On October 14th, it was already winter in Owari, and the weather was getting colder. And the bank that Yu Qiuping had been thinking about for a long time was finally completed on this day. In order to highlight the uniqueness of the bank, Yu Qiuping did not follow the traditional Japanese style, but deliberately chose the Dorian style architecture favored by many Western banks.

The bank of Yuqiuping resembles a small palace, about two stories high. In front of the main entrance of the bank, the roof is supported by four large round columns. On the roof, there is a large plaque with the words "People's Bank" written on it. On the gate of the bank, there are two large ingots carved. The entire bank was painted silver-white at the request of Yu Qiuping, and it stood out in the brown residential area of Joshita Town.

Inside the bank, Yu Qiuping imitated the layout of the bank in the past. As soon as you enter from the main entrance, you will see a row of five cash registers. On the left side of the counter, there are several consultation counters. To the right of the counter is the staircase leading upstairs. In order to prevent theft, the valuable silver taels, bills and gold stored in the bank are placed on the second floor. And a large number of cheap copper coins were piled up behind the counter on the first floor by Yu Qiuping - to show that he seemed to have a lot of money to support the scene.

Sena had suggested that Yu Qiuping use the bank as a custodian and a clay warehouse for small loans, but Yu Qiuping firmly refused. Although the Yuqiu family can now be regarded as wealthy with the profits of the caravan trade that have been wiped out by the Sena clan from the war, he must not be satisfied with this, and must find a way to make more money. Therefore, he insisted on paying interest to those who saved money in order to attract more deposits.

Because Yu Qiuhei had an ambitious expansion plan in mind, he wanted to recruit some more Owari people into the army this winter, and expand the number of soldiers to 400 - this really needed financial support, because his soldiers had always been full-time soldiers, and it cost 10 yuan a year to raise a soldier. Moreover, there are only more than 1,600 people in his territory of 10,000 stones, and it is impossible to recruit 400 soldiers and maintain 800 auxiliaries at the same time. As a result, he had to seek conscription instead of military service – within the confines of All Owari, young men were recruited as non-productive full-time soldiers, who were fed and housed in Yuakihira's territory to relieve the pressure on the population of the realm – which undoubtedly required more money.

The specific conscription rules have been handed over to Naoe Tadahei and Fukushima Yasunari to draw up, or as before, choose loyal and honest people who are physically strong to enlist in the army, and give a certain amount of settling-in allowance to attract people to join the army. In order to avoid the existence of the army in small groups and the spread of bad habits, Amano Keitori was asked by Yu Qiuping to personally supervise the recruitment of soldiers and the training of Ashigaru in addition to drafting the laws of the territory.

Therefore, Yu Qiuping could not be satisfied that his bank was just an institution like Tucang, but wanted to turn it into a large-scale financing platform, and then use the money from financing to do business, invest or lend usury, so as to roll over more and more.

However, the bank has been established, and how to attract people to save money is a problem. The merchants of Owari had money in their hands, and they quickly understood how the Amaakihei Bank worked. However, Yu Qiuping's willingness to discount the interest of depositors made them wary. Of course, they don't believe in such a well-meaning lord, so they all maintain a wait-and-see mentality towards Yuqiuping's bank.

As for how to introduce the role of this bank to the people, it made Yu Qiuhei and Sena Shiyoshi and others nerve-wracking. The political participation rate of these people is very low, and they do not care much about the introduction of new policies, and they only think about their own one-third of an acre, which is very old-fashioned. Moreover, they have a very low level of education, are basically illiterate, and have poor comprehension skills. How to educate them about the bank and make them understand it is a real problem. Sena had asked the acting officials of each village to preach the banking system in the village, but few people came, and basically no one cared.

Later, it was the traverser Yu Qiuping who patted his head and came up with a way - the exam! He announced that he would hold an exam on banking knowledge in his territory before the Chinese New Year – actually an interview, because the vast majority of people could not write. When the time comes, he will send all of Tokiwabei and all of Ashigaru as examiners and scatter them to various villages. Then they were given 100 true/false questions and multiple-choice questions about the bank as a question bank, and they were asked to draw 10 questions from each of the interviewees who came to the test in turn. If you can answer more than eight questions correctly, you will be considered to have passed the exam. Those who pass the exam can receive 500 Wen as a reward. Each household can send one person to take the test.

After this policy was propagated by Yu Qiuping in various villages, the number of people who came to listen to the acting official's lecture on the banking system suddenly increased dramatically. 500 Wen is a lot of wealth for these small farmers, anyway, it is also a slack period, and these small farmers are of course eager to make a lot of extra money. As a result, many peasants in every village came every day to listen to the deputy official's lecture on the basic banking system once a day, and some of the more stupid people even came four or five times in a row without knowing it, so they had to continue to come again and again. What is the difference between demand deposits and time deposits, what is compound interest, why the five-year fixed interest is higher than the three-year fixed interest, etc., all make people troubled.

·

The rules of the bank's operation were promoted, but Yu Qiuping did not have time to relax for a few days. Sena threw a new problem at him.

"Momiji, there's a problem again! If I'm not mistaken, you must want to use the borrowed money to lend money or do business. Sena asked.

"Yoshibei, why are you bothering me again!" Yu Qiuping was bowing his head to prepare for the bank's exam questions, and when he heard the sound of Sena's fly, he didn't want to speak subconsciously.

