Zhao Yu knew that the issuance of new banknotes was not only a major matter related to the national economy and people's livelihood, but also an extremely cumbersome matter, and he was difficult to answer the questions raised by the two for a while. But the matter has reached the point where it must be solved, and as the king of a country, he has no room to retreat, let alone show cowardice, but can only face the difficulties until the problem is solved.

Since you are determined, you must go on firmly. Zhao Yu wrote down the questions of the two one by one, pondered for a moment and cleared his head. This work is divided into three stages: early, middle and late, and then the three tasks will be dismantled one by one, gradually refined, and implemented to each department and each person until the plan is completed.

The first thing to determine is the person in charge of the project, the household department and the total department are the two major departments in charge of wealth in the Great Song Dynasty, of course, they are the main body, and they must be the leader in front of them. Zhao Yu knows that the replacement of the currency has a great impact on the economy and people's livelihood, if the news leaks will inevitably lead to panic, trigger panic buying, lead to price fluctuations, of course, there will be speculators who take advantage of this opportunity to make profits, so the most important thing at the moment is to keep it secret and strictly prevent news leakage.

"The issuance of the new currency is related to the fortunes of the country, and the difficulties are needless to say, but it is not possible to retreat from the difficulties, and this matter should not be widely known. Zhao Yu figured it out, glanced at the two of them and said in a deep voice.

"My subordinates obey the holy order, and I am willing to share the worries of the king!" The two of them stood up and saluted in unison.

"Okay, sit down!" Zhao Yu pressed his hand and said, "The issuance of new currency is complicated, and it is difficult to complete it with only the three of us, so after you go back, you will secretly transfer experienced officials to form a preparatory group, and the personnel should not be too many, with Chen Shangshu as the main and Zhuang as the deputy, presiding over this matter." I will arrange a safe and secret place as the office space for preliminary preparations. At this stage, you are only responsible to me, and you are not allowed to divulge a word to anyone else, including the left and right sides. ”

"Yes, my subordinates understand!" Chen Zeweng bowed his hand and said, "What is the task of the preparatory team at the moment, please ask Your Majesty to show me." ”

"At present, the main thing is to determine the style and value of the currency, find out the exchange rate of various places, make sample money, and formulate the corresponding plan for reference!" Zhao Yu said.

"Your Majesty thinks that paper money is issued, or metal coins, and what kind of metal is used?" Zhuang Shilin pondered for a moment and asked, he knew that this kind of thing was not something that one of them could be sure of, all of this needed to be decided by the emperor, and it was best to ask clearly at the moment.

"Paper money is economical and convenient, easy to carry and circulate, not to imitate, but its own currency value is low, not suitable to gain market trust; The metal coin itself has a high value and is easy to gain market trust, but it is heavy and difficult to carry. However, it is easier to imitate than paper money, and once the metal used is in short supply, there is a risk that the unscrupulous person will collect and melt and cause a shortage of circulation! Zhao Hao first analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of metal currency and paper money, but he felt that the disadvantages of metal currency were greater.

"I thought it would be better to use paper money, which was cheaper to make, easier to carry, and saved the metal needed to build weapons. As for using metal as currency, I think we need to be cautious! "Zhao Yu knows that according to the law of 'Gresham's Law' in which bad money drives out good money, if the value of the metal coin itself is low, it is easy to be costed. If the quality is improved, it will exceed the value of the currency itself, which will lead to currency smuggling, which has been repeatedly banned in the history of the Great Song Dynasty and has caused serious consequences.

"Your Majesty, my subordinates think that paper money should be the mainstay, supplemented by copper coins. After all, there are still a huge amount of copper and iron coins circulating in the people and the market, and if they are abolished, it will cause unrest, and people will either rush to redeem them, or keep them as savings and circulate them privately, thus affecting the implementation and circulation of new coins. Zhuang Shilin was born as a businessman, and it was easy to find the drawbacks, so he thought about it and said, "Therefore, his subordinates thought that they should still mint a batch of copper coins with good fineness to exchange for copper and iron coins in circulation, so that the counterfeiters would not do it without profits, and the high value of the new coins was also easy to gain the trust of the people, which was convenient for the implementation of new banknotes!" ”

"Your Majesty, the issuance of a new currency is a matter of great importance, do you want to listen to the opinions of the other deacons?" Chen Zeweng was a little hesitant and asked for instructions.

"Hugh thinks about others, and only says what you think is best?" Zhao Yu looked at it and said with a smile.

"Your Majesty, my subordinates think that the proposal of the village director is very good!" Chen Zeweng hesitated.

