(The author is not a financial professional, so there may be errors in the financial knowledge points that can appear in this chapter, and I hope that the reader will point out and correct them.) Also because he didn't dare to scribble, all the plots in this chapter are highly restored to history! The author didn't dare to let the protagonist come out and jump...... ）

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A comprador is a local Chinese businessman who chooses a local Chinese businessman to act as an agent when doing business in China, and is not only an employee of a foreign businessman, but also an independent businessman.

Most of the compradors of ordinary goods are middlemen, but the compradors of banks are different from ordinary compradors.

Because the mainstream financial institutions in China at that time did not have a unified system for the silver bills of the bank, and the foreigners could not identify the authenticity of the banknotes in the hands of the merchants, the foreign-funded banks and foreign banks had to ask a Chinese comprador who was familiar with the money bank business to check and check the checks.

In other words, the comprador is the executor of the foreign business of foreign banks and foreign-funded banks, and is also the guarantor of the silver bills issued by the bank.

At that time, all the Chinese compradors in foreign banks were responsible for the cashier and custody of banknotes, the purchase and sale of gold, silver and foreign exchange, the clearing of bills, loan guarantees and deposit introductions and other specific things in the daily operation, so most of the compradors of the bank needed to have a certain net worth to serve!

And because foreigners can't understand the shopping mall environment and rules of the Qing Dynasty, foreigner managers and local merchants often have friction when doing business, so Chinese compradors are usually long-sleeved and good at dancing, with broad connections and smooth wrists!

Therefore, compradors like the Xi family are more like partners of foreign banks than employees, but initially these compradors still only play the role of intermediaries between foreign banks and local businessmen, and can only receive a small salary plus a certain percentage of commissions.

The person who really carries forward the comprador industry is Xi Zhengfu's top boss Wang Huaishan!

Wang Huaishan originally worked as a street runner in Sanyu Qianzhuang in Mingzhu City, and he was the person responsible for lending and collecting interest in the bank. Because of business relations, Wang Huaishan met the British businessman "Wheelock & Co." Daban Thomas and became friends with him.

This Thomas is the founder of HSBC's Pearl City branch!

In 1863, the second year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, Thomas returned to England to raise funds for the establishment of the Pearl City branch of HSBC

In desperation, Thomas had no choice but to go to Sanyu Qianzhuang to find Wang Huaishan to try......

Wang Huaishan is righteous enough!

He directly embezzled 2,000 taels of silver from the money he received from the bank's customers and lent it to Thomas, and the two originally agreed that Thomas would repay the money with interest after six months.

It's a pity that country Y is too far away from China, and Thomas was delayed in country Y because of something at that time, so the money could not be returned when it was due.

However, at the end of the year, the money village had to take a unified inventory, and then Wang Huaishan's embezzlement of public funds was exposed, and Wang Huaishan was expelled and driven back to his hometown after being taught a lesson by the boss.

Two years later, Thomas raised a huge amount of money in country Y and Hong Kong Island to establish HSBC on Hong Kong Island on March 3, 1865, and a month later he came to Shanghai to establish the Pearl of Hong Kong Island HSBC.

Because Wang Huaishan helped Thomas in his most difficult time, Thomas trusted Wang Huaishan very much, and all the treasury keys of HSBC were in Wang Huaishan's hands at that time.

I think that when Wang Huaishan was still a trotting street, he dared to lend Thomas such a large sum of money without telling his boss, and now he guards the entire treasury of HSBC, how can he not be tempted.

So he had an idea and made a little calculation!

Wang Huaishan saw that HSBC would have excess short-term loan bills that did not need to be put into the treasury every day, so he took the opportunity to lend these bills to the banker, and used his credit as a guarantee to start using the bank's money to accept the banker's banker bills and charge high loan interest like the bank.

Wang Huaishan is simply a white wolf with empty gloves doing this, he can still get a lot of profits without using any capital himself, he is simply getting rich overnight!

Theoretically speaking, Wang Huaishan is the first person in domestic interbank lending and discounting!

If you walk more at night, you will always meet ghosts, because Wang Huaishan's bill dismantling and acceptance are getting bigger and bigger, and finally it was discovered by HSBC.

At that time, Wang Huaishan was very scared, because he had already been expelled from the domestic money banking industry once, and if he was fired from a foreign-funded bank now, he would not be able to mix in the financial industry in the future.

However, unexpectedly, HSBC noticed Wang Huaishan's "greasy" but did not punish him, HSBC was in the early stage of its establishment, and its strength and qualifications were not as good as those old foreign banks.

At that time, they could only do some small businesses with deposits from foreign banks and foreign-funded companies, and the profits were not high!

