The British financiers played these things, which the Chinese bankers at this time could not understand, which was tantamount to using the credit of British investors to endorse the Greeks, allowing the British to buy bonds with mortgages, and at the same time being able to sell at any time, which was tantamount to creating a subprime mortgage market, which greatly improved the investment ability of British investors and gave them an opportunity to speculate on Greek bonds with very little money.

The risk of such a market is very large, and if the Greeks fail to become independent, the chain reaction will not be solved by hundreds of thousands of pounds at all, and it is likely to cause a major turmoil in the British financial market. But British financiers are always smarter than the government, and the regulation of government officials is only a reason to make higher profits for them, and the government cannot think of ways to bypass these barriers. In the end, the risk is borne by the entire market, and from this point on, the British financiers at this time are in the same vein as the Wall Street guys in the future.

The Chinese capitalists who have lost their financial business in Greece have not given up the Greek arms market, and in financial innovation, Chinese capitalists are students, but in the field of production, Chinese capital is an expert.

Coupled with the mastery of transportation channels, a large number of strategic materials were delivered to the Greeks.

As a result of the war, the British economy recovered rapidly, and a large number of factories began to produce military supplies, and the excess productivity was alleviated to a certain extent. This kind of economic growth does not come at the expense of the economy's self-adjustment, for example, at the cost of rising gilt debt.

Zhou Lang does not think that debt is a good fiscal measure, but a zero-debt government is a guarantee of credit in this era, so Zhou Lang is willing to restore the country's financial health. In the debt market, it is supported by the debts of various concession companies, such as American companies, Nanyang Australian companies, African companies and European companies, and the debt scale of the four major franchise companies is tens of millions, which is converted into more than 100 million yuan in the past.

The decline in government financing has been accompanied by a contraction of government public projects, and it is sufficient to rely on taxes to maintain public works such as canals and city walls. Zhou Lang even privatized the Grand Canal a few years ago in order to save government spending, and set up a canal company with the Grand Canal as an asset, and the canal company was responsible for maintaining the canal.

In the beginning, some officials in the Ministry of Household Affairs thought that this would make the canal fall into disrepair, and they believed that the mercenary merchants would definitely ignore the carrying capacity of the canal, desperately increase the density of shipping, collect more tolls, and then reduce the maintenance investment, which would lead to the premature death of this golden waterway, which is vital to the livelihood of several provinces.

This concern was probably caused by the traditional scholars' natural distrust of the merchant class, but Zhou Lang also had to consider that although the private canal companies of Westerners were running very well, and they were very concerned about maintenance, because this was their asset, it was in their best interest to run it for a long time. But Zhou Lang also remembered many examples of over-exploitation and bad use of expensive machinery and equipment and other assets after contracting state-owned enterprises in later generations.

Building a low-cost small government is in line with the future trend, the Grand Canal is in the hands of the government, the operating costs are very high, and the private management can save a lot of money and improve efficiency. In order to prevent the canal from being abruptly handed over to the private sector, affecting the strategic transportation capacity and causing a shortage of materials in several northern provinces, Zhou Lang decided to carry out a trial operation in the south of the Yangtze River first.

The section south of the Yangtze River of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, from Zhenjiang to Hangzhou, is established in accordance with the model of a commercial company, and the company is licensed to issue stocks and bonds for financing, and a board of directors is established for management. In the preparatory stage, a large number of canal-related stakeholders were invited to join the shares, including shipping merchants who have accumulated huge capital in the canal fleet, big businessmen who do wholesale trade on canal wharves in various places, salt merchants, tea merchants, silk merchants and other big businessmen in the south of the Yangtze River.

After raising 1 million taels of gold commercial shares, the shareholders with the largest capital contribution formed a board of directors, and then handed over the power to the board of directors according to the template of large commercial companies such as European companies.

After decentralization, the government left the decision of this board of directors to operate and maintain and collect fees. As for whether it is blocking the road and setting up cards to collect tolls, or stopping along the way to collect service fees, in short, the government does not interfere.

Due to the prosperity of the Grand Canal in the Ming and Qing dynasties, many people have high hopes for this canal, after the establishment of the company, listed for public offering, the market value once rose rapidly, from the beginning of 2 million taels to 10 million taels of gold, it is obvious that the market value bubble is too big.

Jiangsu and Zhejiang are close to the sea, and there are many natural rivers, even if there is no canal, there are alternative modes of transportation, so as not to cause a large backlog of goods. In addition, it has to face competition with shipping and natural rivers such as Suzhou Creek and Huangpu River, and the canal is not a monopoly, and can only collect fees within the scope of commercial permits, so as not to charge too high and cause prices to rise sharply.

In the beginning, the Canal Company lost money one after another, many shareholders withdrew, and the stock price began to plummet. From the peak of 10 million taels to 300,000 taels, no one cares.

