At the end of the first year, in the northwest corner of Qingzhou Fucheng.
Yue Ming and Song Gongming came outside a house. Officials from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce were coming in and out, moving boxes of broken silver and silver ingots inside.
"Minister Yue, is this the Qianzhuang's foundry?"
"Yes, this place is relatively remote. There are not many people and not many merchants around, so it is convenient for guarding."
The two of them walked in as they talked, and saw that the yard was already filled with various supplies, including boxes containing silver and coal needed for the furnace.
"How many silver coins can be minted here in a day?"
Yue Ming thought for a while and said: "Because time is too tight, the foundry was built in a hurry. There are only three furnaces now. In one day, more than 130,000 taels of silver coins can be minted."
"More than 130,000 taels?"
Song Gongming thought for a while and said: "The military pay will be distributed next month. The commander-in-chief means that the military pay and the salaries of the shogunate officials will be paid in silver coins. Is there enough time?"
"It should be about the same. More than 300,000 taels, or more than 300,000 silver coins, have been minted in the past few days. The 500,000 taels of silver allocated by the imperial court to our Qinglai Town can all be minted into silver coins in these two days. "
Yue Ming said: "The monthly military pay for each battalion of the New Army is more than 340,000 taels. With the salaries of the officials in the shogunate, 500,000 taels is almost enough."
"That's good."
Song Gongming said: "The proceeds from the Ministry of Commerce and the Chamber of Commerce next month will be shipped at the beginning of the month, and the foundry will be busy for a while."
"This is inevitable. At the beginning of the implementation of the new policy of banks and silver coins, a large amount of silver coins are needed to be invested among the people. It is certain that they will be busy. I also plan to do it next time
Five more furnaces will be added to the foundry before the end of the month to increase production. "
While talking, the two came to the backyard. A steward of the foundry came over with two boys. The two boys carried a wooden box, and the three of them walked up to Yue Ming and Song Gongming.
"I've met Minister Yue and Minister Song."
Yue Ming asked with a smile: "Is this the first batch of silver coins minted?"
"Exactly, please check it with the minister. If there are no problems, I will take someone to the General Military Mansion and ask the General Town Lord to check and accept it."
The two clerks opened the box and saw that the box was full of silver coins. Yue Ming and Song Gongming each picked up one and looked at it. The silver coins were different from common copper coins. They had no holes in the middle and were larger than ten copper coins. They took them It's heavy in the hand, weighing one or two, giving people a very substantial feeling.
The silver coin in Yue Ming's hand was engraved with the words "One Liang" on the front, with "Made in Shandong Qianzhuang" in semicircular regular script on the front, and below it were the same semicircular numbers "53726 on the first month of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen". "One", this is the code word. Without the bank's code book, outsiders have no idea what these numbers mean. Even if it is a forgery, if the number does not match the code word on the bank's account, it is a forgery.
Of course, there will also be thieves who deliberately imitate and copy the code words on real silver coins. Liu Yan also has a countermeasure, that is, the intervals between each number are different in the secret code of each silver coin. The bank will then stipulate the distance between each number and rotate it once a month, so outsiders have no way of knowing. .
This is the anti-counterfeiting method of this era. Liu Yan believes that with the technical means of this era,
As well as the ability of counterfeiters among the people, it is impossible to make high-quality imitation silver coins. Even if inferior silver coins are minted, banks can easily distinguish them.
Song Gongming couldn't put it down when he looked at the silver coins in his hands, and said with a smile: "It's really beautiful. The silver coins in our Qinglai Town are well-made and heavy. Once they are released to the public, they will definitely be loved by the people and soldiers, and their circulation will not be a problem."
But Yue Ming was a little worried and said: "It's just that this silver coin is too exquisite. According to the habit of the people, they have always spent the broken silver and other low-quality currency first, and kept such exquisite currency as the silver coin in their hands. If things continue like this , no matter how many silver coins we put in, we can’t see them on the market.”
"This seems to be what the Lord Mayor said, the law of bad money driving out good money."
Song Gongming was stunned for a moment and asked, "Did the mayor tell me how to deal with it?"
"have!"
"The headquarter has explained that through the Ministry of Commerce and the Chamber of Commerce, all industry settlements of the Ministry of Commerce, and all merchants who are members of the Chamber of Commerce, must use silver coins for circulation, refuse to accept broken silver and silver ingots, and will never pay for broken silver or silver ingots. Just like The head town said at the meeting that using this method, coupled with the fact that the salaries and salaries of the New Army and shogunate officials were also paid in silver coins, it forced the people to use silver coins on a large scale."
Song Gongming frowned slightly and said: "I'm afraid that some people with ulterior motives will deliberately hoard silver coins to manipulate the exchange rate between silver coins, broken silver, and copper coins to make profits!"
"Don't worry, the main town has thought of this and has made preparations. If someone really turns their eyes, they will lose everything.
"
"oh?"
Song Gongming became interested and asked, "What can the town do?"
Yue Ming lowered his voice and said: "The main town directly stipulates that one tael of silver coins can be exchanged for one tael of broken silver or silver ingots. For copper coins, one tael of silver coins can be exchanged for one thousand copper coins. This is a fixed exchange rate and no one is allowed to change it."
"As for the private black market, the price of silver coins will definitely remain high over time. The main town has ordered banks to hoard a large amount of silver coins. Once illegal people hoard silver coins, the banks will put at least 500,000 taels of silver coins into Qinglai Suppress the four prefectures, suppress the price of silver coins, and let those thieves lose their money!"
