C45 (1/2)

Chapter 45 - Ying Yang and Yuan Datou

The Taibai Top's scenery was as good as ever, but Hu Niu, who was visiting the camp for the first time, was not in the mood to watch the beautiful spring scenery outside. Her and Xiao Letian's eyes were already attracted by the two small furnaces.

The red was burning coal, the white was scattered silver, and the flowing silver was emitting a strange glow. On the ground were rows after rows of iron models. The specially made iron pots were carefully poured silver water into the iron models as the two hulks carried them.

This was the true backing of Xiao Letian's wealth collection. The so-called ”foreign banks” and ”foreign people” were just pretense for business, the ostensible business purpose was to hide the fact that he was truly rich.

This was the treasure that Xiao Letian had bestowed to the Taibai Top. According to the thinking of the people of the Qing Dynasty at that time, forging coins without permission was not a rare occurrence. In the history of the Qing Dynasty, there had been many cases of forging coins without permission.

There were even anti-Qing organizations such as the White Lotus Cult, the Heaven and Earth Society, etc. They had secretly forged copper coins to amass wealth, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had even released its own currency. However, Xiao Letian did not do things with such low skill levels. What he wanted to do was to combine the two kinds of silver coins that had the greatest impact on China during the period of the late Qing and the period of the Republic of China.

The casting process used Yuan Datou's, and the shape used Mexican eagle's. The two currencies that had a profound impact on the history of China's silver coins, were finally combined in Xiao Letian's hands.

The Mexican eagle is a new coin used after Mexico's independence in 1821. It was created in 1823. The front was in the shape of the national emblem of the Republic of Mexico: an eagle with wings and a snake in its beak, standing on a cactus that grew from the rocks of the lake. The lower part of the design is surrounded by oak and laurel leaves, symbolizing strength, loyalty and peace.

During the time of the late Qing Republic, the number of Mexican eagle that had imported foreign silver coins into China was the most. According to the statistics of the two years' survey, there were about 1.1 billion foreign silver yuan in circulation in China at that time, and one third of them were Mexican eagle. This showed how far-reaching the foreign currency's financial impact was for China. The quality of the Mexican eagle is better than that of other foreign silver, and it has not changed for many years. People are happy to use it, so stability is an important indicator of currency survival.

As for Yuan Datou, the commoners of the future were even more familiar with him. The most classic scene was people holding silver coins in the center of their chests and blowing it on their lips. When it reached their ears, they could hear a clear buzzing sound. This kind of unique design technology almost became Yuan Datou's trademark.

The weight of one Yuan Datou was six and a half percent of Cuping's Pure Silver. It was cast with a ratio of nine to one. After casting, the total weight was seven and a half points. Even without considering the advantages of issuing currency in tax, a mere 10% copper was already a great interest.

Xiao Letian imagined, from north to south in China, all the shops from west to east would have falsified falsified eagles in their pockets. Every time the shop owner received a falsified falcon, he would put it to his lips and blow on it, this scene was simply too beautiful.

”Mr. Xiao! Mr. Xiao... ” Shi Dakai and Fan Lian, the shopkeepers, both pushed to wake Xiao Letian, who was in the midst of fantasizing and drooling, up. ”This is the first time Ying Yang is here today. The two teased.

How could Xiao Letian give up on this opportunity? He tried to touch Tie Fan and discovered that he was no longer scalding his hands, following that he raised a piece of iron and fiercely threw it onto the ground. With a dull thumping sound, the two pieces of iron instantly separated, revealing the silver coins inside side by side.

”My precious money! With your father, I won't be bullied anymore …” Xiao Letian really lost his composure, he knelt on the ground and broke all the silver coins one by one, holding them in his hands as though he was holding his own child. Beside him, dozens of wooden boxes were filled with eagles. A hundred of them were wrapped in red paper. It was a very joyous scene.

”How many silver coins can we produce per day?” ”How many kilograms of silver should I use?”

”Now I can smelt 9000 taels of silver, 1000 taels of copper, and forge 13000 silver taels. ”Originally, I wanted to open two more stoves, but we don't have much scattered silver. The entire village only has 300 thousand taels of silver, that's not enough …” Fan Lian said regretfully.

Shi Dakai was a little upset now. ”If I had known that you had such an ingenious plan, we would have stored up more silver taels to reduce the amount of jewelry we have here …”

Xiao Letian shook his head: ”It's alright, there is nothing else in Great Qing Dynasty, there are still some scattered silver, I don't believe that anyone would refuse to exchange for their silver with such a good silver?” After saying that, Xiao Letian blew the silver coin lightly, and a melodious buzzing sound came out, causing everyone present to be overjoyed.

”Killing pigs and sheep, a feast is starting today in the mountain stronghold …” Xiao Letian roared, and the entire Taibai Top roared with joy.

Money is the guts of a man, these words were not wrong at all. At the feast, Xiao Letian could be considered to have officially explained his economic layout to Shi Dakai and Fan Lian.

The people sitting on the table were all elites, they did not really understand Xiao Letian's method of forging the coin at the beginning, but after Xiao Letian explained all the twists and turns in a drunken manner, they finally understood.

Forging money could make money, and everyone knew this principle. However, many people did not know how to make money. First of all, it was impossible to use pure silver to make silver coins. In order to increase the hardness of silver coins, other hard metals would be added in. For example, Yuan Datou added a tenth of the copper inside.

Compared to the price of silver, the cost of copper was negligible. As a result, this tenth of the profit was steadily earned.