"Mr. Jiang, I think we should solve this problem as soon as possible, otherwise there will be more and more such troubles." After the business student sent the two people who had just argued out, he immediately said to Jiang Yu.

"I also know, but now there is really no solution, the best way is to restore the use of Tongbao money, but now we don't have too much Tongbao money in our hands, it is impossible to deal with such a large commodity exchange, you are a business student, you should know the doorway better than me."

"Otherwise, we can build an exchange next to the town hall and let everyone who needs to exchange commodities come to the exchange to trade. Our exchange sends someone to conduct a price assessment of the items to be traded in terms of ingots. After the evaluation, the two parties to the transaction will choose the amount of the transaction according to the reference of this price, are you optimistic? ”

"This is a very good idea, let's do it first, and wait until the prince comes back to make plans."

So, a new place was born, and there was the exchange next to the town hall.

The notice of the exchange reads: "If you want to trade items and encounter any trading contradictions, welcome to the exchange, where someone will give a reasonable assessment of the goods on both sides of the transaction, so that both parties can be satisfied with the transaction." ”

The establishment of the exchange has alleviated the contradictions in the transaction to a certain extent, but it still cannot solve further problems, such as someone who wants to sell something but does not find anyone to buy for the time being, or the opposite situation. Overall, however, the problem has been stabilized temporarily.

……

"Ha, ha, ha. It's these two things. "Others really couldn't imagine that Zhao Weiji would laugh so much.

"Lord Wang, are you sure this is what you're looking for?" Although Wang Dayuan had seen Zhao Weiji's excitement when he saw corn for the first time, the problem was that this time his performance was several times exaggerated.

Are these two stone-looking things so precious?

This time, Zhao Weiji's luck was quite good, not only found potatoes, but also found sweet potatoes at the same time. No wonder he was so mad with joy.

"These are the two things, with them we will never go hungry again."

Is it so exaggerated, Wang Dayuan didn't believe it a little, but thinking of the yield of corn and the role of hunger, Wang Dayuan seemed to believe it a little.

"Snow, how much can they sell us?"

Snow grunted and communicated with the group of Indians living around Lake Titicaca, and finally got the reply that they could sell Zhao Weiji fifty catties of potatoes and sweet potatoes each, and asked Zhao Weiji to keep all the gold he had just taken out.

Just now, Zhao Weiji probably took out a pound of gold, which was the only precious metal he brought from the Central Plains, to prevent this from happening now.

"Give it to them, give it to them, as long as they can get the potatoes and sweet potatoes out right away."

"Lord Wang, will we suffer a little loss, so much gold can buy dozens of times more grain in the Central Plains." Wang Dayuan couldn't help but feel a little heartache when he saw that Zhao Weiji didn't make any bargaining.

"Huanzhang, you don't understand this, with these potatoes and sweet potatoes, will there be less gold. And this gold is useless in Xinhua City for the time being, so there is no need to feel pain.

Snow, urge them to take out all the things they said were good. ”

Seeing that Zhao Weiji was so refreshing, the Indian chief didn't hesitate much, and immediately sent people to the south of the tribe to fetch potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Just when the chief sent someone to fetch potatoes, Wang Dayuan suddenly found that the dozen or so sailors who came with the team were missing, and Wang Dayuan, who felt that something was wrong, asked Zhao Weiji in a low voice: "Lord Wang, we seem to be missing a dozen people?" ”

Zhao Weiji didn't reply and whispered, "It's okay, they all went back first." You'll be able to see them when you get back to the boat. ”

Hearing that Zhao Weiji's mouth did not reveal any dissatisfaction, Wang Dayuan felt strange, but before he could think about it, the people sent by the chief had already brought fifty catties of potatoes and sweet potatoes each.

And so the deal was struck.

Naturally, when you get what you want, you have to go back quickly, because this trip has been delayed for too long.

……

Two months later, Zhao Weiji finally returned to Xinhua City, and it took him a total of five months to go out to find potatoes, and he almost didn't recognize the city when he came back.

At this time, the barracks were gone, and instead there were many wooden houses, although they were not beaten, but they were not bad. The streets have been formed, and the town hall is no longer lonely, with many houses around it. One of them caught Zhao Weiji's attention, and that was the house with the exchange written on the door.

"What is an exchange?" What kind of novelty is this, Zhao Weiji was full of curiosity in his heart, could it be that the commodity economy here has developed to such an exaggerated thing as a futures exchange?

As soon as he entered the city hall and asked, Zhao Weiji knew that he was wrong, it turned out that such a strange thing appeared because there was no currency.

"It's my fault, it's my ignorance that there are no copper coins to have such consequences, and I apologize to everyone here." Zhao Weiji was so solemn that everyone in the city hall was taken aback.

