The relationship between money and finance in the Ming and Qing dynasties from the perspective of "utilization" and "financial management".

It is well known that money plays an important role in commodity exchange and in everyday life as a "great wheel of circulation" (Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of National Wealth). Historically, especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties, in addition to the circulation function, money reflected more of the fiscal tendency of money. Under the theme of "financial management" and "prosperity", it is often regarded as a means of fiscal policy. In other words, money is a part of finance, especially in extraordinary times of fiscal embarrassment, and the integration of money and finance is more obvious.

Understanding the relationship between money and finance in the Ming and Qing dynasties

Marx, when observing the social and economic problems of the Qing Dynasty in China, had a clear understanding of the relationship between money and finance and the role of money in the Qing Dynasty. In his "History of the Opium Trade" and "The Chinese Revolution and the European Revolution", he revealed the relationship between the Qing Dynasty silver and the treasury and the circulation of money, the relationship between the silver and the state's finances and social security, and the increase in old taxes and the introduction of new taxes brought about by the depletion of silver and financial difficulties. Compared with the expositions of classic writers, the relevant expositions of the people of the Ming and Qing dynasties in mainland China are more direct. The description of the relationship between money and finance in the Ming Dynasty in the History of the Ming Dynasty has three issues worth noting: First, the concept of "making money" was put forward under the situation of the simultaneous use of a variety of copper coins. The second is to stipulate the ratio of copper coins and coins to other currencies and their use. The third is that in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, he once minted a lot of money to make profits. In the first year of Hongzhi (1488), the Ming Dynasty's "national dynasty money" was defined as "making money", which was a pioneering initiative that had not been fully paid attention to by scholars before. The ratio of copper coins and coins to other currencies and their utilization are basically carried out on the basis of the standard of "money-making" and are linked to the revenue and expenditure of the state treasury. The minting of large amounts of money in the last years of the Ming Dynasty was closely related to the financial difficulties and fund-raising at that time. The relationship between money and finance is also discussed in other texts of the Ming Dynasty. In the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (1555), Yin Zhengmao pointed out in the military department: "The financial use is insufficient, but the matter of casting money can help the national economy" ("Ming Shizong Shilu" volume 421, Jiajing 34th April Wuyin). This was the clearest statement of monetary sufficiency at that time. Jin Xueyan, a famous minister in the Ming Dynasty, once "should edict Chen to manage finance, all more than 10,000 words", pointed out: "If you use money, the people's livelihood will be prosperous, and if you cast money, the country will benefit from it...... Therefore, it is also said that 'the money is the right also'. The lord of the people exercises the power of wealth and nobility, and runs the world with servitude, so the prosperity of a generation is the system, the establishment of a master is the system, the reform of the yuan is the system, and the militarism is insufficient. This exposition also clearly points out the function of the state to "exercise the power of wealth and nobility" and "use it by the state".

In the early Qing Dynasty, there was even more extensive discussion. On the one hand, when casting Shunzhi Tongbao, Kangxi Tongbao, Yongzheng Tongbao and Qianlong Tongbao, the name of "money making" was repeatedly marked ("Qing Dynasty Literature General Examination and Numismatic Examination", pp. 4965~5003). On the other hand, the emperor's edicts and the speeches of his ministers repeatedly expounded the relationship between money and finance. Emperor Yongzheng has pointed out in his edicts many times, "The state should not be used to make money, the money is sufficient, the value is even, and the livelihood of everyone is beneficial." "Making money is the treasure of the country, and the soldiers and the people must use it" ("The Eight Banners of the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty", vol. 4, the edict of December 27 of the fourth year of Yongzheng; volume 5, the edict of the ninth day of the fifth month of the fifth year of Yongzheng). The courtiers also believed that "the country is rich and the people are prosperous, and there is no other way to do it" (archive, Gao Guangdou inscription on June 12, 4th year of Shunzhi). Before and after the Opium War, especially after the rise of the Xianfeng Army, with the financial difficulties, the minting of large amounts of money and the issuance of banknotes were more directly related to the financial situation. In the eighteenth year of Daoguang (1838), Liang Zhangju, the governor of Guangxi, and Yu Shilei, the governor of Shandong Province, proposed to mint large coins as a "workaround" and "make up for the shortage of silver" (archive, Liang Zhangju folded on September 22, 18th year of Daoguang, and Pan Shien folded on December 10, 22nd year of Daoguang). In the third year of Xianfeng (1853), Wang Qinghui of Kele County believed that "since the rise of the army, the state has spent a lot of money", and it is necessary to "promote the banknote law to help the people's livelihood and enrich the country" (archive, Qinghui on October 30, the third year of Xianfeng). At that time, Qi Yunzao, who was a scholar in charge of the affairs of the household department, also believed that "now the military needs are huge, the situation of raising salaries is scarce, and the ministers of the ministry have discussed official tickets and large amounts of money, so that the country is not enough" (Archive, November 24, Xianfeng 3rd year). Although the minting of large coins and the implementation of the banknote law have encountered varying degrees of obstacles, the determination to raise funds has not changed. Even after the First Sino-Japanese War, there were still edicts and ministers who reiterated this policy.

