In the Southern Song Dynasty, I competed with Mongolia for the world

Chapter 95 Private Casting of Copper Coins
On the surface, it seems to be profitable, but in fact there are lead, tin, labor costs, and machine wear and tear in the copper coins, so it will lose money.

The biggest big head is labor cost, machine loss cost, and fire loss.

The fire consumption in the Song Dynasty was basically around 9% - 10%.

On the grounds that polishing copper coins would be lost, nearly one-tenth of the fire consumption was allowed.

This means that the officials below have a legitimate reason to embezzle.

To create [-] guan, you only need to turn in [-] guan, and the other [-] guan is fire consumption.

Speaking of this, Shi Miyuan said: "So, just raising the purchase price of copper materials, the imperial court did not lose money."

"..." Everyone was dumbfounded.

Shi Miyuan changed the position, only considering the price of copper materials and the face value of copper coins, if they doubled, they would not lose money.

What is the loss? It is labor costs, machine costs, and fire consumption. You can't just blame the copper materials.

It sounds like it makes sense, but it doesn't seem to make sense.

But what Shi Miyuan said later seems to be more reasonable: "In the short term, the imperial court has increased the purchase price of copper materials, and it has lost more money."

"But the miners have become more motivated, and copper mines have increased significantly."

"For example, the Xinzhou Copper Factory originally produced more than 500 million catties of copper per year, but now it produces less than [-] catties of copper per year, and it was closed for a while."

"With more than 500 million catties of copper materials, how many copper coins can be smelted?"

"With so many copper coins on the market, the imperial court does not need to print and distribute too many meetings."

"The value of the club may increase."

"If the copper coin loses money, the meeting will rise, and there will be a balance between the two sides. Maybe the court can still make a profit."

At the end, Shi Miyuan said heartbrokenly: "In the third year of Yuanfeng, I minted 25 million copper coins in the Song Dynasty. Since then, it has declined year by year. In the 15th year of Shaoxing, it was only 30 coins. In the [-]th year of Shaoxing, it was minted throughout the year. Only one hundred thousand guns."

If there is not enough copper money, the club will be used on a large scale, the price of goods will soar, and the court will suffer.

There were no economists or financial experts in the Song Dynasty. Shi Miyuan said it in one go, and the ministers and emperors present didn't know if they understood it. Anyway, it sounded like there was no loss.

In fact, let alone Shi Miyuan, if you ask Zhao Yurui, he doesn't know whether the imperial court will make a profit after there are more copper coins. This must be put into the market, and the market will decide and judge.

Theoretically, there are more copper coins on the market and less clubs, and the value of clubs may increase, which will definitely benefit both the court and the people.

But if he is allowed to make the decision and allow him to print copper coins, which is the purchase price of 550 yuan per catty, he will definitely not lose money.

In the end, Song Ningzong saw that all the officials were the same, so he nodded heavily: "As the prime minister said, the purchase price of copper materials will be increased to 450 Wen per catty."

On the night of the event, Zhao Yurui sent people to load the [-] guan (mainly Huizi) sent by Qin Zhuo into several large carriages and send them to Shi Miyuan's residence.

Shi Miyuan smiled and wiped his goatee, and felt that Zhao and Rui had more affairs than Zhao Mian.

At this time, there were not many copper coins and silver in the Southern Song Dynasty, and people often traded in huizi.

The last time Zhao Yurui got [-] guan from the Qin family, [-] of which were members.

So Shi Miyuan also got a lot of clubs this time. He looked at how many carts were full of clubs, and thought to himself, he still needs copper coins to see them comfortably. Thousands of catties of brilliance.
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In mid-October, Zhao and Rui planned to leave Beijing to visit the Xinzhou Copper Mine in person.

The imperial court issued an order to increase the purchase price of copper mines across the country, and Xinzhou Copper Mine will definitely return to its previous glory, but Zhao and Rui have to follow their own methods of employment and recruitment.

