Chapter IV Counterfeiting

In June, although the south of the Yangtze River is shaded by green trees, it can't cover the scorching sun, even if there is a breeze caressing, it is a rolling heat wave. In this kind of weather, Ma Yun would rather sit in the shade of a tree, open his clothes, let the attendants fan fans, eat two frozen strawberries by himself, drink two sips of licorice herbal tea, and not go to the streets.

It's a pity that Ma Yun can't enjoy such treatment, and under the scorching sun, accompanied by Fan Zhen, he wanders around on the street. Even if this is in the fifth generation, even if the heat wave is green, natural and pollution-free, it is still hot to death.

Ma Yun walked on the street angrily, he went to the street this time, it can be said that he completely fell for Fan Zhen and Zhao Pu's "treacherous" scheme, to be exact, it should have fallen into Zhao Pu's "treacherous" scheme, this Fan Zhi is talented, but he lacks courage and may not dare to use such a trick. What's the trick? is praise, praising Ma Yun like a flower, he is tireless in government, and he loves the people like a son, and he is praised as rare in the sky and rare on the ground, and a burst of "lost" soul soup came down, Ma Yun lowered his vigilance as soon as he was so happy, and proudly followed with a few words of boasting, which was originally a joke similar to a friend, but unexpectedly, the two people changed their words, and then criticized Ma Yun for not understanding the people well enough, and then criticized Ma Yun for not understanding the people well enough, and had the appearance of Mingjun but did not have the essence of Mingjun, and then proposed that Ma Yun follow them out to observe the people's conditions and experience the life of the people. Ma Yun was still saying that he was from the advice and was widely accepted, and when these two people proposed this, Ma Yun knew that he had been fooled, but he didn't regret it, so he had to follow the two to the street to see what tricks these two people were going to play.

Walking on the streets of Changsha, Fan Zhen and Zhao Pu did not take Ma Yun to the poorer alleys in the left corner of the west of the city to observe the people's feelings, nor did they take Ma Yun to the Fujia House in the south of the city to play the autumn breeze. Ma Yun is to look left and right, what are the rouge gouache shops, silk cloth shops, teahouses, wine shops, restaurants, pawnshops on both sides of the street, and the goods are exquisite, perhaps because of the hot weather, the customers in this store are relatively scarce.

Ma Yun has been thinking for a long time, there are not many people on this street, and they all look like they have something to do, thinking that they are idle like this, and they can be said to be unique. Zhao Pu walked to the side and suddenly said: "Fifth master, look, there is a cloth shop here, Qiao Niang has always said that she wants to make some new clothes for the little master, since you have come out to play today, why don't you sell a piece of cloth back by the way?" ”

Ma Yun wiped the sweat from his head, blinked his eyes, raised his hand, and said weakly: "Let's go, it's good to go in and cool off for a while." I heard that I bought cloth to make clothes for my son, Ma Yun nodded and agreed, but also, if you continue to dry like this, you will become an African native.

The shopkeeper seemed to have not seen a guest for a long time, and when he saw Ma Yun and a few of them patronizing again, he hurriedly walked to the door in three steps and two steps, made a gesture of invitation with one hand, and greeted: "Uncle, I haven't seen you for a long time, what do you want to buy today?" I have everything I need for Shu brocade, Hangzhou silk, and general cloth. The other hand shook the pu fan, desperately fanning them, for fear of heating them.

Zhao Pu and Fan Zhen walked in the storefront, looking at them casually, looking at the cloth for a while, and looking at the silk for a while. And Ma Yun stood in front of the shopkeeper and enjoyed the artificial fan. When entering the store, Ma Yun was the first, Fan Zhen and Zhao Pu followed, and the shopkeeper thought that Ma Yun was a big customer, but this half-squinted eye, enjoying the cool breeze, and had no interest in buying cloth, and the shopkeeper immediately transferred the service object and ran to fan Zhao Pu and Fan Zhen. The cool breeze was gone, Ma Yun opened his eyes and looked left and right, hey, when I go out in the future, I should bring Zhang Shun and Gao Jin, and bring Li Ergou, a group of Qiu Ba men, how can I have the eyesight of a fan.

