***

After a hard encounter, there are few stars around. The mountains and rivers are broken and the wind is fluttering, and the life experience is ups and downs.

The panicked beachhead said panic, and the zero ding sighed in the ocean. All men are mortal? Keep Dan in mind.

Zhang Mingzhen stood at the bow of the boat and groaned softly, the sea breeze blowing in his face, gently brushing the long beard under his chin. Wen Tianxiang's song "Crossing Zero Ding Yang" is familiar to everyone in the world, but there are really not many people who know where Zero Ding Yang is.

Lingdingyang refers to a sea area at the mouth of the Pearl River, starting from Humen in the north, with a width of about 8 li, and reaching Hong Kong and Macao in the south, with a width of about 130 li.

Of course, there is no such thing as Hong Kong in this era. But Macau is there, Macau was originally called Ho Jing, and after the Portuguese leased Ho Jing, it has always been called Macau.

The East China Sea Fleet returned this time with a large number of Luzon specialties to be sold in the Guangzhou Shipping Division. The reason why it was not pulled to Hangzhou or Nanjing was to publicize in Guangdong that Great Qin had opened up Luzon.

In the war at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Fujian and Guangdong provinces were basically not damaged by the war, not only did the population not decrease, when the Qing army went south, a large number of people fled south to Fujian and Guangdong, and some of them still stayed in the two provinces, so the population of the two provinces was more than before the war, but the two provinces were more mountainous and less land, and the land contradiction was very acute.

This time to open up Luzon, Qin Mu had already planned to guide the people of the two provinces to move to Luzon, and the Chinese who went to Nanyang in the past were basically Fujian and Cantonese. They already have a tradition of going to the South Seas.

The East China Sea Fleet wanted to take the opportunity to publicize it in Guangdong, but this frightened the Grape people of Macao, and saw two or three hundred warships sailing into the Lingding Ocean, including more than a dozen Spanish warships, which greatly shocked the Portuguese.

They had just been attacked by the Spaniards a while ago, and they suffered heavy casualties, and if the warships of the East China Sea attacked Macao with the might of a great victory, it would be miserable.

The governor of Macau, Vahiki, even came out by boat in person to reiterate to Gu Rong the alliance between Portugal and Great Qin. He also stressed that once a reply was received from the country, it would be returned to Macao immediately.

Gu Rong was also very stunning, and deliberately opened the cabin to let Vashiki watch Andrei and the others locked in the bilge, and the subtext clearly said: Have you seen your example?

Although Vashiki hated the Spaniards, when he saw the miserable state of the Spaniards, he not only became unhappy, but his heart was even more uneasy, for fear that one day he would fall into such a fate.

What made Vahiki's heart even more uneasy was that there was also a British ship with the East China Sea Fleet. The British, dressed in neat dresses, were clearly not prisoners, and the fact that the British, together with the East China Sea Fleet, is very intriguing.

***

In the Nanjing court, it was not the first time that there had been a discussion about currency, and it had been discussed repeatedly when it was originally tried to issue a million Great Qin treasure banknotes. The monarchs and ministers of the Great Qin Dynasty have also reached a basic consensus on the necessity and urgency of a unified currency.

Therefore, this time the matter of minting silver dollars was after Xu Yingjie, the head of the household department, submitted the implementation rules to the court. It only took one day to get the pass guò.

Xu Yingjie worked overtime and spent three days minting a pattern. There are 4 types of silver coins: one yuan, one horn, two horns, and one corner.

There are 3 types of copper coins: five coins, two coins, and one coin.

According to the agreement of the court, the main currency of this issuance will be one yuan of silver, and the total weight will be seven coins and two cents of Kuping, including six coins and four cents of pure silver. It is cast in silver nine and copper. The front is engraved with the emperor's side portrait and the date of issue, and the back is decorated with Jiahe ornaments and currency values.

One of the main reasons why you can get guò in the court so quickly this time is that you don't have to worry about depreciation. The people must be willing to accept it, and then there is that it can bring a sum of income to the imperial court.

One yuan of silver coins weighs seven coins and two cents, of which silver accounts for ninety percent, in this way, in addition to the fire consumption and labor consumption of casting, the imperial court still has a little money, about five hundred pieces can earn about a yuan.

This can prevent folk counterfeiting, because if the casting is less, there is basically no profit, and the private workshop casts one million, which is already a considerable scale, and the profit earned is only 2,000 yuan, and there is a risk of raiding the family and exterminating the family, and few people are willing to do such a business.

However, if the number of mints in the imperial court is huge, such as minting 50 million pieces, there will still be an income of 100,000 yuan, although it is not much, but at least it will not lose money.

Xu Yingjie took the pattern coin to the court and presented it to the emperor, and the ministers also got one each.

