Happy and relaxing times are always fleeting, and Liu He's schedule is more about various meetings, inspections, and official documents, whether he is in Yecheng or Jicheng.

That night, Xu Yue, director of the Statistics Department of the Northern Money Bank, Xia Houlan, director of the Minting Department, and Li Ru, director of the Clearing Department, came together to ask Liu He for advice on the problems encountered in the preparation of the bank.

Xu Yue first reported to Liu He in detail the results of the statistics on the quantity of gold, silver, and brass that existed in the four northern states. "General, the total amount of gold that can be used at present is 8,342 catties, the total amount of silver that can be used is 46,439 catties, and the total amount of copper that can be used is 1,29,728 catties."

The unit of measurement used in Xu Yue's report at this time has adopted the decimal system stipulated by Liu He, not the original conversion method of 16 taels per catty and 60 catties per stone, so the weight of a catty involved in Xu Yue's report is about 500 grams, which is basically the same as the weight of later generations. According to Xu Yue's statistics, the weight of gold that Liu He can call at present is about four and a half tons, silver is about twenty-three and a half tons, and brass is about six hundred and five tons.

This number may seem like a lot at first glance, but if you divide it by the huge denominator of 10 million, then it will immediately show its original shape. If compared with the total gold reserves of about 500 tons recorded in the history books, it is even more pitiful. Liu He now controls Youzhou, Jizhou, Liaozhou, Ningzhou and most of the two states north of the Yellow River, and the amount of gold that can be called upon in his hands is only four and a half tons, which is not even a fraction of the total amount of 500 tons of gold.

So, where did the rich gold reserves of the Han Dynasty go? Liu He and the two generations are human beings, with some questions from later generations, and now they want to find the real answers.

Liu He remembered that from various documentary records, it can be seen that gold was the main currency in circulation during the Qin and Han dynasties, and the official rewards and gifts were often calculated in thousands of catties and 10,000 catties, and there was a lot of gold in China at that time. It amazed future generations. But during the Eastern Han Dynasty, so much gold suddenly disappeared, which is really incomprehensible.

Later scholars Gu Yanwu's "Rizhilu" and Zhao Yi's "Twenty-two Historical Records" have special discussions on this strange phenomenon.

Zhao Yi summed it up and wrote: In ancient times, platinum was not used as a currency, but gold was used exclusively, and there was a lot of gold. Wei Yu said that the king of Qin bribed the princes and ministers, but only 300,000 gold, and the princes could do it. Han Gaozu used 40,000 catties with Chen Ping to make Chu rebel, regardless of his access. Lou Jing said that the imperial capital was Guanzhong. Tian Ken said that the emperor should be sealed with his own son and brother, that is, each will be given 500 catties. Uncle and grandson set the court, and also gave 500 catties. Lu Hou collapsed, and the edict gave the princes and kings a thousand catties. Chen Ping made a good deal with Zhou Bo, with five hundred catties. Emperor Wen ascended the throne, punished Zhu Lu Gong as a minister, and gave Zhou Bo 5,000 catties, Chen Ping and Guan Ying 2,000 catties each, and Liu Zhang and Liu Jie. Wu Wang rebelled. Those who recruit the generals of the Han Dynasty will be given 5,000 catties, 3,000 catties of the generals, 2,000 catties, and 2,000 stones and 1,000 catties. Liang Xiao Wang. There are 400,000 catties. Emperor Wu gave Princess Pingyang a thousand catties and a divination style of 400 catties. Wei Qing attacked the Huns, beheaded 19,000 captives, and the army was given more than 200,000 catties. The king of Changyi gave the deceased minister a thousand catties. Emperor Xuan was established. Huo Guang was given 7,000 catties, King Guangling 5,000 catties, and 15 kings 100 catties each. Give Kong Ba 200 catties, give Huang Ba 100 catties. Emperor Yuan gave Duan Huizong, Gan Yanshou, and Chen Tang 100 catties each. Emperor Cheng gave the king five hundred catties. Wang Mang hired Shi's daughter as the queen, and used 30,000 catties to give filial piety to a thousand catties and a shun order to 500 catties. In the last years of Mang, the gold in the province, the gold of ten thousand gold is a shortage, there are still sixty shortages, the yellow door, the hook shield, the Shang Fang, there are several scarce everywhere. It can be seen that there was a lot of gold in ancient times.

Although there are some minor clerical errors in the amount of gold listed by Zhao Yi, according to Mr. Wang Shumin, the proofreader of the "Twenty-two Historical Records", basically the source can be found in the "Benji" and "Liebiography" of the "Historical Records" and "Hanshu", which is enough to prove the large amount of gold in China at that time.

However, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the huge amount of gold suddenly disappeared, not only withdrawing from the field of circulation, making the exchange of goods regress to barter, but also the use of gold as a reward was quite rare. According to scholars' research, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Emperor Guanghe of the Han Dynasty alone gave Zhu Jun fifty catties of gold at one time in the first year of Guanghe. So, where did the huge amount of gold go in the Western Han Dynasty? Why did it suddenly disappear?

In this regard, later scholars have made various speculations and researches, and then come up with several different theories.

The first theory is that a large amount of gold was used for Buddhist services, so the gold was sharply reduced. Zhao Yi wrote in the third volume of "Twenty-two Historical Records" "Handuo Gold": "In later generations, gold will be scarce, and the price of gold will be more expensive. The land of gold production in China has been excavated and cleaned, and since Buddhism entered China, the statue is coated with gold, the big and the capital is big, the small and poor countryside, there are all Buddhist temples, that is, there is no gold coating. With the world's plan, there are tens of millions of worries, which is the most gold-consuming beetle. Coupled with extravagant customs, the scriptures are written in gold, and the gold is pasted as a list, which accumulates a lot, and the days and months are consumed. Therefore, as the old saying goes, although the gold is deteriorated and the gold is free, once it is mud gold and coated with gold, it will not be repaid, so the day is less than one day. ”

If the gold of the Eastern Han Dynasty was used to paint the statues of Buddhist temples, there is some truth, but it cannot withstand scrutiny. Judging from some evidence from later generations, the gold consumed by Buddhism is indeed amazing, and if you look at the Potala Palace in Tibet and the Ta'er Monastery in Qinghai, you can see how wasteful the so-called "reshaping the golden body" is. But the problem is that the prosperity of Buddhism was not in the Eastern Han Dynasty but in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and Buddhism began to spread in the Han Dynasty at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Therefore, throughout the Eastern Han Dynasty, there is no problem of Zài Daxing temples and statues painted with gold, even if some temples use gold, such as the Futu Temple built by the great god stick in Xiapi, the amount of gold is also very limited, so the consumption of gold in Buddhism cannot become the main reason for the sudden disappearance of the huge amount of gold in the Western Han Dynasty.

The second theory is that it was caused by the foreign trade deficit of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Later scholars believed that the decrease in the amount of gold in the Eastern Han Dynasty was due to the large amount of gold given to outsiders, as well as the purchase of good horses, pearls and glass and other commercial goods from Dawan, which led to a large trade deficit, so a huge amount of gold flowed abroad.

The claim that this trade deficit leads to gold outflows is also unfounded. Because China was the world's largest exporter of goods at that time, silk and other goods produced in China were exported to the West via the Silk Road, and in exchange for some horses, pearls and glass, there should have been a large amount of gold. Although the Han court and princes and nobles sometimes used gold to buy rare treasures from the Western Regions and the South China Sea in order to meet their own extravagant needs, this behavior was not common, and the amount of gold used was not very large, and the military strength of the Han Dynasty was so strong at that time. It is known to the outside world that "those who commit strong men will be punished even if they are far away", so many rare treasures are not obtained by means of trade, but by the military threat of Chiguoguo, forcing foreign countries to pay tribute.

The third theory is that because of the frequent wars, a large amount of gold was buried underground. Some scholars believe that the huge amount of gold in the Western Han Dynasty suddenly withdrew from circulation and disappeared when it arrived in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the only answer is that part of the gold was buried or left behind as a variety of gold objects, and the other part of the gold was buried underground in the form of gold coins with wealthy merchants and officials at all levels.

From the Warring States period to the Western Han Dynasty, merchants concentrated large quantities of gold by buying cheaply and selling expensively, while feudal rulers used state machinery. Seized most of the gold. Gold was stored in large quantities by these people. It is recorded in the history books: when King Liang Xiao died, "there are still more than 400,000 catties of gold left in the Tibetan mansion"; At the end of the Han Dynasty, when Wang Mang was in the middle of the Han Dynasty, "the gold in the province is a scarce, there are still sixty scarce, the Yellow Gate, the Hook Shield, the Tibetan Mansion, the Zhongshang Fang, everywhere there are several scarce". In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were also many people who cellared gold. For example, Dong Zhuo "built a dock in the eyebrows, seven feet high and thick, called "long live the dock". There are 230,000 catties of gold and 8,900,000 catties of silver hidden in the dock." Moreover, judging from the coins unearthed later, the number of gold and silver treasures in Chinese history is indeed amazing. Why weren't the huge amounts of gold stored by these princes and nobles used? It was mainly merchants who held large quantities of gold and stored gold for later use. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, a peasant uprising broke out, and the rich officials who had stored a large amount of gold died or fled, so that the gold in the cellar was like the huge amount of gold in Nazi Germany in later generations. There is no way to investigate.

