Straight man of steel

Chapter 418

Zhang Yuan stood behind the counter of the currency exchange.

Here is a larger scale and a bunch of weights.

Weights were called power in the Han Dynasty, and power was equivalent to balance. If power got out of control, the balance would completely tip to the other side.

Then there are two big wooden boxes of five baht coins and a box of horseshoe gold.

There's nothing to say, just two words.

rich!

Since more and more people came in, there were some who recognized Zhang Yuan.

Those who dare to come in to watch the excitement are either regular customers of the store, or their status is not too low.

The young man surnamed Sun walked over to Zhang Yuan after he noticed that there were more counters.

His companion should have recognized Zhang Yuan, held him back and whispered a few words.

The expression of the young man surnamed Sun changed several times immediately.

Since ancient times, people with high positions and powers have basically separated themselves from merchants.

Although many of the nobles of the Han Dynasty have businesses, they are all managed by retainers.

Every family has a person with a merchant status in charge of the business.

Just like some second and third generations in later generations, how could their family's small salary allow their family members to spend extravagantly.

Not all of them hold shares in various private and state-owned enterprises, but they don't show up, and the dividends they receive every year are enough for them to squander.

In this way, officials will have their own legal income and can curb corruption.

A boss like Zhang Yuan stood at the counter and looked at the customers in the store with a smile. Not to mention that there is no one before or after, that is a very small number of existence.

"Everyone, Princess Pingyang has handed over her property to this Marquis to take care of it.

Benhou is a pure-hearted man with few desires and is approachable, so he changed the name of the shop to Qingpingfang.

It's still a scholar's business, but now it also smells like copper. The counter here is used to exchange coins.

The exchange ratio is on the wooden board in front of the counter, please take a look, and the price of paper in the store is one-twentieth of the previous one.

As for who is standing behind the shop, you all know that I will not be talking nonsense when I said that I am pure-hearted and ascetic. In the future, I will use all the bonuses I get in the shop to give back to all distinguished guests. "

The exchange ratio that Zhang Yuan told Lao Zhao before has been written on the wooden board.

Zhang Yuan gave a brief introduction and stopped talking.

The people who entered the store obviously had no interest in exchanging coins, and their minds were all on paper.

The price is one-twentieth of what it used to be!

With the price reduction to this extent, Zhang Yuan can be said to have created another history.

Everyone just glanced at the content on the wooden board, and then rushed to the other side.

After deciding to mint money, the size of the paper mill has more than five times expanded, and it has been working hard to make paper for a period of time.

Paper was a luxury item yesterday, but today it is a commodity that is cheaper than bamboo slips.

Zhang Yuan has long known that there will be such a popular phenomenon, because he is the only one who sells paper, and Zhang Yuan can sell as much as he wants. Of course, it must be based on not harming the interests of Liu Che and Princess Pingyang.

Although paper is a consumable, the consumption rate is basically fixed.

Today Qingpingfang sells the amount of the previous year, so those who buy today may not come to Qingpingfang in the next year.

The next thing Chang'an Qingpingfang will do is the business of those who could not afford paper in the past, and the business of exchanging coins.

One day passed, just as Zhang Yuan thought, there was no one who exchanged money.

The news of the paper price reduction has spread since the door opened in the daytime.

There are people coming from Du County to buy paper. Zhang Yuan's decision to reduce prices is currently limited to Chang'an City.

After 2000, this is called a pilot.

After dark, even though there were still many people, Zhang Yuan forced the door to close.

The way to settle accounts in front of us is to calculate with counting sticks, and each bamboo stick can be calculated accurately.

Seeing that the accountants in Qingpingfang were counting today's income with bamboo sticks, Zhang Yuan suddenly had an idea to get out the abacus.

The abacus will not be invented for hundreds of years, but it has already taken shape now.

Ancient inventions didn't pop out of nowhere suddenly.

It's just the accumulation of the ancestors from generation to generation, and when the accumulation reaches its peak, it will be able to emerge as the times require.

The inventions of ancient China gathered the wisdom of the majority of people, which happened to prove the importance of national cohesion.

Abacus is actually not a difficult thing to make. Children can make it as long as they know how to add and subtract, see the real things, and the rules of rounding.

Having made up his mind, Zhang Yuan thought about bringing Abacus to this world in advance.

Once the abacus is implemented, it will also be a boost to the economy, and it can greatly improve the efficiency of Zhang Yuan's current business.

"Master Hou, today's income has been calculated."

After an hour of hard work by the eight accountants, all the money collected was finally calculated.

