In the morning fog of mid-autumn, with the rhythmic sound of the trumpet, a large group of shirtless men on the dock of Qingdao Port were working hard to tamp the ground. They are all immigrants from the Yancheng area of Jiangbei, a total of more than 500 people, and are currently leveling the ground under the command of technicians from the First Transportation Construction Bureau.

After receiving the report of the navy on the hydrogeological conditions in the bay of Qingdao (Montevideo), the Government Council immediately decided to build a large port in the area to house the new immigrants. This year, a total of 11,000 immigrants came from Daming, including 6ooo adult men, 2ooo women of childbearing age, and 2ooo boys and girls (all orphans, generally under 1o years old, and a considerable number of Shunjun orphans).

Naturally, 2,000 boys and girls were sent to the fort, but this corps was not the fort of Rocha, but on the north bank of the Carrasco River in the northeast of Montevideo, near the mouth of the sea. The land here is fertile, the water is convenient, and the environment is quite good, so the Executive Committee decided to build a new corps fort here, and officially recruit cadets from this year.

In this special institution, which is privately called the Second Fort of the Corps, in addition to some of the instructors who were transferred from the Corps Fort in Luocha County, a considerable number of the instructors were graduates of the 35th and 36th classes of the Corps Fort. This year's 2,000 students will build their own school buildings, playgrounds, dormitories and fences along the river, and then study and farm until they graduate and go to work in 10 years' time.

Of the remaining 8,000 people, about 3,000 homeless single male homeless people were assigned to the five settlements of Chengshanbao, Tielingbao, and Hejinbao, which were newly built this year, and later the Executive Committee will arrange for 3,000 Ottoman female slaves to be distributed to these places - well, the breeding population. The remaining 5,000 men would then be distributed in groups of 1,000 to the former Spanish colonies east of the Uruguay River, such as the post of Esmeralda (Frey Bentos), the town of General García (Durasno), the post of Montevideo, and the co-administered city of Colonia.

Each of these strongholds is currently home to 5oo to 15oo Spanish peasants, who were allowed to live as usual after the occupation of the area, but were also forbidden to leave or engage in activities against the East Bank. As for these settlements, the East Bank government seems to have made up its mind that it will not be returned to the Spaniards in any case, and even the Council has given these places many conquest names, such as Frey Bentos being renamed Yong'an. Durasno was renamed Yongjing, Colonia was renamed Mall because it was formerly a commercial port, and of course Montevideo - Qingdao, which was named rather badly.

Each of these four strongholds was assigned 1,000 Ming people, who were engaged in agricultural work here. The main reason is to continue to expand the area of reclamation near the wasteland reclaimed by the former Spaniards, and at the same time dig canals and build reservoirs. Local Spanish residents who originally owned more than 3o acres of land were forcibly redeemed, so as not to violate the ban on peasants not owning more than 3o acres of cultivated land per capita.

This act of forcible redemption would of course cause strong resentment among the Spaniards. However, under the strong suppression of the government, they have not been able to make any waves. This is the case here in the port of Qingdao, where the Spaniards originally cultivated a lot of wasteland on the banks of the Migrete River, and then cultivated crops such as wheat and corn. As soon as the easterners occupied the area, they confiscated the lands on both sides of the Migrete River, allowing the Spaniards to keep only the wheat fields on both sides of the Pantanoso River. As for the confiscated land, it was allocated to the newly arrived Yancheng immigrants. These men were ecstatic to get the land, and of course they also endured the wrath of the Spanish peasants.

The forced repurchase price of cultivated land set by the East Coast Government is only 2 yuan per mu (East Coast mu), which makes those Spaniards very dissatisfied, and of course even more dissatisfied is to come. They were a little dumbfounded by the fact that the East Coast government had not paid them the silver dollar, but something called a "banker's acceptance" written all over the language.

The staff member of the Northwest Reclamation Bank, who gave them the draft, patiently explained to them: "This one-year bank acceptance draft is signed by the Qingdao branch of the Northwest Reclamation Bank, and it will be paid in full after the expiration of one year. The bearer will then receive cash at the counter of the Northwest Reclamation Bank, but there will be no interest. This bill of exchange can be transferred to any individual or enterprise without restriction before expiration, and the transferee shall not refuse to accept it for any improper reason, otherwise it will be punished by the police station for criminal detention, fines and other penalties. In addition, this bill of exchange may not be subject to pre-discounting. ”

Although bills of exchange and other commercial papers were used very frequently in European commercial trade at this time, and it can be said that almost all of the bulk trade was carried out by mutual payment of commercial papers, but for these Spanish farmers, who did not see much money at all, they were only serious about gold and silver. They don't recognize money orders, cashier's checks, checks, or anything like that. Therefore, although the explanation of the staff of the Northwest Reclamation Bank did not quite understand them, it still did not prevent them from realizing that they did not want to get cash in a year. This makes them frustrated and dissatisfied, but what can be done? Now the East Coast is the occupying army, and the victor has the right to take away a qiē. It was surprising that they had not now confiscated their land in vain, and it was even more surprising that they were paying some bills of exchange for it.

