Three iron locks stretched across the river, blocking the way of the building boat.

The water surface here is relatively narrow, no more than ten feet. Three warships dropped anchor in the river, blocking the entire water surface.

Qu Moucai looked solemn, but he was not panicked.

Since they dared to touch Xu Ting's daughter, he did not pay attention to the three warships of the Jiangnan Navy. However, the young owner of Yeyu Tower was on board the ship. If this news was exposed, it would bring great harm to Yeyu Tower.

After causing trouble, Qu turned around and looked at the two banner leaders, East and West, with a wink, and the two immediately retreated.

I heard a shout from the ship on the opposite side: "The Jiangnan Navy has been ordered to inspect the ship. The ship in front is docked and will be inspected."

Qu immediately disappeared, returned to the cabin, and handed it over to a middle-aged man with a mustache dressed as a businessman.

Not long after, an officer came to the boat with five or six people. He hunched over and walked in front of him in small steps. He bowed to the end and said: "Master, we are merchants from the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce. We are going to the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce tonight."

I am sending a shipment of goods from Wuxi, please be kind to me."

After that, he stepped forward and held the officer's hand, and inadvertently handed over two gold leaves.

The officer withdrew his hand and said loudly, "You want to bribe me? Is there any contraband on your ship?"

The man with a mustache smiled flatteringly, "How dare you? We are all serious businessmen. In the middle of the night, the official worked so hard for the court and the people. We are so grateful that we took the liberty of sending some tea money. It is not respectful.

The officer sneered, "What? Do you think you can bribe us with just two gold leaves?"

The man with the mustache was slightly startled. Is this too few? He took out five more gold leaves and handed them over casually. The officer then said, "This is about the same." As he spoke, his tone softened a lot, "Recently, smuggling has been taking place on the Jiangnan waterway.

The dealers in salt, tea, silk and iron are becoming more and more rampant. We are ordered to check here. What kind of goods are you carrying on the ship?"

The eight-character beard said: "This is raw silk collected by our chamber of commerce from Jinling, and it has been registered with the government."

The officer looked at the building ship, his eyes fell on the red cannon on the side of the ship, and he frowned slightly, "Where did this ship come from? How come there is such a thing?"

Ba Zi Xu said: "In the year of Taizhou's great victory, the imperial court seized ten large ships from the Japanese pirates. Because the hulls of the ships were damaged and the imperial court had no money to pay for their repairs, five of them were auctioned in Hangzhou. Our boss spent some money.

, I was able to take pictures of one of them, and repaired it several times, and used it as a passenger and cargo ship." He pointed at the red cannon and said: "Even though it looks shiny, it is actually a deaf person's ear, a decoration, hey!"

You are soft-spoken when you eat others, and you are short-handed when you take advantage of others.

When the officer saw what he said, he didn't pursue it.

Bazisu took the officers and soldiers to the cargo hold to check it out, and took out the government vouchers. Finally, he gave each of the officers and soldiers who boarded the ship a sling of money. Then the officer gave up and ordered the iron rope to be lowered to let the ship pass.

At the same time, the axemen and several swordsmen hiding on the second floor breathed a sigh of relief.

From beginning to end, Fan Xiaodao stood on the deck without speaking.

The other party has promised to take him to the mint. If he is really detained by Jiangnan Navy people, it will be difficult to do what happened tonight. I thought Xu Ting was going to attack them, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Thinking of this, I was heartbroken.

The worried heart was relieved.

However, the Jiangnan Navy, which was supposed to operate along the coast, appeared here, which was a bit unreasonable.

The group of officers and soldiers returned to the warship. After a while, the warship in the middle moved to one side to make way for a passage.

The building boat slowly passed through the middle of the other two boats. As it passed by, Fan Xiaodao suddenly saw two familiar figures on the boat on the left.

Zhao Xing and Li Mo.

Why is Zhao Xing here?

And Li Mo, if he wasn’t from the Jinling garrison, how could he appear on the Jiangnan Navy’s ship?

When Fan Xiaodao saw Li Mo, Li Mo was also looking at him.

Their eyes met, Li Mo nodded slightly at him, and pointed to the red cannon on the ship. These three warships are the core warships of the Jiangnan Navy. There are three red cannons on each side of the ship.

Power or quantity, the building ship you are riding on is not at all on the same order of magnitude as the other party.

If it were a three-door warship and all its artillery fired, it wouldn't take more than a few cannonballs to blast the ship into pieces.

Fan Xiaodao suddenly realized.

These people are indeed Xu Ting's people. Li Mo, the deputy general of the garrison, is also on the boat. He is waiting here for the ship to pass. He originally wanted to attack them, but Zhao Xing should have noticed it in advance and stopped them. This also explains why

When Luo Cheng was arrested, Zhao Xing was nowhere to be found.

The building boat sailed into a smaller tributary.

The water and land in the south of the Yangtze River are criss-crossed and dotted with stars. If you don't live here all year round or have someone to guide you, it's easy to get lost here. Fan Xiaodao prides himself on having a good memory, but after turning a few turns, he can't remember it. Someone came up

He said, "Shopkeeper Hu, we still have to travel all night. It's windy at night, so why not go to the cabin to rest."

Seeing this, Fan Xiaodao had no choice but to give up and turned around and entered a cabin prepared for him. The cabin was not big but very exquisite.

There was no talking all night, and the sky was getting brighter.

Someone knocked on the door and said, "Shopkeeper Hu, we're here."

