At the end of the first month, the northwest corner of Qingzhou City.

Yue Ming and Song Gongming came to the outside of a house, where officials from the Ministry of Finance and Commerce were going in and out, moving boxes of broken silver and silver ingots into it.

"Minister Yue, this is Qianzhuang's foundry?"

"Yes, this place is relatively remote, there are not many people around, and there are not many merchants, so it is convenient to guard."

As they spoke, they walked inside, and saw that the courtyard was already full of all kinds of supplies, including chests of silver and coal for the furnace.

"How many silver coins can be minted here in a day?"

Yue Ming thought for a while and said, "Because the time is too tight, the foundry was built in a hurry, and now there are only three furnaces, and in one day, it can mint more than 130,000 taels of silver coins. ”

"More than 130,000 taels?"

Song Gongming thought for a while and said: "Next month's military salary will be paid, and the general town means that the military salary and the shogunate officials' salaries will be paid in silver coins, is it too late?" ”

"It should be about the same, more than 300,000 taels have been minted in the past few days, that is, more than 300,000 silver coins, and the 500,000 taels of silver that the imperial court allocated to our Qinglai Town alone can all be minted into silver coins in these two days."

Yue Ming said: "The monthly salary of each battalion of the new army is more than 340,000 taels, plus the salaries of the officials of the shogunate, 500,000 taels of silver is almost enough. ”

"That's good."

Song Gongming said: "Next month, the income of the Ministry of Commerce and the Chamber of Commerce will be shipped at the beginning of the month, and the foundry will be busy for a while." ”

"This is inevitable, at the beginning of the implementation of the new policy of money and silver coins, a large amount of silver coins need to be invested in the people, and it is certain that they will be busy. I'm still planning for the next one

By the end of the month, five more furnaces will be added to the foundry to increase production. ”

While talking, the two came to the backyard, and a foundry steward came over with two men, the two men carried a wooden box, and the three walked in front of Yue Ming and Song Gongming.

"I've seen Minister Yue and Minister Song."

Yue Ming smiled and asked, "This is the first batch of silver coins minted, right?" ”

"Exactly, please check it out with the minister, if there is no problem, the subordinates will bring someone to the General Military Mansion, and ask the Lord of the General Town to accept it."

The two guys opened the box, only to see that the box was full of silver coins, Yue Ming and Song Gongming each picked up one to check, the silver coin is different from the common copper coin, there is no hole in the middle, it is larger than ten copper coins, and it is heavy in the hand, it is heavy enough to weigh one or two, giving people a very solid feeling.

The silver coin in Yue Ming's hand is engraved with the words "one tael", on which is a semi-circular "made in Shandong Qianzhuang" several regular scripts, and below is the same semicircular arrangement of the number "Chongzhen fifteenth year of the first month of the first month of the fifth three seven two six one", this is the code language, there is no code book of the money village, outsiders do not know what these numbers mean, even if it is forgery, the number and the code words on the bottom account of the money village do not match, it is a fraud.

Of course, there will also be thieves who deliberately imitate and copy the code words on the real silver coins. Liu Yan also has a countermeasure, that is, in the code language of each silver coin, the interval between each number is different, and the money bank will immediately stipulate the distance between each number, which is rotated once a month, and outsiders have no way of knowing.

This is the anti-counterfeiting means of this era, Liu Yan believes that with the technical means of this era,

As well as the ability of those counterfeiters and thieves among the people, they simply cannot make high-quality silver coins, and even if they mint inferior silver coins, they can easily distinguish them.

Song Gongming looked at the silver coin in his hand and couldn't put it down, and said with a smile: "It's really exquisite, the silver coin in my Qinglai Town is well-made and full of weight, once it is put into the people, it will definitely be loved by the people and soldiers, and the circulation is not a problem." ”

However, Yue Ming was a little worried, and said: "It's just that this silver coin is too exquisite, according to the habit of the people, they have always spent the broken silver and other inferior currencies first, and the exquisite currency such as silver coins are kept in their hands. In the long run, how many silver coins we put in will not be seen in the market. ”

"This seems to be what the lord of the town said, what is the law of bad money driving out good money."

Song Gongming was slightly stunned and asked, "Did the general town say how to deal with it?" ”

"Yes!"

"The town has explained that through the Ministry of Commerce and the Chamber of Commerce, all the industrial settlements of the Ministry of Commerce, and all the merchants who join the Chamber of Commerce, must use silver coins for circulation, refuse to accept broken silver and silver ingots, and never pay broken silver and silver ingots. As Sojo said at the meeting, this method, together with the salaries and salaries of the new army and shogunate officials, was also paid with silver coins, forcing the people to use silver coins on a large scale. ”

Song Gongming frowned slightly, and said: "I'm afraid that some people with ulterior motives will deliberately hoard silver coins on a large scale to manipulate the exchange rate between silver coins, broken silver, and copper coins, so as to make profits!" ”

"Don't worry, the town has thought of this, and has been prepared, if someone really doesn't open their eyes, they will definitely lose their money.

”

"Oh?"

Song Gongming became interested and asked, "What can the town do?" ”

Yue Ming lowered his voice and said, "The general town directly stipulates that one tael of silver coins can be exchanged for one tael of broken silver and silver ingots, and if there are copper coins, one tael of silver coins will be exchanged for one thousand copper coins. This is a fixed exchange rate that no one can change. ”

"As for the folk black market, after a long time, the price of silver coins must remain high, the head town has ordered Qian Zhuang to hoard a large number of silver coins, once there is an illegal hoarding of silver coins, Qian Zhuang will put at least 500,000 taels of silver coins into the four provinces of Qinglai Town, suppress the price of silver coins, and let those thieves lose their money!"

