The Great Han Dynasty: From Feng Lang Juxu to the Eternal Emperor

Chapter 358 The advent of cotton-padded clothes

In the autumn and August of the third year of Yuanshou, Weining personally organized the Ministry of Industry to start minting new coins.

For this national policy, the Ministry of Industry set up a separate yamen, the Mint Department of the Imperial Dynasty.

Weining gave his own idea of ​​casting new coins on paper. Instead of using round coins with square holes for copper plates, he used bronze coins as the template, weighing five baht and moderate in weight. The front was modeled with the crowned head of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and the back was engraved. Yuanshou Tongbao, Emperor Han Mint Department Zhu and other words.

When Wei Ning handed his coin template on paper to Lu Chongguo, Lu Chongguo was shocked by Wei Ning's bold design.

This subverted everyone's previous understanding of coins, and he was afraid that the people would not accept it.

Weining asked Lu Chongguo: "Before, shells could be used as currency. Have you ever thought about why?"

"Currency is just a form of expression of value. It can be bronze, gold and silver, silk, or even tea. As long as the value can be measured and the country gives it the economic value of a general equivalent, anything can become currency."

"The new money is of moderate weight and difficult to forge. You mint it first and then we will discuss it."

Lu Chongguo no longer hesitated and asked the Mint Department to mint new money.

……

Zhang Tang, the censor doctor, found Weining and reported to Weining the results of the inspections by censors from various places.

Naturally, the various prefectures and states fiercely opposed the transfer of coin minting authority to the central government. Places with strong folk customs such as Zhaodi and Shandong were the most fiercely opposed.

They all know that once the minting power is handed over to the central government, they will no longer be able to control the economic lifeline. In the future, if they are short of money, they will have to look at the face of the court. The court holding their lifeline is like boiling a frog in warm water, which will slowly kill them.

Therefore, no one was willing to hand over this power to the imperial court, and they even incited local people to join the ranks of condemning the imperial court, intending to use the public opinion of the people to kidnap the imperial court and make the imperial court retreat.

Wei Ning sneered and said to Zhang Tang with an indifferent expression: "Whenever they are short of money and the court doesn't give them money, they secretly mint coins with businessmen."

"A large amount of money is flooding into the market, prices are getting higher and higher, and money is getting devalued."

"They don't need to consider bearing such consequences, because all risks are passed on to the court, and over time the court's currency will eventually collapse!"

Wei Ning glanced at Zhang Tang and said, "You go find evidence of the crime, arrest them all, and bring out a few of them to scare the monkeys!"

Zhang Tang cupped his fists and said, "Here!"

After Zhang Tang left, Sang Hongyang came to the East Palace to meet with Weining. He had his own worries.

As the country of origin with the largest number of copper mines, China is also very easy to obtain copper. If copper continues to be used as currency, there will still be endless counterfeitings.

Sang Hongyang suggested replacing copper with silver and making coins in silver.

He gave a very good suggestion that copper mines can continue to mint coins and continue to use coins with round holes and square coins weighing five baht as currency for small transactions.

Use silver money as medium-sized currency transactions.

Weining's eyes lit up. Sang Hongyang's advice was quite good.

"However, Your Highness, there are still too few silver mines. I am worried that one day it will be used up in the future."

Weining smiled. He was too worried. He really wanted to use up all the money in the country. He didn't know how many years it would take.

However, Weining still comforted him and said: "If the domestic silver mines are used up, won't there be none elsewhere?"

“Can’t we develop other places?”

Sang Hongyang said with a helpless smile: "It's so difficult to find silver mines."

Just searching for and developing domestic silver mines requires a lot of manpower and material resources. Without an exact location, you can only hit it like a headless fly. It's okay at home, but what about outside? How can we have so much time to search?

Wei Ning said: "I know where there is a silver mine."

"Ah?" Sang Hongyang looked at Wei Ning suspiciously, and Wei Ning said, "Let the mint mint two kinds of coins according to your idea first!"

Weining summoned Lu Chongguo again and canceled the previous idea. The model he had given before was used on silver coins. The copper coin Tongbao was still mainly round coins with square holes.

The Mint Department began to produce new coins in full swing.

……

On this day in autumn and September, Qin Ziyu found Weining and told Weining that there seemed to be a problem with the cotton.

Qin Ziyu didn't know what the cotton would look like in the end, so when she saw the white cotton emerging like clouds, she thought there was something wrong with her planting and became very nervous.

This was an important task entrusted to her by Weining. She took good care of it for so long, planting one plant, two plants, two plants, and then four plants. She worked so hard to cultivate an acre of land.

She was afraid that her efforts would be in vain.

However, when Wei Ning saw the white cotton, he was still very excited. He comforted Qin Ziyu and said that this was what he needed.

At that time, Weining summoned many embroiderers and asked them to sew clothes with linen shirts, and fill the clothes with cotton inside to make cotton clothes.

Qin Ziyu suddenly understood what Wei Ning was going to do, and she said in shock: "Mr. sir, you want to make new clothes? Is it filled with so much cotton to keep warm?"

"If this clothes is worn in winter, will it improve the warmth?"

Wei Ning smiled and said: "Clever!"

When the embroiderer made the first cotton-padded coat for a man, Weining immediately brought the linen shirt and cotton-padded coat to Weiyang Palace.

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty looked at the linen shirt in Wei Ning's hand strangely, and asked in confusion: "What do you do with this kind of clothes?"

Wei Zifu was also very curious. Wei Ning had invented a pedal loom for Wei Zifu, and Wei Zifu was also very proficient in weaving.

This kind of linen shirt would look too shabby for the royal family to wear.

However, he still said for Weining: "Your Majesty, Ning'er asked you to wear sackcloth so that the outer court can know the frugality of our inner palace?"

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty snorted and said: "They know every day that they want me to live in poverty, as if I can save a lot of money by cutting back on clothing and diet!"

Wei Ning hurriedly said: "Father, you misunderstood. I didn't mean it like this. I just wanted you to try on these clothes."

"what?"

Wei Zifu and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty were stunned at the same time, and then Wei Zifu said: "Didn't you make your father lose his dignity in front of outsiders?"

No matter how poor the emperor is, he should not wear sackcloth. Doesn't this lose the dignity and dignity of the emperor?

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty naturally thought so and refused to wear it no matter what.

Wei Ning said helplessly: "Father, there are no outsiders here. This is the first piece of clothing I have made. You can try it on before you decide."

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty rolled his eyes at Weining and said, "Okay! Then let's close the door and dress ourselves. I know you are filial. Don't do such a thing next time. It's embarrassing!"

Although Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty expressed his disdain, he was still very happy in his heart. No matter what clothes Wei Ning made, it was a reflection of his filial piety.

But when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty put on this linen shirt, his expression suddenly froze, and he stared at Wei Ning in stunned silence for a long time.

Wei Zifu was nervous, thinking that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was unhappy again, so he hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, if you don't like wearing it, just take it off."

But who knew that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty screamed: "No! Don't!"

(End of this chapter)