Julius Caesar's War of Counterfeit Money. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Julius Caesar decided to find rosewood, the "golden tree in the hearts of fools", to open a wood processing factory, and to make a fortune from fools.

At about the same time, the other side of the war also made a decision about the wooden mooncakes, which were essentially the same as Julius Caesar thousands of miles away, but the target of the raid seemed to be his own nationals.

In early January B59, at an enlarged meeting of the Imperial Cabinet of the Marnerocco, the elders and the co-opted members of the Cabinet discussed the source of military expenses for the war.

Soon after the end of the colonial wars in the B century, there was a change of regime in the country in the mode of a coup d'état or a mutiny. The main exchange of fire between supporters on both sides was in the capital, where the National Archives caught fire during the fighting, and it is said that the cabinet elders burned the archives and records to destroy the incriminating evidence. After the fire, the entire National Archives was reduced to rubble, a large number of documents and archives were burned, and all the cabinet elders and participants died in the new nation's founding trial. The specific records of this meeting in history have long been impossible to check, but since then, there have been more ultra-high-priced local tyrant mooncakes on the market, and there are more than ever before.

According to the country's folk rumors and relevant historical facts at the time, the final decision made at the meeting may be to issue additional currency to fund military spending. Compared with taxation, it is still faster and more effective to issue money, and the people hardly feel anything in the short term, but in fact everyone pays more taxes, and every user of the currency in circulation in the country is robbed by the government.

During the colonial wars of the B century, the first incumbent Prime Minister of the Marnerocco Empire was named Ahma. It is said that it was at that meeting that he proposed the money-making policy of "printing as much money as we need for this war", without considering whether such a currency issuance would cause currency depreciation, and did not take any measures to balance prices.

The purpose of his advocacy is simple - to win re-election and "work until death in the prime minister's seat".

More than 600 years ago, after the empire unified the continent of Marnlock, the empire strictly pursued a policy of "rest and recuperation". In order to maintain the hard-won unification, the top of the empire pursued both government and government, on the one hand, simplifying the government as much as possible to reduce taxes, reduce the burden on the people, and appease the people at home; On the other hand, it is actively expanding overseas and conducting conquests outside the mainland, with the intention of continuing to expand its territory and increasing the government's sources of revenue outside the mainland. More than 200 years ago, the country established a constitutional monarchy, and tax cuts became a habit, advocating a balance of revenue and expenditure, no fiscal surplus, and "not collecting more than a single excess tax from the people". Therefore, the country's treasury currency reserves are pitifully low, in fact, there is no major war, and there is no need to engage in too many currency reserves. Before the outbreak of this war, the empire had been at peace for nearly 100 years, and the people were accustomed to living a peaceful life and enjoying a dull, affluent and stable life, while the central treasury, which had been engaged in "precise budgets and no surplus finances" for 200 years, had no money in the treasury to pay for the war.

From the perspective of safeguarding his political reputation, Ahma strongly advocated that "the people must not be taxed", and besides, there is still a process of collecting and collecting taxes to make money, and it is too late in time.

In this war, the central government of the empire seems to have run out of money whenever it needs it. Before the outbreak of the war, the maximum mintage of the Marne-Rocco Empire's 100,000 Hundred Silk Pear Shenmu coins (each with a theoretical value of 200 grams of gold) reached 1.2 million. In just two years, the huge amount of wooden money circulating in the market has doubled geometrically, which can be called the "money-making movement". In the short term, the much-needed military spending will be solved, and the large amount of money that can skyrocket will inevitably lead to hyperinflation.

The motive of this "money-making campaign" may have been to achieve "no tax increases" and "no burden on the people", but the result was that everyone suffered great property losses. The printing of money in modern society and the coinage of ancient countries are actually the same thing, and crazy coinage will inevitably lead to crazy inflation.

At the beginning of Prime Minister Ahma's "money-making campaign", Julius Caesar's counterfeit money workshop also became an eyebrow, but the products of the two seem to be somewhat different from the original.

