There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 227 Steam Engine Coinage

Huang Zhongwen pointed to the Da Han Tong Bao copper coin that Nie Yu had already put down and said, “Your Majesty, this Da Han Tong Bao copper coin is the first batch of sample coins hand-cast by the craftsmen of my Lingyuan Silver Mill. It weighs about one qian and three fen, and compared to the fake Qing Qianlong Tong Bao copper coin, it has more copper and the sample is more exquisite. The four characters ‘Da Han Tong Bao’ are engraved on the obverse to show the legitimacy of our Han Dynasty, while the reverse is currently undecorated. When the ‘Xinghua Tong Bao’ copper coin is officially cast later, the engraved characters and patterns can be added.”

Nie Yu nodded slightly: "Not bad, this version of the copper coin is well made. Huang Qing and the coin minting craftsmen of Lingyuan Silver Mill, you have all worked hard."

The official copper coins of the Great Han Dynasty have been produced, and judging from the quality of the sample coins, they are quite good. The copper material is much more abundant than that of the Qianlong Tongbao copper coins, and the coin weighs one qian and three fen, nearly twice the weight of the Qianlong Tongbao copper coins.

Of course, this 1.3 qian could not possibly be used on all officially minted copper coins, but even if the amount of copper material were reduced by 1 or 2 qian, the remaining amount would still be much heavier than the Qianlong Tongbao copper coin.

Moreover, in terms of craftsmanship, the Da Han Tong Bao coin is clearly superior. The Da Han Tong Bao coin has a golden and exquisite appearance, like a gold coin, while the Qianlong Tong Bao coin is dull and rough.

Under the primitive metallurgical casting process, copper coins needed to be mass-produced to meet the large-scale currency circulation needs of the people, which inevitably resulted in rough workmanship and a large number of impurities.

Nie Yu picked up the Da Han Tong Bao coin again, then looked at the Qianlong Tong Bao coin in his hand and asked, "If I asked you to start minting Xinghua Tong Bao copper coins now, could you still achieve the same workmanship and quality as this Da Han Tong Bao coin?"

Huang Zhongwen hesitated, "Your Majesty, let alone the fact that my Lingyuan Silver Mint doesn't have enough minting craftsmen, even if all the craftsmen were available, achieving the same level of craftsmanship for these coins isn't impossible, but doing it that way would inevitably lead to a significant drop in copper coin production..."

If the quality and workmanship are acceptable, then the output cannot meet the requirements. Otherwise, the craftsmen would not be able to keep up, and there would not be enough craftsmen specifically responsible for minting coins.

Huang Zhongwen then said, “Your Majesty, the fundamental purpose of minting coins is to enable circulation among the people. If it is to allow the people to circulate the coins themselves, then there is no need to require such advanced craftsmanship.”

Nie Yu asked, "What if the people are unwilling to use the new coins because the craftsmanship isn't advanced enough?" Huang Zhongwen replied, "Your Majesty, even if we could make all the copper coins as exquisite as the sample coins, the people might still be unwilling to use them."

"Why is that?" Nie Yu asked, puzzled.

Huang Zhongwen explained, “Because people like to collect good and valuable coins. Take this Da Han Tong Bao sample coin, for example. It weighs one and three-tenths of a qian (approximately 3.5 grams) and has more copper and more exquisite workmanship than the counterfeit Qing copper coins. This means that these coins are definitely more valuable than the counterfeit Qing copper coins. People and merchants are more willing to keep these new coins and do not like the inferior old coins. In this way, people and merchants are collecting and keeping new coins, while only the old counterfeit Qing coins circulate in the public. Over time, no matter how many new coins our Great Han releases, they will only be hoarded by people and merchants and will not be used.”

Okay, Nie Yu understands now, it's Gresham's Law: Bad money drives out good!

Huang Zhongwen was even being conservative in his assessment, as he only mentioned counterfeit Qing Dynasty copper coins and Han Dynasty copper coins, noting that there were many more illegal workshops privately producing counterfeit copper coins.

These illegal workshops will not disappear with the establishment of the Great Han; on the contrary, they are becoming increasingly rampant.

There was no other way; the Han Dynasty didn't yet have its own officially minted copper coins, so these unlicensed workshops were free to do as they pleased, taking advantage of the fact that the Han Dynasty hadn't yet focused on minting coins to make money by counterfeiting them.