Wang Huaishan's small trick just helped them find a gap to break into the local financial circle of Pearl City, and HSBC became the first foreign bank to establish business ties with domestic money banks with this method.

Because of the clear factions of the ancient Chinese money village and the pawnbroking industry, which were passed down from generation to generation, it was difficult for foreign banks to enter the Chinese financial market during the Qing Dynasty.

If foreign banks want to become bigger and stronger in China, they must deal with local money banks in China, so the lucky Wang Huaishan not only was not fired, but began to lend money to local money banks in China on a large scale with the support of the owner.

Because this is HSBC's exclusive business, HSBC's business volume among major banks has soared, and overnight it has surpassed other established foreign banks to become one of the largest foreign banks in the mainland.

It is said that at that time, more than half of the liquidity of the banks in Mingzhu City came from HSBC.

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Since Wang Huaishan changed from secretly lending money privately to making money openly, it only took six years to earn himself 800,000 taels of silver.

It's a pity that Wang Huaishan is a guy who ran the street after all, and he has no culture and ambitions!

So he did not invest the money in Mingzhu City, but according to the ancestral training of returning to his hometown, he remitted all the money to his hometown Yu Yao to buy land, build a school ancestral hall, build bridges and pave roads, and engage in construction.

Wang Huaishan also founded the famous Huaide Yizhuang!

Wang Huaishan's lack of ambition gave future generations an opportunity, and Xi Zhengfu took advantage of this opportunity to enter HSBC.

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Wang Huaishan, who has made a lot of money, is not doing everything well, for example, Wang Huaishan's inability to speak English is a heart problem between him and everyone in HSBC.

Because HSBC is a foreign-funded bank, Wang Huaishan often needs to report to foreign directors or communicate with foreign customers.

But no matter how confidential the situation is, Wang Huaishan must have an interpreter by his side, otherwise he will not be able to communicate smoothly with foreigners.

Wang Huaishan also hired a few English-speaking guys to help him at first, but most of the people who could speak foreign languages at that time did not understand the professional terminology of foreign banks and banks, so there were often various deviations in the translation, which made Wang Huaishan very annoyed.

In the end, Wang Huaishan, who was anxious for translation, found his old acquaintance, Shen Eryuan, the first comprador of Sassoon & Co., and asked him to help him find a right-hand man who could speak English and understand the business of the bank.

Shen Eryuan thought about it for a while and recommended Xi Zhengfu to Wang Huaishan, so Xi Zhengfu met Wang Huaishan, the famous comprador of Mingzhu City, in the summer of 1866.

Xi Zhengfu can be regarded as young and promising, not only does he own a money bank, but also can speak particularly fluent English, which fully meets Wang Huaishan's expectations for his assistant.

Therefore, Wang Huaishan immediately agreed to Shen Eryuan's proposal and let Xi Zhengfu enter Citibank as his assistant and translator, and his position was the business manager of "running the street".

Xi Zhengfu officially stepped into the financial circle of Pearl City from this day!

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Xi Zhengfu was born in 1838 in a large family in Dongting Dongshan, Suzhou, Xi Zhengfu's father Xi Yuanle has been in the pawn business in Kunshan for a long time, so Xi Zhengfu's family was quite prosperous when he was a teenager

Xi Zhengfu's biological mother, Xi Jin, died two years after giving birth to him, so Xi Yuanle continued the Shen family, and Shen Eryuan, the elder brother of the Shen family, was the key person who made the Xi family soar.

Xi Yuanle's health was poor for a long time, and when he died, his eldest son Xi Yiqing was less than twenty, but he took on the burden of supporting his family and began to run around to earn a living to support his younger brother and stepmother.

After the death of his father, Xi Yiqing originally apprenticed in Qianzhuang and later switched to trade, but unfortunately he was just in time for the Taiping Army uprising, and for a time the beacon fire spread throughout the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the familiar trade routes and shops of the Dongting merchant gang on which the Xi family relied were wiped out overnight.

In order to escape the war between the Taiping Army and the Qing Army, the year-old Xi Zhengfu and his brother fled from Su Congee to Mingzhu City to join his stepmother Shen's brother Shen Eryuan.

Because Shen Eryuan didn't have any children of his own, he was very good to his sister and her children, and the Xi brothers also took this opportunity to settle down in Mingzhu City.

You must know that Shen Eryuan is the first chief comprador of the famous Sassoon & Co., and his net worth and status in Pearl City naturally need not be said!

After the two brothers Xi Zhengfu and Xi Yiqing came to Mingzhu City, they began to struggle one step at a time under the guidance and support of Shen Eryuan.

