Rebirth: Romania Rising

"Sir, although I'm talking about buying groceries, I think it's still too much trouble."

On the second day after arriving at the military camp to work as a civilian, Mistry took the captain of the "cooking team" to buy vegetables and meat. As soon as he came back, he expressed his opinions to Victor. As long as they spoke slower, the two of them would Able to communicate briefly.

“Romania’s currencies, Leu and Bani, and Bulgaria’s Lev and Stodinky currencies are in chaotic circulation, making it inconvenient for both buyers and sellers. Besides, there are not many Levas in the camp, so the long-term solution is to use Romanian currency for transactions. .”

Victor nodded. Most of the Bulgarian money in their hands was captured on the battlefield. These trophies did not need to be returned to the public, so the general gave some to each officer.

Victor didn't keep it for himself. After all his soldiers got a share, there wasn't much left.Fortunately, when General Constantine appointed Victor to station in Dobrich, he gave him a sum of Bulgarian money and said to Victor: "When stationed in Bulgarian territory, follow the Romans and use their currency."

As he spoke, Victor asked Alexei, Gruul, Mistry and others to enter the room, and then took a Romanian main coin "Lei", a subsidiary coin "Bani", and several Bulgarian "Lei" coins. "French" and "Stodinki" currencies were put on the table.

"Mistry, tell me how you use these coins in daily life."

As a local, Mistry certainly knew that and he started talking.It turns out that Bulgaria’s currency system was formulated in 1896, the 21st year of Bulgaria’s independence. At that time, Bulgaria was able to complete it with the help of the domestic royal family. It was slightly more chaotic than Romania in terms of type and shape.

The most common is Lev, which was born together with the independent Grand Duchy of Bulgaria.Since then, the Baoguo government has issued new coins many times, and the old coins have been replaced by gradual recycling.

列弗这是一种金币，与法国法郎等值。列弗有2、5、10、20、50和100多重币制。而辅币是斯托丁基，100斯托丁基能换到1列弗。

For example, the Lev on the table was minted by the Bulgarian Bosi Mint, and the face value is written in Bulgarian on the front.

The most obvious symbol of the coins is that some of the gold coins have the king's head on the back, and some have the lion pattern, the national emblem of Bulgaria consisting of three lions.Coins also have regular edges to prevent counterfeiting and prevent the edges from being cut off.

Although this anti-counterfeiting measure has good intentions, it is actually useless.Because Bulgaria has experienced many wars and political changes, there is also the phenomenon of private coinage of currency.

Therefore, the coins on the market are not always good or bad. 1 leva can obviously be exchanged for 1 franc, but in fact, the folk leva is mixed with base metals. Sometimes, you can't even exchange for half a franc...

Mistry said helplessly: "Some bad coins are not minted locally. The Tsar and his ministers were extravagant and spent a lot of money on birthdays and consumption every year. The internal treasury was exhausted several times, so the official mint They also often mint bad money for profit."

These inside stories were all told to them by Mistry. Except for Victor, Alexey felt a little incredible.

Because in Romania, the impact of privately minted bad currency is really bad, and it is the target of strict crackdowns.It is even less likely that the government will take the lead in minting bad currency, because that will greatly damage the government's credibility.It can be seen that Bulgaria's economy is walking a tightrope and will collapse if it is not careful.

Victor took out two versions of the Lev and compared them and said: "As the main currency of Bulgaria, the weight and denomination of the two versions seem to be the same, but in fact they are not..."

When Victor said it, everyone understood.

"In other words, originally 5 leva can be exchanged for 1 lei, but in fact, only two bad coins are worth one good coin."

After such an explanation, the next work became easier. The army came up with an exchange ratio between Romanian money and Bulgarian money, so that Romanian money could circulate freely in the local market, reducing the trouble for local troops and traders.

It's just that when the army took out Romanian money, the local traders insisted on exchanging it according to the unit on the currency, 5 leva of bad currency for 1 lei.In this way, the merchants made money, but didn't the army lose money?

"How about exchanging 10 leva for 1 lei according to the actual value?" Alexey asked. This exchange ratio will be of great benefit to the garrison and can save them a lot of money during the garrison.

