Lord of Ming Dynasty

All food stamps are the same size, and the pattern of each article is an ink painting of an old cow and a farmer plowing the field, a picture of a day of hoeing at noon.

On the blank space on the front, there is a letter written in capital letters, and below it is the third year of Longwu, and the number in Arabic numerals.

To the north is the scene of a full warehouse of grain, and below it is written a few big characters made by the Governor's Mansion of the Jinhua Rebel Army, expressed in Arabic numerals, [-] letter.

The two and three paper tickets are cancelled, and the five papers are directly listed. The five papers is a harmonious picture of farmers handing in public grain on the front, crowded at the gate of the yamen, and smiling, and the back is a harmonious picture of merchants buying grain at a fair price. , while writing horizontally in traditional Chinese characters, "Help each other, everyone will get rich, Jinhua Rebels, my good friend."

Ten cents and one cent, one cent is a picture of a scholar studying hard all night, with his head hanging from the beam, and the piercing picture, and the back is the appearance of the title on the gold list.

As the governor of the Longwu Nanming court, Zhang Qiang did not dare to offend the Longwu court. In a word, this is the current political correctness. Everyone still thinks that the emperor of the feudal dynasty is the master of the country. What kind of republic came out, and at the same time Zhang Qiang didn't like the atmosphere of republic, it was too bitter, and his thoughts were too chaotic.

One yuan, on the front are civil servants and military generals, sitting on both sides of a large round table, Zhang Qiang listens to everyone's speech on the main seat, and on the north side are farmers, businessmen, officials, workers, soldiers, looking at the flying flag of the Jinhua Rebel Army with gold stars on the red background At the same time, it says vertically, "We are all one family, and the Ming court is my family."

On the top of the ten yuan, Zhang Qiang's head is on the front, the Yangtze River and the Yellow River are on the bottom, and the panorama of the Governor's Mansion is on the back.

On the front of the hundred yuan is Zhang Qiang's head portrait, below are several unique scenic spots in Jinhua Prefecture, and on the back is a map covering the territory from Kazakhstan to Vladivostok, from the Ural Mountains to a vast Daming River in Australia.

From the picture, it is very beautiful. From the workmanship, it is quite exquisite. It is impossible for ordinary people to draw such a beautiful picture. The use of high-quality ceramic white rice paper is very elegant. From the perspective of being imitated Look, if you imitate it like this under ten yuan, the cost will be much higher, and the gain outweighs the loss, because the value of a penny of paper, workmanship, and painters is much higher than a penny, and even one yuan of labor and materials cannot imitate such an exquisite thing. .

Therefore, such food stamps can almost be circulated.

But Zhang Qiang was still worried, so he went directly to the double-layer superimposed manufacturing process, and superimposed two sheets of rice paper. Spices are even added with steel seals to create a concave-convex feeling, plus secret marks, hollowing out and other methods. In terms of current techniques, it is difficult for anyone to imitate them.

Rice paper bleached with flax and sawdust plus soda ash is not available in the market.

The entire development process used more than 500 craftsmen, developed separately, and finally about 400 craftsmen made the prototype by hand. After Zhang Qiang saw it, he was very satisfied and ordered to start mass production, starting with a quantity of [-] million.

Because his grain and available silver are only 400 million, only 400 million grain stamps will be produced.

In this way, the issuance and exchange should have started in the early days of a month. As a result, the wind has been blowing for a month, and everyone knows that banknotes need to be exchanged. As a result, it has been a month, and there is still no movement in the Governor's Mansion.

And Zhang Qiang thinks that there is no drama this month. Raw materials need to be stored, machines need to be manufactured, and workers need to undergo strict inspection and centralized management. A factory will be built on the original racecourse in the Governor's Mansion, and loyal troops will be mobilized to guard it. Strict rules and regulations, and then Start formal propaganda, set up grain bureau branches in various places, some are in charge of grain storage, collection, trading, and some are in charge of financial institutions equivalent to banks, and the establishment of corresponding institutions in the Governor's Mansion cannot be completed in a month.

