Three Kingdoms: I am not Cao Rui

Xu Shu and Pei Qian watched clearly from outside the gate of the Imperial Household Department, and it was obvious that Pei Hui took out a copper coin from the brocade bag given by His Majesty.

Moreover, apart from this copper coin, there was nothing else in the brocade bag, not even a note.

After Pei Hui saw the four characters "直百五竺" on the front, he turned the coin over. The back was generally smooth, but there was only a character "为" in seal script on the left side of the square hole in the middle of the coin.

"Brother, where is this copper coin from? This is the first time I've seen it!" Pei Hui frowned and asked, "Everyone knows the style of ordinary Wuzhu coins, which are round with a square hole, inscribed with Wuzhu, and with a coin rim and a text. This copper coin has the words 'Zhi Bai' written on it, and it is more than twice as heavy as ordinary coins. I have never heard of this kind of coin being issued during the Han Dynasty or the Guo Dynasty."

Pei Qian had been by His Majesty's side for a long time and had heard too much nonsense. He had long heard of this miraculous financial innovation in Shu. He snorted coldly, "Wen Ji is right not to know. This is not a Han coin, nor a Wei coin, but a new Wu Zhu issued by Shu. Wen Ji, did you see the words Zhi Bai on the front? According to Li Zhengfang, who surrendered to the court, one of these coins can be used as a hundred ordinary Wu Zhu coins."

Pei Hui took a deep breath, and carefully stroked the pattern on the heavier 'Zhi Bai Wu Zhu' with his hand. He then tossed it up and weighed it, and looked at it carefully for a few moments:

"One coin can be worth a hundred coins, and used as a hundred five-zhu coins. Isn't this cheating?"

Pei Qian smiled and said, "It is stipulated by the Shu government. One hundred coins can be exchanged for one hundred copper coins. You have to exchange them, and the merchants have to accept them."

"That's still a lie." Pei Hui expressed his incomprehension.

Xu Shu looked up at the sky in deep thought. "Whether it's a lie or not, let's not talk about it for now. Wenxing, Wenji, let's go inside and rest first. It's too cold outside."

"It's my fault. I was so focused on looking at the copper coins that I forgot to entertain you two." Pei Hui bowed his hands apologetically and said, "Minister Xu, please come in. Brother, please come in."

Pei Hui, Xu Shu and Pei Qian all mounted their horses and galloped inside. After walking about a mile, they finally entered the office of the General Construction Bureau, which was because the office occupied too much land.

After the three of them sat down, Pei Hui sent someone to pour a few cups of honey water, with steam still rising from the cups:

"Please come in, my brother. I don't have much else in this office. Your Majesty ordered me to transfer here from the Imperial Censorate and specially ordered the Imperial Palace to give me two pounds of rock honey. The rest is not worth mentioning. The honey is still warm."

Xu Shu took a sip from the ceramic cup and said calmly, "Since Sima Shuda and Xiahou Zhongquan went to Liangzhou, the tribute from Liangzhou has increased every year."

"Not only jade, honey, gemstones, etc. were sent back to Luoyang from Wuwei, but also various rare treasures from the Western Regions. These two really put a lot of effort into Liangzhou."

Pei Qian coughed lightly and said, "Let's get back to the copper coin issue."

"Yuan Zhi and Wen Ji may not know that after Li Yan and Li Zhengfang surrendered to Wei, they sent two booklets from Guanxi. Because the internal situation is too important and cannot be disclosed to the outside, Your Majesty ordered me to compile the important matters overnight, and the Zhibai coins of Shu Kingdom are one of them."

"Although Huang Gongheng and Meng Zidu brought some coins back when they surrendered to Wei, perhaps because they were not in line with Wei's system, these copper coins have been confiscated and stored in the treasury without permission."

"As for the meaning of the two characters Zhibai, there is no need to explain it in detail. The character 'wei' behind it actually represents the place of origin, Jianwei County."

"Jianwei County?" Pei Hui seemed to be thinking about something.

