Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 594 Silver Coins
In the abandoned wine cellar of the Nelson Manor, Liang En and the others quickly took out their equipment and began to search the ground. As a result, they immediately found some small black metal discs, and part of the silver light was exposed at the same time.

"This should be an eight-riyal silver coin." After picking up a piece of metal and looking it over carefully, Liang En immediately recognized what the coin was. After all, this coin is also a very famous coin in history. variety of coins.

The Spanish coin, known as the paliel, is recognizable: the Spanish coat of arms on the front and the royal family crest on the reverse.There are also Latin letters and Arabic numerals on the edge of the coin.

Like many traditional aristocratic family emblems, the coin is divided into four by a cross. On the front and back of the silver coin, four small patterns are divided, and the four small patterns can be combined into a large pattern.

The pattern on the front is "Two Lions and Two Cities", with two castles facing each other at the upper left and lower right, and two standing lions facing each other at the upper right and lower left.

This is the unique national emblem of Spain. The standing lion and the castle represent the ruling royal power.The cross represents the cross, which means that the national religion of Spain is Catholicism. As the country with the most religious atmosphere at that time, there must be religious symbols on the currency.

On the front of the coin is written: Hispania RVM, which means King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. Although the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, which is neither holy nor Roman nor an empire, has a low gold content, it is still an emperor anyway, so it will naturally be made on coins.

至于八里尔这个名称的由来是因为西班牙钱币8进位制，8个里尔等于西班牙钱一元，或者说就是“一块银元”：一元为标准，8里尔下面又分4里尔、2里尔、1里尔。

The silver coins discovered by Liang En and the others were produced early enough, so they are actually a kind of strike coin, which should be exactly a silver block with a stamp.Although the shape is irregular, the weight and fineness are appropriate. Casting began in Spain in the middle and late 16th century.

In the mid-16th century, Spanish colonists began to mint silver developed from the Americas into coins in Mexico City.This was followed by the opening of the Santo Domingo Mint in the West Indies.

Then the Spaniards adopted the principle of proximity and established mints near Potosi in Bolivia and the Lima silver mine in Peru. In the 18th century, the mints of San Bogota, Guatemala, Popayan and San Diego were developed.

Most of the existing Spanish silver coins can be divided into two types, one is the Spanish coat of arms on the front and the cross on the back, and the other is the double column on the front and the cross on the back. The former appeared earlier and the latter appeared later. It is called a double column silver coin.

This irregular silver coin casting continued until 1732. In the same year, the Mexican mint began to use machines to cast new double-column silver coins, opening the era of mechanized coinage.

Interestingly, although the mints in various parts of South America are made according to the style designed by the Spanish Empire, the coins not only have the logos of each mint, but also have a big difference from the coins made in Spain.

More importantly, the silver content of this currency in the manual era also fluctuated. Liang En and the others dug out these silver coins in the wine cellar, at least most of which can reach 90% silver content. They should be considered as having the most silver content. part of it.

But at least 1/5 of the silver coins contain insufficient silver, ranging from [-]% to [-]%, and it can be seen from the source that they come from various foundries, and the casting time is also different.There is a high probability that they deliberately cut corners back then.

This is why when Liang En was in college, some professors did not think this currency was a credit currency. Because of the uncontrollable silver content, this silver coin was circulated by weighing silver bullion for a long time. It is different from counting silver coins.

This situation did not change until the machine-made double-column silver coins were put on the market in the 18th century, because they were cast by machines, with standard color and shape, exquisite patterns, and easy to carry, so they can be valued by piece.

After a simple screening, they found that most of these silver coins came from Spain's South American colonies, but this is not surprising, because historically, such silver coins themselves were mainly minted by colonies.

"Why do Spanish silver coins appear in this place?" Joan of Arc asked Liang En after putting the cleaned up handful of silver coins in the plastic box next to her. "This is England."

"It's nothing surprising, because this currency is the world's first globally circulated currency. You can think of this thing as the dollar that was issued in the 16th century." Liang En replied with a smile.

When he was in college, the professor repeatedly emphasized this currency because the "Eight Riel Silver Coin" was a direct product of Spain's conquest of the Inca Empire, and it was also the first truly global currency.

First minted in the 16s, the currency spread throughout Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas within a few decades, establishing a global preeminence that lasted well into the 70th century.

It was the silver from the Americas that helped the King of Spain become the most powerful ruler in Europe. Not only did silver trade concentrate in Europe, Spain also established a Far East trade empire in Asia centered on Manila, the Philippines.

举个最简单的例子，据统计，1500-1650年南美洲产银13-15万吨，其中40-50%通过不同路径流入华夏是同时期华夏自产白银的近50倍！
This also led to a huge financial crisis in China, which adopted the silver standard and relied on overseas silver, once the overseas trade route was cut off. Historically, this node appeared at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Because the Spaniards exhausted their wealth in the 30-year war, naturally there was no silver to exchange for Chinese goods. In this way, the financial crisis caused by deflation and the natural and man-made disasters at the end of the dynasty finally destroyed the Ming Dynasty.

Liang En spoke very well in this aspect, so not only Joan of Arc was listening, but Professor Alexander's students and Nelson's workers were also working while listening to his narration.

Working while listening to interesting explanations is much better than simply working, so the overall efficiency of everyone is very good. At around 10 o'clock in the evening, a dozen of them emptied the entire wine cellar.

According to the cleaning situation, there were a total of 14 wooden barrels in the wine cellar before, and two of them were filled with silver coins, adding up to a little over a ton.

As for the other 12 barrels filled with black gunpowder, everyone was taken aback when it was first confirmed. After all, the power of black fire piled up cannot be underestimated.

Fortunately, these black powders have a history of hundreds of years, so the moisture that has been absorbed for so many years in this humid environment has long since turned into a puddle of mud and failed.

But even so, they put the muddy black powder in the container and filled it with water as soon as possible to avoid any danger.

And when they cleaned up the black powder that had been mixed into a pile, they found large and small silver badges at the bottom of some boxes.

"******, what's the situation?" Liang En frowned quickly after picking up a badge, because judging from the silver coin just now, the secret room probably has a history of 400 years, so the current queen appeared Wang Hao is obviously not normal.

(End of this chapter)