Marin's plan was very good, but Julius II was a little dissatisfied. It was not that the Pope was unwilling to cooperate with Marin, but that he doubted the ability of the North Sea Kingdom to mint. After all, the North Sea Kingdom had no history of minting before, and whether or not it was a big problem. However, the Siena Bank had a mint, but more than a dozen families in charge were killed by Marin.
You should know that mints are a very important department. In order to better control the mints, the bankers of Siena generally chose family members to control the mints and master core technology. But Marin destroyed all members of the dozen families, and the Siena Mint lost its core technology.
Moreover, as far as Julius II knows, the mint requires a lot of craftsmen. For example, the mint in Tours, France had three or four thousand coin craftsmen. Moreover, they were all skilled old craftsmen. New craftsmen usually started. After all, this was to mint money, not to produce ordinary things.
In this era, all coins from European countries were forged by hand. The mint first asked ordinary craftsmen to stamp and cut round gold or silver pieces of the same size. Then, the experienced mint craftsmen used hammers and stamping molds to beat the required person's avatars and letters on the gold or silver pieces. This was not only time-consuming, but also the forged coins were different.
Among them, the best forged is gold coins. Because there is a conventional unspoken rule in Europe - gold coins are not adulterated. Therefore, most of the gold coins in Europe are made of high-purity gold. High-purity gold is very soft. When forging with hammers and molds, it is easy to make the avatar and letters form, which is easier to make. Moreover, the reason why the gold coins are only about 3.56 grams is that they cannot be made too large. If it is larger, the already softer gold coins will easily distort. Similarly, silver coins are the same. However, because countries doped copper in silver coins, the silver coins are harder, so they are not worried that they will deform too much. But the problem that accompanies copper, the silver coins become harder and it becomes difficult to forge the avatar and letters. Therefore, forging silver coins now is much more difficult than forging gold coins.
Julius II was actually very interested in Marin's desire to cast a batch of gold coins with his avatar for the Holy See. After all, his life was limited, but gold could last for thousands of years. As long as the gold coins with his avatar were there, his reputation could be passed down to future generations and lasting forever. However, the Pope had never had a strong mint, and he had no such idea.
As for Marin's attempt to mint gold coins for him, Julius II could not believe in Marin's coin minting technology...
Seeing that the Pope's father-in-law didn't believe in his strength, Marin said pretentiously:
"At this point, I have to let you see the coin minting technology of our Beihai Kingdom..."
Then, he turned his head and left (although he was stabbed in his butt and could not sit down, but there was no problem walking), and came to the barracks of his own army and shouted:
"Who has the copper coins minted by Beihai Guoxin?"
"Who has the copper coins minted by Beihai Guoxin?"
...
The soldiers of the Beihai Country Mountain Infantry Regiment who came with him were a little confused - what is the boss doing? Is it short of money? It shouldn't be...
How could they know that Marin just wanted his father-in-law to see the strength of the Beihai Kingdom's coin minting. It happened that the Beihai Kingdom had tried to produce a batch of brass coins some time ago, which were pressed with a spiral coin machine. The patterns were clear and exquisite, and they could be used to show Julius II to let him see the technical strength of the Beihai Kingdom Mint.
But the problem is that Marin is the ruler of the Beihai Kingdom and does not bring much silver coins in his hand, at least gold coins, so how can he have copper coins? So, he can only turn to his subordinates for help...
After shouting for a while, a soldier finally realized that he could lend money to the boss and make him owe him favors, which is absolutely worth it!
So, a group of soldiers took out the newly issued ninety-cross golden eagle brass coins issued by the Beihai Kingdom and handed them to Marin one after another.
Marin was amused and crying. He was not really short of money and wanted to borrow money, so he could only take a sample. Of course, he would not let his subordinates suffer losses. He picked up more than a dozen new brass coins in Beihai Kingdom, but gave them back to the soldiers who gave them brass coins and other numbers. Then, he brought the dozen brass coins back to the backyard of the Latrang Temple where Julius II was.
