The Rise of the European Emperor

Although Marin felt that by casting fake silver coins, he was cheating on the French, but in fact it was not. Why? Because the fake silver coins minted by Marin have stable performance, and the corrosion resistance of nickel-nickel alloys is stronger than that of genuine silver coins.

One of the important requirements of currency is durability. The fake silver coins minted by Marin, as long as others can't see the fake silver coins, have the function of currency. As long as it is durable enough to be stored, it can be circulated for a long time.

And for a big country like France, the currency is often not enough. Just like the Ming Dynasty, the productivity was too high, and as a result, the currency was not enough, and the value of silver was also very high.

So, to a certain extent, Marin may be regarded as helping the French social economy. Because, with enough money, materials can flow more smoothly. Under the circumstance of currency shortage, Marin's behavior is hard to say whether he is cheating France or helping France.

Of course, this kind of behavior may help French society, but it will certainly not help the French royal family. Because the French royal family relies on seigniorage to eat the dividends of seigniorage. As a result, Marin minted coins on his behalf, which is equivalent to robbing the interests of the French court.

Therefore, the conclusion is that Marin helped the social and economic development of France, but pitted the French court...

This is a very complex economic problem, and it is difficult to explain it clearly in one sentence. And Marin didn't react at the moment, he always felt that he took a big advantage. But later, when he realized it himself, the first thing he did was to mint white copper coins on a large scale in Beihai, to promote the development of the national economy, and to take advantage of the seigniorage tax...

In fact, nickel coins have been very popular in later history. Even the one-yuan coin of Huaxia in later generations is nickel-plated with steel core. And the one-dollar coin of the third set of Soft Sister Coin Great Wall series is copper-nickel alloy. Therefore, Marin's behavior is actually to help the French mint a batch of modern coins in advance. Of course, he also ate the profits of the seigniorage, and it was a huge profit. If the nickel-copper alloy coins were circulated in Beihai, Malin would be able to die just by eating the seigniorage, and it would also promote economic development...

It's just that Marin didn't understand this for a long time, and he used nickel metal to help other countries mint fake silver coins. Although he has also reaped huge profits from coinage, it has also stimulated the economic development of the enemy country... People are short of currency, and Marin's nickel-copper coins can be used as real coins. Isn't this just the right way to promote other people's economic development? The only thing that suffers is the hostile court who was robbed of the seigniorage...

...

Of course, this approach is only valid for Europe. If you want to do business with the Ming Dynasty in the future, you have to use real money. Why? Because the people of the Ming Dynasty had seen cupronickel, and they also had their own methods of identifying cupronickel. Europeans have never seen cupronickel, so naturally they can use nickel-copper coins as silver coins to fool them. But Huaxia has had cupronickel for a long time. If you want to fool others, it is easy to be seen through.

It is precisely because the Ming Dynasty people have rich experience in distinguishing silver,

In desperation, the Spaniards minted American silver dollars containing up to 90% of silver to trade with Daming. Otherwise, the people of the Ming Dynasty would reject it.

However, this is not difficult for Marlin. why? Because Marin has long thought about the source of silver - Iwami Ginzan, Japan...

This year, Iwami Silver Mountain seems to have not been developed on a large scale, and everyone does not know that this is a super silver mountain. It seems that the local daimyo has only mined small-scale silver mines on the surface, and it has been mined. It wasn't until 1526 that huge silver veins were discovered underground.

Marin can completely occupy Iwami Ginzan and mine this super-large mine. Then, use Japanese silver to buy goods from Daming, and bring it to your own style...

As for Europe, we still use cupronickel coins to be more realistic. Who told everyone not to know cupronickel... Such a slut, who wouldn't be fooled by them?

Compared with the nickel-copper coins of later generations, the fake silver coins forged by Marin only added some lead to increase the density of the fake silver coins. But that doesn't matter, because Marin has increased the nickel content, making the currency highly resistant to corrosion and very durable.

Moreover, these lead are also produced by themselves - the Buckens Lead-Zinc Mine not only produces zinc ingots, but also lead blocks... Marin implemented the use of blast furnaces at the Buckens Lead-Zinc Mine in Newfoundland, which greatly improved the smelting efficiency. Reduced production costs. Whether it is nickel or lead and zinc, the production cost is much lower in Europe. If these low-cost nickel and lead are used for coinage, the cost of coinage can be further reduced.

