Translator: Flowingcloud Editor: Arocks141
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TERMS/THINGS TO NOTE:
PLEASE read the footnotes in this chapter, or else nothing will make sense at all unless you have an insane amount of Japanese historical knowledge. The chapter (and my footnotes) will go very in-depth about the history of Japanese currency and coinage. I spent over four hours on this chapter so it would be great if you read the footnotes in this chapter.
Private Coinage
February, 24th Year of the Tembun era (1555), Gassantoda Castle, Izumo
If you are reading from a pirate or aggregator site, please read from the translator’s site: yado-inn (dot) com I have to put the link like this or else the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁
“Privately produce money?
“The money from the Song and Yuan dynasties are already too old.” 1
“Certainly, I have noticed that many of them are chipped or worn out.” 2
“Those bad coins are no different from shichusen. Trouble will only increase if we keep using those bad coins.” 3
Well, my real intention was to let the devil inside me whisper, “If we have no money, it’ll be fine if we just make it!” to Father, who was reluctant to hand over the money.
“That may be so, but Tama, wouldn’t the coins you mint become bad coins as well then?”
“If Father treats all the shichusen as bad coins, then it would be as Father says, but bad coins only become bad coins because they are made by mixing too many imitations with copper. A copper coin is only copper wherever one may go.”
It was good to have created Wado-kaichin, but the quality of the reminted coins had fallen after the first batch. In other words, the Imperial Court themselves mass-produced the bad coins. 4 To make matters worse, they redenominated the currency, so of course, it would be natural for the currency to lose its value.
“Copper can only be copper, huh?”
“Yes. From the start, copper has value, and copper coins are the form that makes it easy to use. Even if silver and gold are not in the form of a coin, they still have value, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“Although the value is different, copper is the same as silver and gold.”
That’s right, the only things that have remained constant in value as real assets to the modern era are copper, silver, gold, and platinum after all. Diamonds? Those shouldn’t be worth as much as they look, right? Gems are not worth that much as a resource.
“I see.”
“In the first place, the problem is that there are not official coins made in Japan.”
“The last time was Kangen-Daiho, was it? From then on, no coins have been made for close to 600 years if I remember correctly.” 5
After the Kocho-Junisen failed, rice, silk, and cloth were substituted for currency, a wonderful phenomena occurred where we regressed eras in early Heian Japan. 6
“Therefore, Amago will take the initiative in minting the coin.”
“I thought it is normal to secretly mint your own shichusen behind the scenes though? In the late-Kokokuin-sama’s (Amago Tsunehisa) era, my Amago has also minted our own shichusen more or less. However, I remember that the quality was not very good.” 7
Ahh, as expected, the Amago tried to do it as well. Of course, any influential person would do so when they run out of money.
“Is that not because the original coin was old?” 8
“That may be so. Well then, Tama, what are you going to use as the original coin?”
“Yongle Tongbao.”
“Yongle Tongbao? However, that coin was not popular due to the Erizenirei that was issued by the shogunate and the Ouchi in the old days.” 9
Bad money drives out good money. As a type of alchemy, the rulers took the initiative in doing this, and I’m sure they couldn’t stop laughing. They’re making use of their power effectively.
“Then, how long will we continue using those worn-out Song coins?”
“Hmm…”
***
(Haruhisa POV)
Certainly, it is as Tama said. I understand that we cannot continue using those worn-out Song coins, but…”
“Ishikoridome has said, “When are you going to mint a new coin? If you are going to, now is the time!”” 10
“If I remember correctly, that is the god of casting right?”
Another oracle? However, it is the truth that one day someone will need to create a new coinage. This may be the time where my Amago takes the initiative and privately mint our new shichusen as Tama said.
“Thus, I will give the new shichusen Yongle Tongbao to the workers of the flood control as their daily wage.”
“Will the people agree with you hanging out shichusen?”
“The one who distributes the most coins wins. At the place where a daily wage is given, there should be an assortment of goods that can be purchased with the Yongle Tongbao handed out. For example, alcohol and dried food. Or even tools that can be used for work.”
“I see. They would be delighted to be immediately able to buy alcohol with the daily wage handed over to them.”
If you could purchase things on the spot, even if it might be shichusen, the value is no different from the actual coin.
“Also, we will distribute meals at noon where we can tempt them to buy lunch. At a price of one-mon for a rice ball and one-mon for soup.”
“That wouldn’t be called distributing meals, wouldn’t it?”
“No, it’s food offered outside the scope of the project, thus we are still distributing meals even if we take their money.” 11
“I-Is that so…”
Is it my imagination? I feel like Tama has a dark smile on her. No, if it’s my cute daughter, that can’t be it…
“Then, I will be using the old Song coins when purchasing the ingredients and alcohol.”
“Hmm? Are you not going to scatter the new coins?”
“The merchants will initially hate it, so we will start with the daily wage that will be given to up to 6,000 people. If you include the women who work behind the scenes to serve the food, that’s more than 6,000 people.”
“If 6,000 people use our shichusen, then it will have already surpassed the limits of a shichusen.”
“Let them buy alcohol and meals and we will recover some of the money. The money we recover will again be handed over to the workers. Then, rinse and repeat.”
“I see, the money will circulate.”
I see. She thought of something good. Certainly, this feels like the Law of Cycles a traveling monk once told me in the past, but I feel like this is somewhat similar.
