Yizhou has the aura of an emperor". As a result, when Liu Yan advised Emperor Ling to "abolish the governor and establish the governor", he did not apply to be the governor of Jiaozhou, but instead applied to be the governor of Yizhou. This is how Liu Yan and Liu Zhang, father and son, established their foundation in Shu for more than 20 years.

It can be said that from Dong Fu to Du Qiong to Qiao Zhou, they all learned the knowledge of "great Confucian debates", but their method of debate was to help whoever was in power to find excuses for the legitimacy of their rule and to lead the way in praising orthodoxy, so their status in the academic community has always been very high.

When Liu Bei had just forced Liu Zhang to surrender, for the sake of stability in Shuzhong, he had no choice but to give face to these people.

When Zhuge Liang was removing the local tyrants in Shuzhong, he only eliminated the powerful and well-connected families like Wang Shang and Chen Shi in the first stage, but he did not touch these academic celebrities.

Now, Zhuge Liang's first phase of policies has been implemented for three or four months, and the situation has stabilized a little. He can now let go and give Du Qiong and others a warning - of course, only to warn and weaken them, not to completely remove them.

After all, getting rid of two waves of vested interests in a year means the table is turned too quickly and it is easy to cause trouble. Besides, the other party is just making suggestions, so it is not a big sin.

It would be enough to just reject their opinions and use facts to prove that the suggestions of these empty talkers are stupid moves and to lower their academic status a little.

The rest can come slowly.

……

Having thought about the rhythm of suppressing Du Qiong and others in his mind, Zhuge Liang also prepared a rebuttal:
"The 500-yuan coin promoted by the lord is beneficial to the country and the people. How can it be said to be exploiting the people? All counties and prefectures strictly guarantee that as long as you have 500 yuan, you can use it to buy Shu brocade, well salt, steel, tea, and celadon at the official price. Is there a situation where you can't spend 500 yuan?"

Du Qiong's homework was not thorough, because he just heard the decision announced by Zhuge Liang today, and he had not previously specifically learned how much five hundred coins could buy at the official price.

He thought that it would be the same as last year, and could only be used to buy Shu brocade. So Zhuge Liang mentioned so many options at once, and Du Qiong didn't know how to refute it for a while.

Huang Quan, who was standing next to him, was more pragmatic. Although he did not support Du Qiong, he could not help but kindly remind him:
"Your Excellency is right, but poor people do not need to spend a lot of money to buy these extravagant and expensive things. What people need is only money to buy cloth, grain, and sundries.

Last year, the old law of the envoy only allowed the rich merchants to use large coins, and did not affect the daily life of the people. This year, you suddenly let the poor people use large coins to settle their corvée wages, because you are really afraid that they will suffer another round of exchange and exploitation. "

Zhuge Liang would certainly encourage the kind additional reminders, so he took out his own detailed ideas and discussed them with Huang Quan and others:

"I have naturally thought of this, so I plan to spend two months promoting the new currency in Shu County and Qianwei, and require rice shops, grain stores, hemp cloth shops in all counties to accept 500 coins to buy grain, rice and cloth. They are not allowed to refuse or discount."

One of the important reasons why Zhuge Liang's operations in Jiangzhou last year were able to be promoted was that the hard currency he used to bind the silver-plated coins was the wide-width Shu brocade that he had a unique monopoly on.

That thing can only be woven by the new loom improved by Huang Yueying. Other traditional technologies cannot produce such wide and high-quality brocade. So Zhuge Liang said that silver-plated coins or gold and silver must be used to buy wide Shu brocade, and merchants can only accept wide Shu brocade with a pinch of their noses.

But the situation today is different. Zhuge Liang wanted to allow silver-plated coins to enter the "downstream market", and the things that people in the downstream market want to buy are not monopoly goods, and most of them are not government-run.

This requires that thousands of small businesses and even small vendors dare to accept the face value of such large sums of money.

Huang Quan had thought of this simple truth, and Zhuge Liang certainly had thought of it, so he was going to use administrative orders to push and pressure.

