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: oboe and half oboe, 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.
This is what Arabs and Europeans call their silver coins.
In fact, they are all heritage 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 the financial situation of medieval Britain was relatively France has been much better and has not significantly reduced the silver content of its pennies.
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 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 and ordinary stores cannot afford them, 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, the silver content is also very problematic.
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 much.
Don’t forget, how many yuan is one gram of silver worth in the modern world?
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.
Then he was disappointed to find that the stingy automatic pawn machine did not regard these Obol copper coins and silver dinar coins as antiques for valuation "We only got 10,000 yen in total.
It's not even enough to pay for the medicines I just gave you."
Looking at such a solitary bill in his hand, Doraemon couldn't help but sigh, "Is this an elementary school student's pocket money?"
Money?
You are still a nobleman.
In modern society, unless you are a homeless person who cannot afford to eat, any working adult will not go out with only such a pitiful amount of money."
"This bag already contains eight turgros, more than one hundred dinars and more than three hundred opols, and you still don't think it's enough."
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 medieval Europe 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: the genovo minted in Genoa, the florin minted in Florence, and the ducat minted in Venice.
No matter which kind of gold coin, the weight is 3.5 grams, and the purity is relatively high.
Among them, Genoa's Genovino gold coins 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 types of gold coins: florins, ducats and geneovinos.
But the question is, are the number of these gold coins too small?
"Ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two, that's all in total.
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But you can't take them all.
I still have to pay taxes next month and pay salaries to the servants and guards.
Although I don't know what they are.
How many of them will 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 gold mountains on the table.
"Take all the eighty gold coins here."
Let’s count it as the money I 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 RMB 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 spend so little money?
This is really stingy and too low-priced.
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, it's time.
Why are you still thinking about saving money?
Now is not the time to pay attention to diligence and frugality.
Are you still nostalgic for this medieval Europe shrouded in plague and don't want to return to your hometown?
Then let's consider our trip 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 the gold?
Now that you are almost losing your life, How can you still be reluctant to part with money?"
Ma Tong also echoed the advice.
"I'm not a banker in the vault, how could I have something like that?"
Levi rolled his eyes angrily, spread his hands, and pushed the pile of eighty gold coins on the table in front of Doraemon.
It fell over 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 more even if you dig three feet, believe it or not. what ever" "You really only have this little money, don't you?"
Wang Qiu touched his chin and said suspiciously, "Didn't you say before that this manor is the commercial base of the Knights Hospitaller, and they do a big business of tens of thousands of gold florins every year?
How can you get such a small amount of money?"
"Come on, business is business, cash is cash.
Would Bill Gates pile up 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 I am a Jew who is a loan shark, it is impossible in this era.
No chamber of commerce can just 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 the fifty thousand florins I inherited from the Bacon family.
They are all in these."
Can you turn the things into money?"
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 European Mediterranean world have been continuously flowing out to the East due to the need to import Eastern silk 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 coinage.
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 of various countries 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 so easy to issue money indiscriminately.
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Where did the gold and silver for coining come from?
America has not yet been discovered, the Gold Coast of West Africa is still the territory of China, 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.
The banknotes issued indiscriminately looked like The original banknotes are exactly the same, 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.
Money was not enough, so how to do business?
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, as described in The Wolf and the Spice, merchants in medieval Europe mainly relied on mutual credit and bill transactions to do business.
Cash transactions of direct payment for things only accounted for a small part, which was equivalent to entering the credit currency and virtual currency era 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 medieval accounting 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 run.
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 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 have no place to put forward too many coins for a while.
It must be done among peers, relatives and friends.
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.
"This is the situation.
It is true that I have a net worth of over fifty thousand florins on my books, but I have to go to Florence, Venice, Paris, Lyon, Antwerp, Cologne, London, Bordeaux, etc. with my contracts.
These distant places can be converted into coins.
And in these tragic years with the outbreak of the Black Death, I doubt that by the time we take the contract and travel a long way to find a place, the other party will be dead with no bones left.
As for the loan sharks in Marseille.
The Jews fled with their families 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, right?
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 ransacked Levi's villa.
From the silver tableware used for meals, to the gold wine bowls and gold wine glasses in Levi's personal collection, to his His wife's gold and silver jewelry, mink coat, and other family heirlooms were all 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 have 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 pulling a cart can be sold for at least 10,000 yuan.
After all kinds of troubles, Doraemon finally collected 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 Nobi's house, but also arranged for her to stay in a professional hospital in Tokyo to wait for delivery.
Only 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.
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"Those plague patients who have not been ill 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.
Right, these two powders They are all white, don’t get them confused.”
"Streptomycin injection is a specific drug that can treat all types of plague, and the dose needs to be increased for severe patients."
"There is no panacea in the 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 still lying the political commissar Guo Jingguo who fell from a high altitude and had his bones shattered and is unconscious.
Although he has been rescued before and is out of danger, he can't just leave him alone, 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 the newcomers in the British camp who are forced to stay in this world, I wonder if you know any news?”
"I don't know anything about those guys in 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 anything?"
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 the battlefield alive on the losing side, but as How come the members of the winning side didn’t survive?”
"Everyone in the Fried Chicken Team is 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 the British army won the Battle of Crecy.
After the Battle of Recy, we still have to sweep Normandy, besiege the city of Calais, and fight for more than a year in a row before returning home in triumph.
In such a long time, it is completely normal to get sick and injured and kill a few people."
"That's 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 be here too Work hard to change history and gain points.” s: Alas, the current website is getting more and more crazy.
Even the word jasmine is blocked.
What can people say?
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