Maybe I can take these money orders and go buy something? The Spaniard looked at a stack of banker's acceptance bills with denominations of five or ten dollars (for ease of circulation). I began to wonder if I could go to the market and buy a cow? Or maybe buy some farm tools? Well, it seems that you can also buy some waterproof asphalt to fix your own leaky roof. In short, it is better to spend the unreliable "paper" on hand first, and then keep a few more sheets on hand to pay taxes, didn't the bank clerk just say. This "paper" can also be used for tax deductions.

It is said that since the trend of declining government revenue has become more and more obvious, and the expenditure has become larger and larger, the domestic silver has gone through the rapid outflow of the previous year, and there have been signs of a shortage of money in the market. Considering that the domestic silver stock was to be used to import strategic materials in order to maintain the sufficiency of industrial and agricultural exhibitions and war materials, the Government Council, with the approval of the Executive Committee, began to instruct the two financial institutions, the Northwest Reclamation Bank and the United Industrial Credit Bank, to issue all kinds of commercial papers at once: banker's acceptance bills, promissory notes, checks, etc.

In addition, they also require all major state-owned enterprises to use various commercial paper settlements to offset each other, so as to reduce the demand for precious metal currency. As for the commercial settlement between some small private workshops and small enterprises and state-owned enterprises in China, they are also required to use commercial papers issued by two banks, and in order to dispel their doubts, the Government Council allows them to use bills of exchange, cheques, etc. to offset their taxes. In such a situation, these enterprises are forced to open current accounts with nearby banks and settle their daily transactions through the guò banking system.

For example, the Xu Ji Oil Mill in Meilin County was the first to respond to the government's call and announced in a high-profile manner that it would accept a 1,500-year acceptance bill signed by the Northwest Reclamation Bank -- this is the payment for soybean oil purchased by the Sixth Military Department for the front. Xu Wenxuan, director of the factory, said that the risk of bank acceptance bills is low, and the risk will not be borne because of the different fineness of the coins, and at the same time, it will not depreciate because of the increasing wear and tear of coins in circulation, and it is more convenient to carry in daily transactions, which is an ideal commercial paper, and the factory will increase the use of commercial paper in the future to cooperate with national policies. After Xu Wenxuan said this, the next day, the Ministry of Civil Affairs ordered an additional 300 barrels of soybean oil.

In order to prevent others from forging bills, banks that issue commercial bills will keep a deposit internally. That is, when the bank fills in the bill of exchange, it will put carbon paper on the bottom, so that when it is written, it is written in duplicate, the upper one is signed out for circulation, and the next one is left in the bank for deposit and comparison, so as to prevent others from forging bills.

The technology of the so-called carbon paper is relatively mature in today's East Coast. At first, everyone used white paper soaked in ink, and after it was air-dried, it was used under the writing paper, and the effect was so-so. The year before last, the Ministry of Education and the coking plant jointly launched a carbon paper that uses dyes extracted from coal tar as paints.

Nowadays, the acceptance of commercial bills, bank checks, promissory notes and other commercial bills of the bank are all used carbon paper to keep the bottom, once the holder holds the bill of exchange information, handwriting or something is different from the bank deposit, it is very likely to be refused, at this time the bank and the Ministry of the Interior will intervene to investigate the authenticity of the bill. Once the existing person forges the bill, then the person will go to the Changshan Iron Mine to serve hard labor and labor reform, so as to set an example.

The Spaniards in Qingdao Port have also reclaimed more than 100 acres of land, while the more than 200 acres (all converted into acres on the east coast), and more than 700 people have added up to more than 100,000 acres. Although much of the land was covered with weeds, the Spaniards still said that it was indeed their cultivated land, and produced a certificate of land ownership issued by the colonial institutions of the Kingdom of Spain.

After discussing the land sale offered by the Spanish government, the East Coasters decided to hold their noses and admit it, so the East Bank Government had to pay the Spanish settlers a total of nearly 200,000 yuan in compulsory redemption fees - of course, all of which were now paid by one-year bank acceptances.

Desperately distrustful of these bills of exchange, the Spanish peasants immediately went to the bazaars and the state-run stores run by the East Coast government to buy a large number of luxury goods such as sugar, red wine, and tobacco, as well as expensive aspirin medicines. And it was their actions that inadvertently contributed to the first circulation of banker's acceptance bills in the domestic commercial retail system.

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