Finally, the canal was restructured by several shipping families, who believed that the canal shares were profitable, and the problem was in the way it was managed. These shipping families did not simply make a living on the canal, but shipping was their main business, which made them see the value of the canal.

The canal has long been unable to replace maritime transport as the main mode of transportation, but the complementary role of the canal is obvious, if you can communicate with the seaport, the goods and the seaport combined transport, on the one hand, the canal can bring the goods from the mainland to the port, on the other hand, you can evacuate the goods from the port to the mainland, this role is not possible by simple shipping.

These emerging shipping families, not yet called the wealthy, Jiangsu and Zhejiang shipping started late, completely competitive with the maritime fleet in Fujian and Zhejiang, they mainly focus on domestic offshore transportation and trade with Japan and North Korea, and are completely untenable in foreign trade.

After they invested in the canal, they connected the canal to the wharf, which greatly improved the efficiency. Moreover, the toll fee of river transportation has been greatly reduced, and the toll fee of a boat from Hangzhou to Zhenjiang has been reduced from 100 guan in the past (1 guan is 1,000 wen) to 10 guan.

Jiangnan is a rich land, raw silk, tea and other bulk commodities can be transported through the canal, there is no shortage of goods, after the reduction of toll costs, the volume of transportation surged, and the income rose instead. The stock price began to rise, but it still could not return to the high of 10 million taels. Because you can only keep not losing money, there is still a long way to go before you make a profit.

At this time, they received the support of the emperor, who granted them the right to dig new canals in the south of the Yangtze River, and they took advantage of the privilege granted to them by the government to open up a new network of canals, connecting the canals with a large number of natural rivers and enriching the source of goods for the canals. Gradually, the canal turned around. The stock price seemed to rise, they issued new stocks and bonds, raised more money, and asked the emperor for new powers, and they were given the right to operate the port.

On the one hand, it has opened up more and more intensive inland river transportation, and on the other hand, it has controlled the coastal ports, and the efficiency of river-sea combined transportation has become higher and higher, and the profits have become more and more lucrative.

They also widened the canal and introduced new steamships and tugboats, which greatly improved the efficiency and volume of transportation, and grew rapidly during the good times when railways were not yet widespread. They are constantly opening new canals between the already dense water networks in the south of the Yangtze River, connecting the natural rivers into a network of consent. In less than a decade, the Jiangnan Canal Company has developed into a giant of water transport in the south of the Yangtze River, managing more than 3,000 kilometers of canals and more than 20,000 kilometers of connected rivers.

The river transport network covering the entire hinterland of the south of the Yangtze River goes to sea through three ways, one is to the Yangtze River, one is to the sea from the Yangtze River, one is through the Hangzhou-Ningbo Canal, through the seaport of Ningbo, and the other is through the South Canal from Shanghai.

With the success of the Jiangnan Canal, the Grand Canal in Jiangbei quickly became a good asset, and interest groups began to lobby the government to privatize the Grand Canal. Zhou Lang took advantage of the situation and completely threw away the burden of the Grand Canal, chartered the establishment of a Jiangbei Canal Company, and granted them the same power as the Jiangnan Canal to build new canals and operate inland ports.

With the successful experience of the Jiangnan Canal, the Jiangbei Canal from the beginning, a large number of canal outlet channels to the sea were built, and the Yanhe River leading to Haizhou was reactivated, in addition to the construction of various river ports along the Yangtze River, the Yellow River was constantly dredged (at this time the Yellow River entered the sea from the north of Jiangsu), so that the Jiangbei Canal naturally has two large rivers to the sea can be used, one Yangtze River, one Yellow River.

The commercial interests of commercial companies have been effectively combined with the management of the Yellow River, and the idea of river management has changed from disaster relief in the past to routine channeling, which is a kind of progress.

Seeing this situation, Zhou Lang simply handed over to the canal company the impassable natural rivers in the Huaihe River basin that had been silted up because the Yellow River had seized the Huai River into the sea, and authorized them to use them as canals for charging after dredging, and the canal company was more enthusiastic about dredging the river.

In time, this commercial power can certainly greatly improve the river conditions in the Jianghuai region, but the emergence of new technologies has dealt them a heavy blow.

The successful operation of the railway on Zhangku Avenue proved the long-distance transportation capacity and commercial prospects of the new means of transportation, and even the emperor personally invested in the railway, and the name of the Royal Railway Company was so big that it instantly pressed the canal fever that lasted for ten years.

The two monopoly canal companies immediately joined forces and began to obstruct the development of the railway!

They walked on a large scale, and the construction of railways would destroy feng shui, demolish houses and fields, and crash into ancestral tombs, which caused great trouble for the development of railways.

With Zhou Lang's unwavering support, the construction of the second long-distance route of the railway company began, which would be built directly from the coast to Ili.