My life skills in Daming Liver

Alfonso is a treasure!

Su Ze said with emotion that this old captain is proficient in Portuguese, Chinese, and can also speak Spanish and French. Su Ze has developed three skills with him!

Portuguese, French and Spanish respectively!

You can increase your skills by chatting with Alfonso in these languages. Sure enough, languages ​​are the easiest skills to master.

Su Ze just regrets that his Chinese should be at the full level, so he has no Chinese skills to improve.

Alfonso didn't know that Su Ze regarded him as an NPC for gaining experience. The old captain was really puzzled, why did this Ming officer know so many languages, and chatted with him in various languages ​​in turn?

In order to facilitate the brushing of skills on Alfonso's side, Su Ze arranged the old captain to be next to Changning Guard, and chatted with him every day when he had nothing to do.

What shocked Alfonso was that at first Su Ze chatted with him, and he could only communicate word by word and in phrases. (at that time Lv1)

But within four or five days, Su Ze was able to chat with Alfonso in complete sentences. (upgraded to Lv2)

This terrifying speed of progress made Alfonso understand that there are really geniuses who can learn languages ​​in this world.

Su Ze chatted with Alfonso in the past few days, in addition to improving the three language skills, the other is to ask him about the situation.

Alfonso was sent from the island to Changning Guard. Although Su Ze was under strict guard, he managed to land on land.

The old captain had already accepted his fate, and he knew everything about Su Ze's inquiry.

The New World is a merchant ship traveling to and from the New World. Su Ze is drooling when he hears this, but it is a pity that this ship did not come back from the Americas. If so, Su Ze will suddenly become prosperous.

The ships from South America to Manila are full of gold and silver from South America!

The Ming Dynasty was very short of silver.

The reason is very simple. The Ming Dynasty was not a silver-producing country. The reserves of silver mines were not large, and there was simply not enough silver that could be circulated.

However, anyone who has a little understanding of monetary policy understands that if there is insufficient currency in the market, it will cause a serious liquidity crisis.

Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the main currency in China has always been copper coins, and money has always been copper coins.

As for gold, since the Qin and Han Dynasties, only the court and top dignitaries have used it as a luxury. In the Han Dynasty, princes and princes were reluctant to spend gold and brought gold into the ground as funeral objects.

The lack of silver and money, and the shortage of currency have always plagued the Ming Dynasty, and it is the biggest financial problem of the Ming Dynasty.

At this time, smart people will ask, it is also a feudal dynasty, and private trade is also prevalent, but why are there no shortages in the Southern Song and Yuan dynasties?

The Yuan Dynasty itself was founded on trade, and the maritime trade in the Southern Song Dynasty was also very prosperous. China's rich products could be exported to earn foreign exchange, in exchange for a large amount of silver and copper.

However, the Ming Dynasty started the sea embargo policy in the year of Hongwu, which almost cut off the import of overseas money, and the problem of lack of currency became even more serious.

In the context of the lack of currency, the idea of ​​looking for alternatives came naturally, so Daming Banknotes came into being.

In most people's minds, the credit currency of Baochao is a manifestation of progress.

But in fact, Daming Banknotes are not banknotes in the modern sense, they are more like a welfare coupon or purchase coupon issued by the government.

The most typical is that the government can use the banknotes to buy your things, and the government can use the banknotes to exchange your silver and copper coins, but you cannot exchange the banknotes with the government for copper coins and silver.

In all fairness, the Hongwu Dynasty's precious banknotes were still under control, and the depreciation was not too great, at least not to the point of waste paper.

At that time, the treasure banknotes still had some credibility, and the folks could still circulate them.

In fact, there is nothing to do if it is not in circulation. At that time, all the money paid by the imperial court to the stove households who burned salt and the horse households who raised horses were all precious banknotes. At that time, the salaries paid to officials were also precious banknotes. It's useful.

Although the treasure banknotes were also depreciating, they could still be used anyway, and Hong Wu made do with it in the first dynasty.

But in the Year of Yongle, the precious banknotes depreciated rapidly and became waste paper.

The reason is actually very simple. In order to promote his orthodoxy, Zhu Di started many national projects and large-scale conquests, such as moving the capital to build the Forbidden City, compiling the Yongle Canon, Zheng He's voyages to the West, and conquests against Mongolia and other surrounding grassland forces.

It is true that these are beneficial to the country, but the practical problem has always existed, how to support so many large-scale projects and wars on the basis of not increasing taxes stipulated by Zhu Yuanzhang, that is, without increasing fiscal revenue?

The answer is naturally ready to come out, that is to print money!

After the uncontrolled printing of money began, the precious banknotes quickly depreciated to the point where they were even worse than waste paper. The people are not stupid. The price of precious banknotes is set at a price of one day. Buying things must be weighed by the catty. Who would accept precious banknotes?

