Most of the copper coins minted in the Northern Song Dynasty are called small flat coins, one is not only a penny, but also what is folded two, folded three, when five, when ten for the time being, only say small flat money, and only discuss the official casting, private casting has no standard.

According to the official regulations, there is a certain casting standard for small flat coins, which will fluctuate in each dynasty and generation, but it is not too large. During the period of Shenzong, all of them were between 5 catties and 10 taels to 5 catties and 3 taels. This is the weight of the material, that is, the weight of the raw materials used to cast the 1,000 small flat coins consistently.

It is said that it is copper coins, but in fact, the copper coins of the Northern Song Dynasty are a kind of copper alloy, with the proportion of copper accounting for 65%, lead accounting for 26%, and tin accounting for 9%. However, the value of copper coins is calculated according to 100% copper, and the difference between the price is the cost and profit of coinage.

That's right, the minting of copper coins in the Northern Song Dynasty was a revenue for the government, and it was basically profitable, and rarely lost. At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, due to the soaring inflation and prices, the coinage gradually turned into a loss. But in order to maintain the economy, losses have to be cast.

But the problem is that the copper coins of the Northern Song Dynasty are the currency in circulation, and the commerce is still very developed, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the northern regions all use the copper coins of the Northern Song Dynasty as the common currency, and some countries do not even issue their own currency, so they simply use it.

With the economic development of the Northern Song Dynasty, it had much more purchasing power than the surrounding countries, so it bought more things than it sold, and copper coins would flow out of the country in large quantities. However, the Northern Song Dynasty is not a copper producing area, and the output of copper cannot keep up with such a large consumption, and then the price of copper will rise.

As soon as the price of copper rose, big trouble followed, and people would find that a small flat of 1,000 wen was worth 1,000 wen, and they could only buy goods for 1,000 wen. However, if you melt a small amount of 1,000 wen and sell it as copper, you can sell it for a higher price, such as 1,200 wen.

Then who still uses copper coins, everyone has begun to melt copper coins, even if they can't spend it for the time being, it is more cost-effective to cast utensils and Buddha statues than to save a lot of copper coins.

The more people do this, the less copper money there is in the market, the less the court has to mint, the more copper is cast, and the more copper is used, and then the price of copper rises even higher. It's a vicious circle, and if it doesn't stop, the monetary system is doomed.

The government of the Northern Song Dynasty would definitely not look at it, so they came up with a way to stabilize the price of copper, which was the Qian Mo system.

The object of the Qian Mo system is copper coins, a thousand copper coins are called consistent, and a hundred coins are called a Mo. This is Zumo, which means that there are no discounts. However, there are not many places where Zumo is used, and most economic activities are used in official Mo and short Mo.

The government of the Northern Song Dynasty stipulated that the official Mo was seventy-seven, which means that Yimo should have one hundred small flat coins, but now seventy-seven Wen is used as a Mo, which is equivalent to a seventy-seven discount.

In this way, everyone will find that the value of copper obtained after melting the seventy-seven coins is not as high as that of Yimo money, so naturally no one will play with copper coins, and the price of copper will be relatively stable.

The short Mo is a habit left over from the Tang Dynasty, and the Qian Mo system was not created by the Song Dynasty, and it appeared earlier than the Tang Dynasty. But in the Tang Dynasty, there was a cash tax in addition to Mo and Dianmo, and the Song Dynasty government would not give up this opportunity to collect money, so let's continue to collect it.

So in the market, everyone used short Mo to show that the money was taxed, and then floated down according to the different tax rates of all walks of life on the official Mo standard of 77 Wen.

In Kaifeng City, the government uses 77 Mo, 75 Mo in the market, 74 Mo in gold and silver shops, 72 Mo in fish and meat dishes, 68 Mo in hired labor maids, and only 56 Mo in writing documents...... Every industry is different.

This exchange rate calculation alone is not too troublesome, and the bigger trouble is yet to come. The Song people seem to be particularly fond of mathematics, and in order to learn it, they make their daily life and state finances more complicated than the world exchange rate.

On the basis of the short Mo, the Song people came up with another provincial Mo. The meaning of the province is the official, that is, the transactions related to the economic behavior of the government, which are calculated by the province. For example, taxes, salaries, military spending, and so on.

