A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 1000 Luzon Gold Coin Treasure Ship
"Erlang, these are all new ships, the lucky ship built by Wujia Ludao Shipyard, the treasure ship built by Xiangdao Shipyard, the Guangzhou Ship built by Guangzhou Nanhai Shipyard, the bird ship built by Jiangdong Yuezhou Shipyard... "

Hong Kong Island Port,
Wu Huaiyu set out from Guangzhou and took his son down the river, and this was his first stop.

Tang Fengxiao and others have mobilized a number of ships from various places along the coast, many of which are new ships and various sea-going ships. Many of the ships are also loaded with commercial supplies for Luzon.

The wharf of Hong Kong Island Port is also very lively. Many craftsmen and people who come with the ship rest here temporarily before heading to Luzon.

This time Wu Huaiyu returned to Lingnan and readjusted Luzon's business strategy. After the emperor appointed Sanlang as the governor of Luzon and the Marquis of Luzon, Wu Huaiyu became more courageous. He accelerated the pace of developing Luzon and also Expanded the scale of operations.

Now that the emperor is no longer interested in Luzon, he should seize the window and do it quickly.

Especially the population,
If the court really tightens restrictions and wants to immigrate on a large scale, it will be very difficult.

Although it is done semi-secretly now, at least no one will care about it.

Wu Huaiyu looked at the ships parked at the port, and was especially interested in the new ships. Different shipyards launched different ship models.

This is not only to absorb the original local traditional shipbuilding technology, but also to continue to compete for the local market.

Wu Huaiyu listened to their detailed introduction to the ship and did some calculations by himself. It probably had a load capacity of about 200 tons and a displacement of 600 tons. As a wooden sailboat, it was much smaller than the generally larger Fuzhou ship. , but the close-range feeling is still great.

It is probably suitable for use as a smuggling ship or even a pirate ship. It is light, fast, and can run and be loaded.

The sail in particular stands out.

Even when they later fought with America and couldn't beat her, they created a kamikaze death squad. As a result, America gave them a fat little boy.

"Then this time Erlang used a lucky boat. The lucky boat is as tall as a building, with a wide base and a wide top. It can carry a lot of cargo and sail steadily. And with a little modification, it can become an excellent warship. It has one layer of ballast and two layers of ballast. Soldiers live in layers. The third layer can be used for daily drills, and the fourth layer can be equipped with various weapons.

The tow boat is suitable for use as a simple and fast cargo ship along the coast, and it is also good as a fishing boat.

Wu Huaiyu still just shook his head, "It's not bad to use lucky ships to transport cargo. In the future, we can run from Ludao to Luzon via Liuqiu, or from Xiangdao to Luzon. These lucky ships are quite suitable. They can carry a lot of cargo and are stable." "It doesn't matter if it's slower."

But in history, Mongolia conquered Japan and built a fleet of hundreds of grain and sand ships, fully loaded with Mongolian troops to cross the sea to conquer Japan. As a result, the fleet sank in a storm.

After the batch of sand ships have passed this time to transport goods, they will stay in Luzon for use in the future. They will not run on both sides of Luzon and Datang for offshore or inland water transportation. The ships will not be able to use Category 7 winds.

In addition to the Changshengxing, which weighs 3,600 tons, there are several ships in the port that weigh 2,000 tons, which are about 120 tons.

Each shipyard has improved new ships, such as Fu Chuan, Bao Chuan, Guang Chuan, Sha Chuan, and Bird Chuan. These are all improved models and have many new technologies compared to the original old ship types.

According to him, this towboat is a new and improved ship type of Guangzhou Shipyard. The biggest feature of this ship is that it has fewer masts and more sails. One mast has more sails, and the width of the sail is greater than the width of the ship. It is the largest sail area of ​​all ships in the Tang Dynasty today. the biggest ship,
"Erlang looked at the Changshengxing. It is nine and a half feet long, two feet and seventy wide, with a draft of one foot. The main mast is nearly eight feet high. It has eight cabins and sixteen bunks. The bottom and floor plates are made of iron. Wood and camphor wood, this ship is a 3,600-year-old ship and can only be regarded as a medium-sized sea ship. "

Wu Huaiyu thinks this three-masted sailboat is good. It can run faster, and can run with the wind and against the wind, as long as there is wind, and it can turn around quickly. In this aspect, it is far superior to the Fu Ship.

