Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1141 1136 [Coin Minting Line]

Jiujiang, also known as Jiangzhou, Xunyang and Chaisang.

After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the Jiangdong Road of the Northern Song Dynasty was abolished, Jiangzhou was incorporated into Jiangxi Province and renamed Jiujiang Prefecture.

It was not a random change. The place name originated from Jiujiang County in the Sui Dynasty.

The neighboring Nankang Army was changed to Nankang Prefecture, with its capital in Xingzi County (Lushan City). It was not under the jurisdiction of Jiujiang Prefecture, but a prefecture directly under the province.

Hongzhou was upgraded to Nanchang Prefecture, and the capital of Jiangxi Province was set in Nanchang.

Jianchang Army and Nan'an Army were both transferred to provincial prefectures, but they still had a large number of troops stationed there. The former could be dispatched to Fujian to quell the rebellion, while the latter could be dispatched to Hunan and Guangdong to quell the rebellion. If the two attacked at the same time, they could also attack the Ganzhou rebels from both sides.

Well, Qianzhou has been upgraded to Ganzhou Prefecture.

After continuous splitting and mergers, the current jurisdiction of Jiangxi Province is basically the same as in later generations.

Zhu Guoxiang's fleet stopped at Jiujiang City.

When the Ming Dynasty just recovered the south and established Jiangxi Province, the population of Jiujiang Prefecture ranked third from the bottom in the province, only larger than the two poor places of Jianchang and Nan'an.

The fact that Zhong Xiang sent troops to attack Jiangzhou for several years was just one of the reasons.

Because as early as the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, Jiangzhou's population was the last!

All the living people were killed by the Song army, so that the court tried to appease the local people and return the land and products of Jiangzhou to their original owners, but could not find anyone. Cao Han, the Song general who ordered the massacre, dispatched a hundred huge ships to transport the property of Jiangzhou back to his home.

After that, it took more than a hundred years of recovery, with the continuous influx of outsiders, before the household registration in Jiangzhou was barely restored to that of the Southern Tang Dynasty.

Jiujiang prefect Dong Yanghao said to the emperor: "The government has distributed the tax on land and sorted out the household registration, and has rested the people for 20 years. Jiujiang's population has increased from the third to the last to the sixth to the seventh in the province."

Zhu Guoxiang nodded in approval: "You have done a great job. Keep up the good work."

Dong Yanghao continued to take credit, saying, "Although the population of Jiujiang Prefecture is not large at the moment, Jiujiang City is one of the best in the province. Both inside and outside the city are densely populated. I am planning to build more city walls and expand the docks."

Zhu Guoxiang understood immediately that the urbanization rate of Jiujiang Prefecture was a bit high.

That is, the rural population is not large, but the population of the prefecture city is so large that it has to be rebuilt. This is naturally due to its position as a water transportation hub. Jiujiang Prefecture's commerce far exceeds industry and agriculture.

There is also a Guangning Mint here, which was one of the four major mints in the Northern Song Dynasty and is now one of the eight major mints in the Ming Dynasty.

The next day, Zhu Guoxiang went to inspect the mint.

Supervisor Xie Qian went to greet the retired emperor yesterday, and today he brought people to wait outside the mint.

After a round of greetings, Zhu Guoxiang was surrounded by people and walked in, asking about the situation of the mint as he walked.

Xie Qian introduced: "Guangning Prison mainly casts copper coins and copper coins with holes. At the beginning, copper coins with holes were still cast using the traditional mold casting method. Fourteen years ago, the Ministry of Industry began to improve the technology, and now all of them are pressed using steam engines."

"Jiujiang Prefecture has five counties under its jurisdiction, three of which produce copper, and it is very convenient to transport it to the prefecture by water. Coal comes from the mountainous area in the west of Ruichang, and is carried out of the mountains by people and animals, and then loaded onto ships and transported here by water."

The mint was built on the northern foot of Mount Lushan, and black smoke could be faintly seen rising from it in Jiujiang City.

The big chimney is nearly fifty meters high.

Before entering the factory, Zhu Guoxiang could already hear the roar of machines.

