At a time when the people of the whole country are celebrating the reduction of taxes.

In the city of Chang'an, there are dark clouds.

swept away the previous good mood, for this reason, Li Yuanji even became furious, and personally summoned several ministers and relevant personnel involved in this matter.

In front of him, there was a large pile of gold.

In order to facilitate transportation and storage, gold was not made into the shape of gold ingots, but in the shape of gold bars, and the minimum weight was five taels, and there was another ten taels of weight.

On the two pallets, there are equal amounts of gold, too much, not too much, not too much, the two sides combined, a total of more than 300 taels of gold, and its value is as high as more than 600 yuan.

Counterfeit money, sooner or later, any era can not avoid the appearance of counterfeit money, even if more and more advanced technology is used, there will always be someone who will imitate the like.

Moreover, with gold and silver as currency, its anti-counterfeiting is almost negligible, as long as the material is real, it is true.

A counterfeit currency of more than 100 taels of gold, or it is more appropriate to call it a private currency, which makes Li Yuanji very unhappy.

If a small amount of a single one appears, it will not attract the attention of the imperial court, but more than one hundred taels appear at one time, which means that someone is making private coins in batches and flowing into the market.

The circulation of private currency does not have a great impact on the entire social economy, because after all, it is real money, whether it is private currency or official currency, it is all to be circulated, and the merchants will not suffer, and the people will not suffer either.

But the biggest problem is that it is the imperial court that suffers, and if it can't get rid of the source of these private coins, it will be equivalent to the imperial court working for some people.

While summoning the ministers, Li Yuanji did not rush to ask the reason, but kept thinking in his mind how to put an end to and crack down on these private coins.

The exchange rate of gold and silver is set by the household according to the current market price, even if there is some error, but it is completely within the acceptable range, at least there will be no large-scale melting of gold or silver and selling the building at a high price.

But how difficult is it to stop the emergence of private money? This is almost imaginable by Li Yuanji.

Fortunately, the large-scale manufacturing of large quantities, the small-scale manufacturing of the family workshop, I have no way to start, as soon as the door of the courtyard is closed, I make one or twenty taels at a time, and it is a little difficult for me to even know the news, let alone fight them.

"Tell me about the situation!" Seeing that the minister was almost here, Li Yuanji commanded a little dullly.

"No!" Luo Chen replied respectfully, "These private coins were discovered by the money bank yesterday, and at first I just thought it was a little strange, and I didn't care too much, but when I took inventory that night, the clerk kept an eye on it, and found out that it was greasy."

The gold and silver hairstyles of the imperial court have special marks and a complete set of processes, and they are checked at all levels, and the possibility of errors in the middle is almost zero.

The official gold and silver backs are engraved with the weight number, the year of minting, the code of the place of minting, and the code of the official who engraved it. All the contents behind the gold and silver coins, only the weight and year may be duplicated, or they may be engraved in the same place, in the same lot, and in the same official.

So these are also one of the main ways used by the money bank to distinguish the authenticity, but this time the money bank really made a mistake, and as a result, it ignored such a serious problem.

Behind this batch of gold, there are codes engraved with different regions and official codes, and their production is a little rough......"

Only then did the ministers understand the reason why the emperor asked them to come, and they originally thought that the emperor would give a reward when he became rich, but they didn't expect that someone would privately mint money.

Of course, when the amount reaches a certain amount, it is impossible to run away from beheading, but the best result is to be beaten as a slave and distributed to the frontier.

"Is gold real?" Fang Xuanling felt that this matter was a bit of a fuss.

It's not that it's not important, it's that the ministers are too busy to take care of this matter, but they can't ignore it, determine it as soon as possible, and then everyone will do their own thing, and no one will delay anyone's time.

"It's true, and there's no problem with the purity." Luo Chen nodded, he had already asked clearly before he came, otherwise, as an outsider, how could he know these things?

"Your Majesty, since this gold is real, the loss of the imperial court is actually not big, you can take back these privately minted gold, melt and recast them uniformly, and let the Criminal Department send someone to investigate." Fang Xuanling suggested to Li Yuanji, the meaning is obvious, this is just to let the Criminal Department investigate slowly, everyone is very busy.

"What if there's a problem with the origin of all this gold?" Li Yuanji asked with a slight squint.

If it was really like what Fang Xuanling said, he wouldn't be so concerned, but the problem is not just as simple as the surface.

"Problematic with the source?" Fang Xuanling was stunned.

