In fact, most people in the Government Affairs Council, including the Financial Affairs Office, were in favor of the "mithril faction", but the objective facts could not be reversed, so the plan that was finally passed was to mint silver coins and implement a silver standard.
After the tone was set, the official construction of the mint began. In the past, various paper securities issued by Delong were printed at printing offices. Since coins are to be minted now, it is naturally impossible to set up an additional workshop in the printing factory as in the past. It is necessary to find another place to set up a factory.
According to the opinions of the financial media, the new mint is located in Hong Kong. Whether it is the market where the mints are placed or the source of the currency materials, Hong Kong, which is close to Guangdong, is obviously more suitable than Lingao on Hainan Island. The financial outlet predicts that once it lands on the mainland, the demand for new currency will be huge. If the mint cannot supply it nearby, it will be embarrassing if there is a shortage of currency.
Although Hong Kong lacks resources, it has convenient transportation and is more convenient than Hainan for transporting various supplies. It can also be said to have peace of mind in terms of security.
After consultations with senior officials from the Planning Institute and the Industrial Portal, the basic scale and required equipment of the mint were finally finalized.
The Hong Kong Mint is divided into two phases, including minting and printing branches. After completion, it will have complete design and manufacturing capabilities for securities, banknotes and coins. Due to time constraints and the fact that Lingao Printing Factory already had the ability to print banknotes, it was decided that the first phase of the project would be a mint.
The mint includes a small metal smelting shop, a mint shop, a metalworking shop that designs and manufactures stamping coin dies, as well as independent supporting steam power, workshops, security and other supporting facilities.
Preliminary calculations show that the main equipment that needs to be newly manufactured is: smelting furnace, plate press, punch, cleaning machine, crimping machine, pressing machine, and reduction lathe. Except for a few devices, most require design and manufacturing from scratch. However, machinery manufacturing is no longer a problem for machinery factories now, and they can basically make their own products.
After several months of construction. At present, the factory buildings and equipment have been roughly installed, and currency materials and fuel are currently being mobilized. Workers have also arrived one after another, and it can be said that everything is ready. In the meeting room of the Ministry of Finance in Lingao. What was held was the last working meeting before the official start of construction.
Although it is called a work meeting, it is actually very important. The final details of the new currency, from the currency itself to the manufacturing process, will be finalized and implemented at this meeting.
Finance Minister Cheng Dong stood up and cleared his throat.
"Comrades! Some time ago, our new currency reform plan has been approved by the Central Government Administration Council and the Senate. The Ministry of Finance has solicited opinions from the industrial sector on the issue of manufacturing our own coins. After receiving your affirmative reply, we will comrades The idea has been formally documented, and this is the memorandum that everyone has in hand.”
Cheng Dong's eyes moved around everyone's faces. Some were listening to him attentively, while others were studying the documents in their hands. He continued with satisfaction: "With the approval of the Government Affairs Council, we will officially start the production of new coins. Within a month, we will have the ability to mass-produce stamped metal coins and produce the first batch of coins for circulation." Conference Room There was a buzz of approval.
"Now, I will make some brief explanations about the memorandum. If you have any questions, please raise them at this meeting. The mainland strategy will begin soon. As you may already know, our new banknotes are already being printed in batches. It has been shipped to Guangdong for issuance and use. However, without the support of coins, it may be difficult for this kind of banknotes to actually circulate. So we have to come up with the finished product as soon as possible."
No one here has ever worked in a mint, but they still know the general process of minting. Strictly speaking, modern coins are not "cast", but the product of "stamping". It is actually punched out of sheet metal on a steel mold. It is "cold processing". So the portions are accurate and the patterns are exquisite.
Silver coins before the emergence of modern coinage, both at home and abroad, were "cast" and were a kind of "hot processing". Including the Spanish silver dollars that flowed into China in large quantities during this time and space: the cross coat of arms cob was actually cast. The difference is that the pattern words on Chinese coins are cast directly from molds, while most European coins first cast silver cake blanks, and then use hard molds to beat and suppress the patterns, commonly known as "struck silver coins."
Because COB is a struck silver coin, although the fineness and weight have certain rules, in the actual casting process. Stealing sex to lose weight also happens from time to time, which is similar to China's silver coins. Therefore, for nearly 200 years, cob has been circulating in China as silver bullion weights and has not played the role of counting silver coins. The Senate received large amounts of cob during war and trade. Much of the silver paid by merchants from the Ming Dynasty was cob, which was cut into pieces of silver for use.