"Lord Wang, it's not your fault, we are all negligent. The key is what to do now, it is definitely impossible to conjure a large amount of copper coins in a short period of time, what to do now? Although the exchange has eased the contradictions in trading, there are still many things that have not been resolved. ”

"It doesn't matter, although copper coins can't be conjured up in a short time, but we can mint gold coins, I know where there is a gold mine near here, as long as the second group of people from the Central Plains arrive, they can be mined.

As for the disadvantages of the exchange, we can create a new kind of money to temporarily alleviate the current crisis. ”

"What money?"

"Paper money."

"Paper money?" Although he is accustomed to Zhao Weiji's whimsical ideas, paper money is inevitably too much, who would accept that you can buy things with paper.

Zhao Weiji knows that paper money is a bit too much out of the times, after all, who would believe in such a thing as credit money in this era, even if it is the appearance of Jiaozi, there will still be thirty years, not to mention that the use of Jiaozi is because of the support of a huge money bank behind it, and Jiaozi can indeed be exchanged for real money.

Now that there are no precious metals in Xinhua City, what guarantee do you have for your money to buy things?

"Is paper money a good thing?" The founder of the exchange, the business student, asked weakly.

"You are?" Zhao Weiji didn't know this student very well, because after the scale of business expanded, there were too many students, coupled with his continuous going to sea and fighting, the teaching of the academy thought that it fell to the first few batches of graduates, and he was not too familiar with the later students.

"Back to the prince, the student's surname is Feng, his name is Feng Yun, and the word is Teng. He is a business student of Tsinghua College and entered the school in the first year of Chunhua. ”

"Well, hello. You're just asking if banknotes are viable, right? ”

"That's right, Lord Wang, the students think that paper money has no value and is not very safe, and maybe everyone will not accept this kind of thing as money."

"Your question is very good, do you think that paper is very cheap, not worth much, and has a certain value in itself like copper coins, so you don't think people will use paper as currency, right?"

Feng Yun nodded.

"What if paper money has value? What if paper money could be exchanged for gold? ”

"How can paper money be exchanged for gold, who would do such a stupid thing." At this moment, Feng Yun felt that Zhao Weiji was already a little crazy, exchanging paper for gold, how many stupid people would do such a thing.

Zhao Weiji knew that it was unrealistic for Feng Yun to directly understand what the gold standard was, so he decided to explain from the beginning how paper money could be exchanged for gold: "Hua Teng, you imagine such a scenario, our exchange has countless gold reserves.

Then a farmer brought fifty catties of rice, but he could not find anyone to buy it, so we bought the fifty catties of rice from him with the equivalent amount of gold. Did he get the same amount of gold as fifty catties of rice? ”

This is the most basic trading attempt, Feng Yun naturally nodded.

"At this time, another woodcutter came, he needed fifty catties of rice, but he didn't have gold but wanted to exchange it from us with firewood of the same value, can we exchange it with him at this time."

"Of course."

"Yes, such an exchange is possible. In this way, the rice we hold becomes firewood. Then the rice farmer came again, this time he was here to sell things, not to buy things, and he needed firewood. But at this moment, he has no rice, can he exchange the gold just now for firewood? ”

At this time, Feng Yun was already crazy, because all the examples cited by Zhao Weiji were some basic business practices and the generation of money.

Of course, gold can buy firewood, but Feng Yun still didn't understand what Zhao Weiji was going to say.

"I understand what the prince means, the prince is trying to say that if we have a lot of gold, the exchange can become a middleman in the transaction, and then trade through gold, and gradually gold becomes money. This is the same as copper coins, and you still haven't explained how to turn paper into money. ”

"Don't worry, listen to me explain slowly. I think there will be two situations at this time, the first is that gold has become money, and the second is that all the people of Xinhua City know that there is a lot of gold in the exchange, right? ”

Feng Yun thought about it, it seemed to be right, because in this way, all the gold on the market flowed out of the exchange, and there should naturally be a large amount of gold in the exchange.

"At this time, if we start such a business, do you think there will be a response. This business is all about savings. ”

"What do you mean by savings?"

"Savings means that you deposit the bulky gold in the exchange, and the exchange issues a ticket to prove that you have gold, and the ticket indicates how many numbers you have deposited, and then you can take out the same amount of gold as the number written on the ticket when you come to the exchange again."

"That's great, as long as we can guarantee that we can withdraw the gold deposited on the exchange at any time, who wants to walk around with bulky gold."

"You're right, in the long run, will someone trade directly with bills in order to avoid trouble?"

"Looks like it will?"

"Doesn't that turn paper bills into money?"