During the Taiping Rebellion, the Qing government faced an unprecedented financial crisis. During the Daoguang years, the government did not adopt the plan proposed by scholars and officials to mint large amounts of money and issue paper money, but during the Xianfeng years, officials came up to the court to propose the issuance of paper money and the minting of insufficient value, and the Qing court eventually adopted it, which was a stopgap measure to solve the financial crisis, so there was a fundamental flaw in the policy design, which aggravated the social and economic deterioration.
Monetary controversy and monetary policy during the Xianfeng period
A fiscal crisis
1 The financial crisis caused by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement
In early 1851, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Peasant Movement led by Hong Xiuquan broke out in Guangxi. In two years, the armed forces of the Taiping Army broke throughout 18 provinces and regions, including Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Zhili, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi and Gansu.
Since the Opium War, the Qing government has paid compensation to foreign powers and suppressed domestic uprisings large and small, and the funds are getting worse and worse. At this time, in order to suppress the Taiping Rebellion, the military expenditure required by the Qing government was increasing day by day, and the central finances were becoming shorter and shorter.
During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War, the Qing government's rule was already crumbling, with land-cutting indemnities, military defeats, social unrest, and the people's lives in dire straits, but in order to support this crumbling feudal rule, officials and scholars at all levels of the government and the public offered advice one after another, suggesting that large sums of money be minted and banknotes issued to replenish the national treasury and replenish military supplies.
2 Enlightenment of traditional Chinese economic thought
In the currency debate during the Daoguang years, the suggestions made by scholars and officials quoted a large number of traditional Chinese economic ideas, some of them looking for inspiration from the economic thought and monetary practice of the former dynasties, and some of them quoted historical experiences that were beneficial to themselves to strengthen the feasibility of their own proposals, and also reflected the flexibility of traditional Chinese economic thought from the side.
Wang's idea of banknotes has caused the most controversy, and some of his important ideas have been derived from history. For example, he claimed that his money law, the prohibition of bronze, and the idea of minting large money were all theories of his predecessors. The idea of the law of banknotes originated from the Song dynasty people Zhang Yong, Xin Shuyi, and Chen Zilong in the late Ming Dynasty.
The idea of forbidden bronze comes from the Han Dynasty scholar Jia Yi, who once discussed that banning copper has seven blessings. The idea of minting large coins comes from the Tang Dynasty scholar Han Yu, who followed Liu Ba's advice to start minting hundreds of dollars and five dollars, and Lu Shiyi, a scholar of the late Ming Dynasty who wanted to use ten coins.
In the currency debate in the early 19th century, the prescriptions prescribed by Chinese scholars and officials to solve the crisis of China's money and money were old prescriptions sought out from traditional Chinese economic thought, inheriting the monetary tradition that has been continued in Chinese history, but these old prescriptions cannot solve China's current problems.
Scholar Lin Manhong divides the scholars and officials involved in the currency discussion into two camps, namely the "laissez-faire" and the "interventionist." On the whole, the government's monetary policy is still characterized by non-intervention, which reflects that the mainstream concept of money at that time was still "obedient to the people" and did not believe in the power of government intervention.
Second, the discussion of minting large sums of money and issuing money resumed
During the Daoguang years, in order to solve the crisis of money and low money, scholars and officials discussed whether to issue large amounts of money and issue money, but the government did not adopt these two monetary policies. During the Xianfeng period, in order to find a way to alleviate the financial crisis, the proposal to mint large money and issue money was raised again, and the number of officials who supported the issuance of large money and money increased compared with the Daoguang period.
1 The controversy of minting large sums of money
During the Daoguang years, because of the crisis of silver and precious money that occurred at that time, some officials proposed to mint large coins, such as Liang Zhangju, the inspector of Guangxi, who proposed to mint large coins when he was ten to ten thousand in the eighteenth year of Daoguang, and Wang Zhishang, the governor of Anhui, who asked for large money, but these suggestions were opposed by many people at that time and were not adopted by the government.