Wikipedia explains the pear sacred wood as follows: the Marne Rocco Empire used a special wood (huanghuali tree core) as a large denomination currency, a very fine moon cake selling wooden crafts, about 8cm in diameter and about 3cm thick, the front and back sides are carved with dragon and phoenix emblems, and the front and back sides are engraved with a hundred silk and pear sacred wood respectively, and the side is engraved with dense small characters of 100,000 yuan. The middle amount of currency uses silk silk, 15cm long and 10cm wide rectangular, about 2 mm thick, printing and dyeing process also with a little embroidery, the upper text is worth a silk, and the text is worth a thousand dollars.

The conversion is based on the international price of the gold benchmark at that time.

At that time, the international gold price basically fluctuated around 1,000 United Empire Romance dollars per kilogram. We will pay 1000 Roman gold dollars a kilogram.

The records of the Marne Rocco Empire show that every 2,000 coins was one tael of silver, referring to the ratio of gold and silver at that time to 1 to ten, that is, 20,000 coins were one tael of gold.

One kilogram is 1000 grams, and the Marne Rocco Imperial Weights and Measures 1 city kilogram is 640 grams. There are 16 taels in 1 catty, and 1 tael in the country is 40 grams of the United Empire's standard of measurement. A kilogram of metric units is 25 taels for the country. The price of 25 taels of gold was five hundred thousand denarii.

That is, 500,000 dollars is equal to 1,000 Roman dollars. 1 Roman gold dollar is equal to 500 coins, which is also equal to one gram of gold. In this way, one silk is equal to 1,000 coins, equal to 2 Roman gold dollars, and equal to two grams of gold.

The wooden moon cake has to be 200 grams of gold, but this wooden moon cake weighs 50 grams. It is said that it was made of so-called huanghuali wood, and the weight was discounted by one gram of wood for four grams of gold, but at that time, the average officer of the United Imperial Army could buy four grams of gold with a month's salary. These are theoretical prices, though. It's like the official price of US dollar foreign exchange in a country in the 40s of the 20th century, just a number written on a wooden sign, and that's it.

At that time, the Empire's rosewood came from the Yanar colony, but at this time, the communication between the Yanar colony and the empire mainland had been interrupted, and the stock of rosewood was obviously insufficient, so there was no other wood to use. In addition, the Huanghuali wood carving process is complex, which is completely unsuitable for large-scale production, and it is difficult to meet the huge demand for war money.

It was necessary to choose a wood that was easy to process and easy to obtain locally, and in the end, sandalwood and other species from the Naru colony were honorably selected.

In the real world, sandalwood and slightly concave sandalwood from South America are used to pass off as Huanghuali. Both types of timber are extremely lethal to the so-called connoisseurs of the trade. Even many connoisseurs pay special attention repeatedly, and there are still many people who can't tell the truth from the fake. These two kinds of wood not only have a pattern close to Huanghuali, but even the fragrance is similar to Huanghuali. Because they all belong to the same family of wood species. These two types of timber are widely distributed in some countries in South America, such as Brazil, Suriname, and Guyana. The local Chinese timber company has obtained some wood samples, which are almost identical to those of Hainan Huanghuali. These two types of timber are cheap in South America, but China restricts the import of these two types of timber (which seems to be related to the leadership's instructions). Other countries also have sandalwood and similar timber like yellow sandalwood, and clever profiteers take advantage of people's ignorance of yellow pears to import large quantities of yellow sandalwood and slightly concave yellow sandalwood from Africa and America to the country, and sell them as yellow pears. The so-called liars deceive fools.

These two kinds of wood are cheap and sufficient, wooden is slightly easier to process than Huanghuali, and the large amount of "Huali Shenmu" Huanghuali moon cakes are manufactured in large quantities, as long as there are enough workers, the output must be leveraged. But the cost seems to be a bit high, mainly because of the wooden problem, and the skilled carving master must be used, but the salary of this kind of person is not low. Eventually, the government used the grass pear dyeing method to produce yellow rosewood coins. Specifically, the first thing to do is to find wood with a texture that is somewhat like huanghuali, which is easy to find, and then polish and wax after dyeing. It needs to be colored and dried several times, it needs to be colored with dark purple chemical water, and finally it is sealed with "good" wood wax. This wood is soft and can be mass-produced using an engraving machine. A month later, the "Huali Shenmu" with the scarce selling point of handmade can finally be industrialized and mass-produced on a large scale and at low cost, and the monthly output is ten times that of the same period last year, and the actual maximum production capacity has increased more than ten times.

