Chapter 952: Coin Minting

“Why did they notify us?” Liu Xie asked as he approached upon hearing about Chen Zhen's message. He caught the tail end of Fa Zheng's conversation and joined with a smile.

“At least to give us a heads up!” Fa Zheng replied with some frustration. “By the way, I’m about to get married. Have you all prepared your gifts?”

“I already prepared two bottles of my homemade wine back when we made you our junior brother,” Guo Jia casually responded.

“So stingy,” Fa Zheng gave Guo Jia a disapproving look, though he was actually quite pleased. Guo Jia’s homemade wine, though its taste was uncertain, certainly held sentimental value.

“How about I gift you a pair of golden lion statues?” Guo Jia added with a smirk, lowering the bar considerably.

“That’s even stingier,” Fa Zheng raised an eyebrow, clearly unhappy.

“Enough with the bickering. Guess what Zichuan is planning to announce at the end of the year?” Liu Xie tried to steer the conversation back on track.

“Let’s not bother guessing. When it comes to government affairs, as much as we don’t want to admit it, no one can deny that Zichuan’s foresight in such matters is unmatched,” Li You said, putting an end to the speculation.

Li You wasn’t keen on having his curiosity piqued, knowing that if he became too interested, he might actually go and ask Chen Xi. Based on his understanding of Chen Xi, that could lead to another round of conflicting views, like the last time when Chen Xi's proposal left the entire group in disagreement—only for him to ultimately prove them all wrong.

“It’s best if we focus on our own responsibilities and let Zichuan handle his own matters,” Lu Su said, cutting off the budding curiosity. He didn’t want a repeat of the previous embarrassing incident.

Unlike the private clash Liu Xie had had with Chen Xi, most others had only watched from the sidelines. While Liu Xie hadn’t been directly involved, he had certainly stirred things up, making the situation different for him.

“I’m just curious…” Liu Xie said helplessly.

“Curious about what?” Chen Xi, having just arrived, caught Liu Xie’s comment out of context and asked.

“Curious about what policy you plan to announce at the end of the year,” Liu Xie quickly answered. Seeing that Lu Su had failed to stop the question, everyone turned their attention to Chen Xi, all curious now.

“Minting coins and special drawing rights,” Chen Xi casually replied.

When Chen Zhen sent the letter to Taishan, he also informed all the high-ranking officials in Ye City. However, most of the generals were already out in various parts of Jizhou dealing with banditry, and Liu Bei had gone out on his usual tours, so Chen Xi was the last to arrive.

As for Xu Shu, he had taken 500 men to help suppress bandits as well, given his own considerable martial prowess.

“Minting coins?” Everyone’s faces darkened at the thought. Minting standardized five-zhu coins in this era was no simple matter. Minting six to seven million coins would cost about ten million coins, meaning that countries rarely did so unless they were extremely wealthy.

“Hmm, we should indeed start minting our own coins,” Li You said thoughtfully after a moment. Jizhou had copper mines, so it made sense to mint some coins to demonstrate their power.

With that statement, Li You glossed over the concept of special drawing rights, and the others focused solely on the minting of coins, sparing Chen Xi the need to explain more.

“So, what level of coinage are we talking about?” Lu Su sighed, accepting that minting coins was inevitable.

As their power grew, it was natural to mint their own currency to enhance the people's recognition of their regime. However, minting coins meant incurring significant losses—about 40%—which was a distressing prospect.

“Five-zhu coins!” Chen Xi declared proudly. During the Han Dynasty’s peak, the five-zhu coin was highly respected and continued to be used even into the Tang Dynasty. That was the advantage of using weight-based coins.

“The costs are too high. If you mint five-zhu coins, everyone in the country will use them, and no matter how many we mint, it won’t be enough,” Jia Xu said, covering his face. The five-zhu coin couldn’t be counterfeited; it was a weight-based currency, so even if the inscriptions were worn off, it would still be valid.

“Well, they’re meant for everyone to use,” Chen Xi said, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, you’ll see when the time comes. I wonder how Xingba is doing with his preparations. The first time, without a nautical chart, it took a long time, but it should be faster now.”

Unbeknownst to Chen Xi, Gan Ning, after his first return from the island of Luzon, realized it was a strategic location. After Guan Hai went to Yizhou, Gan Ning used Qiongzhou as a base to travel between Luzon and Yizhou, collecting copper ore.

Huge amounts of copper were smelted into bronze ingots on Luzon and then transported to Yizhou under Guan Hai’s supervision. After several trips, they had amassed several thousand tons of bronze ingots.

Imagine a cubic meter of copper weighing over eight tons. The density of bronze, with its mix of tin and lead, was even greater, meaning that several thousand tons of bronze ingots would take up less than ten cubic meters of space.

These ingots would become the primary material for Chen Xi’s future coinage. Since it wasn’t their own copper, Chen Xi didn’t mind wasting it. And when it came to bronze smelting and coin minting, China had always been a historical leader.

The soldiers Gan Ning left behind on Luzon had also become indifferent to wealth, given their proximity to what was essentially hundreds of billions of copper coins. After spending so much time guarding such a fortune on an island with no shops, they had lost all motivation to care about money.

Although Chen Xi didn’t know that the copper for the coins had already been prepared, he was aware that he had access to a copper-rich island, so minting coins was a task that had to be done.

However, before starting the minting process, Chen Xi needed to stabilize the value of the currency. It could appreciate or depreciate, but it absolutely couldn’t be left to the aristocratic families to control. Those people didn’t even understand basic economic principles. The value of currency had to be determined by the government!

“Minting coins like this will result in significant losses. For every one million in copper, we’ll only be able to mint 650,000 coins. Even with the research we’ve done, that’s about as good as it gets,” Liu Xie said with some resignation. He didn’t object to Chen Xi’s decision, as it was time to mint coins.

“That’s why we need to gather all the aristocratic families. We need to clearly define the value of each five-zhu coin and stabilize market prices for key commodities,” Chen Xi said helplessly. “Grain, salt, fabric—these basic necessities need to be under our control, as they are crucial for long-term stability.”

“We can’t eliminate poverty, but we can ensure that even the poorest people have food to eat and clothes to wear. As long as we can achieve that—or at least come close—our system will be nearly invincible,” Chen Xi said with a smile as he glanced around the room.

Though it wasn’t entirely accurate, in a society where people were still unaware of their rights, Chen Xi estimated that his system could guarantee peace and stability for at least five hundred years.

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