Regarding Louis XVI, George III, and Paul I coming to the Great Ming to borrow money, Zhu Jinsong was indifferent, but Zeng Cheng, Liu Huaiwen, and others were somewhat worried.
It wasn't that they feared Louis XVI and the others defaulting on the loans, as it was unlikely anyone on this small planet would dare default to the Great Ming. The issue was that these three scoundrels were borrowing tens of billions of Long Yuan, equivalent to hundreds of millions of taels of silver!
Although the Great Ming's national treasury was not lacking in such funds, and these hundreds of millions of taels of silver would flow back to the Great Ming in various forms, it was still hundreds of millions of taels of silver being lent to these barbarians.
Liu Huaiwen even openly declared, "If you are to borrow, Your Majesty should use funds from the inner treasury. In any case, the national treasury is so empty that rats can run through it, and there is absolutely no money."
Zeng Cheng strongly agreed with Liu Huaiwen's stance: "Forty billion Long Yuan is forty million taels of silver, which is enough to fight several wars to annihilate Japan. Lending it for nothing to those barbarians would surely hinder our Great Ming's development speed?"
The attitudes of the other senior officials were similar, unless Louis XVI and the others would not take the money but only the Great Ming's outdated military equipment, and then pay interest on time each year.
Zhu Jinsong was stunned by the thought processes of these senior officials. He had just complained that Louis XVI and the others were shameless, and now he saw that his own trusted officials were even more shameless?
Borrowing money without taking the money, and then paying interest on time each year?
Even those in online micro-lending with exorbitant interest rates would have to exclaim "Master!"
After silently complaining, Zhu Jinsong still smiled and said to Zeng Cheng and the other senior officials, "Your Majesty is very pleased that all of you are considering the Great Ming's national treasury, but Your Majesty must say that all of you are looking too short-sightedly."
Liu Huaiwen snorted indignantly and retorted, "Isn't it just a little bit of pocket money? Although this pocket money is not insignificant, compared to the Great Ming's own development, what is that little pocket money?"
Zhu Jinsong smiled and said, "Pocket money? A mere few pocket money, even pocket money with a twenty percent return on ten percent principal would not catch Your Majesty's eye. What Your Majesty values is not merely lending them money."
Speaking of this, Zhu Jinsong extended a hand and made a grasping motion: "What Your Majesty wants is for the entire small planet to use the Great Ming's treasure notes, or at the very least, for the Great Ming's treasure notes to become the reserve currency of all countries on the small planet!"
Liu Huaiwen said unceremoniously, "If other barbarian countries use our Great Ming's treasure notes, won't our Great Ming's treasure notes become fewer? The national treasury is already quite empty. If Your Majesty makes such a fuss again, well, even the cats will starve to death!"
Zeng Cheng and the other senior officials nodded in agreement, stating that the Great Ming's treasure notes were already few, and there were no excess ones to bestow upon those barbarian small countries. If His Majesty insisted on making a fuss, then he should fuss with the money in his inner treasury, and not harm the Great Ming's national treasury.
Zhu Jinsong glanced at Liu Huaiwen and retorted, "Aren't those treasure notes just paper printed by your Ministry of Revenue? What does it matter if there are more or fewer?"
If this were a television drama, the sky would be dark, accompanied by strong winds, lightning, and thunder special effects.
Unfortunately, Zhu Jinsong had not transmigrated to a fantasy or Xianxia world, so there were no various bizarre special effects to accentuate the scene. Zeng Cheng and Liu Huaiwen, who should have been astonished, were all looking at Zhu Jinsong with blank expressions.
The way His Majesty put it... it seemed to have no flaws?
While Zeng Cheng and Liu Huaiwen and the other senior officials were still in a state of bewilderment, Zhu Jinsong continued, "Any country on the small planet that produces any physical commodity has a fixed cost, including material costs and labor costs. After circulating to the market, there will be transportation costs and marketing costs."
"If calculated in physical currency such as gold, silver, or copper, the costs and profits earned are obvious. However, once it is converted to Great Ming treasure notes, the cost of this item changes – it is no longer priced by physical currency, but by the value of the treasure notes."
"If other countries use their own currencies respectively, they can set the value of goods themselves, and it will be difficult to be influenced by the value of Great Ming treasure notes, at most it will be exchange rate fluctuations."
