Giving hundreds of thousands of shi of grain and tens of thousands of useless banknotes was like using the Peking Army as a knife. The court's wishful thinking was shattered, but Wan Lei was not a fool. He would not commit suicide just because of this small fortune.
A dead end. As for the problem of lack of food and money in Beiping City, he has also actively tried to find a solution.
At the emergency party meeting, the party leaders reached an agreement on several issues. One was to mint copper coins privately, the other was to recast silver coins, the third was to change the currency to Taiping coins, and the fourth was to establish Jingzhong guards. Tie Xuan and other administrative officials had originally been loyal to Jingzhong.
Wei had a grudge, but Wan Lei promised to give the government the power to issue and collect money, so they were lenient and finally acquiesced to the existence of Jing Zhong Wei.
After the party meeting, Wan Lei began to work on copper mine mining and copper coins. Copper mining is much more difficult than iron ore. After measurement, the copper content in the Wutoushan copper mine is about 3%, which is valuable for mining, but it requires
The flotation method is used to remove part of the gangue and other impurities in the ore to obtain concentrated ore with a higher copper content. Only then can the concentrated ore be used to smelt copper.
The Wutoushan copper mine is a symbiotic mine. Most of the surface layer is malachite, and the bottom layer is chalcopyrite, chalcocite and cuprite. Among them, the best ones to mine and utilize are malachite and cuprite, because they are oxidized
Minerals, especially cuprite, can be refined and put into sulfuric acid to wet-refine copper.
Moreover, the copper reserves in Wutou Mountain are more than ten times higher than Wan Lei estimated, about 9,000 tons of copper. Excluding those sulfide ores that are difficult to mine and smelt, there are at least 4,000 tons that are easy to mine. These four
Thousands of tons of copper are mined and made into copper coins, which are worth about 1.2 billion coins. If one thousand coins are worth one silver dollar, that is 1.2 million silver dollars. This is a huge wealth.
Even if half of the Hongwu Tongbao is used to make the Hongwu Tongbao, there are still 600 million coins. It is difficult to say how much these 600 million coins are worth. However, there were about 70 million people in the Ming Dynasty. The 600 million coins were divided equally, which is nearly nine coins per person. Of course, if you want to
In order for privately minted copper coins to enter the circulation field, it is necessary to make them look fake and authentic, so a set of copper molds must be made first.
As early as the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the Baoyuan Bureau of the Ministry of Industry in the capital and the Baoquan Bureau of each province to cast "Hongwu Tongbao" in the first year of Hongwu. The Ministry of Industry was in charge of casting coins, and the Baoyuan Bureau was set up under it. Zhu Yuanzhang was in order to avoid taboos about the Yuan Dynasty.
The word "Yuan" means that all the coins made are called "Tongbao" instead of "Yuanbao".
Later, in order to vigorously pursue the policy of treasure banknotes, the Ming court strictly controlled copper coins. Not only did they stop minting and banning them repeatedly, but even when the ban was lifted, there were restrictions, or they were collected into the internal treasury and used as inventory. Therefore, private minting was rampant, but
Due to the lack of copper materials, the people used ancient coins, but ancient coins were also limited, so they cast ancient coins privately for circulation. This was because the penalty for privately casting coins of this dynasty was very heavy, and no one dared to do it.
Wan Lei is not an ordinary person. He is not afraid of others who dare not cast Hongwu Tongbao privately. Moreover, he casts whatever has the widest circulation. Especially Xiaoping money, which is prohibited from circulation in the Ming Dynasty, must be minted in large quantities to attack the Ming Dynasty.
money market.
Just as Wan Lei was discussing with several old craftsmen about engraving copper molds, Tie Xuan sent someone to report that Mrs. Liu had finally sent someone over. Wan Lei had no choice but to put down what he was doing and go have a good chat with the other party.
Bargain for more than 100,000 shi of grain, and don't give them the artillery.
The person who came was a middle-aged man, in his thirties or forties, wearing linen clothes with many patches, like a beggar. However, Wan Lei never convinced others. After all, the Ming Dynasty was quite strange, and businessmen were illegal professions.
Even people who do business part-time are untouchables and are not allowed to wear silk or silver, so this linen man is not a beggar, but a big businessman. He dresses like this to show that he is a law-abiding businessman.
Tie Xuan was not the only one in the living room, but Zhao Hongru, who was in charge of money and food, was also present. The two men had serious faces and did not give the visitor a good look. Wan Lei entered the living room and sat down below Tie Xuan. He also No more pleasantries, signaling the meeting to start directly.
"While I'm sinking, I've been asked by Mrs. Liu to submit this letter." The man seemed to know that Wan Lei was the speaker, so he gave the letter to him directly.
