"In the past few years, you have been working in the palace, you should have also gone to the market outside the palace to buy something, right?"

Wen Sheng asked, causing Xia Que to nod hurriedly, and when he saw Liu Sheng smile with satisfaction, he immediately lowered his head slightly, and looked up at the four copper coins lined up on the desk in front of him.

"Do you know all these four coins?"

This time, Xia Que was not in a hurry to answer.

Carefully raise your head a little and carefully look at each copper coin before lowering your head again.

"Recognized;"

"The biggest one is half a tael."

"The one with the thinnest money circle is three baht money."

"There are two left, the bigger one is eight baht and the smaller one is four baht."

The one-by-one answer only provoked Liu Sheng to smile and nod again.

Then, he leaned his upper body back slightly, and raised the corners of his mouth as if smiling.

"Then let me ask you: Suppose, I let you go to the East Market to buy a stone of grain, and the price of grain is fifty dollars a stone;"

"How do you bring these four kinds of money?"

"How do you bring it, so that you can just buy a stone of grain?"

After saying the question, Liu Sheng took a moment to put his hands back, and waited for Xia Que's answer with his brother Liu Pengzu beside him.

The answer given by Xia Que made Liu Sheng's interest in 'money' more and more vigorous······

"Back to Childe's words."

"If it is in the market, and the seller tags a stone of grain for 50 yuan, then the '50 yuan' is usually said to be four baht money."

"——Because the four-baht coin was ordered to be cast by Emperor Xiaowen of Taizong, the people recognize Emperor Taizong the most, and naturally, they also recognize the four-baht coin the most."

"If the slave wants to buy such a stone of grain, then the most convenient thing is naturally to bring fifty four-baht coins;"

"As long as there is no shortage of fineness, fifty coins of four baht can just buy this stone of grain."

···

"If it's eight baht coins, as long as the condition is not bad, it can be directly halved, and only twenty-five eight-baht coins are needed;"

"Even if you run into nonsense, and you are entangled with 'insufficient fineness', you only need twenty-six or seven pieces at most."

"If it's half a tael, it's usually forty percent, that is, twenty."

"If the seller is kinder, he will return a few pieces, and only seventeen or eight pieces will be accepted······"

After listening to Xia Que's gentle answer, Liu Sheng only nodded thoughtfully.

It is not much different from Liu Sheng's expectations: the purchasing power of these kinds of money is mainly based on weight.

- Taizong's four-baht coin, because the gold-lettered signboard of 'Emperor Taizong's filial piety' has become the main reference;

The quality of the Lu Hou Eight Baht Coin, which is almost the same as that of the Four Baht Coin, has gained nearly twice the purchasing power of the Four Baht Dollar because of its weight of 'twice that of the Four Baht Coin'.

As for Qin Banliang, which has a higher copper content and higher quality, and weighs three times that of four baht coins, it has also gained nearly three times the purchasing power of four baht coins because of its weight advantage.

In other words, the purchasing power of the three kinds of money, four baht, eight baht, and Qin half tael, is basically determined by weight, and is not affected by the copper content, which is 'fineness' in the popular sense.

And the remaining three baht money······

"What about three baht?"

"If it's three baht, how many pieces do you need to buy this grain with the price of 'fifty dollars a stone'?"

When this question came out, Liu Sheng actually had the answer in his heart.

And Xia Que's next answer undoubtedly made Liu Sheng completely firm in his guess.

"Three Baht ······"

"Gongzi should have heard that Empress Dowager Lu once issued a decree not allowing anyone to refuse to accept three baht money?"

hesitated slightly, and at the same time replied to the question that was not what he asked, only to provoke Liu Sheng to nod his head slightly.

Seeing Xia Que bend his upper body a little more, he said secretly: "Emperor Taizu Gao also issued a decree that merchants were not allowed to wear silk and ride in carriages······

After saying that, Xia Que lowered his head deeply, leaving only a hat for Liu Sheng and Liu Pengzu brothers in front of him.

After Xia Que's extremely tactful answer, the two brothers only looked at each other for a moment, and then shook their heads and smiled······

Speaking of Empress Dowager Lu's decree of 'prohibiting the refusal to accept three-baht coins', we have to mention the evolution of coins in the land of China in the past 100 years.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, each country under the heavens had its own coins, which circulated within each country, and several relatively widely recognized coins were also circulated among countries.

