Chapter 11, Damn Virtual Currency!
In order to give the saviors a fuller understanding of the concept of wealth in medieval Europe before the Age of Discovery, Knight Levi took out his money bag from the cabinet under the desk, then loosened the string at the mouth of the bag, and clattered A huge pile of coins is dumped out.
——In this money bag, there are four coins of different denominations. Two types are copper coins: the obole and the half-obole, which are small changes in the Middle Ages and can be compared to the one-yuan coins and five-cent coins in modern China.
Two other coins with more purchasing power are silver coins. The small silver coin follows the name of the ancient Roman Empire, called denier, which can also be translated as dinar (the silver coins of Arabs and Europeans are all called this, and they are actually a legacy of Roman civilization) . This was the general equivalent unit commonly used in the Middle Ages. What's special is that in Britain, this kind of silver coin is called a "penny" and has been used until modern times. Of course, the medieval penny is completely different from the modern British penny, and their purchasing power is many times higher.
The larger silver coin is the unique French grostournois, which weighs 4.22 grams. One coin is equal to 13 or 14 French dinars, but only equivalent to 4 pennies - because medieval Britain The financial situation of France is much better than that of France, and it has not significantly reduced the silver content of the penny. On the contrary, the French dinar was mixed with more and more impurities, depreciating year after year, and finally devalued from silver coins to copper coins. Of course, the French dinar at the moment is still a silver coin mixed with a lot of copper...or rather, a copper coin mixed with a lot of silver.
According to the prices in southern France at that time, a chicken was worth six dinars, a large hare was worth twelve dinars, a bottle of Western-style vinegar made from grapes was worth two to five dinars, and pastries were worth two to five dinars. A pound of high-end wafers in the store can be sold for three dinars. However, because sugar and cream are very expensive, ordinary stores cannot afford them, so medieval pastries are not as sweet and delicious as modern pastries.
Obviously, if the collection value of antiques is not considered, the medieval Obol copper coins are worthless scrap metal in modern times. As for the medieval silver dinar coins... In fact, the silver content is also very problematic, as they are mixed with I don’t know how many impurities there are. And even if it is a genuine pure silver coin, this kind of gadget with less than three grams each is not worth a lot of money - don't forget, one gram of silver in the modern world is only worth a few yuan!
In short, after listening to the prices introduced by Li Wei, Wang Qiu was wondering whether he should mint some silver coins to arbitrage supplies in the Middle Ages.
At the same time, Doraemon frowned and stuffed all the coins into the [automatic pawn machine], and then he was disappointed to find that the stingy [automatic pawn machine] did not put these Obol copper coins with the third The Nar silver coins are valued as antiques...
"...I only got ten thousand yen in total, which is not even enough for the medicines I just gave you!" Looking at such a solitary banknote in his hand, Doraemon couldn't help but sigh, "...This Is it the pocket money of a primary school student? You are still a gentleman! Unless you are a homeless person who cannot afford to eat, no working adult would go out with such a pitiful amount of money! ”
"...This bag already contains eight turgros, more than one hundred dinars and more than three hundred opols. You still think it's too little?"
Knight Levi rolled his eyes, "...This price is enough to hire a small team of strong men to fight with you!"
——Well, the salary level of ordinary people in Europe in the Middle Ages seemed to be so miserable. The daily salary of female textile workers was only one dinar.
As for gold coins with higher value, the pounds, francs and marks did not exist these days, let alone the ruble. In Europe in 1348, only the Italians were able to mint gold coins on a large scale. Specifically, there were three types: Genovino coins minted in Genoa, florins minted in Florence, and florins minted in Venice. Ducat gold coin (ducat). No matter which kind of gold coin, the weight is 3.5 grams, and the purity is relatively high. Among them, Genovese gold coins from Genoa are mainly circulated in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea region, and rarely appear in the European market. As a result, an international gold coin pattern was formed on the European continent with florins and ducats dividing the world.