In the later period of Yongle, they also tried to save the treasure banknotes, and carried out a rescue campaign, such as forcing the use of treasure banknotes, such as issuing larger denomination banknotes, but they all failed without accident.

After two dynasties, it seemed that the treasure banknotes could not be saved. Even the officials refused to receive the treasure banknotes as salaries. The currency system of the Ming Dynasty could only return to the two paths of copper coins and silver.

However, when promoting treasure banknotes, Zhu Yuanzhang once issued a "Money Prohibition Order", which was to ensure the circulation of treasure banknotes and prohibit the use of copper coins.

But after the banknotes had collapsed, the imperial court wanted to let the people spend money, and the people no longer had enough copper coins in circulation.

For example, Jiangxi, which is adjacent to Fujian, generally uses rice as currency, Shanxi uses fur, Sichuan uses silk, and the most outrageous thing is that Yunnan basically uses shells, almost regressing to the era of barter.

"The law of money is not clear" is also a persistent problem that has not been resolved from the beginning to the end of the Ming Dynasty. Even in Fujian, where copper coins are popular, most of the coins used are the ancient coins of the previous dynasty. The official coins minted by the Ming Dynasty are also difficult to circulate in Fujian.

Even in the north and south Zhili, the core area of ​​the Ming Dynasty, private casting was rampant and money laws were chaotic.

Many famous ministers in the Ming Dynasty tried to solve the problem of money law barriers, but they could only solve it for a short time. In the end, they could not unify the use of copper coins across the country and put an end to private money and fake money.

At this time, neither precious banknotes nor copper coins can be used as a unified currency. At this time, silver has become a common currency, which is already an unstoppable trend.

However, there is still a problem with the use of silver, and it returns to the original problem. The Central Plains itself does not produce silver, and the total amount of silver is very small.

The result of the tight currency in the market is that the value of silver has been rising, and tomorrow's silver will always be more valuable than yesterday's silver.

The purchasing power of silver has been rising, and only fools will spend it. As long as the silver is stored, it can appreciate in value. Why use it?

And if everyone thinks this way, there will be less and less silver in circulation, and the faster the price of silver will rise.

At this point in time, the Iwami Silver Mine in Wa Kingdom was discovered.

The Iwami Silver Mine is a huge silver mine. After it was discovered in the 16th century, it took a full 400 years of mining before it was exhausted.

Throughout the sixteenth century, one-third of the world's silver was mined from Iwami silver mines.

The Japanese absorbed the advanced smelting method from North Korea, which was learned from the Ming Dynasty, and then passed on - the soot blowing method, and refined silver with high purity.

At this time, the Ming merchants on the southeast coast quickly discovered that the Wa people had silver in their hands.

Wa country has silver, so it is natural to buy it, and the Ming Dynasty is the largest production center in Asia, and Wa country businessmen are rushing to Daming, wanting to trade with Daming to buy goods.

It was against this background that the Japanese riots that intensified in the middle of the Ming Dynasty broke out.

The cause of the Japanese Rebellion in Jiajing was the time when Japanese missions competed for tribute.

At that time, there was only one way to trade with Daming, and that was tribute trade.

Tributary trade is a country-to-country trade, and the trading partners are Daming and Wa, so business groups coming to Daming need a survey issued by the small imperial court of Wa to prove the identity of the tribute envoy.

The incident originated from the fact that the Japanese daimyo Hosokawa and Ouchi clans each sent trade missions to China to trade with the Ming Dynasty. After the two missions arrived in Ningbo, Zhejiang, they both held the Kanhe of the Japanese Kingdom, and they accused each other of being fake.

A conflict was triggered by the debate over the authenticity of the joint investigation, and a violent killing broke out in Ningbo, Zhejiang. On behalf of the Ouchi family, Zong set up burning, killing and looting along the road, causing great damage to the local residents. The pursuing Beiwadu commanded Liu Jin, Qianhu Zhang Tong and other Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers died in battle.

This incident directly led to the abolition of the Fujian and Zhejiang Shipping Departments by the Ming government, leaving only one Guangdong Shipping Department. It also led to the severance of trade channels between the Ming Dynasty and Japan. Foreshadowing.

But the Japanese Rebellion could not be subsided for a long time. In addition to the need for goods from the Ming Dynasty, Ming Dynasty also needed the silver from the Kingdom of Japan. Silver related.

The coincidence of history is that not only the Japanese country discovered the Iwami silver mine, but Europeans also discovered a large amount of gold and silver in South America.

The trade route of the Manila galleon was to pull silver from South America, then exchange it for commodities in Manila or East Asia, and then transport it back to Europe, which also led to the flow of South American silver into China.

The reason why the problem of taxation in kind in the Ming Dynasty was solved by the method of converting silver in the period of Zhang Juzheng was because it was not until Zhang Juzheng was in power that the Ming Dynasty had enough inflow of silver to carry out this financial reform. .

