Chastity Layman 2

Chapter 1239 Baoquan
Over the years, the imperial court has continuously recycled the old five baht coins of the previous dynasties to melt down and recast new coins. From the fourth year of Wude, Kaiyuan Tongbao was cast, and now it has been 20 years since Zhenguan 26 years ago, but Kaiyuan Tongbao coins are limited to copper coins. And casting efficiency, the total circulation is still not much.

It is also for this reason that the imperial court is willing to authorize Luzon's previously privately minted money with good quality and large quantities.

"The imperial court newly drafted the Kaiyuan Tongbao copper coin for the 20th year of Zhenguan. The fineness is set at a ratio of sixty-five for copper, two-five for lead, and ten for tin."

"Jin Kaiyuan is gold seventy-five, silver twenty, and copper five."

"Silver Kaiyuan is silver eighty-five and copper fifteen."

The fineness of the new version of coins proposed by the imperial court has almost dropped. The original copper content of copper coins was 60.00% 65, which was reduced to 75. This is not the most.

The silver has also changed from the original nine silver and one copper to eight five silver and fifteen copper.

"Wei Gong also knows that copper has always been expensive. Although the imperial court has set the price of copper at 160 yuan per catty in the form of laws in recent years, the price in private can be much higher than this. But the actual casting cost is still too high.”

"Although the imperial court strictly forbids the destruction of coins and castings, melting ten copper coins and casting them into bronze wares can be worth seventy coppers. Even if the manual cost is removed, it is at least five times as profitable."

Money is an indispensable thing. If it is missing, there will be a shortage of money, and the people will have to barter. This will inevitably affect transactions and also hit the economy. For the court, the harm of money shortage is quite clear, but money shortage It is not easy to solve.

For example, many dynasties in the past issued that kind of treasure spring when money was scarce, what to count as ten or hundreds, or to cast the money into small and thin ones. Yang Guang once issued white money, which contained too much tin and lead, and the money turned white. Small and thin.

If the value of coins is too low, the result will naturally be that those who hold the right to mint coins will plunder private wealth in a disguised form, which will inevitably lead to a large number of private minting behaviors, and the entire economic market will also be turbulent.

However, if the value of the coin itself is too high, not only is it easy to lose money in casting, but it will also lead to the behavior of destroying money and hoarding money.

How to choose an intermediate value is very important.

At the salt and iron meeting of the imperial court, Xu Jingzong, who had been a transshipment envoy, mentioned that the coins should be readjusted based on the market value of copper materials to keep the coins roughly equal to their own value. The wealth of the people can also appropriately increase the profits of the imperial court's coinage.

The imperial court doesn’t treat ten coins as hundreds of coins, but they can earn fifty coins by destroying ten coins. It is obvious that the current money of the imperial court is too high in value, and the currency value is too low. This makes money more important than things, and also affects the market economy Even affect the national fiscal revenue.

Therefore, the content of copper coins was reduced to sixty-five percent, which was not much, but three percent.

A catty of copper material is one hundred and sixty, one tael is exactly ten qian, and the copper content drops by three percent, and one thousand qian will reduce the amount of copper by three taels, which means a reduction of thirty renminbi. Although the amount of lead and tin increases correspondingly, the amount of lead and tin Much cheaper than copper.

Calculated, after adjusting to copper [-], the actual profit increased by about [-]%.

The royal court’s profit on minting copper coins is about 20.00%, but the Qin family’s is actually more than 5.00%. Therefore, after adjustment, the Qin family’s coinage profit may reach [-]%. Now that the imperial court wants to take [-]%, he can still guarantee Around fifteen.

Even if it is calculated according to the imperial court's ten or so, then an increase of three per cent can make the profit reach nearly fifteen, and taking five per cent away is only one out of three.

The profit of minting gold and silver coins is low, so it has been adjusted this time, especially the gold coins, which have been reduced to seventy-five.

It turns out that the gold coins of the imperial court were not made of pure gold, but were mixed with copper, which not only made the gold coins stronger and more wear-resistant, but also marked the price according to the denomination, which was the so-called patterned gold, thus increasing the profit of coinage.After all, if pure gold is used and the market price is used, then how can there be any profit from minting coins, and the loss is still your own.

But the value of the gold coin itself was only a little lower than the face value before, but now the imperial court plans to increase the price difference, and this part of the price difference is owned by the imperial court minted coins.

"The imperial court will further prohibit the direct circulation of gold and silver and strengthen the circulation of gold and silver coins."

Denomination gold and silver coins have been in circulation for 20 years, and have gradually been accepted by everyone. After all, although the actual value is lower than that of pure gold and silver, when the direct circulation of gold and silver is prohibited, as a currency circulation, at most It is a bad coin, but it is a better substitute for pure gold and silver.

And having the credit endorsement of the imperial court, allowing these gold and silver coins to pay taxes and rents, and even allowing them to be exchanged for copper coins, etc., naturally increased their credit. After so many years of use, everyone gradually got used to it.

Compared with weighing pure gold and silver, these gold and silver coins with gold and silver patterns are convenient to trade, not to mention various appraisals, weighing and cutting, and it is much more convenient to carry.

"The imperial court also plans to issue some small silver coins, which are divided into five jiao, two jiao, and one jiao. It is said that Wei Gong tried to issue them when he was in Guangzhou, and the effect is not bad. They are all set to be silver seven copper three!"

The value of a penny of copper coins is too small, so it is okay to use it for small change transactions, but it is not convenient for slightly larger transactions. One thousand coins weighs six catties and four taels. Catty money.