The Chinese do have a habit of hiding gold and silver treasures, so it makes sense to say that some of the gold disappeared into the ground, but it makes no sense to say that the vast majority of gold was buried and forgotten underground. Because both private and state gold deposits. Except for a small amount, the vault where the huge amount of gold is stored should always have a clue, and it is never after a war that all the gold owners die or forget where their wealth is. As for the consumption of a lot of gold because of the funeral, it doesn't make sense.

Because in fact, many thick tombs have been the target of tomb robbers since the day they were buried, and they will always be unearthed by gravediggers and circulated in the world. It should also be noted that it is not only gold that is buried in the ground, but also silver, copper, and other treasures. Because of its excellent storage characteristics, gold is the most able to stand the test of time and will not have problems such as rust, weathering and oxidation.

In the Three Kingdoms era at the end of the Han Dynasty, in order to solve the problem of military spending, Cao Cao connived at his subordinates to set up a special grave-digging army, and his name was Faqiu Zhonglang General. According to Lao Cao's style of doing things, it is estimated that the tombs of the princes and princes around Luoyang and Chang'an have been dug by him, so the hundreds of tons of gold buried under can be unearthed at least more than half, why is there no record of Wei reserving a large amount of gold?

The fourth theory is that the gold mentioned in various documents at the time was actually brass, not real gold. Because historically, from the limited amount of gold mining and foreign trade between the Qin and Han dynasties, it is impossible for the Western Han Dynasty to produce more than 500 tons of gold. People used to refer to money as "gold", which makes it very likely that the copper in circulation at that time was called "gold", and later generations did not notice it and thought it was real "gold".

This claim seems to be well-founded, but in fact it is just as unreliable. Because, if the gold of the Han Dynasty refers to brass, then it should be remembered that China began to produce brass in the Han Dynasty. Before the Han Dynasty, there were a large number of physical and documentary records of gold. If gold refers to bronze, it is estimated that our ancestors would not be so stupid, besides, from the records of the Warring States period, it can be seen that "gold" and "gold" at that time were very clearly distinguished. In the Han Dynasty, there was a "copper official", and the word "copper" was also engraved on the copper incense burner, indicating that there was a special text referring to copper, and "gold" could not refer to copper, otherwise "gold" and "copper" could refer to copper, and "gold" could refer to both gold and copper.

At that time, the Han Dynasty and the world traffic west of the Green Mountains had been very extensive, and the "Legend of the Western Regions" recorded that Rome and other countries "used gold and silver as money", and the so-called golden jade clothes in the Han Dynasty ritual system were completely consistent with the archaeological facts, that is, gold silk threads were used to sew chimeric jade pieces, instead of brass wires. These evidences show that the "gold" as it was understood in the language system of the time was the same as that of gold in later generations.

Well, now the question arises. If there was a lot of gold in the Han Dynasty, where did it go? If the Han Dynasty didn't have so much gold, then what about the history books and the gold that was constantly unearthed?

Liu He asked Xu Yue: "With the current amount of gold, silver and brass, can it support the early use of the money bank?" ”

Xu Yue and Xia Houlan shook their heads at the same time, with a look of helplessness on their faces. Xu Yue replied: "According to our estimation of the total demand for coins in the northern states, the total amount of gold, silver and brass may not reach 20%. If these metals are made into high-quality coins and put on the market at this time, and the people are allowed to exchange them freely between the banks, I am afraid that within two months, these coins will be hidden in the homes of the people, and there will be no money available in the market. There is a money shortage! ”

Precious metals as currency, because they themselves have real value, so according to the Chinese people's habit of saving money, once the grain, cloth and other commodities are sold, they will do everything possible to exchange them for gold, silver, and even copper coins, and then dig a pit somewhere in the ground and bury it deep in case of emergency.

"You have come to me today. Do you want me to help you figure it out? Liu He asked.

The three nodded together.

"I don't know how to turn stones into gold, and I can't turn real money out of thin air." Liu He was a little helpless.

Li Ru, director of the Liquidation Department, said: "In fact, it is not that there is no way, but this method has been criticized by some people. ”

"I can't manage so much now, as long as I can let Qian Xingshun open. Even if someone pokes you in the back, it's better than being helpless! Liu He motioned to Li Ru to tell the truth.

