Chapter 91: The Pseudo-Coin Merchant in "City of Light" (Part 2)

In the Song Dynasty, the Southern Song Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty combined for about three hundred years. A total of 22 subject examinations were held, and more than 41 people were admitted. In other words, the system examination was held about once every ten years, and two people were admitted at an average of each time.

Unfortunately, the Su Shi brothers entered the career of officialdom through the discipline. That time they only passed the examination for two brothers. Su Shi won the top scorer in the discipline examination - the third time in the examination, and his younger brother Su Che followed closely behind - the fourth time in the discipline examination. In the century in the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, there was only a literati named Wu Yu before Su Shi who took the examination for the discipline examination.

Su Shi knew that Zhao Xing was obsessed with miscellaneous studies. Judging from Zhao Xing's construction of a house for him and his business actions, he was a strong man with amazing organizational skills and extraordinary financial management skills... But this does not mean that he can pass the science examination, so he introduced Zhao Xing in detail the procedures and difficulties of the science examination.

Zhao Xing was very confident in himself. He shook his head and replied: "Why should my teacher resign? I believe that if I recognize the second place in mathematics, no one in the Song Dynasty dares to be the first. My teacher just wants to be your chief examiner. I will find a referee myself. If I don't believe it, I won't be able to pass the exam."

Su Shi pondered for a moment and suggested: "It's better to take the classics and history exams. With your talent, you are not a big deal... It's just that you don't get into the Jinshi Lu, and you feel a little aggrieved and separated..."

The candidates for the subject need to recommend officials of the current dynasty. Since Zhao Xing has the status of Su Shi's disciple, in order to avoid suspicion, Su Shi had to resign as the chief examiner after the sponsorship. However, if someone else was recommended, or Zhao Xing participated in the Jinshi in the classics and history category, there was no need to recommend it, and he completely followed the normal procedures, Su Shi could continue to serve as the chief examiner, and the reviewer was his disciple, Zhang Lei, one of the four bachelors of Su family.

This year's imperial examination is a special enrollment subject called "Kuan Judicial Examination". The examination mainly involves classics, history and world affairs, and does not test verses. Those who pass the examination mainly enter Zhaowenguan (also known as Hongwenguan in the Tang Dynasty), History Museum, Jixianyuan and other departments to serve as official positions in editing, editing and proofreading. These official positions are idle positions, which basically means to be a waste of time - just flirt with a book and proofreading work, just read.

A normal imperial examination and Jinshi must be written into historical books, which is the "Jinshi Lu", but those who have passed the imperial examination have the title of Jinshi, but they are not included in the "Jinshi Lu" - because the Jinshi Lu is written according to the year, and the Enji Lu is not in the normal imperial examination year.

Su Shi guessed wrongly, Zhao Xing didn't care whether he could enter the "Jinshi Record" at all, and no one knew that his existence was better. So, after Su Shi introduced him, Zhao Xing was full of confidence in opposing the passing of the Jinshi this year - what a backdoor!

He touched his chin, flashed his eyes, first sighed, and then asked in a discussion tone: "Don't feel wronged..."

Zhao Xing smiled with a smile on his face: "This is better... Teacher, don't you know? My level of poetry and fu has always been poor. It is enough for me to participate in such an imperial examination and become a Jinshi... Otherwise, I will disgusted the Jinshi. I heard that the officials will give me a background in order to take care of it. Anyway, I have free time - I even took the exam a few times, and I don't hand in the blank papers every time, just wait for him to give me a background."

In fact, Su Shi did not regard Zhao Xing as a disciple, and the relationship between them was a bit like a teacher and a friend. He was an easy-going person. When Zhao Xing came here, he was as casual as he came to his own home. He also knew that Zhao Xing was talented. When Zhao Xing was allocating construction groups when he built a house, he knew that the other party had a strong organizational ability and had a careful plan. This kind of ability was not born, but needed to go through special learning.

There was no special "efficiency science" or "historicism" in this era. This kind of science was called "the art of kings and dominance" at this time. In ancient China, proficiency in this science was a crime of beheading, and even implicating the nine tribes so that they could not leave any genes in national history.

Understanding this, he understood Zhao Xing's pretending to be dull and tried his best to show his understanding. This is also the reason why he knew that Zhao Xing was unwilling to learn poetry but admitted that he was his disciple.

In a vaguely, he also believed in the "Successor of Wuhou" mentioned by the Cheng clan's children. There was such a person who was cautious in dealing with things and was proficient in the "art of kings and dominance" as his disciple, at least, he could protect his family when he was in danger.

The ancients had a simple idea and thought that keeping a name forever was a congratulatory act, so there were not many people participating in Enke, which means that the competition for this kind of imperial examination was not fierce. Zhao Xing did not have to resign from the position of chief examiner when he participated in Enke, which was simply a solution to both worlds. However, Zhao Xing's answer made him not know whether to be angry or frustrated.

Su Shi pointed at Zhao Xing and said nothing - how could my disciple, Su Shi, fall to threatening the official family with "not handing over a blank book" and what the world is: "With people, why are you doing this? I am no longer demoted, so you don't need to hide your talent - 'If life is just like the first meeting...', isn't this poem good?

What? Haha, stop pretending. Not long ago, the messenger of Goryeo came to my court. He said that the whole country of Goryeo is singing your poem. This is not what you did. Then the whole Goryeo is blind - Li Ren. Now you take out your name and you are not a vulgar person with no body. Why should you hide it anymore?"

