In fact, most people in the Government Affairs Council, including the Financial Affairs Bureau, are in favor of the "mithril faction", but the objective facts cannot be reversed, so the plan that was finally passed was to mint silver coins and implement a silver standard.
After setting the tone, the mint began to be officially constructed. In the past, all kinds of paper securities issued by Delong were printed in the printing house. Now that mints are to be issued, an additional workshop is set up in the printing house as in the past.
Naturally, this is no longer possible. We must find another place to set up a factory.
According to Caijingkou’s opinion, the new mint will be located in Hong Kong. Whether it is the market for the mints or the source of currency materials, Hong Kong, which is close to Guangdong, is obviously more suitable than Lingao on Hainan Island. Caijingkou predicts that once it lands on the mainland,
The demand for new currency will be huge, and if the mint cannot supply enough nearby, it will be very embarrassing if there is a shortage of currency.
Although Hong Kong lacks resources, it has convenient transportation and more convenient transportation of various supplies than Hainan. It can also be said to have peace of mind in terms of safety.
After consultations with senior officials from the Planning Institute and the Industrial Portal, the basic scale and required equipment of the mint were finally finalized.
The Hong Kong Mint is divided into two phases, including minting and printing. After completion, it will form complete design and manufacturing capabilities for securities, banknotes and coins. Due to time constraints, and the Lingao Printing Factory has already printed
The ability of paper currency, so it was decided that the first phase of the project would be a mint.
The mint includes a small metal smelting workshop, a coinage workshop, a metalworking workshop that designs and manufactures stamping coin dies, as well as independently supporting steam power, workshops, security and other supporting facilities.
Preliminary calculations show that the main equipment that needs to be newly manufactured is: smelting furnace, plate press, punch press, cleaning machine, crimping machine, pressing machine, and scaling lathe. Except for a few pieces of equipment, most of them need to be designed and manufactured from scratch. However, mechanical manufacturing is not
Nowadays, it is no longer a problem for machine shops, and they can basically make their own products.
After several months of construction, the factory buildings and equipment have been roughly installed, and currency materials and fuel are currently being mobilized. Workers have also arrived one after another, and it can be said that everything is ready. In the meeting room of the Ministry of Finance in Lingao, the official start of construction was held
Last working meeting before.
Although it is called a working meeting, it is actually very important. The final details of the new currency, from the currency itself to the manufacturing process, must be finalized and implemented at this meeting.
Finance Minister Cheng Dong stood up and cleared his throat.
"Comrades! Some time ago, our new currency reform plan has been approved by the Central Government Administration Council and the Senate. The Ministry of Finance has solicited opinions from the industrial sector on the issue of manufacturing our own coins. After receiving your affirmative reply, we will comrades
The idea has been formally documented, and this is the memorandum that everyone has in hand.”
Cheng Dong's eyes moved around everyone's faces. Some were listening to him attentively, while others were studying the documents in their hands. He continued with satisfaction: "With the approval of the Government Affairs Council, we will officially start the production of new coins.
.And within a month, we will have the ability to mass-produce stamped metal coins and produce the first batch of coins for circulation." There was a buzz of approval in the conference room.
"Now, I will make some brief explanations about the memorandum. If you have any questions, please raise them at this meeting. The mainland strategy will be launched soon. As you may already know, our new banknotes are already being printed in batches.
It has been shipped to Guangdong for issuance and use. However, without the support of coins, it may be difficult for this kind of banknotes to actually circulate. So we have to come up with the finished product as soon as possible."
No one here has ever worked in a mint, but they still know the general process of coinage. Strictly speaking, modern coinage is not "cast", but the product of "stamping". It is actually made of metal plates.
It is stamped with a punch on a steel mold, which is "cold processing". Therefore, the weight is accurate and the pattern is exquisite.
Silver coins before the emergence of modern coinage, both at home and abroad, were "cast" and were a kind of "hot processing". Including the Spanish silver coins that flowed into China in large quantities during this time and space: the cross coat of arms COB was actually cast. The difference is that
The pattern words on Chinese coins are cast directly from molds, while most European coins are first cast out of silver cake blanks, and then hammered with hard molds to press out the patterns, commonly known as "struck silver coins."
Because COB is made of silver coins. Although there are certain rules for fineness and weight, in the actual casting process, color stealing and weight loss also occur from time to time. This is similar to Chinese silver coins. Therefore, COB has been in China for nearly 200 years.
The silver coins were circulated by weighing them, which did not play the role of counting silver coins. The Senate received a large number of cobs during war and trade, and many of the silver coins paid by merchants from the Ming Dynasty were cobs cut into pieces.
use.
