The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

"Trading cloth for war is still too much trouble."

On the third day of working as a clerk in Qinying, Chen Ping took the sergeant of the "cooking squad" to buy vegetables and meat. As soon as he came back, he told Heifu his opinion. As long as they spoke slowly, the two could have a brief communication.

"Cloth can only be used for large-scale trade. Otherwise, it will cause inconvenience to both buyers and sellers. Besides, there is not much cloth in the camp. It is better to trade with money. This is the long-term solution."

Heifu nodded. Most of the cloth in their hands was seized in Waihuang. Such spoils did not need to be returned to the public, so Yang Xiong gave some to each garrison chief. Heifu did not want to embezzle it. After making clothes for the soldiers who lacked summer clothes, there was not much left.

On the contrary, there were still several thousand half-liang coins rewarded after the battles of Chenliu and Waihuang.

So he said to Chen Ping: "I already have an idea, but I want a local to help me find out the gaps."

Heifu asked Chen Ping, Zhongming, Li Xian and others to come in, and put a half-liang coin of Qin, a "釿jin cloth coin" of Wei, and a "眜huán coin" of Wei on the table.

"Chen Ping, tell me what kind of shapes these coins are."

As a local, Chen Ping certainly knew, and after he agreed, he began to talk.

It turned out that the currency system of Wei was formulated by Li Kui during the reign of Wei Wenhou, and supplemented by Bai Gui, a big businessman during the reign of Wei Huiwang. It was more complicated in types and shapes than that of Qin.

The most common one is the 釿布 coin, which is a flat-shouldered empty-head cloth coin. There are three types of currency: "two 釿, one 釿, and half 釿". One 釿 of Wei is about 30 grams in later generations. About one hundred 釿 can be converted into a larger unit of measurement, "寽". For example, the 釿 cloth coin on the table was cast in Daliang, and the word "梁正一百当寽" is written on the front in Wei characters, which means that this is a coin worth one 釿, and one hundred coins are equivalent to one 寽 of copper.

The most obvious sign of Wei coins is that the words on the front are written upright, and there is another word "梁" on the back, which is written upside down, which is probably for anti-counterfeiting.

But in Hei Fu's opinion, although this anti-counterfeiting measure is well-intentioned, it is actually useless. Unlike the Qin State, which strictly prohibited private coinage, private coinage was rampant in the Wei State, so the coins on the market were mixed. Some of the empty-headed cloth was clearly two qian, but in fact it was as thin as paper, and the actual weight was not even half a qian...

Chen Ping said helplessly: "Some inferior coins were not privately minted by the local government. Although the Wei Kingdom was rich, the prince of the Wei Kingdom was extravagant and spent a lot of money every year to celebrate the birthday of the Qin King. The inner treasury was exhausted several times, so Daliang often minted inferior coins for profit."

These inside stories were all told to them by Chen Ping. Except for Heifu, Li Xian felt a little incredible, because in the Qin State, privately minting inferior coins would be sentenced to imprisonment, and the government would not take the lead in minting inferior coins, because that would greatly undermine credit.

It can be seen from this that the economy of the Wei State was on the verge of collapse.

Chen Ping also said that in addition to the empty-headed cloth, the Wei State still had another kind of coin, which was the other coin on the table: the round coin. It looks like a half-liang, but the space is a round hole, which is quite like a round coin.

"Round coins are specially used for trade with the Qin State. The weight marked is roughly half a liang, or one liang, but it is not true..."

After Chen Ping said this, everyone realized that not only the cloth was mostly inferior currency, but also the round coins. The round coins minted in the early years were fine. In recent years, the round coins on the market have been minted with larger and larger holes, which also means that the weight is getting lighter.

"In other words, originally one half-liang round coin can be exchanged for one Qin half-liang. In fact, two round coins are only as heavy as one half-liang coin."

After Chen Ping explained this, the next work was easy. Hei Fu had long planned to come up with an exchange ratio for Qin coins and Wei coins, so that Qin coins could also be used to buy things in the rural market to reduce the trouble of local garrisons and vendors.

However, when the Qin people took out half a liang of money, the local merchants insisted on exchanging it according to the unit on the coin, half a liang for one yuan coin, or four half a liang for one flat shoulder cloth weighing one liang.

In this way, the merchants made money, but the Qin soldiers lost money, didn't they?

"Why not exchange half a liang for two yuan coins, and half a liang for one liang cloth?" Hei Fu said that this exchange rate would be of great benefit to the Qin army and would allow them to save a lot of money during their garrison.

However, Chen Ping hurriedly dissuaded him, "Don't do this."

"Wei coins have different weights. If you exchange them all according to this method regardless of weight, it will be a big blow to local merchants. I am afraid that at that time, the market will complain and it will be disadvantageous to vagrants."

Although he was helping the Qin army, he was a local after all. When he encountered something that harmed the interests of local people, Chen Ping would certainly argue with reason.

"Then what do you think we should do?" Li Xian was somewhat dissatisfied with Chen Ping's "eating from the inside out".

"I do have an idea." Chen Ping thought for a moment and bowed to Hei Fu, saying, "It can save the Qin army and the village from being harmed. Fair trade can be achieved during the garrison period, and it can benefit later generations..."

...

The next morning, at the entrance of the bustling Huyou Township Market, a wooden board was nailed to the gate. People who could read squeezed over to take a look, but saw a beautiful handwritten Wei character on it. The general meaning is that after consultation with the three officials in the township, the Qin half-liang coins will be circulated in the market in parallel with the Wei coins in the future, and will be used as the standard official currency, and vendors are not allowed to refuse to accept them!