According to the market price of gold in 2014, the value of a gold florin coin is approximately equivalent to one thousand yuan, which is considered a very valuable thing.
Because he often had to do business with merchant ships from Asia Minor, Palestine and Egypt, Livy had three kinds of gold coins: florins, ducats and genevinos. But the question is, are the number of these gold coins... too few?
"...Ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two... Well, that's all in total. But you can't take them all. I still have to pay taxes and pay salaries to the servants and guards next month - —Although I don’t know how many of them can survive until next month..."
In full view of everyone, Li Wei counted out the gold coins one by one from a beautifully crafted cedar wood box, and piled two small mountains of gold on the table, "...you can all count the eighty gold coins here. Take it! Count it as the money you just bought for the medicine and the cost of my wife’s obstetrics and gynecology hospitalization..."
——Eighty gold coins, net weight 280 grams, approximately equivalent to 80,000 yuan at the beginning of the 21st century...
Well, although this is already the annual income of ordinary people, after deducting the cost of medicine and living expenses, it is probably enough for pregnant women to give birth to a baby in the hospital, but as a noble man, you live in such a large manor , why did you come up with so little money? This is really too stingy and too cheap!
Moreover, you are only willing to spend such a small amount of money. How can Doraemon profit from it to pay off his debts?
Seeing Levi acting so stingy at such a critical moment of life and death, Doraemon, who had a debt of 15 billion yen, was immediately dissatisfied, "...Hey, Mr. Levi, this is the time. Why are you still thinking about saving money? Now is not the time to be frugal! Are you still nostalgic for this medieval Europe shrouded in plague and don’t want to go back to your hometown? Then let’s just say our trip was in vain. ! ”
"...Yes, brother Levi, you see that Doraemon is so unhappy, so you should open the vault happily! Do you still want to imitate Grandet with gold? Now you are looking at even your life. It’s almost gone, so why can’t you give up the money?” Ma Tong also echoed the advice.
"...Vault? I'm not a banker. How could I have something like that?" Levi rolled his eyes angrily, spread his hands, and threw the pile of eighty gold coins on the table in front of Doraemon. Pushed, it fell down with a crash, "...All the gold coins in the entire manor have been placed here, and there are about more than 10,000 dinar silver coins left. You can't find it even if you dig three feet into the ground. There are more... Believe it or not! ”
"...Do you really only have this little money? No way!" Wang Qiu touched his chin and said suspiciously, "...Didn't you say before that this manor is the commercial base of the Knights Hospitallers, and they make tens of thousands of gold every year? Florin’s big deal? How can you get such a small amount of money?”
"...Please! Business is business, cash is cash! Will Bill Gates pile hundreds of millions of dollars in banknotes in his villa?"
Knight Levi rolled his eyes again helplessly, "...of course I have assets worth tens of thousands of gold coins, but if you want me to take out tens of thousands of gold coins at once...unless it is a Jew who is a loan shark, otherwise In this era, no chamber of commerce can easily hand out tens of thousands of gold coins!”
As he spoke, he opened a locked drawer and took out a thick stack of account books, IOUs, deeds and mortgage contracts, "...look at it! The fifty thousand florins I inherited from the Bacon family, It’s all on these things! Can you turn them into money?”
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Before Columbus discovered the New World and obtained gold and silver from the Americas, gold, silver and precious metals were very scarce in Europe during the Middle Ages.
Since the time of the ancient Roman Empire, gold and silver from the Euro-Mediterranean world had been flowing eastward due to the need to import Eastern silks and spices. When the Roman Empire was strong, Europeans could also obtain a certain amount of gold and silver supplements from Black Africa, which was rich in gold and silver south of the Sahara Desert. But after the Arabs launched a massive conquest and occupied all of North Africa, even this only channel for replenishing gold and silver to Europe was cut off.
The above-mentioned situations were not a problem in the darkest early Middle Ages, because at that time commercial trade in Western Europe almost stopped, and the few remaining commercial exchange activities were mainly barter. Professional merchants and currency even once came from Western Europeans. disappear from social life.
