At the gate of Jinan City, there was a long line of people lined up on both sides, and they were still wearing shackles.
Shandong Inspector Qilisun came back from Tai'an Prefecture on horseback. When he saw this large group of people kneeling in shackles, he stopped his horse and asked why.
"These were caught by Dongchang."
Qilisun couldn't help but frown when he heard the word Dongchang.
Dongchang's reputation is not very good, and he was born to hate Dongchang, which is also related to his family. Qilisun is the son of Qi Biaojia, the second assistant in the imperial court. He is good friends with Zhang Huangyan and others. He took the first place in the provincial examination at the age of sixteen.
Later, the imperial court awarded him the title of Zhongshusheren, but he did not take up the post. After his father Qi Biaojia was ordered by the King of Lu to serve in the Lu Supervisory Dynasty, he always accompanied his father to help him write books and give advice.
Later, he took part in the imperial examination in the first year of Shaotian's reign and ranked second in the imperial examination.
Qi Biaojia is a famous Donglin boss, and Qi Lisun has also been influenced since childhood. He grew up to be impassioned, and also participated in the restoration of society, etc. He had no good impression of the eunuchs and factory guards.
When the emperor finally issued an edict banning eunuchs from commanding troops, supervising the army, and dismissing ceremonial officials, etc., he praised this very much.
He came to a prisoner wearing a yoke and asked, "What is your name and why were you arrested?"
The man was wearing heavy shackles and was kneeling on the ground, with only his head and two hands exposed. The braid on his head had been cut recently, and now his hair grew short, as ugly as a sprouting potato.
He looked at the young man in front of him who was wearing a purple robe and a goldfish charm, and was very surprised. He was so young, but he was already a noble man of gold and purple. He couldn't understand how there could be such a young man of third rank or above.
He didn't know that the inspectors were only of the fourth rank, but in order to increase their power, the emperor specially gave them purple robes and jade belts with goldfish charms. After all, in the local area, the inspectors were the emperor's imperial envoys alongside the governors.
The cloth press, the third-rank patrol officer, the fourth-rank magistrate, etc. are all superior officials, so they cannot be inferior to them in terms of service.
"Who is your lord?" he asked carefully.
Behind Qilisun, a younger son, wearing a Confucian robe and a sword on his waist, stepped forward and said, "My brother was appointed by the saint to patrol Shandong and was rewarded with a purple robe and jade belt with a goldfish charm. If he asks you, just answer him truthfully."
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"You don't have to be afraid. Tell me the truth." Lisun called his sixth brother Bansun back. "If there is any grievance, I will seek justice for you."
"No, there is no injustice. A small crime deserves what he deserves." The prisoner was surprised when he heard that he was a patrol guard, but he shook his head again and again.
"You don't have to be afraid of Dongchang. They are no better than before and can't make trouble." Qi Bansun said loudly, disdainful of Dongchang. He is a boy of only sixteen years old, the youngest son of Qi Biaojia, known as the Sixth Young Master, although he is only a young man.
He is sixteen, but he and his brother were admitted to Jinshi three years ago. This is not because of the relationship between his father and his assistant, but because he is indeed talented and intelligent. He was known as a child prodigy at the age of six.
Not only is he good at writing, he is also good at fencing.
At this time, he was serving as a scholar in the Hanlin Academy and had retired after three years. However, he had not yet been officially awarded the title. It was a rare free time, so he accompanied his brother around.
"It's true that Xiao Xiao was not unfairly punished. Xiao Xiao deserved his crime. Xiao Xiao committed the crime of destroying silver coins and scraped the silver coins privately to make a profit. He was seized by Dongchang and the shackles are displayed here."
The Ming Dynasty abolished the two reforms of the Yuan Dynasty, prohibited the direct circulation of gold and silver, and stipulated the circulation of silver coins, copper coins, etc. into the market. The minting rights were state-owned and were minted by the Mint Bureau under the Ministry of Household Affairs. Only the Royal Mint was licensed to mint.
