The revival of the Han Dynasty must start with Dong Zhuo

Chapter 32: Extraordinary People
"Guoyu" once recorded that in the Spring and Autumn Period, Shan Mugong once advised King Jing of Zhou: "Your Majesty abolished small coins and minted large coins. The small coins in the hands of the people have become useless. How can you not feel embarrassed?"

Therefore, it was easy for Dong Zhuo to issue a decree ordering the people of Guanzhong to abandon the five-zhu currency and use small coins, but now it is also a troublesome matter for Jia Xu to order the people of Guanzhong to abandon the small coins and use the five-zhu currency again.

The material of small coins is inferior, and it is extremely difficult to set a fixed exchange rate with the Wuzhu coins, so it is impossible for Jia Xu to directly order the government to collect all the small coins from the people and then distribute the Wuzhu coins.

Only in this way can it be considered a good policy that does the least harm to the people and can also ensure the wealth in the hands of the people of Guanzhong to the greatest extent.

Therefore, Jia Xu's method was to start from the shops.

He first ordered local officials to find the local officials in charge of the shops and have them go to grain shops, cloth shops and other shops that were related to people's livelihood to issue decrees.

"If common people come to buy and sell grain, they can accept small coins, but they must pay out five zhu."

In this way, grain was actually regarded as real "currency", and grain shops and cloth shops were regarded as "banks" for exchanging small coins and five-zhu coins.

After that, the government only needed to collect small coins from grain shops and cloth shops and give five baht to supplement them, so that there would be less and less small coins on the market and more and more five baht. After a period of time, the small coins on the market would naturally become less and less, and the market order in Guanzhong would be restored.

Things went smoothly at first.

When the people found that the coins they bought into the market were small, but what they got in exchange were the old five-zhu coins, they were naturally very happy and they spontaneously and actively accelerated the process.

The government will also re-mint the small coins collected from the shops into Wuzhu coins, allowing more Wuzhu coins to circulate in the market and restore stability.

But on this day, an official came to the Shangshu Terrace with a few copper coins.

"Where is Jia Lingjun?"

"Inside, let me report for you."

The ugly behavior of Shisun Rui, the former Shangshu Pushe, spread very early and became a laughing stock in the streets of Chang'an.

Most of those who could enter the Shangshutai were prominent scholars who valued reputation the most.

Seeing that a famous scholar like Shisun Rui had been turned into such a state, these people were trembling with fear in front of Jia Xu and did not dare to show the slightest disrespect.

The official was led into the inner room of the Shangshutai, and upon seeing Jia Xu, he immediately reported the abnormality he had discovered.

"Jia Lingjun, something is wrong!"

He spread out the few copper coins in his hand and presented them to Jia Xu.

"Although the small coins issued by the Grand Tutor before, uh...although there are some impurities, at least the shape and size are unified by the court, and there is no difference when they are put together."

"But today when I went to the market, I found a lot of small coins of this type. I hope Lord Jia can take a closer look."

After listening to the official's report, Jia Xu also stepped forward and took the small coins.

Just by weighing them with his hand, Jia Xu could tell that the weights of these small coins were not consistent.

When they are put together, they become even more different shapes, either this one is too big or that one is too small, it looks so ugly!

If the small coins minted by Dong Zhuo before were stones, then the small coins in Jia Xu's hand now are dirt!
Jia Xu weighed a few small coins and had a rough idea of ​​what was going on.

After finishing the government affairs at hand, Jia Xu ate some wheat cakes to fill his stomach, and then went to the Weiyang Palace to meet the emperor.

At this moment, the palace had just finished its meal. When Liu Xie heard that Jia Xu was coming, his first reaction was that Jia Lingjun was coming to eat for free.

However, when Liu Xie got those small coins, he realized that things were not as he thought.

"Wenhe, do you mean that someone is privately minting copper coins?"

Jia Xu corrected Liu Xie——

"It's not that copper coins were minted privately, but that someone was remelting the five-zhu coins and minting them into small coins again."

Hearing this, Liu Xie narrowed his eyes slightly. He had spent a lot of money to recycle small coins and recast them into five-zhu coins, but there were still people who were privately recycling five-zhu coins and recasting them into small coins?
"But the people saw that it was profitable and minted it privately?"

Jia Xu shook his head.

"The small amount of money collected by the government is, after all, collected according to the price of grain."

"Although Guanzhong has suffered a flood, the price of grain has not fluctuated much. The profit earned is just a small amount, and it is not worth it for ordinary people to take risks."

Jia Yi, a genius of the pre-Han Dynasty, once wrote a memorial entitled "A Memorial on the Prohibition of Private Coin Minting", in which he requested the emperor to prohibit private coin minting among the people and to have a centralized system of coin production to consolidate power.

However, due to various reasons, this decree was not adopted during the reigns of Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing.

It was not until Emperor Wu came to the throne that drastic reforms were implemented, the right to mint coins was returned to the central government, and legislation was enacted to strictly prohibit private minting of copper coins.

From Emperor Wu to Liu Xie, the history lasted for three hundred years.

A law that has not been changed in three hundred years is enough to make it deeply rooted in people's hearts.

Therefore, Jia Xu did not believe that the ordinary people in Guanzhong would challenge the majesty of the Han court and Han laws for this little benefit.

"Since they are not ordinary people, they must be extraordinary people."

Jia Xu was indeed an old fox. Even though he and Liu Xie were the only two people in the palace, and even though the answer was almost on his lips, Jia Xu was still unwilling to say anything that would offend others, and instead let Liu Xie guess...

Liu Xie placed a few small coins in a row on the table and looked at them carefully.

Suddenly, Liu Xie laughed.

"With Wenhe's wisdom, I'm afraid he can easily find out who is behind this, right?"

Jia Xu replied naively: "I don't understand, please help me, Your Majesty."

Looking at Jia Xu who had been pretending to be stupid until now, Liu Xie looked up and glared at him.

"Wenhe really doesn't want to offend anyone at all."

"Since you don't want to say it, I'll say it for you!"

Liu Xie pointed at the small coins and said, "These privately minted coins are just as inferior as the previous coins, but they are even different in size. This is really a bit too much."

"But precisely because of their different sizes, we can almost conclude that these privately minted coins were not made in the same workshop."

If it was produced by the same workshop, at least the mold would be the same, and such crude workmanship would not be possible.

"This shows that although the people behind the scenes are in contact, they are not unified."

"In this way, as long as we catch one, we can naturally catch them all in one fell swoop."

As for where to catch these rats...

Liu Xie raised his eyes and said, "Wenhe, I don't need to give you any instructions for the rest, right?"

Jia Xu, who was pointed out by Liu Xie, showed no sign of shame, but continued to bow: "I am stupid, please enlighten me, Your Majesty!"

……

This old boy!
What if you can survive to the end?

It’s true, I won’t step into any dangerous trap!

(End of this chapter)