According to the 1:160 silver and copper price of the Ming Dynasty, it is not even one-tenth of the 1:15 in Europe. In terms of material costs alone, it is more than ten times lower. Of course, this is the purchase price at origin. It is also very expensive to transport red copper from Daming to Europe. But in any case, the cost is certainly much cheaper than purchasing Indian copper.

In addition, the cost and speed of making copper coins, Marin's mint is much better than any other country in Europe. For example, Spain, which has begun to use Indian copper to mint Malawi copper coins, is completely incomparable with the North Sea Kingdom in terms of copper coin minting efficiency.

Spanish coinage, at present, still uses the traditional technique of hand-hammering and engraving words and patterns by craftsmen, which is very inefficient. Moreover, it is difficult to scale up production.

For example, the two royal mints in Toledo and Zaragoza, Spain, have a total of just over 4,000 craftsmen. It's not that the two kings of Spain didn't want to expand, but that the mints were not easy to train. Making copper coins by hand is also a technical job, and ordinary people can't do it. As for apprenticeship, with the European apprenticeship system, it often takes 7 years to train before you can become a teacher. So, this affected the expansion of the scale of Spanish coinage.

Unlike Beihai, the Beihai Mint uses machines such as spiral coins to produce coinage, which has low technical requirements for workers. What is really technical is actually to make molds, and only a small number of skilled craftsmen are needed. When pressing copper coins, there is no technology at all, just throw the bare copper plate into the machine while it is hot, rotate the shaft rod hard, and press it fiercely, and a copper coin will be done, and the efficiency is more than ten times higher. The work of more than 4,000 craftsmen in the two Spanish mints can be done by two or three hundred people in the North Sea Mint.

Moreover, this time Marin did not intend to let go of Spain, and Spain's Malawi copper coin is also one of the targets of Marin Cottage. Even, the market size of Spain is much larger than that of Venice......

That's right, you read that right, the Spanish market is bigger than Venice!

Although it is said that Venice has a higher volume of trade and financial revenues than Spain. However, a fatal problem is - the native population of Venice is too small!

Venice has a native population of less than 200,000, while Spain has a population of more than 8 million. The huge difference in population makes the Spanish market much larger than Venice.

Although in the course of Venice's annual trade, the currency was in large circulation. However, it is worth noting that Venice is engaged in international trade and needs to use currencies that are recognized by all countries. For example, Ducat's gold coins, as well as Grosso, which has a high silver content. Other silver coins with low silver content, as well as copper coins, were not recognized at all in Italy.

Just like the Venetian copper coin, if it leaves Italy, it will not be recognized by other countries. Even within Italy, there were not many countries that accepted it, and only some of the neighboring states were willing to accept copper coins issued by Venice. Because, the economic ties between these states and the Republic of Venice were too deep and they were greatly affected. At the same time, it was also convenient for them to go to Venice to purchase goods, so they accepted Venetian copper coins. But when it comes to the total population, it is not as good as the total population of Spain.

Therefore, the income of copycat Italian copper coins is not as good as that of copycat Spanish copper coins. But the problem is that Marin does not plan to go to Spain to recruit migrant workers. Therefore, Marin prefers copycat Italian copper coins over Spanish copper coins.

In addition, due to the fact that copper coins are only circulated in China and do not participate in international trade, it is difficult for Marin to put them into the Spanish market even if they are copycats of Spanish copper coins. After all, Marin had a well-developed intelligence system in Spain, but not a well-developed business system. In Italy, because of the Papal States, Marin had a good relationship with Venice for a long time. Therefore, Marin established a commercial channel in Italy early on, and it was more convenient to sell privately minted copper coins.

Therefore, if you want to mint Spanish copper coins to go to Spain to make money, you also need to establish a secret business channel in Spain to facilitate the shipment of copper coins.

……

Although 375 Malawi copper coins are worth one ducat, as long as they are minted enough, the profits are also considerable. The most important thing is that the cost of imported red copper from Daming is low. With more minting points, the profit is considerable.