During the Xianfeng period, the first to propose the minting of large coins was He Shaoji, the sichuan scholar, and on October 19 of the second year of Xianfeng (1852), He Shaoji asked for a large coin. He believed that excessive use of silver was not conducive to the people's livelihood, and that using copper instead of gold and silver was a good way to govern the country given by the former emperor Ming.
The government pays millions of taels to the northwest every year, and the silver outflow from the southeast region is tens of millions of taels per year, and these silver two will not come back again, and it will be difficult to continue in the long run.
Therefore, he said that in the case of silver two days of short-lived silver, only retro can save the disadvantages, for the system of large money, he suggested that in addition to the usual Tongbao money, it should be minted as a hundred, when five hundred, when a thousand large money, when a thousand people weigh no more than two or two. According to He Shaoji's suggestion, when the state issued large amounts of money, the people could be allowed to use a mixture of large and small money and silver, and the same should be true of the salary payment and tax collection of the state to officials.
Controversy over 2 lines of banknotes
Yushi Wang Maoyin was the first official to propose the issuance of banknotes during the Xianfeng period, and on September 19 of the first year of Xianfeng (1851), he played the law of requesting banknotes. He first explained the current state of tight state funds, and the urgent need to suppress the Taiping Rebellion was urgently needed, especially for people's livelihood projects such as river engineering.
Inspector Wang Yide of Fujian is also a strong supporter of banknotes. In the second year of Xianfeng (1852), Wang Yide proposed to issue banknotes. He believes that instead of often fearing that the country will not be able to plan cash, it should be flexible by making money. In response to what other officials have said about the difficulty of enforcing the banknote law, he believes that the treasure banknotes issued by the state have the endorsement of the state credit, and the number of private bills and the silver, money or incense bills issued by private financial institutions can be widely accepted, not to mention the treasure banknotes issued by the state.
He advocated that the face of the banknote should be rated as one or two, and in order to make the banknote work well, it should be mandatory to use the banknote when paying the customs duty, and only the grain tariff within one or two can use silver and two and make money.
A government monetary policy
1 Intensifying private casting
Before 1853, all proposals to issue paper money and to mint large amounts of copper coins were rejected, and the government believed that insufficient value of large money would not be recognized by the people and could not be circulated in the market, and that insufficient large copper coins would lead to private minting becoming more profitable, which would only exacerbate the prevalence of private minting.
In view of the crisis of silver and money, scholars and officials at and above the government and the public held a fierce discussion, and they constantly played a solution to the crisis to the imperial court; on the one hand, they believed that less silver and more money was the reason for the low money of silver, and on the other hand, they also realized that the outflow of silver was the main cause of the lack of silver. Therefore, the government's monetary policy is focused on reducing copper coins and prohibiting the outflow of silver.
Since the beginning of Daoguang, there have been officials who have continuously played a role in prohibiting the outflow of silver. On February 12, 1822, daoguang 2nd year (1822), Yushi Huangzhongmo asked for a strict ban on the theft of silver by the sea, and the Daoguang Emperor's edict required the Inspector of Guangdong and the customs supervision to seriously inspect the export of foreign ships, not to steal silver and two, and if there was a lack of strict investigation, they would participate in the crime. The silver famine has appeared since the late Qianlong period, and it can be seen that the Daoguang Emperor also recognized the seriousness of the continuous outflow of silver.
2 Prohibit the smuggling of silver out of the ocean
In the ninth year of Daoguang (1829), Li Hongbin, the governor of Liangguang, played an agreed charter on the prohibition of the smuggling of silver out of the country and the import of private goods, the charter has a total of seven articles, the content can not be described as unspeakable, Daoguang Decade (1830), Li Hongbin agreed to check the prohibition of silver leakage of opium distribution of six articles of the malpractice regulations, which shows that the government's determination to prohibit the smuggling of silver out of the country is very large, and many measures have been formulated, but they have little effect.
