Chapter 173: Launching Currency
After the minister of the forging department left, Zhou Xu himself fell into deep thought.
Reducing the length of the sword makes the sword more durable in disguise. To put it bluntly, this method treats the symptoms but not the root cause.
To solve this problem more thoroughly, Zhou Xu thought of two ways during the simple process of thinking.
The first way is to find a better material. The first thing Zhou Xu thought of was iron ore. Iron has better toughness than copper, and its overall performance is unquestionable. This is why iron can penetrate the whole body. The biggest reason for the entire cold weapon era!
But the problem is that he doesn't have much research on ores. Looking for ore veins, to put it bluntly, depends on luck.
Now he doesn’t even know where there are iron ores, which makes the implementation of this method infinitely more difficult.
As for the second method, that is to make alloy!
Alloys sound very cool at first glance, but in fact, to put it bluntly, they are the smelting of two or more metals together.
Their copper veins do not only produce copper ore, but also come with many associated mines.
But Zhou Xu, who has no research on minerals, really doesn't know other minerals except some common metals.
The only thing he is sure of right now is that there is no iron ore in those associated mines.
Under this premise, the reason why he did not directly ask the forging department to smelt the alloy, but asked them to reduce the length of the sword first and forge a new sword, naturally had his ideas in it.
Although he doesn't understand ores, he also knows that smelting metals is not just a matter of mixing them up.
During this period, a lot of trials and tests will inevitably be required.
There is no doubt that this is a time-consuming and labor-intensive matter.
But now he needs the forging department to quickly forge a batch of usable swords for him, because his soldiers need weapons for training!
If the forging department develops a usable alloy and then starts forging and polishing the weapons, how much training time will they have left when the finished product comes out?
At this stage, even if he uses a shortened sword, their tribe's equipment advantage can still be guaranteed.
First make the shortened sword and use it, and then let the forging department slowly research better alloys. This is the safest way.
Zhou Xu's personal presence made various departments in Black Moon Village feel a little more nervous than they had for a long time, especially the Forging Department.
They both make things for the tribe. Although the Forging Department and the Equipment Department are responsible for different things, to a certain extent, they each perform their own duties.
But some members of the two departments cannot help but compete with each other in their hearts.
This time, the rattan armor and buckler made by the equipment department can be said to have perfectly completed the tasks assigned by their leader, but the sword forged by their forging department was humiliated in front of the leader. .
Now that the members of the Forging Department learned about this incident from their head, they all held their breath in their hearts. They must earn back their face!
Suddenly, everyone was very motivated.
Zhou Xu, who didn't know this, was attracted by several small round copper pieces in the palm of his hand.
Needless to say, this is the first batch of copper coins cast after the mold is opened!
Because they are cast from the same mold, the size and thickness of each copper coin are exactly the same.
This copper coin is very thin and at the same time, according to his intention, the words engraved on the front and back are also very clear.
Weighing it with his hands, several copper coins collided with each other in his palms, making a crisp sound, which made Zhou Xu smile with satisfaction.
“That’s right, let’s start mass production.”
This copper coin does not require any forging or polishing. It basically just melts the copper ingot, then pours it into the mold and cools it.
But to keep it simple, it goes without saying how important these copper coins and casting molds are. For this reason, Zhou Xu also specially selected two reliable tribe members and established a 'mint' to be responsible for casting copper coins.
In the follow-up plan, he also planned to mint copper coins with denominations of "five coins" and "ten coins".
However, because this currency system has never been used in the tribe before, Zhou Xu does not want to make things too complicated at first and make the tribe members resist it, so at this stage , just mint a penny first.
The simple pouring method is destined to have low manufacturing efficiency.
While mass production of copper coins began, Zhou Xu himself was certainly not idle. In addition to the currency rules and regulations he had been thinking about before, he was now busy formulating salaries and plans for various positions and products. The price is up.
In this tribe, all resources can be said to be in his hands. In the past, he, the leader, allocated them reasonably.
The resources he allocated, including food, were simply the remuneration for each tribe member's work.
Now, he just added something called currency between the two.
He converted the reward into currency, and tribe members could use the currency to buy whatever they wanted.
This actually saved Zhou Xu a lot of trouble, because before, he had to worry about the food, clothing, housing and transportation of the tribe members, and made all the arrangements by himself.
At first, when there were only a few dozen people in the tribe, it was okay, but as the tribe's population grows larger and larger, these trivial things will become very annoying.
The promotion of the currency system can completely liberate Zhou Xu from these trivial matters.
From now on, he will only be responsible for distributing money. The tribe members will have to worry about their daily food, clothing, housing and transportation issues, and there is no need to bother him.
In order to promote the currency smoothly, Zhou Xu still has a lot to do.
For example, if you have currency, you also need corresponding products and stores that sell the products.
For this reason, Zhou Xu designated a trade area directly to the east of Heiyue Village and named it 'Dongshi'.
Various simple stalls were arranged in the East Market.
There are those selling fish, some selling meat, some selling vegetables and fruits, and some selling various utensils and even farm tools.
Basically, more than 90% of the things in their tribe can be sold in this east market.
Under this premise, everyone who understands understands that all these things belong to him.
In other words, he paid wages to the tribe members who worked for him, and the tribe members used the wages to buy things from him.
At the end of the circle, the money was back in his own hands...
When there was no need to open a store, but just a stall, things were simple, and the time coincided with the end of the month.
Zhou Xu seized the opportunity, summoned everyone in Black Moon Village to announce the matter, and paid everyone a salary, officially launching currency within the tribe!
With the allocated copper coins in their hands, the tribe members did not understand why their leader would do such troublesome things.
But since it was their leader’s wish, they had no objection.
(End of this chapter)