"Of course I know! But for a long-term solution, it is imperative to abolish lead money!"

After hearing this, Li Jia calmed down for some reason.

No one knows how much lead coins are circulating throughout Lingnan, but a conservative estimate is that there are still millions of them, spread throughout Lingnan.

This naked method of amassing money is breathtaking. Of course Li Jia also wanted to abolish lead money, but this would make millions of people's wealth evaporate in an instant, and a great chaos would be inevitable.

But in these troubled times, a disturbance can easily give the enemy an opportunity to take advantage of it, so Li Jia was not able to sit still and was gone in the blink of an eye.

Therefore, he has never touched this thing, not because he doesn't want to, but because he can't.

"Lead money cannot be discarded now!" The expressions of several prime ministers changed. They are all smart people. They would immediately think of the consequences and naturally they would stop it.

"The matter of lead money needs to be discussed in the long term, but the matter of making Shenwu Tongbao needs to be carried out immediately!"

Li Jia avoided the important issue and dropped the topic again.

The forging and circulation of Shenwu Tongbao will consolidate his rule and is an indispensable means for the feudal dynasty.

After all, in those remote places, even the officials have never been seen. What they know and see is just one-third of an acre of land in front of them. The biggest feeling for the imperial court is only the coins in their hands.

As the topic of Shenwu Tongbao was brought up, the officials began to discuss it again. The font of Tongbao, the weight of Tongbao, its material, the place where it was forged, and who presided over it were all very important.

"Withdraw from the court—" More than an hour later, the court meeting was finally over. He quickly changed into regular clothes, feeling quite proud of himself.

"The court meeting really doesn't mean much. Unless it's a major event related to the court's crisis and needs to be witnessed by hundreds of officials, it's really useless!"

Li Jia has already decided in his heart that the morning meeting will be changed from three days to seven days, and the time of the court meeting will be changed to the turn of Chensi (nine o'clock), so as to avoid getting up too cold every day and delaying sleep.

The officials also couldn't sleep well and suffered terribly.

"Why scrap the lead money? Do you know the consequences?" Li Jia called the bold official over, looked at his serious face, and said.

"I should know this!" The man was only five feet three inches, but he was full of momentum and quite courageous.

"But your Majesty knows that as long as the lead money is not wasted, the suffering of the people will be ended!" the man said with emotion.

"Sit-" Li Jia said.

Seeing the emperor in such a state, he could only obey, but what surprised him was that there was an iron pot next to him, boiling hot oil, and the heat came in, which made him uncomfortable.

At this time, this person's information was already in Li Jia's hands:

Yang Youyi, a native of Lianzhou, had a poor family when he was young. Neighbors helped him, and he was given money to support his education. Then in the third year of Qianhe (AD 945), he won the Jinshi. He was a passionate man, serving the country and the people, but he always had a hot head.

I didn't think about the consequences.

Then he was suppressed all the time. For more than ten years, he was still in charge of various ministries.

"It is impossible to destroy lead money, but you can stop forging it!" Li Jia smiled and said softly:

"Lead coins can be broken into pieces within a few months after being used. The court can stop issuing lead coins and let them circulate in the market. After a year, most of them will probably be gone. If the lead coins are stopped by then, there won't be much that can be done.

What will you say?"

"If lead is scrapped now, the whole of Lingnan will be like this oil pan. It is calm at the moment, but it will be like this in an instant!"

The emperor said, and asked someone to pour a bowl of water into it. The whole oil pan boiled instantly, and the hot oil splashed everywhere.

"The scrap lead you are talking about is this bowl of water!"

"I was reckless, please punish me!" Yang Youyi instantly thought of the consequences, his back was sweating, and he immediately knelt down, bowing his head and saying nothing.

"You have good intentions, but you act too recklessly. You think twice before you act. Sometimes what you see is not true."

Li Jiati nodded a few words and took a breath.

"Let's see. The newly created Shenwu Tongbao is an important matter for the country and must be taken care of. I don't trust others. You have caught my eye. You go to the Shaofu to supervise the minting of coins!"

"I thank you for your majesty's grace!" Yang Youyi was instantly overwhelmed with joy. He had been wandering around for more than ten years. He didn't know how many times he had been sad. At this time, a feeling of being valued poured into his chest.

, it is difficult to repay the kindness of knowing someone.

"Get down!"

Since the Tang Dynasty, minting money has not been a benefit to the court, but a burden. It wants to abandon it, but it is a necessary method to rule the world and cannot be interrupted.

Because since the Tang Dynasty, no matter whether they are officials or ordinary people, they only need to collect the copper coins on hand and melt one coin to get twenty kilograms of copper, which can be used to cast copperware or recast other coins, taking advantage of the price difference between different coins.

, the profit can be three times or even more, so the trend of private hoarding and private selling is often prohibited.

However, the imperial court worked hard to transport copper coins from various places and then sent them out. Sometimes the coins were only 20/10, and sometimes they even lost money.

Moreover, there were people who minted money privately. They took the copper coins from the imperial court and added some more lead after smelting them, which turned into bad money and circulated in the world. The imperial government collected taxes and found that the copper coins had shrunk, resulting in heavy losses.

In the early and mid-Tang Dynasty, the practice of piracy among the people was often banned. People in the Jianghuai River abandoned agriculture and relied on the mountains and swamps to set up private casting furnaces and make huge profits. In order to pursue more profits, they inevitably cast money privately.

It is mixed with a large amount of lead and iron to pass it off as substandard. This is the so-called "bad money" or "bad money". Once this kind of bad money pours into the market, people will consciously keep the good money and use the bad money.

If you use bad money to pay taxes, there will only be more and more bad money on the market, causing huge losses to the government.

So much so that during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, he directly issued an edict and asked, "How about we simply lift the ban on minting money."

So much so that bartering has remained popular to this day.

When he thought that he would forge one million guan in the future, but the copper recovered would only be worth 600,000 to 700,000 guan, and he would still lose blood, Li Jia felt the urge to kill.

"No wonder Zhou Shizong chose to restrict Buddhism. The bald donkeys really have too much money. The court needs money to distribute salaries. Without the support of the monks, Zhou Shizong might have gone bankrupt!"

Fortunately, copper coins are still available here in Lingnan, and a lot of silver is in circulation, so it has not degenerated into a barter situation.

If the issuance of lead coins is stopped, there will be less money on the market and there will be a money shortage. And if Shenwu Tongbao is forged, a large amount of copper coins will be needed to fill the money shortage.

If there are too many copper coins in the market, prosperous trade will overflow the copper coins, and soon the market will be short of copper again.

The whole world is short of copper, and it's a vicious cycle. No matter how much copper coins are forged, more will flow out, and then more will be lost.
Chapter completed!