Before leaving Beijing, according to regulations, he first reported to the emperor, then reported to Zongzheng Temple, and then greeted Shi Miyuan.

He would greet Shi Miyuan whenever he left Beijing, and Shi Miyuan thought that Zhao Yurui was very up to date.

The reason for leaving Beijing is also very good. The Outer Earth card room branch has opened, and he wants to hang the emperor's imperial pen "the only one in the world" in person.

Ning Zong was very angry and funny, while Yi Wang went crazy in business, thinking about making money every day.

The master of the Zongzheng Temple is Shi Miyuan's confidant Liang Chengda, and Zhao Yurui sent Quan Yong to report to the door, and brought a hundred Guan Huizi along with them.

Liang Cheng laughed so hard that he couldn't even close his mouth, and he kept saying, "King Yi can go wherever he wants, and the next official will keep it in mind."

The implication is that as long as the emperor has no objection, you can play outside for as long as you want.

Leaving Beijing at this time, Zhao Yurui brought Zhou Lai, Niu Bao, Quan Yong, Yan Miaorong, Shi Gou'er, Qian Wu, including eight or so of the first batch of twenty teenagers, all brought over, and Qin Zhuo and more than a dozen guards from the Qin family divided into two groups with them and dispatched them one after another.

Everyone was riding a horse, among them Quan Yong and Yan Miaorong rode a horse together, they were only fifteen or sixteen years old, thin and weak, but they were very suitable.

Zhao Yurui has practiced in the mansion several times, although they still dare not run fast, jogging is no problem.

This time it happened to be used to practice riding. The group set off in mid-October and arrived in Xinzhou in about five days.

The Xinzhou Copper Mine is located in Shangrao today. There are many mines here, as well as lead mines, silver mines, and tin mines. In later generations, Dexing Field, the largest copper mine in Asia, is not far from here.

The copper reserves near Shangrao are the largest in the country, and the Dexing Copper Mine, which is known as the largest in Asia, was also excavated in the Southern Song Dynasty, but limited by the technology and equipment at that time, the peak output was not as good as the Xinzhou Mine.

The Xinzhou Mine is located in Qianshan Mountain, Shangrao, and later called the Yongping Copper Mine. The quality of the copper ore is very good. It is the second largest open-pit mine in China. It is very convenient to mine, and it also produces iron ore and lead ore.

In the fourth year of Tang Shengyuan (940), the imperial court established a lead mountain farm in Xisanli of Yongping (lead may have been discovered first, and then copper was discovered), and a large amount of copper and lead deposits in the area of ​​Guanyinshi (where the Yongping copper mine is located) were extensively exploited. .

In the decades after the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, 10,000+ people mined here every day.

Because there has been no price increase for more than 100 years, the mine was eventually abandoned. If Qin Zhuo hadn't bought it again, the mine would have almost become a waste mine.

On October [-], Zhao and Rui met Qin Zhuo who was waiting by the river in Nakou Town (later Hekou Town).

Nakou Town crosses the Xinjiang River, and the copper materials purchased by the imperial court are sent along the Xinjiang River to Yongping Supervisor (to the east of Raozhou City, one of the four major copper coin casting supervisors in the Southern Song Dynasty) to be cast into copper coins.

The two were riding horses by the river, and the crowd was far behind. The boats on the river were like clouds, and there were many businesses, but there were hardly a few boats carrying copper materials.

Qin Zhuo pointed to the lead mountain visible behind him and said: "In the Song Dynasty, there were four supervisors who made money, Raozhou Yongping Supervisor, Jiangzhou Yongning Supervisor, Jiangdong Chizhou Yongfeng Supervisor, and Fujian Jianzhou Fengguo Supervisor."

"Among them, the Raozhou Yongping Supervisor is the first of the four major money supervisors in the country. In the past, there were more than 280 large and small ships dedicated to the Yongping Supervisor of the Raozhou Prefecture. There are only a dozen ships, and these on the river are all other merchant ships."

The Xinjiang River traverses the east and west of Jiangxi, and connects to Poyang Lake in the east. There are many businesses coming and going, so they saw a large number of boats.

