"Swimming, bartering, it's still too troublesome."

On the third day of coming to Qinying to do clerical work, Chen Ping took the Wu Chang of the "cooking class" to buy vegetables and meat, and just after he returned, he told Heifu his opinion, as long as they spoke slowly, the two were able to have a brief exchange.

"Cloth can only be used for bulk trade, otherwise, it will be inconvenient for both buyers and sellers, and there is not much cloth in the camp, or barter for money, it is a long-term method."

Heifu nodded, most of the cloth in their hands were seized in Waihuang, like these loot, they didn't need to be returned to the public, so Yang Xiong gave each tun chief a point. Heifu didn't want to take it privately, and after making clothes for the soldiers who lacked summer clothes, there was not much left.

On the contrary, it was half a tael of money rewarded by Chen Liu and Waihuang after the two wars, and there were still thousands left.

So he said to Chen Ping: "I already have an idea, but I just want a local person to check and fill in the gaps for me." ”

Saying that, Heifu let Chen Ping, Zhong Ming, Li Xian and others enter, and put a Qin State half a tael coin, as well as a Wei State "釿jin cloth money", and a Wei State "圜huán money" on the case.

"Chen Ping, tell me what kind of shape these coins are."

As a local, Chen Ping certainly knew that after he made his promise, he began to talk eloquently.

It turned out that this Wei coin system was formulated by Li Kui during the reign of Marquis Wen of Wei and supplemented by Bai Gui, a great merchant during the reign of King Hui of Wei, and was more complex than that of Qin in terms of type and form.

The most common is the cloth money, which is a kind of flat-shouldered empty cloth money, with a three-class currency system of "two, one, and half", and the one of the Wei State is about 30 grams of later generations. About 100 pounds, which can be converted into a larger weighing unit "寽". For example, the cloth money on the case is cast by the beam, and the front is written with Wei characters "Liang Zheng One Hundred Dangyu", which means that this is worth one piece of money, and one hundred pieces are equivalent to one piece of copper.

The most obvious sign of Wei coins is that the characters on the front are written in the front and there is also a "Liang" character on the back, which is an inverted book, which is probably to prevent counterfeiting.

But in Hef's view, although the anti-counterfeiting measures are well-intentioned, they are actually useless. Because unlike the Qin State, which strictly prohibited the private minting of currency, the Wei State was flooded with private coinage, so the money on the market was incomplete, and some of the empty heads were obviously two pieces, but in fact they were as thin as paper, and the real weight could not even reach half a point......

Chen Ping said helplessly: "Some of the bad money is not privately minted in the local area, although the Kingdom of Wei is rich, but the prince of Wei is extravagant, and he has to spend a lot of money every year to congratulate the King of Qin on his birthday, and the inner treasury has been exhausted several times, so the Liang also often casts bad money for profit." ”

These inside information were all told to them by Chen Ping, except for Heifu, Li Xian felt a little incredible, because in the Qin State, the private minting of bad coins, but to be sentenced to be a city dan, it is impossible for the government to take the lead in minting bad coins, because that will greatly damage credit.

It can be seen that Wei's economy has long been on the verge of collapse.

Chen Ping also said that in addition to the empty first cloth, there was still a kind of coin in the Wei State, which was another coin on the case: the Yuanqian. It looks like half a tael, but the space is a circular perforation, quite like a circle.

"The yuan money is specially used for trade with the Qin State, and the weight indicated is roughly half a tael, or one tael, but in fact, it is not......"

Chen Pingyi said, everyone understands, it turns out that not only is the cloth more than bad money, but also the same is the money, the early years of the coinage is good, in recent years, the money on the market, the minted mouth is getting bigger and bigger, which also means that the weight is getting lighter and lighter.

"That is to say, originally one and a half yuan and two yuan can be exchanged for one Qin half tael, but in fact, two yuan coins only weigh one and a half taels."

As soon as Chen Ping explained this, the next work would be easier to do, Heifu had long planned to come up with an exchange ratio between Qin Qian and Wei Qian, so that Qin Qian could also buy things in the township and market, so as to reduce the trouble of local garrisons and traders.

It's just that when the Qin people took out half a tael, the local traders insisted on exchanging it according to the unit on the coin, half a tael for a penny, or four and a half taels for a flat-shouldered cloth weighing one penny.

In this way, the traders have made a profit, but isn't Qin Shu a loss?

"Why don't you exchange half of the two for two dollars, and half of the two for one cloth?" Heifu said that this exchange ratio would be of great benefit to the Qin army, and it would save them a lot of money during their garrison.

Chen Ping hurriedly dissuaded: "Don't do this. ”

"Wei money weighs differently, if it is exchanged according to this method, regardless of the severity, it will be a big blow to the local traders, and I am afraid that when the time comes, the market will be full of complaints, and it will be unfavorable to you."

Although he is helping Qin Jun to do things, he is a native of his hometown, and when he encounters something that harms the interests of his native people, Chen Ping will of course fight for reason.

"And what do you say?" Li Xian was a little dissatisfied with Chen Ping's "eating inside and out".

"The villain has an idea." Chen Ping thought for a while, and said to Heifu: "It can make the Qin army and Hongxiang not have to be damaged, and they can be bought and sold fairly during the garrison, and they can benefit those who come after......"

……

Early the next morning, at the gate of the bustling Humu Township City, a wooden board was nailed to the city gate, and the literate people squeezed over to take a look, but saw that it was written in one hand with a very beautiful Wei character. Roughly speaking, after the discussion of the three officials in the township, in the future, the Qin State half and two coins will circulate in parallel with the Wei coins in the market, and will be used as the standard official currency, and the traders must not refuse to accept it!

