Eastern Palace.

Because the emperor went to Qizhou to hunt, Chang'an was reinvigorated from the prince's reign, and the regular officials changed the morning court to the East Palace. After the morning court, the prime ministers asked the prince Chengqian to deal with state affairs and hold an imperial meeting.

Chengqian sat in the hall and said that he was presided over the court discussion. In fact, the prime ministers changed the original political affairs discussion to the East Palace. In name, the crown prince listened to politics and made decisions, but in fact he listened there, which meant that these major affairs had passed through imperial power.

Of course, the final result was not to copy it to the Qizhou Emperor Palace.

Qin Lang showed off his achievements over the past period of time, including arms sales and loan orders, and trade contracts signed by the way.

The four countries of Haidong, Silla Baekje, Goguryeo, and then there are 36 countries including Gaochang, the Western Regions, as well as northern tribes such as Xiqishi Wei Tiel, etc.

Taking advantage of the arrival of the countries to pay tribute, Qin Lang invited them to negotiate.

Using arms sales as the introductory and loans as bait, they were attracted to sign loan treaties from the Tang Dynasty, purchase arms, and then sign trade opening treaties.

Because the conditions are really too tempting, it seems that the Tang Dynasty's magical weapons and armor can be obtained without money. These foreign countries are very moved, especially some tribe barbarians. They can't figure out the terms and feel that there are advantages to take. Although Qin Lang also made it clear, they signed a contract to borrow, then purchased arms, and then paid in installments, with principal and interest, but the barbarians thought about these things.

I only know that now I can buy the magic weapon and armor they displayed from the Tang Dynasty without paying money. As for how many items they have to borrow, how high the interest is, how many installments are, how much principal and interest are, what local goods have to be used as compensation, and don’t care if I don’t think about it.

Get the good stuff first.

It doesn't matter if they are asked to sign a trade treaty. The so-called trade treaty is to open up trade routes and establish commercial halls. The Tang Dynasty also demanded the establishment of embassies, post stations, beacon towers on the Silk Road, and send some beacon soldiers to send letters. It doesn't matter if they do.

No big deal.

Even many tribes such as Xi and Khitan were looking forward to this trade clause. After all, in the past, Zhongyuan often banned the market and closed the pass, so they could not sell their fur and livestock. They could not buy commercial goods from Zhongyuan, and they could only sell high-priced smuggled goods, which was a huge loss.

Sometimes you have to trade detours through other tribes or do two transactions with others. If you can trade directly in the future, it will of course be a good thing for them, which means that the prices of good merchants in the Central Plains will be lower in the future and their goods will be sold more easily.

Qin Lang specially made a map and then ordered signed orders on the locations of various countries on the map.

In addition, he specially made a series of charts and displayed them in a graphic form. This simple PPT made Cheng Qian clear at a glance, and other prime ministers could see it clearly at a glance.

"So many weapons are sold? In total, there must be tens of thousands of people's equipment, and they are all good equipment. Many of them are our enemies, or potential enemies, such as Goguryeo, Champa, and Western Turks. Wouldn't this be used to support the enemy?" Wei Zheng, the Shizhong, raised a question.

"I remind Shizhong Wei to look at the quantity and price of these weapons. The total amount is quite large, enough to equip more than 50,000 troops. But if you look closely, the one who purchases the most weapons in our country is actually the Goguryeo. The total military purchase contract is 15,000 sets of various types of arms, and the others are 1,200 sets and 1,800 sets."

"Ten 5,000 is already a lot. Didn't Wei Gong think that the Goguryeo people use our excellent equipment to arm 15,000 Goguryeo elites and then come and fight us?" Wei Zheng continued to ask.

"First of all, these 5,000 sets of equipment are not handed over to the Goguryeo people at one time. They will be divided into multiple batches, and it will probably take several years to complete. In addition, even if they are given, we can use these weapons to exchange for more things from the Goguryeo people. In addition, this interest income, and the expensive weapons we sell them. We sell them 15,000 sets of equipment, and the profits we earn can create more equipment for the Tang Dynasty."

"Don't Wei Gong thinks too simple. Making weapons and armor requires iron, steel, cowhide, cow tendon, cow horns, bird feathers, etc. These things are very valuable. If a large amount of weapons is manufactured and sold, how can we ensure that we can still be sufficient? No matter how much money we earn, we may not be able to buy the required materials at critical moments, right?" Wei Zheng said.

"I naturally know this. Therefore, I opened arms sales to various countries and asked to sign trade contracts. In addition, in the goods I asked each country to pay for discounts, each country has different things. In addition to the main local products of each country, many things are the raw materials for making various types of military ords, such as iron ore, horse skin, beef tendons and horns, etc. These things are used as a sum of money and transported back to the Tang Dynasty to refine and process and manufacture military ords, and can also produce other civilian goods."

"Of course, when arms sales and trade make money, we can also increase mineral mining and smelting, increase workshops and train craftsmen. There are many benefits to doing this, one of which is to ensure our strong military production and manufacturing capabilities."

