In Kiev on the third day of the sixth month of the Western calendar, Hao Ren, the lord of the Yuan State, held a cigarette roll in his left hand and a letter in his right hand. His brow furrowed slightly in contemplation. The news on the letter made Hao Ren not know how to find his thoughts, and the 4-year-old Prince Zhenjin died of illness.

In such an era, it is not surprising to be 4 years old, even the nobles. Life is rare for seventy years, and Kublai Khan, who is still alive at the age of 74, is the existence that people have to pay attention to. If it weren't for the fact that Marshal Boyan, the governor of Mongolia and Egypt, had told Hao Ren half a year ago that the real gold had disappointed Kublai Khan very much, Hao Ren would have been reading other news at this time.

Thinking about it carefully, Hao Ren was a little worried that Kublai Khan's Great Khan would send various forces to Baghdad to mourn. The loss of a son in old age must be extremely painful, so Hao Ren was worried that he would be used by Kublai Khan to vent his anger. The letter tells the story of Kublai Khan, who was very dissatisfied with the Holy See, and ordered the arrest of the entire Holy See. As far as Hao Ren heard, Bishop Pinsuri of the Holy See in the diocese of Baghdad was very welcoming to real gold. Something happened to the real gold, and they were unlucky. No matter how you look at it, there is a clear cause and effect relationship.

Resolutely do not go to Baghdad. Hao Ren emphasized in his heart.

The more I think about it, the more uneasy I get, and the more I feel uneasy, the more I think. Hao Ren finally had to pick up other reports to try to ease his mood. Seeing that the cover of the report read "Report on the Construction of the Monetary System of the Yuan Kingdom", Hao Ren felt that he couldn't stand it. He had read this report, telling that the Yuan State imitated the Great Song Dynasty to establish a monetary model in which paper, copper, and gold and silver coins coexisted.

It's just that the current Yuan Kingdom does not have a large amount of gold and silver, and there is no gold and silver mountains and copper mines, and there is no other way except paper money. Hao Ren had seen the collapse of the Dadu regime, and before the Song army attacked Dadu, the paper money of the imperial court was almost like waste paper. So he had no interest in this program at all. At least his helpers weren't able to name a reason for Hao Ren to accept the plan.

Putting down the report, Hao Ren picked up another copy. As soon as he looked at the title of the "Report on the Construction of the Government Army" on the cover, Hao Ren's mood changed immediately. The government military system, which imitated the Sui and Tang dynasties, is now quite perfect, and all the 2 million people of the Yuan State are included in the government military system. The current Yuan State has 30,000 government soldiers, all of whom are cavalry. Each cavalryman had 2-3 horses, which was no less powerful than the Mongol cavalry.

As soon as he thought of his powerful army, Hao Ren felt that the feeling of drowning disappeared. After a few years as the ruler, Hao Ren knew that the other khanates had no interest in the land he occupied. Kublai Khan may not have been really hostile to Hao Ren, but Kublai Khan had the strength to destroy Hao Ren. If the Great Khan returns to heaven now, Hao Ren will definitely cry for the Great Khan happily.

The next morning, when the morning meeting was over, the steward of the Yuan State General Qian Zhuang brought a young man over. "King, this is this year's Jinshi Song Bowen. It's been assigned to us. ”

"Oh." Hao Ren responded. The Yuan court system copied a lot of the Great Song Dynasty, including one day off every five days, six days a week, and the court had a morning meeting in the morning. Even the new official system, which was only publicized in the "Great Song Daily", had already been implemented in the Yuan Kingdom. Of course, Yuan Guo also has its own insistence, and all the department chiefs are called Shangshu and Shilang. It is not the popular names such as minister, deputy minister, and director used by the Great Song Dynasty.

The Great Song Dynasty has the Great Song Dynasty General Money Village, and the Yuan State has the Yuan State General Money Village. All the Jinshi of the Yuan Kingdom had to be assigned to various departments, and Qian Zhuang was also one of them. Listen to the meaning of the manager of the bank, what advice does this Song Bowen have. Hao Ren said to Song Bowen: "You are on an errand in Qianzhuang, can you get used to it?" ”

Song Bowen hurriedly replied: "Back to the king, the minister is used to being an errand in the money village. This time, I asked the king to continue using paper money. ”

"What is the rationale for having to use paper money?" Hao Ren asked. Since this Song Bowen dared to come out and say something, it should be different from the previous report. Hao Ren had expectations, but he didn't dare to expect too much.

"Great, money is the equivalent, and the trader uses the currency to price his goods." Song Bowen came up with a concept. This is still the basic truth that Hao Ren asked his subordinates to understand after reading the treatise of the Great Song Dynasty.

