Lord Harland.

Chapter 285 Currency Circulation

If a territory wants to have great development, it must not only have hard power, but also soft power.

The so-called soft power is publicity and people's hearts.

Since Richard became the earl, Harland's territory began to build soft power, not only built a museum, but also built an arena and a grand theater.Investing part of the funds has enriched the spiritual life of the people.

If a country or a territory wants to be stable, it must focus on material civilization with one hand and spiritual civilization with the other, and both hands must be hard.

Today there is only material civilization, but spiritually it is a cultural desert, and it is also easy to be infiltrated by enemy culture and invaded by ideas.

In the past two or three years, the cultural development of the Harland Territory has also been astonishing.

In Fort William today, musicians, dancers, theater actors, and bards often perform in the Grand Theater on weekends.The Earl's Mansion also hired painters to paint portraits and court paintings for the members of the Harland family, which were exhibited in the museum.The average freedman already had some entertainment.

The warehouse is well-versed in etiquette, and there are rich cultural and artistic activities, which is enough to prove that the development of Harland's territory has reached a relatively high level.

After more than ten years of development, the territory finally has the appearance of a city, especially in areas such as Fort William, where the economic level is the highest and there are a large number of high-income people. heartfelt supporters.The hearts of the people have stabilized, and the rule of the Harland family has a basic foundation, and the foundation has been relatively stable.

After the breakthrough in the manufacture of the steam engine, for the next period of time, Li Cha spent almost all his time in the Institute of Botany, working with the staff of the Institute.

The transplantation and domestication of red gum grass is very important. If this plant is successfully planted on a large scale, Harland will be able to produce a large amount of red gum, and will soon enter the era of steam engines, and the productivity will increase tenfold and hundredfold.

At this critical moment, Li Cha did not dare to relax in the slightest, and even Sophia was dragged to the Botanical Research Institute by Li Cha, because Sophia has made a lot of achievements in the study of life magic and is very proficient in magic in this direction .

"It has been two months since we discovered the red glue grass. We have basically studied the characteristics of this plant, but the work of transplanting and domesticating is the most important thing. Next, I will send mages who are good at life spells to participate in the work of transplanting and domesticating. The large-scale planting of red glue grass is successful, and the work of the Institute of Botany is considered to be successfully completed."

Richard called Cartman to his office, gave a few special instructions, and then continued: "The domestication and planting of red glue grass is already the most important project in the territory, and all resources will be devoted to this project. The glass greenhouse you need Greenhouses, fertilizers, and magicians will all be provided. Your task is to eliminate all interference, clarify the scientific problems that arise during the research, and try to ensure the success of the project.”

Li Cha knew in his heart that any scientific research could never guarantee success.

The discovery of red gum grass was fraught with some coincidences.This kind of plant is also relatively rare in the west of the Eagle Mountain Range. The distribution range of the plant is less than [-] square kilometers, scattered on three mountain ridges.

In just two months after the discovery of red glue grass, from the first ten days of July to the first ten days of September, the Institute of Botany organized [-] field investigations, going deep into the jungle in the west of the Eagle Mountains, and encountered predators seven times. Humans and demons, more than forty plant researchers, terrain surveyors, and soldiers undertaking defense tasks died on the job.

Their footprints are all over the western part of the Eagle Mountain Range, and they have written more than one million words of investigation materials and investigation reports, but they still haven't found red glue grass in other places.

This is enough to show that the place where red gum grass grows is somewhat special, and it is very difficult to reproduce this plant.

After two months of research, Cartman and others discovered that red gum grass is a phototropic plant that has high requirements for light. It needs more than ten hours of light every day to survive normally.

In addition, the root system of red glue grass is relatively fragile, and it is difficult to compete with shrubs and weeds for nutrients.Its seeds are hidden in the fruit, which is relatively heavy and difficult to be blown by the wind, which is not conducive to the spread of plant genes.

The west of the Eagle Mountains is full of dense, towering forests. Because of the special biological characteristics, it is difficult for red gum to survive in this environment.However, this kind of plant was bred in the special climate environment in the west of the Eagle Mountain Range. Without a long period of artificial domestication, it could not adapt to the climate environment in other regions at all.