Su Ze looked at Captain Alfonso's nautical chart and drooled at Waguo.

Iwami Silver Mine is a big treasure house!

The country of Wa is now in the so-called "Warring States Period". It is now the 33rd year of Jiajing. Wan Dajun gained a great reputation and started the 20-year road to unify the Wa Kingdom.

In the current Wa country, it can be said that the village war has played out the dog's brains, and it is a period of chaos.

Of course, Su Ze didn't want to trade with the Japanese country, what Su Ze fancy was the Iwami Silver Mine!

If you wait until Toyotomi Hideyoshi unifies the Wa country and becomes the regent Guanbai, then there will be no chance to fish in troubled waters!

In addition to the chaos of Japan, Europe at this time is also extremely chaotic.

France abandoned its religious piety, united with the Ottoman Empire, formed the alliance of the Iris and the Crescent, and started a melee with the Holy Alliance headed by Habsburg.

Although Martin Luther was dead, the prelude to the Reformation he started did not stop, and the conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism intensified.

The whole world is heading towards a world of great chaos and conflict. The sixteenth century is the crossroads of history, which determines the general trend of the world for the next five hundred years.

After imagining the general situation, Su Ze looked at the Changning Wei chart on the wall.

Hey, food needs to be eaten one bite at a time, and the road needs to be taken step by step. Let alone the war in Europe, even the civil war in Japan has nothing to do with Su Ze.

Let's deal with the Japanese pirate King Lu who is about to land in Fujian first.

From Alfonso's mouth, Su Ze also inquired about King Lu's news.

King Deer is the leader of a group of vagrant warriors in Kagoshima. After joining the monk Xu Feng of Mingshan, he recruited ronin warriors from the Japanese country and formed a pirate gang composed entirely of real Japanese.

It is said that there are thousands of real Japanese under King Lu's command, but according to Alfonso's news, King Lu led a total of 1,500 real Japanese in his invasion of the southeast this time.

King Lu has nearly 30 large and small ships, and now he has issued a note to all forces in the southeast coastal area, intending to blockade the southeast sea area.

According to Alfonso, although Japanese pirates often trouble the southeast of Daming, there is still some order amidst the chaos.

For example, when a real Japanese like King Lu wants to invade the bandits, he will send a note to the merchant ships and other forces nearby, and let them leave the combat area within a time limit.

Alfonso has also received the note. Originally, he planned to evacuate from the southeast waters within the time limit after completing the delivery of the goods in Yuegang.

King Lu's ultimatum to Alfonso and the Portuguese was at the beginning of September, which was consistent with the news that Su Ze had received from Zhang Haihu. So this was the day when King Lu was about to invade the southeast in an all-round way.

Of course, what Japanese pirates do is not to say that Japanese pirates obey the rules, but to make a living at sea. It is often the case that there is me in you, and you in me.

Today's Japanese pirates may accept the employment of the Portuguese tomorrow to suppress a Nanyang country that is trying to rebel.

And the Japanese pirates may one day need to do business with the Portuguese to buy their food and weapons.

You must know that when these Japanese pirates burned, killed, humiliated and looted in Fujian, they had no morals at all.

For Su Ze and Chang Ningwei, pirates are life and death enemies, and only dead pirates are good pirates.

The atmosphere in Changning Guard became even more tense. Su Ze read the military book sent by Yu Dayou while tossing around in the blacksmith shop, and finally acquired the skills of the blacksmith.

It has to be said that blacksmith skills are really difficult. Su Ze almost remade all Changningwei's farm tools, and only then did he reach Lv3, 10/300.

On July 27th, Su Ze finally finished reading Yu Dayou's book of war, and the system popped up a prompt:

[Reading military books, "Art of War" skill +20, Lv5, 3/1000]

[Battle skill breakthrough Lv5, please extract passive skills. 】

Transitional chapter, I’m a broken chapter dog, don’t scold me, don’t scold me

1. Let me talk about financial issues first. There are many reasons for the lack of money and laws. This issue is more complicated.

2. There are many reasons for the Japanese Invasion. Baiyin said what he said, but it is quite credible.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi attacked North Korea in the later Wanli years, and the truce condition he asked for from Ming Dynasty was to pay tribute from Ningbo, that is, to open a trading port. However, after the Ming army defeated, Japan also began to lock down the country, so this matter was not mentioned again.

3. The policy is very complicated. In fact, it cannot be said that banning the sea is not beneficial. Everything has advantages and disadvantages. It is also naive to think that opening the sea ban can solve all problems.

4. The Fat Bird is not Qingfan. I agree that the Qing court was reactionary and cruel. There was nothing good in the feudal dynasty. If you don’t agree with me, you can read "History of Southern Ming Dynasty" to treat hypotension.