"Bang boom—"

At the beginning of September, when the warm current of Japan and the cold current of the Kuril Island collided, a roar was heard in the deep mountains of the Shimane region of Japan.

In nearby Shimane Prefecture, some low-pitched Japanese people who came and went were unmoved, and it seemed that they had long been accustomed to this kind of sound.

Under this roar, next to the Shimane Prefecture Heavenly Code, in a newly built Ming-style courtyard, a satisfactory document was also placed in front of Lu Jianxing.

Unlike the low-slung tenjo and most Japanese buildings, the Ming-style courtyard houses are tall and majestic, and Lu Jianxing, who is sitting in the study, is a giant for the Japanese.

"Great work......"

Lu Jianxing spoke to the few brocade guards who had just sat down, and then picked up the book and slowly flipped through it.

The smile on his face became more and more full of light when he flipped through it.

[Gold 7,232 24 coins, silver 2,776,742 taels and 33 coins, copper 726,437 catties and 624 cents, iron ......]

On the small booklet, the amount of gold, silver, copper and iron mined was recorded, so that Lu Jianxing knew that His Royal Highness King Qi would be very happy when he saw this booklet.

So he closed the book and said:

"All the gold was sent to Tianjin Port, 2.7 million taels of silver, 720,000 catties of copper, and iron was retained."

As he spoke, he leaned back in his chair, changed into a more comfortable position, and continued:

"The more than 6,000 catties of copper, and other collected copper coins were cast into Wanli Tongbao, as for the more than 76,000 taels of silver, take out more than 700 taels of odds, and give one tael to each of the brothers, and the rest will wait for His Highness to arrange."

"Thank you!" When the seven brocade guards heard this, they immediately thanked them, and Lu Jianxing said:

"Don't thank me, thank Your Highness."

"Once this gold, silver and copper ingot, worth more than three million taels, is sent to Tianjin Port, His Highness is happy, and it is estimated that among the 76,000 taels of silver, we can still get a piece of the pie with the brothers of Gongweiying."

He said this, and the brocade guards below also reported:

"Tongzhi, although I say so, we only have 120,000 catties of gunpowder left, and I'm afraid we need to transfer some saltpeter from the imperial store."

"This matter is not difficult, I will ask His Highness to allocate 300,000 catties of saltpeter to come." Lu Jianxing responded disapprecrisingly.

As a country rich in sulfur resources and forest resources, Japan naturally does not have to worry about sulfur and charcoal used in the raw materials of black powder, but it is a saltpeter-poor country.

Due to the shortage of saltpeter, Japan did not use artillery on a large scale, after all, they had to rely on imports of saltpeter.

As for the places of import, there are only two places, Daming and Siam.

After all, saltpeter is a necessary raw material for making gunpowder, and saltpeter, as a foreign product, is an extremely important resource for both diplomatic exchanges and military conflicts.

Oda Nobunaga's large-scale use of firearms was also due to the fact that he obtained large quantities of saltpeter from Sakai Port, an international trading port.

Therefore, as long as the Sakai Port is controlled in Japan, it has a special advantage in the application of firearms.

It was only with the start of the war of "Tomorrow" that the Ming Dynasty, under Zhu Youzhen's order, almost cut off all maritime saltpeter trade with Japan.

It is precisely because of this that Tokugawa Iemitsu and others in the north can only defend at the moment, and there is no room for counterattack.

At present, they can only rely on the local methods in the central and northern parts of the island to collect saltpeter, but even so, the amount of saltpeter is still scarce.

The scarcity of saltpeter led to a serious shortage of gunpowder.

If it weren't for the fact that the Ming army was busy eating the southern part of Honshu Island and the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku, Edo Castle would have been breached.

At present, Lu Jianxing said that solving the saltpeter problem was actually helping Yan Siqi and others solve the gunpowder problem.

500,000 catties of saltpeter can make at least 3 million catties of gunpowder.

These gunpowders were almost produced in the Wanli period and in three years of the War Bureau.

However, after Zhu Youzhen's restructuring, the two capitals of the Ming Dynasty and the Governor's Office of the Five Armies each had an ordnance bureau and a gunpowder bureau.

The output of gunpowder in the Governor's Office of the Five Armies was set at between 300,000 jin and 500,000 jin, while the output of the two major gunpowder bureaus in Beijing was fixed at between 5 million and 10 million jin, and the gunpowder bureau in Nanjing was limited to 7 million jin.