The use of copper coins to reduce minting to alleviate the crisis of silver and precious money is not very effective. The provincial coinage bureaus have lost money and stopped minting money one after another, and the amount of money minted has been reduced according to theory, and the price of silver money should be reduced compared with before. However, the price of silver and money has remained high for a long time, and the money law has gradually become abolished.
Although some household departments urged the provincial bureaus to start minting money, the governors continued to fold up, and requested a temporary suspension of minting on the grounds that the silver price was high and the minting money was at a loss. Due to the decentralized coinage (the production of money is jointly minted by the central and local governments), the provinces can at any time request the establishment of provincial mints, manage themselves, and account according to the standards set by the Ministry of Households.
Once there is a slight loss, the furnace will be stopped or reduced. The official bureau stopped casting and reduced casting to give private casting an opportunity to take advantage of it. Even worse, there is even the so-called bureaucracy, that is, the small money stolen by the bureaucracy.
Second, the fundamental defects in the mechanism for issuing large sums of money and official bills
1 It will be abandoned after a short time
From 1853 onwards, the Qing government began to issue a large number of new coins of various denominations. On February 27, 1853 (April 5, 1853), the Qing government began to issue silver bills denominations of one two, three two, five two, ten two, and fifty two, and on November 24, 1853 (December 24, 1853), Xianfeng began to issue iron coins with denominations of five hundred, one thousand, fifteen hundred, two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand, fifty thousand, and one hundred thousand, and on the second day of February of the fourth year of Xianfeng (February 28, 1854), began to issue iron coins of dangyi, dangwu and dangshi.
The issuance of these new coins brought great benefits to the Qing government, but there were serious flaws in the issuance mechanism of new coins. In the third year of Xianfeng (1853), Wang Maoyin, a servant of the Household Department, discussed the pros and cons of doing big money, believing that the strategies for big money from the Han to the Ming Dynasty were all abandoned before long, and they would not succeed today. Wang Maoyin presented the excerpts of the abolition of the great Qianxing dynasty to the Xianfeng Emperor after the recital, and he concluded.
In the Xianfeng period, the minting of large money and the issuance of banknotes were not recognized at first, and the Xianfeng Emperor himself hesitated, mainly for two reasons: First, minting large money and issuing money required the compulsory intervention of the state, which was contrary to the Monetary Policy of the Qing Dynasty that had always been "obedient to the people's convenience"; second, following the ancient system, what the ancients could not do, the current people will not succeed.
Secondly, there is no complete and rigorous plan for the issuance of new coins, and there are serious loopholes in the issuance mechanism, resulting in the proliferation of private minting. Judging from the comparison of the minting cost of copper large coins with the legal value of the frontal face, it is a large coinage of iron because its metal ratio is low and the minting income is more. As for printing silver bills and banknotes of various denominations, the cost of work is particularly small. Because when the weight of the coins needed for more than fifty large coins is reduced to the extreme, it becomes profitable to destroy small money and mint large money, so some people begin to mint large money privately, which results in serious depreciation of large money, and because of the large face value of large money, it is also very inconvenient to use, and the circulation of large money is resisted by the people.
2 Put more and take less
These new coins are put into circulation, and the state is forced to pass at a certain conversion rate according to the previous common silver two and money system. The collection of taxes originally stipulated that the actual silver and the banknotes were halved, and later changed to the proportion of seven silver bills and three banknotes, and the cash was actually collected as much as possible, and the bills were less or rejected.
The minting of Xianfeng large coins was aimed at solving the increasingly large military expenditure and increasingly serious financial difficulties since the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolution, and had no intention of reforming the currency system.
The Xianfeng Dynasty minted large sums of money, shifting the focus from solving the problem of the currency system itself to making up for huge financial deficits, and issued various new coins not for the purpose of developing the national economy, but only to plunder the people's wealth through this means. Something after the new coin was issued for a while
The price soared, silver bills, treasure notes, copper and iron coins quickly depreciated, merchants began to refuse to use new coins, and the policy of issuing new coins eventually failed. The official banknote issued by the DPRK is also almost the shortest-lived paper money issuance practice in the history of Chinese currency.