During smelting, workers constantly use stirring rods to stir and mix the alloy melt in the crucible. [Full text reading] After confirming that the mixing and smelting are even, pour the molten y into a steel mold to make silver slabs used to make coins.
Since silver has a greater mass than copper and zinc, it is easy for silver to sink to the bottom and other metals to float when mixed and smelted. If the mixture is not fully mixed, it is easy to cause insufficient silver content in the first strip and high silver content in the last strip. Therefore, a small amount of powder is ground from the end of the first silver bar and the upper end of the last silver bar cast in each furnace and sent for testing to ensure that the proportion of silver bars is consistent.
The cast silver lath cannot be used as stamping material. It is only a casting and has not undergone the "forging" process. The finished strips are sent to the sheet rolling workshop and rolled into plates of a certain size for stamping. Compared with processing steel plates under high temperature and pressure, making silver alloys with good ductility into plates with uniform thickness and smooth appearance is no longer a big deal in the current Lingao industrial system.
Next comes stamping. Use a stamping machine to punch out circular bare plates from the plate, which are the embryos of various coins. The leftover scraps from stamping are recycled, re-smelted and pressed into new sheets.
The stamped silver cake blank is polished with a smooth edge machine to remove burrs, and then sent to the pickling workshop to clean and remove oil stains.
The washed and polished bare boards are neatly loaded into the crimping machine. This kind of machine presses the light panels one by one, and then forcefully squeezes the edges of the light panels to form a ledge. This protrusion is very common on later coins and can protect the coin pattern from wear. Of course, this design is very advanced in this time and space. The mint also embossed a subtle pattern when curling the edge. Under normal use, the wear and tear of the pattern is difficult to detect with the naked eye, but once it is scratched with a file, marks will immediately appear. This is to curb the popularity of this time and space. The "cut edge" trick.
The crimped plain coin embryos are put into the pressing machine one by one. The pressing machine is equipped with a steel coin mold, and the silver cake blank is stamped into coins.
The pressed coins also need to go through a weighing procedure. One characteristic of stamped coins is the accuracy of their weight. However, in actual production, it is difficult to achieve exactly the same weight of each coin. This requires controlling the tolerance value.
After discussion, the industrial and financial sectors considered that based on their current technical capabilities. The tolerance can be controlled within 3‰. Coins are weighed on specialized continuous weighing machines. The principle of the weighing machine is similar to that of a balance. After a coin falls on the machine platform, the weight shakes within a certain value, and the coin will continue to flow down the outlet. Once the tolerance is exceeded. The amount of shaking will open another cover and discharge the coins.
The pressed coins are then scrubbed clean again after being inspected by a human. The coins were packaged in packages of one hundred coins, sealed in mulberry paper and stamped with the Ministry of Finance, and then placed in a strong money box, sealed, and sent to the Central Reserve Bank's vault in Hong Kong, waiting to be used.
In mid-spring in Guangzhou, winter is not yet over. There is still lingering cold. A miserable wind and heavy rain were coming, and the sky was still covered with dense clouds, which made people feel even more depressed.
At this moment, on the Lion Ocean at the estuary of the Pearl River, an Australian bicycle puffing out smoke was going upstream. On the side of the boat, Meng Xian looked at the sinking river surface, looking worried.
It is now the seventh year after D-Day, 1635 AD. Even according to the Datong calendar popular in the Ming Dynasty, the time has already entered the eighth year of Chongzhen.
Since the first year of Chongzhen, disasters have continued in the north of the Ming Dynasty. There was a severe drought in the first year of Chongzhen, a severe famine in the third year, a severe famine in the fifth year, a flood in the sixth year, and locusts and famine in the autumn of the seventh year. From the Central Plains to the northwest, the bare land is thousands of miles without any grass growing. The people were displaced and starved to death. Ma Maocai, the inspector of Shaanxi Province, said in "Bei Chen's Great Hunger" that the people competed to eat the grass in the mountains, and the grass was eaten up. Peel the bark off the tree and eat it. After eating the bark, you can only eat Guanyin soil, and eventually you will die of abdominal distension.
The Hou Jin Dynasty in Liaodong invaded the border areas for many years. The imperial court not only failed to provide relief to the disaster-stricken areas, but also increased taxes. The government and the people rebelled, and countless hungry people who could not survive revolted. The north was filled with smoke and dust, thousands of miles of erosion, and the livelihood of the people was in ruins.
In November of the sixth year of Chongzhen. A large number of northwest peasant armies crossed the Yellow River and entered Henan.
In July of the seventh year of Chongzhen, Hou Jin entered the fortress for the second time and ravaged the Xuanfu and Datong areas.
In the first month of the eighth year of Chongzhen, thirteen families including Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Lao Huihui, Luo Rucai, Ge Liyan, Hun Shiwan, Jiutiaolong, Zuojinwang, Gaishiwang, Hengtianwang, Shuntianwang, Guotianxing, S Tuantian and so on The 12th Battalion of Peasant Army gathered in Xingyang, and Gao Yingxiang's general Li Zicheng proposed the strategy of "dividing the troops into targeted directions and attacking in four directions". Afterwards, Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, and Li Zicheng led their troops south to Fengyang, dug up the ancestral graves of the Ming Dynasty royal family, burned the Huangjue Temple where Zhu Yuanzhang once became a monk, killed more than 60 eunuchs, beheaded the capital guard general Zhu Guoxiang, and kidnapped countless rare treasures. . The whole country was shocked, and many knowledgeable people in both the government and the public were sighing secretly: The Ming Dynasty was probably about to end.
