Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 204 Wanjin Banknotes
It was already evening when Okabe Igen and his family were taken to Shinwanjin.

Shinwantsu can now be regarded as the "capital" of the Chita Peninsula. It is a city mainly engaged in industry and commerce, and naturally has the ability to absorb population. Even though the Chita Peninsula has suffered a disaster in the past two years, the population has still increased sharply, and the size of the town has more than tripled. Even at night, it is still very prosperous.

Especially in the dock area, where loading and unloading are carried out day and night, it has seriously deviated from the traditional time pattern of "work at sunrise and rest at sunset". Naturally, this has given rise to something like "night market", where a large number of lanterns are hung up to provide lighting, various vendors provide snacks, and some people sell various small commodities. There are also entertainment performances such as variety shows, Kyogen, and acrobatics. It is noisy and lively.

Judging from the market activity level alone, it is already like the night markets in the Northern Song Dynasty: "The night market lasts until the third watch, and then opens again at the fifth watch. If you want to go to a lively place, it is always busy." The only difference is that the scale is not as good as before.

Okabe Igen and others had never been to Shinwantsu before, and were quite shocked to see the bright lights. Such a lively atmosphere was hard to see even in Atsuta Port. At least Atsuta Port would not waste lamp oil like this, and common people would not have extra money to "squander" like this.

It is rarely mentioned in history books, but the concentration of wealth in medieval Japan was actually extremely serious, even more exaggerated than modern Japan where 90% of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of 1% of the people. Common people had to do their best to make a living, while spending money on eating, drinking and having fun outside was basically exclusive to the samurai aristocracy and ordinary people didn't even have to think about it.

Yuanye was naturally not surprised by all this. He personally arranged for Okabe Yiyan's family to temporarily stay at the "Wanjin Guesthouse", and built a small courtyard for them. He also kindly asked them to have a good rest before saying goodbye and leaving.

"Wanjin Guest House" is similar to the "XX Hotel" that can be found in every place in modern China. It is state-owned and is generally used to entertain big customers from all over the country. The service and facilities are quite good. It is already past eleven o'clock in the evening and you can still "order food" - in fact, it is just buying and serving food from the night market, but there are really many varieties.

In addition to food and drink, there are also hot tubs and massage services, where you can soak in them to relax and loosen up your muscles.

The people of the Okabe family had never enjoyed such things before, and they felt that these were not things that the common people should enjoy. For a moment, they became like country bumpkins entering the city, and were afraid to try. But after they found out that Yuanye was paying for all this, they dared to try it boldly. Afterwards, everyone had a better impression of Shinwanjin. After all, they thought that this group of craftsmen were here to suffer and to be "slave laborers", and they were ready to sleep in shacks and eat taro. Now the contrast is a bit too big.

Well, they worked for the Oda family and the Matsuoka family, and basically slept in shacks on the construction site. The food was not very good, and taro, wild vegetables, buckwheat and beans were their daily meals. As a group of craftsmen, no one cared whether they were happy or not.

That night, the Okabe family ate very comfortably and slept very comfortably.

The next morning, A-man came with his men. Okabe Yiyan was now in Yuanye's hands, so she naturally didn't dare to turn her face away from her. She hurriedly went out to greet him politely and asked politely, "Lord A-man, are you going to see His Highness Nohara Saburo now?"

"No, he said that you just moved in, so you need to get settled in and get familiar with the environment. He plans to meet you this afternoon." Ah Man was also one of the beneficiaries of Yuanye's courtesy and respect. He was used to it. He said this casually and waved his hand, asking his men to move everything over. "He asked me to bring some things over to you, so that you don't need to buy things yourself when you just moved in."

As she spoke, several people brought over some daily necessities, including homemade soap, kneaded towels, fashionable cloth, thick cloth work clothes, linen gloves, painted bamboo tubes, paper, ink, brushes and inkstones, etc., even cloth shoes and straw sandals. Anyway, they were all small gadgets that could be used in daily life, which could be considered as benefits for new employees - most of the Wanjin "civil servants" would also receive these things, so it couldn't be considered special treatment.

In addition to these employee benefits, Aman also took out a handful of "shopping coupons", saying that this was a personal gift from Yuanye to Okabe Yiyan's family. When they go shopping, they can use these "shopping coupons" to exchange for goods of equal value in almost all stores in Xinwanjin, which is equivalent to Yuanye paying for their shopping.

