Although Yin Anguo came here only as a magistrate from the seventh rank, he also brought a secret mission. In front of everyone, he did not rush to explain the mission. Instead, he waited until Qin Lang announced that he would like to serve the money supervisor and the judge of the Maritime Bureau from Luoyang and the supervisor, and the supervisor, he asked to say a few words separately.

Qin Lang smiled and took Yin Anguo's hand and entered the inner hall of the Governor's Office. The two of them sat down separately.

At this time, Yin Anguo first took out a piece of jade.

This jade is extraordinary at first glance.

A jade carved unicorn.

"This is what His Highness the Crown Prince asked the lower officials to bring it to the Eleven Lang."

Qin Yu, the eleventh son of Qin Lang, was also the eldest son of Qin Lang, and was the eldest son of Princess Taiping. He was granted the title of Prince of Wei when he was born and was given the fifth rank of the Duke of the Chaoshan Duke.

This time the prince gave another jade unicorn.

"This piece is the best Khotan jade, carved by the former treasured jade of the Khotan royal family for generations, and the most famous jade carving master carving."

This jade unicorn is lifelike and magical and flexible. Not to mention that the material of jade is just the work of this master, it is worth a thousand gold. In addition, this jade is indeed of excellent quality and rare treasure.

"His Royal Highness Xie is rewarded by Qin Lang's dog son."

In recent years, Qin Lang has added several new sons. The princess gave birth to one child after another for him. The other concubines and nobles who were dowry had almost one or two children, which made Qin Lang prosperous and now had eighteen sons.

It was also in recent years that Qin Lang had been in Luzon and Taiping Port for a long time, and even brought several concubines to Luzon, which added several children every year.

Even the younger son is younger than his grandsons. For example, Qin Jun is now twenty years old, and the eldest son is almost four years old, and all the grandchildren are eight or nine.

Yin Anguo took out another golden roc with spreading wings. Although it was not very big, it was better because of its dexterity. This was his gift to Qin Yu.

After starting with this gift, the atmosphere is good.

Yin Anguo also brought up another secret mission of his own.

"The court heard that Duke Wei now has many large copper mines that were mined in partnership with the Japanese in Japan. I heard that many large mines were also discovered in Luzon. The copper output is now amazing, with millions of taels a year?"

"Not much. Last year, Luzon sold about 3 million kilograms of Japanese copper from Japan, and our Luzon produced more than 800,000 kilograms. This year, both Japanese copper and Luzon copper can be increased a little more."

Yin Anguo was amazed.

"I didn't expect that this Japan is full of silver and copper. It can be sold for more than three million kilograms a year."

During the Wude period of the imperial court, it only collected more than 200,000 kilograms of copper a year, and the imperial court had more than 20 coins in charge. It was nearly 100 coins in total. It could cast 300,000 jin of coins a year, and used more than one million jin of copper. The copper mined was not enough. It mainly relies on recycling Wuzhu coins, private minting coins, etc. to mint coins.

During the Zhenguan period, in order to solve the problem of insufficient copper materials, the court strengthened the management of copper mountains and increased the copper taxation, but it was not the fundamental solution. Later, a huge policy of banning Buddhism was introduced, destroying a large number of bronze statues and Buddhist ware from the temples, and strengthening the management of the people's bronze ware.

Ordinary people are not allowed to use bronze ware other than small bronze mirrors. There are strict restrictions on the use of bronze ware by officials at all levels. During the Zhenguan period, all the copper from the people was basically used to mint coins, which maintained the astonishing coin figures every year at that time.

However, the copper material obtained by destroying Buddha statues and melting copper ware is limited after all, and there is always a time when it is used up, and the copper material of coin is still dug by copper ore.

In recent years, the imperial court has also continuously strengthened copper mining, relaxed mining restrictions, and allowed private mining, but only strengthened management and implemented a monopoly system for copper obtained from mining, which was purchased by the government after the imperial court was taxed.

With such a multi-pronged approach, the amount of copper mining has increased a lot, but the output of only one million kilograms of copper a year is only about 300,000 kilograms of copper.

The Qin Luzon coins were minted, and they could actually get three or four hundred kilograms of copper a year, which was several times more than the million kilograms of copper dug by the imperial court. Even if the imperial court recycled old coins, copperware, trade imports, etc., it was not enough.

The Luoyang court was very jealous.

They wanted to know if the Qin family had mastered some more advanced exploration mining technology, and they also wanted to divide some of the copper materials from the Qin family.

"The court is willing to buy it at the market price, which costs 160 cents per catty."

Qin Lang smiled slightly.

