In mid-June, good news finally came from Soga Heihei. After more than two months of carving, he actually made a qualified carving mother. A total of four carving mothers from Soga Heihei's letter were sent to Kiragi.
When I look at it in my hand, I can see that these carved mother-of-pearls are indeed several times larger than the ordinary Yongle coins, and they are also much heavier. The handwriting is clear and beautiful, the characters are thin and tall, the characters are deep and sharp, the strokes are strong and powerful, and the ground seals are smooth and clean.
, there were no casting marks on the whole body, even he couldn't help but want to collect one.
The four carved mother coins are two copper coins each of Hongwu Tongbao and Yongle Tongbao. These two coins are also the most widely circulated and popular coins in the market. At the same time, Heibei Suga told him that besides Xiaoping, Hongwu Tongbao
In addition to the money, in the future, we will also cast the mother of two, three, five, and ten large coins. Yongle Tongbao only needs to prepare the mother of large coins that can be folded into two coins. The weight of each copper coin with a face value corresponds to only
Very small error.
The appearance and quality of Hongwu coins vary, but they are very popular because they are the second batch of standard copper coins in the Ming Dynasty and the earliest batch of copper coins introduced into Japan. The special features of Yongle coins are good quality, beautiful shape and sufficient weight.
This is the main reason why these two types of money are so popular.
What he is sending now is the carved mother of Xiaoping coins. The big coins that have been broken into 2% are still undergoing final modifications. The big coins from Hongwu coins that have been broken into 2% or more will have to wait for a while before they can be minted. This speed has already made him very satisfied, so he is happy.
Said: "You have done a good job! I will reward you with five hundred yuan of Yongle money! Work hard in the future! There will be more rewards!"
However, Soga Heibei didn't look happy at all. He seemed to be making some difficult decision. He suddenly bowed and said, "I have a favor to ask. Please allow me to serve in the Kira family, Your Majesty Sakamoto!"
"You don't want to be a businessman anymore? Hmm! The temptation of becoming a samurai is indeed not small!" Kira Yoshi thought about it, and he was not worried about letting such high-level talents out. He nodded and said: "Okay! I agree.
! I will reward the three of you with supporting rice and an annual salary of two hundred guan, so you can work on my craftsmanship and practice it!"
"But..." Soga Heibei hesitated.
Kira Yoshichi said impatiently: "It's nothing, do you still want to go into battle with a sword and chop off your head to perform meritorious service? Don't be stupid! Do what you should do, and you will be a samurai among craftsmen, and a craftsman among samurai. From now on
You will teach this skill to your descendants and pass it on to your family, do you understand?"
Soga Heibei leaned over and said respectfully: "I understand! Thank you, Master, for your kindness!"
According to the coinage rules of the Ming Dynasty, Hongwu Tongbao weighs one qian per xiaoping coin, weighs two qian when folded into two qian, weighs three qian when used as three qian, weighs five qian when used as five qian, and weighs one liang when used as ten qian. Yongle Tongbao adopts the same format.
, given its current scale, it is not possible to cast Jiajing Tongbao on a large scale with new anti-counterfeiting techniques such as fire paint, lathe edges, and gold backs.
Theft of Yongle coins actually began to appear before the Yingren Rebellion, and began to appear on a large scale after the Yingren Rebellion. However, those famous people did not have the technology to cast sand into money, and secondly, they did not have mother money, and they did not know what mother money was.
Things, so the stolen copper coins are of poor quality. There are many pitted "beach holes" on the coin body, and the coin body is dark and very light, which can be seen through at a glance.
The Hongwu Tongbao and Yongle Tongbao cast during Kiragi's reign can no longer be considered stolen. Both the sand casting method and the carvings used are strictly in accordance with the craftsmanship of the Ming Dynasty, and this kind of money is only used as currency in circulation in Japan.
There is no need to worry about people from the Ming Dynasty discovering it. Even if the Ming Dynasty finds out that there are so many extra Hongwu Tongbao, Yongle Tongbao will not pursue them.
In the early Hongwu and Yongle dynasties of the Ming Dynasty, copper coins were minted as hard currency for foreign trade to gain profits. Within the Ming Dynasty, another set of currency was popular, namely the infamous treasure banknotes. This method was still good in the decades after the founding of the Ming Dynasty.
Later, because the Ming court did not understand the principle of recycling old banknotes to maintain credibility, it continued to print banknotes crazily, causing the value of the treasured banknotes to plummet. In the end, they were no longer used as toilet paper, so the Ming court had to stop this system.
Following the tradition of more than a hundred years, copper coins began to be minted on a large scale as the main currency.
However, the Ming Dynasty has always been short of copper, and even more practical copper coins. Folks have a tradition of melting copper coins to make bronze utensils to make profits. Some landlords and wealthy merchants simply melted pure copper and cast pure silver into big balls and buried them in the cellar.
This vulgar habit has caused the original function of currency circulation to be infinitely transformed into a collection function. How much pure copper is there in the market? The silver is enough for them to melt and cast it. Of course, the more copper is lacking, the more expensive the copper price will be. The more expensive the copper price will be, the more copper will be sold.
Multiple people melted copper and stored it, creating a vicious cycle.
The money shortage caused by the lack of copper also inhibited the speed of capitalization development of Jiangnan handicrafts and suppressed the economic development speed of the Ming Dynasty. Japan happens to have a lot of copper. The Dewa Kunio Kazawa Mine that mines and passes has been mined intermittently for 800 years.
years, and will continue to be mined for another four hundred years.
The new coins minted during Kiragi's reign were recast according to the standard of four copper and six lead. They are naturally much better than the original variegated Hongwu Tongbao, but they are slightly different in color than Yongle Tongbao. Of course, this difference is not obvious and only
The Kira family money house can distinguish the subtle differences between the two.
At that time, Ji Liangyi recycled Yongle money and melted it into pure copper. According to the standard of copper 4 lead 6, a large amount of recasting would become his important income. This ratio would be used by a certain Tatar dynasty's Mingjun more than a hundred years later.
For the casting of official copper coins, the usual weight of newly minted copper coins is just over seven pounds and four taels.
This standard is in line with the shakukan method popular in Japan. The shakugan method stipulates that the weight is equal to seven pounds and five taels, which is close to the official hair standard. Even if it was sold on the market in the Ming Dynasty, there is nothing to worry about. Most merchants are surprised by this kind of Hongwu Tongbao
He had never seen it before, but he would never suspect that it was made privately by Kira Ji. He was not worried about being exposed because the Jiajing Tongbao used a new technology. Each small flat coin weighed one qian and two cents, and the usual price was only seven jins and eight taels. Later,
The weight has increased to the point where each Xiaoping coin weighs one qian and two-and-a-half cents, and a regular coin weighs eight kilograms, which is already the limit.
Pure lead can be obtained directly from copper coins. You can also melt the required pure lead by purchasing crude copper blocks with slightly lower precision in large quantities. If you have copper and lead, you can continue to recast copper coins. Although I know that this business is very profitable, but
In order to prevent Kiragi from being leaked, he did not dare to recruit Omi's manpower, so he could only use Soga Heibei's men, but his speed could not increase.
Kiragi thought hard for a long time before he realized that Mikawa Country was not rich in honest farmers. He immediately contacted Nobuzada Ohuchi of Mikawa and asked him to select a thousand farmers from Mikawa Country. Regardless of age and origin, they only required honesty, honesty and a strict mouth. If he could