The circulation of silver coins is prohibited from melting, damaging, exporting, etc., and private casting is also prohibited.
Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, silver has been monetized and circulated in large quantities. It has always been weighed and used, and even received various fines and discounts. Many criminals have been engaged in exchange, melting, and counterfeiting.
Dragon silver circulates by denomination, not by weight, so some people secretly scrape off the silver coins and collect them into pieces, which is also a waste of money.
Anyway, after scraping off a little bit, it will still be circulated according to the face value.
However, this kind of behavior will undoubtedly damage the interests of the court and even destroy the currency's credit. The court can only recycle and exchange the damaged silver coins for free.
In order to combat this kind of behavior, Dongchang also took on the task of cracking down on crimes such as vandalism and illegal minting of silver coins.
This guy was engaged in scraping silver coins. If it was just a minor act, he wouldn't have been arrested. In fact, he regarded this as an industry and destroyed a lot of silver coins.
He was originally in the silver furnace business, where he melted all kinds of silver and then cast it into the fineness, shape, size, etc. required by the customer. Since the abolition of the two yuan and the reform of the yuan, this business could no longer continue.
He secretly started the business of scraping silver coins with the same people. The scraped silver powder was accumulated into large amounts, then cast into silver ingots, and then sold to other merchants.
When Dongchang caught him, his den had already made illegal profits of several thousand taels. According to the law, he was actually committing a capital crime.
It's just that after Dongchang reported it, the emperor had a special decree to exempt him from the death penalty, but he would be punished with confiscation of his home and exile directly to Taiwan. Now the shackles are displayed here to warn others.
After listening, Qi Li remained silent.
I thought Dongchang was messing around, but it turned out that this profiteer was breaking the law and deserved it.
he asked next.
The man said with a grimace that he had committed the crime of privately minting silver coins.
Each silver dollar weighs one tael, which contains 89 silver and 11 copper. It is not pure silver, but it is based on the face value of one dollar, that is, one tael is passed. This means that the silver dollar actually exceeds its own value, and there is private profit in it.
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That person used to be in the silver exchange business, making silver liters of various qualities, casting water, and even recasting it. Now that the silver dollar has been adopted, there is no business anymore. So he started a private coin business. The court's silver coins were produced by two major mints.
Production adopts the most advanced machine casting of this era.
First, the silver and copper are melted in proportion, then cast into silver plates, and then tied into a suitable thickness. Then they are cut into silver sheets by a machine, and then passed through a water wheel punching machine to punch out the silver blanks, and finally fed into a new pressing machine.
Use a mold to press out the front and back patterns, as well as the side teeth, etc., and then go through some steps such as weighing on a balance, manual picking, etc., before finally being circulated.
This kind of machine-made coins is actually much more advanced than traditional hand-made coins, especially its carvings, edge teeth, etc., which are clear and complete, and the shape is also very smooth, basically the same.
It is no more difficult to have two identical coins than it is to strike coins by hand, and it is also difficult to have complete edge teeth, so it is easy to scrape and make fake coins.
On the other hand, this kind of machine mints coins. After the water wheel is introduced as power, the machine is larger and more efficient. It is much stronger than manual work or horse-drawn work. It can even replace workers in two or three shifts without stopping the machine.
What is also driven by this is a significant reduction in costs.
As for the privately cast prisoner, he still made it by hand according to the traditional method, carved the mold privately, and then struck it with a hammer. The speed was slow, the profit was not high, and it was not exquisite enough.
It's easy to identify.
They often even lower the fineness of silver in order to make more profits. Dongchang also strictly pursues such unscrupulous merchants, and once discovered, they will immediately arrest them and destroy the underground workshops.
Qili Sun asked each one.
I found that the people in chains here were all related to silver coins. Some were scraped and damaged, some were cast by hand, some were even foundry cast, some were sold, and some were even sold. Some even found themselves
There are also those that directly mint foreign silver coins privately, such as the Spanish double-column silver coins.
