"Horse, this is a newly minted silver coin, please take a look!" As soon as Li Xiu arrived at the financial supervision office, he saw that Liu Renliang, who usually doesn't see people, was waiting for him here, and then took out a small box from his arms and excitedly presented it to Li Xiudao.

"The silver coin has already been minted?" Li Xiu couldn't help but be overjoyed when he heard Liu Renliang's words, the reason why he named the bank was because he fooled Li Shimin to use silver as money, so from the beginning of the integration of the minting bureau, he had already begun to think about the minting of silver coins, but the time was not ripe before, and the bank did not have so much silver in its hands, so it has not been minted.

"Yes, this is a pattern coined by craftsmen, if the colt thinks it is okay, you can send the mold to the minting bureaus in various places to start minting money!" Liu Renliang was also very excited at this time.

Last year, he basically didn't do anything else, patronizing the integration of the coinage bureaus in various places, and now those small, too dense coinage bureaus in various places have either been abolished or merged, only some relatively large coinage bureaus have been retained, and the molds of coinage have been unified, so that the difference in coinage produced in various places has become very small, which has facilitated the circulation of copper coins, and he has time to prepare for the minting of silver coins after this year, and now he finally has some results.

Li Xiu also reached out to take the box when he heard this, and then opened it gently, only to see that on the white silk asked in the box, there was a silver glittering silver coin lying quietly, only to see that this silver coin still guarantees the style of Tongbao money, and the round square hole is exquisitely shaped, after all, the people of the Tang Dynasty have been accustomed to the style of copper coins, so there is no need to change the style of silver coins, not to mention that Li Xiu also feels that the style of the round square hole is actually quite beautiful, and there is no need to modify it at all.

Before the Tang Dynasty, the Central Plains has been using the five coins from the Han Dynasty, but after Li Yuan established the Tang Dynasty, the copper coins were changed to Tongbao coins, and the first Tongbao coins were minted in the fourth year of Wude, and named "Kaiyuan Tongbao".

It is worth mentioning that the copper coins made in the Tang Dynasty are called Kaiyuan Tongbao, which is different from the copper coins of the later generations, and later Li Longji has an era name also called Kaiyuan, which is just a coincidence, not only the copper coins minted in the Kaiyuan period of Li Longji are called Kaiyuan Tongbao, in fact, Kaiyuan Tongbao appeared nearly a hundred years earlier than Li Longji's Kaiyuan year name.

"Kaiyuan" has the meaning of opening a new era, which refers to changing the five Zhu Qian to Tongbao money, and "Tongbao" is the meaning of passing treasure goods, which is actually the name of money. These four words were set by Li Yuan himself, and Li Xiu could not modify them, so the front of the silver coin is still printed with the four words "Kaiyuan Tongbao", which is said to be written by the great calligrapher Ouyang Xun, between the official script and the regular script, and the shape of the characters is very beautiful.

Originally, the back of the Kaiyuan Tongbao in the early Tang Dynasty was wordless, but the silver coin was different from the copper coin, when Li Xiu turned the copper coin over, he found that the back was also printed with four words "one silver when a hundred", which also represents the value of the silver coin, according to the bank's regulations, a silver coin can be exchanged for a hundred copper coins, and ten silver coins are consistent.

Li Xiu took this exquisite silver coin and played with it for a while, and finally nodded with great satisfaction, this silver coin inherited the advantages of Tongbao money in style, and the production was also very exquisite, and there was no burr on the edge.

Of course, there must be a big gap between this silver coin and the coins rolled out by the machine in later generations, but in the era of backward technology in the Tang Dynasty, it is very rare to be able to make such exquisite coins, at least much more beautiful than the money in Rome, Li Xiu has seen the gold and silver coins handed down from Rome, the shapes are irregular, and the patterns on them are even more miserable, not to mention the silver coin in his hand, even the ordinary copper coins are more beautiful than theirs.

"Yes, yes, this silver coin is very beautiful, but you can calculate it with one hundred, don't make a mistake!" Li Xiu smiled at this time and said to Liu Ren, the exchange rate between different coins is very critical, if the exchange rate is high, minting silver coins will become a loss-making transaction, if the exchange rate is low, it will reduce the credit of silver coins, so this must be well grasped.

"Don't worry, we have carefully calculated, for example, this silver coin in your hand, the silver in it is actually only worth about seventy wen, plus fire consumption, labor, etc., the final cost is estimated to be between eighty and eighty-five wen, which is equivalent to every silver coin issued, we can save at least fifteen copper coins for the imperial court!" Liu Renliang assured very confidently at this time.