"Monetary equivalents either have value in their own right, such as gold, silver and copper. Either there is a value given by the imperial court, and this currency can be exchanged for valuable things anytime and anywhere in the imperial court's bank. At present, there is no gold, silver, and no copper mines in our Yuan country. It is not feasible to mint money with its own value, so it is necessary to take the second path. ”

Listening to the young Song Bowen's eloquent talk, Hao Ren's brows were already furrowed. Although the basic principle is exactly the same as Zhao Jiaren's 'currency is a general equivalent', it is obviously more concrete and operational than the convincing truth. Stumped that this Song Bowen is a genius who can apply the theory to life?

"King, the most important thing in my Yuan country is food. The imperial court established a ministry of works, which was responsible for the production of various products, and all kinds of items that wanted to be made required to invest energy, that is, labor. If you want labor, you have to have food. Therefore, the currency of the Yuan country can be used as collateral with grain, and the grain is the currency anchor of our Yuan country! ”

Before Song Bowen's words fell, Hao Ren couldn't help but gently pat the table with his hand. In fact, he also had thinking in this direction, but he didn't have the ability to come up with a systematic argument at that time, so the idea was naturally broken. This Song Bowen's narration adds the most important theoretical exposition, and the upper and lower truths are instantly connected.

"How did you come up with this?" Hao Ren stared at Song Bowen and asked.

Song Bowen was obviously not used to Hao Ren's sharp gaze, he moved his sitting posture a little uneasily, and replied hesitantly: "This is in the book that the king recommended us to read. ”

"Which book?" Hao Ren asked in surprise.

"The Latest Theory of the State Contract."

Hao Ren was taken aback, that book was the latest book to arrive, Zhao Jiaren's new work. said that it is a new work, and a lot of the content in it has similar content in the previous "Da Song Daily". After Hao Ren read some of it, he felt that there was nothing new, so he put it aside first.

"Which chapter?"

"Chapter 2, The History of Money, and Finally, Several Forms of Modern Money."

After hearing this, Hao Ren said to the attendant, "Bring the book." ”

The attendant quickly brought the book that Hao Ren wanted, and Hao Ren handed the book to Song Bowen, "Find out that part." ”

It took Song Bowen more than ten seconds to turn to the content. Hao Ren took it and looked at it, and it was only three or four pages away from the number of pages he had bookmarked. At this time, Hao Ren sighed in his heart, his master Hao Jing criticized Hao Ren several times, saying that when Hao Ren encountered content that he didn't like, he often didn't read the content behind. This time it is quite rare to prove that Hao Ren's teacher Hao Jing is reasonable.

Picking up the book and browsing quickly, these specific means of implementing money that were not written in the "Da Song Daily" describe several modern national monetary models, coinage with its own value, physical mortgage money, tax mortgage currency, debt mortgage, each type of currency has a very subtle description. Hao Ren immediately felt that the mouth was suddenly open after reading the physical collateral currency, and just as he was about to continue reading, he heard the steward of the general money bank cough.

This movement made Hao Ren feel irritable, and he hated to be disturbed by others while reading. So Hao Ren raised his head and said to the guards: "First invite these two to go down for a snack and drink tea." ”

The two courtiers went down, Hao Ren lit a cigarette and took a beautiful puff, sat down comfortably and steadily, and then continued to watch. After reading it all, Hao Ren found that he still couldn't understand debt money, and that description seemed to him not much different from fraud. The most understandable is naturally the physical collateral currency, and the one cited in the book is the grain collateral currency. In fact, this kind of currency can also be called 'food stamps', and as much money can be issued as much grain as the tax comes up. However, the banknote must have a return mechanism, because after the grain is eaten, the banknote has no trading carrier.

In the book, it is said that someone buys food for the purpose of making chopsticks. However, this does not mean that the chopsticks will be taken out and sold, so the monetary value of the distributed part of the grain will naturally be transferred to the chopsticks. If a commodity is no longer traded, it naturally has no trading value. Money is for trading, and without trading, there is no currency. Remember, you can't imagine a deal out of thin air.

Hao Ren was amazed by the overall discourse on physical collateral money, but found that he could not understand the concepts of 'use value' and 'transaction value' derived from this basis for the time being.

After taking a few puffs of cigarettes, Hao Ren took a teacup and poured a few sips, lit a cigarette for himself, and then ordered the attendant: "Please come in with the two outside." ”

Not long after, the manager of the general money village and Song Bowen came in again. Hao Ren said: "This method is very good. You will make a report, and I will approve it. ”

The steward of the total money village was overjoyed and hurriedly came down. When they went out, Hao Ren was overjoyed. As long as the currency problem was solved, the imperial court's fortune and rewards would have a foundation, and the state system of the Yuan State would be complete. The next step is to enrich the population, the fertility rate of the Yuan country is very high, and the family has five or six children. When these children grow up, they will start a family, marry a wife, and have children. Each person will also have four or five children, and after twenty-five years, the population of the Yuan Kingdom can increase to more than five million. Fifty years later, the population of the Yuan Kingdom will be tens of millions, and it will become a real great country.

