On Baoping Street next to the Bell and Drum Tower in Nanjing, a building that started construction three months ago was completed. It is a two-story building with brick and stone structure. Although the building is not high, the building structure is relatively simple. The first floor is made of bricks and stones, and the second floor is made of bricks and wood, but it covers a large area.

This was originally a barracks of the Nanjing military households, and belonged to the property of Duke of Wei. After the Duke of Wei's Mansion was circulated, the barracks also became the property of Emperor Shaowu. The original military households were moved outside the city. Although they were originally military households of the Ming Dynasty, they had actually become tenants of Duke of Wei. Now the fields of Duke of Wei have been taken over to the royal family, and these military households have become tenants who cultivate the imperial fields.

From a tenant from a man of Wei to a tenant who rented imperial fields. Although they were still tenants and were still half farming as before, they turned from military households to militias. The most important thing is that renting imperial fields only requires paying rent from four cities every year. Any heavy taxes have nothing to do with them, and the pressure on military households has been reduced a lot.

The 40% rent of tenants sounds very high. After all, the agricultural tax rate set by Emperor Taizu was only 25 tax one, which means that the regular tax paid by the self-cultivated farmers was 4% of the annual income. Compared with the tax of self-cultivated farmers, the tenant rent of the imperial field was higher.

However, the twenty-five taxes were just nominal regular taxes. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to serious financial problems, the court had to increase various levies and increase wages, and the additional taxes would not fall on the royal family, nobles and literati and gentry. Therefore, all levies and increase wages were all on the self-cultivated farmers, rich peasants and small landlords, making the people live in poverty.

As a result, self-cultivated farmers, rich peasants and small landlords went bankrupt one after another, becoming tenants of the gentry and civil servants and royal family. The tenant rent collected by the landlord class from the tenants was not low. In the barren land in the north, 50% of the tax was considered very conscientious. In the fertile land in the south of the Yangtze River, tenant rents were often more than 60%, or even 70% to 80%!

But the problem is that the tenant rent collected by these landlords did not have to pay taxes to the court, so a serious financial crisis occurred in the late Ming Dynasty, which led to Chongzhen being so poor that he was so poor that he was rich.

Now that military households have become imperial land tenants, 40% of the imperial land tenants are in the fertile land in the south of the Yangtze River. It can be said that they are very low. Moreover, after they pay the tenant rent, they don’t have to worry about all kinds of taxes. The remaining 60% of the annual income is enough for the family to live a good life.

The tenant rent from the imperial field income was completely owned by the inner treasury, which increased the fiscal revenue of the Ming Dynasty.

The original military households in the military camp were moved out of Nanjing and turned into tenants in the imperial field. The military camp was changed to the Royal Silver No. 1 by Zhu Cixuan and Zhao Peng.

Outside the courtyard, a new storefront shop is built. It is a two-story shop with a large area, 20 meters long and wide. It has a hall and counter, seats for rest, as well as a seating area for large customers and a special handling counter, and a special area.

The camp behind the storefront has been transformed into a warehouse, an employee dormitory area, a barracks guarded by the bank, a canteen, etc.

Firecrackers were heard, and on the street outside the store, dragons and lions were dancing, gongs and drums were loud and bustling, and the plaque on the store was unveiled, with a line of large characters on it: The Royal Silver No. of the Ming Dynasty.

Several bank guards were wearing the clothes of Junyi Guards (Mandarin duck battle jacket, black leather armor, six-pound pointed iron helmet, Junyi Guards were not qualified to wear flying fish suits), holding an iron horn in their hands, shouting hard: "The Royal Bank of Ming Dynasty opened! Unlike previous money shops, depositing the silver into the Royal Bank of Ming Dynasty not only does not have to pay us the storage fee, but also paying interest to you! The Royal Bank of Ming Dynasty also launched a loan service to merchants, with the maximum interest rate of the loan not exceeding two cents and a minimum of five cents!"

"Drop money into a bank account, not only does it not have to pay money, but also pay interest? It's the first time I've heard of such a novelty." said a middle-aged man who looked like a businessman outside.