Zhao Pu looked at it for a while, and asked very enthusiastically: "Shopkeeper, how much is your earthy yellow 'colored' cloth?" ”

The shopkeeper smiled and said: "Guest officer, you really know the goods, this batch of cloth was just imported from Wangcheng County yesterday, and you also know that our Dachu cloth is the best produced in Wangcheng County." It's really a side of water and soil, raising a side of silkworms, silkworms in Wangcheng County, that eat is... ”

Ma Yun was hot to death, how could he be in the mood to listen to the poor work of this shopkeeper, plus this person's service just now was too inconsiderate, so he intercepted immediately: "What I eat is mulberry leaves, and what I spit out is silk, hurry up and tell me how much it is." ”

The shopkeeper still had a smile on his face and said, "It's not expensive, it's not expensive, it's 3 pieces of silver." ”

Zhao Pu saw that Ma Yun was a little impatient, and he didn't bargain and said, "That's not expensive." How much iron should this 3 coins of silver? ”

Fan Zhen on the side said: "Brother Zeping, it should be 3,000 iron money." As he spoke, he turned around and said to Zhao Ming, the attendant standing outside the door: "The 30 strings, the iron money is here." For the shopkeeper. “

Zhao Ming responded honestly, from a small cart he was pushing, he struggled to move a heavy package, put it in the store with a "bang", and after opening the package, he carefully counted 30 strings and handed it to the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper struggled to move the iron money to the counter, and counted it carefully, a string of 100 wen, a total of 30 strings. Ma Yun looked at the iron money in a little surprise, yes, no wonder Zhao Pu wants someone to push a cart? It turns out that this iron money is really worthless.

After two quarters of an hour, the shopkeeper counted the iron coins, and said apologetically: "The number is right, I'm really sorry, I made you wait for a long time... Hey, there's no way, who made our money too worthless? ”

Ma Yun said with a smile on the side: "Although this money is not valuable, but everyone walks on the street every day, isn't it also exercise, hehe, there are pros and cons." At this point, Ma Yun's heart suddenly moved, he kind of understood the purpose of these two people pulling him out to go shopping, these two guys wanted him to experience the disadvantages of this iron money for himself.

He glared at them and said, "Go back." I understand what you two mean, let's discuss it again tomorrow. ”

Yangmin Temple.

"Master Xu, ladies and gentlemen, you have all read Mr. Fan's recital, tell me what you think." Jack Ma asked.

After going back yesterday, Ma Yun asked Fan Zhen to write a piece of currency reform, and discussed it collectively at the small court meeting of the six ministries and nine secretaries.

Tuoba Heng said bluntly: "King, Lord Fan's proposal is good, but it is not feasible. What are the drawbacks of this copper coin, everyone must know, otherwise how could King Wumu's wisdom abandon the copper coin and use the iron coin? There are two reasons for this: first, we don't produce copper in Dachu, and we don't have so much copper to mint coins; Second, although the place of my Dachu is wide, the goods that can be famous in the world are nothing more than tea and lake brocade, we have more goods to ask for outside, and the world has less goods to ask for us, if the implementation of copper money, the merchant came to buy something, and he left with the copper money he earned, then we Dachu will not lose? ”

Xu Zhongya also said: "Your Majesty, Lord Tuoba is right. At present, if we forcibly implement copper coins, we will not be able to do it ourselves. After a long time, I am afraid that it will not only hurt the government, but also hurt the merchants and the people! ”

Copper ore? Ma Yun thought about it, and seemed to remember that there were copper mines in Yunnan, but Yunnan should be Duan Yu's ancestors in power now, right? The terrain of that place is rugged, sparsely populated, and the distance from Dachu is not close to walking, and there are some ethnic minorities in the middle. As the saying goes: persimmons pick up soft pinched first. This Southern Han Ming is the pork on the board, how you want to chop it, how to chop it, at this time, it's better not to make extraneous branches for the time being.

Fan Zhen hurriedly said: "King, we are short of copper, but that is a fact, but we can exchange with Li Tang and them." Li Tang... ”

"Master Fan, this is a difference. Li Tang and their own copper are insufficient, how can they hand over the copper to us? Liu Zhaoyu said.

"Is Li Tang also short of copper?" Jack Ma asked.

"King, Li Tang is not short of copper, but Li Tang believes in Buddhism, this temple is everywhere, and there are no bronze Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in that temple. Therefore, Li Tang is also short of copper coins, and their ratio of copper coins to silver is already 662 to 1. Zhao Pu explained on the side.

Fan's intentions are good, with the improvement of the economic situation in Chu, it is not a way to always use iron money, first, it is too heavy, and secondly, this iron money is too easy to rust, and after rusting, it is easy to be scrapped. . . . This... Doesn't this also hurt the people?