“Yes. This will slightly reduce the flood control costs. It’s killing two birds with one stone. Rather, naturally, it would be free since the funds are the shichusen we mint.”
“All you need is a copper from a copper mine, huh?”
“Although wages are necessary for the miners that excavate the copper and the casters who will create the coin, it will be fine if we give them the newly created Yongle Tongbao.”
“This is no reason for them to not accept the new coin they just made.”
Come to think of it, Tama initially visited me asking, “Give me 50,000-kan!” I hadn’t realized that flood control would be free, but that I would be able to continue to make money from the copper afterward.
Tama kept coming up with ideas that I have never thought of one after another, so I was quite surprised.
“Also, we will exchange roughly four or five old Song coins for one newly minted Yongle Tongbao.”
“Erizeni, huh?” 12
“Yes. We will crush the exchanged Song coins and make new Yongle Tongbao.”
“Reminting, huh?”
“Yes. We should be able to make two pieces of Yongle Tongbao with three pieces of old Song coins.”
“Which means?”
Err, exchange five pieces of Song coins for a single piece of Yongle Tongbao, and smelt three pieces to make two pieces, thus… eh! My brain can no longer understand! 13
“We’re making an easy profit. A profitable earning.”
“Hahaha! My daughter is such a schemer!” 14
Uh-huh, it will be fine as long as I laugh with my Father’s dignity! I can at least understand that it’ll be profitable.
If you are reading from a pirate or aggregator site, please read from the translator’s site: yado-inn (dot) com I have to put the link like this or else the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁
- Cloudy History Lessons!:
Japanese people in historical society mainly used to use things like shells as a commodity currency up until the 8th century. After, they tried to mint their own currency but quickly lost its value. Starting from the 12th century, Japan started to import Chinese coinage due to the expansion of trade and barter at the time. There was a huge lack of Chinese currency and many imitations out there, leading to the currency being extremely valuable. However, this started to change during this time period—the Sengoku period—where local lords started to develop trade, abolish monopolistic guilds and become heavily involved in the economy. Some clans, namely the Takeda clan, even started to mint their own coins, however, Tama is not suggesting to current a completely different currency. This will be explained in a later footnote. - Cloud: Sorry to bother you again after the previous long footnote. Just pointing out that some currency had been imported in the 12th century, meaning some coins have been used for around 400 years. Wear and tear would be natural for those coins.
- Cloudy History Lessons Part 2!:
Remember in the previous lesson that I was talking about the massive use of Chinese currency? That applied only to the mega-rich. What did normal people use? Bartering commodities or using Bitasen, or what I have been translating as “bad coins”. Like what the term implies, they are very low-quality coins. Like I mentioned previously, there were many counterfeit coins. Shichusen, refers to counterfeit money privately produced and is what Tama is suggesting currently—the create their own shichusen (privately produced coin). Thus, Tama is not suggesting to completely mint a whole new different currency but privately mint a counterfeit. Weird Japanese practices, I know.
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/history/Bitasen.html
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/history/Shichusen.html - This is the first currency that Japan minted that I mentioned earlier.
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/history/Wado-kaichin.html - You can see the Japanese currency timeline here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_cash_coins_by_inscription
- This refers to the twelve coinages minted in Japan during the Nara (710-794) and Heian (794-1185) periods.
Kocho-Junisen: http://bit.ly/2QcOR2Aj - Kokokuin is Amago Tsunehisa’s burial name. Historical Japanese people have like over 9,000 names.
- Shichusen are basically counterfeit coins, thus copying some ancient Chinese currency. Thus, Tama is saying that they failed because they chose an old currency to counterfeit. The whole concept so far is that Tama wants to use a newer currency to counterfeit because she feels like the currently popular ones, Song and Yuan coins, are too old and too deprecated in value.
- Cloudy History Lessons Part 3!:
Yongle Tongbao is another Chinese currency, previously mentioned in Chapter 3. During the Muromachi shogunate (the current one right now), Shichusen were treated as Bitasen (bad coins) and no one wanted to use Bitasen since they were of inferior quality. Thus, the act of Erizeni started to occur, which was the act of not accepting Erizeni. This was a major issue during the Muromachi shogunate, thus the shogunate and many daimyos, like the Ouchi (which was one of the most powerful clans at the time and one of Amago’s two major enemies), issued an Erizenirei, trying to ban the act of Erizeni.
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/history/Erizeni.html
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/history/Erizenirei.html - Cloud: Tama back to being a professional scammer: https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/Shinto/Ishikoridome.html
Arocks141: It’s not scamming. It’s religious enlightenment (scamming). - Cloud: I tried my best to translate it. The actual term is ‘炊き出し’, or distributing rice after an emergency, a term often used to refer to food that’s handed out like rations. Of course, they “usually” don’t charge, but…
- Cloud: If you already forgot, Erizeni is the act of not taking shichusen. Tama is suggesting this exchange to combat Erizeni of the new Yongle Tongbao they are going to mint.
- Arocks141: To put it simply, old man, you give them 3 coins now for 10 coins later.
- Arocks141: No, she is a benevolent, religious leader with great visions for her people (schemer).
I cant access chapter 9, even directly typing in the link just brings me to the release page
Fixed.
lol this is such a nasty get-rich scheme coming from a kid.