It is worth noting that in the financial statements of the provinces in the late Qing Dynasty, a new monetary theory was also proposed: first, on the premise of examining the monetary situation of "eastern and western countries", it was believed that "the manufacture of money is the exclusive right of the state". The issuance of currency must be "uniform and neat, and sufficient credit" ("Guangdong Financial Manual, General Statement"). Second, the late Qing Dynasty had entered the era of "monetary economy", and the currency system was not uniform, which not only affected the "weight", but also affected the collection of taxes, the surplus of local finances, the burden of taxpayers, and social stability ("Hunan Provincial Financial Item Description: Hunan Provincial Equalization Overview"). Third, money is closely related to finance and is also the basis for fiscal reform. That is to say: "Finance and currency are closely related, and the currency must be unified, and then there will be a basis for fiscal reform" ("Guangxi Provincial Financial Statement, General Commentary"). It has been recognized that the fiscal chaos of the late Qing Dynasty was caused to a certain extent by the monetary chaos.

Currency Evolution and Related Issues in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

From the collection in kind in kind and the parallel use of multiple currencies in the early Ming Dynasty, to the middle of the Ming Dynasty, "silver and money, banknotes go hand in hand", and then to the Qing Dynasty's "silver and money have power", it is a main line of the evolution of the monetary system in the Ming and Qing dynasties. From the early Ming Dynasty's stone, horse, ingot, and two statistical units, to the late Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, the "two" as the statistical unit is another main line of the evolution of the Ming and Qing monetary systems. These two main lines mean that in the Ming and Qing dynasties, in addition to its market circulation function, money more reflected the fiscal tendency of money, or it can be called "monetary finance". "Monetary finance" is also a concept proposed by the author, and its basic point lies in the fact that the legalization of money and the issuance and use of money are mainly manifested in fiscal revenue and fiscal expenditure, with the purpose of satisfying fiscal finance, and it is further highlighted in the situation of special financial difficulties. Exploring the evolution of monetary types and the relationship between money and finance in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there are three issues worth noting.

First, the issue of "money and power". In the early Ming Dynasty, a variety of currencies were parallel, and in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, although there was a suggestion that "silver, money, and banknotes should be in power", in fact, the currency system was still chaotic. In the early Ming Dynasty, there were various provisions for the conversion of silver, money, banknotes, rice, silk, cloth, etc., and in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, there were different conversions of silver, money, and banknotes. Different dynasties have different standards for converting money and old money into silver, and the conversion is different. The so-called "silver money parallel" or "silver money parallel", compared with the Qing Dynasty, is not systematic. This can be clearly understood only from the relevant account of "Ming History, Food and Goods, and Money". The press of "Qing Dynasty Literature General Examination and Coin Examination I" also says: "In the Ming Dynasty, money was expensive and cheap, and each silver was a penny, ranging from 55 to 100 yuan. There is also a difference between Beijing money and foreign money. At the end of the quarter, the silver was exchanged for five or six thousand yuan, and the money law was very bad." The Qing Dynasty was known as "money and power". The basic point of "silver and money parallel" and "silver and money have power" is that both silver and copper coins are circulated as common currency, that is, the so-called "silver and money are the inside and outside, the money is supplemented by silver, and the silver power is also used to make money, and the two cannot be abnormally heavy", that is, the so-called "money and silver are in power, and if you want to circulate the money law, you must first determine the level of money" ("Qing Dynasty Literature General Examination and Coin Examination I", pp. 4965 and 4967). Compared with the chaotic pattern of silver and money comparison in the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty's system of "silver and money and power" was relatively mature, and there was a relatively fixed price comparison relationship between silver and copper coins, which was basically standardized in the Qing Dynasty, at least in the early Qing Dynasty. In this regard, the author has a special article on "The Fluctuation and Countermeasures of the Qing Dynasty Silver Coin Comparison".

