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Since Li Guangdi threw himself into Geng Jingzhong's command, Geng Jingzhong was really relaxed. The official documents that originally needed Geng Jingzhong's approval were now sent to Li Guangdi, and if there was a major matter that Li Guangdi could not handle, he would come to ask him again. Geng Jingzhong is also happy to be idle, and he can plan more things in his spare time, such as the more than 20 million taels of silver piled up in the silver cellar.

Geng Jingzhong had been contemplating the silver in the cellar for some time, and for thousands of years China had only copper coins, and no other official coins. However, it is very inconvenient to use silver as a currency, but you need to weigh and check the fineness every time. Geng Jingzhong is well aware of the importance of finance to a country, so after filling the silver cellar with tens of millions of taels of silver, he has been squeezing the only remaining bit of information about finance in his mind. If you want to mint coins, then copper coins must not be, and the imperial court has a fixed sample of copper coins; But you can mint silver coins yourself, such as silver dollars like Yuan Datou. The value of copper coins is also small, and the common people have to carry a lot of copper coins to buy a little more things, and they just mint all kinds of silver coins to unify the country's currency market.

The technology of minting coins is actually not complicated, just now, Wu Sangui, the king of Pingxi in Yunnan, is minting money by himself, and since ancient times, the big families in various places have also secretly minted copper coins. As long as there is enough copper and silver, all kinds of coins can be minted. The mold is not difficult, and there are many craftsmen with such talents, and there are a stack of small dishes for engraving plates and other work. If you want to mint coins yourself, you only need to recruit a few skilled masters to make a coin master, and you can smelt silver and mint coins on a large scale. However, this is not what Geng Jingzhong wants, with this ancient method of coinage, someone will definitely follow the trend and imitate, and then there will be a large number of bad coins in the market, and the bad money will definitely eliminate the good money, making his plan bankrupt.

After a few days of contemplation, Geng Jingzhong decided not to use the method of recasting the mother coin to mint the coin, thinking that the coin could not be "squeezed" out by stamping. In my previous life, when I was in college, I had a metalworking internship, and I once visited the factory to produce parts, and one by one the steel billets were squeezed in front of the huge machine, and the parts were completed. In this era, there is no steam engine, let alone an electric motor, which cannot achieve that effect; However, it didn't take that much force to squeeze out a small coin, so he thought of a hydro car. Use water to drive the winch to make the ramp roll and squeeze to get a coin one by one, and at the same time, your own coin can not be imitated by others, killing two birds with one stone. Geng Jingzhong sent a few skilled craftsmen to make molds according to their own patterns and then went straight to the musket workshop, where several sets of hydro carts were available.

When it comes to hydro-powered cars, this history is long. During the Song Dynasty, hydraulic machinery was widely used in agriculture, metal smelting, textiles, and astronomical instrument manufacturing. The Song Dynasty's "Wang Zhen Nongshu" introduced the name, function and working principle of these hydraulic machinery in detail, and drew mechanical diagrams. Moreover, in the Northern Song Dynasty, a special management organization for hydraulic machinery was set up ---- water mill service. It can be seen that at that time, China's hydraulic machinery was not only popular, but also standardized. For hundreds of years, waterwheels have been used by the people, because the machinery in the water is far superior to the manual, so it is widely used in many places where there is plenty of water. Even in Geng Jingzhong's "Heavenly Creations", there is also a waterwheel diagram.

Geng Jingzhong asked people to bring a few boxes of silver ingots and a bunch of copper ingots to make a solid yàn. He first had craftsmen forge several hammers for forging silver-copper alloys. Since both silver and copper are relatively low in hardness, placing them under a hammer is like kneading dough. I remember that the approximate ratio of Yuan Datou in later generations was nine silver and one copper, and he made some alloys according to the ratio of nine to one, and prepared to put them in the mold to make real yàn.

According to Geng Jingzhong's design, all the machinery is made of steel. In particular, the upper and lower parts of the extruded printed model are directly cast with molten steel. The upper and lower parts of the model are each prefabricated with a concave cavity for the coin to be minted, and the pattern is clear and abnormal. When the hammer is pressed down, it will squeeze out one intact silver coin after another, and ten silver coins can be produced at a time.

With the help of the master mint, it didn't take long for the first ten silver coins to be squeezed out. The shape, size, and weight of these ten silver coins are completely identical. "Shizi, please look!" The minting master carefully placed the ten silver coins he had just made in front of Li Qing'an and handed them to Geng Jingzhong for inspection. Geng Jingzhong picked up the silver coin in front of him, flipped it over and over again, and immediately nodded approvingly.