"Conversely, it is not so."
"Under the condition that all other countries use Great Ming treasure notes as their official currency, if our Great Ming believes that one dollar of Great Ming treasure notes can buy ten catties of rice, then one dollar of Great Ming treasure notes can buy ten catties of rice. If our Great Ming believes that one dollar of Great Ming treasure notes can buy one catty of rice, then this dollar can only buy one catty of rice."
"Moreover, our Great Ming's treasure notes are not given to them for free. This involves the exchange of physical currency – other barbarian small countries that want to use the Great Ming's Long Yuan must exchange it with real gold and silver."
"When more and more real gold and silver flow into the Great Ming, your Ministry of Revenue can naturally print more Long Yuan treasure notes."
"If the Great Ming has the need, it can naturally harvest the wealth of other barbarian small countries by manipulating the value of Long Yuan treasure notes, thereby subsidizing the Great Ming's own needs."
"..."
The more Zhu Jinsong spoke, the happier he became, and the more Zeng Cheng and Liu Huaiwen and the other senior officials listened, the more their hearts were filled with dread, and cold sweat was pouring down their foreheads. Fortunately, this emperor was the emperor of our Great Ming. If such a sinister and venomous emperor appeared in any of the barbarian small countries, wouldn't our Great Ming be very troubled?
It was only after a good while that the voluble Zhu Jinsong finally stopped, feeling unfulfilled, and made his final summary: "For matters that can be resolved with Long Yuan, try not to make them so bloody with firearms and cannons, and certainly not like the fools of the Zhao family in the Song Dynasty, who, despite possessing a great weapon like Jiao Chao, were played like imbeciles by others!" xxs one
Upon hearing this from Zhu Jinsong, Zeng Cheng and Liu Huaiwen and the other senior officials felt a sense of speechlessness. It was precisely Your Majesty who loved to speak with firearms and cannons the most in the entire Great Ming court!
However, looking at it from another perspective, although they disdained Zhu Jinsong's hypocrisy, Zeng Cheng and Liu Huaiwen and others had to admit that Zhu Jinsong was making sense.
Take the Song Dynasty as an example.
In the early Northern Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty's annual coinage was basically over one million guan, reaching over three million guan during the Qingli period of Emperor Renzong, and in the Shenzong period, it reportedly reached a peak of 5.06 million guan in some years, not to mention nearly one million guan of coinage and iron.
To make a horizontal comparison: the year with the largest coinage in the Tang Dynasty was only 330,000 guan, and in general years, it remained around 100,000 guan. The total copper coins cast during the Great Ming's nearly three hundred years of reign was less than what the Shenzong year cast.
Based on the number of copper coins circulated in the market and the wear and tear from the Song Dynasty's annual issuance of copper coins, by the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, there should have been around 300 million guan in circulation. However, not only did the Song Dynasty not experience inflation, but it also frequently suffered from a shortage of money, which led to the development of Jiao Chao.
So the question arises.
Where did the money go?
The answer was that a large amount of copper coins had flowed out, some to Japan, some to the Liao, Xixia, and later the Jin Dynasty, and even to the countries of Southeast Asia. The Song Dynasty's currency had become the reserve currency or even the circulating currency of many countries.
In other words, the Song Dynasty had grasped the lifelines of these countries, and by simply playing a few financial games, it could cause economic turmoil in these countries.
Unfortunately, the Song Dynasty would rather give away money and land than spend money on the military, nor would it delegate power to generals who led troops to kill, resulting in the Song Dynasty, despite holding the economic lifelines of many countries, not having the courage or strength to crush any of them.
The current Great Ming certainly did not care about this.
First of all, the Great Ming's currency was Long Yuan treasure notes, which, in essence, were credit currencies printed on paper by the Ministry of Revenue. Their intrinsic value was much easier to manipulate than the copper coins used during the Song Dynasty, after all, copper coins had their own value, whereas the value of Long Yuan treasure notes required recognition by the Great Ming court to exist.
Secondly, the Great Ming's military was also sufficient to ensure that the Great Ming could manipulate paper currency as it wished. As long as the Great Ming completely disregarded the consequences of devaluing paper currency, the Great Ming could even turn Long Yuan treasure notes into waste paper immediately.