The entire factory area is in the shape of a U.

Xie Qian pointed to several warehouses in front and said, "Those are the material storage rooms. In addition to copper ingots, there are also lead, tin, Japanese lead (zinc), etc. Over there are the material mixing room and the melting room..."

There is a huge scale in the batching room, as well as several relatively small scales.

The large scale is used to weigh copper, and the small scale is used to weigh other materials.

The copper ingots transported here from the copper field already contain impurities such as lead and tin. But those impurities are not enough, so some more must be added before coinage.

The proportions of ingredients have changed over the dynasties.

The ratio of copper coins in the Ming Dynasty was also changing. With the advancement of zinc smelting technology in recent years, the zinc content in copper coins has continued to increase.

This is an inevitable development trend.

In another time and space, the zinc content of copper coins during the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty was negligible. Just a few decades later, due to the rapid development of zinc smelting technology, the zinc content in copper coins increased to 11%-21%.

During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the zinc content was even higher, soaring to 41.5%.

The composition ratio of Ming Dynasty's current copper coins is approximately: 65% copper, 25% zinc, 9% tin, and 1% lead.

In actual operation, the proportions of various raw materials fluctuate slightly.

Lead is certainly toxic, but 1% is not harmful.

Hey, in the 21st century, there are still a lot of lead pipes in the United States. And they will continue to use them until the day they break, because they cannot be effectively replaced. Even the American government and water plants don't know how many lead pipes there are.

After the news broke, American medical institutions took the opportunity to make a fortune. Countless Americans went to get their blood lead levels tested, and the cost of testing soared dozens or hundreds of times.

"That's the crucible furnace over there." Xie Qian led the emperor over there.

The technology of copper smelting crucible furnace in ancient China was mature very early, and internal heating was achieved through blowers and charcoal.

The Ministry of Industry is now researching gas crucible furnaces.

The Northern Song Dynasty already had coking coal refining technology, and the Ming Dynasty naturally continued and improved it. The coal gas could not be wasted.

The roughly processed copper sheets are carried by the workers to the sheet rolling machine, where they are ground flatter and thinner under the huge force of steam.

Next is the finishing mill, which rolls the copper sheets a second time and cuts them into long strips.

Then there is the punch press, which punches out the embryo cakes on the copper bar.

The next step is the edge polishing machine, which not only grinds the edge of the coin smooth, but also makes the edge raised to prevent counterfeiting. The last step is the embossing machine, which presses out the words and patterns on the coin.

The stamping machine that Zhu Guoxiang saw was pressing copper coins with square holes, which was more complicated than directly pressing copper coins without holes.

Why do we insist on making square coins with holes even though it is more complicated?

Wouldn’t it be better to change all of them to copper coins without holes?
Of course, it is for the consideration of the lower class people.

Small copper coins are easy to lose, but square coins with holes can be strung together with a rope.

A poor person would feel very sad if he lost a penny or two.

Today's Ming copper coins have three denominations of one cent, two cents, and five cents.

The 50- and 100-cent coins are copper coins without holes, because they are particularly large and not easy to lose.

Previously, there were coins with denominations of ten and twenty cents, but they are no longer minted in recent years because they are not used very often.

This series of coin-minting machines were developed one after another.

At first, there was only a printing press, followed by a slab rolling machine, then a polishing machine, a finishing machine... Each additional machine could make the coins more exquisite and greatly improve the efficiency of coin minting.

Xie Qian flattered him with a sighing tone: "In the former Song Dynasty, Cai Jing minted ten-cent coins on a large scale, and the common people complained bitterly, and the ministers also denounced his excessive issuance of currency. Now the Ming copper coin has a face value of 100 wen, which is pleasing to both officials and the people, and there are not many counterfeit coins. Why? It is because His Majesty the Emperor is a scholar who mints coins with the power of coal steam. The coin minting technique is amazing! Not only is it exquisite, but it is also difficult to counterfeit. Even if there are treacherous people making counterfeit coins, they can be identified at a glance."

Zhu Guoxiang listened with a smile, but he always had a hidden worry.

Today's steam engines are mainly used in mining, smelting, coinage, steam locomotives, and forging weapons.