...

In addition to returning 50 tons of nickel nugget metal, Wiltz also sent back ten tanks of concentrated sulfuric acid...

This is a by-product of the processing of laterite nickel ore. When nickel sulfide is calcined at high temperature, the generated sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide are absorbed by the water tower to generate a mixture of sulfuric acid and sulfurous acid. Of course, sulfurous acid is the main one, and sulfuric acid is only a minority.

But Marin remembered that sulfurous acid would gradually oxidize into sulfuric acid when placed in the air. This process is long and inefficient. But Marin didn't care either, because he wasn't in much demand either.

According to Marin's instructions, after Wiltz extracted a large amount of sulfurous acid and a small amount of sulfuric acid mixture, he placed it in the sun to expose it to the sun, and made people stir it with a stick, and occasionally used a pump similar to a pump. Simple tool to inject air (actually oxygen) into the sulfurous acid. In this way, the conversion of sulfurous acid into sulfuric acid is greatly accelerated.

Even, Wiltz also let people use a sealed easy-to-heat and inject a lot of air to test whether it can speed up the transformation. Unfortunately, the test failed...

why? Metal containers cannot be used because sulfuric acid dissolves metals. However, if the metal container is not used, the high pressure resistance of the container will be greatly reduced. Wiltz's experiment also used earthenware containers. As a result, the container exploded because the pressure was too high after heating. The worker in charge of the container was disfigured by sulfuric acid on the spot, terrifying Wiltz. Because he wasn't far away at the time.

After that, Wiltz gave up the experiment of accelerating the conversion of sulfurous acid with high temperature and high pressure, because it was too dangerous...

Therefore, this time he only sent back ten tanks of concentrated sulfuric acid by-products.

"Concentrated sulfuric acid...how to use this thing?" Marin fell into deep thought...

As it happens, Marin has an application report for the increase in production of the Laayoune Phosphate Mine in Western Sahara. This report is a request to increase the number of black slaves, because these days, mining is all labor-intensive. To increase production, you must increase miners. And black slaves are the cheapest miners...

Looking at this report, Marin was suddenly inspired:

"Yes, it can be used to produce superphosphate!"

Superphosphate is a water-soluble phosphate fertilizer. Because it is soluble in water, fertilization with superphosphate is very fast. Conversely, when apatite is used as a phosphate fertilizer, the absorption is very slow. Because, apatite is insoluble in water. To use apatite as a fertilizer, it must be fertilized in advance as a base fertilizer. Otherwise, in the growing season of crops, fertilization may not be able to take effect quickly. Moreover, even so, the phosphorus content of apatite may not be completely absorbed by crops.

Superphosphate is also the earliest chemical fertilizer applied in human history, because its production is very simple - just dissolve apatite with dilute sulfuric acid...

Yes, it's that simple. Dilute sulfuric acid decomposes apatite (Ca5(PO4)3F) into water-soluble calcium dihydrogen phosphate monohydrate Ca(H2PO4)2?H2O, anhydrous calcium sulfate and a small amount of phosphoric acid, containing effective P4O10 14%～20% , of which 80% to 95% are soluble in water, which is a water-soluble quick-acting phosphate fertilizer, which can be directly used as phosphate fertilizer or compound fertilizer.

The most important thing is that after the decomposition of dilute sulfuric acid, this fertilizer can be dissolved in water and can be quickly absorbed by crops, and the efficiency is 100 times that of apatite. It can be said that the same day fertilization, the same day results... Unlike the original apatite, the natural transformation and absorption is very slow, and the absorption is not complete, and a lot of phosphorus components are wasted...

...

"Hey, so it seems that sulfuric acid is quite useful!"

Thinking of this, Marin wrote a letter and asked the ship to America to bring it to Wiltz, instructing Wiltz to pay attention to the production of sulfuric acid.

And, Marin remembers, sulfuric acid is not necessarily required to decompose apatite. It seems that sulfurous acid can also be used... In this way, through sulfuric acid and sulfurous acid, Marin can build the simplest calcium superphosphate fertilizer plant...

In addition, it seems that the reaction between dilute sulfuric acid and zinc metal can produce hydrogen... How about getting some hydrogen balloons for Caesar and Robert to play? Marlin couldn't help thinking...