In less than half a year, Xu You obtained more than 3 billion in funds. Yuan Tan was overjoyed when he found out, and praised him in front of many civil and military officials in Yuzhou: "Uncle Xu is really the pillar of my country in Yuzhou!"
Xu You also said proudly: "Thinking, with this money, not only can we solve the problem of casting artillery for our army, but we can also go to Jiangnan and Qingxu to purchase grain and grass armaments to expand our army! Our army has a limited time to prepare for war.
, Lei Gong will not give us too much time, it is better for us to build than to buy, the weapons and equipment of the 200,000 army can be made by Liu Bei and Cao Cao!"
"It is impossible for them to refuse the copper coins in our hands, especially Liu Bei in the south of the Yangtze River. He has a vast territory and a large population, and there is always no shortage of food and grass. The weapons factory in Jingzhou is second only to Hebei, and Liu Bei does not border Lei Gong. The military
There is little pressure. For Liu Bei, arming us means defending Jiangnan! Liu Bei will not be stingy with these weapons and equipment!"
After bronze showed its ability to cast artillery, it became the most precious strategic material in the world. This is why several major princes in the world restricted the appearance of copper coins, but it also made the value of copper coins soar. Whether it is Liu Bei or Cao Cao, they are willing to
Trade food, grass and equipment for copper coins!
But Xu You's words made Guo Tu and others frown. This Xu Ziyuan was really arrogant when his master called him uncle, and he actually admitted it! But they had to admit that Xu You did a really good job this time.
Without these 3 billion money, they don't know how to prepare for the upcoming war! Moreover, they exchanged copper coins for Liu Bei and Cao Cao's food, grass, and luggage, and the weapons and equipment are indeed the most suitable for Yuzhou now! They face Lei Gong and are the most dangerous Han princes!
But Yuan Tan frowned and said: "What about our artillery? Without enough artillery, it will be difficult for us to resist the Thunder God!"
At this stage, the best material for organizing artillery is bronze. Using copper coins to buy grain and grass supplies for Liu Bei and Cao Cao is equivalent to reducing the number of artillery on his side. This is something Yuan Tan cannot accept.
Feng Ji explained: "Lord, we have been casting artillery for the past six months and have cast more than 200 artillery pieces, but this is the limit of our artillery foundry. Even if we have enough raw materials to cast tens of thousands of artillery pieces, we still have enough raw materials to cast tens of thousands of artillery pieces.
It is difficult to cast these copper coins into artillery, and Yuzhou may be attacked by Daqian at any time, so instead of waiting for artillery that is out of reach, it is better to find ways to purchase grain and equipment to strengthen our army's armament!"
Xu You smiled and said: "It's not impossible to show your ideas and require artillery. In the past six months, our artillery foundry has become more and more efficient. Now each artillery cost only 400,000 yuan, and Liu Bei took over the entire Shaofu Palace of the imperial court."
Craftsmen, their cost of casting cannons is probably even lower, maybe only 300,000 coins. If we buy Jiangnan cannons for 1 million copper coins each, Liu Bei will make two cannons by selling one, plus Liu Bei still needs us.
Resist Thunder God, he will definitely do such a profitable business!"
Xun Kan frowned and said: "The price is too high. One hundred million yuan can only buy 100 artillery pieces. Although we have obtained three billion yuan through currency reform, this money still has to be used to feed tens of thousands of people in Yuzhou."
Officials, to maintain the operation of the government office, to build weapons and armor for the 200,000-strong army, and to feed them with food, grass and luggage on a daily basis, these costs are not small!
Take armor as an example. A pair of high-quality armor now costs 100,000 yuan. Our army can equip up to 30,000 armored soldiers, which is enough to use up all 3 billion of the money!"
This era does not pay attention to unarmored soldiers, but armored soldiers (leather armor), let alone the original history of having thousands of armored soldiers to dominate the world. Under the oppression of Xu Wei, the various princes of the Han Dynasty used 2% of their strength.
They used hundreds of efforts to strengthen their army. The blast furnace technology that popularized iron armor on a large scale was started in advance by them.
Nowadays, all the princes have tens of thousands of armored soldiers. The biggest loss for Yuan Tan in last year's Central Plains War was not the loss of Yanzhou, nor the loss of hundreds of thousands of troops, but the 100,000 soldiers that the Yuan family worked so hard to gain from Yuan Shao.
Tens of thousands of armored soldiers, they almost lost all of them!
The loss of these weapons and equipment alone is tens of billions of dollars. This is the iron armor that Yuan Shao built under the pressure of Lei Gong and harvested the entire Sili, Yanzhou, and Yuzhou noble families and common people. Now they all belong to Lei Gong!
Every time Yuan Tan thinks of these lost armored soldiers, he feels so distressed that he can't sleep! At the same time, he is extremely despairing of the future. In this era, soldiers without armor are just cannon fodder. Even soldiers wearing iron armor are nothing more than high-level soldiers in front of artillery.
Cannon fodder!
To resist Da Gan, Yuzhou needs more than a thousand artillery pieces and more than 200,000 elite troops, including more than 100,000 armored soldiers, otherwise Yuzhou will not be able to withstand Lei Gong's casual attack!
To produce these weapons, equipment and artillery, it would cost tens of billions of dollars in literal terms. This is a price that Yuzhou simply cannot afford, which is why Yuan Tan has felt so sense of crisis in the past six months.
At this time, Xu You laughed and said: "Youruo, you guys are really stubborn. For us, money is just blank paper. Is 10 billion really a lot? It's just some paper we printed!"
Xun Kan was shocked and said: "Ziyuan, don't act recklessly. There is a lot of money in the world. If you print too much money, you will definitely collapse Yuzhou and Sili!"
Although there is no economic data in this era, the economic knowledge of the wealthy nobles still has some accumulated understanding. They know that the goods in this world are limited, and it is not that more money is better (but mechanically believe that the world's wealth is limited, and the imperial court
If you take more, the people will be less. This is the theoretical basis for competing with the people for profit. Although we now know that this is a wrong understanding, in the feudal era with low productivity, it was barely a correct understanding.) When Gongsun Shu was in Sichuan
Iron five bahts were issued, and in some places Buwei gold millet was even used.
In the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty, the society was in turmoil and the court was short of money. It began to be short of five baht coins, and even mixed a lot of lead into it. The court relied on these low-quality money to rob the people, but it caused
Prices in the world rose and currencies depreciated. Finally, the ministers of the imperial court found that the money they collected through this war was not enough to suppress local unrest. Therefore, after that, neither the emperor nor the civil and military officials dared to touch copper coins.
Hands and feet, but a laissez-faire attitude, even watching people barter.
To Xun Kan and others, banknotes were not even as good as the iron coins and Buwei golden millet of the past. At least the iron coins and Buwei golden millet were still valuable, but what use could these banknotes have? Xu You's printing of a large number of banknotes would definitely make Yuzhou and Si