Finally, she had someone bring a small box, and when she opened it, it was full of stacks of thick paper money. "This is your annual salary this year. We are currently paying it monthly, but he is afraid that you are not familiar with Wanjin and will have wild thoughts, so he gave it all to you at once. Count it yourself, and then sign for me." "Uh, this... Your Highness will also give us an annual salary?" Okabe Yiyan hesitated, but took the box honestly. After all, he had a large family to support, and Owari had suffered from famine in the past two years and there was not much construction of temples and pavilions, so his finances were still quite tight.

"I don't think I need to give him money, but he's a person... you'll know him later, just take it!" Ah Man didn't want to give it to him. Now Okabe Yiyan was in her hands, and she didn't hang him up and beat him, which was enough to give him face. Why should she give him money? If he wanted money, go ask Oda Nobunaga!

However, Yuanye had always been a spendthrift, used to spending money lavishly, and was also very good at making money, so she was too lazy to care about it now. She just pointed at the banknotes and said, "You must have seen something similar before. There are a total of 1,000 guan here. You can take these 'banknotes' to a place called Wanjin Bank and exchange them for copper coins, gold and silver."

Japan now has something similar to "silver notes". Yuanye had obtained them from Oda Nobunaga before, but that thing was more like a "bill of exchange" with a very large denomination, which was not convenient for daily use.

The paper money that Yuanye is making now is for the convenience of daily use. Okabe Yiyan is not stupid and can guess the nature of the paper money in his hand. He is not surprised. He lowered his head and took a careful look and found that these "One Coin", "Five Hundred Coins", "One Hundred Coins" and "Fifty Coins" are all exquisitely made, with bright colors and delicate printing. The various patterns on the front and the two words "Wanjin" on the back are printed very clearly and beautifully. It can be seen that a lot of thought was put into carving the plates.

Ah Man treated him as a country bumpkin who knew nothing and gave him some pointers: "Although no one has dared to forge banknotes yet, just in case, look sideways towards the light and see here, here, and here. The ones that reflect light here are the real banknotes."

Well, in order to prevent counterfeiting, Yuanye used modern lacquer dyes when printing. The paper is also special, in fact, it is closer to cloth, and the production process is very complicated. It is basically impossible to fully imitate it in this era.

He issued paper money mainly to stimulate the economy. After all, copper coins were too stupid and heavy to carry, and getting change for gold and silver was even more troublesome. On the other hand, it was naturally to make money. Credit currency was simply a magic weapon for free labor. He had wanted to do this for a long time, but paper money had just begun to be used and was only circulated in the Xinwanjin area. Moreover, for the time being, it could only be used to pay the monthly salaries of "civil servants". Merchants had a very low acceptance rate, and almost no one was willing to accept large-denomination banknotes - the acceptance rate of "civil servants" was also extremely low. As soon as he distributed the banknotes, everyone went to the bank to exchange them for copper coins, gold and silver and took them home. The banknotes never stayed in their hands overnight.

In a sense, he is now losing money by issuing banknotes, and Wanjin Bank is now the hardest job in Wanjin's internal system, with tellers so tired that they stick out their tongues like dogs every day.

But Yuanye was not in a hurry. Credit is not built in one day. He planned to spend ten years on this. Even if the exchange rate was as high as 99.99%, it would still be beneficial to him. At least he could save a lot of cost in paying salaries to his subordinates. For example, for someone like Okabe Yiyan - one thousand kan of money was several thousand kilograms of jin, which would require several ox carts to pull it. Now he could save the money on the ox carts. Okabe Yiyan could just find a way to move the money slowly. If he couldn't finish it in one day, he could use the money for a few more days.

Aman had no idea of all the twists and turns in Yuanye's mind, so she just thought he was messing around and didn't care whether Okabe Yiyan would fulfill his promise or not. After completing the task assigned by Yuanye, she just patted her butt and left, not caring about anything else - there were also people from the "East Factory" in the guest house, and every move of the Okabe family could not escape her eyes, so she was not afraid that there might be spies from the Oda family among them.

Okabe sent her away politely, and immediately arranged for his son to take several apprentices and hired workers to find the so-called "Wanjin Bank" to exchange money. Then he rummaged through the things that A-man had sent, and remained silent for a while.

Yuanye has been sending people to harass him, apparently for the purpose of building a ship. Now that the other party is so polite, he should show some real ability and do this job well!

Well, Shinwanjin seems to be as bad as the legend says, and Yuanye is not a super cruel bastard as other samurai say, so they should really do something good!
But just in case, my wife and daughters should still be hidden!
(End of this chapter)