Ergin, the British plenipotentiary to China, felt that he had also reaped the fruits of a good harvest, and he negotiated with the Qing court, using the Canton incident as a pressure to force the Qing court to accede to almost all his demands, including the legalization of the crow trade, the issue of import and export tariffs, and the intervention of the British to help with the Qing tariffs. Pen ~ fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info Qing court even agreed to the dismissal of the governor of Liangguang who forcibly recovered Guangzhou.

This is a satisfying and pleasant aftermath of the trade rules, although it is only an annex to the "Tianjin Treaty", but the real benefit depends on these trade rules.

Now that the things that should be asked for are in hand, it is time for Ergin to hurry south to deal with other matters, such as the Guangzhou issue. What he had always advocated before was to attack Canton and let the two generals Simamilitol and Grant go freely, which did not mean that he himself was belligerent.

Ergin, to be precise, is a politician, an official. Before coming to China, he served in several British colonies, the highest position being Governor General of Canada.

Moreover, Ergin, a politician, is still a diplomat, not an ordinary diplomat, but a diplomatic family. His father, Elgin, was an ambassador who had held such important positions as ambassadors of the Ottoman Empire. When Elgin got married, he promised his wife a mansion to be built and decorated with precious works of art from the East. He fulfilled his promise, and during his time as Ottoman ambassador, he ransacked the Parthenon in Greece and plundered a large number of treasures of ancient Greek art through not-so-honorable means. Unfortunately, when these treasures were shipped back to England, old Elgin found that his wife had long been unable to bear the loneliness and ran away with others. In the end, these treasures failed to decorate the Elgin family's mansion and were sold to the British Museum.

The elder Elgin plundered the ancient temple of the Acropolis in Greece, and the younger Elgin later presided over the sacking of the Old Summer Palace of the Manchu emperors.

Despite this brutal nature, there is no denying the professional diplomatic qualities of Ergin and the worldview of the diplomat.

Since he is a professional diplomat, then he is unlikely to like constant war, the purpose of war is nothing more than to grab benefits, since the interests have been grabbed, there is no need to get caught in endless wars, only those who really like wars are pure soldiers.

Previously, Ergin supported the hard-line attitude of Grant and Simamil, because he needed to put pressure on the Qing government, and now that the Qing government has yielded, there is no need to dwell on the occupation of the city of Guangzhou.

But when Erjin just returned to Hong Kong, he heard another news, not to mention Guangzhou, even Xin'an City was recovered by the Qing army, when Zhu Jinglun recovered Xin'an, Erjin was still on the ship heading south, he knew that the news that Xin'an was captured by Xima Mi Geli and others was actually before going south, and he originally planned to replace Guangzhou with this county town as a mortgage for the Qing government to pay compensation.

Now there is no Guangzhou in his hand, not to mention, even Xin'an has been lost, which makes Erjin a little headache, and what is even more troublesome is that Grant, Sima Migoli and Hong Kong Governor Bao Ling are in dispute, Bao Ling hopes to restore peace and trade as soon as possible, and the two generals hope that Ergin will ask for a batch of reinforcements from India, and they will continue to fight, not only to take Xin'an, but also to take Guangzhou.

The problem of these prisoners has not yet been solved, so these military and political dignitaries have no time to pay attention to the fluctuations of bills of exchange in the market at this time.

At this time, Fang Shan had already had an impact on the market through the news released by the Wu family, and those foreign firms that had been doing money ticket business with the Wu family's shopkeeper suddenly understood why the Wu family sold the bill of exchange some time ago, but they didn't believe that the East India Company was really dissolved by the British government, so they still had to wait and see, but they had begun to act quietly.

It was not only those Ocean Banks who were involved in this turmoil, but also a much larger number of Chinese merchants, who did not know much about the East India Company, many of whom had never touched the bill of exchange before, and it was because of this resale that they squeezed into this business, and as a result, many people had a lot of bills of exchange collected from the channel, and their credit to the East India Company was not as superstitious as those British merchants, Portuguese merchants and French merchants, so they were the first to start shipping.

The East India Company itself has not received the news of its dissolution at this time, and there is no reason to refuse to discount, so there is constantly silver being redeemed according to the face value, but where can they support this massive silver discount, you must know that at this time, many serious merchants who have not been involved in the bill of exchange transaction also asked for discounting for safety, and this panic run made the East India Company's bank vault soon empty.

The only way to do this is to put up a stop payment sign and tell your customers that they will soon transfer a batch of cash from India, and they will be able to discount it to their customers in a month and a half at most.

The behavior of the East India Company caused even more panic, and the spontaneous discount rate in the market had fallen to less than eighty percent, but there was still a distance from the seventy percent set by Zhu Jinglun, so they were not able to make large-scale acquisitions for the time being, and everything depended on whether the big dealers of the East India Company could transfer a batch of cash from India as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, however, the East India Company's silver ship had not yet arrived, and news from London had arrived.

In August 1858, the British Parliament passed a bill to abolish the East India Company.

It's just that this news was transmitted at sea for three months, and finally reached Hong Kong in mid-November.

Since the true news of the dissolution of the East India Company and the abolition of the company's bills of exchange had already begun to spread in the market, although only one of the two true and false news was confirmed, the other was naturally believed by the market, and a storm of runs and sell-offs was set off.