Until the 18th century, the machine-stamped earth double-column coins from Spain entered the market. Because of their standard color and shape, and exquisite patterns, they were easy to carry. The concave and convex patterns on the front and back and the pressed "lace" made the past "cutting edges" and "grinding chips"
The fraud methods were greatly restricted, and the weight of the silver coins was guaranteed, and they could be valued by the coins. It is no exaggeration to say that the silver coins could replace weighing broken silver as the accounting standard in coastal areas during the Qianlong period. A large number of the Earth's Double Pillars were used in China
Circulation has the credit of opening Hongmeng.
The reason why Cheng Dong strongly promotes machine-made silver coins is largely due to the success of the Earth Double Pillars circulation in China: it is not that there is no demand for counting silver coins among the people, it is just that the conditions are not met. The Earth Double Pillars coins purely rely on commercial circulation
Such great success fully demonstrates the superiority and feasibility of machine-made silver coins.
The coinage plan put forward by the Ministry of Finance is to mint three types of silver coins. They are one dollar, half dollar and quarter dollar. At the same time, paper money of equal amount will be issued. All small-denomination auxiliary coins will be issued in paper money, in units of 10 cents and 5 cents.
, 2 cents, 1 cent and half cent. One dollar is exchanged for one hundred cents.
The reason for issuing half-cent auxiliary coins is mainly because one tael of silver on the market can be exchanged for thousands of coins. Even for "good money" Song coins or Yongle coins, the exchange rate is only seven to eight hundred coins.1
If the value of the points is too great, it will be difficult to serve as a small token.
The silver dollar as the base currency is stamped from an alloy of 87.5% silver and 12.5% copper. Each piece weighs 27 grams and has a diameter of 31mm. The size and color are similar to those of the Earth's Twin Pillars widely circulated in China in the old time and space, Yuan Datou, Mexico Yingyang
Much the same.
As for the half dollar and quarter dollar, in addition to the corresponding reduction in size, the silver content also dropped year-on-year, with the silver content of the half dollar and quarter dollar reduced to 60%.
The reason why the silver content of auxiliary coins is low is because the casting cost of auxiliary coins, excluding the currency itself, is almost the same as one yuan. However, the circulation value is discounted.
The silver and copper used as casting materials are smelted by the non-ferrous metal smelting plant in Lingao using electrolysis to obtain 99% pure materials. This ensures accurate color matching of the coins.
"There is nothing wrong with this proportion and size," said Liang Xin, who was in charge of making the mold. "But what to do with the mold? I have never made a coin mold. This pattern is quite complicated. Although it is not micro-carving, it is still small enough...
"
On the table is the pattern of a silver coin drawn by a veteran who studied art. On the front is the regular script "One Yuan", surrounded by a pattern of wheat ears, and below is the year of issuance in Arabic numerals in small font. On the reverse is the earth illuminated by the morning star. On the earth
Surrounded by a streamer, there are four Latin words: s.p.q.m. (natus popu dew sque magnus great senate and people).
The other half dollars and quarter dollars have the same obverse pattern except for the denomination. The reverse pattern on the half dollar is the Holy Ship, and on the quarter dollar is the national emblem that the elders privately called the "Iron Fist and Judith".
"You don't have to worry about pattern carving. We have skilled craftsmen to do it. Make it big first, and then use the scaling method to make it smaller." Although Wang Luobin has become the chairman of the Senate, he still can't bear it in this regard.
I'm so excited that I came to the meeting in person.
After designing the coin pattern, the engraver first makes a three-dimensional plaster pattern. The plaster pattern is huge, usually between half a meter and one meter in diameter. Such a large volume allows the coin pattern to be very detailed. Once the pattern is completed, it is
Gypsum is made into an inverted mold, and then naturalized civilian craftsmen carefully apply extremely thin gold foil on the inverted mold. This inverted mold with gold foil is then sent for electroplating, and is plated with a thicker and stronger copper layer.
The copper-plated inverse mold is placed on a scaling lathe, which is used to transfer the pattern on the inverted mold to a steel master mold that is consistent with the actual size of the coin. The scaling lathe is actually made using the lever principle and is equipped with four useful tools.
The connecting rod mechanism scales the platform to control the clamping mold.
The mold is placed on a rotating stand, with a stylus close to the mold. As the mold rotates, the stylus moves up and down on the surface of the pattern. The movement of the stylus is transferred to the other side of the lathe through a lever.
On the rotating small-diameter hard round-end milling cutter. Every time the stylus makes one revolution on the inverted mold, the cutter head will correspondingly leave a circle of patterns on the surface of the steel workpiece. Wait until the stylus scans every part of the inverted mold.
At this time, the cutter head has processed a scaled-down master mold. After trimming the master mold, it is used to press the coin mold.
Since the steel used in the mold is quite hard, the pressing process cannot be completed at one time. Every fifth of the pressing stroke, the mold needs to be taken out and placed in a tempering furnace for tempering. After the material becomes soft, it can be pressed again.
The pressing is completely completed. Each completed coin mold can press about one hundred thousand coins. Just twenty dies are enough to press 20,000 coins in one day, and all the gold and silver of the Senate can be pressed within a few weeks.