Water Margin: The opening scene involves assassinating Emperor Huizong of Song and forcibly taking L

If calculated at 5 wen per jin, based on this year's floating silver price, 152 million guan can buy 3.53 million jin of rice (modern jin).

You can easily convert the exact value in RMB yourself.

But the actual purchasing power of this money is definitely higher than the converted RMB.

Because food in the context of modern agriculture is far less valuable than it was in ancient times.

Incidentally, in the Ming Dynasty, one string of cash was not a fixed 1000 coins, but rather a constant one tael of silver.

The exchange rate between silver and copper coins was used to determine how many coins one string of cash was equivalent to, which can be understood as the silver standard.

Of course, the imperial court would determine the amount of copper coins to be minted the following year based on the amount of silver in circulation (market silver price), and use this to adjust the value of copper coins.

The current official basic exchange rate is 1 tael of silver = 1 silver dollar = 1 string of cash = 1000 cash.

Occasionally, one can exchange for 900 or 1100 coins, but in the last five years, the amount has never been lower than 800 coins or higher than 1200 coins.

This gave rise to a group of people who speculated on gold and silver, exchanging Ming Dynasty copper coins for overseas gold and silver when prices were low.

When the price of gold and silver was high, they would take out their stored gold and silver and exchange them for copper coins.

More and more wealthy merchants and gentry stopped hoarding single currencies, thus increasing the circulation of various currencies.

However, the overall trend is still towards deflation because the outflow of money is too severe.

Of the surrounding countries, only Annam, Dali, and Western Liao minted their own currencies.

All other countries and regions used Ming Dynasty coins.

Gold, silver, and copper coins from the Ming Dynasty were all hard currency in Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the northern and southern deserts.

Even in Heian-kyo (Kyoto) in Japan, traces of the Ming Dynasty's paper money have appeared.

Every year, a large amount of currency flows out of the country and is exchanged for various scarce commodities that are then shipped back, including gold, silver and copper ingots.

Chapter 3936 Still Confessing

Without the continued inflow of gold, silver, and copper from overseas, the Ming Dynasty would soon be on the verge of collapse.

Fortunately, there were the Western Liao and Indian regions to supplement our resources. Both of these regions used gold and silver coins, primarily silver coins, and we could earn their gold and silver through trade.

They then took the goods from the Ming Dynasty and went further west to earn gold and silver.

The Ming Dynasty government had collected most of the old copper coins from various dynasties and remelted them into the Da Ming Tong Bao.

The recycling speed of iron coins from Sichuan and Shaanxi is faster. Valuable ones are destroyed and cast into iron ingots, while worthless ones are destroyed and turned into iron slag (too many impurities).

This caused severe financial losses to the Ming Dynasty, including Sichuan and Hanzhong.

Although it provided the imperial court with many goods, the court was always losing money on currency and tax revenue.

For over a decade, the imperial court subsidized Sichuan's finances, solely to recover and destroy the iron coins there.

Dozens of gangs illegally minting iron coins were arrested, and countless people were killed!

Currency unification has now been largely achieved.

At the same time, the bad habits of wearing short shoes and short shoes were abolished, and the government was not allowed to use them to exploit the people.

Ordinary people across the country preferred to use "mo" as a unit, which meant stringing together one hundred copper coins for use.

……

On the day Qin Hui was executed, Zhao Yuan ordered several of his adult princes to go to the execution ground to witness the consequences of corruption and bribery.

Qin Hui's children were all minors, so they were scattered and sent to orphanages in various provinces to be raised.

They will be taught how to make a living there, and they can work and earn money on their own after they grow up.

Qin Hui's concubines were settled in southern Sichuan, Guangxi, western Hunan, and Guizhou.

There are many unmarried young immigrants there, who would surely be willing to marry them, and would even be vying to propose.

At this moment, Qin Hui, Qin Bin, Qin Zi, Qin Di, Wang Shi, Wang, Wang Yan, Wang Bing... the Qin and Wang families knelt in neat rows.

Of course, it wasn't a complete sweep of everything.

For example, Qin Hui's elder brother's son lived a quiet life as a landlord in Jiangning, managing the properties that Qin Hui had acquired in his hometown.

Although his father and uncles committed crimes, he himself was relatively honest.

Therefore, he was not convicted of any crime, but was simply implicated by his own father and exiled.

Qin Hui knelt in the middle, surrounded by family and relatives, and he was overcome with grief, tears streaming down his face.

Wang was paralyzed on the spot. She didn't even have the energy to blame her husband; she just stared blankly ahead.

Back in the day, she was the granddaughter of the prime minister, and was pampered and spoiled since childhood.

When the Ming Dynasty came to power, he enjoyed even greater wealth and honor. Who would have thought he would end up like this?

An official came over, examined each of them, and began to read out their crimes.

The first person to be beheaded was Qin Hui's nephew, Qin Changshi.

This guy was only in his early twenties. He initially planned to take the imperial examination route, but after six years of trying, he still couldn't even pass the lowest level (xiucai).

So he went to work as a clerk, but Qin Hui arranged for him to be promoted from clerk to official, and he was promoted in violation of regulations by falsifying his resume all the way up to the ninth rank.

Compared to Qin Hui, Qin Changshi's embezzlement amount was not large.

But he was extremely greedy, using his power to the extreme, even dragging many of his colleagues down with him.

Moreover, he was extremely arrogant, and had done many things to bully men and women, and had also seized the property of ordinary people by trickery and coercion.

In comparison, Qin Hui's other nephew, Qin Changling, was much more honest than Qin Changshi.

Therefore, Qin Changling was not sentenced to death, but was instead exiled to Guangxi to reclaim wasteland.