Common items on the market, such as vegetables, meat, grain, cloth, etc., are given a standard price according to half a tael, and the fluctuation shall not exceed one-tenth!

The village vendors didn't complain much, and although they couldn't make more money by doing so, it didn't hurt them.

This was decided by Heifu yesterday when he visited Zhang's house and discussed with the Zhang brothers according to Chen Ping's idea.

Zhang Bo was not very willing to agree, but he was frightened by Heifu's words.

"This matter has already been implemented by Chen Liu, Wai Huang, and it is sooner or later in Humu Township, for the sake of the two gentlemen and the officials who have worked together for a long time, I will secretly inform the two. In a few years, not only will Qin money be popular in Weidi, but I am afraid that even local Wei money will be banned! ”

"I advise the second monarch, after the city of Daliang is broken and the Wei land is settled, replace all the Wei money in the family with Qin money as soon as possible, otherwise, it will be too late to regret it!"

……

After offering advice to help Heifu solve the problem of buying and selling, Chen Ping also began to do his own work: to write some announcement documents for Qin Jun that needed to be translated into Wei characters, and the announcement in the township and city yesterday was written by him.

But first of all, Chen Ping had to master Qin characters first, but fortunately, he was smart and learned quickly.

Speaking of which, since King Ping moved eastward, the world began to enter a division that lasted for more than 500 years, and the wars that lasted for hundreds of years not only brought about the division of the princes, but even the culture began to "go its own way".

One example of this is the coins that caused great trouble for the Qin people in the local life a few days ago, and in addition to this, the alien characters are also a major obstacle to the exchange of lagging nations.

The culture of various countries develops relatively independently, with a strong local color, and the writing has a strong local color, which will inevitably make the phenomenon of different characters between regions prominent, thus forming a variant character.

The simplicity of writing and the wide application of writing also led to the simplification and sloppiness of glyph writing, thus forming provincial characters. The knowledge is passed down from generation to generation, but it is copied by pen and slip, so it is inevitable to write the wrong word, and to spread the word falsely, it will form a false word.

This is the reason for the difference in the script of the seven countries.

Chen Ping did not have such a good family conditions as Zhang Cang, until he was ten years old and began to learn Wei characters, and during his study tour in neighboring counties, he came into contact with several scholars from Han and Zhao, and saw Zhao characters and Han characters.

The characters of these three kingdoms are actually not much different, because Zhao, Wei and Han did not separate until two hundred years ago, and they all belonged to the Jin State before.

But in addition to the three Jin Dynasty scripts, there are still Qin, Qi, Yan, Chu four writing systems, these four countries are far away from the Central Plains, located in the corners, are relatively independent in the region, and the culture is also very different, although the source is the Jin Wen Great Seal of the Zhou Dynasty, but according to different regional cultures, has shown the beginning of drifting away.

Qi characters and Yan characters, the Central Plains people can still distinguish them, but the birds and insects of the dragon flying and the phoenix dancing on the silk book of Chu State, they can only stare wide-eyed and can do nothing.

However, in Chen Ping's eyes, the Qin character is very special, perhaps because the Qin State inherited the hometown of Zong Zhou and absorbed a large amount of Zhou culture. Perhaps it was because the Qin people were conservative and old-fashioned, and for hundreds of years, they actually adhered to the glyphs of the orthodox characters of the Zhou Dynasty, and only gradually became regular and symmetrical in the writing style, and transitioned to small seals.

Therefore, it is not difficult to understand Qin characters.

Heifu would sometimes come to inspect his work and ask Chen Ping how he was doing, and when he heard Chen Ping say that it only took him two or three days to learn the Qin characters, which were different from the Wei characters, he couldn't help but be surprised.

"Why is it so fast?"

Chen Ping arched his hand and said: "You don't have to be surprised, this Qin character and Wei character, in fact, the gap is not big, a hundred words, about half of the strokes are basically the same, but the writing glyph is different, and a quarter of the strokes are different, but the shape is similar, you can know it if you carefully distinguish it, it looks completely different, only a quarter is a very different variant character, you need to relearn." ”

"I see."

Heifu bowed his head, but heard Chen Ping sigh again: "The princes are not unified in the past, and they are harmful to themselves, and they all go to their classics...... The clothes are different, the speech is different, and the words are different. After these few days, we have learned that coins, words, writing, and weights and measures can actually build such a big ravine and obstacle to the exchange and trade between the two countries. ”

"Don't worry."

Heifu laughed out loud and prophesied to Chen Ping: "It's like the territory and people of the seven kingdoms under heaven will be unified in Qin." Whether it's coins, weights and measures, words, all of the above will become one in the future. ”

The unification of these things was not something that the center of the Qin Dynasty came up with with a pat on his head, not only in Humu Township, where they were located, but also in Yangwu County, in Chenliu, in Waihuang, and in the occupied areas of the Qin army, all of them were more or less carrying out similar work. Because people want to come how convenient they are, when the political barriers no longer exist, these different things lose the meaning of existence.

Heifu guessed that now in Xianyang City, while the King of Qin was preparing to unify Liuhe, he was probably preparing the same track book with Li Si and others......

He continued to say to Chen Ping, who was a little stunned: "The nations are no longer divided, and there is no longer any obstacle to the exchange of scholars from all over the country!" ”

"The car is on the same track, the book is the same, and the line is the same!"

"This is not the fantasy and expectation of the sages, but the future is just around the corner!"