The territory of Harland is located in the middle of the Eagle Mountain Range, less than [-] kilometers away from the western region. It is on the same dimension, but it is wetter than the west of the Eagle Mountain Range.

The difference in climate between the two places is not too great. According to common sense, transplantation and domestication should be successful.But in scientific research, as long as the results have not come out, everything is still uncertain.

After more than ten years of development, the glass greenhouses in the Harland Territory have blossomed everywhere, and even drifted among the people.

Some wealthy freedmen have started to build glass greenhouses in their courtyards to grow off-season vegetables to improve their lives.

To build a greenhouse, the biggest cost is the cost of glass materials, followed by fuel supply in winter.

Coal mines were discovered in the territory of Harland. The price of a ton of coal is about three to six silver coins. The fuel supply cost is not high for the rich.

After more than ten years of development, the glass kiln has continuously summed up experience and improved the technical level. Nowadays, large pieces of flat glass are widely used in house construction.Although the cost is still high, building an acre of glass greenhouse requires investing more than a dozen gold coins, which is no problem for the wealthy people in the territory.

With more than ten years of experience, the Harland Territory has accumulated a lot of temperature-controlled and water-controlled greenhouse planting experience. Driven by Cartman regardless of cost, the biological characteristics of the red glue grass were quickly found out by the Harland Territory. .

By mid-September, all the red glue grasses were successfully planted in the glass greenhouse.

When the good news came, Li Cha immediately allocated [-] gold coins to the Botanical Research Institute to reward those who made contributions to discovering and planting red glue grass.The family members of the expedition team members who died in the forest also received a generous condolence fund.

After receiving the reward funds, the Institute of Botany held an award ceremony. Li Cha personally appeared at the venue to award medals and bonuses to those who sacrificed and made meritorious service.

After the meeting, Li Cha also held a banquet in the Earl's Mansion for the meritorious ministers.

At the banquet, Cartman seized the time to report the results of this stage to Richard.

"The cultivation of red gum grass in glass greenhouses has been successful, and it should not be difficult to produce red gum grass on a small scale. However, the number of glass greenhouses in the territory is still small, and the construction cost is high. Our next task is to plant red gum grass to ordinary in the farmland.

Because the climate and environment are different, the domestication work may take a long time, and the red glue grass also needs to constantly adapt to the environment.I hope that the Earl can set aside a special territory for the Botanical Research Institute as an experimental field, and give us a few years, and the task should not be too tight. "

After listening to Cartman's request, Richard nodded and said: "Your request is not high, you can agree. Although I won't set a time to complete the task, but you can't slack off in your work. The project has not progressed for a long time. I We have to change people."

The cultivation and domestication of red glue grass came to an end, and Li Cha went to Tongshan Town next.

The construction of Tongshan Town has lasted for five years. In the first three years, infrastructure construction and terrain exploration were carried out. Last year, copper mines were mined and ore smelted. In the spring of this year, a mint was established in Tongshan Town to start minting copper coins.

Although gold coins have a high value, they are rarely circulated in the market.In daily life, silver coins and copper coins are the most in circulation, especially copper coins, which are widely used and have the most circulation on the market.

Before the construction of the mint, the territory of Harland had been in a state of money shortage. Gold coins were better, and they were mainly used for foreign trade, which were relatively rare in the market.The income from foreign trade in Harland's territory was basically exchanged for gold coins and shipped back to the territory.

The shortage of silver coins is more serious. In recent years, the territory of Harland has been looking for coin merchants to exchange gold coins into silver coins and pay salaries to soldiers and officials. The handling fee paid every year is two to three thousand gold coins. In the past two years, the transportation As the situation improved, the caravans would also bring back a large amount of silver coins, and the current situation of the money shortage improved slightly.

The lack of copper coins is the most serious, because the currency shortage is serious, and the territory of Harland has experienced relatively serious deflation. In many cases, private transactions even require barter.

The normal exchange rate in the Kingdom of Grant is 360 copper coins for one gold coin.But in the territory of Harland, the value of the copper coins skyrocketed by 30.00% to fifty.

If it weren't for the previous ban on migration, it is estimated that a large number of private merchants would bring copper coins into Harland.

