Daqin: When I return from sea, I will offer you a map of the world

Chapter 304

"I see that most people buy goods by barter. Why don't they use money to buy them?" Zhao Si asked.

"I don't have any money, and those who have money don't come here." The vendor shook his head and felt that the question Zhao Si asked was a little strange.

"The Qin Dynasty has issued a decree that anyone who sells and buys cannot use other money except half taels. Why are they still using Chu money?" Zhao Si asked again.

"This..." The vendor scratched his head.

"There are not many Qin coins in the market... If there is no Qin coin, we can only use Chu money."

"It's also one qian, why can one Qin qin be five Chu qian?" Zhao Si asked again.

"Chu money is bad..." the vendor said.

Talking about the street vendor handing the Chu money to Zhao Si, Zhao Si took the Chu money and rubbed it carefully, and compared it with the Qin Banliang he carried, no matter the workmanship, the fineness or the weight, they were not even the slightest difference.

"The state of Chu has always been barbaric and lacks skilled craftsmen. It can't make knife money, cloth money and ring money, so it makes more shell coins..." Li Si added and explained.

Dao coin is a currency that looks like a sword, with different shapes. For example, the official currency of Qi Yanzhao is Dao coin.

Cloth coins are not cloth currency, but currency shaped like a shovel.

Ring money is a round currency. The Qin and Wei countries used ring money. At first it was a round hole. Later, the Qin Dynasty unified currency and changed it to a round square hole. Each copper coin weighs half a tael, and it also says half a tael , so it is called Qin Banliang.

The shell coin is a currency shaped like a shell, which is mainly circulated in Chu State. Later generations often call it ant nose money.

Due to the level of casting, the ant nose coins of Chu State are relatively light, about one-third of the weight of Qin Banliang, and the quality is particularly poor, and the materials used are relatively mixed, so Chu coins have always been at the bottom of the economic chain. .

Zhao Si nodded, groped for the ant nose money in his hand, and fell into deep thought. After a long time, he asked: "Qin State has repeatedly sent Qin Banliang to various places, why is Qin Banliang rare in the world when it comes here? Then Qin Banliang went again Where?"

"It must have been hidden by a high-ranking family!" The vendor said with a natural expression.

"What do you usually use to pay for your purchases?" Zhao Si asked.

"I also barter a lot. I am good at making pottery, and I usually use pottery and people to replace things." The vendor said.

"Barter without pricing, won't it be troublesome?" Zhao Si asked again.

"What's the trouble? It's nothing more than bargaining. Everyone thinks it's almost done." The vendor replied.

"That is to say, if you can barter, you are willing to spend time bargaining with each other to barter. If you can't barter, you will pay with ant nose money. If the other party does not accept ant nose Do you only charge Qin Banliang?" Zhao Si asked.

"Then don't buy it, go to another one." The vendor said without thinking.

"What if you have to buy this thing?" Zhao Sifu asked again.

"How can there be such an assumption..." The vendor looked helpless.

"That is to say, if there are no special circumstances, you are not willing to use Qin Banliang to buy things, right?" Zhao Si said.

The vendor nodded.

"Qin Banliang can be collected anywhere, but it's not so easy to get out. Not to mention Qin Banliang, it's an ant nose money, but if it is better, it has to be spent until the end when it has to be spent. , You see, I can buy anything with Qin Banliang, but if I buy things like lacquerware and pottery, a Qin Banliang is a Qin Banliang, and it can’t be used as two coins, of course I don’t want to It came out of half a tael." The vendor patiently explained to Zhao Si for his big business.

"If that's the case, then I know. Pack all the pottery in your booth for me." Zhao Si nodded and said after asking the same question.

The vendor smiled when he saw this, and hurriedly packed Zhao Si, for fear that Zhao Si would regret it.

"The total of these pottery is 160 yuan. If you pay with half taels, you can give me [-] yuan." The vendor said flatteringly.

It was said that five ant-nose coins were worth one Qin Banliang, but the vendor abruptly wiped off a fraction of seventeen coins, and it seemed that Qin Banliang was already priceless in this place.

Zhao Si nodded and took out a penny from his pocket, counted out thirty Qin Banliang, and lined up in front of the vendor.

The soldiers following the guards sensiblely picked up the packed pottery.

"It seems that the situation is not very optimistic." Zhao Si looked at Li Si and said.

