The current currency of the Han Empire is gold, silver and copper. Among them, copper coins are also called copper coins. Copper coins are mainly made of alloys of copper and tin, lead and zinc. The casting of copper coins is completely controlled by the court. Local officials and powerful people are not qualified to mint copper coins. Minting copper coins in local areas is a serious crime. Except for a few people who are willing to take risks and risk losing their heads to do such a thing, few people would do such a thing.
But gold ingots and silver ingots are different. If local officials and wealthy families have enough gold and silver, they can melt them down and cast gold and silver ingots for storage and circulation. The imperial court does not restrict this. This has caused a lot of chaos. In order to make huge profits, many unscrupulous people mixed metals such as tin and lead into the melted silver, passing off inferior goods as good ones and deliberately adulterating them, causing a lot of chaos.
In the actual use process, there are many disadvantages in circulating natural gold ingots and silver blocks as currency, which is very detrimental to the development of business. Take any merchant in Pingxi City as an example. When those merchants receive the gold seal, the first thing is that the boss has enough eyesight and vision to distinguish whether the gold and silver they received are adulterated by feel, weight, and color. If it is confirmed that the gold and silver received are of sufficient purity, the second step is to weigh the gold and silver received on the scale to determine the weight. The third step is that if the received is silver and needs change, many times, the boss of the store will use steel scissors and take great pains to cut the silver blocks into pieces to make change. Therefore, behind the counters of those businesses, scales for weighing silver and steel scissors for cutting silver are almost necessary items for merchants. The situation that Yan Liqiang saw in film and television dramas in his previous life, where people would leave a silver ingot when buying things or eating, although it cannot be said that there is no such thing, is far from the reality and the lives of many ordinary people...
If the silver is not of good quality, shopkeepers and bosses will either refuse to accept it or ask for a discount if they do accept it. This will cause many disputes. At the same time, due to the accuracy of the scales used to weigh silver, it is common to see merchants and customers arguing and fighting over the weight of one or two grams of silver.
The imperial court was unable to deal with these situations and could only let them go.
There are still a small number of extremely rare silver and gold coins in circulation on the market, but those circulating gold and silver coins are not real gold and silver coins. They are just some wealthy families who deliberately made large ingots of gold and silver into copper coins when smelting. Such gold and silver coins are made very roughly, with inconsistent standard weights, and secondly, they are very few in number and not circulated on a large scale. Most of those gold and silver coins are engraved with words such as longevity, happiness, and the joy of adding a child. Those things are made by a few wealthy families to show off and reward their servants during some important family celebrations. Therefore, these gold and silver coins are essentially small pieces of precious metals that have been separated...
The wealthy families in the Han Empire did not understand the significance of minting gold and silver coins, but for Yan Liqiang, turning the circulating gold and silver into circulating gold and silver coins contained a huge opportunity - the right to mint coins!
Once the gold and silver coins issued by the Qiyun Protectorate circulate in the market and become the circulating currency that everyone is willing to accept, it will become a fait accompli. Once this credit is established, it will be very powerful in the future.
It is a pity that no one in the Han Empire has been able to see the significance of this point so far. Perhaps someone has thought of minting gold and silver coins to facilitate circulation, but there is no technical means to realize it, because it is not an easy task for those people to mint gold and silver into currency. If they really want to use the current technical means to make gold and silver coins, the cost will be too high to be acceptable.
But to Yan Liqiang, all this was not a problem at all, because to mint gold and silver coins, all you needed was a coin minting machine, and the most reliable and stable coin minting machine - the elbow-type press coin minting machine - was not complicated at all for Yan Liqiang. He had ready-made drawings in his mind. The structure of this machine was even simpler than a steam engine, without any complicated structures and parts, and it was very durable and efficient in minting. Some of the coin minting machines he had seen in museums in his previous life had been used for nearly a hundred years and could still be used.
Yan Liqiang had even thought of the appearance of the gold and silver coins to be issued. All the gold and silver coins were originally based on one qian as the basic weight. One liang of silver was ten silver coins, and one liang of gold was ten gold coins. It was easy to calculate and convenient to use...
It had only been a few days since he handed the drawings to the Manufacturing Bureau. The craftsmen in the Manufacturing Bureau were probably still trying to figure out the secrets of the elbow-operated press coin casting machine and had not yet fully understood it. However, Yan Liqiang believed that within a few days, the Manufacturing Bureau would be able to put the first coin casting machine in front of him.
…
As the sun set, the four-wheeled carriage that Yan Liqiang was riding in finally stopped.
The door opened, Qian Su and Lu Wenbin got out first, and then Yan Liqiang straightened his clothes and got out of the carriage.
Outside the carriage, it was already in front of the gate of the county government office in Yingwei County. The accompanying guards stood on both sides of the county government office, blocking the street. Many people in the county were looking around. Fu Changde, who was wearing the official uniform of the county magistrate and a black gauze hat on his head, led a group of officials from Yingwei County to stand in front of the county government office in an orderly manner. When they saw Yan Liqiang coming down, Fu Changde and all the officials of Yingwei County bowed to the ground, "Yingwei County Magistrate Chang Lu greets the Supervisor..."
In order to prevent people from guessing his origins and to make the Seven Sand Tribes relax their hostility towards the newly established Qiyun Protectorate, Fu Changde has been using a pseudonym instead of his real name until now. Except for Yan Liqiang, even the people around Yan Liqiang do not know his real name.
Yan Liqiang glanced at Fu Changde, then looked at the familiar faces among the officials of Yingwei County, and smiled, "Master Chang, are you used to wearing this official uniform?"
"Knowing that the Inspector General was coming today, I put on this official uniform to greet him, in order to avoid being rude. Usually, I feel that this official uniform is a bit cumbersome, and not as comfortable as a sheepskin coat..." Fu Changde grinned and smiled at Yan Liqiang. That smile, with a bit of cunning and hidden sharpness, was very impressive. Among the people Yan Liqiang knew, only Fu Changde had such a smile on his face.
"Okay, since you don't like wearing this official uniform, I will allow you to not wear it when you see me in the future, and it won't be considered a crime of impoliteness!"
"Thank you, Lord Protector!"
Yan Liqiang raised his head and looked at the mottled gate of the Yingwei County government office. He rubbed his stomach and said, "Okay, let's go inside and talk. Lord Qian, Lord Lu and I have been on the road all day and are already hungry. Let's have dinner first..."
"Dinner is ready, please come in, gentlemen!" Chang Lu said, then he bent over and walked into the county government office with Yan Liqiang, Qian Su and others.
Chang Lu also knew Yan Liqiang's temper, and knew that Yan Liqiang didn't like to show off in such occasions, so the dinner prepared to welcome Yan Liqiang was just sumptuous, with meat and vegetables, and it was delicately prepared, but not luxurious.
After dinner, Yan Liqiang had just rested for a while in the official office behind the county government office when Fu Changde and Situ Feixing, who was wearing ordinary police uniforms, walked into Yan Liqiang's room together...
After letting the two sit down, Yan Liqiang asked Situ Feixing directly, "How is the contact with the Black Jie people?"
Situ Feixing licked his lips and looked at Yan Liqiang with some admiration, "Young Master, you have foreseen the situation. The Black Jie people have already taken the bait. After tasting a little sweetness, their appetite is getting bigger and bigger..."
(End of this chapter)