Daming Crazy Emperor

Chapter 892 Currency Wars
London, rumored to have been built in AD 50, is said to have been slowly built up by the invading Celts and Romans at that time.

In the beginning, London was just a small town next to the Thames River with a population of less than [-]. It slowly developed after the Anglo-Saxons occupied it and made it the capital.

However, in the preceding thousand years, the development speed of London was not fast. Until 1500, the population of London was only about [-].

It wasn't until the Age of Discovery that British pirates plundered everywhere with the encouragement of the king, and London developed rapidly on the basis of the robbed money, almost doubling its population every 50 years.

In 1600 A.D., the population of London reached about 20. By the Taichang period of the Ming Dynasty, the population of London had reached more than [-], making it a rare big city in Europe.

There are quite a lot of rich people here, because almost all their money is stolen, and they don't feel bad at all when they spend it.

Originally, this was not a coastal port city.

But Taichang said yes, so here it is, when the British protest was invalid, they could only set aside a large area for the Ming Empire next to the port outside the city to build shops.

Originally, they thought that Daming's store was the same as theirs, and it was only a storefront of a few hundred square meters.

Unexpectedly, the Daming Western Company directly built a commercial street, and the number of stores reached more than [-].

The types of goods in these stores are simply astonishing, such as silk, cloth, porcelain, and tea.

Daming Western Firms also have stores that specialize in selling grain, spices, sucrose, dried fruit, dried fish, dried meat, fresh fish, poultry, livestock, and other foods.

There are also dedicated shops for daily necessities such as hoes, shovels, shovels, knives, forks, combs, paper, ink, nails, soap, washing powder, etc.

Even pearls, gems, binoculars, glass products, cocoa, coffee and other luxury goods that nobles love most are filled with stores one by one, and you can choose them at will.

There is also the Daming Bank, all kinds of exquisite gold ingots, silver ingots, gold coins, silver coins, copper coins, gold tickets, silver tickets, etc., which are also filled with glass counters one after another.

If it wasn't for the fact that the Ming Empire had not sent thousands of well-equipped soldiers here to guard the place, who were originally British bandits, it is estimated that the place would be robbed on the day it opened.

There is no way, they can't do the Ming Empire, and they like all kinds of goods here, so they can only buy it with money.

At the beginning, Daming Western Firms were very annoyed when they did business. They didn’t even accept British gold, silver and copper coins!

If you want to buy their things, you have to take the gold, silver and copper coins to the Daming Bank for appraisal by a special person, and then exchange them into Daming currency.

Ming's currency is quite exquisite, even more exquisite than the handicrafts they made.

The problem is that the British have British currency in their hands!

At the beginning, the business of Daming Western House was not very good, because it was too troublesome to buy their products.

However, when Daming's currency was slowly exchanged and began to circulate among rich people, and everyone gradually got used to using it, the business of Daming Western Firms gradually boomed.

There is no way, other people's things are indeed well-made, and the price is much cheaper than their own. Many high-quality and cheap things they can't make by themselves, so they can only buy from others.

In less than a month, the business of the London branch of the Ming Dynasty Western Company surpassed the business of the Spanish Continental Trading Company in Madrid.

Of course, this does not mean that the British are rich at the moment. The main Daming Western companies sell too many types of goods, which involve almost every aspect of everyone’s life, while the Spanish Continental Trading Company only deals in luxury goods at the moment. Woolen cloth.

What's more, after the business of Daming Western Firms boomed, there also appeared a large number of Spanish traders who specially wholesaled various stores and sold them to various parts of the UK. Business is booming and difficult!

The British royal family has nothing to do with these Spanish traders, because Spain is a victorious country on the surface, and they have formed an alliance secretly. How could they prevent these Spaniards from doing business everywhere.

When Charles I heard the report from his subordinates, he could only turn a blind eye and close his eyes, as if he didn't know.

As a result, the business of the Daming Western Firm became even more prosperous, and the business of the Daming Bank was also booming.

Almost every day they received several thousand catties of gold and silver, and the copper coins amounted to tens of thousands of catties a day.

Naturally, these gold, silver, and copper coins would not be put on the market for circulation, and all those collected by them were sent to the Lisbon Concession by the Clippers, where they were punched into Ming standard gold, silver, and copper coins.

What Taichang did was to slowly collect all the gold, silver and copper in Europe, so that people could only use Ming's currency!
In this way, Ming's currency will definitely become the common currency in continental Europe, and the common currency system of the whole world can only be determined by the Ming Empire!
Well, there is no concept of currency war at the moment. Although the European nobles know that it is not good to go on like this, the luxury goods of Ming Dynasty are so good that they can't control their money bags at all.

As for the civilians, they only had a few copper coins in their pockets, and there is not much difference between switching to Daming copper coins and using their own country's copper coins. As long as the copper coins can buy high-quality and cheap things, they will not think about it at all. Currency issues.