In the past two years, with the abolition of the ban on migration and the circulation of the commodity economy, this situation has appeared in large numbers. Smuggling copper coins has become very common, and border residents who specialize in smuggling copper coins have appeared in border areas.

Even after entering the territory, the gates ordered strict investigations, and smugglers could think of various ways to smuggle in.Let the border defense and taxation departments be very annoying, and check batches after batches, unless the current situation of money shortage is alleviated, there will be no such high profits.

The town of Copper Mountain is a young castle that primarily serves the nearby copper mines.The scale of the castle is not very large. There is only one important factory in the Mint, a copper ore smelter, and a weapon manufacturing factory, which are built on the outskirts of Copper Mountain Town, near the copper mine.

The castles in Harland's territory are basically built with mud, bricks, and cement. Richard has done the calculations himself and found that it is cheaper to burn bricks to build a castle.Although building castles with stone is stronger, it requires the establishment of quarries on the mountain, which requires huge human resources.The Harland territory has mastered the wheeled brick kiln technology, and the efficiency of burning bricks by the same person is a hundred times that of mining stones. Of course, they will not choose to mine stones and use stones as building materials.

The architectural style of the territory is actually determined by industrial technology and production efficiency.

After entering Tongshan Town, Li Cha went directly to the mint.

"How is your work this year? How many copper coins have been minted, and has the problem of money shortage been alleviated?"

The master of the mint is named Currens, and he has only been in the territory of Harland for a year and a half.This person is a high-level craftsman at the Mint of the Grand Duchy of Stanik. He not only understands the smelting of more than a dozen alloys, but also knows the coin manufacturing process.After being captured by Richard in Ria Castle, he joined the Harland Territory in order to save the lives of the whole family.

In fact, such high-value talents are basically coerced by Richard to join Harland.

Because he is a high-tech talent that is urgently needed in the territory, Currence was pardoned by Richard and became a freeman directly. He also served as the director of the mint and became an important official of the economic system.

Currence had not joined the territory for a long time, and although he was appreciated by Richard, he didn't know the character of the earl at all.In his impression, Li Cha was a heroic, brutal and decisive noble lord who was merciless in killing people.

When facing Li Cha, Currence felt a strong pressure.His legs were trembling, and he stumbled and said: "The smelter sent [-] tons of copper ore this year. According to the plan, we will cast all these copper ingots into copper coins, with a total value of about [-] gold coins. Converted to There are only fourteen new copper coins under each person's name, and the problem of money shortage cannot be solved in a short time, and can only be alleviated a little."

"Can the number of copper coins minted increase in a short period of time?"

"This is limited by the output of copper mines. If the output of copper mines increases, the casting of copper coins will not be difficult. But we have to consider the economic situation of the territory. If too many coins are minted, copper coins will depreciate and inflation will occur. This problem arises Yes, it is not a good thing for a territory or a country.

How many copper coins are minted each year is a scientific issue that needs to be strictly calculated.I am only a senior craftsman at the Mint of the Grand Duchy of Stanik, proficient in craft manufacturing issues.The question of how many copper coins need to be minted in the economy requires the earl to ask scholars who are proficient in economics.The mint only has the ability to execute, and decision-making issues require high-level decision-making in the territory. "

After listening to Currence's reply, Richard knew that people have limits to their abilities, so they couldn't be reluctant.

In Richard's previous life, the quantity of money supply was a university question.

There are countless messes caused by the release of currency. How to properly release the water is a great test of the ability of economic officials.

"I have considered the issues you mentioned. After a while, the central bank will be established, and the mint will be assigned to the central bank's jurisdiction. They will be responsible for decision-making."

Despite ten years of development, Harland Territory is still facing a shortage of talents.

It has been more than ten years since Li Cha started education. There are more than 1000 students who have graduated from Harland Territory Primary School, and nearly 4000 students are currently studying.

These elementary school students who know how to read and write and are proficient in arithmetic have entered all walks of life in large numbers, and the quality of the grassroots management personnel in the territory has been greatly improved.

Although a lot of basic talents have been cultivated, which are barely enough in recent years, there is still a shortage of high-end talents.Harland's territory can only graduate dozens of middle school students every year, and it is scattered in various departments, which is not enough.

(End of this chapter)