In this way, in this war, as long as money is needed, the central government of the empire seems to have endless money. Before the outbreak of the war, the maximum mintage of the Marne-Rocco Empire's 100,000 Hundred Silk Pear Shenmu coins (each with a theoretical value of 200 grams of gold) reached 1.2 million. In just two years, the huge amount of wooden money circulating in the market has doubled geometrically, which can be called the "money-making movement". In the short term, the much-needed military spending will be solved, and the large amount of money that can skyrocket will inevitably lead to hyperinflation.

Instead of the Ahma's own dyed counterfeit coins, Caesar opted for rosewood. Hand-carved and exquisitely made, it can be described as a conscience currency, and this counterfeit currency is more real than the real thing. Like other good coins in history, the Caesar's version of the fake rosewood coin was wiped out by the bad coin. With the large number of counterfeit coins of the Marnerocco Empire on the market, the actual purchasing power of the yellow rosewood coin has plummeted. Caesar's version of counterfeit currency is too expensive to manufacture and the cost of mixing into the monetary system is extremely high, and the materials purchased are not enough to pay the monetary cost.

Eventually, in the middle of B60, the state-run counterfeit money factory of the United Empire of San Roman, Santa Sonia, collapsed. And before that, the monetary system of the Marne-Rocco empire was also on the verge of collapse. At the beginning of B59, a very bloody leak occurred, and the manufacturing process of Huali Shenmu leaked out...... From then on, the native people of the Marnerocco Empire began to create wealth in their basements - illegally creating large amounts of circulating currency, which is now referred to in the criminal law as counterfeiting.

Counterfeit money has been known in ancient times, and it is called "private minting" in ancient texts. Private coinage, there were people like this during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, it is a good profession, at least there is no shortage of money to spend at home. But soon after, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty withdrew the right to mint coins, and the five-baht coins were only made by the imperial court, and no other people in the sea could mint them. Probably since then, in history, coinage and coinage have been completely monopolized by the central government, and local governments have rebelled against this without the approval of the central government, and ordinary people have committed crimes......

Privately minted coins have existed in all dynasties, and the repeated bans are not only due to the fact that privately minted coins are profitable. The earliest private coinage of modern machine-made coins can be found to be the 19th century folk imitation of Mexican and Spanish silver dollars, at that time the imitation of the local coinage was called "Guangban, Fuban, Su Ban" and so on. The main purposes of these coins are to 1) participate in circulation; 2) Obtaining valuable metallic silver from the reduction of silver content, which is also a direct benefit. During the Republic of China, Yuan Datou silver coins were imitated, some of which were silver-plated after reducing the silver content or even using non-silver alloys, and some were obtained by means of sandwiching and digging and repairing.

Because the purpose of private casting is to participate in circulation and earn silver, the amount of casting is generally larger, relatively "small profits but quick turnover", the amount of casting is less, you can't make money, and you can't recover the cost of casting. The amount of this counterfeit currency is often staggering. Therefore, it can have a huge impact on the material market in a certain place. For example, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, a large number of privately minted coins were in circulation, and even the market circulation was much more than the coins made by the government. The more and more self-made coins are made, the money is getting smaller and smaller, and the common people buy things at every turn. The real money made by the government is collected in large quantities, and 350 wen can be worth more than 100 wen when real money is traded. Even so, it is difficult to find real coins on the market, and many regions have simply abandoned the use of copper coins in transactions. At that time, many wealthy families used gold and silver, while the middle-aged and lower ordinary people bartered with rice, oil, silk, and silk. This is a return to primitive society. This was already the case in the large-scale commodity transactions of the Marne-Rocco Empire at that time. To buy a house, "bring gold and silver, and resolutely do not want all kinds of wood". The depreciation of wood coins also led to the depreciation of silk coins, which in turn led to a certain degree of depreciation of copper coins, but these small coins in circulation have not been abandoned.