Qin Mu took it in his hand and looked at it carefully, the newly cast silver round was soft and white. Generally speaking, the higher the fineness of the silver, the whiter it is, and this new silver coin can be described as a snow-white color.

In addition, due to the low hardness of the silver rounds, the two silver rounds are overlapped and rubbed, which has an oily feeling, and the sound of metal collision cannot be heard. The cast pattern is also very delicate, and the number of beads in the twelve yus of the silver round God King, and even a few eyelashes can be clearly counted.

Xu Yingjie himself also held a silver yuan, and introduced it in the hall: "Your Majesty, this kind of silver yuan does not deform when it is burned, and it does not change its sound." If you add aluminum-tin as a embryo, its color will be dark, dull, if burned with fire, there will be fracture, deformation, scattering, it can be said that it is too ugly, and after a period of time, it is still yellow, blue and black after cleaning.

Please use the tips of your thumb and index finger to the center of the silver circle, or use your middle finger to support the middle of the silver circle, and hit it with another silver circle, you can hear the soft sound of the rhyme. ”

Qin Mu and the ministers did so, and after the collision, they really heard a soft and clear sound.

Xu Yingjie continued: "This is a sufficient amount of sterling silver to issue such a will. If the sound is high, it is a counterfeit of steel; The hoarse voice is a copper-tin alloy made of embryonic counterfeit money; The voice was dull, and it was a counterfeit coin stuffed with silver-clad copper.

In addition, you can also use the tips of your thumb and index finger to pinch the center of the silver circle and blow hard, and you can hear a slight rhyme. If you can't hear a slight rhyme, it must be adulterated.

In short, if it is not minted according to the proportion of silver and copper of the imperial court, it is impossible to produce this kind of rhyme, so that it is difficult for the people to imitate, and the credibility of the silver dollar can be guaranteed. ”

Qin Mu asked, "What do you ministers think?" ”

After appreciating it, the ministers in the palace said that they were very good.

Since everyone agreed, it was decided that the mint of the imperial court would increase the power of the coinage, and at the same time prepare to issue a decree stipulating that after the issuance of silver dollars, all public and private money receipts and payments, contracts, and transactions of one qiē should be changed to silver coins or Great Qin treasure banknotes, and no silver taels should be used. Those who were originally scheduled to receive and pay in silver taels should go to the Huitong bank account to receive and pay in silver coins at the standard of 7 taels of silver and 2 cents converted into 1 yuan of silver coins.

Qin Mu knows very well that the silver standard is not a long-term solution, but at present, in order to unify the currency as much as possible, it can only be used for the time being, but fortunately, in the current Western world, it has not yet been able to impact the financial stability of Great Qin.

When the credit of paper money is established in the future, and at the same time, a large number of gold mines are mined overseas to store enough gold, and then switch to the gold standard.

Qin Mu had a little more expectations for the Baguio gold mine in Luzon, and as far as he knew, there were also many gold mines in Japan, and they were developed very early.

There is also the Rand gold mine in South Africa, and the navy must hurry up to advance to the Indian Ocean, and when the power extends to South Africa, immediately go to find the Rand gold mine.

The Rand Gold Mine, the largest gold mine in the world, was discovered in 1866 and quickly mined, with a total reserve of more than 50,000 tons.

In any case, this gold mine must be occupied.

After the matter of the silver dollar was confirmed, Gan Nan went out and said: "Your Majesty, after the British envoy arrives at Lingdingyang with the East China Sea Fleet, the fleet will send two ships to escort him north, and he will be able to reach Nanjing in a few days. ”

"Okay, then Gan Qing will contact you first."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

At present, the center of gravity of the British is still in North America, and their tentacles have just extended to the Indian Ocean.

In order to avoid several European countries from forming a single body and confronting Great Qin, Qin Mu decided to pull one faction against another faction in Europe in order to play a role in dividing, Portugal is too weak, and the current conflict of interests with Great Qin is very big and unreliable.

After careful analysis, Qin Mu believed that the British were a more ideal partner to cooperate with, they were emerging, and intended to replace the Holland, the sea coachman, to compete for maritime supremacy, and their own strength was also very strong, so that they would not be like Portugal, as soon as they were pressured by various countries, they might defect.

Although the British are not a good thing, Great Qin cannot be the enemy of all European countries, which is not in the interests of Great Qin, and the resistance to military development increases, not to mention, the main thing is that the loss of trade will be great.

In terms of purchasing power, now the whole of Europe combined, is not much weaker than Daqin.

If the European market is lost, it will be a big blow to the rise of Daqin's industry.

In order to ensure that Daqin's goods could continue to be sold to Europe, it was necessary to form alliances with one or two European countries.

**************************************

PS: Ask for a monthly pass, ask for a subscription!.

(To be continued......)