Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2641 Situation in Xiaoyao Market ([-])
As he spoke, he took out a few coins from his pocket.

Li Guangyuan took one, but saw that the money was a little smaller than Yongle Tongbao, and the weight was also lighter.Although the silver he bought was shiny and heavy, it was not silver money—he had carefully played with the silver coins issued by Australians, such as one dollar, half round, and twenty cents.The starting size, texture and weight are completely different.

Twist up the coin and look closely. One side of this coin is engraved with "Yiwen" in Song style characters, surrounded by wheat ears, Dashi numbers and some Xiyi characters; the other side is engraved with "Yiwen" in large Dashi numbers. 1", the background is a large pointed ship, it goes without saying that this is the big iron ship of the Kun bandits.

The Senate issued yuan and cents earlier, and one yuan was exchanged for one hundred cents. However, in actual use, the denomination of cents is still too large, so small transactions are still used in the market to use various copper coins left in the society, and even rounded up. Buy and sell goods.There are many types of copper coins popular in the market, and the weight and quality are different, so the exchange rate between copper coins and cent coins is not fixed. Commodity circulation brought inconvenience to the economic activities within the Senate, and also affected the copper resources in the Senate's recycling of copper coins. Therefore, continuing to issue smaller denomination coins below cent coins soon became the highest priority for currency issuance. bit.

The unit of auxiliary currency is positioned as "wen" to cater to the common people's usage habits and verbal titles.However, it is difficult for everyone to use what to use as the currency.Ordinary copper coins are absolutely useless. Since the Senate landed, there has been a shortage of copper. Through trade with Japan and mining, it has been alleviated to some extent, but the price of copper is still high, and the issuance of copper coins basically does not receive seigniorage, and may even be privately issued. Melted the wool of the Senate.

Issuing steel coins is naturally the best solution, but the Senate does not have the ability to produce stainless steel. If it is made of carbon steel, it will soon be corroded in circulation, seriously endangering the seriousness of legal tender.

As for the use of nickel coins - this is also the most common metal material for small coins in old time and space.But this cheap non-ferrous metal is a scarce material for the Senate.Correspondingly, there are aluminum coins.

The final compromise was the issuance of paper money.Anyway, the current yuan and cents have issued banknotes, which is acceptable in terms of acceptance and circulation.Therefore, Wen was all banknotes at the beginning, and the exchange rate was one cent to ten Wen.

The two of Li and Luo had long been accustomed to the Kun thief's distribution and Wen's banknotes, so they were naturally a little surprised that coins would suddenly appear.

This should be carefully looked at.Li Guangyuan thought to himself.

Judging from the texture at hand, this new "text" inherits the characteristics of the Australian silver dollar. The material is smooth, the pattern is delicate, and the outer edge has convex rings like coins.But if you look carefully at the light, there are fan scripts as thin as mosquitoes on the convex circle.I really don't know how it was engraved on it.

"This is a penny?!" Luo Heying couldn't believe it.Although it is certain that the material of this coin is neither silver nor copper, such an exquisite caster is already valuable.Is it just the smallest penny? !
Li Guangyuan said: "Have you seen the color after cutting it?"

"It's indeed a penny." The clerk said, "The shopkeeper cut the clip, but it couldn't be cut open. I filed it again, and the silvery outer layer was wrapped up—I don't know what method it used, but the iron core was inside. "

"Iron money!" Luo Heying snorted, "Since ancient times, no imperial court has issued iron money!"

This is true. Since Qin Shihuang minted half taels, China's minted currency has always been copper coins.It's just that with the rise and fall of the dynasty, the composition of copper is more or less, and the size and weight are different.Except for the vassals and towns of the Tang Dynasty and some local governments, there has never been a formal casting of iron coins.

Luo Heying was a little excited to see the Kun thief starting to mint iron coins. In his opinion, this was a sign that the Kun thief was "lack of treasury" and was starting to come to an end
But Li Guangyuan knew that this was meaningless, because Australians now have banknotes in all denominations, and they can travel in Guangdong and Guangxi without hindrance, and businessmen and travelers recognize them.It doesn't matter what material the coin is made of.

Unbeknownst to Li Guangyuan and Luo Heying, the "One Paper" they were holding in their hands was the first batch of small-denomination coins produced by the Hong Kong Mint.It has just been sent to Dongguan from the Central Reserve Bank of Guangzhou and started to circulate.This coin is still brand new.

The creation of secondary currency coins was not a whim, but had to be improved in order to improve currency circulation.

Although banknotes are very convenient to print, use, transport and store, the result of actual use is that the elders of finance and finance are quite annoyed.It is true that basically all levels of currency have issued corresponding banknotes at present, and the circulation is still normal.But the disadvantages exposed in it are increasing day by day.

Yuan coins and half yuan are the least problematic, because these banknotes are basically only used in Guangzhou and Hainan.People from other places rarely use such a large denomination of money, and they don't have the confidence to use it to hoard savings and put their wealth and life on a piece of paper.