It's all government action.

If the application of steam engines is limited to these aspects, will future emperors restrict the civilian use of steam engines for the sake of national security?
This thing needs to be gradually opened to the public.

After wandering around the mint for half a day, Zhu Guoxiang praised the officials and workers there.

The next day we took a boat south, first to the White Deer Grotto Academy, and then to visit Mount Lu.

After leaving Mount Lu, he went to Nanchang to visit the Tengwang Pavilion and met with local gentry and celebrities. The relatives of Empress Zhang Jinping also came after hearing the news.

The current Tengwang Pavilion was rebuilt more than 40 years ago.

Quite new, not shabby.

After staying in Nanchang for more than ten days, Zhu Guoxiang headed north again and returned to the Yangtze River, stopping and walking along the way and heading straight to Hanyang (Wuhan).

To be precise, Hanyang City was located in the Hanyang District of Wuhan in later generations, and it governed the neighboring Jianghan District.

The Wuchang District on the other side of the Yangtze River is called Ezhou or Jiangxia.

Zhu Guoxiang looked at the busy Hanyang Wharf and mourned for two minutes in his heart. Once the railway from Nanyang to Pingdingshan is completed, the cargo throughput of Hanyang will be cut in half, or at least it will be cut in the neck.

Next, we will head to Yuezhou, climb the Yueyang Tower, go boating on Dongting Lake, and then visit Yuelu Academy in Changsha.

Thanks to the Ming Dynasty's policy of encouraging immigration and reclamation, the population density of the Dongting Lake Plain has doubled compared to the heyday of the Northern Song Dynasty. The impact of Zhong Xiang's rebellion seems to have completely disappeared.

Take Changsha for example. During the entire Northern Song Dynasty, Changsha didn’t even have a city wall.

It was not until Zhong Xiang raised his army that several castles were built in Changsha to prevent the Zhu bandits from moving south.

If Sun Jian knew about this in the afterlife, he would probably be in tears, wondering why Changsha is getting worse and worse.

The next stop is Jiangling (Jingzhou).

This place is extremely rich and prosperous, beating Yueyang, Hanyang and Jiujiang!

Zhu Guoxiang originally planned to go to Sichuan along the Yangtze River, but his entourage advised him against it.

It was not only because of the dangerous water in the Three Gorges, but also because the road to northern Sichuan was difficult. The emperor was old, and he might get sick from traveling from Sichuan to Hanzhong.

Even if the emperor is in good health, the empress and others cannot withstand the torture.

When I visited Huangshan and Lushan before, I could take a boat most of the way, but climbing the mountain required a lot of hard work on foot. No matter how difficult it is to climb Huangshan, can it be compared with crossing the Sichuan-Northern Shu Road?
Faced with repeated persuasion, Zhu Guoxiang looked at his wife again and finally gave up going to Sichuan.

He took a boat north along the Jingxiang Canal, spent a few days in Xiangyang, and then took a boat along the Han River straight to Hanzhong.

The autumn weather is clear and the scenery is pleasant.

The fleet passed the border of Shiquan County and continued forward to reach Daming Town.

The former Daming Village, Daming Township, Shangbai Village and Xiabai Village are now all under the jurisdiction of Daming Town, and a deputy county-level official is in charge of governing the people there.

The reason why I can receive such treatment is purely because it is the place where dragons rise.

Zhu Guoxiang went out of the cabin and stood on the deck, and suddenly saw a small river merging into the Han River.

Memories from many years ago suddenly became clear.

He and his son followed the stream, walked in ragged clothes to the bank of the Han River, and saw boats and living people on the river.

As the boat moves forward, the scenery on both sides of the river moves backward, as if time is also going backwards.

There were actually some scattered people living further downstream from Daming Village, and the barren slopes along the river that were once covered with thorns were turned into tea gardens and tung oil forests.

Zhu Guoxiang picked up the telescope and looked carefully. Next to a thatched house, he saw wooden stakes used to grow shiitake mushrooms.

He suddenly laughed happily. This was the technique he taught, and the people here have been using it.

(End of this chapter)