Among them, the most characteristic of the times and the most well-known to later generations is the Warring States Sword Coins.

In the end, the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, which lasted for more than 400 years, ended with Qin Shi Huang dominating the world, and the era of the Great Qin Empire officially came.

After dominating the world, Zulong Yingzheng naturally issued the first standard currency in Chinese history: Qin half two coins.

The first emperor stipulated: Under the whole world, all the people of China must use Qin characters, speak Qin language, respect Qin laws, follow Qin customs, and use Qin money.

This 'Qin money' refers to Qin's half a tael.

After Qin Banliang became the only legal tender in the world, only a dozen years later, the first emperor Yingzheng died in the sand dunes;

The second Hu Hai was established, and the world's heroes rose together, and the beautiful name said: Qin lost its deer, and the world chased it.

Only three years after the death of the First Emperor Yingzheng, the Great Qin Empire, which had once suppressed the sea, was overthrown by the anti-Qin rebels represented by Xiang Yu, Liu Bang and others, and the Great Qin Empire collapsed violently;

Ying Qin Sheji was also buried in the hands of the third generation Ziying who was beheaded by Xiang Yu in Xianyang City.

Qin died, the world was divided into eighteen by Xiang Yu, and was quickly unified again by Liu Bang, the king of Han, for: Emperor Gao of Han Taizu.

After unifying the world again and establishing Liu Han Sheji, Liu Bang, as the founding monarch, used almost his entire emperor career to ban the order of princes with different surnames that he had personally divided.

And the world has also been devastated because of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period for more than 400 years, the Qin Dynasty annihilated the Six Kingdoms for more than ten years, as well as the Chu and Han struggles for hegemony after the fall of Qin, and the rebellion of princes with different surnames after the founding of Liu Han - this centuries-long war.

established Liu Han, but suffered from the emptiness of the treasury;

He had no money in his hand, but he was still anxious to lead the army to fight and quell the rebellion of the princes with different surnames.

In desperation, Liu Bang, Emperor Gao of the Han Dynasty, ordered Liu Sheng to cast in front of him, which was like an inferior three-baht coin with a key ring.

- Obviously, the three-baht coin in front of Liu Sheng was privately minted.

Because in the Taizu Dynasty, the three-baht money minted by the Shaofu official would not have the word 'three baht' written on the face of the money, but the word 'half tael'.

That's right;

The weight is three baht, the copper content is gratifying, but the face value is as high as half a tael.

Such a riotous operation naturally made the already dilapidated and ruined world almost overnight, and there was hundreds of times inflation!

The credit of the coin is bankrupt, the credit of the government is bankrupt, and the economic and social order has completely collapsed!

Overnight, the world returned to the ancient days of barter;

The already empty treasury was even weaker because of Liu Bang's operation of killing chickens and taking eggs;

The Son of Heaven drove the law, and he couldn't get eight horses of the same color, and Prime Minister Cao Shen could only make ox carts to go to court.

At this point, there is no need for the three-baht coin, or 'Han three baht', to exist.

The only solution to the problem is to depose the Han three baht.

But Taizu Gao's Emperor Liu Bang's choice was: let go of the coinage right, allow the world to mint privately, and celebrate with the whole world······

Then, the monetary order of the Han dynasty was unsurprisingly rotten.

In those years, almost everyone in the world was busy smelting copper and casting three-baht coins;

At the same time, these people who cast the three-baht coin, without exception, did not agree with the purchasing power of the three-baht coin.

——Including the three-baht coins that have just been baked and are still hot······

This situation was maintained until the twelfth year of the Han Dynasty, when Emperor Taizu Gao Liu Bang died.

The crown prince Liu Ying succeeded to the throne at a young age, and the Empress Dowager Lu came to the dynasty to take over the mess left by her husband Liu Bang.

Almost as soon as Xiaohui Liu Ying succeeded to the throne, Empress Dowager Lu issued an edict: prohibiting people from minting money privately!

After nationalizing the coinage, in order to reduce the bad influence of the 'key ring' three baht coins, Empress Dowager Lu took an intermediate value between Qin half two (twelve baht) and Han half two (three baht): eight baht.

But in order to wipe her husband's buttocks, and at the same time to leave a fig leaf for her husband, Empress Dowager Lu also reluctantly ordered: all kinds of coins that already exist in the world, as long as they are not all lead and copperless, as long as the structure is in the shape of money with a circle on the outside and a square inside, and it is not completely broken, they will continue to circulate among the people;

No one is allowed to refuse to accept 'money' that meets the above requirements in any name;

Violators will be fined four taels.