Therefore, the imperial court believed that in order to alleviate the shortage of money, not only additional gold and silver coins had to be minted, but also some small silver coins had to be produced.

The reason is that the production of gold and silver in the Tang Dynasty was relatively low, and if they were all collected and minted, the circulation would not increase much in a year. If more small silver coins with low silver content were minted, it would not only increase the amount of money, but also solve the inconvenience of transactions. question.

After all, a cow is like five thousand coins, copper coins cost more than 30 catties, and five silver coins are enough, but one silver coin is worth at least one thousand. Although the actual value fluctuates, it is generally slightly higher than the official price, often reaching one thousand Zero twenty or fifty.

In daily life, such as eating, drinking tea, buying vegetables, etc., it is too troublesome to carry it with copper coins, and it is inconvenient to bring silver coins to make change. If you have small silver coins, it will be more convenient.

For example, a five-cent silver coin is equal to half a silver coin, worth more than 500 pennies, a quarter is worth more than 200 pennies, and a penny is worth more than 100 pennies.

It must be more convenient to use this way, and by the way, the court can earn a little more because these small silver coins contain less silver.

Not only silver coins, but the imperial court is actually planning to make some precious coins with smaller denominations.

The so-called treasure money is Baoquan, that is, when ten is worth twenty, but in order to avoid being unaccepted by the people, some silver is properly mixed in these copper coins, and then the treasure springs with different contents can be used as five or ten. , When twenty.

Compared with the purely money-grabbing Dangshi Dangbaibaoquan money, this kind of silver-copper coin mixed with appropriate amount of silver will not differ too much from its face value. It is profitable for the court to cast it, and it is convenient for the common people to use in daily life.

The new version of Kaiyuan Tongbao in the 20th year of Zhenguan has five kinds of coins: gold Kaiyuan, silver Kaiyuan, copper Kaiyuan, small silver Kaiyuan and treasure coins, with a total of nine currency values.

Through the adjustment of weight and fineness, the denomination is uniformly calibrated for use.

One or two feet of gold in the market is worth 7000, and the actual gold content of a gold Kaiyuan is also worth more than 1000, plus the silver-containing copper itself is also worth more than [-]. Exchanged for [-] copper coins, the actual minting profit has increased to [-]%.

The same is true for silver coins. After adjustment, the minting profit can be [-]%.

The small silver coins and Dangshi copper coins have lower silver content, and their profit can reach [-]. Although they have higher copper content and are mixed with silver, after all, their face value is Dang [-] Dang Ten Dang Twenty.

Yin Anguo smiled and said to Qin Lang, "According to the latest standard of the imperial court's nine kinds of coins, gold and silver coins all have one point of casting profit, copper coins have at least one and a half points, and precious coins have two points of profit. Five collections of coins from Lu Song, Duke Wei's profit from coin minting is no less than before."

It turned out that the Qin family minted gold coins at a profit of five per cent, silver coins at a profit of eight per cent, and copper coins at one and five cents.

The profit of silver coins is less, but it can be recovered from small silver coins, and the profit of copper coins is less, but it can also be recovered from precious coins.

"The benefits of minting coins are very high. Duke Wei is the only vassal who has minted coins. Others can't ask for it."

Qin Lang just smiled, because the imperial court now has strict control over gold, silver and copper materials, even if the emperor really minted money furnaces for other families and allowed them to mint coins, they would not be able to mint much money at all.

The court’s traditional method of casting money requires dozens of craftsmen to make more than 3000 coins a year, and only [-] coins a year based on one cent of the profit left after it is handed over to the court.Even if you open three furnaces, it's only [-] guan a year. Who cares about this amount of money?

What's more, even if you cast 4 guan coins, you need more than [-] jin of copper material. In Wudechu, the annual copper mining volume in the whole country was only about [-] jin. Therefore, the most critical part of coinage, you have to get Sufficient copper-lead-tin material, especially copper material.

But copper is monopolized by the imperial court, how can ordinary people get a lot of it?
Just like Qin Lang, foreign vassals overseas, can dig raw materials by themselves and buy them from foreign countries.

Another thing is that minting coins is also a high-tech job, which requires specialized minting craftsmen, but such craftsmen are generally monopolized by the imperial court. The Qin family had a private minting license before and had this technical reserve.

"It's too troublesome to hand over [-]% of the money minted by Lu Song Qianjian to the imperial court. Anyway, if you come to supervise the minting now, it's better for us to directly hand over [-]% of the gold and silver coins to the imperial court in the future."

With the guarantee of minted profits, Qin Lang no longer objected to paying this tax, but he was unwilling to hand over all the minted money to the court, because Luzon also needed coins to circulate, and if he shipped the minted coins again Going to Haidong and Southeast Asian countries, you can make another three to five points of profit if you change hands.

Yin Anguo obviously came prepared, pondered for a while, and then said that he could go to the court to ask for permission.

Things were settled, and the atmosphere was obviously much better.

Qin Lang was also in a good mood holding the nine new mother coins. According to the fineness of this new coin, the profit of the Qin family's minting coins is still very good. As long as the raw materials can keep up, the Qin family can definitely add more coin furnaces.

With the current supply of materials, it is no problem to cast millions of copper coins a year. After deducting the 5.00% handed over to the court, there is at least one cent of the profit, which is a profit of [-] coins.

This business is indeed done.

We have to prepare to expand the mint. To mint millions of coins, the mint needs two to three thousand workers.

(End of this chapter)