"Sir, Mr. Kong and the others have arrived."

Zhang Han was already stunned at the intersection. This was a parallel intersection with four avenues. The north was the military camp area and the workshop area. The west was Tiancheng Acropolis, the southwest was to Lingqiu, and the east was to Feihuyu. Although Feihuyu was a pure mountain stream passage at the junction of mountains, the widest was more than 20 meters, and the narrowest was only four meters. The average altitude was above a thousand meters. It was an unyielding natural barrier. In Yang Sichang's words, it was described as: Thousands of men drew their swords, the dew stood at the star, looking back at the changes, like pearls and curved ants, and the height was "high as the sky gate". This road is one of the eight paths of Taihang, which is the junction of Hengshan, Taihang Mountain, and Yanshan Mountain. In the past, there was no Heyu.

When he was promoted, the road to Feihuyu was also rugged and difficult to walk. After all, the Lingqiu in Weizhou ranged from altitude of several hundred meters to more than 2,000 meters. There were few plains, and many of the roads were winding and even drilled through the mountains. The disrepaired roads became an obstacle to Shanxi and Hebei. In recent years, Zhang Han invested more than 100,000 taels of silver to build the road, which also earned him a better reputation. ∮wán∮∮ロba, ↘.￡↑.≈Kong Minxing and others were flying on the roads in the east. Beside them were a constant stream of caravans and pedestrians, as well as small camel fleets driving donkeys and mules. These were merchants from Hebei and Henan who came from Feihu Trail.

There were also many people in the farmland around. Seeing Zhang Han was enough to make them happy. When they saw the arrival of "Mr. Kong", the farmers showed simple and honest smiles on their faces, and they looked even happier.

Many people put down their sickles and bowed in the fields. The fields so close to Lizhuang are all from Zhang Han. These people are tenant farmers. However, the rich harvest has enabled them to obtain more harvests than in previous years. The average yield of four stones per mu has made these people's income increase by at least three times compared with previous years. After becoming tenant farmers, they no longer have to worry about the white list. This is the matter of Zhang Han, the field owner, and the labor force will not be too heavy. At least after Zhang Han became the garrison and the commander of the guards, whether it was repairing the acropolis, building roads, or building bridges, he never levied the labor force of the garrison station for free. He paid the wages and the grain harvest was high. Everyone was very happy. There were some honest people who wanted to put their faces on the ground, as if they could lower their bodies, and they could express their inner respect and gratitude.

Kong Minxing and others arrived in the blink of an eye, and Zhang Han also rode his horse to welcome him. The two of them had not seen each other for less than three months, and their appearance had not changed much. Kong Minxing stared at Zhang Han for a while and smiled and said, "Wen Lan has been cleared a little after all. She used to shave her beard when she came out, but now she has also left it."

Zhang Han touched his chin and smiled bitterly: "It's really too late to trim it."

"It's good." Kong Minxing looked at it, "People seem much more mature."

"It's probably what people do." Zhang Han said: "When you are young, you want to be more mature, and when you are old, you want to be more tender."

The two friends burst into laughter together.

After laughing, Zhang Han said, "Do you go back to my signing room?"

Kong Minxing said, "I know you are very busy, and I am also busy. I will go to Zhenluwei to see the situation of harvesting wheat. Lao Chang... Well, your father-in-law is waiting for me there. We are studying the matter of irrigation canals in the north and south. After half a month after the wheat harvest, the construction will be almost started."

The two found a tea stall to sit down. There were many places like this kind of forks, and tea sheds were indispensable, and there were also many shops selling snacks. Zhang Han saw that there was another shop called Shandong steamed buns. The owner of the shop really had a Shandong accent. The shop selling snacks, tea and wine were lined up very far away, and there were no side at a glance. It was estimated that there were at least two or three hundred shops. The prosperity of Lizhuang was all-round. These shops found business opportunities and were very successful.

While asking the boss to serve tea, Zhang Han thought, "The north-south irrigation canals are very important. They are not only water in the fields, but also water in the workshops in Lizhuang. When excavating, it must not only be enough for agricultural purposes, but also for industrial purposes. Is the reserved financial resources now enough?"

Kong Minxing said somewhat dissatisfied: "Last year, I said that I was digging the north and south canals, but it kept dragging it down. Wenlan, you have also said that food is the most important thing, why do you forget it from time to time?"

Zhang Han quickly smiled and said, "Why don't you say you won't dig anymore? You're just calculating your financial resources. Since you want to dig, of course you have to meet the needs. Otherwise, it will be costly and extra trouble to dig again in the future."

"That's true." Although Kong Minxing is a technical expert, he is not a pedantic person. He nodded to express his understanding.

However, he was also curious and said, "The east-west canal can almost meet all the machines in the factory now. Even if you add the newly bought cast cannon lathe, the north-south canal has much greater water storage capacity than the east-west canal. It runs more than ten miles long. How big a workshop should you need and how many machines do you need to drive such a large canal!"

"I've thought about it..." Zhang Han said slowly: "The reason why the account cannot attract too many people to invest is that we don't really have anything to do. In the future, I may learn from Europeans to make coin minting machines..."