Both blessing ships and treasure ships are suitable for rough work. Wu Huaiyu arranged for blessing ships to transport goods and treasure ships to transport people.

The Japanese were about to be destroyed, but were saved by a storm, so they called it Kamikaze.

But this time he was patrolling along the southern coast and was not willing to waste time leisurely.

"Although sand boats are stable and fast, to be honest, their shortcomings are quite big, and their wave-breaking performance is a bit poor." Even in the Tang Dynasty, merchants drove sand boats to Africa, and even this type of boat has been in use until modern times.

Of course, the Wu family's shipyards are not content to stand still. They have hired many craftsmen and invested a lot of money in technological innovation.

I selected the boat for the southern tour at the pier.
Wu Huaiyu was not in a hurry to set sail that day, and took Sanlang and others to visit Xiangdao.

As a battleship, the height at its base is ideal for melee attacks, and the city wind pressing down on it is like a car crushing a mantis. "

"Why not choose the Guangzhou Nanhai Shipyard's Guangchuan? They also have a new ship called a wind-towed boat, which is made of broad-leaved ironwood. The boat is heavy and tough, and is also wear-resistant, corrosion-resistant, not easy to deform, and resistant to insects. However, the cost of the wood is twice as expensive as that of the Fujian ship.
The keel of the tow boat is also made of iron wood. With this strong skeleton, it is not afraid of wind and waves."

This was originally a small fishing village.

After Wu Huaiyu came to Lingnan, he invested a lot of manpower and material resources to operate the business here, built docks and built workshops. It became famous as Xiangdao because spices were first processed here.

Later, shipbuilding and other industries gradually emerged.

By now, this place has become a lively town, especially after the Wu family developed Luzon, it became an important base for the Wu family to connect with Luzon.

After a large amount of materials, slaves, craftsmen, etc. were dispatched from Guangzhou and other places, they were first broken into pieces and quietly transported here. After regrouping here, they were then quietly transported to Luzon in batches. Materials and other materials exchanged from trade in Luzon will not be sent directly to other ports, but all will be sent here.

This has become an important transit station and even a transit trade port, which is equivalent to another outer port in Guangzhou.

"Now the permanent population of Xiangdao town is more than 7,000,"

"There are thirteen villages outside the town on the island. Most of them are the families of workers in the island's workshop areas. They have been given fields for farming, and they can also do fishing, mending nets, etc."

"The main industries of our Xiangdao now are spice processing, tea processing, and shipbuilding..." In the past two years, some businesses have been added to the island, such as gold and silver exchange with Hu merchants.

The Wu family got back a lot of gold from Luzon through trade, mining, etc.

Many Western overseas Hu merchants discovered a business opportunity after coming to Tang Dynasty.
The price ratio of gold and silver in the East and West is very different.

In Western regions such as Roman Persia, the price of gold and silver could reach 1:13, 45, and sometimes even 15,67.

However, in the Eastern Tang Dynasty, due to the small amount of silver mined, silver was quite valuable, and one tael of gold remained at the exchange rate of five or six taels of silver for a long time.

Those smart Hu merchants would bring silver to the Tang Dynasty on ships, exchange the silver for gold, exchange five taels of silver for one tael of gold in the Tang Dynasty, and take them back to their hometown. The two golds would be exchanged for fifteen taels of silver, which would triple their value.

Wu Huaiyu doesn't want to exchange gold for silver with these barbarian profiteers.
He exchanged gold for spices,
Later, he did not directly exchange gold for spices.
He minted gold into coins in Luzon.

After the founding of the Tang Dynasty, when Kaiyuan Tongbao copper coins were issued, gold Kaiyuan and silver Kaiyuan were also issued, but in small quantities, they were only used to reward ministers.

However, when Wu Huaiyu of the Zhenguan Dynasty took charge of the finance, he increased the casting of gold and silver coins, and adjusted the fineness of gold and silver coins, so that the gold and silver coins cast by the court were no longer pure gold and pure silver, but added silver. , copper, allowing the coinage to obtain a certain amount of income, which is the seigniorage tax.

A small amount of silver is added to gold coins, and copper is added to silver coins. This is essentially the same as adding lead and tin to copper coins.

The imperial court had to make a profit from minting coins and could not mint at a loss.

As long as the quality is controlled at a high level, it will not only benefit from minting coins, but will not plunder and harm the people, then it is still a good thing.

In recent years, the imperial court has cracked down hard on private coinage, but this mainly targeted copper coins.