"How many are there in total?"

"Three thousand five hundred and sixty-three gold, and half two coins one thousand six hundred and fifty-eight thousand."

Liu Che had already ordered that the three baht money be sold and the half baht money be replaced.

Privately minted coins may be prevalent in other places, and there are also many privately minted coins in Chang'an City.

But the biggest owner of Qingpingfang is Liu Che. Everyone knows that half of the money will be transported to the inner treasury, so everyone who comes here to spend money either gets gold or half a tael.

Using privately minted copper coins to fool the emperor, even if he thinks his life is too long.

"The gold was pulled back to the warehouse, and the copper coins were transported to Dongshi for melting and casting.

Settlement to the inner treasury and the Pingyang Houfu on a monthly basis. "

"Here."

No one exchanged coins, so there were only so many things to do in Qingpingfang today.

Zhang Yuan did not expect that promoting a new currency would be so difficult.

On the way back to the mansion, Zhang Yuan thought a lot but didn't think of the doorway here.

When we arrived at the Xin'anhou Mansion, the guard outside the door suddenly spoke.

"Master Hou, Madam came to Chang'an City today and is now in the mansion."

Zhang Yuan frowned, he didn't expect Zhuo Wenjun to come back.

Frowning doesn't mean that Zhang Yuan is unhappy, it's just that he is worried that the news will cause a storm in Chang'an City.

The atmosphere of the big Han is quite open, but it is very important to class.

The nobles of the Zhou Dynasty thousands of years ago are still nobles today. Even if they are poor at home, they are respected when they go out.

This time happened to be the critical period for the new aristocrats to take over the old aristocracy.

It was not until the Eastern Han Dynasty that the new aristocrats completely suppressed the old aristocrats and became the rulers of the country.

A large part of the reason for the demise of the Qin Dynasty was that it failed to deal with the old aristocrats well and did not provide any buffer for the transition of power between the old and new aristocrats.

But thinking about Qin Shihuang's domineering, he would definitely not pretend to be false to his enemies.

Zhuo Wenjun's family has money, but their status is low. This is something that cannot be avoided.

If Zhang Yuan had a regular wife and the Xin'an Hou Mansion had a mistress, then Zhuo Wenjun would have no problem.

But Zhang Yuan doesn't have a regular wife. At Zhang Yuan's current age, outsiders will definitely gossip, but they won't talk about Zhang Yuan.

They only talk about Zhuo Wenjun's bewitchment of Zhang Yuan.

That's why Zhang Yuan didn't want Zhuo Wenjun to come to Chang'an, so as not to cause criticism.

But it's all here, Zhang Yuan still has to put on a smiling face, and can't show his worries.

"Wenjun, if I knew you were coming to Chang'an today, I should have come with me yesterday."

Zhuo Wenjun saw that Zhang Yuan was back, and hurried forward to hold Zhang Yuan's arm.

"Today they went home to draw paper, and I knew what you were going to do.

Staying at the foot of Lantian Mountain all day long won't help you. I hope that coming to Chang'an City can help you solve some troubles.

You don't blame me for making my own claims, do you? "

"How come, I have someone to talk to when you come."

Zhang Yuan took Zhuo Wenjun's hand and sat on the bed. He might tell Zhuo Wenjun what he couldn't figure out, and she could think of it.

Zhang Yuan is really inferior to Zhuo Wenjun in terms of business.

Zhang Yuan may be a good product manager, but he is certainly not a good sales manager.

So Zhang Yuan told Zhuo Wenjun about the worries in his heart.

"Ah Yuan, you are thinking in the wrong direction.

If you want to promote the five baht currency, it is definitely not enough to rely on exchange.

You have to treat five baht coins as commodities and not as coins.

You have to let everyone see that five baht coins are much better than all the copper coins in circulation on the market.

And it depends on the time of commodity transactions to promote the circulation of five baht coins.

The transactions in your Qingpingfang today are estimated to be round numbers, and there has never been a change, right? "

After Zhuo Wenjun explained briefly, Zhang Yuan understood.

He had to stuff the copper coins into the hands of those people first, and of course it was impossible to stuff them for free.

The most suitable method is to give change!

But during the big transactions, those customers used gold and bought paper worth one gold, so they didn't need to give change at all.

Buying with copper coins is even more terrible. There is no copper coin in circulation on the market that is worth more than Zhang Yuan's five baht coin.

Zhang Yuan couldn't just adjust the conversion ratio just to promote five baht coins.

Once this is done, then he will go bankrupt, and the big man will be given a more unstable market economy.

