high official

Chapter 640 Counterfeit banknotes
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The security of Yingtian Mansion Yamen is obviously stricter than before.

However, as soon as Wang Xian arrived, he was immediately invited in, and went directly to the heavily guarded internal signing room.

"Master Xue, what are you up to?" Wang Xian said to Xue Juzheng who came out with a smile, "Why do you feel like you are facing an enemy?"

"Come in and talk about it." Xue Ju pulled him into the room with a serious face, nodded to Zhou Man and said, "Master Zhou, please come in too." Zhou Man is now the second Wu Wei, almost inseparable from Wang Xian, Xue Juzheng naturally know him.

After the two of them entered the inner lottery room, Xue Juzheng closed the door, opened the drawer, took out two kraft paper bags and said
: "Two, please take a look."

Wang Xian and Zhou Man each picked up a bag and opened it, and saw that it contained precious banknotes, and then looked at the other side's bag, which was also precious banknotes.

"What is this for?" Wang Xian smiled and said, "Could it be that someone bribed you?" Then he denied himself: "It's unlikely, who bribes with precious money these days? Isn't it a pleasure to find?"

"Look carefully." Xue Juzheng said, "The treasures in these two bags are different?"

Wang Xian and Zhou Man looked carefully at the precious banknotes in their hands.In Wang Xian's hand was a banknote of consistent face value. This blue rectangular banknote was one foot long and six inches wide, bigger than the cover of a book.Surrounded by dragon-patterned fences, there are six regular script characters written horizontally on top of the "Daming Tongxing Baochao".Under the name of the banknote is still a dragon-pattern flower fence, with the word "Yiguan" printed in the middle of the upper part of the flower fence, and a picture of ten strings of money under the denomination, imitating the physical representation of the gold dollar banknote.There are seal scripts on both sides of Guanqian, "Daming Baochao" on the right, and "Tianxia Tongtong" on the left; there are three lines of compact text in the lower part that reads "The Ministry of Accounting is allowed to print Daming Baochao and use it with copper coins. Forgers will be chopped off and arrested." The prisoner will be rewarded with Erbo Wushiliang, and the prisoner will still be given the words "property" and stamped with the seal of the Ministry of Household Affairs...

It's ridiculous to say that this is the first time that Wang Xian has carefully looked at the appearance of the Daming banknote since he came here five years ago.But this is not surprising, because five years ago, the treasure banknotes had depreciated to the point where they were worthless, even less than these few years... In the past few years, with the efforts of the talented Xia Shangshu, through the With various means, such as expanding the use of precious banknotes and increasing the recycling speed of rotten banknotes, the value of precious banknotes has been restored several times... from the usual value of eleven yuan to the usual value of thirty or forty yuan.Although the growth rate is gratifying, but the foundation is too poor, it is still very worthless...

Just as people in later generations will not carefully examine what a dime looks like, Wang Xian does not pay attention to what a worthless banknote looks like...

When Wang Xian was looking at the treasure in his hand, Zhou Man was also looking at it carefully. When Wang Xian raised his head, Zhou Man also raised his head. The two looked puzzled. "Master Xue, why show us this?"

"One of these is counterfeit banknotes..." Xue Juzheng sighed.

"Really?" Wang Xian hurriedly took a piece of banknote from Zhou Man's hand, and compared it with the one in his own hand, he couldn't tell the difference. "Which one is the counterfeit banknote?"

"This." Xue Juzheng also needed to distinguish carefully before pointing to the one in Wang Xian's left hand and said, "Well, look at the color of this treasure note, it is slightly yellower, and the feel of the two notes is also somewhat different."

Wang Xian took a closer look under the light, and found that the colors were really different. Both were brand-new banknotes. The paper on his right hand was whiter and more tenacious to the touch, a bit like the banknotes of later generations.The one on the left is yellower and softer to the touch.

"I have consulted with the Ministry of Households in secret. The banknotes of the Ming Dynasty are all printed by the Banknote Lifting Department of the Ministry of Accounts, and the Bureau of Banknotes is responsible for the banknotes." Xue Juzheng said: "The banknotes used by the Bureau are The mulberry paper made of white mulberry produced in a certain place in southern Anhui and processed by a special process has always been considered difficult to forge. However, the counterfeit banknotes seized this time were also mulberry paper made of white mulberry in southern Anhui. There are some slight differences, but it is still not up to the level of genuine banknotes. But it is enough to be fake, especially for old banknotes, it is impossible to distinguish the real from the fake."

"Yes." Wang Xian nodded and said, "In order to reform the banknote law, His Royal Highness is going to order the Banknote Bureau to exchange old banknotes for new ones for free. In this way, criminals only need to make counterfeit banknotes old, and then they can exchange them for real banknotes..."

"Yes." Xue Juzheng nodded heavily: "That's why I hurriedly invited my brother here, and asked His Royal Highness to urgently stop the method of dumping banknotes."

"No, this will make His Royal Highness lose trust with the people... Wang Xian frowned and said: "How did you find these counterfeit banknotes? "

"It was when the police of this government were chasing a thief, they didn't expect to scare the horse and mule, and the other man turned around and ran away in fright. The police chased them separately, and finally found this bag of money from the man. After interrogation, I found out that his name is Wang Si, and he bought counterfeit banknotes from a peddler, and when he was about to use them, he saw that the policeman was scared and ran away..." Xue Juzheng said.