It was not until one and a half months later that the corresponding preparations and publicity were completed.

But in the past month, the flow of refugees joining the Jinhua Rebel Army began to slow down, and finally no one came to the Jinhua Rebel Army's territory.

Because everyone is afraid that the money in their hands will become a pile of waste paper. As long as they are scholars, they almost know about Jiaozi in the Song Dynasty.

The country gentry and wealthy households also fled Zhang Qiang's Jinhua Rebel Army territory one after another.

Originally including Wenzhou Mansion, Quzhou Mansion, Jianning Mansion, and Zhang Qiang's territory, the population had already reached 230 million. After these two and a half months of publicity, the population dropped sharply to 180 million.

At this time in Europe, people were still using gold coins and silver coins, and even the Portuguese and the Dutch were not optimistic about Zhang Qiang's move.

All kinds of situations came together, and the atmosphere in Zhang Qiang's Governor's Mansion became depressing.

But Zhang Qiang didn't care about those things, and announced forcefully that in the future, gold and silver are not allowed to be circulated in the territory of Jinhua Mansion, and only food stamps are allowed to be used, otherwise they will be punished as treason.

For a while, 10% of the merchants left, and another [-] people fled. Many lands were abandoned as soon as they were reclaimed.

Some wealthy households and gentry who stayed to wait and see also fled one after another. Even the militiamen and recruits also fled one after another. At the end of three months, Zhang Qiang's 400 million food coupons were ready, and the population in the territory dropped to 160 million.

More than 1 militiamen ran away, and more than 3000 recruits ran away. Some regular soldiers in Zhang Qiang's army also applied to leave, and hundreds of people left.

You Haibo has visited Zhang Qiang several times and tried to persuade him, but Zhang Qiang just insisted on his own opinion, and even He Jin came to persuade him not to change his mind.

Even Longwu sent eunuchs to ask Zhang Qiang, but it was only an inquiry. The relationship between the Longwu court and Zhang Qiang was ambiguous, and it was only the duty of protecting and being protected.

About 6000 of Zhang Qiang's [-] militiamen went to the army of the Longwu court. Hundreds of people, maybe tens of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, representing a military group, or a force, led by a new general from the Ming Dynasty.

Zhang Qiang stated his difficulties to Long Wu, and Long Wu said nothing, and then allocated 20 taels of silver to Zhang Qiang.

It made Zhang Qiang feel embarrassed, but Longwu treated him well in this regard.

After three months of preparation, Zhang Qiang began to forcibly promote the currency of food stamps.

Chapter 156 The reaction of the townspeople

Ma Ying is a farmer in a mountainous area in the capital of Chuzhou. Because it is located in a mountainous area, many wars have not affected him. However, once a certain nearby regime stabilizes, someone will always find it in the mountain. He and his family have no choice. Not continuing to pay taxes to these people is the tragedy of being a common people.

Rough hands, dry skin, weather-beaten face, five short stature, carrying two hundred catties of rice millet, crossed mountains and ridges, and walked into Lishui County, which is also the capital of Chuzhou.

There were people coming and going on Chuzhoufu Street, and the city people wearing coarse clothes walked in a hurry, as if they had something to do, and it was too late if they were late.

The last time he entered the city, people were still full of smiles, talking and laughing, but this time, for some reason, everyone had a sad look on their faces.

Ma Ying still has things to do, he doesn't have time to spare, so he asked a passer-by to find out, he had to exchange the rice corn for some silver taels, so he had to go to a grain merchant and sell the two hundred catties of rice corn in his hand, and then give it to him. My mother-in-law bought some medicine. Since the mother-in-law gave birth, her health has not been very good. She often suffers from wind and cold, and she is bedridden. Don't eat, or the mother-in-law will not be able to survive. Thinking of the mother-in-law lying on the bed uncomfortable, Ma Ying hurriedly quickened her pace.