Not only the daily consumption of residents, but also the excessive counterfeit money, dealing with the government can be exhausting. In the Qing Dynasty, it became popular to mint copper coins privately in the markets of various counties in Chaozhou Prefecture, which had a great impact on the fiscal and tax revenue of the Chaozhou government and the daily life of the people in Chaozhou at that time. At that time, "if the silver is exchanged for money, the official money is expensive, and the private money is cheap; If the money is bartered, the official money and private money will be the same identity". Originally, the copper coins minted by the government were exchanged for 1,000 yuan per tael of silver according to regulations, but in the actual market circulation, the bad money and good money were mixed with each other, and if it was not 3,000 yuan, it could not be taxed according to one tael of silver. The local governments of the clever Marnrocco Empire saw that there was no more wood on the market, so in addition to local regulations, they only collected precious metals. Now it's good, the common people have lost their hard-earned money by the subjugation, and they will be slaughtered by gold and silver dealers. The bottom, the middle, and the upper echelons are boiling with unprecedentedly unanimous public grievances!

The losses of the upper class are the greatest, and they have a large number of wooden mooncakes in their treasury. The power of the upper class is also the most powerful, not only is the wooden mooncake in their hands the most among all classes, but they also hold important positions and directly or indirectly control the state apparatus. This led directly to the collapse of the fake wood mooncake coin cabinet.

Destroying money is worse than killing parents, Ahmad has become a recognized enemy of all classes, and the end seems to be death.

On February 15, 60 years of the B century, Prime Minister Ahma, who had just celebrated Valentine's Day with more than a dozen mistresses at home, was killed and died in a terrible manner. His death turned the Prime Minister's Office from a forbidden area to a residence of a key government official into a scene of crimes where people come and go at the grassroots level. Everyone dared to cover up something in such a big case, and after checking the scene, Ahma's corruption was exposed.

At the time of Ahma's death, the emperor and most of the cabinet members, who were the nominal supreme ruler of the "hypocrite monarch" at that time, "still did not know much about the traitor", and probably only knew that the prime minister was somewhat corrupt, but compared with his merits, he should completely abandon the investigation. The emperor even explicitly instructed the government inspectorate not to investigate the prime minister and his family.

Soon, the case-handling personnel were ordered to report to the high-level in person, and the emperor asked for the details of the case, so the matter was a professional killer, and there were not many clues about the case, so he could only say something else. The scene of the crime, the clues to solve the case, etc., were briefly mentioned, and the case-handling personnel talked about the "luxury and luxury" of the Ahma family, which really made the emperor sigh. Seeing that the emperor's expression had changed, several cabinet members decisively added fuel and vinegar, the so-called "wall fell down and everyone pushed it", Ahmad was dead, the tree was scattered, in order to let his own henchmen take his place, naturally Ahmad "told the truth" about what he had done over the years. This is terrible, after hearing the whole thing, the emperor was extremely annoyed, and he was furious: "The gang that killed him did a good job!" ”

The emperor and the cabinet immediately unanimously agreed to issue an edict to severely examine the corruption case of Ahma, and to completely remove Ahma's henchmen and embezzlers from the government.

Raiding the house and counting the property found that in addition to the fact that Ahma himself has real money and silver land certificates, Ahma's family has more than 20 young wives and mistresses, all of whom are real money and silver and have a lot of money. It is said that the prime minister has more than 100 mistresses outside, and these people are also socialites who are generous and never short of money. These people alone spent far more than the emperor and others could afford to embezzle.

When asked where these came from, an inventory of his family's accounts revealed that most of these ill-gotten gains were obtained through black-box operations, secretly issuing various unplanned currencies; There are also some courtesy gifts from officials at all levels...... After consulting with the cabinet, the emperor finally ordered that a few typical examples should be arrested, and the rest should not be investigated......

In this farce of real and false Huanghuali wood currency, the treacherous minister Ahma made it himself, but he shook the economic foundation of the empire. Ahmad is finally dead, but the phenomenon of private coinage he brought with him is still eating away at the pillars of the empire.