This is not to say that the production of gunpowder in the Ming Dynasty can only reach this level, but because there is not so much demand.

Even the three major gunpowder bureaus in Liangjing can have such a large gunpowder limit because they are responsible for supplying the sales of firecrackers to the imperial store.

The demand for gunpowder among the people of the Ming Dynasty has always been not low, and more than 12 million catties were sold last year.

You must know that the Governor's Office of the Five Armies fought against Annam last year, and the consumption of defending the frontier cost 4 million catties of gunpowder.

If you have to compare, then on the night of the New Year's Day every year, the gunpowder spent by the people of the Ming Dynasty is enough for the Ming Dynasty to fight Annan several times.

However, the royal store sells fireworks and firecrackers, and it can also make a profit of hundreds of thousands of taels every year.

The Ming Dynasty's wealth in gunpowder is unimaginable to all countries.

Lu Jianxing also heard that after the Xiaoxiyang Supervision Envoy characterized saltpeter as a saleable commodity, millions of catties of saltpeter were snapped up by European businessmen in less than a month.

"I just don't know how much I can earn......"

Lu Jianxing was a little itchy, he was not greedy for money, but wanted to make some merits, so that His Royal Highness King Qi always had himself under his nose.

"By the way, the casualties of the miners have been a bit big recently, should we ......?"

"Don't worry about it, if it's gone, it will be taken from the prisoners."

A brocade guard just wanted to report the death or injury of the miners, but Lu Jianxing waved his hand impatiently and motioned him to stop talking.

"At present, there are still more than 600,000 traitors in the county prisons, and wherever there are not enough miners in the mining areas, they will be transferred."

"Yes......" Jinyi Wei sat down when he heard the sound, and Lu Jianxing didn't care.

The reason why they were able to mine more minerals than during the shogunate period was because of gunpowder on the one hand, and the scale on the other.

At present, there are nearly 500,000 miners working in the mines, all of whom are related to the Tokugawa shogunate and other local daimyos, or who are the people who transported supplies to the shogunate army.

Japan has a population of more than 15 million, and about 7 million are currently in the hands of the Ming Dynasty.

The attrition of the war reduced the population of 7 million in the hands of the Ming Dynasty to about 6 million, and the proportion of nearly one-sixth of the prisoners also made it difficult for local rule.

Lu Jianxing is also preparing to ask Zhu Youzhen to relocate hundreds of thousands of victims to Japan.

Otherwise, when the time comes, when the "Northern Expedition" comes, if the army wants to use the local Japanese as people's husbands, who knows if these guys will defect in battle......

Thinking so, he was not interested in hearing anything else, but let everyone leave, and then wrote a note of his own, which was sent to the capital along with the matter of the emigration, the transportation of saltpeter, and the transportation of gold and silver.

Together with Song Shu, there were more than 200 Daming cargo ships.

After a month's long journey, the cargo ship finally arrived at the port of Tianjin, and the gold, silver and copper mines were also taken over by the Dagu camp of the port of Tianjin, and taken to the gold, silver and copper warehouse of the Imperial Horse Prison.

When Zhu Youzhen got Lu Jianxing's notes, these precious metals had just been sealed, and Zhu Youzhen looked at the notes in his hands, and the smile on his face couldn't stop it.

"Sure enough, it's better to be comfortable with a bitter foreigner......"

In the Taihang Mountains in the west of Baoding County, Zhu Youzhen, dressed in military uniform, rode on horseback, holding a song and laughing.

"The little widow actually has so much gold and silver, and this gold and silver alone is enough for Your Highness to issue tens of millions of coins."

Lu Wenzhao rode a horse and followed behind Zhu Youjian, smiling and agreeing.

Behind him, Cao Bianjiao, Cao Dingjiao, Wang Chengen, Li Zhongzi and others followed, and more than 100 Xiao cavalry guards followed the Gong Guard.

Zhu Youzhen closed the song, then handed the song to Lu Wenzhao, and took a fist-sized box from Lu Wenzhao.

He opened the box, which contained four coins.

On the obverse of the four coins there are the words "Apocalypse Tongbao" written in the "Lishu", the font is exquisite, the casting is exquisite, the neatness is uniform, and the degree of exquisiteness is more exquisite than many copper coins in circulation.

Due to the hydraulic use of the steel formwork, each coin is shaped to the same size.

Of the four coins, there are two silver coins and two copper coins.