However, with the resurgence of European civilization, merchants, trade and currency also entered the stage of history again, resulting in a huge demand for metal coins. However, with the relatively scarce gold and silver stocks in Western European society, it soon became increasingly difficult to mint a sufficient amount of coins to meet the surge in currency demand with the development of commerce, which meant that the money supply could not keep up with the demand for market transactions. , resulting in deflation.
If we were in the credit currency era of the 21st century, faced with this situation, governments would only need to engage in "quantitative easing" a few times and print more money. But in this ancient era that only recognized gold and silver, it was not that easy to issue money indiscriminately - where did the gold and silver used for coining come from?
America has not yet been discovered, the Gold Coast of West Africa is still the only territory, but the gold and silver mines in Europe have been almost exhausted.
The economic strategy of some medieval kings was to continuously reduce the silver content of coins until they turned silver coins into copper coins, achieving a special form of quantitative easing in the minting era, but the effect was very bad - a rough look at the indiscriminate issuance of banknotes They look exactly like the original banknotes, but the silver coins with reduced silver content can be seen at a glance as being of poor quality, so they are rejected by the people or used at a discount, which in turn makes deflation more serious.
Especially on the eve of the outbreak of the Black Death, the population of the European Catholic world reached a peak, productivity was greatly developed, and commercial trade became increasingly developed, but the total social stock of gold and silver did not increase much - there was not enough money, and business How to do it?
Moreover, in the Middle Ages, there were many small countries in Europe and bandits were rampant. The public security environment was very bad. Many nobles and knights in the countryside also had the habit of being bandits. It is really dangerous for an unarmed ordinary businessman to walk in the wilderness carrying a large amount of gold and silver coins.
Therefore, just like what is described in "Spice and Wolf", merchants in medieval Europe mainly relied on mutual credit and money order transactions to do business. Cash transactions of paying directly for things only accounted for a small part, which is equivalent to entering into credit in advance. The era of currency and virtual currency!
——Although Europeans love gold and like to count their income and expenditure in gold coins in their account books, the main thing they can actually get is silver coins.
Of course, compared with modern e-commerce, this kind of medieval bookkeeping transaction relies heavily on integrity and credibility, because most merchants’ main assets are in other people’s debt lists. If everyone is used to being dishonest and defaulting on debts, then It means the total collapse of the entire trading system!
In other words, the merchant circle in medieval Europe was a closely connected network system, connected by countless contracts, accounting and bills of exchange. In this network system, every businessman owes money to many people, but there are also many people who owe him money. As long as someone's credit can still be maintained, the flow of funds can still be turned around, even if the deficit on the account book continues. Even if it is high, it can still be operated. Unless the businessman is unlucky enough to encounter a serious crisis and is on the verge of bankruptcy, and unfortunately the news spreads, there won't be many people coming together to collect their debts.
But on the other hand, if there is an emergency and a large sum of gold and silver coins needs to be transferred urgently, even a well-run merchant will not have room to raise too many coins for a while. You can try to borrow money in time, or go to a loan shark for a loan.
The problem is that in the face of catastrophic natural disasters such as the plague that cannot be resisted by human beings, Jewish loan sharks are usually the fastest to escape.
As a result, due to this advanced virtual credit currency system, Doraemon was unable to obtain a sufficient amount of gold and silver coins from Levi.
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"...The situation is like this. It is true that I have a net worth of more than fifty thousand florins on the books, but I have to take the contract to Florence, Venice, Paris, Lyon, Antwerp, Cologne, London and Bordeaux Wait until these distant places can be converted into coins. In these miserable years when the Black Death broke out, I doubted that by the time we took the contract and traveled a long way to find a place, the other party would be dead with no bones left. As for the Jews who loaned money in Marseille. , the whole family ran away as soon as the Black Death came.”
Sitting behind his desk, playing with a quill, Mr. Levi, who looked more like a businessman than a knight, talked so eloquently.