"And what accessories did you add to the coin?" Li Xiu heard this and asked curiously again, coins are generally not a single metal, such as copper coins, although the main ingredient is copper, but other auxiliary materials are generally added to reduce the cost, in the past, the coinage bureaus in various places were not integrated, and even the added auxiliary materials were not unified, some places added tin, some places added iron, some places even added lead, and later after integration, Datang's copper coins are now uniformly added tin, because this thing has large reserves, and it is cheap, and it is not as toxic as heavy metals such as lead.

"Because the texture of sterling silver is too soft, it is easy to wear out when used, so in order to make a strong and wear-resistant silver coin, we also tried a lot of accessories, and finally found that the silver coin with copper is better, not only has it become much harder, but also very wear-resistant, but the cost is higher, and after adding copper, the silver will become duller!" Liu Renliang replied again.

Li Xiu also carefully looked at the silver coin in his hand when he heard this, and sure enough, he found that the silver was a little wrong, not as white as sterling silver, of course, because the copper was added less, so it was not very obvious, and the coin was circulated by hand, and the silver was easy to oxidize, so people who didn't know the inside story couldn't see it at all.

"Rightly, your coinage bureau has done a good job, I am very satisfied with this silver coin, I will present it to Your Majesty tomorrow, as long as Your Majesty nods, the silver coin can be minted, do you have any difficulties over there?" Li Xiu nodded with satisfaction again, the hardness of this silver coin is indeed very high, and he can't bend it even if he uses his strength, which is much stronger than sterling silver.

"There are no other difficulties, but the bank still needs a nod from the horse, after all, we definitely need a large amount of silver to mint money, and these need to be provided by the bank!" Liu Renliang said with a wry smile at this time, the bank's inventory management is strict, and they needed a batch of silver for trial casting before, and he personally came forward to get it.

"No problem, since the bank was just established, I have already asked me to start buying silver, and now I have purchased a lot, if it is not enough, I can let the bank collect it again in the future, but the issuance of silver coins must also be discussed with the bank, and the number of issues must be checked by the bank!" Li Xiu immediately made a decision, and then admonished again.

"Don't worry, the coins minted by the Mint will be handed over to the bank for issuance, I know this very well!" Liu Renliang patted his chest and assured that in the past, the copper coins minted by the Minting Bureau were handed over to the household department for scheduling, but from this year onwards, the newly minted copper coins were handed over to the bank for issuance, of course, when the household department wanted to use the money, it also needed to apply to the bank, which was equivalent to making the finance independent from the household department.

Early the next morning, Li Xiu excitedly presented the newly minted silver coins to Li Shimin, and the minting of silver coins was also set when the bank was established, and with the prosperity of commerce, the disadvantage of the low value of copper coins has been revealed, which has also brought great inconvenience to commerce, so Li Shimin did not have any objection to the opening of silver coins, and immediately agreed.

With Li Shimin's order, the minting bureau also began to get busy, and the silver in the bank's inventory also began to be transported to the minting bureau, but Li Xiu was still very cautious about the issuance of silver coins, and only minted a small number of silver coins at the beginning, and then tried to issue them at the bank headquarters in Chang'an.

However, to Li Xiu's surprise, the silver coin was just issued in Chang'an Bank, which immediately aroused the pursuit of many people, and the prepared silver coin was exchanged in less than a morning, so there were still a large number of merchants blocking the door of the bank, asking to exchange silver coins, after all, they really needed a large amount of coins.

In the face of this situation, Li Xiu also immediately asked Liu Renliang to start minting silver coins with all his might, and at the same time fully issued silver coins in several banks that had been established, but even so, silver coins were still not in supply, which also caused some bad effects, a silver coin on the black market can be exchanged for copper coins beyond its own value, for example, in the Chang'an area, a silver coin can be exchanged for one hundred and twenty silver coins in private, far beyond the bank's regulations, which is not a good thing, but there is no good way to do this, It can only urge the Mint to step up the minting and increase the supply of silver coins.

Later, Li Xiu summed up the reason why the silver coin issuance was so popular, in addition to the commercial need for large denomination currency, there are two main reasons, the first is that before the issuance of silver coins, there has been a situation of trading with silver in private commercial transactions, after all, the silver in the Americas has been transported to the Central Plains, which has increased the number of silver, especially in the southern coastal areas, the circulation of silver has been very popular among merchants, so the bank issuance of silver coins is naturally easy to be recognized by these merchants.

In addition, there is another important reason, that is, after last year's efforts, the bank's credit has been established, and the bank's paper money in later generations is actually built on credit, and silver itself has value, coupled with the bank's credit, it is naturally sought after by people.

With the issuance of silver coins, the status of the bank has also been greatly improved, so that the reputation of the bank has also been enhanced, but in the issuance of silver coins, there is also a small problem. 410