After Empress Dowager Lu's operation, the numismatic order that was ruined by Taizu Liu Bang was finally back on track, and Liu Hantianxia officially started the historical process of 'rebuilding China'.

Later, Emperor Xiaowen of Emperor Taizong succeeded to the throne, and on the basis of the eight baht coins of the Empress Lu, he issued another qualified and relatively lighter four-baht coin.

At this point, the erosive numismatic order of the Han Dynasty was finally completely corrected back to the correct direction in the hands of Emperor Xiaowen of the former Taizong.

After understanding the development process of Qin Banliang, Taizu's three baht, Lu Hou's eight baht, and Taizong's four baht, it is very interesting to look back and look at Xia Que's reply to Liu Sheng······

"Emperor Taizu Gao once issued a decree that merchants were not allowed to wear silk or ride in horse-drawn carriages;"

"But today, almost no one is abiding by that ban."

"Therefore, Empress Dowager Lu's decree that 'three baht money must not be refused' has long since become a dead letter?"

A meaningful remark, but it only provoked Xia Que to hurry up and play with her body a little more;

mouth, but he didn't forget to reply cryptically: "In the whole world, I'm afraid no one dares to say bad things about Empress Dowager Lu······"

"It's just such a three-baht money, and whenever the merchants see it, they will mostly refuse to do this business on the grounds of 'selling out', 'closing', or even 'having something at home' and 'feeling unwell'."

"Even if you sue the government, as long as you hear that it is related to the three-baht coin, the government will not accept it······"

Hearing this, Liu Sheng finally nodded with a smile and completely verified his conjecture.

Xia Que's words were very vague, but they were clear enough.

——Regarding the ban of Empress Dowager Lu 'not allowing the receipt of three baht money', people in the world dare not make irresponsible remarks;

But the three-baht coin, which resembles a key ring, or the purchasing power of the 'three-baht circle', and the IQ of people in the world, do not allow them to recognize.

Therefore, they will refuse to accept three baht in various ways that do not involve 'violating the ban of the Empress Dowager Lu'.

As for the government, it also turned a blind eye to this phenomenon and cleverly classified the three-baht coin as: pod money.

The so-called pod money is as light as a yarn like an elm pod, and it will break when touched.

Obviously, the three baht money of Emperor Taizu Gao Liu Bang is the 'battle money' among the inferior pod money······

"What about the gold?"

"One gold, how much can it be discounted?"

"I converted one gold into 10,000 dollars, did I lose it, or did I earn it?"

After a short period of thought, Liu Sheng raised his head as usual and asked Xia Que in front of him another question.

Seeing Liu Sheng remove the topic from the sensitive word 'three baht money', Xia Que also straightened up his waist a little bit.

In the tone, there is also a little relaxation.

"There is no exact statement on the market about how much copper money is worth a piece of gold;"

"When sellers sell goods in the market, they rarely mark the price of copper coins and gold at the same time."

"—but sellers prefer gold to copper coins."

"What can be bought with copper money, you can definitely buy with gold; However, the seller clearly marked the price of 'how much gold', and it is basically impossible to buy it with copper coins. ”

···

"If the buyer is willing to give a golden bean for something worth three or five hundred dollars, the seller will happily accept it."

"But for a horse that is clearly marked at '100 gold', even if someone bids 5 million, the seller is likely to be reluctant to sell it."

"—something cheap, a buyer won't be willing to pay for gold;"

"- Expensive things, sellers will not be willing to charge copper money."

"If you have to say that there are several examples of conversion between gold and copper coins, that is, according to the price of pawnshops and sub-money shops: gold and gold, discounted by 40,000 yuan······"

Instinctively, there was a little uncertainty, but it was also firm enough to make Liu Sheng and Liu Pengzu nod their heads again and again.

Seeing Xia Que adjust his breathing slightly, he continued: "One gold is 40,000 yuan, and it is four baht. ”

"If it's eight baht, it's about twenty-one thousand; Folding half a tael, it is about 16,000 to 17,000. ”

"The gold that the princes buy grain, the prince receives it according to one gold for 10,000 yuan, no matter how it is calculated, the prince earns ······"

After Xia Que said this last word again, Liu Sheng finally nodded to Xia Que with a satisfied smile.