For example, I minted 3.75 million Malawi copper coins, which are worth 10,000 ducats. However, to mint 3.75 million Malawi copper coins, only 7.5 million grams of red copper are needed, that is, 15,000 catties. In the Ming Dynasty, 1 kg of red copper was only 0.1 taels of silver. Therefore, the cost of materials is only 1,500 taels of silver, which is only equivalent to more than 1,300 gold coins.

If it is only calculated according to the material cost, this profit is more than 7.6 times! Even after excluding long-distance freight and casting labor costs, there is always a profit of four or five times. As long as there is a secret shipping channel, the Spaniards are no different. After all, they don't have a professional secret service organization to investigate.

It just so happens that the Spaniards are currently bringing back a lot of gold from Zimbabwe. Marin plans to use the Malawi copper coins he secretly minted to exchange them for gold coins in Spain, and then use them for international trade.

Over the years, relying on the spice trade that Marin had no choice but to give to Spain, Spain actually accumulated a large amount of gold and silver currency, which came from European countries. After all, spices were the hard currency that could be turned into gold and silver in Europe in this era. Every year, the Spanish royal family and some Spanish nobles who join in to share the benefits can earn a total of 1 million gold coins. Most of these coins come from other European countries.

In Spain today, money is overflowing. Except for some of the gold and silver that needed to be used to purchase spices in India, most of the rest of the gold and silver flowed into the Spanish domestic market, pushing up the already high prices in Spain.

Marin planned to use cheap copper coins to enter the Spanish market and exchange a large amount of gold and silver. Then, it is used for the procurement of various strategic materials. Spain is a country with many mountains, although there is a shortage of food and high prices, but there are also advantageous products.

Olive oil, for example, is a specialty of southern European countries such as Spain and Italy. This thing is generally used by nobles and wealthy merchants in Europe, and poor families can't afford to eat oil. For example, the famous Betis olive oil was produced in the Seville region of Spain.

In addition, the merino wool in Spain is also the high-quality fine wool in Europe, and it can be bought to spin high-grade wool.

But neither of these is as important as Marin's attention to the Spanish mercury mines. Spain is a well-known mercury producer in Europe, and mercury mining has been in place since the 7th century BC. Currently, Spain is the largest producer of mercury in Europe. Its Almaden mercury mine, and the Idria mercury mine in Slovenia, are currently the two largest and most important mercury mines and mercury sources in Europe. Even the California Gold Rush in the mid-19th century used a large amount of mercury from the Almaden mercury mine in Spain. The mine was mined until 2003, when it was shut down. It can be seen how amazing the reserves of the Almaden mercury mine are!

What is mercury used for? The refining of gold and silver in this era, and the amalgamation of gold and silver ores, required large amounts of mercury. If there is not enough mercury, the development of gold and silver mines is problematic. Why was Spain able to exploit the gold and silver mines of the Americas to such a large extent? Isn't it because it has abundant mercury resources? If you go to France, there is not enough mercury to refine gold and silver ore.

Therefore, it is very cost-effective and important to purchase mercury in Spain in large quantities with privately minted Spanish copper coins. After all, Marin is definitely going to the Americas to mine gold and silver mines.

In addition, the Spanish-made carrac galleons, as well as cork, were also very much needed in Marin, and they were exchanged for cheap copper coins, which were cheap and very cost-effective.

……

In the same way, Portugal, which is next to Spain, has also begun to use copper coins in large quantities. Marin also set his sights on Portugal, where he planned to mint Portuguese copper coins as well, and then go to Portugal to purchase cork. In this way, the purchase cost can be reduced several times.

Unlike in Spain, where there was only an intelligence department and no commercial channels, Marin had begun to secretly contact Baron Ferreira and other former ministers of João II.

Therefore, although Marin had not set up a commercial channel in Portugal before, with the cooperation of local nobles such as João II's former ministers, the inflow of copper coins was easier.

Anyway, the "two teeth" on the Iberian Peninsula were competitors to the Marin Grand Voyage. Marlin would be more than happy to cause them some trouble.

Of course, Marin still did not understand that his act of privately minting copper coins of the two countries actually enriched the market economies of the two countries, but stimulated the economic development of the two countries. Of course, the huge minting profits are not enjoyed by the officials of the two countries. On the contrary, the trade between the two countries has become more active due to the large increase in the number of small copper coins.