Of course, under normal circumstances, the Great Ming would not do this. After all, the value of Long Yuan treasure notes relied on the credit of the entire Great Ming. Unless absolutely necessary, the Great Ming would never do something that would incur a thousand losses to kill a thousand enemies, but would instead treat such a method as a great weapon.
After the senior officials reached this conclusion, Liu Huaiwen could not help but grumble, "Then Louis XVI's courage is too little. He only borrowed a mere one billion Long Yuan? That's only one hundred million taels of silver. I don't know what he'll use it for."
After Liu Huaiwen finished speaking, Zeng Cheng and the other senior officials looked at Liu Huaiwen with contempt and mockery. Just now, you, Old Miser Liu, opposed it the most fiercely, and now you are complaining that they borrowed too little. You truly have no shame!
After muttering to himself, Zeng Cheng said, "This way, I will have someone look for Pierre later and see if their France only needs to borrow one billion, or if Louis XVI's courage is too small, only daring to borrow one billion, and also probe Louis XVI's intentions."
Zhu Jinsong smiled and nodded, saying, "In Your Majesty's opinion, Louis XVI's courage is probably not great enough yet. Judging from the fact that he unhesitatingly sold out the Eagle of the West, Louis XVI should be determined to follow the Great Ming to the end."
This was almost a foregone conclusion.
Whether it was spreading the Great Ming's etiquette, learning, and customs to Europe, or fighting with the Habsburg family, or deceiving the Eagle of the West to death, all indications showed that Louis XVI was determined to sell all of Europe to gain benefits for France, or rather, for the Bourbon family.
And the Great Ming also needed a trailblazer like Louis XVI, because the Great Ming's population was not yet sufficient to support the Great Ming's confrontation with the entire small planet, and the Central Plains had been delayed by the Jian Yi for nearly two hundred years, resulting in Europe not being as useless as it was more than two hundred years ago.
Therefore, Louis XVI alone as the foremost trailblazer was still somewhat insufficient. Efforts should be made to cultivate more European trailblazers and European-haters.
And the best way to cultivate more trailblazers was to first establish a positive role model for those potential trailblazers.
For example, if Louis XVI wanted to borrow one billion Long Yuan treasure notes as a protective charm, then the Great Ming would simply lend him twenty billion Long Yuan treasure notes, and it would be interest-free. They could also send some personnel to France to help Louis XVI build railways and roads, and help them renovate factories to improve the competitiveness of French goods on the small planet.
These kinds of methods were to let others see the benefits that Louis XVI could gain as a trailblazer, thereby attracting more Europeans to become trailblazers.
After thinking about it, Zhu Jinsong directly instructed Zeng Cheng, "Minister Zeng, you might as well think carefully with all the ministers to see what other benefits can be given to Louis XVI."
"The Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Rites should study together how to attract more Europeans to visit our Great Ming."
"In addition, the Great Ming Newspaper should also get to work and praise Louis XVI and France more."
Upon hearing this from Zhu Jinsong, Zeng Cheng and the others' faces immediately fell. This was definitely a very difficult task!
For Zeng Cheng and the other senior officials, it was easier to find ways to trick the barbarians of Europe and the Eagle of the West to come to the Great Ming as laborers. However, it was too difficult to trick the barbarians of Europe to come to the Great Ming to stroll around!
Because, the only people who could freely stroll around the entire small planet were the people of the Great Ming!
As for Europe and the Eagle of the West...
The nobles and the great bourgeoisie in Europe and the Eagle of the West were still relatively better off. As for the rest of the common people, they were all as poor as ghosts. Where did they have the extra money to stroll out?
More importantly, the consumption level of the Great Ming was very low for the people of the Great Ming, and it was not much for the nobles and the great bourgeoisie of Europe and the Eagle of the West. However, for the common people in Europe and the Eagle of the West, this consumption level was inevitably a bit high.
If viewed from another angle, since they could not afford to come to the Great Ming, could the people of the Great Ming go out more?
That was also difficult!
What did the people of the Great Ming eat?
Manteau, baozi, pancakes, stir-fried dishes, stewed dishes. Those who earned more and were willing to spend ate better, and those who earned less and were reluctant to spend ate worse.
However, the overall conditions of the Great Ming were there. Even if they ate poorly, no one in the Great Ming now mixed sand into their pasta.
But when it came to Europe...