"Look, this is a newly minted copper coin from my mint. Look at the quality, isn't it good?"
"Gold coin?" Julius II had never seen zinc brass, and its color was very similar to gold. Moreover, because it was newly minted and was still yellow and brilliant, Julius II mistakenly thought it was a gold coin.
But after carefully holding it in your hand and observing it, Julius II realized that this was the copper coin...
But after observing these copper coins, Julius II was shocked:
"Why is this pattern so exquisite and the traces are very deep..."
His surprise was normal, because in this era of hand-made coins, it was difficult to create copper coins. Because the patterns and words on the copper coins were beaten out by coin craftsmen in steps. But the problem is that the copper is very hard, and only after returning to the furnace to reach a certain high temperature will the copper become soft. After the softened hot copper sheets are taken out, the coin craftsmen will step up their creation while it is still soft.
But the problem is that the hand-made speed is very slow, so slow that it cannot keep up with the cooling speed of the copper sheet. When the copper sheet cools down, it is no longer soft. It is more difficult for coin craftsmen to pound out precise patterns and texts on the copper sheet. Therefore, the casting of copper coins is often rough and does not have deep traces. Because the copper is very hard after cooling down, it is difficult to pound out deep traces.
The Beihai Mint in Marin used a spiral coin machine to press coins, which was very short. Just rotate the arm a few times and press the steel mold towards the copper sheets, and it would be minted quickly. The hot and soft hot copper sheets did not have time to cool down and harden. Moreover, the pressure of the spiral coin machine is very high, and the marks are naturally much deeper than that of coin craftsmen using artificial hammers to beat them.
Therefore, the North Sea brass coins that Marin gave to Julius II were not only exquisite in patterns, but also had deep traces. Ordinary craftsmen could not beat such exquisite coins at all.
...
"Do you think the quality is OK? This is a copper coin. If it is a gold coin, it will be easier to manufacture."
After reading more than a dozen copper coins, Julius II nodded, but asked again:
"It's hard to make such a beautiful coin? How fast is it? Can it keep up with the production needs?"
Julius II didn't know that the Beihai Kingdom used machine-made coins, and he thought that Marin had top coin craftsmen with superb skills.
Marin smiled and explained to Julius II the story of the North Sea using a spiral coin minting machine. Julius II's eyes suddenly shone, hoping to introduce a spiral coin minting machine for the Pope.
Marin quickly stopped him, kidding that the Pope is not a territory that can be hereditary, so why should we introduce such good technology to the Pope? Moreover, if the Pope wants to mint coins, he can contract it to the Siena Bank controlled by Marin. If the spiral coin machine technology is mastered by the Pope, Marin can be sure that those greedy cardinals will definitely create bad coins in a crazily manner and disrupt the market.
Under Marin's persuasion, Julius II, who felt that he had lived for a few years, finally gave up the idea of ​​introducing a spiral coin machine. However, he still attached great importance to the casting of gold coins with his avatar...
"Let me do this, I'll send someone to call the young and promising sculptor Michelangelo, and ask him to design a money mold for me, and then give it to your people to mint gold coins. As for gold, you should first use the existing ones, such as the gold ingots and Florin gold coins you seized, Ducate gold coins, etc...."
"What's the name of the new gold coin? Ducat or Florin?" asked Marin.
"Justice Pope Ducat..." Julius II thought for a while and said. Previously, the Pope had ordered the minting of gold coins, but they were generally called Florence. Julius II planned to have something different, so he planned to change the name to "Pope Ducat". In addition to being different from history, it also means that it is in line with the Ducat gold coins issued by Venice.
"By the way, where did that young sculptor Michelangelo go... Well, it seems that he was sent to the Sistine Chapel to carve the zenith mural "Genesis", and I have to send someone to call him over..."
"Who, go to the Sistine Chapel and call Xiaomi (Michelangelo) to me!" Julius II shouted with majesty. That posture seemed to be not to invite a great artist, but to summon a watchdog at will, which made Marin a little stunned...
Chapter completed!