It can be said that the private coinage does harm the interests of everyone except the mint, and it should be a felony, and it may be implicated in the era of strict law enforcement.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the punishment for counterfeiting currency was extremely severe, especially in the later period, where there was a case of counterfeit money, all those who started the intention, carved plates, printed money, made paper, item number, Mengli Tibetan printer, and bought color materials, "with sympathy forgery, all executed." At that time, paper money was used, and the base paper of the money was made of the bark of a tree, and this tree and its bark naturally became the materials controlled by the state. Later, too much wood scalp paper money was made, and the tree became an endangered species, so it could only be made of other materials to make money and make a new version of bark money.

At that time, the government's banknotes were once known as "treasure money", and this kind of bills were once all over the world and even circulated in West Asia and Europe, because it represented the government's credit, the credit of the Great Yuan Empire. If you believe in Dayuan, his money is worth it, not that the money itself is worth it, and the materials used to make money are very cheap.

Later, in the face of the new appointment of the foolish people, the government made a lot of money, and at the same time, inflation in the Yuan Dynasty inevitably occurred. The "treasure money" of the Yuan Dynasty was issued indiscriminately, which made the money cheap and expensive, and the people were not able to make a living; And finally: the court made a fortune and the government collapsed. However, some people suggested that since the government had no money, the emperor should take the lead in frugality, not squander and waste, not build large-scale construction, not talk about pomp and circumstance, not always go out hunting, and not spend as much or as much as he wants. If you don't have enough money to spend, don't spend it, and don't print money casually. But the government doesn't eat this, the money belongs to the government, how do you like to spend it, what can you do with me?

The common people couldn't make it, but the court was so manic that a car with a lot of money could only buy a bag of more than 100 catties of corn.

At that time, the central government produced unlimited quantities of these banknotes, which actually cost much less than the face value of the currency, and finally created this spectacle of billionaires. This is the case in Zimbabwe, Africa, which now does not use its own currency, and all of it is replaced by US dollar foreign exchange coupons.

At that time, the court of the Great Yuan Dynasty printed money boldly and issued unlimited money, which was an out-and-out government "private coinage" behavior. In the end, the credibility of the imperial court, like the currency of the wood scalp, can only be used as a piece of paper. That kind of wood scalp paper money should feel better than the current paper money when used in the toilet. Today's circulating banknotes are made of hardened linen cotton and plastic fiber silk mixed with sticky paper, which is wear-resistant, has high hardness, and feels good, but it doesn't feel good when you go to the toilet, and the hardness is there. If you don't believe me, you can try it with a few green one-dollar cat commissioners squatting on the toilet.

For the Marne-Rocco Empire, the wooden coins of the "treacherous" Ahma could no longer be used, and no one believed it. Veteran politician and cabinet veteran Sango became his successor, and as soon as he came to power, he began to rectify the monetary system and issue new money. In view of the rampant counterfeit currency of the enemy army in the war zone, the new large-value currency is only exchanged in the mainland, and the new currency is called platinum coin, with a total of three versions, known as "platinum three products" in history. This currency was not really white gold, but was minted with a mixture of silver and tin, since at that time there was only the most silver and tin in the treasury treasury. "Three products" are actually three kinds of white money with different sizes and engravings, representing different denominations, one with a dragon engraved on it, one with a horse engraved on it, and another with a turtle engraved on it. Although the "Platinum Three Pins" were not really platinum, the Imperial Government imposed a denomination that was even more outrageous than platinum. The imperial government stipulates that a dragon pattern coin, a round dragon pattern coin weighs about 300 grams, and is worth 1,000 silk silk coins; A horse pattern coin, a square horse pattern coin weighs about 60 grams, and is worth 100 silk coins; A tortoise-patterned coin, an oval tortoise-patterned coin weighs about 25 grams and is worth 10 silk coins.

Even though it is a currency with precious metals, it is still a credit currency, and the face value is too outrageous compared to the actual value. At that time, the price of silver was very cheap, and at most three silk coins could buy 50 grams of silver. This new coin issuance seems to be another plundering of private wealth.

Shortly after the release of the Platinum Triple Item, the Pear Sacred Wood was taken out of circulation, meaning that the large amount of conscience currency in the inventory of the United Empire has since become a genuine artifact, and the wooden currency in the hands of the colonists has finally become a souvenir of the old Empire.

