Liu Laogen saw Kong Tai casually take a few silver bars over, and his eyes were straight. In the Ming Dynasty, there was no shortage of copper coins, but there was a shortage of silver.

At present, it is still the Zhengde Dynasty, the Portuguese have not yet arrived in China, and the Japanese Iwami Silver Mountain has not yet been mined. Therefore, silver in the Ming Dynasty is very scarce at the moment.

How to say it, the current gold and silver price ratio in the Ming Dynasty is about 1:5 and 1:6. In other words, five or six taels of silver can be exchanged for one tael of gold. In Europe, it's 1 to 12. Of course, with the mining of silver in the Americas and the development of Iwami Ginzan, the European gold-silver exchange ratio would rise to 1:15 in the mid-to-late 16th century, and then to 1:20 in the 17th century. But the Ming Dynasty, until 1600, was still a 1 to 8 exchange ratio.

It stands to reason that the Ming Dynasty is so short of silver now, one or two silver should be able to exchange for a lot of copper coins, right? The reason is so, but at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court had a death rule - 1 tael of silver = 1000 copper coins = 1 treasure banknote......

Of course, the treasure banknotes were issued indiscriminately by Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, which led to serious depreciation. Later, in the Zhengde period, it was directly abolished. However, the exchange ratio of silver and copper coins has continued.

However, for ordinary people, silver is very rare, and ordinary people still carry a lot of copper coins on their bodies, strung with ropes, like the keychain pinned to the belt in later generations, jingling, but it is much heavier.

Generally speaking, only wealthy families have gold and silver collections at home. In the eyes of ordinary people, silver is a symbol of wealth.

And the silver bar that Comté took out was an authentic Bohemian silver bar with a high purity. Because Ma Lin knew that the people of the Ming Dynasty were very shrewd and had many ways to identify silver. Using the kind of bad currency in Europe will not work in the Ming Dynasty.

Even at the end of the Ming Dynasty in the 17th century, Europeans who wanted to buy things from the Ming Dynasty had to use the purest Spanish silver dollar, with a silver content fixed at 90%. The Spanish silver dollar was also the only Western currency accepted by the Ming Dynasty. If you buy something with other European inferior silver coins, the Ming Dynasty will not recognize it.

Therefore, Marin did not talk nonsense and directly took the purest Bohemian silver bars in Europe. A bohemian silver bar weighs 600 grams, which is equivalent to 2,400 deniers (containing 0.25 grams of silver). When converted into silver, it is 16 taels of silver.

In the Ming Dynasty, 16 taels is 16,000 Wen, and you can buy more than two stone rice. In the Ming Dynasty, one stone of rice was about 153 catties, and two stones of rice was more than 300 catties. A silver bar of 16 taels can be exchanged for four or five thousand catties of rice. Even if it is a paddy field in the south of the Yangtze River, the rice per mu of land in this era is almost more than 200 catties. Therefore, a silver bar can be worth the value of the annual output of rice in the Jiangnan paddy field of twenty or thirty acres.

And the family can have twenty or thirty acres of good paddy fields, which is definitely a well-off family in the Ming Dynasty, and can support a scholar to take the imperial examination......

Kong Tai took out a few silver bars casually, which were enough for the annual income of several well-off families in the Ming Dynasty, how could he not surprise Liu Laogen?

"My lord, what are you buying here? Our boat is small, we can't fit it......" Liu Laogen's hand as he took the silver bar trembled a little. The small fishing boat they used for smuggling could be filled with a single silver bar......

"It's nothing, I just want to buy some tung oil, nails and canvas for shipbuilding. By the way, buy some waterproof paint......" Kong Tai thought for a moment.

"The paint is waterproof...... Liu Laogen wondered.

He didn't know that there were no lacquer trees in Europe, and the paint was all concocted, and not every paint could be waterproof. Unlike the Ming Dynasty, the paints of the Ming Dynasty were based on the raw lacquer obtained from the lacquer tree. The raw lacquer is waterproof, and most of the paints of the Ming Dynasty can also be waterproof.

"That's great, you go buy enough tung oil, nails, paint, and ......canvas to build two speedboats," Conté said, comparing the size of the speedboats.

"Such a big ship...... Two barrels of tung oil are enough, and one barrel of paint is enough...... Nail...... Shipbuilding has to be built with copper nails......"

"Copper nails? Is it expensive? Conté's eyelids jumped. In Europe, copper is very expensive. Nails made of copper are time-consuming and more expensive...... Kong Tai was a little unsure......

"It's a bit expensive, 200 wen a catty. One tael of silver can buy 5 catties ......," Liu Laogen replied.

"What? Can you buy 5 catties of copper nails for one tael of silver? Conté almost thought he had misheard. That's a pound, heavier than a pound......

"That's right? Do you think it's expensive too? Liu Laogen wondered.

Kong Tai almost didn't come up in one breath - this can also be considered expensive? Daming is 16 taels per catty, which is equivalent to a tael of silver to buy 80 taels of copper, this price comparison is 1 to 80!

But before he finished being shocked, Liu Laogen continued:

|“ The price of copper is only 50 wen a catty, and a tael of silver can be exchanged for 20 catties of copper (blister copper), they are beaten into copper nails, and the price has quadrupled. Even if it's red cooked copper (high-purity copper), it's less than 100 wen a catty......"

Kong Tai almost turned his back on it:

"What? Can a tael of silver be exchanged for 20 catties of copper? "Kong Tai is almost doubting life. The last time I made a big purchase in Guangzhou, it didn't involve the metal, so he didn't know that the price of copper in the Ming Dynasty was so cheap.

Even if the 100 wen and a catty of red copper are calculated, one tael of silver can buy 10 catties of high-purity copper, which is 160 taels...... The 1:160 silver-copper price ratio...... Conté felt that he was going crazy, this price is more than 10 times cheaper than in Europe......

"No wonder the Grand Duke wants to come to the Ming Dynasty to buy things, it's too cheap!" Conté muttered.

"My lord, how many copper nails do you want to buy?" Liu Laogen asked. Generally speaking, a few catties of copper nails are enough for a speedboat.

As the saying goes, "a rotten ship also has three catties of nails", that is to say, for ordinary boats, three catties of nails are enough. The speedboat made by Kong Tai is not much bigger than the average small boat, and the maximum number of nails for a speedboat is about 5 catties. Two speedboats, with 10 catties of copper nails, exactly 2 taels of silver. This is still the use of copper nails, which is more luxurious, after all, it is a sea ship, and the corrosion resistance requirements are high. If the iron nails are used for inland river ships, one catty is only 20 wen, and one tael of silver can buy 50 catties......

However, at this time, Kong Tai was full of pride - since the copper nails are so cheap, Lao Tzu wants to nail the hull full of copper nails! With such a trenched ship, it is estimated that many people will be envious of it when it sails back to Europe!

So, he waved his hand and said proudly:

"Buy me a brass nail with a silver bar!"

"16 Nails of brass? Obediently, that's 80 pounds of copper nails! It doesn't take that much...... "This is a nail that is 8 times the demand......

"You don't care about this! Big deal, I'll have those craftsmen fill the bottom of the boat with copper nails and see how the maggots can bite! Hmph......" Kong Tai said proudly.

Liu Laogen stopped talking, he had seen people wearing silk clothes, riding a horse, and hugging them, but he had never seen anyone nailing the bottom of the boat full of copper nails...... Even if you pretend, others won't be able to see it...... Do you dive to see the copper nails on the bottom of your boat?

However, this was not something he could control, so he took the silver bar and left silently, leaving Kong Tai, who was still there with a heroic spirit, exuding the aura of a king and a trench in the air......