Ma Yun pondered for a moment and said, "Mr. Fan, my lords. There are no outsiders today, so the widow will tell the truth, in the eyes of the widow, what about this iron money? It is inconvenient to carry. But there is one thing, this iron money is cheap to mint and the cost is low, and if others imitate it, not only will they not be able to profit from it, but they will even lose money. But copper coins are different. According to the copper coins of the official position of the Great Jin Dynasty, the copper content of a piece has reached more than 70 percent, and a pound of copper can make 300 copper coins, but it takes 800 copper coins to buy a pound of copper. In this way, unscrupulous merchants will collect copper coins and mint them into copper products to sell, and make a profit from them. This has led to a shortage of copper coins. However, if the copper content of the copper coin is reduced, the words on the copper coin can easily be smoothed out and become worthless. According to the situation of our Chu State, we have spare strength to pass copper coins. However, the widow has thought of a way from it, and everyone can listen to it and see if it is feasible. ”

Ma Yun paused for a moment and continued: "The widow wants to exchange silver or goods for copper coins in Li Tang, and hoard these copper coins. In this way, Li Tang's ratio of copper money and silver will be even lower, and prices will skyrocket, and the people will have no money to use in their hands and cannot afford anything. And when paying taxes, the people have no silver, they can only pay copper money, but after the lack of copper money, the price will increase, which has already hurt the people, and then barter, the people sell grain for copper money, and the unscrupulous businessmen will definitely take the opportunity to lower the price of grain, which will invisibly increase the people's taxes. ”

Xu Zhongya stroked his palms and smiled: "Wonderful, king, this plan is wonderful." ”

Zhao Pu took a closer look at Ma Yun and said, "I'm afraid this is just the first step of the king, right?" When the minister sent an envoy to Jinling, he heard that Zhou Zong and others were lobbying Li Jing to mint a lot of money, and one was ten. If the king sends someone to collect the copper coins now, when Li Tang implements the big money, we will melt the copper coins and cast them into big money, and buy Li Tang's materials in large quantities, and when the big money is issued, the copper coins will become less and less valuable. In fact, now Li Tang, dignitaries and nobles use silk and silver, the common people are not rich, and there are not many copper coins in their hands, but those who have more copper coins are those small landlords who have a little property. The king's first step hurt the tenants and the poor people. And in the second step, it was those small landlords who were hurt by the thin property, and the copper coins saved by these people were completely worthless. In this way, Li Tang's middle and lower classes have completely become poor. At that time, my lord, as long as you personally command a brigade of troops and conquer Li Tang, Li Tang has no food, grass, military salaries, and no reinforcements outside, and the sky is angry and resentful, wouldn't you be able to go down with a drum? ”

Everyone invariably glanced at Zhao Pu, girl, you kid is too dark, right? . . Still, I like it...

Li Xiang said on the side: "However, this thing has to be done without knowing it, and without the important ministers in the Li Tang court as the backstage, I'm afraid it will be difficult to carry it out." ”

Everyone was stunned, yes, Li Tang's group of people are not stupid, they have to collect copper coins and prepare to make Canadian coins, the action is so big, if there is no local backstage, wouldn't it be easy to find out?

Ma Yun's face sank and said: "The meaning of the widow is to set up a numismatic department in Zhongshumen Province to be responsible for this matter full-time. As for Li Tang's side, if you use money to smash it for Lao Tzu, if you can't use 10,000 taels of silver, you will use 100,000 taels, and you must bring over one or two ministers to cover us. ”

Zhao Pu rolled his eyes and said with a smile: "King, why bother to find someone in a hurry." Now there are candidates for success. ”

Ma Yun glanced at him and asked, "Brother Zhao, who are you talking about?" ”

"Old lady Zhang!"

Mrs. Zhang, Ma Yun instantly remembered someone, Zhang Qian's father, this person is the father-in-law of Li Tang Quanchen Zhou Zong, and Zhou Zong is not only a meritorious minister, but also Li Yu's father-in-law, and Li Tang is related to the royal family, and he is covered, who dares to investigate? But Feng Yansi... Ma Yun's mind moved, and he couldn't help but glance at Zhao Pu again: Could it be that Zhao Pu wanted to use a serial plan to deliberately leak this matter to Feng Yansi when Li Tang's economy was about to collapse, then Feng Yansi and Zhou Zong... If two tigers fight, one will be injured, so isn't Li Tang even more 'chaotic'? Brother, girl, thief.