The counterfeit copper coins made in illegal workshops, though called fake, actually used real copper. To be precise, they melted down official copper coins to make more counterfeit coins, profiting from the price difference.

This practice is almost impossible to detect because copper coins will inevitably suffer wear and tear during use; rough workmanship and insufficient copper material can both be considered forms of wear and tear.

Nie Yu thought for a moment and said, "Well, regarding the problem Huang Qing mentioned, the Gresham's Law of Gresham's Law, I do have a way to solve it."

"Does Your Majesty have a solution?" Huang Zhongwen asked, somewhat surprised.

Nie Yu smiled. If it were any other dynasty, it might have been a real problem, but this was the pseudo-Qing dynasty, and it was during the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods when steam engines were already in use.

Then solving the problem becomes much simpler.

How simple is it?

We can simply copy the solutions used by the British in Citadel and other disruptive games on the European continent. This brings us to the British at that time, who were also facing a vicious cycle of rampant counterfeit money and the bad driving out the good.

Because the coins from the Royal Mint of Britain were often of such high quality that they were often hidden away by the public or simply melted down to make several low-quality "counterfeit coins".

These counterfeit bills were made with real materials, and although the workmanship was generally poor, they were not completely unusable.

Driven by profit, whenever the Royal Mint of Britain released a large amount of genuine coins into the market, they would be swept away by the underground black market, melted down, and made into counterfeit coins, from which the mint would reap huge profits.

As a result, the British people have long faced a rampant problem of counterfeit money. No matter how many new coins the official mint produces, it cannot solve these problems. On the contrary, the number of genuine coins is decreasing while the number of counterfeit coins is increasing.

These problems even caused Sir Isaac Newton to fall ill from overwork and die while serving as Master of the Royal Mint.

The final solution to the problem was not through the efforts of the British government or the Royal Mint, but through the actions of a heartless capitalist who refused to pay wages.

Seeing that counterfeit money from the black market was circulating rampantly in Britain, this guy decided to save on production costs by using his family's copper mine and a steam engine to design and manufacture his own private "copper coin" to pay his workers' wages.

Then, because of the mass production of copper coins using steam engines, the coins produced were so exquisite that they suddenly surpassed the copper coins from the Royal Mint and the underground black market in terms of purchasing power.

With steam power, coin minting was truly automated, much faster than the Royal Mint and the underground black market.

Even if the two companies joined forces, they couldn't outrun this unscrupulous capitalist, and that's how Britain's Gresham's Law problem of Gresham's Law was solved in such an absurd way.

The black market couldn't keep up with the minting speed, making it unprofitable, and quickly abandoned counterfeiting. The British public also discovered that this new money was more useful than both the government's genuine money and the counterfeit money on the black market, and it was plentiful and plentiful.

The Royal Mint later handed over the minting work to this brilliant capitalist, making him the new Master of the Royal Mint, replacing the deceased Lord Bull.

……

"A steam engine can be used to mint coins?" Huang Zhongwen asked incredulously.

He already found it incredible that steam engines could be used to pump water from the silver mines, let alone mint copper coins.
Nie Yu smiled and said, "Of course, steam-powered coin minting can guarantee both production volume and the exquisite craftsmanship of the copper coins. In this way, people will no longer use the cruder counterfeit Qing copper coins, but will instead use the more refined Han copper coins."

A very crude method: use a large quantity of good currency to forcibly squeeze bad currency out of the market.

Huang Zhongwen subconsciously thought this was a pipe dream, but then he thought again that ordinary people and merchants always liked to use good money.

As long as the amount of good money exceeds the amount of bad money, the vicious cycle of bad money driving out good money will naturally disappear.

This is an open conspiracy!
Without steam engines, illegal workshops could never surpass the speed of minting coins in the Han Dynasty.

Not only these illegal workshops, but even if the pseudo-Qing dynasty wanted to crush the Han dynasty by minting coins, they would be completely helpless.

The black market workshops all produced inferior currency, as did the pseudo-Qing dynasty, while the Han dynasty produced only superior currency. In fact, the Han dynasty produced more superior currency than the combined inferior currency from the black market workshops and the pseudo-Qing dynasty. Therefore, it was not a case of inferior currency driving out superior currency, but rather superior currency driving out inferior currency.

Merchants and common people aren't cheap; they have good money but don't use it, insisting on using bad money. Moreover, bad money is scarce, while good money is plentiful. Soon, no one will use the bad money anymore.

(End of this chapter)