Pei Qian stroked his beard and said, "Yes, it is Qianwei."

"Then I seem to have guessed what Your Majesty meant." Pei Hui smiled calmly and said, "The Great Wei lacks copper and copper coins. This coin has the words "Jianwei County" on the north side, which may be related to copper mines and copper smelting."

Xu Shu sighed, "The Hedong Pei family is full of talented people, and both of you brothers are outstanding talents."

"It seems that His Majesty really wants us to ask about copper. Wen Ji just said that the Wei Dynasty is short of copper. I have only heard of this, but I don't know the reason behind it."

Pei Hui replied: "To be honest with you, Minister Xu, the reason why the Wei Dynasty is short of copper is that copper mines are scarce."

"The Great Wei has such a vast territory, stretching from the sea in the east to the desert in the west, how could it have such a shortage of copper?" Xu Shu frowned and asked, "Where did the copper come from before the Han Dynasty?"

"The so-called scarce copper refers to scarce copper ore. This is a long story." Pei Hui stood up, walked to the shelf on the side of the hall, found a map, and spread it out on a large table in the middle.

"Brother, please help me pick up a few bamboo slips to hold down the edge of the paper."

"Okay." Pei Qian agreed.

The three of them stood in front of the flat Zuo Bo paper. This was a typical map of the Wei Dynasty, edited and revised by Chongwenguan in the third year of Taihe. His Majesty had ordered hundreds of copies to be made, and each government office in Luozhong, as well as each state and county, had issued one copy. Xu Shu and Pei Qian had seen it countless times. However, the map in front of them, which was made by the General Works Bureau, had many more yellow, red, blue, and green markings.

"Don't look at the other colors, just look at the green." Pei Hui introduced: "The green markings are the copper mines." Xu Shu squinted his eyes and searched for a moment, then shook his head and sighed.

Pei Qian said: "Most of the copper mines are in Wu and Shu."

"Brother, what you said is very true." Pei Hui said calmly, "I wonder if Minister Xu and brother remember an anecdote? During the reign of Emperor Wen of the Western Han Dynasty, there was a man named Deng Tong who was very favored. He was the one who often sucked boils for Emperor Wen. Emperor Wen gave Deng Tong a copper mountain and allowed him to mint coins himself. The copper mountain was in Yandao County, Shu County, right here."

Pei Hui tapped the southwest of Chengdu, Shu Prefecture on the map with his hand: "This place is now under the control of the Shu bandits. It is far away from Wei, so the copper here cannot be used by Wei."

A few years ago, Liu Bei had split Shu County into Wenshan County and Hanjia County in Shu. Of course, Wei did not recognize it. Therefore, on Wei's map, Yandao County of Hanjia County still belonged to Shu County.

"In addition to Yandao, there are also copper mines in Qiongdu, Yuyuan, Laiwei, Bengu, Lingguan, Ailao, Tanglang, etc. in Shu. And now there are even more copper mines under the control of Wu thieves, such as Danyang, Guzhang, Chenxian, etc."

Xu Shu stroked his beard and said, "Wu and Shu are not short of copper, only Wei is short of copper. But military weapons need copper, and the court also needs copper to reward soldiers and ministers, so there are few copper coins available among the people."

"It's not enough to just lower the taxes on the people. The people of Wei can't always barter like this. Wouldn't that make us worse than the Han Dynasty? If we want to restore people's livelihood, the production of copper coins must be kept up in time. In short, a small move affects the whole body. Since we want to abandon the military farming and do something with a long-term perspective, this is the trouble."

Pei Qian looked at his brother and said, "Then there are no copper mines within the jurisdiction of the Great Wei? Wen Ji, our Pei family has lived in Hedong for generations. There are copper mines in Hedong. I remember it clearly, I can't be wrong!"

"Brother, what you said is very true." Pei Hui replied, "Of course there are copper mines in Hedong, but not many have been mined in recent years. Speaking of copper mines, Danyang County is the best in the world. There are also many smaller copper mines in Wei, but they are not easy to mine, or the surface layers that are easy to mine have been mined. Now there are only two places that can be mined on a large scale, one is Hedong and the other is Pengcheng, but it is said that neither of them is as easy as the copper mines in Wu and Shu."

