The Lou's Smelter in Yecheng has been working with great enthusiasm lately, because they are on a very honorable mission, and the minting of new national coins has fallen to them, and of course what excites them the most is not the honor itself, but because there is one thing that is more important and worthy of their pleasure than honor for these craftsmen. [No pop-ups. 】

Of course, the craftsman cares most about his own craftsmanship, but no matter how good the craftsmanship is, there is no good way to do it, the casting of coins has become popular since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, but the method of casting coins in the past is really a bit cumbersome, the first step is to make a money fan, that is, a mold for money, generally speaking, this mold is made of mud and stone.

This is the same as making ceramic utensils, the model has to go through a long time to dry, and then after baking, it is considered to be successful, and then the front and back of the mold are put together, and then the copper Y is poured, and after cooling, the mold is broken to take out the copper coin.

You heard it right, it is to break the mold that has been made for a long time to get copper coins, so the cost and time of production will inevitably be very high, so making copper coins is not an easy task.

Later, in the Qin and Han dynasties, the stacked copper casting method was studied, which was consistent with the principle of the above flat fan pouring method, but the difference was that a copper model was first made with a clay mold, that is, a copper mold, and then a money model was made with this copper mold, and the clay mold of money was finally made.

The advantage of this method is that you can make a lot of money at one time, on the surface it does improve efficiency, but in fact it is not, because this method you actually use two Y drying and baking, the first time to make the copper fan required is a clay model, and then use the copper fan to make the money model again.

So there isn't much time to spare, and this method wastes a lot of copper, but the advantage is that the coins are more beautiful, but overall the effectiveness is still very low!

In the end, the latest production process was invented in the Sui and Tang dynasties, and it just so happened that our scholar Chen Yu knew something about it. So much so that Chen Yu can fundamentally solve the disadvantages of inefficiency in making copper coins.

To put it bluntly, the mother money sand turning method is actually very simple, first carve a copper coin, and after the hand-carved fine carving, this copper coin becomes the carved mother. It is also known as ancestral money, which is the ancestor of the coin, and then used this ancestor to make a money mold, that is, the mother money.

A new process has already begun to be used for the production of the mother coin, which is then filled with sand and gravel in a fixed wooden frame. The sand and gravel used to make the mother money is relatively fine and of high quality, and then the ancestral money is printed directly on it, and then another wooden frame filled with sand is buckled on it, and the model is good after opening.

Then came the production of ordinary coins in circulation, in the same way as my mother's coins, but with coarser sand. There were no traces of artificial carving, and by distributing the mother coins in various smelters, they could make the same copper coins.

This method saves a lot of time, including engraving molds, drying and baking, the cost of coins is greatly reduced, but the efficiency is much improved, as long as the secrecy is properly maintained, the cost of public coins can be much lower than those black workshops, and then you can pirate a little more than you lose.

In addition, the surface of coins made by the sand turning method will naturally develop a layer of dark brown toning. It makes people feel that the fire has faded, and the color is soft, and it is difficult to have this texture in ordinary black workshop counterfeit coins, so it is easier to distinguish the authenticity.

With a new process. The enthusiasm of the craftsmen was even higher, and it did not take long for the first batch of coins to be baked, and when the new coins were sent to the palace, the Son of Heaven and all the courtiers were there, and they knew about the new money, but they did not know anything about the style and size of the new money. Even Emperor Jiemin, who has always been elegant, is very curious, after all, Chen Yu is too capable of doing new tricks.

The first feeling that the Son of Heaven picked up the coin was that it was large and heavy, almost twice as heavy as the one issued by the Great Wei Dynasty, and the diameter was nearly half larger. ”

"Your Majesty is wise!" Chen Yu immediately complimented, after all, praising His Majesty for his knowledge at this time is equivalent to praising himself for doing things well, as for devaluation, the Son of Heaven learned it from Chen Yu.

Emperor Jie Min smiled, and then continued to observe the coin, "Kaiyuan Tongbao!" ”

The four big characters on the coin are Kaiyuan Tongbao, and it has to be mentioned that these four words are written by Chen Yu's Yan calligraphy, in fact, the words engraved on the copper coin are not suitable for Yan Ti, but if you let go of this opportunity to show off for thousands of years, then he will not be called Chen Yu.

Kaiyuan Tongbao is the earliest new money in the Tang Dynasty, many people mistakenly think that this is a coin made with the name of the year, because the Tang Dynasty emperor Li Longji has an era name is Kaiyuan, and it is also called the Kaiyuan Dynasty by later generations, but in fact, at that time, Kaiyuan Tongbao has been popular in the Tang Dynasty for a hundred years, and this coin has not been born before Li Longji was born, so this is not actually a coin named after the year name.

The name of Kaiyuan is to open a new era, open up a new world meaning, if it is to unify the world and change the dynasty, it is very auspicious to use this omen, but Chen Yu does not care about such a bit of icing on the cake, as for the treasure of course refers to the circulation of treasures, which has made people deepen the concept that currency is equal to treasure.

With the influence of moving the capital has not yet dissipated, making new money immediately will definitely make the feeling of the new policy and new atmosphere more intense, Chen Yu just wants the world to keep the attention to him, just like the hype of later generations, he must always stand on the cusp of the storm and pave the way for the reform below him.

The five-baht coin has served the Chinese Empire for more than 700 years, and the appearance of Kaiyuan Tongbao has finally brought the curtain down on the glory of the five-baht coin, and since then it has been silent in the long river of history.

Chen Yu's Kaiyuan Tongbao is heavier than the Tang Dynasty issued in history, there are as many as five grams, ten pieces is one tael, this is also a reform of Chen Yu's unit of measurement, you must know that one tael was forty grams in the past, and now Chen Yu directly changed one tael to fifty grams according to the experience of later generations.

People in the world should have heard the word half a catty and eight taels, which originally described the meaning of two people or two sides of the same degree, but the source of this word is also well-founded, in ancient times, half a catty is eight taels, one catty and sixteen taels, which was changed after four or nine years.

Although the past one or two is lighter than the current one or two, but the pound is heavier than the current one, and now Chen Yu began to reform, and the next pound is only ten taels, and then there are kilograms, kilograms, tons and other units have surfaced one after another......

After the weight unit is set, of course, it is the length unit, those that are not used to it, Chen Yu has long been unaccustomed to it, and directly replaced it with meters, decimeters, centimeters, etc., and the same is true for the area, what are you not used to? It's okay, then take your time to get used to it, Chen Xiaoye is young and has time, and he can definitely afford to wait.

These reforms have caused a lot of sensation to the Great Wei Empire, but for Chen Yu, this is not even a drop in the bucket, he has too many things to do, but even Chen Yu does not dare to be in a hurry, he doesn't want to end up with the same fate as Wang Mang, in fact, sometimes Chen Yu really suspects that Wang Mang is an old-timer who travels through it, otherwise how could this new emperor put forward so many reform opinions?

But if this is really a time-traveling old-timer, it is definitely a failed example, and he finally got the supreme throne of the world by himself, but he died by himself...... (To be continued.) )