There is no doubt that Liu He's choice to hold the Agricultural Fair in the first year after the Great Famine has a unique advantage in terms of timing. At this time, the people's minds are stable, and everyone longs for surplus food at home, so any news about agricultural production will be paid special attention and more easily accepted.

If it is placed in a good year, the government wants to implement a crop or a new type of cultivation method, I don't know how much effort it takes, but now there is no need for such time-consuming, without the government's agitation and urging, the common people themselves will compare and inquire, and then choose drought-tolerant, insect-proof, high-yield crops to cultivate.

The bustling agricultural fair is still being held, but Liu He, who has attended the opening ceremony, plunged into his study in Jicheng and devoted most of his mind to currency reform.

As early as the third year of the first peace, because of Liu He's construction, Youzhou, Jizhou and Yanzhou began to adopt a unified standard to make copper coins, although later Liu He and Gongsun Zhan, Yuan Shao and other forces attacked each other, but this agreement to benefit others and self was still tenaciously preserved, in the blink of an eye in the north for ten years.

At that time, in order to deal with Liu He, Yuan Shao, Gongsun Zan and others secretly contacted Cao Cao and Yuan Shu's forces, intending to use a batch of inferior copper coins to disrupt the copper coin market in Youzhou, but they soon found that the copper coin market in Youzhou was not chaotic, but the prices on their own territory were soaring, and the inferior copper coins were strongly resisted by merchants and the people, and even shook the foundation of their rule for a time.

Although the phenomenon of bad money driving out good money is prone to occur in the currency market, it is obvious that Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan and others are not from a financial management background, and they have limited means except for secretly minting a batch of inferior copper coins, so they cannot shake Liu He, who has been prepared, at all. At that time, in order to deal with this kind of treacherous behavior, Liu He specially asked Tian Chou to send a group of people to scatter near the Anping Guoxindu trading market, staring at the copper coins flowing from all directions every day, and once they found inferior copper coins, they immediately notified the merchants in Youzhou. These merchants refused to trade with other state and county merchants who used bad money.

On the one hand, the merchants in Youzhou use high-quality copper coins, so they are very popular in the market, and they can easily buy the goods they need. On the other hand, the inferior copper coins made in other states could not buy the high-quality goods produced in Youzhou, and the merchants and the common people complained and directly aimed the finger at the money supervisors in this state. Not long after this, Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan and other forces reined in the act of secretly casting inferior money, and could only honestly make copper coins of the same weight and fineness according to the agreement. If they didn't follow Liu He's steps at that time, they would lose the right to control the currency on their own territory. And although the minting of high-quality copper coins makes less money, there is still some money.

The reason why Liu He was able to rely on the power of a state to defeat the combined forces of Yuan Shao, Gongsun Zhan, Cao Cao, Yuan Shu and other forces was because he kept fighting with the Hu people in the north and captured many strong prisoners, a large part of whom he drove into the mines to mine copper, so he could continue to mint copper coins.

Of course, if it was the other twelve states of the entire Han Dynasty that squeezed Liu He at that time, it would be difficult to resist with the speed of copper mining mastered by Liu He. Currency wars. In the final analysis, it is still a contest of comprehensive strength between the two sides, and it is impossible to rely on some financial means alone to make a shocking reversal of the situation and the situation. Just like a certain country in later generations, it relied on international hegemony to maintain its national currency as a global currency.

During this decade, because the people of the north used high-quality copper coins of uniform size and weight. Therefore, despite the frequent fighting, prices in the north did not fluctuate much, and even in the two years of great drought and famine, the price of grain and some other daily necessities did not more than triple.

After the establishment of the "Dahan Times". Several special issues have been published on the principles and precautions of currency issuance, to the effect that currency is a symbol of the government's credit, and a responsible government will never use shoddy or less to make more. The minting of money was used as a tool to loot the people. After reading such articles, ordinary people only seem to know the term "government credit" without understanding, but those who know a little about the economy and people's livelihood can realize the importance of mastering the manufacture and issuance of money for a political regime.

Yuan Tan had been in the state for less than a few days, and before the entire northern Han Dynasty was about to usher in a peaceful and stable situation, the currency reform that Liu He had been brewing had finally begun.

In Liu He's plan, this monetary reform will be changed gradually in small steps, rather than as greedy and radical as when Emperor Wu of Han reformed the currency system and Wang Mang reformed the system.

From the early years of the Western Han Dynasty to the reign of Emperor Wu, there were no major long-lasting disasters and famines in the country, the government policy was stable, the land tax was relatively light, the economy continued to develop, and the country accumulated a lot of wealth. In the early years of Emperor Wu, there was "the money of the Jingshi is huge, and it is impossible to learn; The millet of Taicang is full of dew and accumulates outside, so that it is corrupt and inedible; There are horses in the streets and alleys of Zhongshu, and there are groups of people between Qianmo".