Xu Shu whispered beside him, "Luoyang and Hedong, Hefei and Pengcheng?"

Pei Qian and Pei Hui looked at Xu Shu at the same time.

Obviously, Xu Shu's words pointed out two important place names, Luoyang and Hefei. Originally, there was only one chief craftsman in the General Works Office, but now it has expanded to two people. Pei Hui is in charge of weapons, armor and military equipment in Luoyang. The Hedong Copper Mine is close to Luoyang, and the Pengcheng Copper Mine is not too far from Hefei. Does this mean that the two will be in charge of it separately?
Seeing the Pei brothers looking at him, Xu Shu couldn't help but shook his head and said, "I think I have figured out the reason why His Majesty asked us to come here today."

Pei Qian stood up with his hands behind his back, looked at his younger brother Pei Hui, and said slowly: "Wen Ji, if we want to increase the output of the copper mine at this moment, what methods can we use?"

"This..." Pei Hui was a sincere man. He hesitated for a few moments, then cupped his hands and said, "Although I can roughly guess it, this is a matter to be reported to His Majesty, and I really dare not neglect it. Brother, please allow me to go outside and call the generals and chancellors. I don't know the details yet."

"Go ahead, Wen Ji." Pei Qian laughed.

As Shizhong, Xu Shu and Pei Qian's daily work was to serve beside the emperor, and they were inner court officials as opposed to outer court officials. The focus of Shizhong's work was to revolve around the emperor, and topics related to the emperor were naturally unavoidable. Therefore, discussing the emperor, which was often taboo for officials in the court, became a normal thing for Shizhong.

Xu Shu asked, "Wenxing, you served in Dai County during the Jian'an period, and at the turn of spring and summer this year, you went to Dai County to recruit the Hu people. In your opinion, can the Hu people do what the Han people can do?"

Pei Qian glanced at Xu Shu and said, "How big of a difference can there be? It's nothing more than different customs, different languages, and different systems."

"Can we farm?" Xu Shu asked.

Pei Qian replied: "Of course I don't want to plant it."

"There's a difference between being unwilling and being unable." Xu Shu continued in a low voice.

"When I was walking with His Majesty after dinner last night, didn't His Majesty tell me about the discussion with the ministers yesterday afternoon?" Pei Qian said softly, "I was also the governor of Dai County, and the situation in Yanmen County is not much different from that in Dai County. In the spring, His Majesty ordered the relocation of 2,000 people to Yanmen County, and also assigned 500 Wuhuan. Nearly a year has been spent on building houses and reclaiming the long-abandoned raw fields. We also need to build a fort. There are many things to do. If we want to turn the raw fields into mature fields to be self-sufficient, even if we plant a lot but get little harvest, which is less than the area of ​​the farmland, it will take another two or three years."

"Your Majesty is aware of this." Xu Shu added.

"Your Majesty is of course aware of this." Pei Qian then said, "So when the Minister of Works said he wanted to move the Xianbei people to Xiping County, Your Majesty did not object at all. The four counties of Shuofang, Wuyuan, Yunzhong and Dingxiang have already been abandoned, and it is not easy to reoccupy them at the moment. Under this premise, the population of the various Hu peoples on the grassland should be as small as possible."

Xu Shu snorted, "The key point is the word 'little'. This year, Minister Lu brought 3,000 Xiongnu light cavalry back to Wei. They were not of much use in Xiangyang, but fortunately they did not cause any major trouble."

"Drawing troops from the Hu people is a way to reduce the number of people, moving the Xianbei to the Qiang people is a way to reduce the number of people. If there are other ways to reduce the number of Hu people, the court may also use them."

Pei Qian sighed a little: "Yes, it depends on what the method is."

"What if we let the Xianbei people do the work?" Xu Shu asked again.

"That may not be a bad idea." Pei Qian laughed. (End of this chapter)