In the afternoon, in the Zhongshu Provincial Council, Guo Song and the seven Xiangguo were listening to the report of Wei Yingwu, the head of the household department.

"In the past two months, we have issued a total of 500,000 jiaozi, which is basically used in the way of purchasing daily items for officials and the imperial court, and some of them are purchasing grain, and at present, the cabinets have recovered 468,000 jiaozi, and the jiaozi in the hands of the people is currently only 32,000 guan, less than one percent, that is to say, Jiaozi has not formed a circulation, and after the shops and the people get Jiaozi, they are exchanged for copper coins in the cabinets, and the actual circulation in the market is still copper coins."

"Did the issuance of Jiaozi trigger a rise in prices?" Guo Song asked.

"That's not true, with the support of our coarse cloth and coarse noodles and other minimum prices, the price of grain and cloth in the market is very stable, and it has not caused prices to rise."

Wei Yingwu paused and said: "However, the people at the bottom generally do not accept Jiaozi, and our officials sent twenty officials to do a three-day investigation.

In fact, not only Ju'anfang, all the small stalls and vendors do not accept it, before the issuance of Jiaozi, we arranged for 300 shops to collect Jiaozi, except for the government-run shops, other stores have exchanged the Jiaozi received for copper coins, and two months have passed, there are still only 300 shops to collect Jiaozi, and there is no increase. ”

Du You said: "This shows that there is still a long way to go to promote Jiaozi." ”

Wei Yingwu shook his head, "I think Jiaozi is actually a failure!" ”

"Wei Shilang!"

Zhang Beiyi's face sank and said, "You can't talk like this." ”

Wei Yingwu said very stubbornly: "This is a fact, the lower officials think that they should face up to the failure and stop issuing Jiaozi before it causes a big mess." ”

At this moment, there was a sound of galloping outside, and an official said at the door: "Your Highness, the Commander of the Inner Guard has an urgent matter to see!" ”

Guo Song nodded, "Let him come in and talk!" ”

After a while, Wang Yue hurriedly walked into the meeting hall, bowed down and said, "Your Highness, there is a riot in the East Market!" ”

The Xiangguo looked at each other, and Pan Liao asked anxiously, "What happened?" ”

"I don't know the specific reason, I only know that thousands of suburban farmers stormed the Baoji cabinet outside the gate of Dongshi, smashed the Baoji cabinet to pieces, and injured more than a dozen guys.

Guo Song stood up and said, "Suspend the discussion, everyone, come with me to take a look!" ”

Xiangguo packed up their things one after another and followed Guo Song out........

There was a mess in front of the gate of the East Market, hundreds of people were hiding around the square, the gatehouse of the Bao Ji Cabinet Workshop in the east was pulled down, the door was also smashed, all the cabinets inside were overturned and smashed, someone lit a fire in the corner of the Bao Ji Cabinet Workshop, but it was extinguished in time, the charred black wood, the water stains all over the ground, a mess, you can imagine the chaos at that time.

But the chaos had been stopped, and 12,000 internal guards were dispatched, wearing armor and carrying knives and shields, to surround more than 1,000 villagers who had participated in the smashing and violence.

More than 1,000 villagers, both old and young, but most of them were young and strong, and they all squatted on the ground with their heads in their hands, huddled together.

At this time, Guo Song arrived on horseback with seven Xiangguo and dozens of officials, escorted by a large group of soldiers.

Guo Song looked at the smashed cabinet shop on the horse, and then looked at the villagers sitting on the square, and there were more than a dozen gray-haired old men.

"What the hell is going on?" Guo Song asked dissatisfied.

Li Mengze, the deputy commander of the internal guard, stepped forward and knelt down on one knee and said: "I asked the parties in the humble position, and the reason was that in the morning, an old farmer from Baqiao Township came to the cabinet to exchange for a handover, and was rejected by the cabinet shopkeeper and his buddy. ”

Guo Song frowned, he actually had something to do with Jiaozi, he asked, "Why doesn't Jiaozi pay it?" ”

Soon, Li Mengze led a man with filial piety forward.

"Your Highness, this is the son of a dead old farmer, and he knows the situation very well."

The young man knelt down and cried, "Your Highness, my father died unjustly! ”

"If you die unjustly, you can sue the official, why do you want to gather people to smash the cabinet shop?"

The young man was so frightened that he hurriedly stopped crying, shook his head desperately, and said, "The villain didn't gather people, it was everyone who came spontaneously." ”

"Let's not talk about this matter for a while, is your father's son still there?"

The young man took out a handful of Jiaozi from his arms, and the guard took it and presented it to Guo Song, Guo Song was stunned, the ink on Jiaozi was a mess, Jiaozi was still wrinkled, and the paper didn't feel right.

"Has your Jiaozi been soaked in water?"