Second, the relationship between income and income and currency, as well as the issue of "statistics and silverization". The relationship between revenue and currency is mainly reflected in the process of tax collection and repayment. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the most important tax - the collection of land endowment, silver and copper coins were levied together, and the collection and reporting methods were different. In the specific implementation process, it is still a common phenomenon that the tax is levied and the money is converted into silver taels after the tax is levied. In the state fiscal expenditure system, there is also a certain proportion of silver taels and copper coins. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, there were already rough regulations of "silver, money and expenditure" and "silver and money at the same time", which were not constant in fact. In the Qing Dynasty, when the monthly salary of officials and soldiers was paid, it became a common practice to put money and texts, and there were different regulations in different years (see Huang Huixian and Chen Feng, eds., History of China's Yulu System, Wuhan University Press, 1996, pp. 455~460). If the monetary form and the state finance are examined together, the key point of the monetary reform in the Ming and Qing dynasties in the fiscal sense is to take the silver taels as a unified statistical unit of the state's fiscal revenue and expenditure, in other words, the main symbol of the change is not "silver monetization", but "statistical silver and silver". The completion of the transition from a variety of statistical standards to the "two modernizations of statistics and silver" has changed with the change of tax collection standards, and is also an important symbol of fiscal transformation (Chen Feng, "Statistical Banking and Modernization" and "Silver and Money Rights" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties", China Economic History Research, No. 6, 2019, "Ming and Qing Reforms: The Three Major Transformations of National Finance", Jianghan Forum, No. 2, 2018).

Third, there is the issue of the surplus and loss of minting money. In addition to the issuance of banknotes and the drumming of large coins directly to cover the finances, the surplus profits of the minting of currency in the Ming and Qing dynasties were also directly related to the finance. The "surplus interest" generated by the minting of currency is also called "residual profit", "residual interest" and "surplus" in the literature. In the financial circles, "surplus profits" are generally referred to as "monetary taxes", which is a debatable statement. "Tax" has a special meaning, and "surplus profit" is fundamentally different from "tax". Yang Duanliu's "Manuscript of the Monetary and Financial History of the Qing Dynasty" has a special section on "The Cost of Minting Money and the Surplus Profit of Minting Money", which discussed the surplus interest of minting money earlier, and listed two examples of the loss of money minted in Beijing and the profit of minting money in Yunnan. Combing through the archival materials, it can be seen that the money bureaus in various places have made both profits and losses, and the situation is relatively complicated and cannot be generalized. As far as the drum casting money is concerned, it should be said that the Shaanxi Baoshan Bureau, the Shanxi Baojin Bureau, the Jiangxi Baochang Bureau, the Fujian Baofu Bureau, etc., are the casting bureaus characterized by "loss", or in other words, the casting bureaus that have a surplus first and then lose money. The provincial bureaus that make money from drum minting are mainly Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Guangdong, etc., which either produce their own coins or buy coins easily, so it is easy to make a profit. The Qing Dynasty had various adjustment policies for the casting of drums and the loss of money. The most important way to dispose of the surplus profits of the drum casting bureau is to "deposit the interest silver of the bureau, withdraw the treasurer according to the number, and report it to the department for verification in the drum casting book of the next year" (file, Jiang Pu's inscription on the fourth day of the third month of the 26th year of Qianlong). In other words, the surplus interest is deposited in the local treasury and used as local funds, and the household department has the right to check it. Specific to different provinces, there are different ways to deal with them, including the case of using the surplus profit as a fund to earn interest (e.g., Jiangsu), the case of appropriating the surplus profit as a reward for the "Red and White Incident" (e.g., Sichuan), and the case of appropriating the surplus profit to various local expenses (e.g., Yunnan).