Then he waved his hand lightly and motioned for Xia Que to retreat.

When Xia Que bowed down again, retreated back to the temple gate with small steps, and then stood back on the side of the temple gate, Liu Sheng finally couldn't hold back the joy in his chest, grinned the corners of his mouth, and smirked.

"I said that day, the people of Wuyang Houfan City, why was they inexplicably unhappy······"

"Hey;"

"Co-authored, was I inadvertently put a piece?"

was slightly joking, and clearly had some smug laughter, which also provoked Liu Pengzu on the side to nod his head with a smile.

"On the market, one gold is worth 40,000 yuan;"

"When I arrived at Ah Sheng, the gold of Wuyang Hou could only be folded for 10,000 ······"

"-That is, Wuyang Hou is sure that this business can make more than ten times the huge profits, so he didn't attack on the spot."

"If it weren't for that, whoever was replaced would be jumped by Ah Sheng's feet······"

But when he saw Liu Sheng hearing this, he only smiled and lowered his head and looked at the four copper coins in front of him.

Then, he reached out and picked up the key ring and gently shook it.

"Just think of it as the price paid by the Marquis of Wuyang, for the pods he sent."

"Again~ said;"

"Three thousand gold, buying 300,000 stone grain, and buying 1.2 million stone grain, is there a difference for Wuyang Hou?"

"-No difference~"

"Anyway, in the spring of next year, the grain in Taicang will still exist in Taicang motionless;"

"Wuyang Hou will definitely find me, cry, make trouble and hang himself three times in order to get back some of the money."

"What is the difference between folding 10,000 and folding 40,000, 300,000 stones, and 1.2 million stones?"

Saying this easily, Liu Sheng stood up with a smile and threw the pod money in his hand at his feet.

- It's just garbage, and if you throw it away, you throw it away.

As for the remaining three coins, they were grabbed by Liu Sheng casually and put them in his sleeves.

Today, the answer he got from Xia Que made Liu Sheng very interested.

But no matter what Xia Que says, he is just a palace attendant;

Liu Sheng felt that he needed to find a real 'knowledgeable person', and then talk about the 'money' problem.

Well, Tianzi Qi must be a 'knowledgeable' person······

"I heard that in a few days, my father and grandmother will be in the Changxin Palace, and they will hold a celebration banquet for the prime minister and Wei Qihou."

"Anyway, this matter of the womb is over for the time being;"

"Brother, are you interested in taking a trip?"

Wen smiled and asked, Liu Sheng didn't forget to turn his head sideways, and cast his inquiring gaze on Liu Pengzu.

When Liu Pengzu heard this, he looked at Liu Sheng's gaze, but there was a little bit of banter.

"Prime Minister, but I don't want my father to make Ah Sheng the crown prince?"

"Even my cousin Wei Qihou has neglected Ah Sheng because of this."

"-Ah Sheng, so open-minded?"

"The celebration banquet of these two, Ah Sheng really wants to go?"

Hearing the deep meaning in his brother's tone, Liu Sheng, who hadn't thought about it deeply, couldn't help but shake his head and smile bitterly.

"Then what can I do~"

"If you want to be a prince, you can't really 'get along with the prime minister'?"

"—Even if you want to make enemies from now on, you have to find out in person: where does this inexplicable dislike for me come from, and whether it is possible to resolve it."

"Even if it can't be resolved, you have to probe the prime minister's tone before you can consider the way to deal with it according to the actual situation······

"What does my brother think?"

Indifferent, with some vaguely bitter words, only to cause Liu Pengzu to smile and nod.

After thinking about it for a while, he also agreed with Liu Sheng's statement.

Just as he was about to speak, he wanted to discuss with Liu Sheng about the specific strategy for dealing with the newly baked prime minister, the Marquis Zhou Yafu, when Xia Que outside the palace made a solemn gesture on the faces of the two brothers.

"Aunt Guantao?"

"At this juncture, what is Aunt Guantao doing here?"

"-Hi~"

"-I smell it······"

Helplessly, he let out a complaint, which caused Liu Pengzu to also smile bitterly, and Liu Sheng finally forced a smile and looked up at the door of the palace.

——Before Liu Sheng went out to greet him in person, Liu Xuan, the princess of Guantao, had already walked into the palace by herself and appeared outside the side hall where Liu Sheng was······

Two more finishes.

Three watches will start tomorrow.

Good night, Father.

(End of chapter)