The Revolt of the Three Feudatories: All-in at the start in Beijing

Zhou Peigong took the gold coin, deliberately looking at it from left to right, then glancing up at Liu Mu's face with the same serious expression as when discussing military affairs in the Grand Council: "Your Majesty, I think the portrait on this gold coin does indeed look a little thinner than Your Majesty in person."

Liu Mu stared at him for a moment, then turned to the other ministers and said, "The Minister of War is talking a lot today."

Several ministers lowered their heads in unison, trying hard to suppress their emotions. Li Zheng's shoulders were trembling, and even the usually serious Li Guangdi shifted his gaze elsewhere, a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth.

Liu Mu did not pursue the matter further. It was always good for the emperor and his ministers to be in harmony. So he put the three coins back into the box, closed the lid, and said to the people of the Ministry of Works: "I approve the designation. Minting will begin after the fifteenth of the first month. The first batch will consist of 100,000 gold coins, 2 million silver coins, and 5 million strings of copper coins. They will be released first into the three capitals and Guangzhou."

"At the same time, the provincial administration offices of Fujian and Zhejiang were ordered to prepare their warehouses, as the second batch would be minted. The Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Revenue would jointly supervise the progress of the minting, and report the figures monthly."

Master Sun and several goldsmiths knelt down and kowtowed, tidied up the bronze anvil and pattern-making molds, and followed Zhao Fengnian out of the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Liu Mu sat back down on the heated couch, picked up his teacup and took a sip. The tea was cold, but it was still passable. The seven ministers were still standing, knowing that the emperor still had something to say.

Liu Mu looked around and finally his gaze fell on Xu Qianxue, deciding to find him something to do.

"Xu Qianxue, after the new currency is introduced, there will be counterfeit coins. In the past, those who counterfeited coins were exiled, but people still did it. Now that my head is printed on the money, counterfeiting is not just about greed—it also involves creating a fake image of me. Tell me, wouldn't that be considered the crime of deceiving the emperor?"

Xu Qianxue lowered his head and thought for a moment, then said in a serious tone, "Your Majesty, according to the old law, counterfeiting coins is considered theft and disrupting the market, punishable by death with reprieve. Now, the coins bear Your Majesty's portrait, so counterfeiting them is equivalent to forging the emperor's seal, which, according to the law, is death by a thousand cuts."

The hall fell silent for a moment. Liu Mu finished the last sip of his tea and placed the teacup on the armrest of the heated couch.

"Let's skip the slow slicing, it's too troublesome. The first option is to exile them to Shuozhou as slaves. New Year, new money, new laws. The Ministry of Justice will draft the new regulations next month and issue them together with the coinage regulations."

Previously, exile was not enough to deter people, since going to the frontier meant still being a commoner. Now, the first to be sent to the frontier as a slave, let's see who dares to do it!

"Your subject obeys the decree," Xu Qianxue replied readily.

……

Time flies.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Beijing was hit by three consecutive days of heavy snow. In such cold weather, if it weren't for the fact that honeycomb briquettes and stoves had been widely used in the Han Dynasty, many people would probably have frozen to death.

At this time, the Han Dynasty had just restricted logging, and not everyone could afford to wear a thick cotton-padded coat.

Today, the snow finally stopped, and people started going out, only to find the same shops appearing at the intersections of several main streets in Beijing.

The storefront has only three facades, neither too big nor too small in Beijing. In the center is a black plaque with gold lettering, bearing six large characters in clerical script: Great Han Empire Bank.

The interior decoration was seven parts similar to that of a pawnshop. There were blue brick floors, camphor wood counters, iron railings, and the accountant sitting behind the railings calculating with an abacus.

But there is one thing that is completely different from pawnshops. The counters in pawnshops are extremely high. When ordinary people stand in front of the counter, they can only hold the items above their heads and hand them over. It is difficult to even catch a glimpse of the accountant's face.