"Huh?" Sena Yoshishi was stunned for a moment, "Momiji, this is the first time you call me Yoshibei, haven't you always called me Yoshiyi before?" ”

"Well, I was distracted just now," Yu Qiuping put down the pen in his hand and rubbed his temples, "When I heard my eldest brother Taehyung talk about interesting things when he was a child, he called you Jibei, and he subconsciously shouted out." ”

"But I think it's more appropriate for you to be called Iron Guard," Yu Qiuping quipped, "Iron Rooster, not a hair." ”

"Momiji, you really don't know anything about money." Sena Shiyi seems to disdain to argue with a person like Yu Qiuping who spends money lavishly, "If you like to be called Yoshibei, you can call Yoshibei, but the problem of money is not allowed for you to be sloppy!" ”

"Tell me, Yoshibei, what's the problem?" Yu Qiuping deliberately raised the bar and asked.

"Your Highness, I don't think your two ways of making money with borrowed money are very reliable." Sena pointed out, "First of all, if you lend money, you won't have any big profits. Because the vast majority of farmers and businessmen are not easy to borrow money, and those who are generally reduced to borrowing money are people who are already about to lose their lives - does this kind of person still expect them to repay the money? ”

"Huh?" Yu Qiuping was stunned for a moment, "Don't all businessmen want to borrow money to expand production and make more money?" ”

"Is this the case with the merchants of the Ming Kingdom?" Sena was stunned for a moment, "Anyway, Japanese businessmen will never borrow money unless they have to." ”

"That's it..."Yu Qiuping shook his head a little disappointed, he hadn't thought about this before, and he had miscalculated. If there is no way to make money with the money deposited in the bank, won't he have to pay interest for nothing?

"Isn't there still a caravan!" Yu Qiuping comforted and knew, "We don't have to pay tariffs for cross-border trade, and we can always make money by taking advantage of the price difference!" ”

"The problem is, we need to know which things have a price difference!" Sena spread his hands and said, "This time the price of food fluctuated because the matter was too big to spread to us. Otherwise, we would have no way of knowing the prices of Minong. Indeed, these Meinong specialties can definitely make money when you buy them, but..."

"But the market will be saturated, right," Yu Akihei picked up Sena's words, "It's impossible to buy Mino paper every time, and specialties like crystal lime won't sell well in Owari soon." In the end, it is still necessary to buy and sell daily necessities. ”

"Yes, so we have to find a way to know the price of Minong." "You can't always wait for news from passing merchants, and when they bring news, prices may have already changed." ”

"Well, this is really a problem," Yu Qiuping scratched his head.

·

Just when Yu Qiuhei and Sena Toshi were worried about it, Sanada Masayuki also came in.

"Kibei?" Yu Qiuping looked at Sanada Masayuki, "Is there something wrong?" ”

"Your Highness, that's right," Sanada Masayuki said with some embarrassment, "The intelligence infiltration work that His Highness has asked His Highness to carry out is really very difficult. Because we simply do not have experienced intelligence workers, except below. ”

"Didn't you go and recruit people?" Yu Qiuping asked in surprise.

"I have recruited some reliable lords, and I have also selected a few clever ones from my old subordinates to help," Sanada Masayuki shook his head and said, "But if you want to infiltrate the enemy's territory, it is very difficult to know the enemy's news. Whether it is disguised and mixed in, or relying on excellent body skills to eavesdrop, it is not an ability that can be practiced overnight. ”

"And what did the other lords do?" Yu Qiuping asked curiously.

"It's usually the ninja and the metsuke group," Sanada replied.

"Ninja?" Yu Qiuping has always been very curious about Japanese ninjas, do they really have the ability to go to the sky and the earth like those ninjas in "Naruto", "What do they do?" ”

"To put it simply, it's intelligence, escort, and assassination." Sanada replied, "The profession of ninja is hereditary from generation to generation, and many ninjas come together to form a ninja who live in remote places and pass on their craft from generation to generation. Some of them have superb physical skills, while others are proficient in hidden weapons, or they are just good at camouflage and infiltration. ”

"Then how did the daimyo get the ninjas to do things for them?" Yu Qiuping asked curiously again.

"By hiring," Sanada Masayuki seemed to know a lot about this, "if the daimyo wanted to accomplish anything, they would hire a ninja to complete it in the form of a mission." If you can successfully complete the ninja life, you can get a commission from the daimyo to make a living. And some of the most powerful daimyo will have ninjas who have been loyal to them for generations. For example, in the Wind Demon Ninja of the Hojo family. They only accept assignments from the lord daimyo and the lord lord will also protect their safety. And the vast majority of other weak daimyos, who can't afford to have their own ninjas, can only hire neutral ninjas. ”

"Are these ninjas reliable?" Yu Qiuping was a little puzzled, "After the mission is over, won't they have nothing to do with the mercenary?" And how can they be guaranteed their loyalty? ”

"Generally speaking, ninjas are still reliable," Sanada Masayuki nodded, "This is the rule of this business, and you will not betray your employer or divulge the news of your previous employer." The ninjas knew in their hearts that maybe they could get a lot of benefits by breaking the rules, but then no one would dare to hire ninjas. And those that are really involved in secrets, the little daimyo will also hand over to their own intelligence officers, that is, the Mufu team, and will not entrust them to the ninja. ”

"So what do you mean—" Akihei looked at Masayuki Sanada, "let me hire a ninja to conduct intelligence reconnaissance for us." Yu Qiuping said as he shifted his gaze to Sena Shiyi: "By the way, monitor prices?" ”