Wan Lei did not answer the letter. A master next to Tie Xuan came out to take the letter, opened it and read it. The content was nothing more than to clarify the misunderstanding, hoping that everyone would abandon the past and work together for a great cause. At the end, he also said that the food had been transported by sea to the border of Shuntian Prefecture. Please ask Shuntianfu to send someone to deliver the goods.
"How much food is there in total?" Wan Lei asked. He only cared about how much life-saving food he could get. As for the old accounts, he put them aside for now.
"I don't know, maybe there are tens of thousands of stones." Shen Yu said expressionlessly.
"Only tens of thousands of stones?" Wan Lei shook his head and said, "Can you please go back and tell Mrs. Liu that these things are too few to be used as a tooth sacrifice, and ask her to get another hundred thousand stones."
"This?" Shen Yu frowned and said, "We don't have such financial resources."
"Hmph?! We can't even get more than 100,000 shi of food, so why talk about cooperation?" Wan Lei snorted coldly, and then said: "Don't worry, our Shuntian Mansion is not a robber, and we will not take advantage of the situation. As long as you can transport food, Not only will I give you artillery, but I will also give you copper coins. I will exchange three coins for you for one stone of rice, and you can make money as a grain seller."
"Well, I have to go back and discuss this with Mrs. Liu. Now that some of the food has arrived, please go and receive it."
"It's only tens of thousands of stones of grain, what's so good about it?" Zhao Hongru said with great dissatisfaction before Wan Lei could reply. In fact, it wasn't that he didn't want to go out to collect grain, but the grain was far away from the seaside, and not only did he have to send a grain transport team It's really troublesome to send a large army to protect you when you go out for transportation.
"I have nothing to do now. It's okay to go out for a walk in the city. But I have promised you not to play any more conspiracy." Wan Lei said the vilification in advance, otherwise the other party would make stupid tricks again, which would be serious. Provocation, then it will be a direct sword fight.
"Your Excellency, please rest assured. I will stay in Beiping City temporarily and ensure that there will be no more trouble." Shen Yu was also happy and directly regarded himself as a hostage.
With the hostage in hand, Wan Lei had nothing to worry about. Since it was still early, he didn't want to delay any longer, so he ordered more than 20 Jingzhong Guards, led a team of 100 people, and hurriedly left the city to where the other party said he wanted to go. Zhao Hongru did not fall behind others and organized a grain transport team as quickly as possible. He also asked for the protection of five thousand cavalry from the Peking Army and left the city in a mighty manner.
Beiping City is three to four hundred miles away from the seaside, and it takes most of a day to ride horses and horses. When Wan Lei and his party arrived at the seaside, they did not directly go to the ship to discuss the transaction, but went along the way. He spent the night at the salt factory set up by Tianfu and expressed condolences to the soldiers and civilians stationed at the salt factory.
Since salt production is of great importance, there are 2,000 soldiers stationed near the salt factory and camps set up. As long as they are not raided by the army, there will generally be no problems. There are about 500 migrant workers on the salt factory, and these salt workers are prisoners of war. , they were driven out to work during the day and were escorted back to the camp at night, which was no different from labor reform.
The person in charge of the salt factory operations was a battalion commander named Zhang. When he heard that Wan Lei was coming, he not only went out to greet him personally, but also immediately cleared out the best room for the visitor to stay. Wan Lei put down his luggage and I visited the camps, almost every one of them, and expressed my condolences to the officers and soldiers. The officers and soldiers still had some complaints about staying in such a fishy and smelly place far away from the city of Peiping.
After getting acquainted with the officers and soldiers and calming their complaints, Wan Lei gathered the few party members for a small meeting. While praising their work, he also raised some small opinions and demands.
Let them pay more attention to the lives of the officers and soldiers, and not forget about training while focusing on production, so that they can make contributions in the future, and so on, which makes everyone have high morale.
There was nothing to say all night. Early the next morning, as soon as Wan Lei got up, he heard a report from the scouts on patrol, saying that fifteen ships had appeared on the sea and were heading this way. It seemed that they had evil intentions. Battalion Commander Zhang invited him
I used to sit in command.
Wan Lei was shocked when he heard the news, and hurriedly came out of the barracks to take a look. Good guy, there were more than a dozen large ships on the white sea. Although they were not the 10,000-ton cargo ships that Wan Lei had seen before, in the Ming Dynasty, such wooden structures
The ship can be regarded as a huge thing: more than ten meters high, as tall as a building; dozens of meters long, wide at the bottom, with a raised and spread bow, a towering tail, and several large sails held high, which is at least twenty or thirty meters high.