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty strengthened his national prestige on the basis of the financial and material resources accumulated in the past, driving the Xiongnu in the north and the Korean and Wu Yue in the south. Due to the frequency and scale of wars, the cost of war, the reward of military merits, and the pacification of surrenderers are innumerable. In addition, the floods continued, the Yellow River burst its banks more than 10 times, and was diverted five times, and the central government could not make ends meet.

In order to solve the financial difficulties, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty began to reform the currency system. He first attacked the princes and kings by making a leather coin, which required the princely clan to use it when they made pilgrimages. A leather coin is worth 400,000 yuan, but in reality it is not worth that figure at all. In fact, this is the use of state coercion to force the princes and kings to pay to enrich the treasury, otherwise they will lose their titles and lose their country. To put it bluntly, this is Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty holding a machete in his hand to force the vassal states to pay money, but he took out leather coins to act as a fig leaf.

Later, Emperor Wu felt that it was not enough to loot wealth from the lords of the vassal states, so he used the same method to plunder the wealth of the people. At that time, he ordered the money supervisor to make silver and tin into white gold, with a face value of three thousand, five hundred, and three hundred, and minted three baht coins, which were as heavy as they were. From ancient times to the present, the issuance of large-denomination currencies has been an effective means for the government to solve the fiscal crisis, but this method of drinking water to quench thirst will disrupt the normal order of the market and currency, cause bad inflation, and will inevitably cause severe damage to the economy. This practice is not uncommon in ancient and modern China and foreign countries, the government of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty used insufficient "platinum" to grab the nominal actual value of wealth, which is a shameless economic plunder, and later Wang Mang and Shu have also used it, and then all subsequent dynasties and generations are a bird. The paper money of the Ming Dynasty and the legal tender of the Republic of China......

Since the full value of the three-baht coin is used at the same time as the insufficient value of the "white gold". The people will definitely steal the white gold, and the officials will not be able to make it. Dasi Nong Yan Yi once clearly pointed out the unreasonableness of the leather coin: "Today, the prince and the prince are worth thousands, and the leather currency is 400,000, which is not commensurate. Then Yan Yi died for the crime of "slander", so there were only sycophants left in the court, and no one dared to question the emperor's monetary practices.

Later, after Wang Mang usurped the throne, he also tried to change the national currency, and under his strong leadership, the imperial court at that time issued three new coins successively. They are called "Oizumi", "Oak Knife" and "Golden Wrong Knife".

Wang Mang's main purpose in minting new money at that time was to use it to buy gold from the people. During the Western Han Dynasty, gold was used as an international currency in foreign trade, and there was a certain amount of outflow, plus other reasons, which made gold particularly rare. Wang Mang forbade the princes to privately possess and use gold, and the gold in the hands of the common people had to be sold to the government, and sometimes it was simply confiscated and plundered.

Wang Mang's issued square hole round money Daquan. Each piece is worth five baht and fifty pieces; Koizumi is worth five baht each; The key-shaped knives are worth 500 each; Because the word "one knife" in the upper part of the Yin text used a little gold inlay, the gold wrong knife was actually used as 5,000 pieces of five baht coins.

After Wang Mang replaced Liu as emperor in 8 AD, he abolished the sword money and the five-baht money together, and used the large and small springs for a special purpose. Spring has been written as an alternative to "money" in the Zhou Dynasty. Besides, it means that there is a continuous flow of spring water. However, the people have long complained about Wang Mang's monetary policy, and they refused to use large and small springs, insisting on trading with five baht coins. At that time, when it was impossible to maintain a stable currency system, many people engaged in private minting. So Wang Mang exiled the people who used the five-baht coin to the frontier. As a result, peasants and merchants went bankrupt one after another, and countless people were convicted of private forging.

Wang Mang was extremely superstitious about the so-called "system reform" and thought that a new system had been formulated. The world will naturally be peaceful. He took the name of the country "Xin" and changed the names of places in various places beyond recognition; The monetary system is also changing. After only one year, the special large and small springs were renovated in a variety of ways, and the so-called treasure system was launched: five kinds of gold, silver, copper, turtles, and shells were used as currency materials, and six kinds of 28 different currencies were determined. The treasure system is messy like a hodgepodge, and even Wang Mang himself may not be able to figure it out. When trading tortoise shells and shells, it is necessary to measure the size, and the trouble can be imagined. The cloth coin is divided into ten levels, from a small cloth of one hundred to a thousand dollars of large cloth, and the actual weight of each level is only one baht, and the illiterate people are the majority after all, and it is simply impossible to distinguish.