What's more, the Daming Western Firm treated them quite well. From the construction of commercial streets to the handling of various goods, they hired local civilians, and the wages were quite high, half a pound of silver for a month's work .

Half a pound of silver is enough to buy more than 1000 pounds of grain at the Daming Western Company, and they will have no problem feeding a family.

What made them even more excited was that the Daming Western Company also offered them a big benefit.

That is to give them newspapers for free and let them sell them themselves.

As for the price of this newspaper, it is quite cheap.

In London, for example, newspapers sell for a quarter of a penny.

How much is a quarterpence?

According to the British currency system, one pound is equal to twenty shillings, one shilling is equal to twenty pence, and one pound is now one pound of silver.

In this way, one penny is equivalent to about 25 Wen.

There are three types of British copper coins, one penny, half penny, and quarter penny.

No way, the smallest unit of currency in the United Kingdom is a quarter of a penny, so the Daming Western Company can only set the price of "Le Monde" as a quarter of a penny.

A quarter of a penny is six cents. Will the British buy it?
There should be no need to worry about this, because the prices in Europe are surprisingly high at the moment.

For example, for grain, the purchase price of Daming Western Firms in North America is one tael and five stones, while the price of grain here is basically one tael and one stone.

No way, these colonial robbers plundered too much gold and silver.

They frantically plundered gold, silver and copper equivalent to dozens or even hundreds of times their original gold, silver and copper reserves, and the food and other things they produced did not increase significantly, so the money in Europe is not worth much at this moment .

The reason why Daming Western Firms priced grain at one tael of silver and two stones was just to seize the market and make the few countries that produce grain go bankrupt and reduce production.

Other things are different, just like ordinary china dishes.

This thing is not worth much in Daming, even if it is the best made, it is only for foreign trade business, and the purchase price is only 20 taels per load.

And at this moment, the Ming court has also issued detailed regulations, that is, two hundred per load.

In other words, the porcelain plates they bought were ten taels of silver.

The price set by the Daming Western Company in Europe is one tael of silver each!
This is ten times the price of the local Ming Dynasty. The problem is that the nobles and good businessmen here are rushing to buy it.

They think it's cheap!
In the past, such an exquisite dish cost two taels of silver each, so you had to be lucky to buy it.

In other words, the purchasing power of gold, silver and copper coins in Europe is less than one tenth of that of Ming Dynasty.

This is actually a kind of inflation in a different direction.

The reason why prices in continental Europe are so high is not because they issued too much currency, but because they plundered too much gold, silver and copper.

The gold, silver and copper they plundered was at least a hundred times more than their original ones, but their productivity had not improved significantly, and there were still so many grains and goods. Naturally, the prices were surprisingly high, twenty or thirty times higher than that of Ming Dynasty That's all normal.

As for luxury goods, they are more than a hundred times higher.

Because most of the gold and silver they plundered was concentrated in the hands of the nobles, and the nobles would not spend money as money.

If calculated by the average purchasing power, the purchasing power of a penny in Britain at this moment is actually not as good as a penny in Ming Dynasty.

In other words, the actual price of a piece of "Le Monde" is only equivalent to about a quarter of a penny, and even ordinary people here can afford it.

These newspaper Daming Western companies do not charge a penny from ordinary people, but they have strictly screened the people who sell newspapers.

They have let it out both openly and secretly, that those who sell the "Le Monde" must have worked for them and have a good relationship with them.

This time, the common people in London naturally fawned on them desperately and treated them extremely well.

Because people have said that the newspapers are given to them for free to sell, and at least one hundred copies are given away every day. As long as the sales are fast, each person can receive up to three hundred copies a day!

How much is a hundred copies, a quarter of a penny, a hundred copies is 25 pence, which is equivalent to more than one shilling, that is to say, even if they can only sell a hundred copies a day, it will cost less than a month. Nearly two quid to make!
Two pounds is enough to buy more than 6000 pounds of grain at the Daming Western Company!

If they could sell [-] copies a day, that would be an income of [-] pounds a month, and the family would have enough money for big fish and meat every day, because the fish, poultry, cattle and sheep of the Daming Western Company are also very cheap. !

As a result, there were tens of thousands of London commoners who came to apply for the job of selling newspapers, and all of them respected the shopkeeper of the Daming Western Company as their parents.

The shopkeeper of the Daming Western Company could only select the strongest or most beautiful one in the family, barely compressing the number of people to [-], and stipulated that each family can receive [-] newspapers a day.

There is no way, because the English version of "Le Monde" has a total of 200 million copies, 1 people, and [-] copies per person will be finished.

Fortunately, because London is the closest big city to the European continent and the most densely populated place, the English version of "Le Monde" is published here, and the other port cities have no copies. Otherwise, they More than half of the people will be cut off.

The newspaper sellers have settled down, what will happen to the sales volume of "Le Monde"? Can the 200 million copies of the English version be sold out?

(End of this chapter)