Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 631
At the gate of Jinan City, a large row of people lined up on both sides, still wearing shackles.

Shandong Inspector Qi Lisun came back from Tai'an Mansion on horseback, saw this large group of people kneeling, stopped his horse and asked why.

"These were captured by Dongchang."

Hearing the word Dongchang, Qi Lisun couldn't help frowning.

Dongchang's reputation is not very good, and he hates Dongchang by nature, and it has something to do with his family.Qi Lisun is the son of Qi Biaojia, the second assistant of the court. He is good friends with Zhang Huangyan and others.After his father, Qi Biaojia, was appointed by Lu Wangzhao to serve in the Lujian Kingdom, he has been accompanying his father and helping Qishu as a staff member.

Later, he participated in the imperial examination in the first year of Shaotian and ranked second.

Qi Biaojia is a well-known Donglin boss, and Qi Lisun was also influenced by him since he was a child. He grew up impassioned and participated in the restoration of the society.

Today, the Son of Heaven finally issued a decree to ban eunuchs from commanding and supervising the army, dismissing the supervisor of ceremonies, etc., which he highly praised.

He came to a prisoner wearing shackles, "What's your name, and why were you arrested?"

The man was wearing a heavy shackle and knelt on the ground, only his head and two hands were exposed. The braid on his head had been cut not long ago. At this time, short hair grew out, ugly like sprouted potatoes.

He looked at the young man in purple robe and goldfish amulet in front of him, very surprised.At such a young age, he is already a nobleman of gold and purple. I don't understand how there is such a young senior official above the third rank.

He didn't know that the inspectors were only of the fourth rank, but in order to increase the prestige of the inspectors, the emperor specially gave them purple robes and jade belts with goldfish charms. The cloth press, the third-rank sub-inspector, and the fourth-rank magistrate are all upper officials, and they can't be convinced or inferior to them.

"My lord?" He asked carefully.

Behind Qi Lisun, a younger son dressed in a Confucian robe with a sword on his waist, stepped forward and said, "My elder brother is a sage appointed by a sage to inspect Shandong and reward him with a purple robe, a jade belt, and a goldfish amulet. If he asks you, you should answer truthfully." .”

"You don't have to be afraid, just tell me the truth." Lisun called back his sixth brother, Bansun. "If there is a grievance, I will avenge it with you."

"No, there's no injustice. It's a small crime that deserves it." The prisoner was surprised when he heard that he was a police officer, but he shook his head again and again.

"You don't have to be afraid of Dongchang, they are no better than before, and they can't make waves." Qi Bansun said loudly, disdain for Dongchang. Six, but three years ago, he and his brother became a Jinshi, not because of the relationship between his father as the head and assistant, but because he was indeed talented and intelligent, and he was named a child prodigy when he was six years old.

Not only is the article well done, but he is even good at fencing.

At this time, he was working as a scholar in the Hanlin Academy, and he was dismissed for three years. However, he had not been formally appointed, so it was a rare period of free time, so he accompanied his brother around.

"I really didn't wrong the little one. The little one deserved what he deserved. The little one committed the crime of destroying silver coins and scraped the silver coins privately to make a profit. He was seized by Dongchang and the shackles were displayed here."

The Ming Dynasty abolished the two reforms, prohibited the direct circulation of gold and silver, and stipulated that the circulation of silver and copper coins into the market, the right to mint coins was state-owned, and was minted by the Mint under the Ministry of Households. Only the Royal Mint was licensed to mint.

In the circulation of silver dollars, it is forbidden to melt, damage, leave the country, etc., and private casting is also prohibited.

Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, silver has been monetized and circulated in large quantities. It has always been weighed and used, and even various fineness discounts have been paid. It also produced many criminals engaged in exchange, melting and casting, and counterfeiting.

Dragon silver is circulated by denomination, not by weight, so some people secretly scrape off silver dollars and collect them into furs, which is also a profit-seeking ashes.

Anyway, after scraping off a little bit, it will still be circulated according to the denomination.

But this kind of behavior will undoubtedly damage the interests of the court, and even damage the credit of the currency. The court can only recycle and exchange the damaged silver dollars for free.

In order to crack down on this kind of behavior, Dongchang also took on the task of cracking down on crimes such as vandalism and private casting of silver dollars.

This guy is engaged in scraping silver dollars. If it was only a slight personal act, he would not have been arrested. In fact, he treats this as an industry and has damaged a lot of silver dollars.

He was originally in the silver furnace business, which was to melt all kinds of silver, and then cast it into the color, shape, size, etc. that customers needed.

He started the business of scraping silver dollars in secret, and it was still the same people who scraped off the silver powder, accumulated little to make a lot, and then cast it into silver ingots, and then sold them to other merchants.

When Dongchang caught him, his den had already illegally made thousands of taels of silver. According to the law, he actually committed a capital crime.

It's just that after Dongchang reported it, the emperor had a special order to avoid the death penalty, but he would be punished with the crime of ransacking his home and exiled directly to Taiwan.Now the shackles are displayed to the public, and it is also a warning to others.

After listening, Qi Li said silently.

I thought that Dongchang was messing around, and it turned out that this profiteer was outlaws.

He asked next.

The man said with a bitter face that he had committed the crime of privately minting silver dollars.

Each silver dollar weighs one tael, of which silver contains eighty-nine and copper one one. It is not pure silver, but it is one yuan in face value, that is, one tael.This means that the silver dollar is actually more than its own value, and there are private casting profits in it.

