Military Scrip 3

"Yes, we also need to consider the difficulties of distributing all kinds of supplies, as well as whether it would be fair."

Catherine added, "I think soldiers assigned apples would feel they were being treated unfairly compared with soldiers assigned salt, because salt is easier to preserve its value."

"You see." Paul smiled. "Using supplies directly as a way to pay military wages would create many problems in practice."

"In the ancient, primitive era, people traded through barter. But as the scale and complexity of trade increased, directly exchanging goods became too inconvenient. That was when money appeared. As a medium for pricing transactions, money linked all traded goods together, giving birth to true commerce and creating the prosperous world we have today."

"So..." Paul finally voiced the immature idea he had mentioned at the beginning.

"We can create a new medium of exchange that neither depends on scarce metals like Gold, Silver, and Copper nor lacks the properties of money. This medium of exchange would only be used within the army. We could call it military scrip."

"You should know that the shops under the Royal Family's control are spread throughout Aldo. As long as we have His Majesty the King issue an edict, military scrip held by anyone would have the same purchasing power as metal coins of the same denomination when used to buy goods at the Royal Family's shops. Then, if we used military scrip to pay soldiers' wages, wouldn't that be equivalent to paying them in metal currency? This would solve the Kingdom government's current shortage of money."

Catherine thought for a moment. "That is indeed a good idea. But what should this military scrip be made from? By your reasoning, since it still has the properties of money, its raw material needs to be