After talking to Guo Jian for a while about the encounter between the two over the years, Xu Ping saw that it was still early, got up and said, "Go, follow me to the place where the drum is cast, and I will show you something." There is one thing, I have been waiting for you to come to the post, and others are not at ease to do it. ”

Seeing that although Xu Ping was his boss, he was still the same as he was back then, and he was not unfamiliar, Guo Jian was also down-to-earth. Along the way, he was also worried that Xu Ping's young ambition would become powerful, and his whole person would swell. If you are domineering to yourself, you will not be able to get along well in the future.

The two of them went out of the Yamen of the Three Divisions, and it didn't take much time for them to arrive at the place where the Three Divisions minted money not far away.

In this era, the coinage prison was basically located near the copper mine, and there was no copper mine near Bianliang, and the coinage prison was mainly to melt old money and mint new money. With the increase in the number of coins minted by other money supervisors, this money supervisor has long been abolished and not used, but only three divisions minted sample money.

Seeing this, Guo Jian asked, "What, the deputy envoy wants to mint new money?" I heard that Xu Shen wanted to use iron and copper to cast money, didn't he try it but it didn't work? ”

Before he came, it had been said that Guo Jian would be in charge of the salt, tea and iron cases, and it was not surprising that Xu Ping brought him here.

Xu Ping smiled and didn't answer, but just led Guo Jian into the money prison.

The officials on the road saluted when they saw Xu Ping, and Xu Ping did not stop, and led Guo Jian to the deepest part of the Qian Prison.

There was a row of separate three-room houses in the deepest part of the Qian prison, and a military general with two soldiers guarding the door, and when they saw Xu Ping coming, the three of them hurriedly bowed and saluted.

Xu Ping took out a key, handed it to the general, asked him to open the door, turned to Guo Jian and said, "When you look here, you know what you want to do in the future." Guo Yan was confused, and followed Xu Ping into the room.

At this time, the sun was rising, and the windows of the room were not sealed, so the things in the room could be seen clearly in the sunlight.

There were several large porcelain jars on the shelves next to them, all of which were tightly sealed, and I didn't know what was inside. In the middle of the room were two long slots, also inlaid with porcelain tiles, but there was nothing in them at this time.

In addition to these, Guo Jian looked left and right, and did not find anything special.

Xu Ping saw that Guo Yan couldn't notice it, so he beckoned to him: "Come with me!" ”

When he arrived near the trough, Xu Ping pointed to the black round square hole on the ground and said, "Zhongmou, how do you see these iron coins being cast?" Can you still use it? ”

Only then did Guo Jian notice these small things on the ground, bent down and picked up one, looked left and right, shook his head and asked Xu Ping: "Deputy envoy, is this an iron coin?" If it's dark and doesn't slip away, where can you tell it's iron? During the Chunhua period, Zhao Anyi asked Xichuan to cast as the top ten iron coins, and they were refined again and again, and the light was as bright as silver, and it was not in the eyes of the minister! ”

Xu Ping said with a smile: "Although Zhao Anyi's money is good-looking, it can be broken when it falls on the ground, how to use it?" Although my iron money is a little unbearable, it is stronger than gold and stone, and I don't believe that you will fall on the ground. ”

This kind of thing is not a joke, and Guo Jian is not polite, and slams the iron money in his hand to the ground. Listening to the sound of "bang", the black iron coin bounced on the ground a few times and rolled out a long way.

Guo Qian stepped forward quickly, picked up the iron coin in his hand, and looked at it carefully, not only did there not have the slightest crack, but even the black on the surface was intact and not damaged at all.