Another young man who looked like a businessman muttered: "Isn't it a liar to us?"

"How is that possible?" said a businessman with an extraordinary temperament who had a tribute student at first sight, "Look, the guard of the silver number is a soldier of the Jinyiwei. Who dares to pretend to be an Jinyiwei under the eyes of the emperor? Isn't that asking for death?"

The merchant with the status of a tribute student was Jiang Guomao, the Royal Bank of the Ming Dynasty. He was the first customer to come to save money. You must know that the money was kept at home for nothing, and it would not generate interest on a copper coin. If you took it out to lend money to usury, you don’t know whether you can get the money back.

In fact, the biggest user of borrowing usury back then was a variety of merchants. Those farmers who could not afford to pay the rent for rent were not done by professional usury lenders. Generally, farmers who could not afford to pay the rent for rent were directly owed to the landlords' usury. The final result was that they could not pay back, and they could only sell their families to the landlords to pay off their debts.

People who specialize in loan sharing will not make money from farmers, and most of them are bad debts. They use individuals to pay off their debts. This is definitely a loss for loan sharingers, so professional loan sharing is still given to those merchants.

Merchants always have times when capital turnover is not working, and loan sharks appear. With mortgages such as land deeds and store deeds, the interest is nine out of thirteen returns, which is nominally one gross profit, which is one tael of interest per month for ten taels of silver. In fact, nine out of thirteen returns, that is, if you borrow ten taels of silver, I will take out nine taels of silver and deduct the interest for the first month directly. Three months later, you will pay thirteen taels of silver.

For salt merchants, it sounds good to use extra money to lend money to usury, but usury is not a matter of making a profit. Once the other party loses money or the ship sinks, they can only use mortgaged land deeds and store deeds to pay off the debt. Sometimes these mortgages cannot afford to your own capital, so they will lose money.

If Jiang Guomao handed over his remaining money to those professional usury loan sharks, it would be unreliable. Because many usury loan sharks are actually borrowed usury. Once there is a problem in one link, those usury loan sharks cannot afford to pay the capital of others and can only run away, and the salt merchants' money will be wasted.

Now that you have the Ming Dynasty silver account to save money, it is more reliable to deposit the money into the Ming Dynasty silver account than to give loans to those usury loanees? Although the interest rate is not high, you can make sure you make a profit and you won’t lose money.

The loan business started by the Royal Bank of the Ming Dynasty has also attracted great attention from many merchants. You should know that business people always have times when their capital turnover is not working. In the past, they went to lend money to lenders, and the interest rate was 9,000 taels, that is, those who borrow money to lend money to 9,000 taels, and they would have to return 13,000 taels in three months.

It would be easy to make money. If you don’t make money once, once you lose money, the consequences will be unimaginable! If you don’t make money in nine and return, you can’t pay back this 13,000 taels in three months, all of this 3,000 taels will be included in the principal. Continue to calculate the interest. The interest will be 1,300 taels per month. After another three months, it will be 16,900 taels. Then you won’t ask for it. Continue to calculate the interest based on this number. If the profit continues to rise, you will never pay back the interest for your whole life. You can only say that you gave the land deed and the store deed to others.

The problem is that if the land deeds and store deeds are given to others, they will definitely not be as good as the principal and interest of profits, and loan sharks have the right to ask them for debts. In this way, they will have to go into exile in Southeast Asia or escape to the territory of the Qing Dynasty.

The gate of the silver horn was opened, and teams of beautiful beauties walked out of the gate and stood at the gate of the silver horn. These beauties were the top brothels invited from the Qinhuai River to cheer for the Royal Silver horn of the Ming Dynasty.

"Isn't that Miss Chen Yuanyuan?" Several scholars saw a tall woman standing in the first row at a glance.

When they saw Chen Yuanyuan, the young men were in high spirits and rushed forward one after another.

"Isn't that new Qing Gonger from Meixianglou?"

"Isn't that the new top brand in Youlan Pavilion?"
Chapter completed!