Tang Dynasty: Father, if you don't rebel, I will!

The news that Du Ling led 5,000 of the King of Chu's personal guards to plunder most of the grain in Linyi did not reach Chang'an until about half a month after King Fanzhi of Linyi suffered a major defeat.

The letter was delivered to Li Chengqian by the golden eagle belonging to King Li You of Chu.

Li Chengqian couldn't help but shake his head and let out a soft laugh.

"hehe......"

"Your Highness, Crown Prince of the Tang Dynasty, have you received some good news? You seem to be in a good mood..."

A translator from the Ministry of Rites translated what Pukrasaksa II had said in Sanskrit.

At this moment, in a secluded garden of the palace, there was Li Chengqian, the Crown Prince of the Tang Dynasty, and King Purokishya II of the Kingdom of Zhelouqi, who had been in the Tang Dynasty for more than a month.

They are leisurely fishing.

Li Chengqian smiled, not trying to hide it from him: "One of my younger brothers, who is rather impulsive, felt that a king had offended me, so he directly robbed most of their country's grain this year..."

Pulaijisa II: "..."

Why do I get the feeling that you're warning me?

Although the Ministry of Rites officials had tried to be as tactful as possible in their translations, King Purokashyapa II's expression still carried a hint of embarrassment.

He gave a wry laugh and said, "Your Highness and your brother have a very harmonious relationship, which is enviable... My children are constantly fighting amongst themselves, which gives me a lot of headaches."

Li Chengqian didn't say anything, but in his heart he was thinking about the upcoming Linyi and other small Southeast Asian countries like Siam, and he was probably going to have a lot to worry about.

"Your Highness, the Sasanian Persian envoy Zoridam requests an audience."

When Wang Delai reported this, Li Chengqian, who was fishing, immediately raised his eyebrows.

"Let him come."

When Zolidam was brought here by Wang De, the latter first looked at Pulaisha II with suspicion. Pulaisha II had a similar appearance to Harsha, but was able to fish with the Crown Prince of the Tang Dynasty.

Then he bowed to Li Chengqian.

"Your humble servant, Zolidam, pays respects to Your Highness the Crown Prince. I have come on the orders of my King to discuss the matter of a credit guarantee with the Great Tang Dynasty..."

He took out a prepared document and respectfully presented it with both hands.

"This foreign subject has brought a total of 2.3 million taels of gold from the country, which has now been delivered to the headquarters of the Royal Bank in Taiyuan Prefecture. This is the official document; please review it, Your Highness."

Li Chengqian took it, and his face immediately lit up with a smile.

He praised it repeatedly.

"Hahaha, very good. I will always remember King Yisi's trust in me."

Two million three hundred thousand taels, that's equivalent to more than one hundred tons.

Zoridam bowed again: "Your Highness, please forgive me. His Majesty the King originally wanted to raise more funds, but unfortunately, the country is currently unstable. Apart from a few traitors who have defected to the Arabs, His Majesty the King is sending troops to hunt them down."

Hear the words.

Li Chengqian glanced at him; wasn't this just like a child crying?

However, the more than one hundred tons of gold were enough to persuade the Tang Dynasty to lend a hand to this little brother.

He nodded slightly.

"Go back and tell King Yizihou that as the suzerain state, our Great Tang will never tolerate such treatment of its vassal states. As for the Arabs harboring traitors, I will have someone warn Muhammad and make them hand over the traitors and their property."

Zolidam bowed and took his leave.

What they wanted was certainly not just a small amount of property, especially before they recognized the Tang Dynasty as their suzerain state.

The rapidly rising Arabs have seized a considerable amount of land from the Sassanid Persians.

The concepts of traitors and property are just empty words.

What they sought was to reclaim some of the occupied land from the Arabs with the help of the Tang Dynasty.

The Second Prince of Yizi was also in a difficult situation recently. The combat effectiveness of the domestic army was really poor. If it weren't for the batch of military equipment provided by the Tang Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty's landing warning at Jeddah Port, the situation would have been much worse.

It seems that Sassanid Persia is indeed in great danger.

Even so, he urgently needed to produce tangible results to stabilize public sentiment in the country, as well as the hearts of merchants along this trade route.

Beside him, King Purokashyapa II watched the whole thing. He had heard about the recent news that the Tang Dynasty was going to establish a world treasury and issue paper money.

But when you learn that paper money is currency made of paper in the true sense, you'll understand.

Even he couldn't help but instinctively shake his head.

Although the papermaking technology in the Kingdom of Cherukchi was only introduced to the country in recent years, the paper quality was so poor that it was difficult to even use.

Are you going to treat it like money?

Purojishe II thought the Tang Dynasty was joking.

Li Chengqian seemed to see the disbelief in the other party's expression, smiled faintly, and gestured for Wang De to fetch a set of Tang Dynasty banknote templates that had already been finalized by the Royal Bank of Tang Dynasty from his study.

When the exquisite banknotes, adorned with patterns, Tang Dynasty characters, and Arabic numerals, were presented to King Purokhas II, his eyes widened in surprise.

Li Chengqian smiled and handed a stack of banknotes with "1 Tang Yuan" printed on them to the other party.

