Marin's intentions were good, but Julius II was somewhat disapproving. It's not that the Pope is unwilling to cooperate with Marin, but that he doubts the North Sea Kingdom's ability to mint money. After all, Beihai had no previous history of coinage, and whether it had experience was a big question. The Bank of Siena, on the other hand, had a mint, but the dozen or so families in charge were all killed by Marin.

You know, the mint is a very important department. In order to better control the mint, the banker families in Siena generally chose their children to control the mint and master the core technology. But Marin wiped out all the members of those dozen families, and the Siena Mint lost its core technology.

And, as far as Julius II knew, the craftsmen needed for the mint were very numerous. For example, the mint in Tours, France, has three or four thousand mints. Moreover, they are all skilled old craftsmen. New craftsmen are generally hands-on. After all, this is coinage, not the production of ordinary things.

In this era, the coinage of European countries was all hand-forged. The mint first had ordinary craftsmen stamped and cut round pieces of gold or silver of the same size. Then, a skilled mintman, using a hammer and stamping die, hammers and stamping dies hammered out the desired human head and letters on gold or silver sheets. Not only is this time-consuming, but each coin is different.

Among them, the best forging is gold coins. Because, there is an unspoken rule in Europe - gold coins are not adulterated. As a result, most of the gold coins in Europe are made of high-purity gold. High-purity gold, on the other hand, is very soft, and when forging with a hammer and die, it is easy to shape the head and letters, which is more convenient. Moreover, the reason why the gold coin is only about 3.56 grams in size is because it cannot be made too large. If it is larger, the already softer gold will make a coin that is more likely to lose shape. Similarly, silver coins too. However, because various countries dope copper in silver coins, the silver coins are harder, and they are not worried about making them too large and deformed. But the problem is that when copper is mixed with it, the silver coins become harder and more difficult to forge heads and letters. Therefore, forging silver coins is now much more difficult than forging gold coins.

Julius II was actually very interested in Marin's desire to mint a batch of gold coins bearing his portrait for the Holy See. After all, his life is limited, but gold can survive for thousands of years. As long as the gold coin with his portrait is there, his fame will be passed on to future generations. It's just that the Papal States has never had a powerful mint, and he doesn't have such ideas.

As for Marin's desire to mint gold coins for him, Julius II was somewhat unconvinced of Marin's coinage skills......

Marin saw that the pope's father-in-law did not believe in his own strength, so he pretended to be forced and said:

"Now, I have to show you the coinage technology of our Beihai Country......"

Then he turned around and walked away (although he was stabbed in the butt and could not sit down, he had no problem walking), and came to the barracks of his army and shouted:

"Anyone with the newly minted copper coins of the Beihai Kingdom?"

"Anyone with the newly minted copper coins of the Beihai Kingdom?"

……

The officers and men of the Beihai Mountain Infantry Regiment who came with him were a little confused - what is the boss going to do? Is there a lack of money? It shouldn't be......

How did they know that Marin just wanted his father-in-law to see the strength of the Beihai Kingdom's coinage. It just so happened that some time ago, Beihai tried to produce a batch of brass coins, which were pressed by a spiral mint, and the pattern was clear and exquisite, which could be brought to Julius II to show him, so that he could see the technical strength of the Beihai Mint.

But the problem is that Marin is the ruler of the Beihai Kingdom, and he usually doesn't bring much silver coins in his hand, at least gold coins, how can there be copper coins? Therefore, he can only turn to his subordinates for help......

After shouting for a while, a small soldier finally reacted - it is definitely cost-effective to be able to lend money to the boss and let the boss owe favors!

As a result, a group of soldiers took out the newly issued brass coins with the golden eagle pattern of the Beihai Kingdom from their bodies and rushed to hand them to Marin.

Marin couldn't laugh or cry, he wasn't really short of money to borrow, he could only take a sample. Of course, he won't let his men suffer. He took a dozen new brass coins from the North Sea Kingdom, but gave back the same amount of gold coins to the soldiers who gave the brass coins. Then, taking the dozen brass coins with him, he returned to the backyard of the Lateran Temple, where Julius II was located.