He first went from a money bank to a foreign bank, and then from an ordinary salesman to a bookkeeper, and finally entered the famous British-funded bank Macquarie Bank as an accountant, bringing a stable living environment to the Xi family's brothers.

Macquarie Bank is actually what is now Standard Chartered Bank, and "Macquarie" is the name of the bank's first foreigner manager.

At that time, Xi Zhengfu and his brother came to Mingzhu City together, and he first entered Shen Eryuan's Qian Zhuang with his brother Xi Yiqing as an apprentice in it, and then was promoted by Shen Eryuan to become a "street runner" in Qian Zhuang, which is equivalent to the current business manager.

During this period, Xi Zhengfu learned about the business process and business model of Qianzhuang regarding bill exchange, correspondence, and credit inspection of loan recipients.

After accumulating a certain amount of funds, he began to participate in Shen Eryuan's money bank, and then gradually achieved the position of a partner, after his stepmother passed his younger brother to Shen Eryuan, Xi Zhengfu finally took Shen Eryuan's money bank and became the owner of the money bank.

During this period, Shen Eryuan introduced Xi Zhengfu to HSBC as a business manager of "running the street"!

Because Sassoon is a shareholder of HSBC, Xi Zhengfu's guarantee and care in Shen Eryuan successfully became Wang Huaishan's right-hand man, and his position and experience are thriving, and he has won unanimous praise from the board of directors.

The hard work paid off, and finally the opportunity for Xi Zhengfu to rise came!

Sui Xi Zhengfu was given the task of negotiating with the Qing government on behalf of HSBC about the loan for Fujian and Wanwan Haiphong, which was considered a hot potato by everyone at the time.

No bank had ever borrowed money from the government before, so no one knew what to do about it.

If you don't lend money to the Qing government, you will definitely offend the imperial court!

But if you lend money to it, you are afraid that the Qing government will not be able to pay it back!

After all, the corruption of the Qing Dynasty is well known, and I don't know when such a large sum of money will be recovered when it is lent out?

Can the British boss agree to this?

You must know that according to the rules of the time, the comprador was the guarantor of the loan, and once the money could not be recovered, the comprador who handled this matter would not be able to eat and would have to walk away.

That's why Wang Huaishan threw this hot potato to Xi Zhengfu......

There are some things that some people think are bad!

But it is a good thing in the eyes of some people, and for the shrewd Xi Zhengfu, borrowing money from the Qing Dynasty is a good opportunity for him to get ahead!

Xi Zhengfu believes that the matter of borrowing money is clearly the court's request for HSBC, so can't he use this matter to open up the relationship between HSBC and the court?

At that time, Tianjing was the location of the yamen of Li Hongzhang, the minister of Beiyang, and after arriving in Tianjing, Xi Zhengfu immediately understood the situation through investigation.

At this time, the Sino-French war was imminent, and the Qing court had to buy a large number of arms to defend the country, and if HSBC did not lend the money to the imperial court, the Qing government would borrow money like other foreign banks.

Since the Qing government is imperative on borrowing, then you can get a higher return!

After making up his mind, Xi Zhengfu began to negotiate with the Qing government repeatedly, and finally HSBC lent the Qing government 2 million taels at a much higher interest rate than ordinary loans at that time, with a fixed repayment period of 10 years.

For HSBC, it set a precedent for HSBC's political loans, freed the bank from the dilemma of left and right, and solved the situation of low profits for HSBC, which has a great impact on HSBC.

And for Xi Zhengfu himself, this matter is to kill two birds with one stone!

He not only took advantage of this to become a comprador of HSBC in one fell swoop, but was also appreciated by Qing Dynasty ministers Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang.

As the saying goes, the apprentice was taught to starve to death of the master, Xi Zhengfu perfectly solved the matter of the Qing court's loan, and also showed his extraordinary courage and ability, he was not only valued by the senior management of HSBC, he successfully became the comprador of HSBC and became the Chinese general manager of HSBC.

Now that Xi Zhengfu has taken the throne, the timid and incompetent Wang Huaishan's comprador seat naturally can't sit still, so Wang Huaishan can only roll up and go back to his hometown.

The loan also brought another benefit: Xi Zhengfu and the HSBC bank he represented became the big financiers of the Qing court.

In order to obtain a huge loan, officials of the Qing government scrambled to win over Xi Zhengfu, Li Hongzhang also specially wrote to the imperial court to sponsor him for the official position, Xi Zhengfu accepted the second rank of red-topped flower feather and donated the post of Taotai.

However, Xi Zhengfu became an official only to raise his stature and did not go to Beijing to take up a substantive position, and he took advantage of his position as a high-ranking official of the Qing government and his status as a comprador of HSBC Bank to meet the source of the Chinese financial circles.

became the leading figure at the time!