Hearing that Zhuge Liang was going to use coercive measures, Du Qiong and others beside him just looked cold, then shook their heads in hatred. Huang Quan frowned and pointed out worriedly:
"Your Excellency's method may lead the people to hoard their good money and spend their silver-plated money first. Over time, it may cause the price of everything to rise. Even if the wide-width Shu brocade can be supplied, it can only ensure that the price of Shu brocade itself will not rise. Other grains, rice, cloth and silk may also rise in price relative to Shu brocade."

It’s not surprising that Huang Quan thought so.

Historically, as long as the government forced the people to use big money, it would be pushed through at first. But the final result would be that "bad money drives out good money", and everyone would hoard good money and only want to spend bad money. Then, when everyone saw that they were unwilling to accept bad money, prices would generally rise.

Or when they encountered small transactions, they pretended that they couldn't make change and refused to accept the inflated denomination of the big bills - even Mr. Lu Xun wrote about this in his articles. When there was a war, everyone could only exchange the banknotes for Yuan Datou silver dollars at a discount of 60% to 70%. When they encountered people buying things with banknotes, they didn't dare to say they didn't accept them, but just said they couldn't make change.

It is impossible for Zhuge Liang to have read Mr. Lu Xun's articles, nor did he experience so much later history.

But with his intelligence, a little calculation, combined with the historical lessons of Wang Mang's currency reform, and his elder brother's advice on mathematics and economics over the years, Zhuge Liang himself could also deduce the chain reaction behind this.

So, of course, he had planned targeted measures in advance based on these two issues.

Huang Quan didn't think so much. With his intelligence and knowledge, he only thought of the first potential harm in a short period of time.

At this moment, facing Huang Quan's kind reminder, Zhuge Liang took out his final trick:

"I have a solution to this problem of people hoarding old coins and gold and silver and spending new coins first. To be honest, I have asked the lord for instructions to issue an order. From now on, the private hoarding of silverware by the people in Yizhou will be restricted, and the possession of pure silver will be prohibited unless the family has been granted a title for meritorious service.

Apart from medical purposes, the use of gold and silver ornaments by the common people can only be gold-engraved or gilded silver, and a gap must be left to reveal the copper color inside. Those who have no official title or merit but hold pure silver are considered to be usurping power! "

When Zhuge Liang said this, Du Qiong and others were shocked: "Isn't this... exploiting the people?"

Zhuge Liang's face turned serious and his attitude became tough: "What's the problem? In the old system of our Han Dynasty, the only currencies recognized by the court were gold and copper. Silver was originally used only as a reward for meritorious service. Previously, it was mostly silver utensils and silver ingots, and was not calculated in terms of money.

Last year, the Lord minted silver coins, mostly for the purpose of rewarding meritorious service. Later, silver-plated coins were minted to supplement the shortage of copper coins. Therefore, pure silver is not a currency in our Han Dynasty. If the people do not do meritorious service and hoard silver, what else is that?"

Du Qiong and others were suddenly speechless.

Throughout the dynasties, there were indeed controls on the scale of private hoarding of precious metals, and it was not considered a tyrannical policy. Not to mention the control of precious metals, in the Tang Dynasty, even "hoarding brocade" could be a crime. If a family hoarded too much brocade, resulting in insufficient currency circulation, it could also be a crime.

Under the Han Dynasty system, gold and copper coins were legal tender established in the early Western Han Dynasty, and Zhuge Liang did not touch them.

But silver is not a currency, at most it is used to reward meritorious officials. Liu Bei issued pure silver commemorative coins last year, but they were only given to meritorious officials to replace the copper coins that should have been issued in large quantities to avoid being unable to carry them.

Now, there seems to be nothing wrong with adding an additional "supplementary opinion" to emphasize that pure silver cannot be circulated to people other than meritorious officials.

The status of merchants in the Han Dynasty was originally low, and many merchants were not allowed to own certain things even if they became rich. This did not exist as discrimination in feudal society.

After Zhuge Liang announced this new decree, people with discerning eyes quickly realized that he might not really want to thoroughly investigate the private hoarding of pure silver by the people. But he definitely wanted to prevent people from thinking that "pure silver is expensive, and the silver content in silver-plated coins is too little, and it should not be worth such a large face value", and thus refuse to accept silver-plated coins, or raise the price when buying rice and cloth with silver-plated coins.

