"During Hongwu, the households here were 15 miles in small and desolate. The Tucheng was built in the early years of Zhengde, with a circumference of two miles. In the Wanli period, bricks were wrapped, and the circumference was expanded to four miles, and it is still so big." Jiang Chen walked beside Zhu Cixuan and introduced, and pulled a handful of thistle grass: "Your Highness, you see, it is still a desolate color now."

Zhu Cilang stood on this mound, and looked around with water. He heard from Jiang Chen that only in the south is in the Spring and Autumn Period, and some people can provide access to the embankment. When the water floods all sides in summer, it is extremely inconvenient to enter and exit. It is already autumn and it is another dry year, but the embankment on the south is still in the water. It seems that it will take some time to pass.

"I chose this place because I was attracted by the fact that it was easy to defend and difficult to attack." Jiang Chen said: "There is a lot of money for banks to deal with, and it is safer to have this natural moat. If you are worried about inconvenience, you can set up one or two bridges in the future, just like two levels, and you are not afraid of people's concerns."

Zhu Cilang nodded and signaled Jiang Chen to continue speaking.

Jiang Chen scattered the thistle in his hand and said, "Three miles to the west is the canal, which is also a geographical choice. Because the land is barren, the land price is cheap, which makes it easy to move people and land. The residents here all have the custom of fishing and hunting, which is an extraordinary career. If it flourishes in the future, it will be hired as laborers. This place is only about 260 miles away from Tianjin, and it is cheap by water and land."

"Yes, it's very thoughtful." Zhu Cilang smiled. He needed someone who is good at thinking and able to make proper arrangements. If someone doesn't use his brain and puts the bank headquarters in the capital, it's certainly not wrong, but the development costs and expenses will increase a lot.

"Your Highness, if the bank headquarters is placed in Jianxian County, it will be placed in Wuqing County." Jiang Chen said: "This county is a canal that is connected to the north and south, and is also located between Tianjin and Tongzhou, which is convenient for transportation of banknotes to be transported to Jianxian County. It is also convenient for cotton paper and ink to be transported to the factory. Especially here, there is originally a convergence of goods, so it will not cause doubt."

The location of the banknote manufacturing factory needs to be strictly confidential, so it cannot be in a place with many people. Because it is necessary to transport manufacturing materials, it cannot be too remote. Jiang Chen first set up Hanxian as the bank headquarters, so he walked around a hundred miles, and finally chose Damengzhuang, Wuqing County.

Zhu Cixuan is not as careful as Jiang Chen in preventing theft and bandits. He firmly believes that under his rule, he dare not say that he will not pick up the remains, but there is no problem in order to clear the bandits and the places where they are peaceful. Therefore, he is more concerned about transportation costs. Fortunately, Jiang Chen also took into account these two considerations, which is still reassuring.

"I've seen the sample of the money. Can it be smaller?" Zhu Cixuan said: "If it is made into a palm, the length and width of the paper will save half of the paper."

The newly made banknotes have absorbed a large number of "Da Ming Tongbaobao" designs, with a surface area larger than later A4 papers, which are obviously more than three inches long, only one and a half inches narrower. Most of the content on the paper is patterns. It has no practical significance.

"I have also seen the way your highness sent it." Jiang Chen said: "It's too young, I'm afraid the Shang people and others can't believe it."

"The treasure banknote is so big, but in the end it is still hanged by someone as a certificate of awards? Is it true or not? As long as we use this to collect taxes, the people will definitely know the benefits of this banknote." Zhu Cixuan said: "You see, the food coupons are not smaller? Now many people want to rush to ask for it. A few days ago, the Ministry of Personnel also submitted a memorial to request an additional portion of the food coupons to the officials' salary."

Jiang Chen had seen food coupons, which were three fingers long and wide, and the paper was not good, so they were easily forged. It was just that because the food coupons were scattered, the grain outlets were fixed in those official warehouses. There were also the names and names of the ticket holders on it, so he had not found out that a large number of forgery and fraud in grain was forged.

The hardest currency in the Ming Dynasty is now food. Moreover, with the changes in the seasons, grain prices have risen and fall. Even if they fall to the lowest point of the market, it is still more calculated to exchange grain coupons for grain. Some people want to secretly buy food coupons, but first, the quantity is too large, and second, the punishment is too heavy, so at most they can only do some tricks and tricks.

"Your Highness. The interest of the banknotes is already high enough. You should do more decent things." Jiang Chen decided to persuade him at the end. It would be okay if the crown prince insisted, and it would be reasonable to save as much as possible.

Zhu Cixuan thought for a while and said, "If you really think it looks so good and generous, it won't be a big problem to continue using it. But don't waste space."

"space?"

"It's okay to have some patterns on all sides, the ticket amount is written with a striking eye-catching, and I'm going to print a sentence on it," said Zhu Cixuan.

"Please give your order."

"The bill should be clearly written: this banknote is the legal currency of the Ming Dynasty, and it is enough to exchange silver for the amount. Any official offices and civilians in our Ming Dynasty are not allowed to refuse to accept it under any excuses and receive the bill." Zhu Cilang paused: "If necessary, you can write it in the form of a sage."

Zhu Cixuan waved to Lu Suyao behind him, and Lu Suyao immediately put paper and pen on the ground. Zhu Cixuan drew a simple picture with charcoal brushes, fixing the position of this passage at the lower middle of the seal.