At this time, it is time for the dealer to start the slaughter, the price of the bill of exchange changes three times a day, the first day of the face price of seventy, the second day it plummeted to sixty percent, the third day is even directly fifty percent, the fourth day lasted one day, the fifth day and another explosion, the bill of exchange in the Hong Kong market almost became a waste of paper, there is no buyer at all, the East India Company directly closed the branch, although the British government of Hong Kong came forward to refute the rumors, but the angry businessman threw the bill of exchange on the desk of the Hong Kong governor, but the governor could not cash it, No one would dare to risk holding these bills of exchange.

At this time, a stream quietly formed between Hong Kong and Macau, and shrewd merchants found that there were still channels for the sale of bills of exchange in Macau, and there were always some people who bought these bills of exchange with cash, and although the prices were very low, there were still panicked businessmen who kept making moves, especially those who were short of cash, or who held too many bills of exchange to hedge.

There were quite a few such people, because many merchants were unable to do business at all during this time, so they did not withdraw the cash from the East India Company, and squeezed in their hands large bills of exchange remittance from London. There were also some merchants who sold their supplies and deposited the cash into the account of the East India Company, and at this time they could not help but worry that the bills of exchange would become waste paper when they returned to London. Everyone is selling, whether it's a bill of exchange to London or a bill of exchange to China, the price of the short-term sale is that after the fifth day, the price falls to 30% of the face value.

But this price did not last long, because the Macau market's absorption of bills of exchange is too strong, the appetite is almost unlimited, of course, the premise is that the price is low enough, the bill of exchange flowing into the Macao market, the head office quietly through various channels, one by one middlemen, small shops, teeth, and finally turned into a silver dollar, or a silver ingot.

Zhu Jinglun could receive some news from Macao from time to time, and the Wu family told Zhu Jinglun that they had purchased hundreds of thousands of taels of bills of exchange at a low price, and the Wu family was very concerned about whether the bills of exchange would really be scrapped, or whether they would be recycled at a reduced price. Zhu Jinglun unequivocally told them that the British government would guarantee the full amount of this bill of exchange in the end, so that they could buy it with confidence.

Fang Shan was also very concerned about the affairs of Macau, and asked Zhu Jinglun to let him go to the town again, he was a little worried about the people of the Wu family.

"Don't worry, they will definitely hand me a beautiful account book in the end, and you can just check the accounts when the time comes."

The East India Company was the East India Company that bet on Zhu Jinglun before, but the news of the dissolution of the East India Company was officially recognized by the Hong Kong government during this time, that is, Zhu Jinglun won the bet, in Fang Shan's view, this shows that Zhu Jinglun has made money in this business, and he is not interested in losing money, but making money is very pleasant, no matter how you say it, it is a great achievement, not just a matter of temptation. He is very interested in helping Zhu Jinglun make a lot of money, even if this capital is borrowed from the Wu family, it still can't stop him from distrusting the Wu family.

"What if the Wu family makes false accounts?"

Fang Shan asked with some concern.

Zhu Jinglun smiled: "They won't, the people of the Wu family know how to do long-term business, do you think they will earn less than me?" ”

Fang Shan sighed: "This is cheaper for them." ”

The news was provided by Zhu Jinglun, Fang Shan felt that the Wu family was completely free-riding, and he also believed that once he got reliable news from Zhu Jinglun, the Wu family would never watch Zhu Jinglun eat alone, and he would definitely have to add in to get a piece of the pie. When he thought that Wu Chongyao was reluctant to borrow money, he became angry. He was very unhappy that the Wu family did not hesitate to borrow money from the beginning, which made him feel that these businessmen were too powerful.

Zhu Jinglun said with a smile: "Without the Wu family, you would not be able to establish such a channel for buying and selling bills of exchange in Macao, and without the Wu family, you would not be able to release false news in the market. ”

Credibility is extremely terrifying, especially the credibility of these business giants, which are made of real money, and once it is realized, it is really a mountain of gold and silver. Of course, the Wu family, who runs Jardine Bank, has this kind of gold-like credit. It's just that they don't know how to monetize it. Later generations of Goldman Sachs are good at this, they can make countless markets, the general bureau is not worth saying, just a Greece, down to join the European Union beautiful financial record is Goldman Sachs to do, but after Greece joined the European Union, Goldman Sachs was the first to buy 1 billion euros of Greek debt insurance, when the Greek debt went bankrupt, Goldman Sachs made a big profit.

Fang Shan wanted to say more, Zhu Jinglun waved his hand.

"You don't have to go to Macau, you can go to Hong Kong. I heard that Ergin is back! ”

Zhu Jinglun has never taken the initiative to contact Hong Kong, not because he wants to continue the war, but he regards Xin'an as the foundation, and no one wants to make a mess of the foundation before the foundation is built. It's just that at the beginning, it was a group of generals who were in charge of Hong Kong, and now that Erjin has returned, Zhu Jinglun feels that he can take the initiative to contact Hong Kong, because Erjin is a diplomat, and diplomats always prefer peace.

As long as there is something to do, Fang Shan hurriedly asked: "Let me go find that Ergin?" ”

Zhu Jinglun shook his head: "No, you go to Hurd." ”