Until the 18th century, machine-stamped earth double-column coins from Spain flowed in. Because of the standard color and shape, exquisite patterns, and easy to carry, the concave and convex patterns on the front and back and the pressed "lace" made the past "cut edges" and "grinding chips" The fraud methods were greatly restricted, and the weight of the silver coins was guaranteed, and they could be valued by the coins. It is no exaggeration to say that the silver coins could replace weighing broken silver as the accounting standard in coastal areas during the Qianlong period. A large number of the Earth's Twin Pillars were used in China. Circulation has the credit of opening Hongmeng.
The reason why Cheng Dong strongly promotes machine-made silver coins is largely due to the success of the Earth Twin Pillar circulation in China: it is not that there is no demand among the people for counting silver coins, it is just that the conditions are not met. The Earth Double Pillar Coin has achieved such great success purely through commercial circulation, which fully demonstrates the superiority and feasibility of machine-made silver coins.
The coinage plan proposed by the Ministry of Finance is to mint three types of silver coins. They are one dollar, half dollar and quarter dollar. An equal amount of banknotes are issued at the same time. All small-denomination auxiliary coins are issued in banknotes, divided into units of 10 cents, 5 cents, 2 cents, 1 cent and half cents. One dollar to one hundred points.
The reason for issuing half-cent auxiliary coins is mainly because one tael of silver on the market can be exchanged for thousands of coins. Even for "good money" Song coins or Yongle coins, the exchange rate is only seven to eight hundred coins. If the value of 1 point is too great, it will be difficult to serve as a small token.
The silver dollar as the base currency is stamped from an alloy of 87.5% silver and 12.5% copper. Each piece weighs 27 grams and has a diameter of 31mm. The size and quality are roughly the same as those of the Earth's Twin Pillar, Yuan Datou, and Mexican Eagle Ocean that were widely circulated in China in the old days.
As for the half dollar and quarter dollar, in addition to the corresponding reduction in size, the silver content has also decreased year-on-year. The silver content of the half dollar and quarter dollar has been reduced to 60%.
The reason why the silver content of auxiliary coins is low is because the casting cost of auxiliary coins, excluding the currency itself, is almost the same as one yuan. But the circulation value has been discounted.
The silver and copper used as casting materials are smelted by the non-ferrous metal smelting plant in Lingao using electrolysis to obtain 99% pure materials. To ensure accurate color matching of coins.
"There is nothing wrong with this proportion and size," said Liang Xin, who was in charge of making the mold. "But what to do with the mold? I have never made a coin mold. This pattern is quite complicated. Although it is not micro-carving, it is still small enough... "
On the table is a pattern of silver coins drawn by a veteran who studied art. On the front is "一元" in regular script, surrounded by a wheat ear pattern, and below is the year of issue in small Arabic numerals. The reverse side shows the earth illuminated by the morning star. The globe is surrounded by a streamer with four Latin words: spqm (senatus populus quemagnus great senate and people).
The other half dollars and quarter dollars have the same obverse pattern except for the different denominations. The half dollar pattern on the reverse side is the holy ship, and the quarter dollar is the national emblem pattern that the senators privately called "the iron fist and the chrysanthemum".
"You don't have to worry about pattern carving. We have skilled craftsmen to do it. Make it big first, and then use the scaling method to make it smaller." Although Wang Luobin has become the chairman of the Senate, he still can't bear it in this regard. I'm so excited that I came to the meeting in person.
After designing the coin pattern, the engraver first creates a three-dimensional plaster pattern. The plaster patterns are large in size, usually between half a meter and a meter in diameter. This large size allowed the coin designs to be very detailed. Once the pattern is created, a plaster mold is made, and then naturalized craftsmen carefully apply very thin gold foil on the mold. The gold-foiled mold was then electroplated with a thicker, stronger layer of copper.
The copper-plated inverse is placed on a scaling lathe, which is used to transfer the pattern on the inverse to a steel master mold that is the actual size of the coin. The scaling lathe is actually manufactured using the lever principle and is equipped with a four-bar linkage mechanism scaling control to hold the mold platform.
The mold was placed on a rotating stand, with a stylus pressed against the mold. As the mold rotates, the stylus moves up and down on the surface of the pattern. The motion of the stylus is transferred via a lever to a small-diameter hard ball-nose mill that rotates on the other side of the lathe. Every time the stylus rotates around the mold, the cutter head leaves a circle of patterns on the surface of the steel workpiece. After the stylus has scanned every part of the inverted mold, the cutter head has processed a scaled-down master mold. After this master mold was trimmed, it was used to press coin molds.
Since the steel used in the mold is quite hard, the pressing process cannot be completed in one go. Every fifth of the pressing stroke, the mold needs to be taken out and placed in a tempering furnace for tempering. After the material becomes soft, it is pressed again until the pressing is completely completed. Each completed coin mold can press approximately one hundred thousand coins. Just twenty dies were enough to press 20,000 coins in a day, and within a few weeks all the gold and silver of the Senate could be pressed into coins. (To be continued.)