I sold the grain early, exchanged some silver for the mother-in-law to grab the medicine, and then turned back while it was still early in the sky, otherwise the mountain road would be difficult to walk at night, and if I got distracted, I would fall into the cliff, or fall into the rolling river. In the big river, if you are surrounded by wild wolves, you can only consider yourself unlucky.

When I came to the entrance of the grain store, I saw that the door was closed tightly, and there was a seal on the door. In the past, there were bustling grain sellers, but the people who bought grain disappeared. The door was very deserted, and pedestrians all detoured.

Ma Ying looked left and right, not knowing what to do next, a person came over, saw his appearance, and said to him: "Big brother, go to another place, this grain store has been seized because of hoarding grain and driving up grain prices." , the owner was arrested by the government, and the family members scattered and fled to other places to make a living."

"Ah!" Ma Ying didn't expect such a thing to happen.

One can imagine that in the past, this grain shop had a lot of money in and a small bucket out, and every time the catty that I estimated came to him, it was always not enough, always less, and every time I bought his grain, it was always much more expensive than other stores, If you want to argue with him, he will always say: "You think it's too expensive, too little, go to another place."

Ma Ying used to go to other houses to buy and sell, but they were all the same, and the food bought by other houses was always mixed with a lot of sand and stones, and there was a serious shortage of catties. One bucket can exchange two buckets of grain for myself. Although this family is also cheating people, because I always buy and sell grain with them, and I am familiar with each other, sometimes I can save a little bit of cheating. Although it is not much, for them, What is saved is what is earned. Compared with other places, he still thinks that the acquaintance's place is good.

But now, this family has been arrested, so he can only go to another house.

Thinking of being exploited more, the [-] catties of grain on her back, I don't know how much money can be exchanged, whether the money is enough to change the medicine for the mother-in-law, Ma Ying's psychology is not easy.

When he went to another house, he found that the same was true, the door was closed and the door panels were hung up. Ma Ying felt anxious for a while, is there no place to sell grain?

He was not reconciled, and continued to walk. The three houses in a row were like this, and he was a little confused.

With some luck and some reluctance, he went to the sixth house. Seeing that there were many people in front of the sixth house, Ma Ying was relieved, and stood in the food sales line with the grain on his back.

After queuing for a while, he found it strange that in the past, those people who had sold their food, carried silver in their arms, and strings of copper coins in their pockets, and when they passed by, the scene of clanging and clanging was gone.

The person in front always looked like someone else owed his family a lot of money, and walked away without saying a word, full of displeasure.

Some people still held a stack of colorful papers in their hands, sighing, shaking their heads, not knowing why.

After a long time, he heard everyone's discussion. It turned out that from now on, on the territory of the Jinhua Rebel Army, only those colorful pieces of paper are allowed to be used, and silver and copper coins are not allowed to be used.

A commenting man said: "Don't worry about that, to deal with the government, we use the colorful papers issued by the government. In private, we still use copper coins and silver. For hundreds of years, everyone has used silver, and only silver can be used." It’s money, are those pieces of paper worth anything? The government wants us to use those things, isn’t it trying to steal money from us?”

Another person said: "That's right, these officials don't have a single good thing. I thought the government had changed its temper and stopped exploiting us. It only collected [-]% of the taxes, and the poor families were exempted from taxes. Those landlords They didn't dare not to listen, and what's more, they handed in the big head, we gave the small head, and felt that the world was finally fair. Unexpectedly, within a few days, their nature was revealed, and they actually wanted to use a piece of paper to send It's too bad for our hard-earned money to be exchanged for worthless scraps of paper in their hands."

A man with the appearance of a scholar said: "The government is not bad. It is estimated that someone secretly slandered and deceived the governor. The governor did this. When I have a chance, I must go to the governor to petition and send that slanderer to the governor." Go to prison."

"Hehehe." Everyone laughed.

An old man said: "Young man, you are still too young. Even if the governor is deceived, you will not be able to see the governor. If you dare to petition, you will be secretly beaten by those people before you see the governor. He was half dead and burned your house down. Would you dare to sue him then?"