If Zhuge Liang subsequently required all rice and cloth merchants to sell goods at a fair price and not to discriminate against buyers who use silver-plated coins, and if any merchant was found to have violated the rules during the inspection, then he could conduct a thorough investigation to see if these wealthy merchants who raised prices against the rules had hidden gold and silver.

If they are found, they will be punished for multiple crimes. If they are relatively cooperative in accepting new money, then for the time being, because of "lack of law enforcement power", those who are the first to come forward will be investigated first.

This two-pronged approach, one positive and one negative, can be considered a combination of kindness and severity.

Those who cooperated with the government in promoting the new currency were given the best Shu brocade, well salt and hard currency to sell, allowing them to make a lot of money through long-distance trade.

Those who do not cooperate will not only be investigated as usual, but also have their possession of prohibited precious metals confiscated.

Using both hands will always give better results.

Opponents such as Du Qiong were finally silenced.

……

In order to prevent being accused of not having warned in advance, Zhuge Liang of course vigorously promoted the relevant policies before officially and comprehensively promoting the new currency.

He didn't like to punish people without teaching them, so the window of publicity lasted for two months. The new money would not be fully promoted until the end of September, but the publicity started at the end of July.

After the order was issued, Huang Quan and Yang Hong also helped to publicize it in an effort to ease the resistance of the people.

Not only did Zhuge Liang want to publicize it, he also asked Huang Quan and Yang Hong to carefully observe the public's reactions and report any abnormal reactions in a timely manner.

In fact, Zhuge Liang could deduce and guess how many loopholes there would be, but he still wanted to test Huang Quan and Yang Hong's abilities and how meticulous they were.

Huang Quan was quite attentive. After helping to promote the new money for a while, he also made secret investigations and observed some situations, which he reported in a timely manner.

One day at the end of July, Huang Quan was the first to report the first loophole: Since the announcement of the forced promotion of new currency and the prohibition of privately hoarding silver by wealthy businessmen without titles or official positions, many wealthy businessmen have chosen to melt the silver they had hoarded and recast it into jewelry or utensils.

Zhuge Liang had already partially plugged the loophole for this problem before, requiring that people without titles and merits were not allowed to use pure silver jewelry, and could only use chiseled or gilded ones.

However, in actual practice, some wealthy businessmen still choose to wrap a very thin copper core in silver jewelry and then wrap it with thick gold and silver on the outside, so that they can still legally hide a lot of gold and silver.

As for the pure silver used in medicine, because it was originally allowed by the new regulations, many wealthy businessmen began to cast pure silver bowls, cups, plates and wine jugs in large quantities.

Zhuge Liang considered it again and again, and had to make detailed regulations within a reasonable range. He also knew that it was impossible to completely block these things, so he could only catch the big ones and let the small ones go, and form a deterrent.

All permitted gold and silver plating and engraving techniques have restrictions on the thickness of the coating. The purpose is to ensure that those things will be remelted and recast in the future, which will result in a lot of labor and fire consumption, and the gains will not outweigh the losses, and try to block the cost of wealthy merchants using this as a medium to hide silver.

As for gold and silver tableware, Zhuge Liang also strictly restricted it. Only three types of tableware and medical instruments, such as silver chopsticks and silver needles, were allowed to be made of pure silver. In addition, the number of such silver items that merchants were allowed to keep privately was also limited. The number of silver chopsticks could not exceed the number of people registered in each household.

In short, Zhuge Liang gave everyone two months to hand over the prohibited precious metals, and the government would exchange them for silver-plated coins of equivalent value. If you really want to hide them, it's not impossible, just go and make contributions to the country and be rewarded, and the government will issue you commemorative silver coins.

This operation is similar to the "offering millet as a title" during the time of Emperor Wen of Han.

There are certainly still many details to be worked out in the subsequent implementation. It is impossible to completely copy and use these measures of Zhuge Liang.

But with Zhuge Liang's talent, he could take a two-pronged approach, one positive and one negative, and spread the consensus on silver-plated coins from wealthy merchants who specialized in long-distance trade to ordinary people. This would be possible in due time.

For all this, he also required grain merchants around Chengdu to strictly follow the official price and sell grain at a fair price of "one silver-plated coin worth five hundred coins can buy two stone of rice" starting from the beginning of August.