Wei Zheng shook his head when he heard this, feeling that it always felt very dangerous to do so.

Prime Ministers such as Fang Xuanling and Changsun Wuji did not make decisions so easily, after all, there is no precedent for such a thing.

"During the Sui Dynasty, Li Mi and Wang Shichong fought in Luoyang. Li Mi owned two warehouses, Li Yang and Hui Luo, but lacked money. Wang Shichong owned the eastern capital, Luoyang, and the treasury was full of money but there was a lot of people in the city, but there was a shortage of food. Later, Wang Shichong took the initiative to find Li Mi and proposed to buy grain with money. Li Mi actually agreed. Later, after Wang Shichong bought a large amount of food from Li Mi, the crisis of food shortage in the city eased, and Wang Shichong was able to strengthen the city defense and appease the military and civilians. Li Mi attacked again, but there was no way to take advantage of it. In the end, he was defeated by Wang Shichong. Isn't this a lesson from the past?" Wei Zheng gave an example.

"Wei Shizhong's example is good, but this is obviously an exception. Wang Shichong and Li Mi fought in Luoyang. During the special period, it was indeed a stupid move for Li Mi to sell grain for money. But our current situation is completely different."

The entire military purchase plan was also a link for the Tang Dynasty to further open up foreign trade, and it was also a step for the Tang Dynasty to strengthen its interference on the surrounding vassals. For example, taking the opportunity to set up post stations and beacons on the Silk Road, establish shopping malls in some ports, and even establish trading ports in some coastal bays. Qin Lang even planned to rent some coastal islands or harbors as concessions, establish overseas trade ports, and even prepare for the future development of colonies.

Even if you don’t think about future colonies and concessions for the time being, at least you will take the opportunity to expand foreign trade. This is very beneficial. Even if you borrow trade, you can easily collect information.

What are you afraid of when the Tang Dynasty is so big?

Dai Zhou's focus is on another place.

"Sanlang, I saw that you and the four countries of Haidong have signed a contract to provide coins to the four countries?"

"I'm afraid this is a bit inappropriate. You also know that the cost of minting is high. My Tang Dynasty lacks silver and copper, so the money shortage has always been insufficient. Therefore, in the past, not only did I have to ban money from going abroad, but even Lingnan had to ban money from crossing the ridge. If copper coins were allowed to flow into the four countries of Haidong, wouldn't my Tang Dynasty have become more serious? Then there would be no money available at that time."

Qin Lang smiled slightly.

"What Dai Xiang said is the old emperor's history before Zhenguan. In fact, in recent years, our Tang Dynasty has added hundreds of new copper mines, and through foreign trade, a large amount of copper materials are imported from outside every year. Since the reform policy of the Tang Dynasty, the new regulations on copper mining to manufacturing and use, it has now been banned from making Buddha statues and bronze ware. The copper is now mainly used for minting coins. The improvement of coin technology has greatly reduced the cost of minting. Now, every time the imperial court has made a lot of profits."

One of the keys to the shortage of money in previous dynasties was that insufficient copper mining resulted in high copper costs. In addition, the cost of casting and transportation was high, so sometimes it would lead to losses in minting. Even if it was not a loss, there would be no profit. The rise of Buddhism led to a large amount of copper materials being used to cast Buddha statues and Buddha ware. With some daily copper ware, it made the coins available for casting coins more and less copper. Many illegal merchants even took away the copper coins cast by the court and melted them into copper and made into copper ware, and then they could get several times the profit after handing over.

The court became increasingly short of money, so all kinds of bad money were flooded, and bad money began to drive out good money. Everyone hid good money without using it, and they all used the bad money, which made the money shortage more and more.

In recent years, the imperial court has carried out many special reforms to these situations, such as a stricter copper ban system, strictly forbidden to cast copper statues and makeware, strictly forbidden to go abroad, and strictly forbidden to hoard copper coins. On the other hand, merchants are encouraged to mine copper ore and encourage merchants to import copper from outside.

In addition, the improvement of coin minting technology and the beginning of gold and silver coins, and the emergence of banknotes such as flying coins and silver notes, and paper notes, greatly alleviated the problem of the shortage of money in the Tang Dynasty.

Although silk is still used as currency, the actual situation of using silk has been greatly reduced. People basically use copper coins for small transactions, and larger transactions start to use silver coins or even gold coins. As for larger transactions, they are directly from bank and bank notes.

No one will foolishly pull a cart of copper coins or a few carts of silk to trade. Long distances, in other places, they mainly use flying money and silver bills. No one will go to their own pigpens. Many copper coins are moldy and green in the cellar.

On the other hand, the rise of many banks, money shops and cabinets has sucked the money in the hands of the people into these financial institutions, and then increased the circulation rate of the currency.

The better circulation rate of the same coins will inevitably alleviate the money shortage.

By this time in the fifth year of Zhenguan, the people could hardly feel the situation of having no money to use in the past, and there were few bartering again.
Chapter completed!