The four coins are divided into two large and two small, and are divided into large and small flat coins, the silver coin of the large flat coin weighs one tael, about 37 grams, and is minted with nine cents of silver and one cent of copper.

The shape is still a round place, and the front is the four words of Apocalypse, and the back is marked with one or two, and there are prints under one or two fonts, and the workmanship is very exquisite.

This kind of big money, mainly for trade, the scale of casting will not be very large, Zhu Youzhen is ready to cast about 10 million, the cost is 901,000 taels of silver, the value is 10 million taels.

As for the silver coin of the second paragraph, it is made of nine cents of silver, nine tenths of a copper, weighing one tael, with a denomination of one hundred wen and a cost of ninety-nine wen.

The third is a copper coin with a large flat coin, nine cents of copper, one cent of tin, one tael in weight, ten wen in denomination, and nine wen and five cents in cost.

The fourth paragraph is a copper coin small flat money, nine cents of copper, one cent of tin, one penny of weight, one penny of denomination, and the cost of nine cents and five.

The silver coin is translucent and bright, the small flat coin is turbid, and the copper coin is different in size, in fact, the shape is copper purple and red, and the real book is read directly.

The four characters of the money face text "Tianqi Tongbao" are written in regular script from top to bottom and right to left, and the text strokes are beautiful. The production of the caster is exquisite, neat and uniform, and the money is beautiful, and it is a very exquisite currency.

With these 720,000 catties of copper to get coinage, it is completely possible to mint nearly 13 million pieces of 10 yuan of 10 yuan of large pings, or 130 million pieces of 130 million pieces of small yuan of small yuan.

The style of the new money is actually not much different from the old money, the only situation is that the coin has 60 more fine teeth on the edge and more stamps on the inside.

Just these two simple anti-counterfeiting measures can avoid most of the fake money workshops on the market.

"What is the current output of gold, silver and copper in the imperial court?"

Zhu Youzhen turned his head to ask Wang Chengen, and when Wang Chengen heard this, he subconsciously took out a book from his body.

Zhu Youzhen has been busy minting money recently, and Wang Chengen has been carrying relevant documents with him.

"New mines in the old port plus new mines in the Kosai Supervision Mission, new mines in Japan and other places......"

Wang Chengen paused, obviously still looking for it, and Zhu Youzhen was not in a hurry, but waited for Wang Chengen for a while before saying:

"This year, the imperial court has earned more than 19,000 catties of gold, 470,000 catties of silver, 2.61 million catties of copper, more than 19,000 catties of iron, and 790,000 catties of coal......"

Speaking of this, Wang Chengen said: "The Armaments Institute has developed a detonator, and after the power increases, the mining speed of various mines should be able to increase a lot." ”

"Gold, silver, copper, and iron are all stockpiled as I said before." Zhu You bowed his head slightly after listening and reminded Wang Chengen.

If according to the current mining speed of the Ming Dynasty and the rules formulated before, it will be possible to accumulate more than 3 million taels of gold, more than 80 million taels of silver, nearly 30 million catties of copper and 2 billion catties of iron in about ten years.

However, Zhu Youzhen does not need to wait so long, especially for the currency reform.

He only needs to announce that this year's land tax and commercial tax will be collected uniformly with copper coins, so that he can obtain more than 20 billion copper coins in a short period of time.

But if he does, it will inevitably disrupt the market.

It is necessary to complete the monetary reform without disrupting the market, so the amount of investment must not be too much at once.

With the current gold, silver and copper inventory of the Ming Dynasty, it is completely possible to make more than 26 million silver coins at one time, or more than 260,000 silver coins and 800 million small flat coins.

This amount is simply insignificant for the silver and copper coin market circulating in the Ming Dynasty.

When converted, they were worth twenty-six million taels of silver, and copper coins worth one million taels of silver, which was not more than twenty-seven million pieces of silver.

For the Ming Dynasty, which has a conservative market circulation of gold, silver and copper, after being folded, there may be billions of two dynasties, it is nothing at all.

If you simply wait for the mining to mint coins, then at most 80 million silver coins and 400 million copper coins will be minted every year.

The expropriation of gold, silver and copper mines is only the starting point of Zhu Youzhen's plan to protect his own currency implementation, and the real collection of silver and copper still depends on taxes.

The tax of the Ming Dynasty collected more than 20 million taels of silver and 50 million stone rice and wheat a year.

However, if it is changed to grain, it can be collected with copper coins, even if only one-fifth of the opening is opened, it can collect more than 3 billion copper coins.