"Look, this is a new copper coin from my mint, look at the quality, isn't it good?"

"Gold?" Julius II had never seen zinc brass, the color of which resembled gold. Moreover, because the new mint was not long ago, it was still yellow, so that Julius II mistook it for a gold coin.

But after carefully observing it in his hand, Julius II realized that it was a copper coin......

After observing these copper coins, Julius II was shocked:

"Why is this pattern so delicate, and the traces are very deep......"

His surprise was normal, because, in this age of handmade coins, copper coins are very difficult to craft. Because, the patterns and words on the copper coins are hammered out step by step by the coinsmiths. But the problem is that copper is very hard, and it will only become soft when it reaches a certain high temperature after returning to the furnace. After the softened hot copper sheet is removed, the minters will work hard while it is still hot.

The problem is that the hand-made process is slow, so slow that it can't keep up with the cooling of the copper sheets. When the copper sheet cools down, it is no longer soft. It is more difficult for the convictor to hammer out the precise patterns and words on the copper sheet. Therefore, the minting of copper coins is often relatively rough and the traces are not deep. Because, when the copper cools down, it is very hard, and it is difficult to hammer out deep marks.

The North Sea Mint in Marin, on the other hand, used a spiral mint to press coins for a short time. As long as you rotate the arm a few times and press the steel mold against the copper sheet, the casting will be completed in no time. And the hot, soft hot copper sheet does not have time to cool and harden. Moreover, the pressure of the spiral mint is very high, and the traces are naturally much deeper than that of the mint using a small artificial hammer.

Therefore, the bronze coins of the North Sea Kingdom, which Marin showed to Julius II, are not only beautifully designed, but also deeply traced. Ordinary craftsmen can't hammer such fine coins at all.

……

"You think the quality is okay, right? It's a copper coin. If it's a gold coin, it's easier to craft. ”

After looking at a dozen copper coins, Julius II nodded, but then asked:

"It's hard to make such a beautiful coin, right? What is the manufacturing speed? Can you keep up with the production demand? ”

Julius II did not know that the North Sea Kingdom used machines to make coins, and thought that Marin had highly skilled mintmen under his command.

Marin smiled and explained to Julius II about the use of spiral coins in the North Sea Kingdom, and Julius II's eyes lit up and he wanted to introduce a spiral mint to the Papal States.

Marin hurriedly stopped him, joking, the Papal States are not their own hereditary territory, why introduce such good technology for the Papal States? Moreover, if the Papal States wants to mint coins, it can be contracted to the Bank of Siena, which is controlled by Marin. If the technology of the spiral mint had been mastered by the Papal States, Marin could be sure that the greedy cardinals would have gone crazy to make bad coins and disrupt the market.

Under Marin's persuasion, Julius II, who felt that he had few years to live, finally gave up the idea of introducing a spiral coinage. However, the minting of gold coins bearing his portrait is still very important......

"Well, then, I will send for Michelangelo, a young and promising sculptor, and ask him to help me design a money mold, and then hand it over to your men to struck gold coins. As for gold, you use the existing ones first. For example, those gold ingots and florin coins, ducats, etc., that you seized......"

"What is the new gold coin called? Ducatt or Florin? Marlin asked.

"Let's call it Pope Ducat......" Julius II thought for a moment. Previously, there had been popes who had ordered gold coins to be minted, but they were generally called florin. And Julius II planned to come something different, so he planned to change the name to "Pope Ducat". In addition to being different from history, it also has the meaning of being in line with the Ducats issued in Venice.

"By the way, where is Michelangelo's young sculptor...... Well, it seems that he was sent to the Sistine Chapel to carve the ceiling fresco "Genesis", and I had to send someone to call him over......"

"Who's that, you go to the Sistine Chapel and call Millet (Michelangelo) to me!" Julius II exclaimed with majesty. That posture, as if he was not inviting a great artist, was summoning a random watchdog, which made Marin a little dumbfounded......

……