The standard of these silver coins is one tael, and it has been calculated when making the model. Geng Jingzhong picked up a silver coin and checked it, it was indeed one or two. There is no square hole in the middle of the silver dollar, and the center of the front is a big Arabic numeral one, and the word "Fujian Jingnan Wangfu Supervisor" is eight vigorous and powerful seal characters; At the foot of the word are the capitalized "one tael", and at the bottom are the four Arabic numerals of 1967. On the reverse side is a four-clawed coiled dragon, especially the side teeth of the silver coin, which are meticulously and evenly proportioned, and uniform. The workmanship is very exquisite, although it cannot be completely compared with the silver dollars of later generations, but it is not much worse, so he has to sigh at the high level of these traditional craftsmen. Geng Jingzhong looked at it repeatedly for a moment, and then learned what he had seen on TV, pinched the silver coin with his fingers, aimed it at the edge, and blew it violently, and immediately put it to his ear; Sure enough, he heard a little noise, but the sound was too faint and it wasn't the effect he wanted, the effect he wanted was a 'buzzing' sound.

This should be the inappropriate ratio of silver and copper, so he ordered the mint to take a few more alloy plates. After an afternoon of non-stop testing, the most satisfactory alloy ratio was obtained, which was 91.5 percent silver and copper. The silver coin squeezed out with this ratio is as bright in color, and the sound of blowing at the edge is loud, which Geng Jingzhong is very satisfied with.

The newly minted silver coins were larger, more than an inch in diameter, and immediately after the minting of these large silver coins, the craftsmen began to mint smaller silver coins in the same proportion. The smaller silver coin weighs only half as much, and the value of the coin is five pieces of silver. Originally, Geng Jingzhong still wanted to make a silver coin of one or two coins like later generations, but that kind of silver coin was too small to be minted, so it was better to cast a small round bead like a pearl. In ancient times, there were silver horns, and it was very convenient to unify the weight and then print a mark on it.

The workshop was busy until dark, and as of today, these mints had been here for half a month, and finally completed the minting of the first batch of silver coins, Geng Jingzhong grabbed a handful of newly minted silver coins from the pool, and was very happy. "Good, good, good! After so many days of busy work, I finally came to fruition, and all the masters have made great contributions! There is still a little more than a month to go before the New Year, and each master will be rewarded with 100 silver coins and 500 craftsmen as rewards. ”

"Thank you, Shizi!" The mintists in the workshop were overjoyed, they really didn't expect the prince to be so generous. These coins were struck by their own hands, and they contained real silver, not bad coins. But they had heard from the Son that these silver coins would circulate throughout the country and everywhere. First of all, the prince would use these silver coins to pay tens of thousands of soldiers under his command, and all the workers in the workshop would also use silver coins as silver in the future. It won't be long before the whole of Fujian will no longer use the inconvenient silver ingots, but will use this beautiful silver coin.

"I have ordered the construction of a special mint in Mawei, where there is plenty of water for these coinage equipment, and you will all go there to do your work there. Several masters are working hard to make a few more models, and strive to make two million silver coins before the New Year, which I will be of great use. ”

"Yes, we will do our best." The master smith was the first to answer, and the other coinsmiths followed.

Geng Jingzhong is also full of confidence in his new silver coin. Silver in the market is of different fineness and size, which is very inconvenient to use. And these silver coins are full of color and look beautiful, and once they enter the market, they will be quickly accepted by the merchants. Geng Jingzhong has already made arrangements, before the New Year, after the silver coins are minted, he will send condolences to the poor families in Fujian, that is, these silver coins, each poor family will give one tael of silver coins, two five silver coins for a total of two taels of silver. In this way, more than a million silver coins will be distributed for free, and the common people will definitely use these silver coins to purchase grain and cloth, so that the silver coins will be used. At the same time, dozens of shareholders of the ocean trading company worked together, and merchants from all over the country also began to receive silver coins, and the silver coins were in circulation.

Geng Jingzhong was so generous in preparing to send more than one million silver coins, in addition to facilitating the circulation of silver coins in the market, one of the most important reasons is that it is very profitable to mint this silver coin. The silver content in the silver coin is a little more than nine layers; In other words, after minting all these 21 million taels of silver into silver coins, he will immediately have more than 2 million silver coins worth one tael, which is a big profit!

With a large number of hydraulic machinery, it is different, and the efficiency of labor cannot be compared with it at all. The new mint workshop only had 20 hydraulic machinery, and less than 100 craftsmen minted the two million taels of silver sent by Geng Jingzhong into silver coins in half a month. So Geng Jingzhong immediately ordered to send a few million taels of silver again to continue minting silver coins. The number of soldiers under his command has now reached more than 40,000, and the salary at the end of this year is a huge expense. In addition, there are more than 20,000 people who eat with Jingnan Palace, and the workers in the Princess Fang, the Future School, and the construction of the port will all be paid in silver coins. This would require nearly a million taels of silver. In addition to Geng Jingzhong's own expenses, the shareholders of dozens of ocean-going trading companies will settle their salaries with their workers in silver coins, which in turn requires large sums of silver coins, so Geng Jingzhong has to continue to increase the minting of silver coins to meet the needs of all parties.