After two months, the official of the Salt Industry Department put the account book in front of Qin Dong and reported: "Wang, this is the salt account book sold in the past two months, excluding the daily expenses and necessary operating costs of the salt farm, a total profit of 16,885,325 ori (gold coin units)."

"Hiss-" Qin Dong could guess the huge windfall profits of the salt industry, but he didn't expect that in just two months, there would be a net profit of more than 16 million ori, which was definitely a windfall profit, and it was an official monopoly type of profiteering.

Qin Dong didn't look at the account books, but asked directly: "How much daily expenses and the cost of maintaining the operation of the salt works have been shared by the major salt farms in the past two months?" ”

"Less than fifty thousand ori!" The official of the Salt Industry Department replied, then picked up the account book and flipped through it, found the location and put it in front of Qin Dong: "Including the salaries of all officials, stewards and craftsmen, all the expenses add up to less than 50,000 ori!" ”

Qin Dong glanced at the ledger and closed it: "Okay, whether it is the officials at all levels of the Salt Industry Department or the officials, stewards and craftsmen of the salt farm, they have worked hard in the past few months, and you can give the salt farm side some monetary rewards to everyone according to the relevant official positions and positions, and encourage them to continue to work hard to produce more salt!" ”

"Yes, King!"

After the production and trade of salt were on the right track, the problem of the people eating salt was solved, and it can be said that for a long time to come, perhaps for thousands of years, the problem of salt will no longer be a problem.

Qin Dong no longer pays attention to the matter of salt, and this matter is naturally managed by the Salt Industry Department. At this time, the sample of the new coin had been minted, and Wang Liu came over to meet Qin Dong with the sample of the new coin.

Wang Liu placed five samples of each of the three coins, namely gold, silver, and copper, on the table for Qin Dong to see, "Your Majesty, please take a look." This is the sample money minted by the Mint, five each! ”

Five coins each neatly placed on the table, Qin Dong bent down and picked up a gold coin to look at it carefully, it was indeed minted according to the advice he gave, the front of the gold coin is the head of Da Dan Yu Enek, and there is the date of minting below, all Chinese characters. The front side of the avatar is surrounded by ears of wheat, and on the reverse side is a one-yuan traditional Chinese character character, which is also surrounded by ears of wheat. The whole gold coin is minted very delicately, which shows that the casting mold is very exquisitely carved.

On the obverse of the coin is his head, and below is the time of minting. Chinese character writing. It is surrounded by ears of wheat, and on the reverse side is the Chinese character for one yuan, and there are also ears of wheat around. The round copper coin has a square hole in the middle that can be threaded with a rope, and the copper coin has the Chinese character "Regent Tongbao" on it.

The patterns of these three coins are very delicately made, with a very regular round shape, a uniform thickness and a lustrous body. The shape and color of the entire coin is very heavy, and the material used to mint the silver coin is of course other than silver. It can't be all silver, all silver is too expensive, and it is not easy to preserve, it is easy to wear and tear, and the weight will be reduced after a long time, so it is necessary to add other hard metals to improve the wear resistance of silver coins. In addition to copper, the material used to cast copper coins is lead, which can save costs and prevent copper coins from rusting after a long time.

The weight of these three coins is an integer, the gold coin is 15 grams, the silver coin is 30 grams, and the copper coin is 10 grams. This phenomenon led the people of the Xiongnu Empire to later stop using the Roman Empire's weight units and adopt new weight units, such as kilograms and grams.

Qin Dong couldn't help but marvel at the exquisiteness of this gold coin, it was too regular, and asked, "Is this made by pouring gold water into a mold?" ”

"It's not!"

Qin Dong looked at it carefully for a while and then nodded and said, "Yes, the samples of these three coins are all minted well, let's just follow this model, how many coins can be minted every day now?" ”

Wang Liuxing saluted and reported: "King Qiyu, the craftsmen after careful thinking to make a set of machinery that can be stamped with manpower and water, because the hardness of gold, silver, and copper are relatively soft, it can be stamped by machinery, and the coinage department asked the engraving craftsman to engrave the stamping template with 100 steel according to the style of the three coins, and only need to put the gold, silver and copper weighing into the mold groove, and then drive the machinery to stamping the gold, silver and copper in the mold with water or manpower, and a machine can stamping a hundred pieces at a time. Therefore, the daily output is very large, and His Majesty can guarantee that within three months, he will be able to store enough coins for official issuance! ”

"Good! Great, take me to see what kind of machine has such great efficiency! Qin Dong was so excited, water-powered stamping machinery, this thing is simply magical in this era, hydraulic stamping machinery has been rectified in this era, is there anything more rebellious than this?

The most primitive hydraulic stamping machinery will be invented more than a thousand years later, and the coinage of this period is basically made of coins made by the fan casting method, which is many times less efficient, and the use of hydraulic or manual stamping equipment is not only many times more efficient, but also the personnel required can be greatly reduced.

