Because of the big suspense buried by Lin Feng, Li Jing also lost interest in the later visit arrangements, and urged Lin Feng to lead the way back to the Assassin Mansion and leave for the capital early tomorrow morning.

Lin Feng knew that the next few hours would be the most important moment that would affect the future of the Tang Dynasty and even the Chinese nation, and as soon as he returned to the mansion, he ordered Feng Jingyun and Xi Mucheng to immediately clear the Assassin's Mansion, and at the same time impose martial law with the highest standard, no one is allowed to enter or exit unless he is ordered by himself, and trespassers will be killed!

Lin Feng led Li Jing and Li Jingda into a quiet room, and just after making tea, he saw Xi Mucheng arrive in a hurry, walked over quickly to receive a letter, and then gently closed the door of the quiet room.

Lin Feng put the letter on the bookcase, calmly sat down in front of the two bigwigs of the Li family, and said with a smile: "Weichen wants to ask the King of E, do you have any impression of the grain war contained in the history books?" ”

Li Jingda glanced at the letter on the table, and replied with some surprise: "I have the impression that there are two, both of which are from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. One is that Goujian, the king of Yue, offered boiled and dried grain seeds to Wu, causing Wu to have no grain harvest in the following year, and it was easy to go down; The other is the fact that the king of Qi easily recovered several neighboring countries through the ingenious strategy of dressing and planting mulberry. ”

The two examples cited by Li Jingda are very famous in history. However, perhaps because Xi Shi and Fan Li were too famous, the details of the Wu-Yue struggle for hegemony were widely known, but the excellent examples of the successful use of grain warfare by the Qi State were not widely known.

According to history, the king of Qi once ordered all ministers to wear silk clothes, but only grain was allowed to be planted in the country, not mulberry trees. Naturally, as a large country, Qi's domestic demand for silk has grown rapidly, and the price has soared, and neighboring small countries such as Lu and Liang have stopped growing grain and planted mulberry trees instead. After a few years, the policy of the king of Qi changed again, requiring all ministers to wear cloth clothes only and not to sell grain to other small countries. As a result, small countries such as Lu and Liang were in chaos due to famine and died without a fight, while the fishermen of Qi benefited and enjoyed their success, successfully annexed these small countries and expanded their territory.

Lin Feng nodded in approval again and again, and expressed his opinion: "These two cases are the famous soldiers in history who surrendered without a fight. However, in comparison, Yue's approach was obviously immoral and untrustworthy, and it was easy to push the subjects of Wu to the hostile side, burying the hidden danger of rebellion and disintegration in the future; And Qi's approach is obviously more subtle and more effective.

But from another point of view, this kind of food war is just a small road, and it is okay to deal with small countries, but it is difficult to succeed against big countries! My idea is to truly surrender a country without a fight through another, more advanced and covert form of warfare! ”

Li Jing and Li Jingda glanced at each other, bowed slightly, and their interest soared.

History has also verified Lin Feng's assertion in a certain sense. The State of Qi, which won with great arts, later became one of the Seven Heroes of the Warring States, while the State of Yue, which won with its insidiousness, was destroyed by the State of Chu shortly after defeating Wu!

According to history, "The king of Yue has no borders to cut Qi, and the king of Qi makes people say that it is better to cut down Qi than to cut Chu, and the king of Yue then cuts Chu." Chu ** was defeated, and took advantage of the victory to take Wu's hometown, and the east was as far as Zhejiang. The more this is scattered, the princes contend, or for the king, or for the king, on the sea, and the court is subservient to Chu. That is to say, after the Yue destroyed Wu, he did not have long to be killed, and he was led to the west by the Qi general in the foreign war, and was easily defeated by the king of Chuwei, and the king Wujiang was killed, and all the land from Yue to Zhejiang was captured. As a result, the Yue Kingdom fell apart, and the children of various ethnic groups began to fight each other, some calling them kings and some calling them kings, but they could only live in the southern coastal area of the Yangtze River, paying tribute to the Chu State obediently.

Lin Feng stretched out his hand to open the letter, took out three palm-sized pieces of printed paper, placed them on the table in order, and said, "Weichen thinks that the real road to hegemony in the future of Datang is on these three pieces of paper!" ”

Li Jing and Li Jingda were successfully aroused by Lin Feng's curiosity, so they came over and reached out to pick up three prints to take a closer look.

