Chapter 2052: Cebu Island Copper Mine
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The source of Marin's confidence comes from the Beihai Mint in his hands. This large-scale mint with a scale of 5,000 people may be less than the Tour Mint, the largest mint in France, in terms of the number of people. However, the production efficiency is much higher.
Mint of Tours, can have up to 7000 craftsmen. But when they minted coins, craftsmen used hammers and molds to tap patterns and characters on the coins, which was time-consuming and inefficient. On average, a craftsman can beat twenty or thirty coins a day. The craftsmen who beat the coins have to pay a few coins every day. Therefore, manual coinage is not very profitable. A large part of it is spent on craftsmen's wages.
However, the Beihai state used machines to die-cast coins, and the efficiency has increased by more than ten times. On average, each person can cast more than 200 pieces a day. If the efficiency of making blank copper plates, the most time-consuming, cannot be improved, it would not be a problem to mint 500 copper coins per person per day on average.
Even so, the nearly ten-fold difference in efficiency made it impossible for the Beihai Kingdom to stop on the road of minting coins. Originally, a counterfeit silver coin minted in French nickel. But Marin was afraid that he would do too much, and it would not end after the incident happened one day.
But now, with the "Merchant of Venice" with the added plot of casting fake silver coins as a base and back, Marin decided to make another round of fake French silver coins. But before that, let's make a batch of Spanish and Portuguese copper coins.
Spain's Malawi copper coins and Portugal's Reese copper coins are very similar in size and value. It can also be said that the Portuguese copied the Spanish idea.
At the beginning, Spain's little queen Margaret learned from Marin and used cheap Indian copper to cast Malawi copper coins, which made Spain a lot of money. After all, the price of copper in India is less than one-fifth of that in Europe. Even if it is shipped back to Europe, the cost is less than a quarter of the European copper price. In this way, using Indian copper to mint copper coins, even if the inefficient coinage method of hand-crafting is used, the profits from the materials alone will make the Spanish royal family overwhelmed. Of course, the Portuguese royal family who learned how to do it is also very profitable.
In order to expand the minting of cheap copper coins, the two countries also jointly reduced the share of the North Sea country in purchasing copper ingots from India. The reason is that Marin has a large share of the Fayilun Copper Mine in Sweden and can be self-sufficient. However, the production cost of European copper is higher than that of India, mainly due to the high labor cost, so how can it have a price advantage over Indian copper?
Fortunately, Marin has opened up the trade routes of the Ming Dynasty and can purchase cheaper Ming Dynasty copper. According to the market price, the silver-to-copper ratio of Indian copper is between 1:80 and 1:100. The silver-copper ratio in the Ming Dynasty is currently at 1:160, which is almost twice as cheap as Indian copper.
However, the Ming Dynasty used copper to cast coins to control the outflow of copper ingots. Marin tried every means, and he was able to purchase tens of thousands of catties of copper each time. Of course, Marin had sent someone to the Ming Dynasty to inform the existence of the Dexing Copper Mine. I believe that when the Ming Dynasty receives the news, there is no need to limit his copper purchases.
After all, Dexing Copper Mine has too much copper.
Right now, the Beihai State Mint can mint an average of 500,000 to 1,000,000 coins per day. But the raw materials cannot keep up with the supply, otherwise, hundreds of millions of coins will be minted every day.
After returning to China, Marin sent someone to calculate. Based on the price of three or four thousand gold coins per ship (the ship itself is not expensive excluding copper guns), it is estimated that more than 200 Carrack sailboats and Caravel sailboats will cost 800,000 yuan. Gold coins or so.
A Ducat gold coin is worth 375 Malawi di coins, and a Malawi di copper coin weighs about 1.7 grams. In this way, the Beihai Mint needs to mint 300 million Malawi copper coins (Race copper coins), which requires 510 tons of red copper. This amount seems a bit insufficient...