"Did the shopkeeper catch it?" Wang Xian asked.

"No, Wang Si doesn't know where he came from. I sent people to search around and arrested no less than [-] peddlers. Although I didn't find the one who sold goods to Wang Si. But from several of the peddlers, I searched for him. This kind of counterfeit banknotes came out... well, I don’t know why, it seems to have appeared overnight!” Xue Juzheng said: “Originally the common people would not accept the precious banknotes, but this time the crown prince rectified them heavily, at least there has been some improvement. But this happened again..."

"This is really making matters worse," Zhou Man said with a worried expression on his face, "If the news spreads, the common people will reject precious banknotes even more... let the banknote law be completely abolished."

"I'm afraid I can't hide it..." Wang Xian sighed: "Even ordinary shopkeepers can get the goods, which shows that this batch of counterfeit banknotes has been sufficiently spread."

"Yes, so we must hurry up and ask the crown prince to stop dumping money." Xue Juzheng looked at Wang Xian and said, "Then please help me, brother, to find out the source as soon as possible and eliminate it..."

"Master Xue, don't worry, you've helped me so many times, I'll definitely help with this." Wang Xian nodded righteously and said, "It's just that we can only investigate this case in private, so as not to cause a commotion."

"That's natural." Xue Juzheng nodded.

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But nine times out of ten things go wrong in the world.In this room, Wang Xian quickly reported to the prince without delay.In that room, the news of counterfeit banknotes in the capital spread throughout the city overnight.The next day, not only the officials and wealthy businessmen knew about it, but also the vegetable vendors on the street and the old ladies doing laundry at home.

All of a sudden, Baochao was completely sentenced to death.The common people took the banknotes to buy things, almost without exception, they were refused to sell, the reason is the same, it is difficult to verify the authenticity, dare not accept it!Some daring shops even put up signs simply saying, 'Reject counterfeit banknotes, prove the authenticity of the counterfeit'!The buyer naturally said that the banknotes in his hand were real, but who can produce evidence to prove that the banknotes in their hands are real?

The precious money in their hands cannot be spent, and the common people are even more anxious. They can't see their hard-earned money turned into waste paper, can they?Almost unanimously, the people took out all the treasures and rushed to the warehouse of the household department to ask for grain!In the eyes of ordinary people, this treasure banknote was issued by your household department, so you can't refuse to accept it because you can't verify its authenticity, right?
But the warehouse of the Ministry of Accounts really refused to accept it... Ambassador Cang said plausibly to the people: "The banknotes are issued by the Ministry of Accounts well, but we are from the Treasury. We are only in charge of storage, but we don't know how to inspect banknotes. You have to find treasure banknotes to withdraw Let's go."

"No!" The people said angrily, "You have to recognize the banknotes you issued! Otherwise, we won't leave today!"

"That's right!" The rest of the people echoed, "Don't try to use us as a ball, you have to give an explanation today!"

"That's right, do you think we ordinary people are easy to bully?" The ordinary people were already smoldering with dissatisfaction, but at this moment, this arrogant little official was aroused, and there was a tendency to explode.

Seeing the excitement of the crowd, Ambassador Cang turned pale with fright, and quickly ordered someone to close the gate.As everyone knows, he took another wrong step. The common people were almost desperate. How could they not feel completely hopeless when they saw him closing the door?The people in front unanimously pushed the door hard to prevent them from closing it.The people in the back squeezed in desperately, there were only a few small officials inside, how could it compare to the strength of the people outside?It was completely pushed away at once, and the common people swarmed in...

Ambassador Na Cang managed to avoid being trampled to death by the people, so he scrambled and hid to the side, looking stupid.It was stupid for the common people to rush in, because they had no purpose at all, they just rushed in out of anger... But soon, someone shouted, let's keep the money and carry the food away by ourselves!When everyone heard it right, they stuffed the treasures into the arms of Ambassador Cang and the little officials, and then swarmed to fight for food.

Seeing the bags of stored food being carried away by the common people, Ambassador Nacang came back to his senses and hurried forward to stop him, shouting: "Put it down quickly, you are robbing the treasury!"

But the common people have been short of food for many days, and now they are red-eyed when they see the food, and they all hold the heart of not blaming the law, so how can they listen to his nonsense?Most of the people still went their own way, but the man held by Ambassador Cang said angrily, "You don't care about others, just pull me, let go!" Turning around vigorously, the heavy grain bag on his shoulders knocked Ambassador Cang to the ground.

Ambassador Cang was caught off guard, and fell on his back. It was an inch, and the back of his head hit a brick. Immediately, he kicked his legs and died... The officials rushed forward, and saw Ambassador Cang rolled his eyes. After checking his breath, he immediately screamed: "He's dead! My lord was beaten to death by the rioters!"

This yelling didn't matter, the scene immediately turned into a mess, the common people ran away one after another, and they couldn't stop it at all... Besides, seeing Ambassador Cang's fate, those little officials didn't dare to stop him.Everyone is just eating together, who has the guts to work hard for the court?
So when the officials from Yingtian Mansion heard the news and arrived, the common people had already escaped cleanly, only seeing the looted warehouse and the dead ambassador...

The news that the rioters ransacked the warehouse of the household department and killed court officials spread throughout the capital.The officials couldn't bear it any longer, and once again gathered in the East Palace to plead with the prince...

(End of this chapter)