"This is the paper money of my Great Tang Dynasty. It is more convenient to use and easier to carry. In addition, it has a variety of anti-counterfeiting measures. The patterns on it and the special paper controlled by the government can prevent these banknotes from being printed randomly."

"Your Majesty, you must have recently heard some nonsense from the envoys of those small countries at the Four Directions Pavilion, right?"

Bu Luojishe's expression froze for a moment, but he quickly returned to normal.

He picked up the banknote and examined it closely. The texture was indeed strange, with a smooth and delicate feel. Most importantly, he gently shook the banknote and listened to the sound it made.

It was actually more resilient than the blank paper he had used and seen these past few days.

"This item not only uses special paper, but also needs to be coated with a special liquid. You can tell the difference just by touching it. In addition, it is not easy to wear and tear. People don't need to carry a hundred copper coins when they carry this kind of banknote."

Pukrasaksa II nodded slightly, seemingly lost in thought.

The banknotes in front of us come in different denominations. For example, the lowest denomination, "1 Tangfen," is equivalent to the purchasing power of one wen (a unit of currency) today, while one hundred Tangfen can be exchanged for "1 Tangyuan."

This novel system, which he had never heard of before, made Pulaijisa II realize that the Tang Dynasty Crown Prince, who was about the same age as his youngest son, was probably going to take advantage of the world's treasury to do something big!

"Your Majesty, in the future, if our two countries wish to conduct trade, we will still need to pay gold as national credit, just like the Sassanid Persian envoy who brought 2.3 million taels of gold reserves. In the future, when our Great Tang Dynasty engages in large-scale trade, the value of the goods we can offer them will not exceed that amount."

"Porcelain, silk, tea, and perfumes, women's cosmetics, and even weapons and armor, which are very popular in my Great Tang Dynasty, can also be purchased from my Great Tang."

Purojisha II nodded.

“I will go back and make preparations for this matter. The Kingdom of Zhelouqi also has a lot of gold.”

No troublesome wrangling.

These days, Li Chengqian, the crown prince of the Tang Dynasty, has given Buluoqishe II, the ruler of a country who has come from afar, a great deal of face, and has taken him to experience the luxurious style of Chang'an.

In addition, he patiently explained many things that the boy did not understand.

Pulai Kishya II was no fool. He clearly wanted to gracefully demarcate the relationship between the two sides. And wasn't Pulai Kishya II's visit to the Tang Dynasty also an attempt to curry favor with the Tang Dynasty?

The Tang Dynasty needed them to contain the potentially expanding Tibetan Empire, which was controlled by the Zhelou Kingdom.

Their Zhelouqi Kingdom also hoped to take advantage of trade and cooperation with the Tang Dynasty to annex their mortal enemy to the east, the Panawa Kingdom.

Both sides are smart people.

Just as the Sassanid Persians sent their deposits, in addition to Tibet, which had already sent its deposits, other small plateau kingdoms such as Zhangzhung, Dongnu Kingdom, Niva Kingdom, and Supi also packed up their gold and transported it to the Tang Dynasty.

Afterwards, Goguryeo Chancellor Noh Jo-jeong ordered all the gold that could be collected in the country to be sent to Chang'an.

The same applies to Silla.

Even after Goguryeo was rendered ineffective and the alliance with Baekje was broken, they still reluctantly sent gold.

In the Tang Dynasty, it was the eighth month of the Zhenguan era.

News of the plundering of Linyi by the King of Chu's troops reached Chang'an.

Meanwhile, at the Royal Bank of the Tang Dynasty, under the statistics of the bank's president, Wu Shiyue, a list of the total gold reserves in the Tang Dynasty's treasury was freshly released.

"Your Highness, our Great Tang Royal Bank currently holds 2900 million taels of gold!"

Twenty-nine million!

Upon hearing this number, all the civil and military officials in the Taiji Hall were momentarily stunned into blankness.

Even figures like Fang Mou and Du Duan had their brains freeze for a moment at that moment.

Li Chengqian sat on the dragon throne.

Twenty-nine million taels of gold, converted to modern units of weight, is... 1100 tons?!

This is equivalent to half of the gold reserves held by the People's Bank of China in future generations!

Most importantly, this was the sixth year of the Zhenguan era, a time when productivity was still relatively low, and there was no pressure to issue currency as high as in later generations.

1100 tons of gold were directly pegged to Tang Dynasty paper money.

The hook is so sturdy, just thinking about it makes one despair.

Unless the Tang Dynasty is destroyed, this light Tang paper money in my hand is gold!

Furthermore, if these paper currencies were truly distributed throughout the world and their value were recognized by nobles and merchants of various countries, the value of Tang Dynasty paper currency might even exceed the value of gold that could be exchanged for it.

With the implementation of Tang paper money, the Tang Dynasty could accelerate the development of various domestic industries by exploiting the resources of other countries.

"By imperial decree, starting from January 1st of the seventh year of Zhenguan, the Royal Bank of the Great Tang shall officially begin issuing Tang paper money. Officials and government-run enterprises shall have priority in using paper money, and by the end of the eighth year of Zhenguan at the latest, all tax collections shall be conducted entirely in Tang paper money!"