Julius Caesar the Victor was completely defeated in this war of counterfeit money, and the Marne-Rocco Empire, which had always had an absolute advantage in monetary capacity, completely defeated the United Empire. The rapid depreciation of the Pear Tree led to the complete bankruptcy of the United Empire's counterfeit money manufacturing institutions, and was ultimately one of the important factors in the United Empire's victory in the B-century intercontinental colonial war.

Appendix:

The "Three Platinum Products" in Real History

Emperor Wu of Han's fiscal reforms in 119 BC ushered in a feast of frenzied plundering of the wealth of the common people. The main point of the reform in circulating currency is to issue a strange new currency, "platinum sanpin", in addition to the "half taels" currently in circulation. This currency was not really white gold, but was minted with a mixture of silver and tin, as the royal treasury had only the most silver and tin. "Three products" are actually three kinds of white money with different sizes and engravings, representing different denominations, one with a dragon engraved on it, one with a horse engraved on it, and another with a turtle engraved on it. Although the "platinum three products" are not really platinum, Emperor Wu forcibly set a face value that is even more outrageous than platinum. How outrageous is it? Emperor Wu stipulated: A dragon pattern coin is worth 3,000 yuan; A horse-patterned coin is worth five hundred dollars; A tortoiseshell coin is worth three hundred dollars. In the Han Dynasty, the price of silver was very cheap, no more than 50 yuan per tael. The standard weight of a dragon pattern coin is eight taels, converted by the price of silver, which is equal to four hundred coins, and the dragon pattern money is also mixed with a large number of cheaper tin, and the actual value of a dragon pattern coin is actually less than a hundred coins. Emperor Wu forced the issuance of this currency, but insisted on setting it at 3,000 yuan, and the value was inflated to a frightening extent. Emperor Wu's indiscriminate issuance of such a huge amount of fictitious currency is exactly the same as that of the government in modern times, when the government issued currency indiscriminately and snatched wealth from the hands of the common people. However, Emperor Wu ignored one point: it is not difficult to imitate this "platinum three-grade coin", and the common people are not stupid, and the government made me too, and the result is that Emperor Wu's purpose of accumulating wealth has not been achieved, and the country's currency system has collapsed. Emperor Wu had to introduce a harsh law, where there is a theft of the act, regardless of the severity of the circumstances, the amount, after the discovery of all executed, the result is "self-made platinum, five baht after the age of five, pardon the people to sit on the theft of money and the dead hundreds of thousands, he does not find that the killing is invincible, pardon more than 100,000 people from the self-explanatory, but can not be semi-self-out, the world has probably been worried about the money." The total population of the country in the era of Emperor Wu was roughly between 30 million and 40 million. This means that in order to crack down on the trend of piracy, Emperor Wu had to put at least 1/30 of the people in the world in prison, and it is unknown how many people lost their heads because of this.

The unearthed "platinum three products" have been discovered in recent years, according to the unearthed object, the round dragon pattern coin weighs about 120 grams, which is exactly about eight taels in the Han Dynasty; The square horse pattern coin weighs about 20 grams, and the oval tortoise pattern coin weighs about 15 grams. According to the sampling analysis, its composition includes silver, tin, copper, lead, etc. The comparison between silver and copper coins in the Han Dynasty is recorded in the Book of Han and the Chronicles of Food and Goods: "Zhu Ti's silver weighs eight taels and is first-class, straight 1,580." It is a silver first-class straight thousand. This is the ratio of the price of silver coins set by Wang Mang in the second year of the founding of the People's Republic of China (10 AD) when he carried out the third currency reform, and this ratio is relative to the "Koizumi value one", which weighs about 1 gram. That is to say, as the high-grade silver of the Han Dynasty, Zhu Ti silver is only worth 1,580 pieces of "Xiaoquan is worth one" every eight taels, and ordinary silver is only worth 1,000 per eight taels. The "platinum three products" made by Emperor Wu, the so-called "white selection" of the first class weighs only eight taels, and it is not pure silver, it is an alloy of silver and tin, just because of the dragon-shaped ornament, its legal value can reach 3,000 pieces of three baht coins weighing about 2-2.6 grams each. It is no wonder that it will arouse the covetousness of lawbreakers, so that "the thieves of the people are innumerable".