Common items on the market, such as vegetables, meat, grain, cloth, etc., are all given a standard price according to the half-liang coins, and the fluctuation shall not exceed one tenth!

The vendors in the township did not have too many complaints. Although they could not make more money by doing this, it did not harm them.

This was decided by Heifu and the Zhang brothers yesterday when he visited Zhang's house, according to Chen Ping's idea.

Zhang Bo was not very willing to agree, but was frightened by Heifu's words.

"This has already been implemented in Chenliu and Waihuang, and it will be sooner or later in Huyou Township. Since you two have worked with me for a long time, I will secretly tell you. In a few years, not only will Qin coins be widely used in Wei, I am afraid that even local Wei coins will be banned!"

"I advise you two to replace all the Wei coins in your home with Qin coins as soon as possible after Daliang City is broken and Wei is stable, otherwise it will be too late to regret!"

...

After offering advice to help Heifu solve the buying and selling problem, Chen Ping also started to do his own job: writing some announcements for the Qin army that needed to be translated into Wei characters. The announcement in the township market yesterday was written by him personally.

But first, Chen Ping had to master Qin characters. Fortunately, he was smart and learned quickly.

Speaking of which, since King Ping moved east, the world has entered a period of more than 500 years of division. The wars that lasted for hundreds of years not only brought about the division of the princes, but also the culture began to "go its own way".

The coins that caused great trouble to the Qin people in their local lives a few days ago are one example. In addition, the variant characters are also a major obstacle to the exchanges between countries.

The cultures of various countries developed relatively independently, with strong local colors. The characters have strong local colors, which will inevitably make the characters between regions prominent, thus forming variant characters.

The royal family fell, and the scholars rose. The simplicity of writing and the wide application of characters also led to the simplification and carelessness of character writing, thus forming abbreviated characters. Knowledge was passed down from generation to generation, but it was all copied by pen and bamboo slips, so it was inevitable to write the wrong characters, and the spread of errors formed erroneous characters.

This is the reason for the differences in the characters of the seven countries.

Chen Ping did not have the same good family conditions as Zhang Cang. He did not start learning Wei characters until he was ten years old. During his study tour in neighboring counties, he met several scholars from Han and Zhao and saw Zhao characters and Han characters.

The characters of these three countries are actually not much different, because Zhao, Wei and Han did not separate until two hundred years ago, and they all belonged to Jin before.

But in addition to the characters of the Three Jins, there are four other writing systems: Qin, Qi, Yan and Chu. These four countries are far away from the Central Plains and located in the corners. They are relatively independent in terms of region and have very different cultures. Although their sources are all the bronze characters of the Zhou Dynasty, they have already shown signs of drifting away according to different regional cultures.

The people in the Central Plains can still distinguish the characters of Qi and Yan, but they can only stare at the flying dragons and phoenixes on the silk books of the Chu State, and they can only stare at them helplessly.

However, in Chen Ping's eyes, the Qin characters are very special, perhaps because the Qin State inherited the ancient land of the Zhou Dynasty and absorbed a lot of Zhou people's culture. Perhaps the Qin people were conservative and old-fashioned. For hundreds of years, they had stuck to the orthodox writing style of the Zhou Dynasty. Only in the writing style, it gradually became regular and symmetrical, and transitioned to small seal script.

So it was not difficult to understand Qin characters.

Hei Fu would sometimes come to inspect his work and ask Chen Ping about his progress. When he heard Chen Ping say that he had only spent two or three days to learn most of the Qin characters that were different from the Wei characters, he could not help but be surprised.

"Why is it so fast?"

Chen Ping bowed and said, "You Jiao, don't be surprised. There is actually not much difference between Qin characters and Wei characters. Among the 100 characters, about half of the strokes are basically the same, but the writing shapes are different. Another quarter of the strokes are different, but the shapes are similar. You can tell by carefully distinguishing them. Only one quarter of the characters that look completely different are completely different variants, which need to be relearned."

"So that's it."

Hei Fu nodded, but heard Chen Ping sigh again: "The princes are not as unified as before, they hate the harm of rituals and music, and they all abandon their classics... Different clothing, different voices, and different characters. After these few days, we know that coins, languages, characters, and weights and measures can create such a huge barrier to the exchanges and trade between the two countries."

"Don't worry."

Hei Fu laughed and predicted to Chen Ping: "Just like the territories and people of the seven kingdoms in the world will be unified under Qin. Whether it is currency, weights and measures, or writing, all of the above will be unified in the future."

The unification of these things was not something that the Qin Dynasty central government came up with on a whim. Not only in Huyou Township where they were, but also in Yangwu County, Chenliu, Waihuang, and the areas occupied by the Qin army, similar work was being carried out to a greater or lesser extent. Because people all want to do things in a convenient way. When the political barriers no longer exist, these different things lose their meaning of existence.

Hei Fu guessed that while the King of Qin was preparing to unify the world in Xianyang, he was probably also preparing with Li Si and others to make the cart tracks and books written in the same language...

He continued to say to Chen Ping, who was a little stunned: "The countries will no longer be divided by borders, and there will be no obstacles for scholars from all over the country to communicate and exchange!"

"The cart tracks, the books, and the ethics are the same!"

"This is not the fantasy and expectation of the sages, but the future that is just around the corner!"

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