With the stamping machine, many mechanical parts can be used for hydraulic stamping processing, which is indispensable for modern industry.

The advent of hydraulic stamping machinery has made the manufacture of plate armor no longer just a matter of thinking, putting iron and copper under the stamping machine, pressing down and then rising, the plate armor of a piece of armor will be formed, and the leftovers can be used again.

Another advantage of using stamping machinery to stamp coins is that the weight and style of the coins produced are uniform, and each one is very standard, and it can be made in large quantities.

Under Wang Liu's lead, Qin Dong and Wang Liu quickly rushed to a riverside, where tall houses were built, the gate was tightly guarded, and there were heavily armed armor soldiers everywhere to patrol non-stop to stop anyone who tried to approach, Qin Dong and Wang Liu needed to go through some inspection before entering.

Qin Dong finally saw a hydraulic stamping machine, there was a huge waterwheel by the river, the water flow was constantly washing the wooden blades of the waterwheel, and the waterwheel was rotated under the impact of the water, and even the thick steel shaft on the waterwheel was also rotated under the drive of the gears.

The bearing is connected to the press, the press has four smooth steel columns, the upper part of the whole stamping machinery is set on the four steel columns, the lower part is the groove of the stamping die, under the rotation of the bearing, the upper part of the press is driven to rise, after the bearing rotates for a week, the upper side of the press slides down and hits the groove of the lower die, the gold nugget placed in the groove is immediately stamped into gold coins, when the square steel template is rotated by the bearing again, there are a hundred gold coins lying on the ground in the groove of the mold. The excess gold nuggets and gold pieces are collected by the craftsmen next to them when the template is lifted up and can be reused, if you want to stop the machine, there is a special control switch that can control the rotating bearing, so that it is separated from the waterwheel, and the stamping machinery will stop without power.

The structure of this press is very close to that of modern presses, and the biggest difference is that its power is brought by the flow of water, while the power of modern presses is electricity.

It drives the crank connecting rod mechanism through the guò transmission gear to make the slider move up and down, and drives the stretching die to form the steel plate. The so-called double action means that the press has two sliders, which are divided into inner slider and outer slider, the inner slider drives the punch or die of the mold, and the outer slider drives the edge pressing ring on the die.

The stamping speed is very fast, in just half an hour, 90,000 gold coins can be stamped, an average of 300 coins can be stamped every minute, this kind of coinage efficiency is simply divine speed in this era.

Qin Dong couldn't help but nodded: "Yes, very good, very good, this king asked." How long can a stamping template be used in one piece? ”

At this time, an official pushed out a craftsman standing next to him: "You come!" ”

The craftsman knelt down to Qin Dong and said, "King, due to the problem of the material of the template, a template can only be used for one year at most and must be replaced, and if it is used again, it will inevitably be shattered or deformed by impact!" ”

Qin Dong asked: "So if you increase the hardness and flexibility of the material used to make the formwork, its service life will increase?" ”

The craftsman affirmed: "Yes, king, but among the villains, the hardness and flexibility of iron of this material are already very good, better than all the iron items that the villains have ever seen, and it is the best choice for making swords and weapons!" ”

The key is to ensure the stability of the engraving technology, and the coins stamped out by using different templates should be exactly the same, and the carver can also carve a few more templates at one time for backup, otherwise once the template is broken but not replaced, it will be troublesome.

"A stencil is enough for one year, let the engraver carve more stencils, this set of coins is estimated to take more than ten years, and then change the style and pattern of the coin after ten years!" Qin Dong commanded.

The official of the Mint Division immediately bowed down and agreed: "Yes, my subordinates understand, please rest assured that the king will not delay the minting!" ”

Qin Dong commanded again: "Gather the officials, the people in charge, as well as the technicians, craftsmen, and workers!" ”

The officials immediately sent someone to summon them, and in a few moments all the officials, stewards, technicians, craftsmen, and workers of the entire Mint Division were summoned.

Qin Dong said: "This time to be able to mint such exquisite coins, everyone has worked hard, this king can say without exaggeration that these coins are the most exquisite coins in the world today, much more exquisite than any country, even more exquisite than the coins minted by the Roman Empire, and the minting speed is many times higher than theirs, they may take several years to mint coins and then issue them, but at your current rate, it only takes a few months to store the most coins for issuance, this is all your credit, now I announce." , reward the technician with this new gold coin of fifty gold dollars, and each person will be given a set of these three coins as a souvenir, reward each worker with ten gold dollars, and also give each person a set of patterns as a commemoration, officials and stewards will be rewarded with twenty gold dollars each, the same set of patterns as a commemorative, remember, patterns cannot be used as real money! ”

"Thank you, King!"

"Long live the King!" (To be continued......)