"Silver is a good thing!" Cao Sengnu said with a smile: "Although people in the Tang Dynasty don't like it very much, the Turks, Uighurs, Tubos, Silla people, Nanzhao people, and Tianzhu people all like silver. You have silver. , you can buy everything you want from them, and you can exchange it for more good things when you bring it back. It’s much faster to get rich this way than farming!" Cao Sengnu picked up the wine while talking. Bo Ping filled himself and his guests with wine, raised his glass and said with a smile, "Here, have a drink!"
Ji Jian Chiying subconsciously raised the glass and took a sip. Then he realized that the taste was completely different from the rice wine he usually drank. When he looked down, he found that the liquid in the glass was dark red, like flowing amber. , he put down his wine glass in surprise: "This is -"
Without waiting for Cao Sennu's answer, Ping Liu rushed to the side and replied: "Master, this is wine. It is made from a kind of fruit called grape. It tastes particularly good!"
"I don't think this is better than rice wine?" Ji Jian Chiyang glared at Pingliu, put down the wine glass, and gave Cao Sennu a cold look. His right hand was already on the short knife at his waist. He instinctively looked at the man in front of him. Being full of defensiveness, the other party knows too much about you, but you know nothing about the other party, this is not a good sign.
"You can also change it to rice wine!"
"No need for wine!" Ji Jian Chiying pushed the wine glass away: "Tell me! How can I get the new silver refining method of the Tang Dynasty? A thousand silver cakes?"
Cao Sennu smiled and shook his head.
"two thousand?"
Cao Sennu shook his head again.
"Three thousand?"
"Half!" Cao Sengnu held out five fingers: "We want half of the increase in production after refining silver with your new method!"
"No!" Ji Jian Chiyun shook his head decisively: "This is impossible!"
"Why? You don't have to pay anything, you can get the remaining half! Believe me, this is a lot of money, far more than you imagine, enough to make your family the head of a county!" Cao Monengnu The smile is sweet, just like playing with the hanging fruits on the autumn branches.
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"That guy is just a rock, from the latrine, smelly and hard! I talked to him for a whole hour, but he still only said "no"! What a complete Japanese slave! "Cao Sengnu drank all the water in the cup. At this time, he was furious, which was in sharp contrast to usual.
"I don't know if he is a stone, but obviously you lost!" Wang Wenzuo put down the book in his hand and said with a smile: "Does he not believe in the efficacy of the "ash blowing method" you recommended to him? "
"That's not true!" Cao Sennu shook his head: "I told him from the beginning that we could practice in front of him, and he was willing to pay for it, but he didn't agree when I mentioned that I wanted to increase production by half. !」
"So this Ji Jian Chiyun is not stubborn, but determined!" Wang Wenzuo laughed. He put the book in his hand back on the desk and asked, "Where is he now?"
"Already gone back!" Cao Sennu replied: "Actually, we have another way. As long as we expose the fact that he secretly swallowed up the Japanese king's silver, this guy will not get any good results!"
"That won't work!" Wang Wenzuo shook his head: "First of all, this kind of thing should be an open secret. Everyone who takes care of the property for the Japanese royal family should benefit themselves. Such benefits should be regarded as theirs in the Japanese country. In terms of reward, even if he is poked out, he will not be punished; secondly, even if he is punished, we will not get any benefits from it. It is not that you cannot do things that harm others, but you should not do things that harm others and are not beneficial to yourself. good!"
"yes!"
Wang Wenzuo looked at Cao Sengnu, who was a little frustrated: "Sengnu, it is certainly a good thing to be able to intervene in the management of Japanese Yinshan by providing gray blowing methods, but it is not necessarily a bad thing if it does not work. Our purpose is to obtain a stable source of silver, directly from Of course it’s good to obtain the silver mountain, but it’s also good to exchange it from the Japanese through trade. A strong dragon does not overwhelm a local snake. In any case, the Japanese are the hosts here and we are the guests. As long as we can cooperate, the specific method of cooperation is not important!”
"Ming Gong taught you a lesson!"
"You've had a hard day, go back and rest first!"
"yes!"
Wang Wenzuo returned to the case and began to open the book again. This thin booklet recorded the new silver refining method that Chi Jian wanted to exchange for three thousand silver cakes - the famous "ash blowing method". This refining method can not only obtain silver from silver ore, but also separate the gold and silver mixture.