Chapter 3937 Qin Hui's Beheading

"Qin Changshi, do you confess your crime?" the executioner asked.

Qin Changshi was so frightened that he immediately shouted, "I refuse to accept this! I refuse to accept this!"

"I only embezzled a few thousand strings of cash; my crime doesn't warrant death!"

The supervising official sneered, "It's no use complaining. The three judicial departments have already closed the case, and His Majesty has already handed down the verdict."

"You went from being a clerk to an official in just four short years, and you've already been promoted to the ninth rank."

"Falsifying resumes and achievements, and arbitrarily transferring officials for promotions, is already a serious crime!"

"You have an official position but you don't do your job properly, you collude with your colleagues to embezzle and break the law."

"They even lured respectable young men into gambling and borrowing money to seize other people's property. They deserve to die for all these crimes!"

The executioner stepped forward with his knife and pulled open Qin Changshi's collar at the back of his neck.

Qin Changshi cried out in terror, "Spare me! Spare me!"

The executioner said to the executioner, "Don't dawdle. There will be a second batch this afternoon."

The executioner laughed, "My blade is sharp."

Executioners have their own ways of making extra money, but no one would bribe the families of Qin Hui and Qin Hui.

Forget it, time is tight and the task is heavy, let's cut it cleanly.

The executioner forced Qin Changshi to kneel and scolded, "If you keep shouting and moving around, you'll suffer even more. Think it over!"

Qin Changshi dared not move.

brush!

With one strike of the knife, the head fell to the ground.

"it is good!"

The onlookers cheered, both pleased to see the corrupt official brought to justice and admiring the executioner's skill.

One head after another fell to the ground, and finally it was Wang's turn.

Wang suddenly shouted, "I want to die with a full stomach! I have no appetite for yesterday's last meal!"

The executioner pressed down several times, but Wang was still struggling. Enraged, he shouted, "You wicked woman, do you want to be stabbed a few more times? It's almost noon, and Grandpa still has people to chop this afternoon."

Qin Hui sighed, "At this point, what's the point of delaying?"

Wang turned her head and angrily cursed, "It's because I married you that I ended up like this."

"You heartless, ungrateful wretch! You've ruined my life!"

Qin Hui retorted, "Whose relatives dragged me down first? None of my brothers, except for those who passed the imperial examination, initially became officials."

“It’s your brothers who keep begging me to give them official positions.”

“Especially that scoundrel Wang Yan, who held an official position in the former Song Dynasty and was also granted an official position in the Ming Dynasty, was insatiable and wanted to climb even higher.”

"The first time I helped someone get an official position was for that scoundrel Wang Yan!"

“My brother is about to break the law, why didn’t you stop him?” Wang began to turn the tables.

Qin Hui retorted angrily, "I stopped him? Just because I refused him twice, you threw a tantrum, crying and screaming, and even scratched my face until it bled!"

"I was so careful when I was an official back then, but it was because of your brother that you broke the law."

The executioner roared, "Stop making a scene! Kneel down properly!"

Wang was still struggling, which angered the executioner so much that he swung his knife wildly.

The knife struck her shoulder, and Wang cried out in agony.

Qin Hui was so frightened that he dared not speak, his whole body trembling as he knelt silently on the spot, even closing his eyes and daring not to look at anything anymore.

The executioner dragged Wang to her knees and asked, "How many blows do you want to die?"

Wang finally stopped making a scene, enduring the excruciating pain as she trembled and wept, obediently kneeling there to await her execution.

Upon hearing the sound of a head falling to the ground, Qin Hui knew his wife was dead. He immediately closed his eyes even tighter: "I confess, I confess, please grant me a quick death."

Chapter 3938 Increased Salary

brush.

A flash of light, and a head flew off.

Qin Hui finally died, and this major case came to an end.

The Imperial Conference was attended by the top two officials of the Cabinet and the State Council.

The high-ranking officials in the court appeared to be in a positive mood, but in reality, they weren't very enthusiastic.

The investigation into this major corruption case has been expanding, uncovering a whole host of related cases from one instance.

Although the number of officials punished is far less than when Wen Huanzhang was still in power, this time more mid- to high-ranking officials have fallen from grace.

Even six of Zhang Guangdao and Li Bao's former subordinates were beheaded because of the Ningxia rebellion, which led to the discovery of embezzlement of military funds.

More than twenty other mid- to low-ranking officers were stripped of their military power and exiled with their families to Shazhou and Guazhou to serve as lowly soldiers.

Zhao Yuan said, "Compared to the former Song Dynasty, the salaries of Ming Dynasty officials are not low. In fact, the salaries of officials at the prefectural and county levels and below far exceed those of the former Song Dynasty!"

"Of course, you are all important officials, and your lives are certainly not as glorious as those of the former Song Dynasty."

“The salary is sufficient,” Li Hanzhang said on behalf of everyone.

Were all the civil officials in the Song Dynasty living very comfortably?

Of course not. To be precise, only high-ranking officials and corrupt officials lived comfortably in the Song Dynasty.

In the Song Dynasty, the lower and middle classes experienced a century of continuous price increases, and the income from official land grants was converted into cash.

If you don't embezzle, you're truly poor—you can certainly manage on your own, but it would be difficult to support a family and servants.

Wang Anshi used these ten characters to describe the living conditions of county and prefectural officials: "Even with the provisions of servants, they are still in dire straits."

Even poorer are the mid- to low-level officials working in big cities.

Especially for officials in the capital, prices are frighteningly high, and rent alone is a huge expense.

The enormous burden of salaries for Song Dynasty officials mainly came from high-ranking officials and redundant officials.