After a secret meeting with his son, Crown Prince Frederick began to work on the development of the colony. Taking advantage of the freshness of the German colonies just obtained in 1885, Crown Prince Frederick proposed at the Imperial Diet to set up an efficient administrative system and a special economic development planning department in the colonies, and in order to better develop the colonies, organize scientific expeditions to go deep into the colonial areas to investigate the natural features, water and soil environment, and mineral resources, and then formulate a colonial development plan according to the return of the expedition, and use this as the basis to formulate the amount of funds invested in the colonies. The Reichstag did not object to this, and even Bismarck, who opposed colonization, approved of such a tepid plan. After all, it's human nature to understand things first.

Jochen, who also attended the meeting of the Imperial Diet, added fuel to the fire: HK would fund the expedition, but the mining rights of the mineral resources discovered by the expedition belonged to HK - at this time, Jochen had money in his hands, HK was currently in good shape, and Crown Prince Frederick, who was very satisfied with this, generously gave Jochen 1 million marks. Of course, this money Yoheng did not think about using it to expand production, and going abroad to enclose land is the fastest way to make money, as for finance, Yoheng does not think that he can play well.

So Jochen even took out some of the private goods in his entrainment. The scientific expedition team, especially the mineral resources scientific expedition team, is required to give priority and focus on the investigation of the area of their choice. Because Jochen is an investor, and the rich is the uncle, this request was naturally approved by the council. Jochen's plan is to prioritize the mineral resources of the Kate, Mobileon, Yucca Duma, Lom, Mbere, and Mayuree regions of German Cameroon. These areas are all diamond and gold producing areas in German Cameroon, and when the diamonds are mined, you guys will be more interested in the colonies. Of course, there are more production areas in Jochen's entrainment, but the rice has to be eaten one bite at a time, and Jochen still understands this reason. As for the time when the time comes, people wonder that His Royal Highness the Imperial Highness can mine real money by drawing a circle on the map so casually, which is even better for Jochen. Mystery is sometimes the most powerful weapon.

As for why precious minerals such as gold and diamonds, which have smaller reserves, are preferred over industrial metals such as iron and copper, which have a greater impact on industry, and are abundant. In the final analysis, it is Jochen who has always emphasized that the economy determines the qiē, and in this era of the gold standard, the economic problem is the gold problem.

Historically, in 1896, William Jennings Bryan, an American, shouted the "Golden Cross" speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago -- "You can't put the crown of thorns on the eyebrows of laborers, and you can't crucify mankind to the golden cross!" The Democratic presidential candidate, who is extremely well-versed in economic principles and far ahead of his time, has spoken out about the "curse" that all capitalist countries, old and new, cannot avoid facing in this era.

And the historical idea of Wilhelm II's sea power, his desire for a "land under the sun", and his enthusiasm for a rotten country like Ottoman Turkey were all due to the cursed "golden cross". The development of the economy is inseparable from money, and the Marquis Bismarck did not bring alchemy to Germany.

And Jochen, who was well aware of the relationship between "money" and "currency symbols" in the age of the gold standard, did not want to bring more industrial resources to Germany, but first to find more money!

Unlike gold, paper money is not really money, it is nothing more than a "currency symbol" guaranteed by state credit and bank credit, which is mandatory under the law. As soon as the credit of the state and the bank is not deposited, then its meaning as a monetary symbol disappears. This is also why paper marks were used by the Germans to burn stoves during the economic crisis before World War II, because at this time their value was only a pile of paper.

But gold is different, and the value of these precious metals comes from undifferentiated general labor, rather than low-cost printing techniques. Therefore, gold, as a scale of value, can ensure the stability of value. In the era of the gold standard, when paper money was pegged to gold, the paper money itself had its own gold content, so it also ensured that the exchange rate changed slightly.

However, there must be advantages and disadvantages, and after the paper money is linked to gold, the number of banknotes that the country can hairstyle is linked to the amount of gold, and how much gold can be styled and how many banknotes. Once this ratio is exceeded, a lack of gold-backed banknotes leads to instability in the monetary system, while the depreciation of the currency represents a loss of national credibility and the downfall of the government.

Then the problem arises, the development of capitalism needs money, and the amount of money issued represents purchasing power, and purchasing power stimulates the development of capitalism, and the development of capitalism brings about an increase in the amount of wealth, and the increase in the amount of wealth requires the issuance of more money. But we don't have gold!

