The Rise of the European Emperor

When Liu Laogen saw Kong Tai casually bringing over a few silver bars, his eyes straightened. In the Ming Dynasty, there was no shortage of copper coins, but there was a shortage of silver.

It is still the Zhengde Dynasty, the Portuguese have not yet arrived in China, and the Japanese Iwami Silver Mountain has not yet been mined. Therefore, silver in the Ming Dynasty is very scarce right now.

How to put it, the current gold-silver ratio in the Ming Dynasty was about 1:5 or 1:6. In other words, five or six taels of silver can be exchanged for one tael of gold. In Europe, it is 1 to 12. Of course, with the mining of silver in the Americas and the development of the Iwami Silver Mine, the gold-silver exchange ratio in Europe would rise to 1:15 in the middle and late 16th century, and then to 1:20 in the 17th century. But in the Ming Dynasty, until 1600, the exchange ratio was still 1:8.

It stands to reason that the Ming Dynasty is so short of silver now, one tael of silver should be able to exchange a lot of copper coins, right? The reasoning is like this, but in the early Ming Dynasty, the imperial court had issued a death rule - 1 tael of silver = 1000 copper coins = 1 guanbao banknote...

Of course, the treasure banknotes were depreciated severely because of the excessive issuance of Ming Chengzu Zhu Di. Later, in the Zhengde period, it was abolished directly. However, the exchange ratio between silver and copper coins has continued.

However, for ordinary people, silver is very rare. When ordinary people shop, they still carry a lot of copper coins on their bodies, which are strung with ropes, like keychains on belts in later generations, jingling, and But a lot heavier.

Generally speaking, only rich families have gold and silver collections at home. In the eyes of ordinary people, silver is a symbol of wealth.

The silver bars that Kong Tai took out were authentic Bohemian silver bars with high purity. Because Marin knew that people in the Ming Dynasty were very shrewd and had many ways to identify silver. It is not feasible in Daming to use the bad currency of Europe.

Even at the end of the Ming Dynasty in the 17th century, if Europeans wanted to buy things from Ming Dynasty, they had to use the purest Spanish silver dollar, with a fixed silver content of 90%. The Spanish silver dollar was also the only Western currency accepted by the Ming Dynasty. If you use other low-quality European silver coins to buy things, people in the Ming Dynasty will not recognize them.

Therefore, Marin didn't talk nonsense, and directly took the purest Bohemian silver bars in Europe. A Bohemian silver bar weighs 600 grams, which is equivalent to 2400 deniers (containing 0.25 grams of silver). If converted into silver, it would look like 16 taels of silver.

In the Ming Dynasty, 16 taels was 16,000 Wen, and more than two stones of rice could be purchased. In the Ming Dynasty, one stone of rice was about 153 catties, and two stones of rice was more than 300 catties. A silver bar of 16 taels can be exchanged for four to five thousand catties of rice. Even in the paddy fields in the south of the Yangtze River, the landed rice per mu in this era is about 200 catties. Therefore, a silver bar can be worth the value of the annual rice output of twenty or thirty acres of paddy fields in the south of the Yangtze River.

And if the family has 20 to 30 acres of good paddy fields, it is definitely considered a well-off family in the Ming Dynasty, and it can support a scholar to take the imperial examination...

Kong Tai took out a few silver bars at random, which was enough for the annual income of several well-off families in the Ming Dynasty. Why didn't Liu Laogen be surprised?

"My lord, what are you going to buy? Our boat is too small to fit..." Liu Laogen trembled a little as he took the silver bar. The small fishing boat they used to smuggle can be filled with a single silver bar. These few silver bars...

"It's nothing, I just want to buy some tung oil, nails and canvas for shipbuilding. By the way, buy some waterproof paint..." Kong Tai thought for a while.

"The paint is waterproof..." Liu Laogen wondered.