Yin Anguo was a little embarrassed, and he also knew that the price was set by the court, and it was the price when purchasing private copper ores and copper ware. But in fact, because of the limited copper, the price of copper is actually much higher.

"No matter how high the price is, the court will not be able to bear it. After all, although coin minting is beneficial, the condition is that copper material is 160 cents per catty. No matter how high the copper material price is, there will be no profit in coin minting."

Qin Lang can get millions of kilograms of copper a year, but he does not intend to make copperware to resell it. It mainly needs to be used to mint coins. The Qin family has the technology and strength. It is OK to consume millions of kilograms of copper a year, and it is OK to mint millions of kilograms of coins a year. In other words, the copper Qin Lang got was actually not enough for himself. But when the court opened its mouth, Qin Lang had to consider it.

"If the imperial court lacks copper, as a minister, I am of course willing to share the worries of the imperial court. I would like to propose two relief solutions. First, increase cooperation with the Japanese and increase some copper ores to explore mining. In this way, the increase in the production of Japanese and copper can increase the amount of Tang copper sold."

‘Secondly, the Qin family can divide the copper in their hands to the court in batches every year.”

"How much can I divide it?" Yin Anguo asked expectantly. He was the first priority for him to come to Luzon, and supervision and casting were just secondary.

"How about 800,000 kilograms, every year?"

"Can you have more?"

Yin Anguo raised the difficulty of the court's shortage of money and copper. The court hoped to be able to mint at least three to five million coins every year, so as to alleviate the increasingly serious money shortage problem. Otherwise, I am afraid that the businessmen in the world will start to return to the past when they were both money and silk.

When going out to do business, you have to load a cart of silk to trade.

"Donald Wei is afraid that he doesn't know anything. Now the transshipment envoy has even proposed to issue iron coins, especially in the southwest roads of Jiannan, Xichang, Qianzhong and Yunnan."

The southwest roads are remote and backward, the roads are difficult to move, and transactions are inconvenient. Copper coins flow into the past, which is a black hole, and there is no return. The court was short of money, so it proposed to ban money from entering the southwest.

Just like when Wude was in the early days, money was banned from passing through Lingnan. In the early Tang Dynasty, even before the governments did not allow copper coins to flow into the Lingnan area for circulation and use, so at that time, silk cloth and gold and silver were mainly used for circulation and transactions.

If there is insufficient issuance of copper coins, even the hinterland of the Central Plains cannot satisfy it, so how can it be wasted in the barbarian land?

The same is true for the southwest region now, because it is because of insufficient money. It is difficult to transport money over, and it is even more difficult to transport it out.

The copper production in Sichuan and Yunnan is small. Although Yunnan produces copper, but Yunnan's copper is said to be not suitable for minting coins, but Sichuan and Yunnan produce iron and iron ore reserves are high. So some people say that they might as well establish an iron coin supervision there, and use locally produced iron cast iron coins to be issued and used specifically in the southwest.

The problem of using iron coins is also great. First of all, the value of iron coins is definitely not as valuable as copper coins. It is inconvenient to trade copper coins. There are six kilograms and four liang of copper coins, and the iron coins worth always copper coins are probably more and heavier. When you go out to buy things, you really have to carry iron coins in sacks or carry baskets. This will seriously affect people's lives and market economy.

The transshipment officer made another additional suggestion: first cast iron coins in the southwest, use iron coins as reserves, and then issue iron coins specifically used in the southwest.

This iron coupon is equivalent to a voucher. If you carry this kind of coupon made of paper or silk, you can avoid the problem of too much iron coins. The iron coupon can be exchanged for iron coins at any time in the money shop.

Since iron coupons are issued, why do you need cast iron coins?

Because coupons are not money, they are just vouchers, so they must bind a real currency. There is a lack of copper coins in the southwest, so they cast iron coins, and then issue iron coupons to circulation. This is to implement the iron standard.

This can be said to be a very helpless solution, but there are still many problems.

Therefore, this plan is now opposed by many people. After all, there are not many dynasties in history that make money, and even use cloth, silk, and grain to trade and circulate money, but it is not a good solution, and there are too many problems.

In recent years, the imperial court has issued various banks, money shops, bill numbers, etc., and each issued many silver bills, money bills, bank bills, etc., but these are not currency, but just a kind of bill, and must be able to cash out the currency at any time.

Once the credit cannot be fulfilled, the credit will go bankrupt and it will be over.

The biggest problem in the southwest region is precisely the lack of money. How can you use the bill voucher if you are short of money? You cannot guarantee redemption at any time, then these bills are simply waste paper.

Therefore, these bill businesses that are very developed in Zhongyuan are not good in the southwest because they do not have enough money.