"That's the case, now the price of gold jewelry is basically the same as the price of gold for silver, even if someone wants to make a profit, it is also to find a way to exchange gold for money, and then take it to melt to create jewelry, now the situation is just the opposite, can take out so many jewelry, it can be directly traded, the benefits obtained may not be small, and it will be melted, minted into currency in private, the cost of which is not to say, in order to make such a small profit, it is all over the house, anyway, in my opinion it is very cost-effective." Luo Chen hurriedly reminded.

Fang Xuanling slapped his head suddenly, and his feelings had entered a misunderstanding.

I just felt that the court didn't lose anything, so I didn't plan to make any effort to investigate, just let the criminal department do it, if it can be found, it is naturally the best, and if it can't be found, the court will not lose.

It's not that he's not doing his job, it's that he's too busy to do that.

As soon as Luo Chen reminded him, Fang Xuanling realized the seriousness of the problem.

In the past, there were many people who took advantage of this difference to make profits, and some even made a living from it.

But which of their routines is not to melt the copper coins to mint ornaments to get the difference? I haven't seen a single one melt down an ornament to mint a copper coin.

Of course, it would be nonsense to say no, there must be, and there are quite a few.

But those have one thing in common, those jewelry can't see the light, and they can only make less money as soon as possible.

"Your Majesty thinks that this gold may have come from where?" Fang Xuanling pointed to the ground.

"I think it's very possible!" Li Yuanji nodded, where did the things come out of the light not see? Funerary goods in the tomb.

There are two kinds of funeral goods, one is for daily life, these are not special, after the captains of the gold school take it out, they can be taken off directly.

But the other is a little special, it is a funerary object specially made for the dead, and these items are collectively called dead objects.

And ordinary funeral items can't be seen by others, but if it's a dead vessel, everyone can see it at a glance, who would have the courage to buy a dead veil and put it at home?

Especially in this ancient era when feudal superstition was prevalent, everyone who had something to do with the dead would be far away from them, and they would not touch their things at all.

Therefore, the solution to this problem is also very simple, melt it down, make it into a new ornament, or simply make it into a coin and spend it.

Both have their own benefits, making them into jewelry is more secure and not easy to be discovered, and making them into coins involves another crime.

"It's not easy to investigate, the rats come and go without a trace, and the vigilance is not low." After Zhang Liang was transferred to the post of head of the Shanshan Dao march, Zhang Xingcheng, who had been promoted several levels in a few years, took over the post of secretary of the criminal department from the servant of the criminal department and entered the cabinet.

Zhang Xingcheng does not say that he has won the trust of Li Yuanji, but his ability is still good, and the official sent by the Criminal Department was Zhang Xingcheng in the previous loan loan in Shijia Zhenzhou, and it was after that incident that Zhang Xingcheng was on Li Yuanji's list of books.

has a future, and he has some understanding of the emperor, and when he is busy with official business, Zhang Xingcheng also buries himself in books to study and supplement himself.

I don't want to know everything, but at least I need to know everything.

Zhang Xingcheng's whining words made Li Yuanji frown, which of these group of captains who touched gold was not a monkey spirit? Expect them to show off like some second-generation people? No way.

Those who do this line of work can't say that everyone can't survive, at least a large part of them are, they don't have the ability to show their hands, so they can only rely on this to eat.

But the biggest characteristic of this group of people is that they are low-key, not that they are low-key in committing crimes, but low-key after they succeed.

If you don't raid your home, even your neighbors won't believe they'll do it.

As for the money, don't think about it, it's almost expected that they won't have a lot of money in their hands.

"But it's not that you can't check it, it's just that it's a little more difficult, and you also need the cooperation of other yamen." Zhang Xingcheng thought for a while, although it was not very reliable, it was better than being indifferent.

Not only the emperor, but even these high-ranking officials and ministers also hated these ground rats very much.

There is no reason, because in the eyes of those people, they are all rich people, people with status and status, and the funeral goods must be very rich after they die, and they are arrested, not to relieve hatred, but to prevent them from going to their own tombs in the future.

"Then go and check, it's just a bunch of ground rats that can't see the light!" Li Yuanji commanded unusually firmly.

It's not because I'm the emperor, it's not to keep the burial goods in the tomb after I die, even if I'm not the emperor, it's just an ordinary person, I don't want anyone to dig up my grave after death, and those ground rats don't have any professional ethics at all, they often take violent means, build solid points, and even use explosives to blast them open, and they don't care about the consequences at all.

Although this behavior cannot be changed, there is only one way to change it, thin burial.

"Your Majesty......" Ma Wu cautiously leaned forward, and whispered a few words with an ugly face.

'......Boom'

Hearing the whole news, Li Yuanji was stunned for a moment, and then he became even more angry, and pushed all the gold on the desk to the ground with one hand.

"I will destroy your nine clans......"