My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 46 Pod Money
"Is this Deng Tongzhu's money?"

On the western outskirts of Chang'an City, outside a tile kiln where figures were poking around, Liu Rong's face was filled with astonishment as he looked at the copper coin lying quietly in his hand.

Then he saw in Liu Rong's hand, a copper coin that was round on the outside and square on the inside, with the words "Four Baht" written on it, emitting a dazzling golden light.

Even though he rarely comes into contact with copper coins, Liu Rong can tell at a glance: This copper coin is of quite good quality!
In particular, the proportions, diameter, and thickness of the money holes are all pleasing to the eye.

And this made Liu Rong feel confused.

"Deng Tong received the Tongshan Mountain given by the late emperor and obtained permission to mint copper coins privately..."

"——If you are really a lucky minister, why do you have to make money so well and be of such high quality?"

"Perhaps we can make some money and try to save costs and maximize benefits?"

As early as the day before yesterday, when he ran into Deng Tong who was desolate at night outside the gate of Chang'an City, and talked to his brothers about Deng Tong's "making money from mountains", Liu Rong had already vaguely felt that something was wrong.

But he couldn't tell what was wrong, so he asked his second brother Liu De to find a "Deng Tong Qian" produced in Yandao, Shu County.

Being able to share the world coin market in half with King Wu Liu Bi, it is obviously not difficult to find Deng Tong coins. Liu De did not even move around by himself. He summoned a palace servant and quickly got this typical four-baht Deng Tong coin. money.

The moment he saw this copper coin, the doubts in Liu Rong's heart became more intense...

"Um……"

"Who is that, come here."

He turned sideways, waved to the young official who was following not far away, and led the man to trot forward. He saw Liu Rong put his hands behind his back and hid the coin in his hand behind his back.

"Did you bring any money?"

Hearing the emperor's eldest son's question, the official was immediately stunned.

After thinking about it for a moment, he came up with a vague guess: Princes like Liu Rong were usually in the palace, and there was no need to get money at all.

It is rare to leave the palace and forget to bring money with you, which seems normal.

With this thought in his mind, the official didn't hesitate for a moment. He immediately took out the money bag from his waist and held it in front of Liu Rong with both hands.

But he saw that Liu Rong did not take the money bag, but asked in a deep voice: "Is there any money cast by King Wu Liu Bi?"

"Pick out two, I want to see them."

As soon as these words came out, the official knew that he had guessed Liu Rong's intention wrong: It turned out that the eldest son of the emperor did not want to ask for money from him...

Half with disappointment, half with doubts, he lowered his head, opened the money bag and took a look, then the official took out two copper coins from the money bag.

The moment he saw the two 'Liu Bi coins', Liu Rong immediately froze on the spot, staring straight at the two copper coins, unable to recover for a long time.

"This……"

"Also called money?"

Muttering in astonishment, he stretched out his hand and took the two coins, which were vaguely copper-yellow, but also glowed with the unique silvery white light of lead. They also had large diameter holes and wished they could be made directly into rings. While Liu Rong was shocked, he also I forgot to compare these two 'Liu Bi coins' with the 'Deng Tong coins' that I had hidden behind my back.

The two Liu Bi coins on the left hand have the same diameter and large holes, and are yellow with silver in them - or should I say, silver with yellow in them.

The Deng Tong coin on the right hand has a suitable proportion of diameter and hole, and the whole body is glowing with copper. It seems that it wishes that there was no lead added at all, and it was completely made of thousands of feet of copper!

This too sharp contrast gave Liu Rong an inexplicable feeling of unreality.

——Who would be willing to accept Deng Tong’s money of such fine quality and Liu Bi’s ring with more than half of the lead content?

Knowing that Deng Tong's "99% rare" level of good money is circulating in the world, how could Liu Bi be so stupid as to waste the copper mined in Wu to cast that 'lead ring'?
Perhaps the contrast was too strong, which made Liu Rong have doubts such as "perhaps survivor bias", so he finally reached out and grabbed the wallet from Li Zuo's hand, and immediately squatted down and poured out all the money in the wallet.

With the crisp sound of copper coins falling to the ground, Liu Rongben's calm state of mind suddenly sank to the bottom of the valley...