"From the perspective of subordinates, if you want to solve the problem of insufficient reserves of money banks, you can start from three aspects. First. Forcing the wealthy families to take out all their private collection of gold, silver, and copper, and not allowing them to collect gold and silver privately in the future, this will reduce a large part of the large gold swallowers in the market. Second. Gongzi could find a way to sell some goods that everyone was vying to buy, such as pearls and glass products that had been brought from the Western Regions during the Han Dynasty, and then stipulate that they must be exchanged for gold or silver, so that a large amount of real money and silver could be collected from the people. Third, there are many Qin and Han tombs around Luoyang and Chang'an, especially in the area of Mangdang Mountain, which can be described as a tomb with a tomb and a heavy tomb. ”

"Holy! It's more poisonous than a poisoner! Liu He rolled his eyes at Li Ru fiercely in his heart, but said with a smile on his face: "Mr. Wen Wei has offered three strategies at once, each of which sounds operable, what do you think?" Liu He kicked the ball to Xu Yue, Xia Houlan and Cheng Bing.

Cheng Bing first shook his head and said, "My subordinates feel that Director Li's first method is inappropriate. Regardless of whether it is feasible to force the wealthy families to hand over the real money and silver that they regard as their lives, the mere fact that the wealthy families are not allowed to hide gold privately has gone against the original intention of the prince to establish a money bank. If we're worried about the good coins we mint are being kept in the hands of the people, then why should we make them? According to Childe, the reason why money has value is that it is directly related to the actual needs of the people. ”

Xu Yue nodded, agreed with Cheng Bing's statement, and then said: "I think Director Li's second method is feasible, but it is not necessary to use the commodities of the Western Regions to collect gold from the people, there are many special commodities in Youzhou that have always been in short supply, if you can control a few of them, you can only use gold and silver to buy, which will play a great role in accelerating the return of gold and silver." ”

Xia Houlan had just stepped down from the Internal Affairs Department of the Command, and he still had an obvious military style and aura on his body, and he said calmly: "General Qiyu, the last general is willing to form a secret army to dig up the tombs in various states across the country, take out the gold and silver in them, and benefit the common people in the world!" ”

Liu He was very satisfied with Xiahoulan's attitude of not caring about his personal reputation and just solving problems, but he suddenly thought of a person from Xiahoulan's invitation, and it was this person who opened the precedent of the army's tomb robbery.

This bull who is not afraid of the world's rumors is not Cao Cao, but Dong Zhuo! Many novels and wild histories in later generations say that in order to solve the problem of tight military spending, Lao Cao acquiesced to his generals to lead the army to dig graves, and set up two official positions, namely "Captain Touching Jin" and "General Faqiu Zhonglang", that is, the director and deputy director of the National Tomb Robbery Office, but in fact, this was caused by Chen Lin writing a crusade against Cao Cao for Yuan Shao, and Lao Cao did not do that.

In fact, how could a wise person like Cao Cao set up such an official position that violated the tradition of ethics and morality? When Cao Cao attacked Xuzhou, he slaughtered and dug people's graves on the road to vent his anger. In this life, because of Liu He's relationship, Lao Cao paid more attention to his reputation and cherished his feathers, even if his father Cao Song was killed, when he attacked Xuzhou, he took the people along the road to Yanzhou, but he didn't dare to dig people's graves. After all, the ancestral grave of Liu Yu's father and son is still in Tancheng, Xuzhou, if Cao Cao digs the grave, Liu He will be able to settle accounts with him about this matter in the future, then he really can't wash it by jumping into the Yellow River.

In this era, people who are really not afraid of the words of the world, dare to commit murder and even dig graves on a large scale, is such a wonderful thing as Dong Zhuo. At that time, Dong Zhuo first excavated the surrounding imperial tombs in Luoyang, and then patronized the tombs of the emperors and ministers of the Western Han Dynasty after moving the capital to Chang'an, and then filled the palace with gold and silver treasures.

However, the large amount of wealth that Dong Zhuo gathered in Yiwu in his life seems to have cheapened Liu He and the imperial court in the end? Liu He asked Zhao Yun to move sixty percent of the wealth in Yiwu at that time! And this is also the reason why Liu He was not short of money when he was in Youzhou later.

Liu He figured out the trick, pondered for a long time, and then said to a few people: "We must do something to prevent the wealthy families from absorbing and collecting a large amount of gold and silver, otherwise no matter how much currency we invest in the market, we will not be able to satisfy their desires." As for forcing the wealthy families to hand over the gold they have hidden, I have already thought of some methods, which I will elaborate on later. It is not possible to send troops to excavate graves on a large scale, but it is possible to give orders to the states and counties to arrest the gangs of tomb robbers and thieves in various places and recover the stolen goods. Once it is found, all those who report meritorious service will be rewarded, and forty percent of the thieves will go to the local treasury, and sixty percent will be charged to the coinage department! In addition, the purchase of gold and silver from ordinary people should not be carried out for the time being, so as not to cause resentment among the people and affect internal stability. (To be continued......)