Before, Marin only purchased dozens of tons of copper from India every year. Later, the trade route of the Ming Dynasty was opened, but the Indian copper trade was lost. Therefore, the amount of copper he can get every year is only a few tens of tons. 510 tons is indeed a bit much...
In desperation, because of the lack of materials, Marin had to turn his attention to the more valuable French silver coins...
Anyway, French silver coins are also very popular in southern Europe. Perhaps the Spaniards, the sworn enemy of France, are unwilling to accept it, but the Portuguese and Italians are very happy to accept it. Therefore, Marin took out a batch of nickel-nickel-nickel copper and asked people to make some fake French silver coins as the means of payment for this ship trade.
As for copper coins, because they are not the currency in circulation in Europe as a whole, it is a bit troublesome to send people to the Iberian Peninsula to slowly ship them in batches, and then exchange them for gold and silver coins. But considering the huge profits, this trouble is nothing.
Now, the only thing Marin worries about is whether the Ming Dynasty will give him enough copper shares after he gets the Dexing Copper Mine. You know, the Dexing Copper Mine has more than 10 million tons of copper metal reserves that are more valuable for mining. If the imperial court does not consider the cost input, the annual output of several thousand tons or even tens of thousands of tons is no problem. For example, the well-known Yunnan Copper, during the Qianlong period, the annual output of Yunnan Copper Dongchuan Copper Mine reached 8,000 tons of blister copper. Otherwise, Qianlong Tongbao would not be flooded, and it would be worthless at all.
Marin doesn't expect to get a lot of shares. He is enough to share a few hundred tons a year. However, even with this amount, Marin was worried that he would not be able to share it. why? Because of the character of the scholar-officials in the Ming Dynasty...
The scholar-bureaucrats of the Ming Dynasty attached great importance to basic things such as agriculture and copper, and they were unwilling to grant them to others easily. Copper is money to them. Giving Marin copper is equivalent to giving money, can they be willing?
Of course, it will definitely not be a dime. After all, this copper mine was reported by Marin. However, how much to give is hard to say. Previously, Marin was able to buy tens of thousands of catties of copper every year, and I was the one who applied for it under the name of "casting copper cannons". Otherwise, the Ming Dynasty would not sell it here. Therefore, Marin cannot fully count on the Ming Dynasty.
As for Chile, which has the largest copper reserves, Marin doesn't count on it either. Without him, the environment is too harsh, mostly in desert areas or high-altitude mountainous areas. However, there are not enough local manpower to develop.
Therefore, the copper mines that can really be affected and developed are the copper mines such as Ashio Copper Mountain in Japan. Japan is now torn apart and conquering is not very difficult. In addition, even if Japan is unified, if Marin's navy blocks the sea, the daimyo where the Ashio copper mountain is located, even if they get the copper out, they have to rely on themselves if they want to sell it.
In other words, as long as Marin guarantees to be invincible in the Sea of Japan, no matter who develops Tongshan, he must accept his own control. In other words, the pricing power is in your own hands.
This is like how the old US controls the oil in the Middle East in the future. It doesn't matter who digs the oil, but the oil must be settled in US dollars. And, the pricing power rests with Wall Street...
...
Thinking of this, Marin suddenly seemed to have been opened up to the eight meridians, and understood the true meaning of hegemony...
And, coincidentally, he is now the king of the United States... It seems that the United States of later generations can be used in advance? Moreover, it happened to be used on Baga Country...
Therefore, Marin ordered someone to compile the information and was going to send someone to send it to the daimyo where the Ashio Copper Mountain in the Far East is located. As for what language to use for the materials... There is no written Japanese in this era, and Japanese nobles also use Chinese characters. So, just write in traditional Chinese characters...
In addition, Marin also wrote a letter to Kong Tai, the manager of Dongfan Island, ordering him to send a ship south to the Philippines to find Cebu Island. Also, send someone to search for the Toledo copper mine on Cebu...
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