Guo Qian was curious, took the black iron money in his hand and wiped it a few times on the edge of the groove in front of him, picked it up and looked at it again, only to see that it was only stained with some crumbs on the edge of the groove, and his black gas still did not change at all.

couldn't help but feel surprised, Guo Jian said: "Blame! Deputy envoy, if this is iron money, what is it painted on the outside? How can you fall and you can't wipe it off? ”

"That's where the money comes in." Xu Pingtian has a color, "This black is naturally generated by iron after using medicine, which is not only colored, but more importantly, rust and corrosion prevention." Xichuan has used iron money for many years, one is that the money is light and heavy, and it is inconvenient to carry, and the other is easy to rust and not durable. Although the iron money I minted is also unavoidably light, it has gone to the disadvantage of being easy to rust, and it can remain unchanged for decades. ”

Speaking of this, Xu Ping pointed to the ground and said: "Look, there are ten of them that have been soaked in water for more than a month, and they have remained the same, where can ordinary iron money be like this?" ”

Only then did Guo notice that the iron money on the ground was not sprinkled casually, but intentionally, some were soaked in water, some were in a damp place, some were in a dry place, and some were even half-buried in the soil, simulating various environments.

Guo Jian took out these iron coins one by one and looked at them, and when he saw that they were all in good condition, he was even more curious, and asked Xu Ping: "Dare to ask the deputy envoy, what kind of secret method is this, can you let me know?" ”

"Recruiting you into Beijing is in charge of the three cases of salt, tea and iron, how can I hide it from you? However, this secret medicine is quite troublesome to prepare, and I will tell you one by one in the future. There are still some in the jar on the shelf over there, and I don't know if they are broken. ”

After listening to Xu Ping's words, Guo Jian couldn't help it, so he went to the shelf and opened the mouths of the three jars, and saw that the three inside were all white powder, which looked almost the same, and he didn't know what the difference was.

Now there are two disadvantages of copper coins, Xu Ping can see. First, it is too heavy and inconvenient to carry, although the flying money business operated by the three divisions, although there is a handling fee of 10000 wen and 20 wen, as long as the distance is a little farther, it is actually a money-losing business. Another is that the value is too high, and it is very inconvenient to do small business in the market.

The most common business activity carried out by small farmers and small households is to sell eggs for needles and threads, how much money is an egg ready to sell? What about a needle? What about a pinch of money? In fact, it can only be bartered, which is quite inconvenient and not conducive to government management.

The problem that is difficult to carry is more troublesome to deal with, Xu Ping plans to solve it later, and he will slowly accumulate political resources, and with political capital, he will encounter less resistance. The first step now is to solve the problem of monetary miniaturization.

According to the experience of Sichuan, the ratio of iron money to copper money will be roughly five to one, and even if the government forcibly raises the price of high-speed rail money, it will slowly depreciate to this reasonable range. In fact, the earliest iron money in Sichuan, the prescribed price ratio was 1,100 Wen iron coins to 1,000 Wen copper coins, which quickly depreciated to 1,500 to 1,000, and then to 3 to 1, 4 to 1, until the current stable 5 to 1, and it does not change by people's subjective will.

If iron coins, which are one-fifth of the value of copper coins, can be used to activate the small trade of the people, it can be regarded as the first step.

As for the anti-rust and anti-corrosion black on the outside of the iron coin, it is nothing to put it bluntly, it is the "blackening" treatment of steel in later generations. The surface layer of steel is oxidized to form a dense ferric tetroxide film. Ferric oxide is chemically stable and can protect steel from corrosion for a long time. The only difficulty is the preparation of the so-called secret medicine, caustic soda is obtained by causticizing with soda ash and lime, nitric acid is obtained by dry distillation of saltpeter, and then sodium nitrate is obtained by reacting with nitric acid and caustic soda, and sodium nitrate is heated to sodium nitrate. Xu Ping is very familiar with the "blackening" process, but it took several years to prepare these blackening agents.

Xu Ping first wanted to make a blackening agent in order to prevent rust from the copper cannon cast at that time, although he did a long time of experiments in Yongzhou, but it has not been successful, mainly in the preparation of nitric acid. When it was made back in the capital, it had a new use. (To be continued.) )