Qin State ruled the world and forcibly unified the currency, and Qin State's forging technology was indeed the top of the seven countries, and half the money was enough for the goods, and Qin Banliang's purchasing power had indeed increased.

The material is sufficient, the workmanship is good, and it is a genuine Qin coin, half a tael of copper, and its purchasing power is definitely beyond doubt.

Problems also emerged. In addition, the government forcibly stipulated that only Qin Banliang can be used for currency transactions, but it was unable to prevent the circulation of inferior currencies among the people, which also led to a problem.

Bad money drives out good money.

Humans are egoistic creatures.

In her previous life, when Zhao Si spent money on shopping, she knew that she would spend it first, but the new money just withdrawn from the bank was spent until the end.

That is still paper currency, credit currency.

Not to mention the Qin Dynasty, copper coins, that is real copper, that is precious metals.

All fools know to spend the poor first and then the good ones.

If you can barter, you don't need money, if you can use other money, you don't need Qin Banliang, and the big family is even more obsessed with it.

They have monopolized the local economy, and a large amount of high-quality local currency has been swallowed and siphoned by them, but they can only get in and out like a wild animal.

Hey, I'll take Qin Banliang from you, and I'll give you Antbi money.

What about Qin Banliang?They were all sent to the warehouse.

The high-quality currencies issued by all dynasties in the past dynasties cannot escape this fate.

Money will eventually be siphoned and hoarded by wealthy families from generation to generation. In the end, every feudal dynasty will inevitably experience a money shortage.

The speed of building money can't keep up with the speed of their hoarding money.

Not to mention the Qin Dynasty, in addition to the role of currency, copper also assumed the role of casting weapons, armor, daily tools and sacrificial vessels...

So, the obvious happened.

Not long after Daqin was unified, the money shortage was coming.

A point of view that Zhao Si saw is actually very interesting. Instead of seeing Daqin as a new dynasty that has just been established, it is better to think of Daqin as an old country that is getting old.

The backlog of contradictions and unreasonable allocation of resources in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States countries were all borne by Qin with the unification of Qin.

For example, the problem of collecting money...

Obviously, the aristocrats definitely did not start collecting money after the unification of the First Emperor.

The high-quality currency issued by the Seven Kingdoms for Hegemony must have been kept by the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms.

It’s just that after the unification of the Qin State, they strongly used half taels as the world’s currency, which disrupted their process of hoarding money, but for this group, it was nothing more than replacing other currencies that had been hoarded with Qin ban taels of higher quality.

The state of Qin is short of money, or most of the areas far away from Guanzhong are already short of money.

The official currency Qin Banliang no longer participates in the circulation of the market economy at all.

From the attitude of the vendor, it can be seen that Qin Banliang has even become a collection value.

"It's not a good thing if the money is too valuable!" Zhao Si looked at Li Si and said.

"The problem is that there is not enough copper..." Li Si sighed.

"The copper mines that are mined every year need to be cast into armor weapons and ritual vessels. If they are thrown away, they will be hidden. Now even if the copper brought back from the Fusang area is included, it is still a drop in the bucket. I have thought about getting iron money. , but the price of iron is too cheap, and no one will use it if you get it out." Li Si pondered.

Zhao Si touched his chin upon hearing the sound.

Is there really no solution?

To expand the thinking, first of all, iron can definitely replace the metal demand of copper. As long as the technology tree of iron and steel smelting is activated, all the existing copper will be used to make money, and there will be no need to worry about money shortage within a few hundred years.

Secondly, it is not impossible to make money with gold and silver.

With Fusang producing a large amount of gold and silver, it would be too wasteful not to give gold and silver currency circulation properties.

There is a big gold mountain outside, which is enough for hundreds of years. The nobles like to hoard money, and sometimes it is not necessarily a bad thing.

Of course, Zhao Si didn't plan to say anything about this kind of thing in advance.

He was also hoping to use the lack of money as an excuse to get Emperor Shi Huang to support him in opening up the technology tree for steel smelting.

"In addition, regarding the current commercial policies and restrictions, some changes must also be made. Economic exchanges are too few and too single, and the barren business environment is not conducive to the circulation of currency. Of course, there must be restrictions."

Zhao Si didn't intend to turn Great Qin into the prosperity of Great Song.

After visiting along the way, it is not known whether Li Xiang saw anything, but a bunch of thoughts really popped up in Zhao Si's heart.

(End of this chapter)