Since silver in nature usually coexists with other non-ferrous metals, such as copper, in order to separate and purify it, ancient craftsmen took advantage of the mutual fusion properties of silver and lead to first crush the silver ore and then sinter it to form honeycomb clusters. shape object. Then, after the lead metal is melted, the ore clumps are put in, and the silver and lead dissolve into each other. The temperature in the furnace is raised through blast ventilation until the lead in the ore clumps (reef clumps) melts, oxidizes, and sinks to form lead oxide, and then cools down. It is condensed into crude silver and a silver-lead alloy that can be further purified. Then the silver-lead alloy (crude silver) is put into the furnace, and ventilation is continued to completely vaporize the melted lead (the boiling point ratio of lead is Silver is low), and the remainder is purified silver.
This refining method appeared very early in ancient China and was used in silver mines before the Tang Dynasty. However, the output and grade of the gold and silver mines discovered in ancient China were far from comparable to those in Japan. This technology was introduced in the late Tang Dynasty. After Japan, Japan quickly gained a reputation as the land of gold. Wang Wenzuo's attempt to introduce this technology in Japan early was certainly not to make Japan have more gold and silver. His main purpose was to promote the Chinese version of the "price revolution" at that time.
According to junior high school history and politics textbooks, the main reason why China has lagged behind Western countries in modern times is that productivity has lagged behind. If you fall behind, you will be beaten, and if you are beaten, you will fall behind even more, and then a vicious circle will follow. This is of course true from a general point of view. . As a result, many people on the Internet blamed it on the feudal rulers at the time, believing that they deliberately suppressed the development of advanced productive forces and were blindly arrogant. They even believed that replacing them with time-travelers could change history. No matter what, in fact, this view It's somewhat biased.
The reason is very simple. If you tell a Qing Dynasty person before 1840 that the productivity level of Westerners is higher than that of the Qing Dynasty, that Qing Dynasty person will definitely laugh out loud and think you are crazy. This is not because the Qing Dynasty person is ignorant, but because the Qing Dynasty may It is a unique miracle in human history that a handicraft country can use textiles, ceramics and other industrial products to dump textiles, ceramics and other industrial products into a country that has begun to industrialize, forcing the other country to sell drugs to stop the outflow of silver. You can’t say that the level of supranational productivity is lower than the level of subnational productivity, right?
Obviously, the water-powered and steam looms in Manchester and the East End of London in the 18th and 19th centuries were definitely more advanced than the handmade machinery of Orihu in Songjiang, China at the same time. However, from the perspective of the international market, European textiles were not for a long time. For rivals of Chinese and Indian handmade fabrics, after excluding other factors, the labor cost in the Western European market is much higher than that in China. When industrialization first started, the improvement of technology was not enough to make up for the huge gap in labor cost. The result is European textiles, which are obviously more technologically advanced, cannot compete with mature Chinese handicraft textiles.
This is also the reason why ancient China was reluctant to introduce advanced technology for a long time - labor costs are too low, there is an almost unlimited supply of skilled labor, and the domestic and international markets are so large. The use of advanced technology will only make a large number of people unemployed and threaten social stability. Any rational ruler will be cautious about the promotion of new technologies. This has nothing to do with the moral level of the ruler.
So why does this happen? In fact, before the Middle Ages, there was no big difference in labor costs between China and the West. However, the discovery of the New World in the 15th century brought a massive import of gold and silver to Western Europe. Coupled with the spread of the Black Death at almost the same time, the population There was a drastic reduction and a massive inflow of gold and silver currency. The result was a rapid increase in commodity prices and labor wages. Various machines that could replace human labor became profitable. Trade flourished. Land rent denominated in gold and silver devalued, thus bringing about capitalism in Western Europe. of rapid development.
At the same time, China's population grew, production efficiency improved, and there were more and more materials on the market. This was originally a good thing, but in ancient times China was a country that was short of gold, silver, and copper. The result was a lack of currency in the market. It turned into deflation, and the rich hid good coins in their cellars, which further aggravated the money shortage in the market. Due to the lack of sufficient currency, commercial trade became increasingly depressed, and the wages of employees became lower and lower, and even appeared A large amount only requires two meals a day, without any
With such wages for workers, is there any need for technological progress in this kind of society? The answer is obvious.