We will also strengthen inspections to ensure that prohibited behaviors such as hoarding and concentrated buying are not allowed.

Once any illegal hoarding was discovered, it would be severely punished and directly inspected and dealt with by the garrison left behind by Zhang Fei.

After a few months of open grain sales, the landless civilians who relied on corvée labor to earn money to buy rice for a living would gradually get used to the purchasing power of silver coins in their daily lives. When they received this kind of wages, they would not panic.

……

Through a series of ingenious operations, Zhuge Liang finally temporarily solved the most difficult problem of currency shortage in the governance of Shu.

Only with sufficient currency as a medium can the plan of converting corvee labor and land tax into cash for circulation be implemented.

The poor people in Shu County who were responsible for repairing the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, and the hard laborers in Qianwei County who dug wells, boiled salt, mined and smelted iron, could use the monthly silver-plated coin wages to buy rice and cloth, making the dispatch of the manpower resources in the entire Shuzhong smoother and more efficient.

It would take at least one or two years to get all this on track. But Zhuge Liang had plenty of time, and he would naturally find solutions and plug loopholes later.

If Liu Bei gave him three years to reorganize, he would return a brand new Yizhou to Liu Bei.

However, while Zhuge Liang was busy with all this, the world outside Yizhou would not wait for him to finish all this.

Just in July, when Zhuge Liang had just made preliminary arrangements for these tasks, an urgent report came from Jingnan and was delivered directly to Chengdu.

The urgent report was delivered by Liu Bei himself, and was followed by the opinions of Prime Minister Zhuge Jin.

The cover reads "Written personally by Shangshu Ling Zhuge Liang", and the content inside reads: Please give it to Zhang Fei and Gan Ning immediately after reading this, Zhuge Liang.

Zhuge Liang did not dare to delay and immediately looked at the contents of the document.

It turned out to be summer. Cao Cao was in Guandong and learned that Liu Bei had just attacked Liu Zhang by taking advantage of the heavy snow that blocked the mountains at the end of last year.

Therefore, for fear that Liu Bei would take advantage of him, he wanted to take advantage of the time difference when part of Liu Bei's troops were tied up in Shu and had not yet been transferred back, and seize the opportunity to make some moves on the eastern front.

Otherwise, if Cao Cao did nothing and just watched Liu Bei take Yizhou intact and quietly integrated and digested it, then Cao Cao would not be able to gain the advantage in manpower and productivity in the future.

Cao Cao had no choice but to seize every opportunity to make things difficult for Liu Bei.

Faced with Cao Cao's first wave of unusual movements, Zhuge Jin, Guan Yu and Zhao Yun in Guandong responded appropriately and did not let Cao Cao gain any advantage at first.

But later, things took a new turn.

After June, as Liu Bei himself rushed back to Jingzhou from Chengdu, the struggle between Cao and Liu reached a new level.

Now, Liu Bei wrote to Zhuge Liang to ask whether the situation in Shu was stable and whether there was a danger of internal rebellion.

If Zhuge Liang could stabilize the situation in Yizhou with a small number of troops, then he could let Zhang Fei and Gan Ning, or at least one of them, return east with a part of the garrison to participate in the fight with Cao Cao.

It should be enough to leave generals such as Wei Yan, Wang Ping, and some surrendered generals from Jiangdong to guard Yizhou and maintain the situation.

Zhuge Liang thought about it for a while, then called Zhang Fei and Gan Ning, relayed the situation, and then ordered:

"Now Yizhou is implementing the rent and labor system, the labor service money, and the promotion of silver-plated coins. All these changes will affect the interests of the aristocratic families and should not be underestimated.

Xingba is from Ba County, is familiar with the local situation and has prestige, so you should stay and be in charge of the defense of Yizhou.

In the future, I will ask my lord to split the post of governor in Yizhou when the time is right and appoint three envoys. Then Xingba can be the defense envoy of Yizhou.

Yide, the lord is eager for you to lead the troops back to the east to help in the battle. You should lead half of the land and sea soldiers and return to Jingnan first to help the lord. A big change has just happened in Jingzhou."

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PS: This is a long chapter of 6,000 words and will not be split up.

(End of this chapter)