The factory area in Nanjing New Army Barracks is located next to the cannon casting factory by Xuanwu Lake. Two workshops originally used to cast cannons have been temporarily changed to coin workshops by Zhao Peng.

However, this is only temporary. The future Ming Mint will be located in the Imperial City of Daming, with a mint built outside the inner warehouse, and it is located next to the Silijian. In the future, the Ministry of Finance will be established and separated from the household part. The future Mint will be jointly managed by the Ministry of Finance and the Silijian. In the long run, eunuchs will eventually be abolished. When the last batch of eunuchs grow old, there will be no new eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank will be jointly managed by the Mint.

At present, the mint in the Xinjun Barracks of Nanjing is temporarily affiliated with the Ming Dynasty royal family, and the Jinyiwei and the East Factory are jointly managed. Like the Ming Dynasty Royal Silver, they are both royal industries, so they are supervised and managed by the Jinyiwei and Sili.

Zhao Peng sat in the office in the factory area, with Jiangtou Wang Xin and several old craftsmen sitting in front of him.

"First of all, we need to carry out the reform of the currency system. Your Majesty has agreed. In the future, one tael of silver will be changed to one yuan, ten pieces of copper plates will be changed to one cent, and one cent of copper plates will be changed to one cent. Coins are minted in this specification, and coins of different denominations are minted, with the amount written on it." Zhao Peng looked around and finally his eyes fell on Wang Xin.

Wang Xin asked, "Mr., since the court wants us to mint coins, can there be a template for minting coins?"

"Please look here, everyone," Zhao Peng took out the paper, popped it up on the table, pointed to the picture he drew to explain to Wang Xin and others, "This is a template picture of several types of coins. We plan to have ten denomination coins, one liang, and nine liang, five cents of gold; this is a five-yuan gold-and-half liang, and four liang, and seven cents of gold; this is a two-yuan gold-silver mixed coin, and one liang, and one liang, and there is a circle of silver outside, and there is a qian of gold in the middle; this is a one-yuan silver coin, and one liang, and nine cents of silver."

Zhao Peng paused for a moment and continued, "This is a five-cent silver coin, weighing five cents, containing four cents and seven cents of silver; this is a 2-cent copper-silver mixed coin, one side is copper, the other side is silver, weighing three cents, including one-cent silver, five cents of copper, and five cents of copper; this is a one-cent copper coin, weighing eight cents, six cents of copper, and five cents of silver; this is a five-cent copper coin, weighing four cents of copper, containing three cents of copper, and eight cents of copper; this is a two-cent copper coin..."

Wang Xin took the drawing, put it in her hand and looked carefully for a long time, then saluted Zhao Peng: "Please don't worry, Caomin can make the template within these days."

For the next five consecutive days, Wang Xin brought the craftsmen to make coin templates. Five days later, they created a complete set of coin templates.

The templates are all steel. Because the melting point of iron is higher than that of the three precious metals of gold, silver and copper, when the melted precious metal is poured into the template, the steel template will not melt itself. The so-called real gold is not afraid of fire refining, which is not because the melting point of gold is high, but because gold does not easily react with other substances, so when gold is burned, it will not oxidize.

However, the melting point of gold is not higher than that of iron, so gold coins can be cast using steel molds.

All coins have two sides, the front is the symbol of the sun and the moon shining together. The sun and the moon shining together represent the meaning of brightness. The reverse is a capital number, such as ten yuan, which says sing round, one yuan is written as one yuan, two yuan is written as two yuan, and five yuan is written as five yuan.

As for the gold-silver mixed coins and silver-copper mixed coins, two precious metals of different textures were originally intended to be cast on the front and back sides or inlays, but considering the high technical difficulty, they were directly cast on the alloy. For example, binary coins were mixed with one qian of gold and nine qian of silver, and added a little iron, which looked golden and beautiful.

When casting coins, according to Zhao Peng's requirements, in addition to the necessary precious metal content of silver and gold content, other impurities were selected as iron and white copper, making the minted gold coins, silver and copper coins very hard, and the silver glitter looked very exquisite.

In fact, the so-called white copper is nickel. As early as the Han Dynasty, the Han people had discovered that there were a small amount of "white copper" in iron ore, which was accompanied by the Chinese because it did not rust, and its melting point was lower than iron and higher than copper, so it was regarded as white copper by the Chinese. This metal was transmitted to Europe and was directly regarded as silver. At that time, because there was no developed smelting industry or chemical industry, people did not know what this metal was.

There was no special nickel smelting industry back then, but it was just a kind of companion creature produced during iron smelting. Not every iron ore had nickel. This metal, which was regarded as white copper, was also an expensive metal back then. However, Zhao Peng knew that this metal was actually quite common, and there was no need to add too much when minting coins, just a small amount.

The cast set of coins was put into an exquisite box, and Zhao Peng brought the box into the palace.

It is still the same rule. When you enter the palace, you will first find your fiancée, and then go to see His Majesty the Emperor with the princess.

After entering the Rouyi Hall, Zhao Peng saw the princess. The two hugged each other for a moment, and Zhao Peng opened the box.

Various coins in the box emit dazzling light under the sunlight, looking golden and very colorful.

"Go in, go inside and take a look." Zhao Peng closed the box.

When he walked into the room, Zhao Peng opened the box. Princess Kunxing couldn't wait to take out a golden gold coin from the box, put it in the palm of her hand and weighed it. She felt that the gold coin was quite substantial and very hard. She picked up the coin and observed it carefully. She saw that the gold coin with "Select the Round" was exquisitely crafted. The side with the numbers was turned over and the side with the pattern was cast, and the pattern was a pattern of sun and moon shining.

"What a beautiful gold coin!" Princess Kunxing sighed, "It's strange, isn't gold soft? Why is it so hard?"

Zhao Peng said: "I have said to your Emperor brother before that the 10-dollar gold coins weigh one or two, with a gold content of 90%, and the rest is iron and white copper. Why is it so hard? It is because there is white copper inside, and after adding white copper, it looks better in color."

In fact, nickel is not so hard, but a metal with good extension like copper, so it is called white copper by the ancient Chinese. However, after the nickel and iron are mixed, it becomes harder and mixed into precious metal coins, making the coins harder and have a more beautiful luster, which looks much better than coins in pure gold and silver.

Princess Kunxing couldn't put it down and held the gold coin tightly: "It's so beautiful. I really can't bear to release this gold coin."

Zhao Peng smiled and said, "In the future, we have more of these gold coins, silver coins, etc., but we will be issued anyway. The princess likes that she can leave herself with the most exquisitely crafted coins in the future."

Princess Kunxing picked up the two-yuan gold and silver mixed coins. Because most of them were silver, the color of this gold and silver mixed coins was lighter than gold coins, and it was a light golden yellow with white metallic light, which looked better than gold coins.

Whether it is a copper-silver mixed coins or a copper coin, they all look very beautiful. The copper coin is not pure copper, but contains white copper (nickel) and a small amount of iron. It is golden in color, which makes people love it at first glance.

The two brought coins and went to the Ganqing Palace to find Zhu Cilang.

When the box was opened, Zhu Cixuan looked at the coins in the box and his eyes were straightened: "It's really beautiful! But can the gold and silver content in it be convincing?"

Zhu Cilang then asked the Ministry of Revenue officials to identify the content of these coins.

Half an hour later, the officials of the Ministry of Revenue came to the Ganqing Palace. Looking at the box of coins, the officials of the Ministry of Revenue were straightened. He picked up the coins one by one, stroked them in his hands, then weighed them with a scale, and then baked them with candles.
Chapter completed!