In Guangzhou and Hainan, the policy of the Senate is the most in-depth implementation. From the elderly to the yellow-mouthed children, everyone has heard lectures on anti-counterfeiting currency and seen posters on currency anti-counterfeiting.The real banknotes have been seen more than once, even if the counterfeiters have great ability, they can't be exactly the same as the real banknotes.

Therefore, even if there were several cases of counterfeit currency, there was no large-scale circulation in Guangzhou and Hainan.

At the same time, people who use large amounts of currency also cherish it. They put the money in a special wallet and handle it lightly.Many rounds in circulation are as good as new.

But small currencies have a big problem.Especially cents and coins.On the one hand, due to the cost, the Senate did not have elaborate anti-counterfeiting measures on small currency, and has always used special paper and steel plate printing anti-counterfeiting.The consequence of this is that there have been many cases of counterfeiting currency in the surrounding areas of Guangzhou: the technology of steel plate printing is not difficult to master.Counterfeiters can engrave tin plates, and they will also try to wash off the denominations printed on small banknotes, and then use tin plates or copper plates to print new denomination patterns.There are also cases of forgery using grain circulation coupons that have been withdrawn from circulation.Although it is easy to find that the counterfeit money that has been forged in this way is wrong when compared with the real money, it is very confusing to groups with low anti-counterfeiting awareness.This kind of counterfeit money seems to have become the mainstream.

Another problem is that small notes are too damaged.

In the tax bureau and the grassroots level of Delong Bank, there have been cases where the window staff couldn't bear it anymore, took out a stack of tattered papers, and complained to their superiors.Thousands of crumpled one-cent notes like toilet paper need to be carefully flattened to identify the authenticity and count the number, which is a great torture to the people at the window.

And these departments often need to be re-counted after closing.

When small-value banknotes are prevalent, grass-roots banks often have long queues for exchange and work overtime until late at night when the business volume is heavy.

Later, after accounting, the banknotes of one penny need to be recycled if they are circulated no more than 30 times, but the circulation cost is much higher than that of copper-silver alloy ten-cent coins.

Therefore, the elders of Wudaokou, who originally counted on paper money to collect seigniorage, have always wanted to promote the coinification of small currencies.

After a simple combing and discussion with the industry, the final plan was to issue four kinds of silver coins, namely one yuan, half circle, twenty cents and ten cents.The latter two are silver-copper alloys.At the same time, four denominations of silver currency exchange certificates were issued correspondingly.

In addition, five cents and one cent are issued.Coins and banknotes are also circulated in equal amounts, with coins as the main currency.The one-cent coin is made of a copper-plated zinc alloy coin.This scheme was widely used in small coins in old times, such as the famous Lincoln head penny.

The smelting history of elemental zinc is not long. It was only in the late Ming Dynasty that elemental zinc was successfully smelted, and the previous zinc was brass smelted together with copper ore. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, zinc was still a high-priced metal like tin. Can support the denomination of its penny.

Zinc is not lacking in the metal inventory of the Senate, and its source has been greatly expanded after taking Guangdong.It is roughly enough to make secondary tokens.

But Wu Fen's material made it difficult for everyone.One five is worth five ones.It is not enough to just enlarge the size of the coin and change the design. It must be clearly distinguished from the one-point coin to support its denomination and increase popular acceptance.At the same time, the difficulty of counterfeiting is increased-these coins must also be circulated in large quantities to the countryside without anti-counterfeiting awareness.

The mint was designed to use bimetallic currency.Many governments in ancient times tried to make this kind of bimetallic currency, but the manufacturing process was too difficult, and it was not successfully used in currency circulation until the 20th century, so the elders had full confidence in its anti-counterfeiting performance.

The original plan was a coin with a copper inner core and a brass ring, but the result was that the inner core was too soft, and it was easy to fall off because it was not tightly combined with the outer ring.Moreover, the color difference between copper and brass before rust is too small, which is not conducive to distinguishing it from counterfeit money.

The later improved scheme is brass clad with white copper or silver copper as the inner core, and brass as the outer ring.This scheme has a good combination of inner and outer rings, and the inner core has a beautiful silver color.

The biggest disadvantage of this plan is that nickel is needed, and the Senate currently only controls a few small nickel mines in Guangxi, that is, it has not been exploited on a large scale, and the industrial demand for nickel is still very large.As a result, under the rule of the Senate, the price of nickel was higher than that of silver, and the price of cupronickel was also slightly higher than that of s800 silver used in jewelry. However, considering the trouble of changing currencies and the upcoming large-scale development of nickel mines, brass was finally used. Cupronickel-clad inner core solution.Since the raw materials are insufficient, only a small amount will be issued for the time being, mainly one-cent coins.

As for the currency, all coins are used, and the original banknotes are gradually phased out after recycling.It has only one denomination: one coin.

The material of this kind of secondary currency, the Senate had some fantastic ideas including glass coins, ceramic coins, bamboo stick coins, etc., but the final result of the discussion was to issue iron coins.The main material is wrought iron, which is pressed into exquisite coins and then hot-dip galvanized, which not only prevents corrosion, but also gives the coins a silvery luster.

(End of this chapter)