At this time, Zhao Yurui had a general understanding of the Southern Song Dynasty's coin casting and the operation of the copper mine. He asked, "How much money was minted here during the peak period?"

秦卓道：“元丰年间(公元1078年~1085年)，永平监铸钱年产量高达161.5万缗(1缗为1000枚)，为历史最高纪录。”

According to the market price at that time, only the face value of one penny was equivalent to 160 million taels of silver. If there were two papers and three papers with a face value, the price would be even higher.

At that time, the third year of Yuanfeng was the peak of the entire Song Dynasty, with an annual coinage of [-] million mints, and then it went from bad to worse.

Zhao Yurui looked around and saw that the people behind him were far away, so they said in a deep voice, "Is it true that we sell as much copper as the imperial court buys?"

"As usual."

"What if we refine 1000 million catties and only sell 500 million catties?"

Qin Zhuo was stunned for a moment, and asked after a while: "First, you have to hand over 700% to the government, and then you have [-] million catties to sell."

So if you only want to sell 500 million catties, you can't say that you have dug up 1000 million catties, because the government still has a share.

"Then let the field supervisor officials become their own talents." Qin Zhuo said.

"It's easy to handle." Zhao Yurui knew that Qin Zhuo had privately minted copper coins here, but the profit was not high, so it was probably a management problem.

"Is there a lot of private minting of copper coins now? How much can you make?"

Qin Zhuo's expression was startled, he thought that King Yi was really brave, he really wanted to mint copper coins privately, and said: "It's everywhere, whether you can make money depends mainly on management and craftsmanship."

Folk coining has existed in all dynasties, and it is really difficult to control, and now the Southern Song Dynasty is more chaotic, so there should not be too many private coins.

At this time, the Southern Song Dynasty was very chaotic. The borders of Jin Kingdom, Mongolia, Xixia, and Southern Song Dynasty were intertwined. Like the vicinity of Shandong in later generations, they often returned to Jin Kingdom in the morning and Southern Song Dynasty in the afternoon, and sometimes they became Mongolian. It returned to the Kingdom of Jin, and then to the Southern Song Dynasty.

In addition, Hunan and Hubei have this kind of three-way place, so many people who privately mint copper coins place their money-making places in this kind of three-way place.

But in the Southern Song Dynasty, Jiangxi, Fujian and Zhejiang were the places with the most privately minted money and the highest output, because most of the mines were in Jiangxi, Fujian and Zhejiang.

"For example, Daye County, Xingguo County, Jiangxi Province was a very famous official copper coin factory in the past (Northern Song Dynasty), and later (Southern Song Dynasty), it provided raw materials for other regions. The local area has a history and tradition of casting coins. Therefore, it has become a private casting factory around it. A gathering place for coins. A large number of private mints were set up near him, some with as many as thousands of people, and the scale was so huge that the imperial court couldn’t do anything about it, because many officials were involved.”

"There are also those who mint money on the boat. If someone is looking for it, they will just sail away in the boat. If they can't escape, they will throw it into the river." Qin Zhuo used this trick before.

When Han Wuzhou was in power, he placed two medium-sized ships on the Shangxin River next to the mine to cast coins openly. This was the method used by many small-scale coin-casting businesses in the Southern Song Dynasty, so the general output was not high.

After Lao Han's death, Qin Zhuo didn't dare to do this anymore.

"After the coins are poured, there is a process of washing and grinding, so these subsequent processes require water to participate, and the boats on the lake are the best processing plants."

After listening to Qin Zhuo's words, Zhao and Rui also gained a lot of knowledge. The ancients really racked their brains in order to make fake money. There are basically several methods, such as places that don't care, deep mountain areas, and boats. The most powerful thing is to collude with local officials. do it.

I don't know if the boat gambling tricks of later generations were learned from the Southern Song Dynasty.

He calculated in his mind: "Let's restart the copper mine, we can't use the previous method."

(End of this chapter)