Jiang Chen nodded and said, "Do you still need to write it? Anyone who dares to forge it and who can transform it will be punished by the extreme punishment?"

"Yes." Zhu Cilang nodded and said at Jiang Chen's reminder: "Forgery is easy to check, but it is troublesome to transform. I thought it would be better to add a few more layouts. For example, the big one is silver ten taels, and gradually shrinks, and it will be made into five liang votes, one liang votes, or even five liang votes, one liang votes, and one liang votes. It is not easy for a traitor to transform even if he wants to transform."

When Jiang Chen heard this, he felt it made sense. He was originally thinking about how to distinguish between large and small tickets.

"Colors can also be separated." He originally wanted to distinguish them by colors.

"Yes." Zhu Cilang nodded and said, "Try to use color matching, not to use regular colors. Fixed colors are easy to forge them."

As long as the formula is kept confidential, it will be very troublesome for others to approximate, but anyone can make the color.

"Also, the name of the Bank of the Ming Empire can also be printed on it." Zhu Cixuan said: "The watermark is spitting beads with a fire dragon (see the cover of this book)."

Jiang Chen wrote one by one, and went back and asked someone to change it and then look at the effect. The production process of cotton paper is no different from ordinary good paper, but the cost is higher. After making it, it is indeed more resistant to folding and is not good at absorbing water. Banknote paper made of this cotton paper must be made of ink, and ordinary smoked ink cannot produce the effect at all.

In addition to being monopoly materials, the carved plate has also been changed to gravure printing. It is said that the Thais had this technology as early as a hundred years ago, but even if others also knew about gravure printing, it would be impossible to introduce the original groove depth just by looking at the face of the seal, so it is even more difficult to forge it.

If the banknotes cannot be circulated, it will be a huge loss if they have put such efforts into the cost.

Jiang Chen felt a little stressed.

"What are your thoughts at the outlet?" Zhu Cixuan asked.

"Your Highness, in addition to the head office, I plan to set up a branch in Zhangjiakou, and it still belongs to the Beizhi branch." Jiang Chen said: "Because Beijing and Zhangjiakou are the places with the most deposits now, I am not afraid of running. The first batch of banknotes are less than half of the reserve, and I am not afraid of anyone making trouble."

Zhu Cixuan took 30 million taels as reserve for the Imperial Bank, but due to the bottleneck caused by the production of paper and ink, the total amount of the first batch of banknotes invested in circulation would not reach 10 million taels. And by that time, the silver shipped to Beijing should have reached 10 million taels, so neither Zhangjiakou nor Beijing were worried about the inability to exchange.

Assume that the most extreme situation is that someone collects all these ten million taels of money and cashes in any place, and it is impossible for a breach of trust.

What's more, this is impossible in itself, because anyone must have a cost higher than the amount of the bill to obtain money. Because the channels are very narrow, only silver is deposited and goods sold.

The actual weight of the silver deposit must be higher than the amount of the bill, unless the customer can provide sufficient silver that meets the court's standards, which is the famous "fire consumption" and "quality".

Selling goods for banknotes is limited to grain and cloth. Because the goods are single, the prices will inevitably fall as the goods flow is concentrated. Therefore, the profit point of merchants is to purchase cheap goods from Zhangjiakou after obtaining banknotes. If they just transport the grain and cloth to sell them, it would be good to ensure that there is no loss of transportation.

Another possible source of money acquisition is the criminals, officials and military camps. This is also the channel for money to truly face the Ming market. However, I believe no one will be so stupid that he can exchange money for silver, because the priority right of carriages, transparent flat glass, mirrors and other scarce commodities can only be purchased with money. It can be imagined that after being invested, the banknotes will inevitably become the darling of the black market, and their value will exceed the face value of the money.

Regardless of the final value, these banknotes will eventually return to the bank through commodity trading.

"The court exempted the people of the world from two years of agricultural tax. On the one hand, it was to rest and recuperate. On the other hand, I hope that when the tax was collected, I could collect banknotes on a large scale and deposit them directly into the nearby bank. In the future, the state's allocation of funds to the local government will also be carried out through the banking system to truly achieve the wish of Emperor Taizu Gao."

Zhu Cilang said, and suddenly he was shocked by something casually.

Later generations often said that Zhu Yuanzhang was a small peasant and defeated the Ming Dynasty's foundation very badly. In fact, it was understandable that people in the Qing Dynasty said this. They did not know the market economy, but people in the future had to say objectively: Many of Zhu Yuanzhang's ideas were still very forward-looking.

For example, tax payments were collected on site. Zhu Yuanzhang established the rule: after each prefecture and county collects taxes, they report to the Ministry of Accounts, and in addition to escorting part of the taxes to the capital for great use, the remaining part is left to the place for expenses. This is actually a very good idea, which eliminates a large amount of transportation costs. However, later the whole people were corrupt, so that the tax revenue could not be raised and transported out, and the treasury was completely deficient.

But that is because there is a problem with the supervision system, and the tax system cannot be blamed.

What is unacceptable in the tax system is that the fixed taxes of prefectures and counties across the country, and even if this quota was set at the beginning of the country, it was often difficult to collect sufficient taxes later. (To be continued...)
Chapter completed!