The reason why no one does this is because fake money is rampant in the Ming Dynasty, and collecting copper coins is bound to be a loss-making transaction.

However, Zhu Youzhen didn't care, the temporary loss was exchanged for a new round of changes in the Ming economy.

Even if hundreds of millions of fake money are collected every time, the loss is only more than 100,000 taels of silver.

What's more, there is also a small amount of copper in the fake money, which is nothing for the imperial court.

However, what needs to be concerned about Zhu Youzhen is the need to ensure the reserves of grain under the great drought, so it is destined that the Ming Dynasty will not be able to convert the grain into copper coins in the seventeen-year drought.

However, Zhu Youzhen had already thought about this, and the way he wanted to collect copper coins was not through taxes, but through the imperial store......

"What is the annual copper coin turnover of the imperial store?"

Zhu Youzhen asked on horseback, but Wang Chengen said without thinking: "About 30 billion Wen." ”

With a turnover of 30 billion Wen, it is destined that Huangdian will be a natural currency exchange institution and does not charge any fees.

He is like a supermarket, the customer took out a tael of silver to buy 20 wen of oil and salt, and the emperor needs to make up 980 copper coins.

Such characteristics cast the royal store is actually a natural currency reservoir.

The Ming Dynasty can use it to issue copper coins, collect private currency, and earn trade.

But Zhu Youzhen will not force the imperial store to use new money to find supplies for the people, because this is ruining the reputation of the imperial store.

Huangdian is like a supply and marketing cooperative, but he is not as powerful as a supply and marketing cooperative.

The supply and marketing cooperatives are exclusively franchised, and the royal store does not have this advantage, it needs to compete with other stores in the place.

So back to that sentence, the ones who can really take the lead in digesting the Apocalypse Tongbao are actually the army, officials, and helpers of government-run institutions......

What is the number of people in this group?

Zhu Youzhen just made a simple calculation, which can make people gasp.

The army is 770,000 people, and the number of officials who receive money has reached 970,000 at present, and the government-run institutions are nearly one million people such as Huangdian, Huangzhuang, officialdom, shipyard, and miners of government-run minerals in the Ming Dynasty.

Not only that, but in addition to them, there is also a large group, and that is the affected group.

Daming's cash-for-work relief has now covered more than 2 million people on both sides of the Yellow River and in other places.

Together, the number of these people has reached more than 4 million people, and the expenditure of these more than 4 million people is converted into silver, and the annual expenditure is close to 50 million taels.

With such a scale, once it is used to release new coins, it will become a major player in the market in a few years.

Of course, the issuance of new coins will also affect the trust of this group of people in the imperial court, because merchants may not dare to accept new coins.

But don't forget, the role of the imperial shop is to trade.

Other merchants can not accept it, but the royal store will definitely accept it.

Not only that, but the scale of more than 4 million people will also put a new institution in Daming on the right track.

Bank......

The imperial court and government-run institutions paid pay slips, and the salaries and wages were paid to the banks, and the more than 4 million people used passbooks to deposit and withdraw money.

In this way, it can prevent the occurrence of eating most of the empty salary, and in the future, it will be easier to investigate some financial cases in the investigation of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Jinyiwei, and Dali Temple.

So in general, a perfect closed loop will be formed in the end.

Imperial court—bank—official, military, and people—imperial store—imperial court......

This closed loop is formed, so there is no such thing as issuing new coins that will affect the credibility of the imperial court.

"We have to settle the matter of the banks and local banks quickly, and then start minting coins and wait for the new coins to be issued."

Zhu Youzhen had a lot of thoughts in his mind, and after thinking about everything, he began to say to Lu Wenzhao:

"The matter of Qianzhuang, investigate it well, after the Yanshan students graduate next year, the bank's affairs must be on the right track."

"After the court meeting, I will ask the Ministry of Industry to prepare to build banks in the state capitals and counties of Daming, and you tell Bi Ziyan that the mint of the imperial court can be stopped."

"By the way, tell the Armaments Institute to prepare enough minting machines to reach the scale of 10 million coins per day."

"In the future, it is enough to keep only one mint in the capital." After Zhu Youzhen finished speaking, Lu Wenzhao also said that he knew.

After he made a move, Zhu Youzhen took out his bow and arrows again, preparing to continue hunting wild birds and beasts in the mountains.

But they had barely walked a hundred paces, and had not yet found any prey worth hunting, when the sound of horses' hooves sounded from the road behind them.