There are also some people who do not obey the laws and still use silver taels to buy and sell.
There were also those who ignored the court and refused to accept silver coins, insisting on using silver taels.
In short, this is a silver dollar crime project carried out by Dongchang in Shandong. Thousands of prisoners, large and small, were arrested. There were principals and accomplices, some with more serious crimes, some with lighter crimes, some on a large scale, and some who committed crimes individually.
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The ones here are basically those involved in very big cases, with high convictions, enough to have their homes confiscated and exiled to Taiwan.
It was the emperor's special decree that exempted him from the death penalty.
Otherwise, it's basically enough to chop off your head.
These guys have even started their own business, and some have even been doing it for two or three years. The emperor just started minting silver coins in Zhejiang, and they faked it and minted it privately here. The Ming Dynasty confiscated Shandong before and couldn't control it.
to here.
Now it's all served in one pot.
Dongchang showed its face to the emperor, arrested thousands of people, destroyed numerous small and large black workshops, and even directly destroyed several silver mines. They directly minted the silver they mined into silver coins, all in one process.
After the casting is completed, they are sold directly.
So many mines, workshops, and dealers were confiscated. Just confiscating these minerals, workshops, and money was a huge sum. They also took advantage of the situation and confiscated their homes, which was another huge sum of money.
Qilisun asked around and felt a little unsightly on his face.
Although he had just taken office not long ago, there were so many illegal criminals in Shandong, and disrupting and destroying silver coins was a big problem. However, he didn't know it beforehand, and he didn't find it out in time. Now that the Dongchang case has been completed, he knows.
This makes him look very incompetent.
He is in his twenties, but he also considers himself young and promising. He is proud of his youth. He became Jieyuan at the age of sixteen and has been working with his father as a consultant and painter for a long time. However, in contrast, his good friend Zhang Huangyan is now the governor of Guangdong, and another old friend Zhang Dai has forgotten his years.
Now he is the governor of Sichuan, and other good friends from Zhejiang, Huang Zongxi, is also the governor of Shandong, and most of them, such as Gu Yanwu, hold important positions.
He was already lagging behind when it came to patrolling, and now he still has such loopholes, which is shameful.
Qi Bansun over there also sighed, "When did Dongchang's ability to handle cases become so fast? Is there anyone taking the opportunity to embezzle stolen money or property? We must investigate it carefully, and we can't let them take the opportunity to harm the public and enrich themselves."
Qi Lisun waved his hand, "Go back first."
He definitely had to follow up on this case, but it also made him realize that he really wasn't doing a good enough job. Although Xinfu, Shandong, and even Yanzhou were still under siege, and there were many complicated matters, but this
This thing still shows that it is indeed not done properly.
After the two reforms were abolished and the yuan was changed, the circulation of silver coins and copper coins in various places was a very important matter, involving the economy and people's livelihood. Although the imperial court minted a large number of coins and issued them, the market always felt that there were not enough. In the past, I always thought that the main reason was because the silver coins are now exquisite, and the people are the first to do so.
Use poor silver coins and so on.
But now it seems that bad money drives out good money.
Just like when there is shaved money on the market, businessmen will definitely use this kind of money first when they get it in their hands, instead of keeping it in their hands and using up the good money first.
Even if there is too much money, it will affect credit. People will worry that the money will not be used easily, refuse to accept it, or even ask for it to be weighed, which will do great damage to the credit of silver coins.
"Sir, this is unfair!"
Just as Qili Sun was about to return to the city, someone suddenly stopped him in front of the city gate and held up a piece of paper.
"Sir, the students want to file a lawsuit against Yao Qisheng, the magistrate of Licheng County. Please make the decision for the people!"
Qi Bansun reacted faster than Qi Lisun and said excitedly, "Brother, someone has informed the county on the street, pick him up quickly!"