In order to ensure that these round-and-forth currency exchange rates would not be messed up in actual use, the Northern Song Dynasty specially got a course to teach in schools at all levels, and the main content of the examination was to calculate the conversion between various foreign systems.

There is an example question in "Algorithm Access": Seventy-seven provinces and seventy-four dollars, asking how much is enough money? The answer is 56 and 980 words.

Don't look at the question, it's very simple, but it contains more than just addition and subtraction. When Hong Tao was mixing in the arithmetic courtyard, not only did he miss it several times, but even those high-achieving students in the mathematics department of the Song Dynasty could not guarantee that they would be correct every time.

In the face of such a complicated monetary system, can Hong Tao not hate? In the future, Huangzhou and Ganliang Road will collect their own taxes, and there are merchants from all over the country, and many are foreign businessmen from the Western Regions or more western countries.

And this conversion method is too troublesome, the strange system in each state is not the same, who has the kung fu to get a group of math geniuses to settle accounts for them every day.

The ease of use of currency will greatly affect the speed of transactions, and it will also restrict the speed of economic development, so Hong Tao must find a way to change it.

In fact, the easiest way is to issue paper money, which should be the government's favorite, because it is not like precious metal currency itself has value, and it is limited by quantity, so it can be issued endlessly, as much as it wants.

In addition, paper money can be leveraged, if you issue banknotes with precious metals as the principal, in principle, if you have 1,000 taels of gold, then you can only issue banknotes that can buy 1,000 taels of gold.

But in fact, it's okay if you send 5,000 taels, which is called the reserve requirement ratio. The government calculated that the risk of a run was only 15 percent, and the reserve requirement ratio was set at 15 percent.

1,000 taels of gold you issued 5,000 taels of banknotes, what is this called? This is called the white wolf with empty gloves, and the extra 4,000 taels were snatched from the common people. The government uses it to buy food and products produced by ordinary people, but in fact the government does not have that much money.

However, the government is still not satisfied, and feels that the efficiency of grabbing money is still too low. Because you have to have gold reserves, it's a lot of trouble. Simply, we don't even prepare gold, what guarantee do we use? ...... with the government's credit

If the government had credit, mankind would have flown out of the solar system long ago. But there is no way, the power is in their hands, and the people can only pray to catch up with a relatively reliable government that grabs money and has a face, otherwise it will be extremely miserable.

There are many such examples in history, where warlords fought in the early days of the Republic of China. For example, the first warlord occupied Huangzhou and set up a government, and then issued paper money. In fact, he didn't have any hair in his pocket, but he said that his government had credit, and whoever didn't believe it would be killed, so everyone had to believe it.

Half a year later, he was beaten away by the second warlord, and the banknotes in everyone's hands turned into waste paper. Because the second warlord said that his government also has credit, and whoever doesn't believe it will be killed.

Then he issued another round of currency, and took these papers to buy the goods in the hands of the people, and you also issued these banknotes for his work. Three months later, he was also beaten away, and a third came ......

Roughly this means that credit money is the system that most of our countries currently use. In the past, it was a silver standard and a gold standard, and if you wanted to set up a government to collect taxes, you had to first get some gold and silver and other deposits.

It's good now, it's really a white wolf with empty gloves, using credit to endorse the currency, and the net worth of the common people depends on the character and consciousness of politicians. It's really better to use stones as the principal, so stones can build houses, and if you don't have this thing, you won't be able to catch anything.

Hong Tao felt that he couldn't be too shameless and use credit and paper money to rob the ancients. Therefore, we have to use our brains on precious metal currency, and strive to get a currency that is generally stable and will not be greatly affected by production.

Then slowly make it a standard, as long as there is a standard, the rest of the things will be easy to do, whether it is a metal currency or paper money issued in the future, it will be over according to the standard.

As for financial leverage, with the productivity of the Northern Song Dynasty and the international situation in a few hundred years, there is really no need for that, and there is no need to play with life to increase GDP. Steady and healthy development is enough, and we will talk about the future in the future, anyway, I can't manage the things in a few hundred years.