"These good coins were all made by Deng Tong?" Li Zuo looked at Liu Rong's fingers and nodded immediately.

"What about these bad money with varying qualities...?"

He saw Li Zuo nod again, then stretched out his hand and picked up a few bad coins of different qualities from the ground, but they were far inferior to Deng Tong's coins.

"Master, let's see."

"This coin is almost entirely made of lead, with only a faint hint of copper yellow, and the money hole is too large - this is the first coin made by Liu Bi."

"Looking at this one again, the copper color is obviously more, and the money hole is also a little smaller - this was made during the reign of the late Emperor, when Liu Bi's bad money made the world lament. Liu Bi was afraid of making the world angry, so he cast it money."

"And this coin is the 'slightly good coin' made by Liu Bi after Deng Tong began to cast good money in Shu County and it was circulated throughout the world through the hands of the Shaofu. The copper color covered at least half of the coin surface, and the money hole was not No matter how big it is, it’s irritating.”

After saying this, Li Zuo threw the remaining Liu Bi coins of poor quality back to the ground, took only the Liu Bi coin with the best quality, and randomly picked up a Deng Tong coin from the ground.

"Master, look."

"Even Liu Bi's coins with the best quality and best quality are still inferior to the good coins cast by Deng Tong - at least they can be distinguished at a glance."

"So, since Deng Tong minted money in Shu County, most people in the world were more willing to use Deng Tong's money, and scorned Liu Bi's 'Wu money'..."

"——If you sneer at it, why..."

As soon as he asked the question halfway, Liu Rong stopped talking. Now his face sank, obviously he had already thought of the answer.

At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the imperial treasury was empty, and the poor treasury could only run away with mice;

Liu Bang, the founder of the country, could not muster eight horses of the same color. As the prime minister of the dynasty, Xiao He did not even have horses to pull the cart, so he could only use an ox cart to go to court.

Such a bad financial situation happened to coincide with a special period when Liu Bang fought for years and eradicated princes with different surnames one by one.

On one side is an empty treasury, and on the other is Emperor Liu Bang who is asking for money for military expenses.

With no other choice, Prime Minister Xiao He could only follow Liu Bang's proposal, melt half a tael of Qin coins and cast three Han bahts.

Qin Banliang weighed twelve baht. The smelted copper was used to cast three-baht coins that weighed only a quarter of the weight. Four coins could have been cast.

But Liu Bang was still not satisfied, so he tried to make people add lead and enlarge the money hole;

In the end, I was stunned to the extent that one Qin half liang could be melted into more than a dozen or even dozens of Han three bahts!
Then Liu Bang slapped his forehead and immediately issued an edict: Although the Han coin cast by the Shaofu weighs only three baht, it is called "Han Ban Liang"...

In this way, the inferior three-baht coins that Liu Bang ordered the Shaofu to cast had the same purchasing power as Qin's half-liang coins.

But the people are not stupid?

Qin Banliang weighs twelve baht and contains more than 70% copper!

The Han half liang weighed three baht, which was only a quarter of the Qin half liang, and the copper content was less than 30%!

Especially the exaggerated proportions of large diameter and small holes are popularly known as: pod money - money like pods.

Which one is better and which one is worse is clear at a glance.

But what can be done?
The emperor issued an edict stipulating that the Qin half liang and the Han half liang were equivalent, what could the common people do?
As a result, almost overnight, the world of the Han Dynasty was swept by a wave of money making.

——Almost every household is trying their best to find Qin Banliang, and then follow suit: melting one Qin Banliang into dozens of 'Han Banliang', as if copying and pasting, rapidly expanding their only wealth.

The social supply and demand relationship makes this artificial 'over-issuance of money' inevitably lead to uncontrollable inflation.

The final result was that in Liu Bang's later years, the collapse of currency and credit caused the world's economy to completely collapse. Prices soared, with food prices reaching as high as eight thousand yuan per stone!
The common people no longer recognize the monetary attributes of coins and return to the ancient era of barter;
The poor economic environment has also made the people of the world increasingly poor. In Liu Bang's later years, they were even more naked and hungry, and even changed their sons to eat each other...

　The next chapter is the first update tomorrow and will be posted after 0:
　　
　
(End of this chapter)