"...Even if it is an accounting transaction, there should generally be collateral! We also accept gold, silver and jewelry!" Ma Tong said with a frown.
"...Collateral, of course there is some, if you want, you can take it..."
Knight Levi said this calmly, and at the same time handed over a box of very important collateral: a lot of various land deeds...
Well, these land deeds are indeed very strong and valuable collateral, but unfortunately they are worthless to Doraemon.
In desperation, Doraemon and others had no choice but to lose face and moral integrity and ransack Levi's villa - from the silver tableware used for meals to the gold wine bowls and gold wine glasses from Levi's personal collection. From his wife's gold and silver jewelry and mink coat, all the things that were considered family heirlooms were swept away. In the end, most of the horses in the stables were even moved: anyway, the knights in this manor have almost died of the plague, and the remaining horses are useless. They need to be carefully served and cared for, so it is better to pawn them directly. It comes cleanly: a good horse of European origin can be sold for at least 50,000 to 60,000 yuan in modern China, and even a horse that pulls a cart can be sold for at least 10,000 yuan.
After all kinds of troubles, Doraemon finally got about 30 million yen - although it was still a drop in the bucket.
Of course, in return, Doraemon not only agreed to take Levi's pregnant wife back to Nobita's house, but also arranged for her to stay in a professional hospital in Tokyo to wait for delivery - for such a "black household" without household registration and documents, only magical powers are available , only the lawless Doraemon could go through the hospitalization procedures - teacher Shizuka Marikawa also carefully explained to Levi the simple treatment methods of the Black Death, so that he could use it in his subsequent medical practice.
"...Those plague patients who have not been sick for a long time and have mild symptoms can take sulfonamide powder and an equal amount of sodium bicarbonate powder orally. But generally speaking, only bubonic plague has a more obvious effect... By the way, Both of these powders are white, don’t get them confused!”
"...Streptomycin injection is a specific drug that can treat all types of plague. For severe patients, higher doses are needed."
"...There is no panacea in this world, and antibiotics and sulfonamides cannot guarantee that every plague patient will be cured. Please don't make blind promises."
……
After Teacher Shizuka Marikawa finished explaining and demonstrating to Levi Knight, everyone else was ready to hit the road and return.
——Right now, in Nobita Nobita's room, there is political commissar Guo Jingguo who fell from a high altitude and was unconscious after his bones were shattered! Although he had been rescued before and was out of danger, he couldn't just let it go, right?
It was only then that Wang Qiu suddenly remembered something, turned around and asked Li Wei: "...By the way, Brother Li Wei, I already know about your French camp. But about those in the British camp who are forced to stay in this world. Newcomer, do you know any news? ”
"...Well...I don't know anything about those guys from the Fried Chicken Team. I don't even know how many of them there are in total. I have never met them on the battlefield..." Levi shrugged. , "...Do you have any news about them?"
"...Unfortunately, not at all. You are the only surviving newcomer shown in the "Book of Time Travel"." Wang Qiu raised his head and glanced at him in confusion, "...You all escaped alive on the losing side. They entered the battlefield, but as members of the victorious side, why didn’t they survive?”
"...All the members of the Fried Chicken Team are dead?" Levi was shocked at first when he heard the news, but then he was relieved, "...Well, this is actually understandable. We left the battlefield after the Battle of Crecy. And Ying After the army won the Battle of Crécy, they still had to sweep Normandy, besiege the city of Calais, and fight for more than a year before returning home in triumph. In such a long time, it was normal to get sick, injured, and die. But..."
"...This is probably the only way to explain it!" Wang Qiu sighed, "...Okay, brother Li Wei, let's say goodbye for now! We will take my sister-in-law back to the hospital to wait for delivery. In order for your family to be reunited as soon as possible, You have to work hard here to change history and gain points!”
※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※ PS: Alas, the current website is getting more and more crazy. Even the word jasmine is blocked. What can people say? Okay?