Because the amount of gold and silver coins minted was too small, the situation was much better.

The Wu family has a lot of gold in Luzon, and Luzon is a safe overseas private casting base. In addition, Hong Kong Island is located in the Guangzhou International Trade Port, which has unique conditions.

So Lu Song imitated the gold Kaiyuan,
The quality of the gold Kaiyuan cast is even better than that cast by the imperial officials. For Wu Huaiyu, there is no need to lower the quality and fake it. As long as the materials used for the imperial gold Kaiyuan are the same, Lu Song will actually get a free ride. Seigniorage.

There is no tax on this money.

They were cast in Luzon and shipped to Xiang Island. These gold coins were made in Luzon and used to exchange for spices, slaves, etc. with Hu merchants instead of silver.

These Hu merchants also like the gold Kaiyuan from Xiangdao, which is of very good quality. Whether they use this gold to purchase silk, porcelain, tea, sugar, or take it back, it is very good. At least they can take it back to their hometown to exchange for silver, and it is very popular. .

Wu Huaiyu would also use the gold Kaiyuan cast in Luzon to come to Guangzhou to exchange for copper coins, and then transport them back to Luzon. These copper Kaiyuan Tongbao cast in the Wude and Zhenguan dynasties were all of good quality.

Luzon directly used the Tang Dynasty's money and did not need to spend all the money to cast it. With Luzon's current level, even if he cast Kaiyuan copper privately, he would probably still lose money.

After all, although Luzon has copper resources, the copper mining industry has not yet developed. Privately minted money has to be smuggled from the Tang Dynasty, but the imperial court has strict control over copper materials.

Xiangdao, which is completely controlled and operated by the Wu family, is still very convenient for doing many things. The location is also good, outside the Pearl River Estuary, and there is less supervision by the court. Without such a place, it would be really inconvenient to do many things. It is just to get materials and people from the Central Plains to Luzon.
It is better to get the gold Kaiyuan privately minted in Luzon and trade it to Hu merchants. How can it be so convenient?

When a sea passage is opened from Luzon to the Spice Islands in the future, the Wu family will be able to control the source of their own spices, eliminating the need for countless middlemen.

At that time, the spices will be brought directly to the Hong Kong Island Port at the Pearl River Estuary, and even under the guise of being transferred from the Hu merchant trade, the secret of the Wu family's control of the Spice Islands has been hidden.

Huaiyu found some of the chief stewards on the island and inquired about the status of the gold coins sent from Luzon. The result was that they were being sent regularly and the quantity was steadily increasing. These privately minted coins were secretly shipped from Luzon. Jin Kaiyuan is still very popular among Hu Ren Hai merchants.

Nowadays, they are widely circulated in Guangzhou market.

Wu Huaiyu picked up a gold Kaiyuan,
It has a round square hole and the four characters Kaiyuan Tongbao in official script on the front. The money inscription is dignified and elegant, and the production is quite exquisite.

This piece of money is small, but it is heavy in your hand.

The steward handed Wu Huaiyu another gold Kaiyuan.
The two pieces of money look the same, but if you look closely, you can still see several differences.

First of all, the four characters Kaiyuan Tongbao on the two coins appear to be exactly the same, but there are actually some slight differences. The characters on the mother coin used by Lu Song Jin Kaiyuan were written by Wu Huaiyu, while the characters on the mother coin used by the imperial court were written by Ouyang Xun. of.

It's not that Wu Huaiyu didn't know how to imitate, but he deliberately left a few subtle differences when he wrote, making it difficult to recognize without looking closely.

Of course, the most important difference is that there is a crescent mark on the back of the Luzon coin. This mark was deliberately left by Wu Huaiyu on the mother coin.

All gold Kaiyuan coins minted in Luzon have such a crescent moon.

This is also the Luzon version of the logo deliberately left by Wu Huaiyu.
Nowadays, Luzon money has begun to circulate in the Guangzhou market. This gold Kaiyuan with crescent marks is also considered to be the best coin furnace in Chang'an Qianjian of the Tang Dynasty, because the production of money with crescent marks is more convenient than other coins without crescents. Excellent quality, more stable quality.

No one knows that this gold Kaiyuan with crescent marks is both easy to make and exquisite. The crescent is indeed used as a mark of the place where the money was minted, but it does not represent the best coin furnace. Instead, it comes from Luzon overseas. Private money furnace.

(End of this chapter)