eastern european eagle

Chapter 33 New Currency

In his spare time, Peter would go to the market to have a look.There is a place for the exchange of various information.

Most of the market is bread, vegetables and cloth, and some luxury goods are brought by foreign businessmen.The most pulled are building materials, stone, wood, and some copper and iron products.

Some listened to the latest orders read by the propagandists, while whispering in the background.

"Recently, too many things have been built in various places, and the price of stone has skyrocketed."

"Yes, I want to buy it now but I can't."

It appears that Peter's construction plans have caused some commodity prices to skyrocket.And it has also attracted a lot of trade, and this year's tariffs can be said to have risen sharply.

Of course, food prices are still relatively stable.People's lives will not be affected for the time being.

In addition to commodity prices, there is another problem that troubles the people, and that is currency.

All kinds of currencies are in the hands of the people, and it is very difficult to trade, so most transactions are still carried out in the form of barter.

Compared with the Chinese dynasties that have unified and implemented the same standard currency system most of the time, Europe has always been in bulk. Countries and even nobles and bishops have the right to mint and issue their own currency, although they claim their own The currency is made of pure gold and pure silver, but only a fool would believe the words of these greedy nobles. God knows how much lead and copper they added to the silver coins. This not only led to the proliferation of currency types, but also made bad coins in the market Rampant, very unfriendly to trade activities.

In the Middle Ages, just calculating the fineness value of various currencies was already a university question, not to mention the exchange rate between several currencies, which took a long time to master.A British merchant received more than 22 currencies in Flanders.

In addition to the wide variety of currencies, the most troublesome thing is to determine the exchange rate between currencies of various countries, because it will change all the time, and the income of merchants will become more and more difficult to control due to changes in interest rates, because sometimes many currencies are still in circulation in the first half of the year. Well, the second half just became worthless due to war etc.

It is also possible that a certain currency had good credit because of its king’s insistence a few years ago, and was sought after by merchants, but later, when the old king passed away and the new king succeeded to the throne, the currency would be issued indiscriminately, and the credit would collapse. Other countries merchants are no longer willing to accept the currency of merchants in the country, or must depreciate in order to continue to circulate.

The British currency is the best example of this. The British currency has always had the credit that other countries envy in terms of exchange rate. The gold and silver content of the currency is very rich. The excessive issuance of currency due to obvious selfish desires made British merchants very embarrassed in the international market for a while.

Although Wallachia has begun to mint coins, their fineness cannot be compared with foreign currencies.Therefore, minting new currencies has become a new task.

Peter owned the mint, and he built a mint near Tulcea.Process the silver produced by the local silver mines into a sufficient amount of currency.

Peter returned to City Hall, where the Mint was already waiting.

A model silver coin appeared in front of Peter, with a majestic lion on the front and Peter's flag pattern on the back.

"How much silver does this silver coin contain?"

"My lord, we mint coins according to the currency standard of Venice. The silver content accounts for [-]%, and the rest is replaced by lead or copper."

Such a silver content is already a real silver coin.He will replace those cumbersome currencies and become the currency of Wallachia and Moldova.

In addition to silver coins, the mint also struck copper coins.Excluding the price ratio of gold, silver and copper and the exchange of fineness, one silver coin can be exchanged for 20 copper coins.

"My lord, what is the name of the new coin?" asked the attendant at the side.

Peter said without thinking.

"Lei and Barney, just those two names."

Leu means lion and Barney means money.This meaning is straightforward enough.

"Let the mint run at full capacity, and the use of currency is still very large."

"obey"

Peter's idea is very obvious, that is to unify the domestic currency.As for why there is no gold coin, because it is not needed yet, Ducat and Florin are enough for the time being.

Large quantities of silver ore and copper ore were fed into mints where they were processed into leu and barney.Then it flows into the hands of the people through various channels.

Meanwhile, in Moldova and Dobroja, street clerks read the orders of lords and governors.

The people are all dubious, they are afraid that this is some kind of trick.Let the lords take away their hard-earned wealth.

If the people do not accept the new currency, then other things will not go on.To this end, Peter had the institution he founded convert half of its reserves into leu.At the same time, let the port areas such as Constanta and Tulcea take the lead in using Lei and Barney.

Constanta was the first to start accepting leu and barney, as the local chamber of commerce started paying leu and currency exchange offices started offering exchange in lei.

"Lei, it looks like a lot of weight." A merchant said after the exchange.

"Of course, this is completely made according to the composition of silver coins in Venice. Even though the source of silver is so scarce, our benevolent lord still forged coins of sufficient value."

The full-value leu soon won the support of merchants, and the lei became the main currency of Dobroga, and merchants and ordinary people used a lot of lei and barney.This made the mint a little busy for a while, and in order to mint enough currency, the mining of silver mines also increased.

There is a lack of enough craftsmen in all walks of life, and this also makes some people abroad see opportunities.Some artisans from the Grand Duchy of Suzdal and the Golden Horde came to Moldova together with the people of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

At this time, the Golden Horde was about to perish, and the struggle between Tuotuo and Timur turned the entire middle and lower reaches of the Volga River upside down.Those craftsmen who were under control naturally also fled westward, and Moldova was one of their goals.

Peter, like Dmitry the Grand Duke of Moscow, pooled his strength and then delivered the coup de grace when necessary.

(End of this chapter)