This is a vicious cycle.

Back to the fundamentals, it is to strengthen the circulation of money. How to strengthen it? Increase the amount of coins, but the materials are insufficient. So now the imperial court has strengthened the minting and issuance of gold and silver coins, and even created small silver coins and treasure coins in order to be able to use less materials and mint more money for circulation.

After all, the main thing is that there is a lack of materials, especially copper.

After all, gold and silver coins as precious metals have nothing to do with most ordinary people.

"The court has used almost all the means that the ban on bronzes. Now the order forbidden to ban bronzes is so strict that non-officials are not allowed to possess bronze ware other than bronze mirrors. It is also prohibited to hoard money. Ordinary people are prohibited to hoard more than 10,000 copper coins. Even middle-class landlords cannot exceed 50,000 yuan. Merchants' business names are strictly restricted based on their size."

"If you trade more than ten cents of coins, copper coins must be banned, and gold and silver coins or bills must be cited."

"I have a suggestion that my Qin family can produce glass, and can also use glass to make glass mirrors. The glass mirror is smaller than the bronze mirror and can also be seen clearly. The Qin family can increase the production volume of glass mirrors and then replace the bronze mirrors at home with the people."

Bronze mirrors are almost the only thing that every family has to do, and bronze mirrors are generally more expensive, often weighing a few kilograms or even dozens of kilograms, and some large bronze mirrors or even hundreds of kilograms.

Previously, the imperial court prohibited the possession of bronze ware by the people, and specially allowed ordinary people to own bronze mirrors less than three kilograms. It is because bronze mirrors are people's livelihood items, so people must comb their hair and look in the mirror, right?

Now Qin Lang said he would use a glass mirror to replace it.

"Is glass mirrors more expensive? I remember that the Qin family's glass mirrors were all thousands of times?"

Qin Lang smiled.

Glass is a thing, but in terms of material, it is really not valuable. What is valuable is this exclusive glass burning technology. For example, some merchants in Thailand have mastered some poor glass production technology in the past. The quality of the glass produced is average, but because of its uniqueness, it is shipped to Zhongyuan, and it is sold at the same price as jade.

But the problem is that glass is even much simpler than burning porcelain.

Glass mirrors require higher technology. This technology is unique to the Qin family, but the special one is only technology, not some material.

Before, mirrors were sold at a high price, and they were also hunger marketing. They deliberately took the luxury route. Like the Qin family's perfume, they did not intend to popularize them all, so of course they had to sell less, and the rare things were expensive.

Moreover, these glass mirrors are covered with gold and silver, the frames are all precious wood, and even exquisite lacquer is used. In addition, marketing promotion, so a single mirror can often be sold for thousands of chunks. Each mirror is exclusively customized and unique, and the total amount per year is strictly controlled to ensure scarcity.

However, no matter how scarce the things are, they are always more and more produced every year. So after twenty years, the price of the Qin family's glass products has declined. Among them, glass large glasses have mainly sold brands, and even have begun to have mid-to-high-end products for small wealthy and middle-class, which are no longer all luxury goods.

The market will always be saturated. Qinjia glass and mirror products have now become the key products for export by the Tang Dynasty. Qin Lang believes that the production of a batch of small mirrors used by ordinary people will not affect the reputation of Qinjia glass mirrors too much, after all, the positioning is different.

Waiting for a large mirror and a small mirror are two completely different things.

Yin'anguo became eager.

"I heard that glass mirrors are very difficult to produce, so can they be produced in large quantities?"

"A large glass is indeed very difficult, but it is easier to produce small mirrors as big as bowls."

"Then can we place an order from Wei Gongjia Mirrors to purchase this kind of glass mirror? How much does it cost?"

If Yin Anguo could purchase a large number of small glass mirrors from Qin Lang and then transport them back to various prefectures and counties by the court to replace their bronze mirrors with the people, then this would be his great contribution.

That is millions or even tens of millions of copper mirrors, and you can get more than tens of millions of kilograms of copper at once, which is equivalent to the amount of copper mined by the imperial court for more than ten years.

The imperial court is actually not short of money now, that is, it is not short of income. Because there are a lot of financial resources in all aspects, but insufficient currency circulation has always led to a serious problem and always restricts economic development.

The southwest has been defeated by the court in recent years and has become increasingly strict in control, but the problem of shortage of money there is becoming more and more serious. The people and indigenous barbarians are still focusing on things and taxes are mainly based on things.

It was originally due to the small-scale tea and horse trade, and heavy money and lack of money were even more troubled and affected them.

This also affected the imperial court's control over the southwest.
Chapter completed!