Most of the Roman silver coins ever minted ended up in China, for instance, and it just kept on like that, century after century. Our trade surplus with the rest of the world ran uninterrupted for more than a thousand years, and even by the Yongle’s time it was clogging the coffers. And capital accumulation without capitalism doesn’t have many opportunities for reinvestment; but silver unspent is just a lump of slag in your basement. Money needs to be spent to become wealth.