But Mistry quickly dissuaded him: "This is not possible. Bulgarian privately minted Levs have different weights and different values. If they are all exchanged at a fixed ratio regardless of fineness, then local traders will suffer heavy losses. I am afraid that by then, locals will be unable to buy and sell. Everyone is complaining, which is detrimental to stable order."

Although he is helping the Romanian army, he is a local after all. If something harms the interests of the villagers, he will of course argue with reason.

"Then what do you think we should do? The army cannot suffer a loss." Alexey was a little unhappy with Mistry, an outsider.

"I have an idea." Victor thought for a moment and said to everyone: "It can make the army and the people not suffer, ensure fair trade during the garrison, and stabilize regional order..."

……

Early the next morning, at the entrance to the bustling market, a wooden board was nailed to the wall at the intersection. The literate people squeezed over and took a look, only to see a beautiful bilingual official document in Romanian and Bulgarian handwritten on it.

The general meaning is that after discussions between the three departments, Romanian money will circulate in parallel with Bulgarian money on the market in the future, and will be used as the standard official currency, and neither buyer nor seller will refuse it.

Common items on the market, such as vegetables, meat, grain, cloth, etc., are given a standard price of half a tael, and the fluctuation should not exceed 15%.The people and traders didn't complain too much, after all, no harm was done to them.

As for why it is 15%?

This was decided yesterday after Victor learned about the quality and quality of Bulgarian coins, and then visited the business family Zlatar to discuss it with them.

Ivan was not willing to agree at first, but was frightened by Victor's words. "Bulgarian money has poor impurities, while Romanian money is unified and quality-guaranteed. Besides, South Dobroga will be annexed in the future, so changing the currency will naturally be put on the agenda."

"Other counties have implemented it, and Dobrich will do it sooner or later. For the sake of the two big families and my colleagues, I will secretly inform you two. In another year, I am afraid that even local Bulgarian money will be banned from circulation! "

"I advise everyone to exchange all the Bulgarian money at home into Romanian money as soon as possible after the armistice agreement is signed."

……

After solving the currency problem, Mistry also started doing his own job: writing some announcements for the army that needed to be translated into bilinguals - the announcement in the market yesterday was written by him.

But first, Mistry had to master Romanian proficiently. Fortunately, he was smart and learned quickly.Speaking of which, since the independence of the two countries, they have launched vigorous national cultural renaissance movements.

In the fields of literature, art and education, there are many differences between the two countries.Bulgaria pays attention to its national traditions and becomes more conservative; Romania is fully "Westernized". After all, Romania belongs to "France in the Balkans" and its folk culture is very close to France.

This has also led to obstacles in exchanges between Romania and neighboring countries.Moreover, the cultures of various countries have developed relatively independently, and their characters and languages ​​also have strong national characteristics.

Bulgarian has rich grammar and complex morphological changes. It has a variety of special grammatical rules and morphological changes. The grammatical complexity is too high, and it is very different from Romanian.

“Why does language advance so quickly?”

Mistry smiled and said: "Sir, there is no need to be surprised. There are some differences in words and sentences between Bulgarian and Romanian. But don't forget that Bulgarian is very complicated in terms of morphological changes and has six cases, while Romanian It is relatively simplified and less difficult to learn.”

"I see."

Victor nodded, but heard Mistry sigh with emotion: "It's unbelievable, just separated by the Danube River...the languages ​​and writings of the two peoples are so different. After these few days, I have deeply felt that , Currency, language, and characters can actually create such a huge obstacle to communication and trade between people from the two places."

"Don't worry, that era will soon pass."

Victor laughed and predicted to Mistry: "Romania may not be unified now, whether it is currency, language, writing, etc., but it will definitely be unified in the future."

The unification of these things was not something that Victor just thought of.The realization of great unification lies in the king issuing orders in the palace, in the rotation of parliaments in power, in the hard work of fellow workers and peasants across the country, and in Dobrich where Victor is stationed.

After the victory of the war, when the political barriers no longer existed, except for the cultural accumulation, other things that were deliberately created to be different from each other lost the meaning of existence.

Victor guessed that in the Bucharest Palace now, while Carol was preparing for the armistice, she was probably also preparing a new bill with ministers, congressmen and others...

He continued to say to Mistry, who was in a daze: "I believe that Romania will be unified in the future, and there will be no obstacles to exchanges between people from all over the world. This is not my fantasy or expectation, but a future that is just around the corner."