Song Gongming was shocked. Although he knew that Qinglai Town had strong financial resources at present, and the monthly net profit of the Ministry of Commerce alone was hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, Liu Yan's generosity still shocked Song Gongming.
"I'm afraid that when the time comes, the town will fight against those thieves, but the people will suffer."
"Do not worry."
Yue Ming said: "If it really hurts the people, things will be simple."
"oh?"
"The Headquarters said something to me: To fight against thieves, you need means and evidence, but to fight against traitors, you only need a list. If there are really thieves who wantonly plunder people's wealth and disrupt civil order for their own selfish desires, the Headquarters will never do it. With patience and thoroughness, we immediately sent out troops to encircle and suppress them."
The two put down the silver coins in their hands, and Yue Ming said to the steward: "Send it to the General Military Mansion immediately."
"yes."
Soon, the steward led people to load the car and delivered the box of silver coins to Liu Yan.
At this time, Liu Yan was talking with Wang Jing, the president of the Chamber of Commerce. When he saw the silver coins delivered, Liu Yan opened the box with a smile and picked up one:
"Taishan, look at it. This is the minted silver coin. How about it?"
Wang Jing also picked up one and looked at it carefully, and then said: "This is the first time I have seen such a beautiful silver coin. In the early years, I also saw some Thai and Western silver coins, which were all circulated from the south of the Yangtze River. , but the Thai and Western silver coins are rough in workmanship, have different weights, and have various styles. In fact, they have the same properties as the broken silver of our Ming Dynasty. They are very inconvenient to use. The people do not regard them as silver coins, and use them all as broken silver."
Taixi is the general name given by the Ming Dynasty to European countries at this time. At this time, the Ming Dynasty's attitude towards the West was not as flattering as that of the later Manchu and Qing Dynasties, because although the Ming Dynasty was already in turmoil at this time, in terms of social development level, it was no worse than the West. Even in terms of humanities, political system, shipbuilding, agricultural technology, medical level, etc., the Ming Dynasty is still ahead of the West. Even in terms of firearms, each has its own merits.
Unlike later Manchu and Qing dynasties, which lagged behind the West in all aspects and were beaten one after another, even when the Ming Dynasty was on the verge of subjugation, it still defeated the Dutch at Liaoluo Bay and the Portuguese and Spanish along the coast.
You must know that in this era, the Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish are the hegemons of the West, but they were still defeated by the Ming Dynasty, and the Portuguese even lost money. As for the great powers of the late Qing Dynasty, such as Britain, France, and Germany, they were all weak-legged at this time.
When Liu Yan heard Wang Jing talking about European silver coins, he suddenly became energetic and asked: "Is there still this thing? Does Taishan know who is doing business with the Taixi people in the south of the Yangtze River?"
Wang Jing said: "It's not clear. They are all businessmen.
I have never seen the rumors among Jia. It is just that Zheng Yiguan of Fujian, headed by a large group of maritime merchants, monopolized the trade with the Westerners. The specific details are not known. "
Zheng Yiguan was Zheng Zhilong, who was entrenched in Fujian at this time.
As early as 1633, the sixth year of Chongzhen, Zheng Zhilong led his troops to defeat the Dutch East India Company fleet off the coast of Fujian. This was the famous Battle of Kinmen in history.
After the war, the atmosphere at sea calmed down, and foreign goods were sold under the banner of the Zheng family. There was no danger. Zheng Zhilong used the sea to facilitate transportation to the nobles. "In Fujian, the Zheng family is the Great Wall." So far, Zheng Zhilong's trade scope has spread to all parts of the East and Southeast Asia: Dadi, Bangni, Champa, Luzon, Beigang, Taiyuan, Japan, Bombay, Banten, Old Port, Batavia, Malacca, Cambodia, and Siam Luo et al.
In addition, Zheng Zhilong's military power is also very powerful. With a lot of money, Zheng Zhilong formed an army of various races including Han Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, South Island ethnic groups, and even black Africans, with a strength of up to 200,000. , with a fleet of more than 3,000 large and small warships!
At this time, Liu Yan fell into deep thought. Shandong was too far away from Fujian, otherwise he would really want to contact Zheng Zhilong. Whether it was for business or anything else, it was always good to get in touch as soon as possible. After all, ocean trade was a cornucopia, Liu Yan Naturally, he looked jealous.
Liu Yan had previously requested a large number of shipbuilding craftsmen from the imperial court, but now they were all settled at Lingshan Guard. However, Liu Yan did not start large-scale shipbuilding immediately. It was not because he could not keep up with the money and food, but because at present, it was useless to build a merchant fleet, because at this time, the shipbuilding industry was large.
All maritime trade routes to the outside world in the Ming Dynasty were monopolized by Zheng Zhilong.
Anyone who wants to conduct ocean-going trade with foreign countries must pay tribute to Zheng Zhilong, otherwise he will be sunk by Zheng Zhilong's fleet. As a result, except for Zheng Zhilong's merchant fleet, everyone else was basically unprofitable, and over time not many people were willing to go to sea for trade.
"This situation must be reversed!"
Liu Yan secretly thought in his heart that after completing the layout of the bank and silver coins, Yanzhou Prefecture and Dengzhou Prefecture should be digested as soon as possible to further strengthen the strength of Qinglai Town, and then Liu Yan was ready to look at the entire Shandong.
"Only when the base is large enough and strong enough can I have the capital to compete with the heroes of the world!"
"Thanks to book friend Cao and boring monthly tickets, Dongxian is working hard on coding to write better stories for everyone."