The absence of gold will lead to an increase in the quantity of money, while a sharp increase in the quantity of goods will lead to a fall in prices and a decrease in wages, thus inducing an economic crisis.

An increase in the purchasing power of money means a decrease in the value of goods. It seems like a good thing for consumers. But for producers, the amount of goods sold to repay the original investment increases, that is, the real debt increases, and the faster the production expands, the higher the productivity of labor, the more prices fall, and the heavier the real debt, the greater the investment risk. What to do? Then the only way to do this is to reduce the number of workers, reduce workers' incomes, and reduce investment. This, in turn, led to a sharp contraction of social purchasing power on the supply of products. The lower the price of the product, the more it will not sell. When prices fall to a certain point, society enters a downward spiral of oversupply and contraction of demand. This is also the reason why in the economic crisis before World War II in the United States, the capitalists preferred to pour milk into the river rather than sell it.

What is even worse is that the value of the entrepreneur's loan to produce commodities is an important basis for the bank to judge the survival of the enterprise and decide whether to recover the loan. And in a channel of falling prices, once the banks start to stop issuing new loans, then the collapse of the entire economic system is not far off, and the more you try to recover the loans, the more you can't recover them, and then the crisis spreads from the real economy to the financial system, and then to the whole world through the guò trade system. This is the lingering "curse" that capitalist society faced in the age of the gold standard.

So how can this be prevented? The only way to increase the country's gold reserves is to trade or plunder. Mercantilists believed in exporting their own goods through guò trade in exchange for foreign currency, allowing gold and silver from other countries to flow into their own countries, and reducing the purchase of foreign goods to keep gold and silver in their own countries as much as possible. But what they don't realize is what happens to the country where the gold and silver flow into your country? Repeat the cycle of oversupply – the tightening of demand, and then the guò trading system again affects you.

The ultimate solution is to decolonize and plunder. After the Franco-Prussian War, France's indemnity of 5 billion francs or about 1.4 billion taels of silver exceeded the sum of foreign reparations and loan principal and interest in the late Qing Dynasty in the past 70 years, and this huge amount of money flowed into the nascent German Empire in four years. Twenty years after the Franco-Prussian War, when this "dividend" was basically exhausted, and Germany's economic development finally approached the total amount of money that the German banking system could support with gold reserves, deflation caused by falling prices appeared. Germany was no longer a country of small factory owners and conservative Junckers. Monopoly spoilers such as trusts, cartels, and Conzern occupy the political arena in Germany. They need more "real money" to support more banknotes, more credit. But there is no alchemy in Germany, and the iron-blooded prime minister? Unfortunately, he neither cares nor does it about it. At this time, he was deeply afflicted by the delusional syndrome of victimization, and he only thought about how to face the possible revenge of France. While constantly weaving intrigues in the field of international diplomacy, it also planted the seeds for the destruction of the empire. There is no doubt that Bismarck foresaw the terrible prospect of French revenge, but as Jochen once said, Bismarck, who had exhausted his calculations, fundamentally ignored a crucial question: why did France recover so quickly?!

The reason for this is that France has a huge colony that is more than 20 times the size of the mainland, and the huge wealth brought by these colonies can enable France to pay off the huge indemnity that the Qing Dynasty has not paid for 70 years in four years, and then quickly recover at the speed of the Germans.

Of course, the trade plundering of the colonial market can also accumulate gold in the hand, but this requires a lot of upfront investment, and the conservative Junkers within Germany will also become an obstacle, but direct mining is different, not only can directly bring gold, but gold mining will also make more people interested in the colony, when these people begin to invest in the colony, it will help Germany to complete the early investment in the plundering of the colonial market, At that time, any force that stands in the way of the development of the colony will be crushed in front of interests!

So Jochen must bring more gold and more hard currency to Germany to support Germany's rapid production capacity in the next 20 years! With the support of these golds, those industrial metals that can bring German industry development are valuable!

The curse of the Golden Cross, it's so terrible, but there's so mesmerizing!

Of course, gold mining is not simply about increasing the amount of currency issued in Germany in the future. If you have a valuable colony, you will inevitably increase the management and investment in the colony, and if you increase the investment, you will naturally have to protect its security. Then increasing the investment of naval forces to protect the interests of the colonies will also become a requirement of all the powers that have interests in the colonies. This will also allow the national power to be appropriately tilted in the direction of the navy, and the army must also make concessions in front of these forces.

This was the first step in Jochen's plan for the development of the colony!