How to find change suddenly became a big problem.

Because of the exchange ratio between gold and copper coins, and the reason why the quality of copper coins is not satisfactory now.

As long as the transaction amount does not reach one gold or is more than one gold and is not an integer, everyone will choose to trade with copper coins.

No one wants to spend their gold and ask others to find a bunch of copper coins back.

"Help me think of a way, my head hurts when I think about it."

"It shouldn't be, when you were selling iron pots, you could have thought of opening a restaurant.

Why are you so sleepy today? "

Zhang Yuan suddenly felt tired. These are two different things.

"Maybe it's because I have been studying in Taitai for too long, and I lost my business mind."

"Actually, I can't think of a good solution. Unless His Majesty issues a decree, it will be too difficult."

Zhang Yuan was speechless, and even Zhuo Wenjun couldn't think of a way, which made Zhang Yuan lose the thought of making up the abacus.

Zhang Yuan simply lay on the bed and closed his eyes. Zhuo Wenjun saw that Zhang Yuan was so worried, so he went to bed and rubbed Zhang Yuan's temples.

With so many cases in the long river of history, Zhang Yuan began to work hard to bring back his own memories.

Regarding this matter, he must have seen it in history, but he just couldn't remember it for a while.

Zhang Yuan recalled the current price of gold, silver and copper.

Although gold has always been more expensive than silver, the man's gold reserves are actually much higher than his silver.

This is why Liu Che regarded silver as a treasure and gold as currency when he reformed the currency system.

However, gold and silver soldiers did not assume the role of a handicraft, but bronze had to be forged into various utensils. After the implementation of the five baht coin, the ratio of copper coins to gold was not as outrageous as in later generations.

Dahan has no habit of using gold to make utensils. On the contrary, once a bronze utensil is made, each piece of bronze utensils needs to use hundreds of thousands of catties of copper.

And whenever those who write novels write about the currency phenomenon of the Western Han Dynasty according to historical facts, they always get criticized. They are more accustomed to accepting the exchange ratio of gold, silver and copper in the Ming, Qing and Republic of China, which is relatively close to them.

As everyone knows, there were two major influxes and outflows of precious metals during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

This precious metal is naturally silver.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yuan thought deeply about the reasons for the large influx of silver.

That's because a large amount of Chinese goods were dumped overseas through ocean trade in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which inhaled a large amount of silver.

This is exactly the same as Zhang Yuan's current situation. Zhang Yuan sucked in a lot of copper coins through selling paper, but now all the copper coins flow into him. This is not a normal phenomenon.

On the contrary, if Zhang Yuan wants to let his five baht money flow out, then it should be the same as in the late Qing Dynasty.

Dumping goods to Zhang Yuan through outsiders caused the outflow of five baht.

But Zhang Yuan didn't need to buy anything at all.

The crux of the problem lies here.

What exactly does Zhang Yuan need now? He buys a lot and pays for the goods with five baht money, causing the five baht money to flow out.

and many more!

Zhang Yuan suddenly thought of another reason for the outflow in the late Qing Dynasty.

War reparations!

This is a disgrace to the people of the country, but now it has given Zhang Yuan an inspiration.

Zhang Yuan can use another way to put the five baht money into the hands of the people.

Compensation is not self-serving.

But there is another way.

It is selfish and harmful to others, and it will be criticized.

loan!

The most direct way to let money circulate directly in the market.

Loans in Dahan are not difficult to see.

When Emperor Xiaojing wanted to go to war, he asked people all over the world to borrow money.

Tian Fu's first pot of gold was to lend money to Emperor Xiaojing to fight the war. Then Emperor Xiaojing won the Seven Kingdoms Rebellion. The princes and kings of Wu State became extremely rich, and Tian Fu also benefited.

War is the most profitable and costly. Winners make money, and losers lose their fortunes.

The emperor took out loans, and it was even more common for private people to borrow money.

Zhang Yuan does not intend to start this business by himself, because the stigma of lending is too heavy.

The most famous loan shark in the world is undoubtedly the Wuyan family. Of course, the most successful business they did was lending money to Emperor Xiaojing.

But they were crazier than half of them, they gave all their wealth to Emperor Xiaojing, not only won, but also climbed to the royal family.

This meaning is much more important than making money.

If Zhang Yuan wants to release all the five baht money in his hands right now, it is the best choice to find Wuyan's cooperation.

After thinking about it, with Zhuo Wenjun massaging him beside him, Zhang Yuan fell asleep unconsciously.

(End of this chapter)