"Since both of you say that it is feasible, you are right, so paper money is the main thing, and copper coins are supplemented. Those guys in the DPRK and China are not proficient in this, but as long as they ask them, they dare to talk nonsense, and in the end, they don't make a decision for a long time, but they miss a big thing! Zhao Yu slapped the table and settled it.

"Okay, just your majesty!" Chen Zeweng smiled.

"Chen Shangshu's words are wrong, I have relied on you, and if you make a mistake, you will be held responsible, and you must not rely on me!" Zhao Hao smiled with a straight face.

"Hehe, my subordinates are willing to take all the responsibilities!" Chen Zeweng arched his hand and smiled. When he said this, he actually knew very well in his heart that the little emperor was definitely not a person who shirked responsibility, let alone let his subordinates suffer on his behalf.

"Your Majesty, since this is the case, the subordinate still wants to invite one person to join in, so as to speed up the progress!" Zhuang Shilin said at this time.

"You want to involve Chief Zheng in this?" Zhao Yu listened to it and understood after a little thought.

"Exactly!" Zhuang Shilin nodded.

"Is the director of the secretariat Zheng? He knows all about it, too! Chen Zeweng asked in surprise. In his impression, Zheng Huchen is an extremely mysterious person, who rarely appears in the eyes of everyone, never shows up at court meetings and meetings, and has no contact with the ministers of the court. But he knew that he was trusted by the little emperor, but no one knew what he was doing, but it was rumored that he was in charge of collecting intelligence and was in charge of the most secret intelligence agency in the Great Song Dynasty.

"This ......" Zhuang Shilin looked at it but didn't dare to answer, he also realized that he had lost his words, and he didn't dare to reveal a word without permission.

"Chen Shangshu has no doubt that some of these things involve a period of secrecy between the DPRK and China, and leaking it will cause an uproar and even endanger the community, but if you handle this matter together, it can indeed be a big help. I will inform them of their assistance, and I will let you know about it, but don't leak it out, lest it cause trouble! Zhao Yu thought for a while and said.

"Yes, my subordinates should remember His Majesty's entrustment!" Chen Zeweng said that he knew that it was best not to involve the secret affairs of the royal family, let alone try to snoop, otherwise he would not know how to die.

Zhao Yu nodded and didn't say more, he thought that although Zhuang Shilin's words just now were abrupt, they were not unreasonable. You must know that making a counterfeit coin, bah, is now real money, even in ancient times it is not a simple matter, in fact, modern times are also continuing the practice of this time in some aspects. Coinage has been the top secret of the state since ancient times, and there are very few people who know the core secrets, but after the fall of Jiangnan, the craftsmen in the coinage under the imperial court have long since fled, and it will be very difficult to reorganize and put into production.

Because of the lack of money, Zhao Yu had to adopt the method of making counterfeit money. And this kind of thing is a reluctance in the eyes of the scholars and doctors, and it is intolerable, so that he has to operate in extreme secrecy, and he has participated in all the processes, so he can be called an 'expert', and he knows the difficulties.

First of all, in order to prevent counterfeiting, the banknotes issued in the past dynasties are made of special materials and mixed with other substances to make banknotes, which are difficult for ordinary people to obtain. The Jiaozi of the Song Dynasty was made of the bark coupons, so the paper money was also called the "bark". The Yuan Dynasty banknotes are mainly made of mulberry paper, and its production is also very cumbersome, first peel off the mulberry bark, take out a very thin inner skin between the mulberry bark and the texture, soak it horizontally, and then pour it into the mortar, mash it into a pulp, spread it out and pressurize, and become banknote paper after drying.

It is precisely because the government adopts monopoly means on banknotes, which objectively limits the source of raw materials for counterfeiters to a certain extent, although it cannot completely eliminate the phenomenon of counterfeiting, but can curb the emergence of a large number of counterfeit banknotes, but when the new dynasty changes the dynasty, the new dynasty uses similar raw materials to the old banknotes of the previous dynasty to print new banknotes, counterfeiters will buy a large number of waste banknotes of the previous generation, and use them as banknotes for the manufacture of counterfeit banknotes after pulping. Therefore, it is difficult to eliminate counterfeit money by raw material restrictions alone, and a series of other corresponding measures must be taken in place.

The most common method is to draw more complex patterns, so that counterfeiters are not easy to copy. The pattern of the Song Jiaozi banknote version is composed of "house wood figures", plus "shop household chargewords, each hidden inscription, Zhu Mo is wrong", it has become a good anti-counterfeiting means. The pattern of the Jin Dynasty banknote is more complicated, the dragon and crane pattern is painted around the shape of the banknote in the early stage, and the banknote is "outside for the outside, making the pattern". Yuan banknote pattern, divided into sidebar pattern and money through the pattern of two kinds, the sidebar pattern is more complex, money through the pattern depicts the line through the graphic, to show its face value, so that illiterate people can also distinguish, the intention is to prevent counterfeiting.

