At the beginning of the 10th year of Eiroku, Nobunaga moved to Gifu and placed Tsushima under the rule of the Kiyoshu Commission, and Atsuta under the rule of the Gifu Commission, and established the two major castles of Kiyosu and Gifu. In order to facilitate measurement and management, he issued a special decree, stipulating that all taxes and service money in the collar must be paid in gold, silver or yongle money, and no longer accept privately minted iron money from various places. This policy has been implemented for more than three years, and it has indeed brought great convenience, and it has also promoted the development of castle towns and the prosperity of money houses.

However, some problems have gradually emerged. For example, due to the guidance of the law, the lords, temples, and ordinary townspeople and lords all preferred to use and store Yongle money, and the iron money was unanimously rejected, which immediately caused a shortage of supply, and the Yongle money was seriously insufficient, which had a great impact on the business of the territory.

"Several members of the council have suggested that the lord repeal this decree, but the lord has not agreed." When it comes to this issue, Niwa Nagahide looks very worried.

I nodded. Kazutoyo Yamauchi also mentioned this problem, but I later solved it. Now that Niwa Nagahide has brought it up to me, there must be a further meaning, right?

Sure enough, Niwa Nagahide leaned forward and asked me with concern, "As far as I know, Mie Town has never had this kind of trouble, and it seems that there are still many people who make a special trip to Mie Town to exchange for Yongle money...... What is the reason for this? ”

I smiled: "Actually, there is a shortage of Yongle money, but then I used two methods to roughly solve this trouble." The first is to mobilize Yongle money from the four countries, where it is easier to use it; The second is to issue a penny through the money writing house to use it in lieu of Yongle money......"

"A penny? What is that? Niwa Nagahide asked.

"It's a gold coin made of one penny," I explained, "don't we have a ratio of one or two gold to a thousand Yongle coins?" So I made a penny that could be used in place of two hundred and fifty Yongle coins, and could be freely exchanged at any time at the Money Writer's House. In this case, everyone would rather use a more convenient penny, and the demand for Yongle money will drop greatly. ”

"That's a good idea," Niwa Nagahide muttered, quickly figuring out a possible flaw, "It's just that someone would use low-quality gold to forge a point, right?" ”

"It's not that easy to fake," I smiled, "and my point of judgment is made in a special mold, and the size and weight are very standard...... Moreover, when using it, if the buyer or seller has doubts, you can go to the money house to check. ”

As I spoke, I took out a penny from my sleeve and handed it to Niwa Nagahide to check.

This piece is made of a copper one-point mold, forged by a goldcarver, the size is equivalent to the standard Yongle money, the thickness is about half, there are gears on the edge, the front is my Wusan Tong sub-pattern casting, and the back is my own Han surname pinyin "jiang" cursive flower monogram (in this era, it is absolutely the only one, no one knows and imitates!). ）。

With this in mind, I don't really have to worry about counterfeiting at all. The standard weight of Yongle money is 3.8 grams, generally between 3.7 and 3.9 grams, and the density is about 8.7 to 8.8, while the density of gold is 19.3, and the weight of a penny of gold is 4.1 to 4.2 grams. Even if the amount is a little less, it can be counted within the error, considering the high difficulty, high risk and high workload of counterfeiting, I also admit that the amount is equal to one tael of gold or the proportion of Yongle money in the proportion of four small cents equal to one tael of gold or consistent Yongle money.

What, you say that there is still something in this era with a density similar to gold? Well, as long as there are people who can refine platinum, tungsten, osmium, or some kind of radiant metal, I'd rather admit it...... Niwa Nagahide rubbed the one-point judgment and looked very fond of it: "With such a delicate judgment, will it be troublesome to make?" ”

"It's fine. The main thing is to make a copper mold with five or three paulownia patterns at the bottom and gears on the edge. But after the copper mold is made, you only need to put a small gold nugget weighing one point into it, and then hammer it flat with a copper hammer, which is a ready-made one-point judgment, which is very convenient and fast. I replied.

"Sure enough, it is worthy of His Royal Highness Xuanjing!" Niwa Nagahide admired and gave me back the sentence, "It's really a good idea...... You and I immediately advise the lord that we should do it in all the realms. ”

"I'm glad to do it," I handed Niwa Nagahide, "Since His Royal Highness Nagahide likes it, please accept this money with a smile!" ”

……，…… It wasn't long before we received a reply from Nobunaga. In his reply, Nobunaga agreed to our suggestion that we standardize both gold and silver in a similar way, and make a sub-judgment of one cent, a small judgment of one tael, and a large fine of ten taels to facilitate the transaction.