Retracting his thoughts from his beautiful imagination, Hao Ren began to think about more realistic content. His currency appeared only earlier, but his trade with the countries of the south could continue. It is a question that the currency of the Yuan Kingdom can be recognized by Eastern Rome and even Egypt.

Thinking of this, Hao Ren ordered an envoy to be sent to Constantinople to negotiate with the representative of the Egyptian governor Marshal Boyan in Constantinople. Just as Hao Ren's envoy was traveling, a merchant ship sent by Yang Congrong, the head of the Eastern Roman Department of the Great Song Dynasty, passed through the Tamsui Canal on the Nile and arrived at the entrance of the Saltwater Canal. They saw that the mighty army was gathering on the east bank of the canal, and was reaching the west bank of the canal through the pontoon bridge. Look at the number of at least tens of thousands of soldiers.

The men on board the Great Song ships went out of the canal and arrived on the Great Song Island at the exit of the Red Sea, where they told them the news. The flotilla continued south, all the way to Sinhala. While the port was replenishing water and fuel, a group of Song people with natives suddenly came. I saw that the Song people were dressed like armed forces, but they were not the regular army of the Great Song Dynasty. The natives behind them were armed with spears and machetes, as if they were a group of vagrants on the street.

After the Song people at the head got on the ship, they shouted to the people on the Great Song ship: "Your ship has been requisitioned. ”

The personnel of the Great Song Rite Department were a little stunned when they heard this, and the armed personnel of the Rite Department touched their weapons with their hands, suspecting that they had encountered pirates. The people on the boat looked at the people who looked like officials on the opposite side and were very vigilant, and hurriedly said with a smile: "Everyone, we are people from the Sinhala Maritime Safety Bureau of the Great Song Dynasty, not pirates. The requisitioning of everyone's ships was to attack the states in the south of Tianzhu. There are so few Sinhalese ships that your steamships can travel between the two ports once a day. The war is too urgent, and you need your help. ”

"When did our Great Song Dynasty start a fight with the southern part of Tianzhu?" Some of the people in the Ministry of Rites were surprised.

There are also some personnel in the Ministry of Rites who know that there are many forces in the imperial court who strongly want to attack Tianzhu, and they don't care about the fight.

The boat was eventually loaned out. It took two weeks for the gang to re-enter the ship. At the beginning of July, he finally returned to the Great Song Dynasty. At this time, the Ministry of Rites was divided into three parts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Administration and Domain, which belonged to a set of teams and two brands, dealing with foreign countries and vassal states and colonies. Those who were originally in charge of the imperial examination were assigned to the Ministry of Education. Those who study the number of rites are assigned to the Ministry of Culture. The name of the Ministry of Rites became history.

After reading the latest news sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Jiaren was initially very dissatisfied with the unfriendliness of the Eastern Roman Empire. But seeing that Mongolia was showing signs of advancing into Italy, Zhao Jiaren remembered Uncle Tieren's words: 'How many divisions does the Pope have?' ’

Then Zhao Jiaren smiled. If the Pope had 500 well-equipped and well-trained elite divisions capable of fighting for a long time, Uncle Iron would have upheld the concept of respecting the strong and negotiated with the Pope on an equal footing. Now the Great Song Dynasty did not have the power to make Eastern Rome recognize the reality, and of course it did not have the power to dictate to Eastern Rome. With the current strength of the Great Song Dynasty in Eastern Rome, it really can't beat the Eastern Roman Empire.

Thinking of this, Zhao Jiaren wrote an official letter to the Minister of Finance. He also sent an official letter to the envoy of the Three Buddhas. After dealing with this, Zhao Jiaren began to continue his work of writing books and sayings. "The Social Contract" has only finished the first part, and there is still a lot more to come.

On July 11, the battle report of the Tianzhu Raid came. Seeing that the Great Song Dynasty sent a large number of troops to the southern part of Tianzhu, the local forces in Sinhalese united to launch an attack on the Great Song Dynasty. However, the previous military operation was a false shot, and it was learned that the enemy was pouring out to attack the stronghold of the Great Song Dynasty. The army, composed of more than 2,000 Song militias and more than 5,000 Sinhalese natives, captured Colombo with lightning speed, and captured the local royal family in Colombo.