Zhao Xingchu was surprised when he heard this poem. After hearing Su Dongpo's words, he quietly breathed a sigh of relief. Su Dongpo once boasted: There is no book he had never read. Since Su Dongpo said that this poem was written by him, then no one in this era will compete with him for copyright.

He was a little ashamed and a little shy. Just as he didn't know what to say, the servant brought Chen Gongchuan back. Su Shi waved to ask him to sit down, turned around and took out a cloth bag, poured out a few copper coins, and asked Chen Gongchuan to watch.

These are several copper coins of different eras, marked with the casting age, and the shape and size are almost exactly the same as those of Song coins... A little different is that its casting process seems to be higher than that of Song coins - it is made of stamping, completely imitating the appearance of Song coins.

Su Shi pulled the copper plates, picked out a few, and explained to Chen Gongchuan: "In the seventh year of Yuanfeng, these copper coins appeared in Quanzhou and Guangzhou. It is said that they were copper coins obtained by Japanese merchants when they traded with me Song merchants. Then they brought the Song Dynasty to purchase goods... Look, these coins are copper coins cast by my Song Dynasty, and these coins are copper coins flowing in from Japan. What are the differences between you?"

Zhao Xing's face was rigid, and he couldn't tell what he thought of the batch of copper coins. Chen Gongchuan was a stupid person. Asked by his idol, he answered very seriously: "Two coins - this money from Japan, the money seems to be more exquisite, the pattern is clearer, and the money color is yellower, which seems to indicate that the Japanese money contains a high copper content."

Su Shi nodded: "I can tell you with certainty: this batch of Japanese coins was not minted by my Song Dynasty, but I banned the outflow of copper coins. But what's strange is that this batch of Japanese coins is very large and unimaginable.

Our Song Dynasty Coin Casting Department has hundreds of thousands of craftsmen. The copper-lead mine in Qianshan, Xinzhou alone often employs more than 100,000 miners to mine day and night. There are 26 iron coins in various casting copper, of which 17 are casting copper coins, with a casting amount of 5.06 million guan, and 9 are casting iron coins, with a casting amount of nearly 890,000 guan.

The Ministry of Justice went to Japan to estimate the amount of money. The amount was one million yuan, which was equivalent to the total amount of iron coins in the Iron Coin of the 9th Supervisory Office of the Song Dynasty. This is not something that can be made by one household. It requires at least tens of thousands of people. If so many people are in my Song Dynasty, it is impossible for our officials in the dynasty to know."

Then, Su Shi picked up a few coins from the pile of coins and spread them in front of him, and continued, "Chen Yanei, please see, these are new copper coins that appeared in the eighth year of Yuanfeng. These coins were circulated in Japan, these coins were found in Goryeo, and the money was still exactly the same as my Song coins. Compared with the three coins, the copper coins in Japan and Goryeo were made by one person, and the copper content was higher than that of my Song coins, so the money was yellow."

Chen Gongchuan didn't say anything, he just glanced at Zhao Xing. Zhao Xing looked curious at this moment, flipping around and studying the copper coins.

Su Shi turned around and took out a cloth bag and poured out a pile of coins, including gold, silver and copper coins. These coins were all round, but it was strange that copper coins were round. The copper coins of the Song Dynasty were round on the outside and square on the inside, so they were called "knot square". However, these copper coins had square patterns, and the square hole was indeed solid, and the whole coin formed a complete circle.

"This is the copper coins from the first year of Yuanyou, which was popular in your Jiaozhi. Like the previous batch of copper coins, local merchants said that this was brought by the Song merchants they traded. Compared with the previous two batches of coins, this batch of coins is more exquisitely cast, especially these gold and silver coins." Su Shi turned over the gold and silver coins and signaled Chen Gongchuan to see the edges of the silver coins and gold coins.

The edges of these gold and silver coins are cast with fine sawtooths. Su Shi turned the copper coins and there were also sawtooths on the edges, which made it look different from the Song coins.

The yin and yang surfaces of gold and silver coins are minted with words, with the front being "Yuanyou Jinbao" and "Yuanyou Silverbao" and the back being engraved with the weight of gold and silver coins. The three lines of characters are: According to the imperial decree, the full color gold (silver) yuan, which is worth half a tael.

Su Shi pointed to the fine teeth on the edge of the coin and said, "When the minister in the court saw these fine teeth, he couldn't understand the meaning for a long time, and then he saw the merchant using it. Then he suddenly realized that the merchant used the silver edge with a knife, scraped off some silver scraps, and then used it, but the store folded the color and weighed the valuation. The minister in the court suddenly realized: it turned out that these tooth lines were deliberately scraped the edge of the money.

Why should we prevent people from scraping? We weighed it. The amount of these money was extremely accurate. It was said that "half liang is worth", and it was exactly half a liang. Therefore, this thing has been used as a weight in the market... How is this possible? The weight of the ten ingots is different. These millions of gold, silver and copper coins are actually accurate to the point of being exactly right...

The strangest thing is this copper coin. My Song Dynasty copper coin is all round, but the hole in the middle of this copper coin is indeed solid, and it is a few more zhu copper than ordinary copper coins. Who cast this coin? How could it be so luxurious?
Chapter completed!