As a large number of refugees, gentry, and wealthy households fled to the south, the harmonious and peaceful city of Guangzhou actually gained an abnormal level of prosperity. The Senate's properties, such as Ziming Tower, Zichengji, and Great World, are prospering. At the same time, groups of refugees with no livelihood were transported to Lingao by sea ship to enjoy the blessings of the Senate.
The fruit was already rotten, and while his illness was killing him, the Senate launched the Guangdong Strategy at this juncture, which was equivalent to another heavy blow to the weak patient. From the bottom of his heart, Meng Xian still sympathized with Emperor Chongzhen in the Forbidden City - it was difficult for ordinary people to understand the suffering of knowing that the situation was hopeless but trying desperately to maintain the situation.
However, Meng Xian was not happy at all. As president of the Delong Bank and the Guangdong branch of the Central Reserve Bank, he was the Senate's leader on the financial front in the new district of Guangdong. Maintaining the financial and financial stability of the new district is his unshirkable responsibility, so he feels heavy pressure.
The ship's cargo hold was filled with new currency he had just withdrawn from the Ministry of Finance's Hong Kong warehouse. 200,000 yuan of silver coins of different denominations: This batch of silver coins is mainly half yuan and 20-cent auxiliary coins. 1 yuan is not much. It is mainly used for office expenses of the military and administrative agencies after entering Guangzhou. After all, one yuan coin weighs more than seven cents of silver, which is a bit too high according to the current purchasing power of silver on the Guangdong market.
In addition to the silver coins, there are 20 boxes of banknotes, most of which are also auxiliary coins. The total denomination is one million yuan. This money is the "establishment fee" of the Guangdong Region Government of the Senate. Not only that, but it must also be used to try to maintain financial stability in the market.
The mint in Hong Kong continues to mint silver coins, and the banknote printing press in Lingao's printing house continues to rotate. However, he knows that the available resources are limited, and he must find financial resources for this newly minted regime as soon as possible.
"You look worried about the country and the people, are you worried?" A joking voice came from the side.
"Come on, I'm so burdened that I can't breathe, and I'm worried about my country." Meng Xian turned around, and the person next to him was Liu San. This time he was appointed by the Ministry of People's Welfare and Labor to be responsible for the health work in the new district. The reason why they chose a Chinese medicine doctor was probably because the Senate did not have much modern medical supplies to support the new area, and it was better to use traditional Chinese medicine that could be implemented first.
Liu San nodded: "We all want to cook without rice..."
Just as Meng Xian was about to speak, he suddenly heard a crew member exclaiming. Turning around, I saw several crew members pointing at a black spot in the middle of the river ahead. Liu Sanwei was a little short-sighted, and it took him a long time to finally confirm that the black figure was probably a person. Meng Xian had practiced in the guerrilla team, and his eyesight was very good. He saw him hugging a piece of wood tightly, carrying him down the river. The ship was floating and sinking, and no matter how loud the crew shouted, there was no response, and they didn't know whether to live or die.
At this time, the captain came over to ask for instructions. There was someone floating on the river. Would you like to rescue him?
Because the ship was carrying "special grade supplies", the captain did not dare to decide whether to slow down to save people.
Meng Xian saw that the ship had already sailed near Yu Zhuzhou, not far from the big world. This is the sphere of influence of the Senate, and the security has always been good. There are no suspicious phenomena around, so there are no problems. Immediately agreed to save people.
The captain ordered the ship to slow down, and several experienced sailors jumped into the river, pulling and pushing people to get on board. Liu San stepped forward to check. The rescued person was a young man in his twenties. He must have been soaked in the water for a long time. His complexion was purple, his teeth were clenched, his expression was painful, his body was cold, and he had fallen into a semi-conscious state.
Everyone worked hard to carry him into the cabin. Liu San saw that he was breathing well and had not drowned. They pried open his mouth and fed him half a bowl of hot water. The young man gradually gained some consciousness. He pressed his hand on his right abdomen in a daze and screamed in pain.
Liu Sanming's two young apprentices who were accompanying him - this was his newly adopted orphan, Fu Wuben is now a famous Chinese medicine practitioner in Lingao - Liu De and Liu Quan took off their wet clothes and checked their symptoms. There is no external injury to this person's abdomen, but his face is red and his eyes are red, his lips are dry, his breath is bad, his tongue is red and his coating is yellow; his pulse is thick and stringy; his yang energy is internally deficient, his yin and cold are too strong, his disease is deep-rooted, and he has yin in his abdomen. The haze everywhere is a sign of intestinal carbuncle crisis. That is, acute appendicitis perforation causes diffuse peritonitis, which is quite serious.
Liu San couldn't help but hesitate a little. In this kind of crisis where the evil enters the blood and the yin and yang are separated, the first line of yang is about to escape, and the condition is critical. It can be said that he has a narrow escape. He uses commonly used traditional Chinese medicine methods such as Dahuang Mudan Decoction and Dachengqi Decoction. I'm afraid the treatment will be over if it doesn't work, but there's no way to do surgery on this ship, so what should I do?
"This man's life is in danger, it's very dangerous!" Liu Sandao said, "I don't have the conditions for an operation, alas!"
"Forget it if you can't save it..." Meng Xian has no interest in half-dead people. Anyway, he just saves people casually. As for whether the rescued people can live or not, he has no control over it. Under the rule of the Ming Dynasty for many years, he has seen too many tragedies in the world. The separation of life and death, deep feelings. Knowing that personal compassion cannot change the fate of most people, his heart has been hardened. (To be continued.)