Wang Mang forced the order that those who did not bring cloth coins were not allowed to pass, and the public secretary must have cloth coins on him to enter the palace. He even resorted to cruel punishments, one family minted private money, and five families sat together, but in reality it still didn't work. The cloth coins that were forced to pass became less and less valuable, and the prices rose higher and higher, and the rice was sold for 10,000 yuan per stone.

Later, in order to win back the hearts of the people, Wang Mang reformed the currency for the fourth time, minting licensed goods springs and cloths, which was a bit close to the five-baht coin system. But at this time, his regime was in turmoil under the impact of the great peasant uprising in the green forest and the red eyebrows, and the currency reform was no longer helpful. The new dynasty only survived for fifteen years before it died.

After Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu established the Eastern Han regime, he did not immediately carry out currency reform, because the situation of stabilizing the whole country at that time was more urgent. At that time, he temporarily continued to use Wang Mang's goods spring, and also minted a new goods spring, until the sixteenth year of his reign, he began to re-mint the full weight of high-quality five-baht coins.

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the national currency was dominated by copper coins, and the kind of thing with silver as the main currency could not be formed until the Ming Dynasty, as for gold, it has always been a rare and precious metal, but it has never really become the national currency. After the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the economic circulation in the Han Dynasty was almost paralyzed, and ordinary people began to use the primitive barter method again.

This backward and low way of trading greatly hinders the recovery and development of the social economy, and is unacceptable to the booming Youzhou, the Liaozhou and Jizhou, and the Ningzhou, which is in ruins.

In recent years, in the north, especially in Youzhou, the call for reform of the way coins are issued has become louder and louder, and many wealthy merchants and farmers who have made money feel that it is really hard and dangerous to go out and carry dozens of pounds of copper coins, or to pull a cart full of copper coins in a horse-drawn carriage. If there is a very light and safe way of trading, coupled with the credibility of Liu and his son as a guarantee, it is not impossible to issue silver bills and even paper money in Youzhou.

Because reforming the currency was a major event that affected the foundation of the government, Liu He could not and did not dare to do it behind closed doors, so after he repeatedly revised his manuscript seven times, he finally secretly convened the first all-staff meeting of Tianzheng Dao since its founding.

The purpose of Tianzheng Dao is to act on behalf of the heavens, and the first all-staff meeting discussed the reform of the monetary system, which shows how heavy this matter is in Liu He's mind.

The members of Tianzheng Dao currently include Liu He, Tian Chou, Guo Jia, Liu Hui, Xu Miao, Han Heng, Liu Fang, Cai Yong, Xu Yue, Hua Tuo, Zhang Ji, Zhao Yun, Zhang He, Tai Shici, Li Yan, Xu Huang, Xu Rong, Jia Kui, Du Ji, Li Yan, Jia Kui, Xian Yuyin, Xian Yufu, Sun Li, Cheng Bing, Yuan Lian, Zhao Gai, Li Ru, Xia Houlan, Zhao Ai'er and other 30 people.

People like Zhang He, Xu Rong, Du Ji, Xian Yuyin and others all traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles from afar.

According to the internal organizational structure of Tianzheng Dao, Liu He, as the founder, has the highest status, although no one calls him the sect master in person, but is named Gongzi, which everyone is used to, but the people in the organization have begun to call him "Daozong" when he does not appear. There is no way, the deep-rooted idea of worshiping the sect master in the bones of the Chinese people is difficult to change, even elders like Cai Yong feel that it is natural to call Liu He "Taoist Sect", and others think so.

Under Liu and this Taoist sect, there are also three pharaohs who are in charge of adjudication and judgment, a deacon in charge of liaison, a secretary in charge of records, and a cashier in charge of finances. At present, the pharaohs are Cai Yong, Zhang Ji and Xu Rong, the deacon is Xu Miao, the secretary is Cheng Bing, and the cashier is Xiahoulan. Although the rest of the people do not have a clear ministry, as the most core members of the Heavenly Righteous Path, they are originally a symbol of status and honor, not to mention that they still hold prominent positions outside.

Contacting the deacon Xu Miao to report to Liu He, Liu He personally picked up the thick stack of manuscripts on the table and followed Xu Miao to the heavily guarded venue.

The people who can appear in today's venue, no matter what class they come from, have all been studied by Liu He's invention of simplified Chinese characters and various symbols and writing methods, so there are no people who can't read the manuscripts written by Liu He himself, and when they open the manuscripts that Liu He spent several days copying one by one, they can't help but hold their breath. (To be continued......)