Fan Xiaodao walked out of the cabin, and the man brought him water to wash his face. After cleansing his face, he came to the deck and saw that the boat was shuttled in a river, with green mountains on both sides facing each other, surrounded by green mountains, and a mist on the river.

At the end of the vision is a pier.

There were several official ships docked at the pier. Looking up, there were five big Chinese characters on the pavement.

"Jiangnan Mint."

Fan Xiaodao opened his eyes wide, with a look of shock on his face.

Jiangnan Mint?

Didn't he say he was going to a counterfeit money factory? Then how did Qu bring him here? He wiped his eyes and made sure that the five words he saw were correct.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the imperial court took back the power of minting. All copper coins were minted exclusively by the imperial court. Three mints were set up in Beijing, Taiyuan and Jinling. Since Jiangsu and Zhejiang are the most prosperous areas, the Jiangnan Mint located in the mountains outside Jinling City also

It became the largest mint in the world. Currently, more than half of the Tongbao circulating in the world come from the Jiangnan Mint.

Fan Xiaodao carefully compared the fake money with the real money. The fake money, both in color and workmanship, was almost exactly the same as the copper coins from the Jiangnan Mint. The only difference was that the real money was made of copper-nickel, while these fake money was made of iron-nickel.

It has reached the point where the fake is mistaken for the real thing.

There is a fixed number of copper coins issued by the imperial court every year, which are planned by the Ministry of Household Affairs. All copper coins minted are also handed over to the Ministry of Household Affairs for unified allocation.

Fan Xiaodao was shocked.

They originally thought they were dealing with a money dealer who minted counterfeit coins, but unexpectedly, the person they were dealing with took them to the Jiangnan Mint.

This is a blatant official fraud!

The second owner, Qu Moucai, had already been waiting at the bow of the ship. After exchanging greetings, Qu Mou took Fan Xiaodao off the boat and boarded a carriage that had been prepared. The carriage entered the Jiangnan Mint, and saw several chimneys and smoke.

Yan, two people were already waiting at the main entrance.

One was wearing a fourth-grade official uniform, and the other was a young prisoner with a white face and no beard. When the two saw Qu Moucai, they bowed and bowed. Qu Moucai was quite calm and said, "I'm taking a friend to visit the factory."

Come on, you are busy with your work, you can make arrangements at noon."

Qu took Fan Xiaodao to a lifting workshop and saw dozens of people inside, melting molten iron and adding nickel powder to it. Not far away, someone poured the molten iron into a huge money mold. Qu

Cai Dao said, "This furnace of molten iron can cast one hundred thousand coins."

It was also the first time for Fan Xiaodao to see it, so he could only exclaim, "Awesome!"

Qu Moucai said, "The way to mint coins is to rely on coal and water. There is Guanshan coal here, which has less smoke and high furnace temperature, and there is water from the Yangtze River, so the money of the Jiangnan Mint is the most widely circulated in the market."

Qu also missed one thing, and that was copper mines.

A low-level official came forward and took the two men on a tour of the mint, including material selection, furnace melting, stamping, molding, stringing, etc., and gave a detailed introduction. The trip lasted nearly two hours.

Fan Xiaodao secretly thought, these people are really bold, no, they are simply lawless. As the man introduced, Jiangnan Mint has half a day every day to make iron coins. Not only that, but they are proud of it, starting from making iron coins.

After receiving the money, the income of their mint has undergone earth-shaking changes.

The court doesn’t know?

At least the fourth-grade officials and the inner prisoner were not unaware of it, but seeing their respectful attitude towards Qu Moucai, it was not necessary to guess that these people must be working together in collusion. They

Using some pig iron, he made counterfeit coins that could look real, and circulated them on the market without the permission of the court, thereby grabbing a steady stream of wealth.

A furnace costs one hundred thousand coins, which is one hundred taels of silver.

If three hundred stoves are turned on at the same time, the counterfeit money produced every day will be 30,000 taels! If sold at a 30% discount, it will be nearly 10,000 taels. In one year, 3.6 million taels, leaving aside labor costs and other expenses, will be at least

There are more than two million taels!

The annual income of the Ministry of Household Affairs is only more than 20 million taels.

Where in the world is there a more profitable business than making money?

It seems that the problems in Jiangnan's officialdom are not as big as usual.

After coming out of the venue, Qu Moucai said, "Brother Hu, are you satisfied with today's trip?"

Fan Xiaodao looked a little worried and said, "I thought it was just a small business to make a little money, but I didn't expect that the second boss's business is so big, I have to admire it, but if such a large amount of iron money is circulating in

Shi, I'm afraid it will cause unnecessary trouble."

Qu smiled and said, "When it comes to business, of course the bigger the better. The reason why I came to you is, firstly, to reassure you that our products are officially guaranteed in terms of quality and quantity. Secondly, you have trade routes in the Western Regions."

, Qu also wants to use your hands to open trade channels."

Fan Xiaodao asked, "Aren't you afraid that the government will investigate?"

Qu Mocai looked arrogant and said, "Government? Where is the government? The Jiangnan Mint is under the direct control of the Ministry of Household Affairs. Even Xu Ting has no right to interfere. As for the Ministry of Household Affairs, they already have the money we earn.

How dare they come to investigate if they have a share."

After saying that, he pointed to the sky.

Fan Xiaodao looked up and asked, "Is it going to rain?"

Qu shook his head and said, "I have connections to heaven!"

These words shocked Fan Xiaodao.

Babel?

What day? Who is day?
Chapter completed!