"Oh, are you going to mint silver coins?"

Zhang Han raised his eyebrows and thought to himself: It is easy to deal with smart people and experts!

Kong Minxing smiled and said, "I have talked about this matter with the teacher, and we have thought about doing this..."

The Europeans reminiscent of coins, their trade was mainly made of gold coins. The Spanish could carry hundreds of thousands of gold coins in a ship, all of which were plundered by their colonial places and were continuously transported back to Europe. This country became rich because of this and had an extremely powerful fleet. In addition to gold coins, there were Spanish silver coins and copper coins. The gold coins were mainly gold standard monetary system, and silver coins and copper coins were just auxiliary coins... This financial system was actually the best, and the Ming Dynasty's silver standard financial system was relatively deteriorated.

Later, even silver coins have not been minted, not only lagging behind European countries, but in fact, even the copper-based trading system of the former Song Dynasty was far inferior to that of the former Song Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty had to spend decades to catch up with the amount of coins in the former Song Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty might not have been able to catch up with the amount of coins in the former Song Dynasty for about two hundred years... To put it bluntly, it is the gap in management level. In terms of financial management level, the Ming Dynasty not only lags behind Europe in this dynasty, but in fact it was also far behind the Zhao Song hundreds of years ago. This is a shame.

Zhang Han said: "Of course no one is interested, and he doesn't know how to do such a thing..."

"Yes..." Kong Minxing sighed: "In private, my mentor and I have met some people. When it comes to such matters, whether it is the Ministry of Works or the Ministry of Revenue, everyone is dumbfounded and speechless. Someone suggested that the cabinet should report the work first, and then the cabinet should take the lead and call the worker. The officials of the Second Department of Revenue will discuss and decide what to do. Think about the river workers in the Yellow River can be dragged by the Ministry of Revenue for many years. Who would really take this coin minting? Our master and apprentice could only give up."

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the west wind spread eastward, and the Ming Dynasty was still a superpower. In terms of all-round size, it was still an absolute superpower. However, in many subtleties, it began to lag behind after the Renaissance Europe, from the military system to military theory, to the casting of guns, to the ability to sail from oceans, to pioneering spirit, and from scientific theories to the system, it was also lagging behind in all aspects.

Take coin minting as an example, of course, it is undoubtedly a good thing. However, the bureaucratic system of the Ming Dynasty was already large and unreasonable, and it lost any possibility of accepting new affairs. In particular, coin minting is not as effective as imitating a few cannons. The minting cannons can be seen in the short term. Coin minting is not only a problem of gold coins, but involves gold and silver control, collection, minting, use, etc. Just thinking about it makes you feel like a big deal. Being an official in the Ming Dynasty, you will not get a salary of only a few dozen taels of silver a year. Isn’t it more comfortable to have a free time to have two drinks with three or five friends, or go to an antique shop?

Without thinking too much, Kong Minxing’s advice from his disciples must be in vain.

Zhang Han said quietly: "The Ming Dynasty does not prohibit privately casting silver. Since that's the case, Yusheng and I will set a precedent..."

Kong Minxing said bluntly: "I'm afraid you are also particularly interested in the income from coin minting and the future account interest!"

Zhang Han was told that his deepest thoughts were met and smiled awkwardly.

In this era, money interest is difficult to understand. It is just minting coins. In the eyes of outsiders, if you check in and then exchange it out, you will definitely lose money if you do such a thing, but you will still make a lot of money?

Of course, there is a lot of money. The loss of coins is very limited, and the mixed part is that the profit is very large, and there will be a slight difference in weight. Of course, the difference is that as more and more silver coins are issued, it can become larger and larger. Then the coin will definitely bring about a large increase in the financing volume of the account, and the subsequent interest and profits are also amazing.

Kong Minxing said: "Is Wen Lan planning to cast silver coins?"

Zhang Han nodded and said, "I can only cast silver coins. I don't have enough reserves here. Copper is even more strategic supplies. I'm afraid that it's not enough to cast cannons, so I asked me to search everywhere, and I have nowhere to try for the time being."

After two thousand years of mining, the easy-to-harvest gold mines have been mined almost all. After the Mongol Yuan, the wealth of two thousand years was almost plundered. The reason why we adopted a conservative economic policy in the early Ming Dynasty and issued treasure banknotes was because the reserves of precious metals were swept away, and the Ming Taizu had to do it. As for copper, the local copper reserves in the Ming Dynasty are now extremely low, and most of them are not easy to mine. In the early Ming Dynasty, copper was used to rely on Myanmar and other countries to pay tribute. The copper mine in Yunnan was not discovered until the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, and was not mined in large quantities until the middle of the Qing Dynasty.

However, silver has been pouring in in large quantities. Although the problem with the silver standard is very big, if it is to change, the problem is even bigger. Crushing a large number of silver coins and adopting the silver standard for a long time in the future is also the result of Zhang Han's long-term thinking.

If everything goes well, coin will drive the account, and like the pig iron and iron business, it will become a business with its own core, and profits will come.
Chapter completed!