Song Gongming was shocked, although he knew that Qinglai Town had strong financial resources at the moment, and the monthly net profit of the Ministry of Commerce alone was hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, but Liu Yan's big money still made Song Gongming's heart tremble.

"I'm afraid that when the time comes, the town will compete with those thieves, but it will hurt the people."

"Don't worry."

Yue Ming said: "If it really hurts the people, things will be simpler. ”

"Oh?"

"The town has said to me: to fight thieves requires means and evidence, and to fight traitors, only a list is needed. If there are really thieves who wantonly plunder the wealth of the people and disrupt the civil order for their own selfish desires, the general town will never have the patience to deal with it, and will directly send troops to encircle and suppress it. ”

The two put down the silver coins in their hands, and Yue Ming said to the steward, "Send it to the General Soldier's Mansion immediately." ”

"Yes."

Soon, the steward took people to load the car on the road and delivered the box of silver coins to Liu Yan.

At this time, Liu Yan was talking with Wang Jing, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, and when he saw the silver coins sent, Liu Yan opened the box with a smile and picked up one:

"Tarzan, look at it, this is the minted silver coin, how about it?"

Wang Jing also picked up one and looked at it carefully, and then said: "It's the first time the old man has seen such a beautiful silver coin. In the early years, the old man also saw some Taixi silver coins, all of which were circulated from the south of the Yangtze River, but the Taixi silver coins were rough in workmanship, different weights, and many styles, in fact, they were of the same nature as our Ming Dynasty's broken silver, which was very inconvenient to use, and the people did not regard it as silver coins, all of which were used as broken silver. ”

Taixi is the general name of the Ming Dynasty to European countries at this time, and the attitude of the Ming Dynasty towards the West at this time is not as flattering as the Manchu Qing Dynasty in later generations, because although the Ming Dynasty has been stormy at this time, but in terms of social development level, it is not worse than the West, and even in terms of humanities, political system, shipbuilding, agricultural technology, medical level, etc., the Ming Dynasty is still ahead of the West, even in firearms, it also has its own merits.

Unlike the later Manchu Qing Dynasty, which lagged behind the West in all aspects and was beaten by others in turn, the Ming Dynasty defeated the Dutch in Liuluo Bay and the Portuguese and Spaniards in the coastal area even when the country was on the verge of extinction.

You must know that in the current era, the Dutch, Portuguese, and Spaniards are the hegemons of the West, but they are still defeated by the Ming Dynasty, and even the Portuguese have been beaten to pay compensation. As for Britain, France, Germany and other powers in the late Qing Dynasty, they were all "mud legs" at this time.

When Liu Yan heard Wang Jing talk about European silver coins, he suddenly came to his senses and asked, "Is there anything else?" Does Taishan know that who is doing business with the Taixi people in Jiangnan? ”

Wang Jing said: "It's not very clear, it's all business

The rumors between Jia have never been seen by the old man. It's just that Zheng Yiguan of Fujian was the leader, and he led a large group of maritime merchants to monopolize the trade with the Taixi people, so I don't know the specific details. ”

Zheng Yiguan is Zheng Zhilong, and he is entrenched in Fujian at this time.

As early as 1633, that is, in the sixth year of Chongzhen, Zheng Zhilong led his troops to defeat the fleet of the Dutch East India Company off the coast of Fujian, which is the famous Battle of Kinmen in history.

Since then, the sea atmosphere is quite resting, selling foreign goods, all using the Zheng banner, no warning, Zheng Zhilong to Haili traffic court, \ "Fujian to Zheng for the Great Wall\". So far, Zheng Zhilong's trade has been widely spread to all parts of the East and South Seas: Da Ni, Hun Ni, Champong, Luzon, Beigang, Dayuan, Japan, Mumbai, Banten, Old Port, Batavia, Malacca, Cambodia, Siam and other places.

In addition, Zheng Zhilong's military strength is also very strong, under the heavy investment, Zheng Zhilong has formed an army of Han Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Austronesian ethnic groups, and even African blacks, with a strength of up to 200,000 people, with a fleet of more than 3,000 large and small warships!

At this time, Liu Yan fell into deep thought, Shandong is too far away from Fujian, otherwise he really wants to contact Zheng Zhilong, whether it is business or something else, it is always good to contact as soon as possible, after all, maritime trade is a cornucopia, Liu Yan naturally looked at it.

Previously, Liu Yan also asked for a large number of shipbuilders from the imperial court, and now they are all settled in Lingshanwei. Liu Yan did not immediately start large-scale shipbuilding, not because the money and grain could not keep up, but at present, it was useless to build a merchant fleet, because it was big at this time

The maritime trade routes of the Ming Dynasty were all monopolized by Zheng Zhilong.

Whoever wants to trade with foreign countries must pay tribute to Zheng Zhilong, otherwise they will be sunk by Zheng Zhilong's fleet. In this way, except for Zheng Zhilong's merchant fleet, the others are basically unprofitable, and over time, not many people are willing to go to sea to trade.

"This situation must be reversed!"

Liu Yan secretly said in his heart, after the current layout of the money village and silver coins is completed, it is necessary to digest Yanzhou Mansion and Dengzhou Mansion as soon as possible, so that the strength of Qinglai Town will go further, and then Liu Yan will be ready to look at the whole of Shandong.

"Only when the base is big and strong enough, can I have the capital to compete with the heroes of the world!"

"Thanks to the book friend Cao, the boring monthly pass, Dongxian is working hard to write a better story for everyone."