His order made me stunned for a moment. It seems that the famous Tianzheng Judgment is going to come out in advance in this book.

In fact, the so-called big judgment, which has appeared in the book for a long time, is a large piece of gold made by two merchants. A large piece of money, called a piece of gold according to the agreed name, weighs ten taels, and is used for transactions and settlements between merchants, as well as for loans, gifts, tributes or rewards. This kind of large judgment, the first time it was made on a large scale by the government, was in the Tensho period, and there were two styles, diamond and long, respectively, and the total number of pieces issued was as high as 95,000.

The rectangle of one or two small judgments appeared later, but as the most commonly used trading currency, the issuance volume is much higher than that of large judgments. For the first time in the sixth year of Keicho, the number was as high as more than 14.72 million, and in September of the sixth year of Genroku, about 14 million pieces were issued again.

Of course, because of my initiative, the style of the small judgment will change. A small judgment is equal to four pieces of one judgment, and it can still be made into the style of Yongle money, but the thickness should be twice that of Yongle money.

After discussions with Niwa Nagahide, the new minor, sub-jug, and my triple ichi sub-juku adopt the same format, using the Gosan paulownia pattern and jagged edges. Anyway, Nobunaga also received the Gosan Kirichi subpattern from Ashikaga Yoshiaki. However, I can't use the flower monogram, and all the small judgments and sub-judgments that have been made have to be sent to Gifu and issued by Nobunaga after drawing the flower atag.

Nobunaga is probably going to be tired! I couldn't help but speculate so insidiously.

When I first issued a penalty, I spent half an hour a day drawing a monogram, and I could finish about 2,000 pieces, and it took me a month to complete the task of 50,000 pieces. Now Nobunaga's first batch of sub-judgments and sub-judgments to be issued is as high as 100,000, and according to my progress, he needs to draw it for nearly two months, and it is clear that there are many more in the future...... But I miscalculated. After the first batch of 100,000 pieces was delivered to Gifu, Nobunaga only drew about 1,000 pieces, and the rest were sent back untouched and handed over to me and Niwa Nagahide to draw and bet - he was generous and didn't care about this opportunity to leave his name, but he just worked hard for me and Niwa Nagahide.

Not only that, but he also brought up the production of the big gold and silver goods, and ordered us to solve it as soon as possible.

These two issues are very troublesome, especially the problem of silver. Silver, unlike gold, does not have such a fine extension surname and cannot be processed by forging a die. Moreover, silver is not as dense as gold, about the same as cheap lead, and relatively easy to counterfeit. Niwa Nagahide and I discussed it for a long time, and decided to put aside the silver goods for the first time and make every effort to solve the problem of making the big money.

However, the large judgment weighing ten taels cannot be forged with a mold like a sub-judgment or a small judgment, and you can only think of other casting methods. Niwa Nagahide ordered his subordinates to experiment a few times, but the casting effect was always unsatisfactory, either the speed was too slow, or the quality was not good, and it was always impossible to take care of it. In desperation, we decided to hand over the matter to a special two-dealer in accordance with the previous practice.

The so-called two merchants were merchants engaged in gold and silver exchange, and their functions were somewhat similar to those of banks in later generations. There are three main types of business, one is the division of precious metals into parts and the melting and casting of parts, the second is the processing and production of precious metals, called gold carvers or silver joiners, and the third is the issuance of bills called "hand shapes" to mediate the delivery of large quantities of gold and silver between two places or between large customers.

Generally speaking, it is rare for two companies to be able to carry out all their businesses at the same time, and most of them will only choose one of gold and silver as their main business direction. Of course, there were also two merchants who specialized in the exchange of gold and silver, similar to the foreign exchange transactions of later generations.

The people we selected are the three brothers Goto Mitsumori, Motoshiki, and Yutoku of Goto Yashiki in Kyoto. This family was a family of goldsmiths, and by the time of their great-grandfather Goto Yushinori, they had already been a prestigious two-generation merchant in Kyoto, and had served as the royal goldsmith of the Ashikaga shogun's family for nearly 100 years. After Nobunaga went to Luo, he also commissioned his family to make large judgments or exquisite sword outfits for offerings and rewards, and praised their craftsmanship and keep.

According to history, his family was responsible for making the later Tianzheng Grand Judgment. After the Battle of Sekigahara, this family came out to Tokugawa Ieyasu and presided over the affairs of the Great Judgment Foundry, known as the "Great Judgment Goto Family", and continued until the Meiji era.