In order to intimidate counterfeiters, banknotes are sometimes printed with counterfeiting penalties and reward provisions for reporting in order to further curb counterfeiting banknotes. During the first year of the Jin Dynasty, the seal was written: "The forger of the banknote will be beheaded, and the arrester will be rewarded with 300 yuan", and the Yuan Dynasty to the Yuan Yuan treasure banknote is printed: "The forger will be executed, and the first informant will be rewarded with five silver ingots." The words.

In order to avoid causing market chaos, in fact, the replacement of new coins in successive dynasties also adopted a similar method as Zhao Hao's current time, first by specially appointed officials to try out the prototype, they not only have to name each banknote, but also stamp. When they had completed these formalities in turn, the emperor appointed the chief steward to dip the imperial seal he kept in the silver zhu and cover it on the paper, so that the form of the seal remained on the paper because of the silver zhu and never faded. After such processing, the banknote not only obtained the full authority and credibility of the common currency, but also this is still one of the anti-counterfeiting measures, the ink used by the emperor is not available to ordinary people, and the use of the seal also increases the difficulty of counterfeiting.

After so many years of development, a complete system has been formed, from papermaking, engraving to printing, all can be completed independently, and a scale has been formed, it is not an exaggeration to call it the 'Second Mint of Dayuan', and it is also conceivable how much money Zhao Yu has obtained from it. But with the flood of Mengyuan banknotes, the depreciation was extremely severe, and it was almost to the point where the cost could not be recovered, but he did not dissolve the counterfeit money workshop.

The reason why Zhao Yu kept this workshop and raised them with good food and drink was that at first he was just worried that those 'professionals' would be scattered in society and return to their old business, which would harm others and himself. But if he 'disposed of' them all, to be honest, he was really reluctant, so he turned to let them print salt banknotes, who would have thought that the willows and willows were unintentionally inserted, and now they can come in handy.

"Your Majesty, my subordinates have another suggestion, can we temporarily keep the silk silk collected in this year's summer tax in the local area, and delay the income in the two treasury for a while!" Zhuang Shilin saw that the little emperor was not angry, and instead made another suggestion.

"Why?" Without waiting for Zhao Yu to speak, Chen Zeweng was anxious, you must know that silk and brocade silk are an important income in the summer tax, and if they are stored in the local area, they may be misappropriated, but the loss must be borne by the household department.

"Chen Shangshu is not in a hurry, listen to his reason first!" Zhao Yu pressed his hand, asked Chen Zeweng to sit down, and pointed to Zhuang Shilindao.

"Your Majesty, my subordinates suddenly remembered an interesting story from the previous dynasty, which may be helpful for the issuance of new coins...... Zhuang Shilin said with a smile.

Listening to Zhuang Shilin's story, although he did not specify which dynasty or dynasty it was, Zhao Hao thought that the story was made up by himself, so as to say things. The gist of the story is that people buy and sell goods with iron money, which is very heavy and unsuitable to carry. An official sent a letter to the imperial court demanding the abolition of iron money, and the imperial court decided to exchange the coin, but it took a long time to implement it. But somehow, everyone in the capital said that the iron money was about to be scrapped and had to be spent quickly.

For this reason, everyone competed to buy things with iron money, but the people who sold the things also knew that the iron money was going to be scrapped, so they refused to accept iron money. A dispute broke out between the buyer and seller, and the whole capital was in turmoil, and many merchants even closed their shops. For a moment, people were panicked, and the city was in a depression. Officials in the DPRK and China also wrote a letter demanding that this situation be banned and that iron money be abolished as soon as possible, but the new money could not be put on the market in time. How can we calm the turmoil? One minister proposed:

If the use of iron money is suddenly banned, people will be more confused and more disturbed, so it is better to summon silk merchants and ask them to take out hundreds of silk horses from their homes and sell them, saying that "everyone who buys silk must pay money", so that iron money will be easily concentrated in the hands of a few merchants. Then the imperial court exchanged several silk merchants for the equivalent value of new coins. In this way, the order of the market can be stabilized, and people's hearts will be stable.

"What does Chen Shangshu think?" After listening, Zhao Yu looked at Chen Zeweng and asked.

"Your Majesty, my subordinates think that the owner of the village is very clever in this matter, and he can learn from it!" Chen Zeweng bowed his hand to Zhuang Shilin and replied......