All this did not change until the middle of the Ming Dynasty. The arrival of Western colonists incorporated China into the global trading system. Massive amounts of gold and silver mined from large mines in America and Japan flowed into China, bringing prosperity to the southeastern coast. This also It is the famous "capitalism sprout", but in fact these so-called capitalism sprouts have nothing to do with the vast majority of people in China at that time. They are similar to Dongguan, Shenzhen, Shunde, Jinjiang and other places on the southeast coast today. However, a few hundred years ago, the exports were raw silk, tea, ceramics, and cloth, and the bills were paid in double-column silver dollars, eagle oceans, Japanese gold, and Japanese silver. Today, the exports are electrical appliances, LCD computers, mobile phones, and clothes and shoes, and the bills are paid in U.S. dollars, Japanese yen, euro. They all use the domestic surplus cheap labor force to exchange for hard currency from the international market. Once the international market demand decreases and the inflow of hard currency decreases, the domestic prosperity will immediately collapse.
This brings up a new question: why did the inflow of gold and silver from the New World in the 15th century trigger a price revolution in Europe, promote the development of capitalism, and finally allow Europe to rule the world for nearly 500 years; while gold and silver began to flow into China in the 16th century The massive gold and silver did not cause a price revolution in China, but what about capitalism in China?
The reason is very simple: in terms of size, many people like to compare ancient Western Europe with China. In fact, this comparison is inappropriate. In terms of population size and land area, Western Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries was at best comparable to China. Compare a southern Zhili province. For example, the British population in 1430 was 2.1 million, while the population of Suzhou in 1393 (the 26th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty), which had just experienced the war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, was 2.35 million. Obviously, the population of Suzhou in 1430 would definitely be larger than this number. Much more. With such a huge size gap, in order to have the same effect, the amount of gold and silver that needs to flow in is naturally much larger. Reality also proves this reasoning. China's silver purchasing power was indeed declining during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Moreover, China at that time had the reputation of "silver black hole".
But fortunately for Wang Wenzuo, the population of the era he traveled through was much smaller than that of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and there were still large tracts of land available for development in Jiangnan, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong. In other words, both the population and the economic aggregate at that time would be far lower than those in the later Ming and Qing Dynasties. As long as he controlled Japan's gold and silver mines, he could set off a price revolution in China at that time. This is what he really wanted to do. made. In other words, he only cares about the flow of silver into China. He doesn't care whether it is stolen or exchanged. It is even better to exchange for it, because in exchange it can develop a group of merchants, ship owners and craftsmen, and it will only be cheaper to rob it. A bunch of Qiu Ba.
"If that doesn't work, you can just give this trick to the Japanese!" Wang Wenzuo said with a smile: "Anyway, the silver they refine can only be bought for Tang products. The more silver they mine, the more silver will flow into the Tang Dynasty." More, as for the process, it doesn’t matter!”
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Asukakyo, Kawahara Palace.
"This is the condition offered by the envoy of the Tang Dynasty!" said Nakatomi Kamazu. His memory is very good. Although it takes three days to travel from Nambazu to Asukakyo, he still repeated Wang Wenzuo's words almost word for word.
"Must all heirs to the throne be present when submitting credentials?" Prince Zhong, the eldest brother, asked.
"Yes!" Zhongchen Kamazoku said: "He also gave the example of Empress Liu and Zhuge Liang. Although Zhuge Liang is regent, only Empress Liu can offer sacrifices to heaven and earth and receive envoys!"
"Zhuge Liang and Empress Liu?" The prince, the eldest brother, laughed bitterly: "Even if I want to be Zhuge Liang, where can I get Empress Liu? No matter if Princess Qiyu or Dahairen takes the throne, I'm afraid they won't let me go. !」
"Your Highness, the most important thing right now is to quickly settle the marriage between Daidai and Kouno Sanliang!" Nakatomi Kamazu whispered: "As long as this is settled, Princess Saitama won't be able to cause any trouble!"
"You are right!" The eldest brother, the prince, nodded: "Before the envoys from the Tang Dynasty submit their credentials, the marriage must be finalized first!"
"Besides that, there's the matter of Hirafu Ampere!"
"Hirafu Ampere? Isn't he still in Tsukushi?"
"Yes!" Nakatomi Kamatzu said: "The envoys of the Tang Dynasty gave me a group of people, all of whom were captured after the Battle of Baijiangkou. According to the Tang Dynasty, they want to use these people in exchange for Fuyu Fengzhang and those who escaped with him to The Baekje people of my country!”