The reality and influence of money in tax collection and business activities

The monetization of tax collection and the two-tiered collection of taxes in the Ming and Qing dynasties made "the collection of taxes and servants gradually become a trend" (Masaaki Koyama, A Study of the Social and Economic History of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, University of Tokyo Press, 1992, p. 70). Under this trend, on the one hand, the levy of Tian Fu and other miscellaneous true colors gradually changed to the levy of the folded color, although the amount of silver in the late Ming Dynasty increased, but the amount of silver in the early Qing Dynasty was still higher than the level of the late Ming Dynasty (Chen Zhiping, "A New Exploration of the Evolution of the Qing Dynasty Enslavement System", Xiamen University Press, 1988 edition, pp. 16~17). The increase in the discount at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty actually increased the burden on the people, and it was also one of the important reasons why the tax amount in the early Qing Dynasty was higher than that in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. The change of land tax to "folding" is a manifestation of the monetization of tax collection, and the eye-catching "extortion and discounting" is a mutation reflection of the situation of changes in the price of silver and money. Moreover, the "extortion" of money and grain in the field is often associated with "floating income". Of course, floating collection and extortion are related to corruption and exploitation of taxpayers, but in fact, it is also a means for local officials to cope with local public expenditures and make up for local expenses. On the other hand, as far as the expropriation of the land endowment and the impact on the local finance are concerned, because the expropriation of the land endowment is not levied in accordance with the ratio of "silver seven money and three money", most of the households, especially scattered small households, pay money, and then the state and county will be converted into silver to report. When the local government is tired, "the local officials are difficult to compensate, and they are bound to take double the amount from the people" (Archive, October 22, 28th year of Daoguang, Mu Zhang'a), resulting in a deviation between the original amount of taxes and the actual tax burden.

Changes in the form of money and fluctuations in the price of money have a relatively large impact on the daily lives of the people and the commercial activities of merchants. Xu Hong believes that the comparison of silver and money is one of the main factors affecting the cost and profit of salt merchants, which can be said to be to the point (Xu Hong, "Discussion on the Reasons for the Decline of the Two Huai Salt Merchants in the Qing Dynasty", Huixue, Vol. 7, 2011). The fluctuation of the price of silver money is most closely related to the profits of salt merchants and the rise and fall of salt merchants, and the most typical significance is in Changlu, Shandong, Hedong and other salt areas. According to the standard of 1,000 yuan of silver 1 tael exchange system, the salt merchants in these salt areas sold salt in various places, collected money, and according to the standard of 1,000 yuan of silver taels, they ran classes in Yiyin, and "silver is cheap and expensive" or "silver is expensive and cheap" have a direct impact on salt merchants. Combing through the archival materials, it can be seen that during the period of "cheap silver and expensive money" in the Qianlong period, salt merchants could make a profit of about 25% from the actual price comparison of silver at that time just by "exchanging money for silver". Since the end of Qianlong, there has been a phenomenon of "Changlu merchants selling salt and money, and the history is Yiyin to complete the course, and in recent years, the price of money has become cheaper, and the merchant has lost a lot of money" (archive, Liang Kentang on November 27, 59th year of Qianlong). In the fourth year of Jiaqing (1799), Dong Chun, the governor of Changlu Yan, said again: "The merchants of Ludong are tired and tired, and their teeth are becoming more and more complicated, and all kinds of things are expensive. And because of the sale of salt money and literature in various places, it is necessary to exchange it for silver taels before it can be turned back and handed over to the school for transportation...... The merchants lost money, but they couldn't support it. (Archive, April 25, Jiaqing 4th year, Dong Chun's folding) During this period, salt merchants lost money due to "silver and money", which became a common phenomenon.

Source: Guangming Daily

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