The bank counters only reached the waist of an adult male, and ten windows were open at the same time. Behind each window sat a clerk in a dark blue uniform, with an abacus, account books, and vermilion ink in front of him.

There was a queue outside the window, filled with wealthy people dressed in silk, some fat, some thin, some wearing mink, some wearing fox fur, all wearing thick-soled cotton boots, standing in the snow, stamping their feet and chatting.

Among the people in line were a few foreign merchants who had just arrived from the Huitongguan. They were wrapped in headscarves, their necks hunched against the cold, and they were looking up at the plaque that read "Great Han Empire Bank".

A plump merchant in a dark brown silk coat took out two newly minted silver coins from his cloth bag, weighed them in his palm, and the portrait of Liu Mu on the coin was so clear that one could count the twelve beads of the emperor's tassels.

Standing next to the fat merchant was a tall, thin man wearing a dark blue satin robe, with a copper pipe dangling from his mouth. The pipe had long since gone out, but he was just chewing on it out of habit.

The fat merchant flipped the silver coin over, looked at Liu Mu's portrait, and clicked his tongue: "You know what, this money is really well printed. In the past, those loose silver coins varied in quality, and you had to haggle with people for ages when buying them. Now it's great, each coin is worth one tael, the weight is exactly the same. Just slap it on the table, and nobody has to waste any more words."

The tall, thin man took the pipe out of his mouth and blew away the spiky residue: "That's right. The Ministry of Revenue has taken drastic measures this time. They announced before the new year that all transactions with the government would be settled in new currency starting from the first month of the lunar calendar."

"Otherwise, if you hand over the old silver, the government won't refuse it, but they'll have to deduct from the price. Ten taels of old silver will be converted into nine taels of new currency. Tell me, will you accept the deduction or not?"

The portly businessman's eyes widened: "A 10% discount?"

The portly businessman's eyes widened: "A 10% discount?"

"The exchange rate is 10%, so you see, half of the people queuing up in front of us came early this morning to exchange money. Anyway, one tael of old gold can be exchanged for ten gold coins, and one tael of old silver can be exchanged for one silver coin. You won't lose out in terms of weight. After exchanging, you can take the new coins to the Ministry of Revenue to pay customs duties without having to pay the exchange rate. In the end, you still make a profit. Those who delay in exchanging will only lose money when the old silver is no longer in circulation and they are stuck with it."

The fat merchant thought for a moment, put the two silver coins back into his bag, and nodded.

The line moved forward two spaces. A middle-aged man in a gray squirrel fur coat walked in from the window, carrying a palm-sized cloth bag that jingled with new money. The fat merchant called out to him.

"Manager Zhang, how many have you replaced?"

Shopkeeper Zhang stopped in front of the two men and opened the bag for them to see. Half of the bag was filled with the golden light of gold coins, and the other half with the silvery gleam of silver coins, making the tall, thin man squint.

"I exchanged fifty strings of copper coins for the shop's cash flow. The shop assistant carried them back, and I kept twenty silver coins and five gold coins for myself as New Year's money." As he spoke, Manager Zhang took out a gold coin from his bag, held it between his fingers, and shook it. "Look at His Majesty on this gold coin. He's thinner than in real life. I saw His Majesty from afar at Zhuangyuan Tower the day before yesterday. He was clearly much more plump. This coin makes him look like a celestial official."

The tall, thin man shifted his pipe from the left corner of his mouth to the right, took the gold coin, flipped it over, glanced at it, and said, "I heard that Old Sun from the Mint was ridiculed to his face by the Minister of War because of this portrait. Later, word spread in the palace that His Majesty looks better when he's thinner; he looks more energetic. What do you think?"

The portly merchant leaned closer for a look and blurted out, "He really has lost weight. If word gets out that the Han Dynasty gold coins we use depict a thinner version of His Majesty, will we have to give him a nickname?"

Shopkeeper Zhang and the tall, thin man were both looking at him.

"The chubby version is the real His Majesty."