Chapter 517 Casting New Money (2)

After some discussion, the size, thickness, weight, and face value of the new money were finally determined.

As for the style of the new money, there were also major changes.

Everything was ready, except for the east wind. After the discussion, Li Chengqian handed the task of casting new money to the Ministry of Industry.

The Ministry of Industry began to make molds for the new money and cast some new money as samples to see how they looked.

"Your Majesty! This is the new money that the Coin Bureau of the Ministry of Industry has just cast. Please take a look." As soon as the new money sample was made, the Minister of Industry immediately brought it to Li Chengqian to see.

"Let me take a look." Li Chengqian picked up the coin that the Minister of Industry had placed on the table to examine.

After discussion, the weight of the new money was set at five grams, the diameter was three centimeters, and the thickness was 1.8 centimeters. The style was still a square-hole round coin with a hole in the middle.

Four characters were written on one side - Datang Tongbao.

On the other side were the year, month, and day of issuance, as well as the denomination of the new money, in regular script.

The new money was cast based on the flat money, and the corresponding denominations were printed on the coins, such as one cent, two cents, five cents, and ten cents.

The new money has clear patterns, a strong sense of concave and convex, and exquisite craftsmanship. The patterns on the front and back are in the same direction. Even if there are errors, they are very small and can be completely ignored.

The edge of the round frame is evenly thick and smooth, and feels good to the touch. Ten new coins are very flat when stacked together.

The outer edge of the new coin has intermittent teeth, with a total of six tooth segments, and each tooth segment has eight teeth with equal spacing.

This is the new coin made by Li Chengqian based on the style of the later Celestial Empire coins.

This is done to prevent people from counterfeiting the new coin and making new inferior coins.

"How many of these new coins can your Ministry of Industry make in the first batch? How long will it take?" Li Chengqian asked.

"Your Majesty! The first batch of new coins can produce millions of new coins of different denominations, which will take about two months." said the Minister of Industry.

"Two months is too long. I will give you one month at most. You must produce tens of millions of new coins of varying denominations for me."

"After one month, the new coins will be distributed to every corner of the Tang Dynasty, and all the old coins will be scrapped and recycled." Li Chengqian said.

"Your Majesty! It is the fastest speed to produce one million new coins in two months, which is just the mint in the Ministry of Works."

"It is really impossible to produce the amount Your Majesty requires in one month. Please understand Your Majesty." The Minister of Works said.

Originally, under the premise of ensuring the quality of the new coins, producing one million new coins in two months was already the fastest result of working day and night.

If you want to cast more than 10 million new coins within a month while ensuring the quality, even if the entire Chang'an City and the surrounding craftsmen work themselves to death, they cannot complete this arduous task.

This is simply asking too much.

"If the Ministry of Works cannot complete it, build a few more mints in other places to complete the casting of new coins together. No matter what, it must be completed within a month." "

After one month, starting from Chang'an, abolish the old coins and prohibit the old coins from continuing to circulate in the market. Put the new coins on the market, and no other coins will be cast in the future." Li Chengqian said.

Only in this way can the old coins be quickly replaced with new coins, and the economic situation can be prevented from being triggered when the new coins are introduced, and the economic market can be stabilized.

"Yes, I understand! I will order someone to do it! But I am worried that if we issue new money and abolish the old money, the people will not accept it. What should we do?" The Minister of Works saluted.

"Then what do you think should be done? Stop minting new money?" Li Chengqian asked.

"I have no such intention. I just think it is better to issue it in some areas first, try the effect, and see the situation. Or let the new money and the old money be used together, and gradually replace the old money with the new money." The Minister of Works said.

"Your doing this will be counterproductive. Not only will it have no effect, but those private minters will become even more rampant, and there will be more inferior money on the market."

"The Tang Dynasty's economy will soon be paralyzed. You should know what the final result will be without me telling you."

"So, the new money must be issued quickly no matter what, and completely replace the old money and circulate it on the market." Li Chengqian said.

"I understand! I was worrying too much!" said the Minister of Works.

"In short, the new money will be issued in one month. In this month, you should try your best to mint new money in the Ministry of Works. The more the better." Li Chengqian said. "Yes

! I'll take my leave!" The Minister of Works bowed and left.

Not long after, in addition to the mint directly managed by the Ministry of Industry, eight more mints were established in other places.

All the mints started working at the same time. Although they still could not complete the number of new coins stipulated by Li Chengqian within a month, they also produced nearly 8,000 new coins.

The new coins, with Chang'an as the center, began to circulate to the states and counties of the Tang Dynasty and to the market. The court and local governments began to strictly prohibit the people from using old coins.

In the future, the Tang Dynasty will use new coins as currency for trading.

Under the strict control of the court and local governments, the circulation of new coins was relatively smooth. Although there were some twists and turns, they were all resolved one by one. It can be said that there was no danger and the issuance of new coins to the market was promoted smoothly.

The people also accepted the fact that the new money became the new currency and was used for transactions.

The issuance of the new money did not affect people's lives.

As for those privately minted coins, they were still hiding in the dark, intending to counterfeit the new money to make the same inferior money to disrupt the economic market.

Therefore, the court and local officials did not relax their crackdown on this aspect, but on the contrary strengthened the crackdown.

These lawless elements must not be given the slightest opportunity to come out and make trouble.

After issuing the new money to stabilize the economic order, the emperor's tour to the south was put on the agenda again.

Li Chengqian decided to go to Jiangnan first to inspect the local people's livelihood, economic development, and so on.

"Tomorrow I will set out by water to Jiangnan to inspect the local people's conditions. You stay in Chang'an to supervise the country."

"Whenever you are undecided, you should discuss it with the ministers." Before leaving, Li Chengqian was still a little worried. He called Li Jue to give him instructions again before he felt relieved.

"Don't worry, father! During my supervision, I will definitely discuss it with the ministers." Li Jue said.

"Tomorrow I will go south along the Grand Canal. I will return to the capital in a year or so at most, or three or four months at least." Li Chengqian said.

"Should we issue an official document to have the prefectures and cities in Jiangnan pick me up?" Li Jue asked.

"No need. With so many people coming from all directions, how can I see the situation clearly? Who knows if something unknown will happen?" Li Chengqian said.

At this point, Li Jue stopped talking.