Everyone stopped in the dry forest in winter, and after a while several brocade guards rode their horses and delivered a military newspaper.

"Your Highness! There is an emergency military report in the armament hospital! ”

The leading Jinyi Wei Baihu turned over and dismounted, trotting over, holding a military newspaper in his hand.

Seeing this, the Xiao cavalry guards on the periphery took the military report and rode their horses to Zhu Youzhen's side.

Zhu Youzhen took over the military newspaper and opened the military newspaper of the Armaments Institute as soon as possible, and the moment the military newspaper was opened, Zhu Youzhen also laughed happily:

"Good! Good! It's finally been developed! ”

"Your Highness? Is there any update on the development of the Armaments Institute? Lu Wenzhao asked puzzled, and Zhu Youzhen shook the military report in his hand:

"The third version of the steam engine is out! It seems to have something to do with that Wang Zheng! ”

Zhu Youzhen smiled, clutching the military newspaper in his hand tightly, although he didn't know that this third version of the steam engine was different from the Watt steam engine invented by Watt in history.

But according to the military report, the current power of this steam engine has reached the level of nine to twelve, as long as there is no big problem with this steam engine, the Ming railway, steam locomotive, and steam engine ship can be on the right track.

Not only that, the first industrial revolution will also be led by Daming!

But there is a problem with this, and that is the problem of the market......

Thinking of this, Zhu Youzhen looked at Lu Wenzhao: "Have the troops of the Southern Military Governor's Mansion and the Navy Governor's Mansion been assembled?" ”

"Back to Your Highness......" Lu Wenzhao saluted: "Some have already embarked on the road to the old port, and some have not yet been assembled. ”

"According to your Royal Highness's order, at present, Qi Yuanfu's general army has been transferred to the twenty Gong Guard Battalion first, and then to the Xiaoxiyang Supervision Embassy."

When he said this, Zhu Youzhen nodded very satisfied, and continued:

"Qin Bangping, Qin Gongming, and Qin Yiming were temporarily transferred from the Western Military Governor's Office, and commanded the Twenty Gong Guard Battalion that was still in Annan to go to the Xiaoxiyang Supervision Mission."

"By the way, tell the feudal clans that their feudal money can be handed over to the second amount, and next year after all the soldiers and horses gather in the small Western Supervision Mission, they will immediately start to recover the domain."

"Yes!" Lu Wenzhao responded, and couldn't understand why the third version of the steam engine could make His Royal Highness so happy.

He naturally didn't know, but Zhu Youzhen knew it very well.

Although the steam engine can improve the production efficiency of all walks of life, it is also destined to eliminate a group of people.

If you want not to eliminate them, then you need to expand the market.

The market of the Ming Dynasty is actually saturated, and although all of Zhu Youzhen's means have created taxes for the imperial court, most of the other means are to seize and squeeze the domestic market except for the recovery of overseas territories and mineral mining.

Now the third version of the steam engine has appeared, and its efficiency can also allow the Ming to industrialize.

In this case, in terms of the market size of the Ming Dynasty, the entry of the steam engine into the textile industry and other industries represents the squeezing of the market and the squeezing out of a large number of labor.

If we do not want a large number of urban people to lose their jobs, then we must expand the market, otherwise the steam engine can only be used in steam locomotives, steam engine ships, and the military industry, and it will not be of any benefit to the civilian economy, except for the smooth flow of traffic.

If you want to expand the market, it is still a market that can carry many commodities after the industrialization of the Ming Dynasty.

Among the places within easy reach of the Ming Dynasty, there are only the Mughals and the hundreds of millions of people in South Asia.

With them as the mainstay, supplemented by Europe and Central Asia, once the goods of the Ming Dynasty seize many markets, whether Europe will still industrialize is a question worth pondering.

But why does Zhu Youzhen care about the life and death of others?

If you want to seize the South Asian market, and let the local market be established without any threat, then the vassal state established by the kings after the vassal is the best place to dump goods.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youzhen showed a heavy expression on his face, and said "sadly":

"The people of Tianzhu have been suffering for a long time, and now that my soldiers are coming, I will liberate them, let them accept the king, live and work in peace and contentment, and everyone will have a job."

"Your Highness's benevolent ......" Lu Wenzhao pretended to be heavy, and Wang Chengen and others followed suit.

But after this imitation, gradually some people couldn't help laughing......

Chapter 2 is updated at 6 p.m

(End of chapter)