The first print is very similar to the flying money exchange ticket in the world at this time, with only one side printing, and two lines of words are simply printed on it, "This ticket is a mortgage evidence of ××× value ××× property, and it can be used to offset the same value." "Where there is a seal and a signature on it.

The second one still has only one side printed with something, but the text and patterns on it are much more complicated, with the words of the Bank of Shouzhou, the pattern of the Huai River, and the words "Five Thousand Guan" written in the center and corner of the picture.

The third coin is already very similar to that of later generations, one of which resembles the picture of the second, but the number on it is only "five times"; On the back is a simple painting, the background is very similar to the outline of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and in the middle is a person's head, only a few strokes of Liao Liao, but it still looks vibrant.

Li Jingda's eyes were sharp, and he reacted immediately, pointing to the avatar and wondering: "This is the portrait of the saint?" ”

"Yes, exactly!" Lin Feng said with a smile, pointing to the three printed materials in turn and said, "The first one is the current mortgage bills such as flying money and pledged pawnshops, which can only be regarded as the most primitive paper bills of monetary nature; The second will be the deposit certificate that our Shouzhou Bank or Xinsheng Bank is going to use; The third is the real currency style of the future! ”

"Currency?" Li Jing asked very puzzled.

"Yes, this kind of paper money is going to replace money in the future, so it should be a kind of currency. As for the specific name, I will ask the Holy God to give me a name. In our daily life, whether it is gold and silver cloth, or copper and iron money, it is either inconvenient to carry or needs to be cast physically, and there are various costs that cannot be ignored. If we can replace the popular copper coins with such banknotes, it is not only easy to carry, but also opens up a bright and smooth way for our Datang to dominate the world in the future, that is, currency war! ”

"Wait! Zhishan, don't talk so far ahead! Let's start from the beginning, this kind of banknote is very unreliable in the first place, and besides, why do you make others believe this kind of banknote and recognize it? Li Jingda immediately interjected and asked.

Lin Feng glanced at Li Jing, who was silent, and said with a smile: "Okay, let's talk about it one by one." Let's start with banknote printing. We have invented a new printing method in Shouzhou, and the "Shouzhou Business Daily" printed by this method has begun to spread to the whole territory of Datang. Using this method, combined with special ink, and printing a meaningful and complex pattern on a special paper, you can print banknotes that no one can imitate! ”

"Okay, the printing problem is solved, but the hardest part is still to come! How to make this kind of banknote used all over the Tang Dynasty, or even all over the world? Li Jingda was stunned when he heard this, and immediately asked with some unconvincing.

"The king of E is very suspicious, please listen to the details of the minister." Lin Feng said unhurriedly, "In the final analysis, it is the credit problem of this kind of banknote. The most important first step is to suggest that the issuance of paper money should be linked to gold and silver, and the exchange ratio between them should be determined, and as many banknotes as there should be in the treasury, and then the gold and silver should be stored in the treasury, so that the paper money can be circulated in parallel with the copper coins first, and then in a single circulation throughout the world. Lin Feng smiled, "To put it another way, real money will become the anchor of our first banknote issuance, so as to prevent the indiscriminate issuance of banknotes from depreciating the banknotes and losing everyone's trust." ”

Li Jingda no longer asked, and pondered like Li Jing.

"Please don't underestimate this small change from minting to printing, the benefits contained in it are huge! Consistent money, the need for copper is not a catty, and copper from mining to transportation to casting into money, which consumes resources, manpower, material resources, financial resources and other costs add up to at least hundreds of Wen, and printing such a banknote, perhaps the cost is only three or five Wen, and its face value can be set consistently, or even five, ten, you can exchange for us the corresponding real money in kind, the gap between the gap is very huge, the gap between the minting, printing cost and the face value of the coin can be called seigniorage. If all the money in the world were to be replaced by the paper money we printed, seigniorage alone would be a huge benefit like the sea. Lin Feng threw out a particularly fresh concept, luring these two bigwigs with the unique coinage sharp interests of the coinage itself.

Just printing paper money can be exchanged for endless benefits! The two bigwigs immediately understood what Lin Feng meant, and their two pairs of eyes suddenly lit up.