The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 352

As Wang Zhi's silver-carrying ships arrived at the Tianjin docks, countless silver ingots, and even silver winter melons, were forged.

The daily output of silver from the silver refineries in Tianjin was terrifying. After the initial smelting by Wang Zhi's men, the silversmiths at the refineries only needed to smelt the silver further.

Since last year, Zhou Chu has been continuously transporting money from Jiangnan to the Tianjin docks by waterway. Tianjin has gradually come under the control of Jiajing's people. To this day, there are no officials from other factions in Tianjin; they are all firmly loyal to the emperor.

As a water conservancy hub next to Beijing, Tianjin's importance is self-evident. Anything from other places that wants to travel by water to Beijing must pass through Tianjin.

Nowadays, the Tianjin docks and silver refineries are under the tight surveillance of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. No one is allowed to enter but not leave. The silversmiths in the refineries have high monthly salaries, which are paid to their wives, children and elderly parents. However, it is impossible for them to leave the refineries in the short term.

Even the establishment of the entire silver refinery was carried out in extreme secrecy. Currently, only Zhou Chu, Lu Bing, Huang Jin, and others, including the Jinyiwei guards stationed at the silver refinery, know of its existence.

As silver was continuously produced, Jiajing's mind began to stir. He felt that the matter of the royal bank that Zhou Chu had arranged for him could be put on the agenda.

Originally, Jiajing didn't have much of an opinion on opening a money shop. After all, in his view, money shops were just for facilitating merchants' business and charging a certain fee. However, after Zhou Chu's advice, Jiajing realized how much profit could be made.

At this moment, Jiajing still remembered Zhou Chu's words. Zhou Chu said that if someone deposited ten million taels of silver into the bank, that ten million taels of silver could be lent out at a very low interest rate.

The loans issued were not in the form of real gold or silver, but rather in bank drafts. The ten million taels of silver remained with the bank, allowing it to be lent to a second, third, or even a fourth bank.

However, at most, they can only lend to five or six people. These people definitely need money for the loans, and most of them use banknotes for transactions, but it cannot be ruled out that they may exchange them for silver.

Lending a batch of silver to too many companies is too risky and could easily lead to a collapse; five or six companies are just right.

The combined interest from five or six lenders is extremely considerable. Moreover, this is purely a case of borrowing to make money; the more money others deposit, the more terrifying the interest rates will be if it's all lent out.

Zhou Chu even suggested that those who deposited money into the Royal Bank could be charged any handling fee, and even offered extremely low interest rates, in order to squeeze out other banks.

When Emperor Jiajing heard these words, he was full of praise.

Sometimes Jiajing really wanted to know what Zhou Hengqi's brain was made of, why he was so amazing, knowing so many things, and not just superficially.

Without hesitation, Jiajing began to have people select locations throughout the Ming Dynasty for opening money shops, in preparation for establishing royal money shops.

Meanwhile, the silver and silver melons refined at the Tianjin Silver Refinery were unknowingly transported to various parts of the Ming Dynasty.

Silver winter melons were a favorite among gentry and wealthy merchants. Once they made money, they would melt down silver to cast silver winter melons and bury them underground. This custom mainly originated from the Yuan Dynasty.

During the Yuan Dynasty, due to the tax farming system, the right to collect taxes was in the hands of Han gentry, so the commercial taxes they collected were very high, sometimes reaching as high as 50%.

In order to avoid taxes, wealthy households melted down their silver earnings into silver gourds and buried them underground. In this way, their assets could not be traced, and they did not have to pay commercial taxes.