Therefore, all the big judgments, whether they are the Tensho Judgment, or the later Keicho Judgment, Wonroku Judgment, Xiangbao Judgment, etc., have on the back of the Goto family's head of the Moshu "pick up two Goto" monograms. Among them, the most precious is the Tianzheng Ling Grand Judgment, which has only a few surviving in modern times, and its value is immeasurable, all of which are treasured in major minting museums.

After some negotiations, the current head of the Goto family, Goto Shiro Hyoe Mitsunori, agreed to our request and officially became the chief judge of the Oda family, and accepted the joint control of Niwa Nagahide, the general commissioner of the Oda family, and me, the general commissioner of the castle town.

Two days later, the first official Grand Judgment was made and sent to Honnoji Temple. It is an oval-shaped gold coin with an obverse pattern of the Oda family's papaya pattern and a sub-pattern of five or three kiri, and the upper and lower sides of the left and right sides are each pressed with a Ichimaru and a kilochi. On the back of the gold coin, sure enough, it is the monogram of "Pick up two Goto" in ink calligraphy, and in the upper left corner is written the year name of this year, "Yuan Gui 3rd Year", and in the lower right corner, there is a line numbered "〇〇〇".

"The fixed amount of the sentence is ten taels, which is forty-four, and two more points are added according to the custom, so as to prepare for wear and tear," Goto Mitsunori explained to us in detail, "The suppression of the pill and tung pole seal around is to prevent someone from cutting ......."

"Is this the number of the Great Judgment?" Niwa Nagahide asked, pointing to the Chinese number in the lower right corner.

"Yes," Mitsunori Goto said, "I heard that the two of them were going to make a thousand, so they numbered them in order from 000 to 999......"

"Add two more 〇!" I commanded.

"Huh?" Mitsunori Goto was taken aback, "To cast so much?" ”

"Of course," I smiled, "how can the ambition and spirit of the lord be only ten thousand?" Therefore, please be aware of Goto Yashiki as well. ”

"I'll do my best!" Mitsunori Goto bowed deeply, a look of excitement in his eyes.

Being able to issue gold goods worth hundreds of thousands of yuan and circulate them in the world is a great honor for any two-generation merchant family, and it is destined to be passed on to future generations.

With the big penalty out of the way, we turned our attention back to the money again, and finally made some progress.

This time it was Niwa Nagahide who came up with the idea, and he was inspired by the big money sentence and once again set his sights on the powerful two substitutes. However, compared with gold, it was much more difficult to identify and mint silver, and none of the two merchants engaged in the silver industry could earn the reputation of the Goto family. Niwa Nagahide traveled twice in Kyoto and Sakai Town, and simply gathered all the well-known silver fukiya operators and set up a "Tsuneza" with 20 servants, who were responsible for the identification, minting, and distribution of silver goods.

The organization they formed was called the Tokosho or Ginza Office, or simply Ginza. (Do you know how the famous Tokyo Ginza came about?) The predecessor was the town of Shinryodai, where Edo Ginza is located; The predecessor was Sunfu Ginza, which was established in the hermitage of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and was located in the current town of Tsui Kui, Aoi-ku, Shizuoka City, and moved to Edo in the 17th year of Keichaga. I'm in charge of the business of small judgments and sub-judgments, and I basically have mastered the Golden Seat, so Niwa Nagahide is mainly in charge of the affairs of Ginza.

At the suggestion of the priests, Niwa Nagahide divided the silver goods into two categories. One is the silver nugget extracted from the mine, called ash blown silver, the purity is generally more than 95%, it belongs to the weighing currency, and the value is determined directly according to its quality when used. There is also a type of pole-printed silver, the large one is called Ding silver, and the small one is called bean plate silver, which belongs to the currency of the host country, and the value is the face value of the two sides of the silver. The bells on the four sides of this type of silver are marked with seals called "pole seals" to prevent anyone from cutting them, just like the great judgment of gold.

Polar seal silver was issued by lords and first appeared in the middle of the Muromachi period. In order to accumulate more wealth, the later Edo shogunate often mixed some impurities when casting this kind of pole seal silver, the purity of the kinder Keicho bean plate silver reached 80%, and the unkind Anmasa bean plate silver had a purity of only 13%.

Comparatively speaking, Niwa Nagahide is a very kind person, and the first batch of 20 pieces of Ding Silver he made was as pure as 90%, similar to Gu Ding Yin. This grade is close to the level of gray blown silver, and it can be directly regarded as a weighing currency, and there is no problem in passing all the books.

We sent these newly-made Ding silver to Gifu along with Goto Yashiki's large judgment and handed them over to Nobunaga for inspection.

(To be continued)