The young man explained: "My father sold all the grain of last year to the government the day before yesterday, and the government gave him forty yuan Jiaozi, he had never seen Jiaozi, and he was so worried that he didn't sleep all night, thinking that he would go to the cabinet shop at dawn to exchange it for copper coins, but when he woke up, he found that he had soaked in water with his clothes and soaked it all night. My father couldn't stand the blow and died of anger on the spot. ”

Guo Song suddenly realized Jiaozi's biggest weakness, he was afraid of water! This is printed with ink, and if you don't take it out in time after entering the water, the ink color will be completely scattered.

If there was no such thing, Guo Song might have wanted to hold on for another month, but this incident was nothing less than the last straw that broke the camel's back, and at this moment, Guo Song finally made up his mind to withdraw all the Jiaozi and suspend the issuance of banknotes.

The law does not blame the public, Guo Song ordered the arrest of more than a dozen people who took the lead in smashing, each of them with a cane and a hundred sticks, and imprisoned for half a month, and the rest of the villagers were released home.

The next day, Guo Song issued a decree to supervise the country, suspend the issuance of Jiaozi, and the remaining Jiaozi of the people were stopped from circulation, and they could be handed over to the cabinet to exchange for copper coins, which was undoubtedly a failed reform, in the final analysis, Guo Song underestimated the strong resistance of the people at the bottom to Jiaozi, just like the words of the eldest sister Guo Ping, Jiaozi has no sense of security, especially the people at the bottom.

But on the other side of Jiaozi, the large money tickets and silver tickets were very successful, which made Guo Song feel a little gratified........

In the past two days, everyone found that His Royal Highness the King of Jin was a little depressed, and he was not able to see his figure, everyone could guess that it should be the Jiaozi incident that hit His Royal Highness the King of Jin quite hard, Zhang Qianyi felt quite guilty, although he had always opposed the Jiaozi, and finally the King of Jin also stopped Jiaozi, but he himself was not happy, after all, he respected the King of Jin very much, and he did not want to build his victory on the defeat of the King of Jin.

"I'll go talk to His Royal Highness King Jin!"

Zhang Qianyi stood up and said to Du You: "If Jiaozi fails, the one who should be most responsible is Hubu Shangshu." ”

Du You smiled and waved his hand, "You are still the first secretary of the King of Jin to join the army, and you don't know him at all, will the King of Jin hold anyone accountable for this kind of thing?" It's okay to talk to him, but not about responsibility. ”

"I see!"

Zhang Qianyi nodded, walked out of the official room, he walked quickly to the official room of King Jin, but met King Jin at the door.

Guo Song smiled: "Is Xiangguo looking for me?" ”

"I want to talk to Your Highness!"

Guo Song pointed to the garden not far away, "Let's go to the garden and take a walk!" ”

Together, they walked towards the garden, which was surrounded by buildings on all sides, and in the middle was a large garden, where the officials rested at noon.

"I heard that Xiangguo likes your son again, have you named it?" Guo Song asked with a smile.

Zhang Qianyi smiled and nodded, "Take the nominal tide, I'll show it to His Highness when I have time, the little guy looks like a tiger." ”

Guo Song is very interested, I wonder if this Zhang Yichao can make meritorious contributions to the country when he grows up?

"Is Your Highness still worried about the matter of Jiaozi?"

Guo Song shook his head, "It didn't cause much damage, and it wasn't upset, I was mainly thinking about why it failed?" Do you have any ideas? ”

Zhang Xiaoyi sighed and said, "Wechen has also been thinking about why it failed? Then I thought about why the silver ticket and the money ticket were successful, and I probably found the reason. ”

"Tell me about it!"

The two walked slowly, and it was the lunch break at this time, and many officials resting in the garden saw them saluting.

"The reason why silver tickets and money tickets can be accepted by businessmen, the key is that the flying money has laid a good foundation for them, the merchants accept the flying money, and naturally also accept the silver tickets and money tickets guaranteed by the imperial court's credit, more importantly, they conform to the needs of the merchants, conform to the needs of trade development, and Jiaozi did not meet the needs of the people, its appearance is very abrupt, without any foundation, making people think of similar big money, we say that the imperial court will print Jiaozi appropriately, but who will believe the people? It's not like copper coins, a copper coin itself is valuable, and it's understandable that everyone resists. ”

Guo Song nodded, "You're right, the key is that Jiaozi does not conform to the needs of the times, things without demand are like goods without demand, no one is willing to pay for them, and the time to implement Jiaozi is far from mature, at least in decades or even a hundred years." ”

"Then does Your Highness have any ideas for the next step?" Zhang Qianyi asked again.

Guo Song said with a smile: "I have been thinking about how to solve the problem of insufficient copper coins in the market these days, and I do have an idea now." ”

"We're willing to hear about it!"