That person was also in the silver exchange business in the past. There were various finenesses of silver in two liters, precipitation, and even recasting. Now that silver dollars are in circulation, there is no business.So the private casting business was started. The silver dollars of the imperial court were produced by the two major mints, using the more advanced machines of this era.

First melt the silver and copper in proportion, then cast it into a silver plate, then tie it into a suitable thickness, then cut it into silver pieces with a machine, and then pass through a water wheel punching machine to punch out the silver billet, and finally send it to a new pressing machine. Use the mold to press out the front and back pattern carvings, as well as the side tooth lines, etc., and then go through some steps such as balance weighing, manual picking and subtraction, and finally circulate.

Compared with traditional hand-made coins, this kind of machine-made coins is actually much more advanced, especially its engravings, side teeth, etc., which are clear and complete, and the shape is very flat, basically the same.

It is no more difficult to have two identical coins than hand-made coins, and it is also difficult to have complete side teeth, which are easy to be scraped and faked.

On the other hand, this kind of machine mints coins. After the water wheel is introduced as the power, the machine is bigger and more efficient. It is much stronger than manual labor or horse-drawn. It can even change workers in two shifts and three shifts, and the machine does not stop.

Driven by a substantial reduction in costs.

As for the private cast prisoner, he still made it by hand according to the traditional method, privately carved the mold, and then beat it with a hammer. The speed was slower, the profit was not high, and it was not exquisite enough.

It's easy to identify.

Even they often reduce the fineness of silver to make more profits.For such unscrupulous businessmen, Dongchang also strictly pursues them. Once discovered, they will immediately search and arrest them and destroy the underground workshops.

Qi Lisun asked them one by one.

It was discovered that those people who were held here were all related to silver dollars, some were scraped and damaged, some were hand-cast for private use, some were even sand-cast, some were melted and sold, and some even discovered that they were There are also versions of silver coins that directly cast foreign silver, such as the Spaniard's double-column silver dollar.

There are also some who do not abide by the law and still buy and sell with silver taels.

There are also those who ignore the imperial court and refuse to accept silver dollars, insisting on using silver taels.

In short, this is a silver dollar crime case that Dongchang conducted in Shandong. Thousands of criminals, large and small, were arrested. There were principal offenders and accomplices. .

The cases here are basically big and the convictions are high enough to confiscate their homes and send them into exile in Taiwan.

It was the emperor's special decree that he was exempted from the death penalty.

Otherwise, it is basically enough to chop off the head.

These guys have even started an industry, and some have even been doing it for two or three years. The emperor just started casting silver coins in Zhejiang, and they faked and privately cast them here. Before the Ming Dynasty recovered Shandong, they didn’t care. to here.

Now it's all over the place.

Dongchang showed a big face to the emperor, arrested thousands of people, destroyed countless black workshops, large and small, and even smashed a few silver mines directly. They directly minted the silver they dug into silver dollars, one-stop The homework is sold directly after casting.

Copied so many mines, workshops, and dealers, and just copied a lot of these mines, workshops, and silver.

After Qi Lisun asked around, he felt a little ugly on his face.

Although he just took office not long ago, there are so many illegal criminals in Shandong, and it is a big problem to disturb and destroy silver dollars, but he didn't know it beforehand, and he didn't find out in time. This makes him seem incompetent.

He is in his 20s, but he also thinks he is young and promising, and he is proud of his youth. He was Xie Yuan at the age of 16. He followed his father as a consultant for a long time to praise paintings. The governor of Sichuan, Huang Zongxi, another good friend from Zhejiang, is also the governor of Shandong, and most of them, such as Gu Yanwu, hold important positions.

He was on patrol, and he was already behind, and now there is such a loophole, ashamed.

Qi Bansun over there also sighed, "Since when did Dongchang's ability to handle cases be so swift? Is there any incident of embezzlement of stolen money and criminal property that took the opportunity? We must investigate carefully, and we must not let them take the opportunity to harm the public and private interests."

Qi Lisun waved his hand, "Go back first."

He definitely has to follow up on this case, but this incident also made him understand that he is really not doing well enough. Although Shandong Xinfu and even Yanzhou are still under siege, there are many complicated and various affairs, but this One thing still shows that it is really not in place.

After the abolition of the two yuans, the circulation of silver yuan and copper coins in various places is a very important matter, which involves the economy and people's livelihood.Although the imperial court minted a large number of coins, the market always felt that they were not enough. In the past, it was always believed that the main reason was that the silver coins were exquisite now, and the common people used the poor silver coins first.

But now it seems that bad money drives out good money.

It's like there is scraped money on the market. After the business people get it, they will definitely use this kind of money first, instead of keeping it in their hands and using up the good money first.

Even if there is too much of this kind of money, it will affect the credit. People will worry that the money will not be used well, refuse to accept it, and even ask to weigh it, which will greatly damage the credit of silver dollars.

"My lord, you are wronged!"

Just as Qi Lisun was about to return to the city, suddenly someone stopped him in front of the city gate and held up a pleading paper.

"My lord, the students want to sue Yao Qisheng, the magistrate of Licheng County, please make decisions for the people!"

Qi Bansun reacted faster than Qi Lisun, and said excitedly, "Brother, someone told the county on the street, hurry up and pick it up!"

　Thanks to Feng Yu Wu Fei for the reward.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)