Iron money was very popular in the Northern Song Dynasty. The appearance of iron currency led to the appearance of another currency: paper money. Think about it, how much iron money weighs. It's unbearable to go to the market with three or two iron money. You can also buy vinegar and soy sauce. If it is a transaction of several thousand dollars, such as buying a house and paying a down payment, according to the current house price, Tieshan can't bear it. "Market transactions, to three or five penetration, that is, difficult."

Don't worry, the wisdom of Sichuanese is vigorous, but it is not enough to turn iron into paper. So, with the permission of the government, more than a dozen rich people in Sichuan jointly set up the earliest paper money in history-jiaozi.

These dozens of rich people guarantee each other to make jiaozi with paper printing. There are patterns on the banknotes, which are usually "Woodenhead". After the paper money is printed under the official supervision, each household only needs to pay a considerable amount of iron money or silver, and then receives the corresponding value of the jiaozi, and then takes the jiaozi to do the transaction. If you want to change your money into cash, you will get 30p interest on each money.

But human nature is greedy. Without the supervision and leadership of the government, this greed will erode the value of jiaozi. Historical records show that in the circulation of jiaozi, the specific process is not clear. Anyway, these profiteers, when users in jiaozi came to withdraw cash, actually closed the jiaozi store and left with cash. "I closed the door and couldn't get out." In fact, the government is quite effective. It sends arresters and "special police" to help users chase money and cash it. As a result, when they got it, they couldn't pay it all, and they could only recover seven or eight hundred dollars for a thousand dollars.

In order to rectify the financial order, the Song Dynasty initially wanted to close Jiaozi Bank, but considering that Sichuanese were used to Jiaozi transactions, the government took over Jiaozi Bank. Printing, distribution and circulation are all handled by the government. At first, the government was honest, and as much money as there was in the treasury, as many coins were issued in the market, which meant that the reserve ratio was 100%. It is issued every three years. When it expires, it is strictly required to exchange physical currency with Jiaozi.

However, with the passage of time, the situation has become complicated. To pay more civil servants' salaries, it takes military expenses to fight the Khitan Xixia and expand military expenses to fight the Jin State. As a result, the financial problem is big, so issuing money is also unprepared for blond hair, "increasing skills without storing capital", so the currency is seriously depreciated.

At this point, it is not difficult to understand why Yue Fei's Northern Expedition gave up halfway.

Jiaozi developed to the Southern Song Dynasty and was called Huizi. The territory of the Southern Song Dynasty shrank, and there was nothing north of the Huaihe River. Personally, the control area at that time was about 6.5438+0.4 million square kilometers, which was equivalent to 654.38+0.2 Fujian, or 8 Guangdong. The sources of fiscal and taxation are only Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Xishu and Jiangnan, which is only one fifth of that of the Northern Song Dynasty. With one-fifth of the financial resources of the Northern Song Dynasty, we fought against an army several times larger than the Northern Song Dynasty.

At this point, as mentioned above, it is not surprising that the market is so short of money. It is not a long-term solution to fool the barber, so we issued more paper money, which led to a serious devaluation of the currency until the demise of our Da Song Dynasty.

Let's imagine: Yue Fei's army marched on the front line, and the good news came, asking the Qin cabinet to use a credit card, and the good news spread frequently, so the credit card in the hands of the Qin cabinet was swiped, swiped, swiped, swiped, and Yue Fei was about to hit Kaifeng City and Huanglongfu. Qin GUI looked at the credit card and was dumbfounded, so he reported: Your Majesty, it is seriously overdrawn!

Overdraft? Then withdraw! Tell Commander Yue to stop fighting. There is no money. Don't come back? Twelve gold medals. Call him back.

In fact, Yue Fei is also very aware of the huge cost of war and the extensive use of currency. According to the History of Song Dynasty, every time he applied for military expenses, he always said that "the southeast people are extremely poor." The wealth in the southeast has been exhausted!

From the military point of view and personal military ability, Yue Fei's attempt to explore the North is beyond doubt, but what can he do without money?

Qin Gui's capitulationism route has always been negative, but we have to admit that lack of money is indeed one of the important reasons to stop Yue Fei's Northern Expedition. According to the records at that time, military expenditure accounted for more than 70% of the financial expenditure in the Southern Song Dynasty.

Lang Ying's "Continued Seven Repairs" in Ming Dynasty tells the reason why Yue Fei's Northern Expedition was stopped: "What is the reason?" Money, food, weapons and other military houses cannot be supplied.

Lang Ying is not talking nonsense. He has archaeological evidence. He once dug up a bronze medal of the Southern Song Dynasty, one inch wide and two inches long. Is this the bronze medal of the Olympic Games?

No, this is the temporary currency of Lin 'an government, worth 300 pence. Lang Ying guessed from this that the Song government had no choice but to cross to the south as a currency to remedy its financial difficulties.

The bronze medal was equivalent to the currency of Huizi at that time: "We must go across the country to the poor, save what has changed, and repay the money."

With a chicken feather as an arrow and a brand as money, the government's currency crisis can be imagined.

Therefore, Lang Ying concluded that if we continue to use troops, it will lead to economic collapse, government bankruptcy and national subjugation earlier: "If we are eager to use troops, it will only lead to our own ruin".