He didn't know that there is no lacquer tree in Europe, and the paints are prepared. Not every kind of paint can be waterproof. Unlike the Ming Dynasty, the paints of the Ming Dynasty were all based on raw lacquer obtained from lacquer trees. Raw lacquer is waterproof, and most of the paint in the Ming Dynasty can also be waterproof.

"That would be great, you can buy enough tung oil, nails, paint and canvas for two speedboats..." After finishing speaking, Kong Tai gestured to the size of the speedboat.

"It's such a big boat...two barrels of tung oil are enough, one barrel of paint is enough...nails...copper nails are needed to build a boat..."

"Bronze nails? Are they expensive?" Kong Tai's eyelids twitched.

Copper is very expensive in Europe. Nails made of copper are labor-intensive and more expensive...Kong Tai is a little uncertain...

"It's a bit expensive, it costs 200 Wen a catty. You can buy 5 catties for a tael of silver..." Liu Laogen replied.

"What? One tael of silver can buy five catties of copper nails?" Kong Tai almost thought he heard it wrong. That's catties, heavier than pounds...

"That's right? You think it's expensive too?" Liu Laogen asked in confusion.

Kong Tai almost didn't come up in one breath-can this be considered expensive? Daming has 16 taels per catty, which is equivalent to buying 80 taels of copper for one tael of silver. This comparison is 1 to 80!

But before he was shocked, Liu Laogen continued:

|"The price of copper is only 50 Wen a catty, and one tael of silver can be exchanged for 20 catties of copper (crude copper). They made copper nails, and the price has quadrupled. Do you think it is black or not? Even if it is red cooked copper (high-purity copper) , it’s less than 100 Wen a catty..."

Kong Tai almost lost his breath:

"What? One tael of silver can be exchanged for 20 catties of copper?" Kong Tai almost doubted his life. The last big purchase in Guangzhou did not involve metal, so he didn't know that the price of copper in Ming Dynasty was so cheap.

Even if the 100 Wen per catty of red copper is calculated, one tael of silver can buy 10 catties of high-purity copper, which is 160 taels... 1 to 160 silver-copper ratio... Kong Tai felt that he was going crazy, this comparison price is cheaper than Europe 10 times more...

"No wonder the Grand Duke wants to come to Ming Dynasty to buy things, it's so cheap!" Kong Tai murmured.

"My lord, how many copper nails do you want to buy?" Liu Laogen asked. Generally speaking, a few catties of copper nails are enough for a speedboat.

As the saying goes, "a bad boat has three catties of nails", that is to say, for an ordinary boat, three catties of nails are enough. The speedboat made by Kong Tai is not much bigger than ordinary boats, and a speedboat can use up to 5 catties of nails. Two speedboats, with 10 catties of copper nails, exactly 2 taels of silver. This is because copper nails are used, which is more luxurious. After all, it is a sea-going ship and has high requirements for corrosion resistance. As for iron nails used by inland river boats, they only cost 20 Wen a catty, and you can buy 50 catties for a tael of silver...

However, at this time, Kong Tai was full of pride - since copper nails are so cheap, I want to nail the hull of the boat full of copper nails! Such a bold ship will probably envy many people when it sails back to Europe!

So, with a big wave of his hand, he said proudly:

"Buy me a brass nail for a silver bar!"

"16 taels of copper nails? My dear, that's 80 catties of copper nails! You don't need that much..." This is a nail that is eight times the demand...

"Don't worry about it! It's a big deal, I'll let those craftsmen nail copper nails on the bottom of the boat, and see how those shipworms can still bite! Hehe..." Kong Tai said proudly.

Liu Laogen stopped talking. He had seen people wearing silk clothes, riding a BMW, and hugging each other, but he had never seen a boat whose bottom was covered with copper nails... ...Even if you pretend it, others can't see it... Could it be that you dive to see the copper nails on the bottom of your boat?

However, this is not something he can manage, so he took the silver bar and left silently, leaving Kong Tai who was still there with arrogance, exuding bullshit and embarrassment in the air...

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