Zhou Lichun lazily sat on a soft sofa with Erlang's legs crossed, carefully looking at the place he was staying in. This is a small reception room in a newly completed Western-style building near the banks of the Huangpu River in the Shanghai Concession - this Western-style building is extremely magnificent, it is where the Shanghai branch of the HSBC Bank is located, and most of the people who come in and out are Chinese and foreign wealthy businessmen, especially the proprietor of the Shanghai silver and money industry, and almost every week they have to come back to the HSBC Bank, because the scale and reputation of the HSBC Bank, as well as its special status as the note-issuing bank of the three countries of Mingming, Japan and Lan (Lanfang), all determine that it is the emerging southeast business of Shanghai. The maker of the rules of the game and the determinant of the market interest rate in the banking and money industry in the financial center!

Or to put it simply, HSBC is the de facto central bank in the Jiangnan region of China! In real history, HSBC also has such a special position. Of course, this is due to the long-term absence of China's own central bank! In this time and space, HSBC is just a Daming Royal Bank with a foreign bank brand - in fact, the plan to split HSBC into Daming Royal Bank and HSBC has been secretly worked out. It's just that now is not the time to implement it, because the Ming Dynasty's finances are not stable, and its territory is limited to Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi and Lanfang.

And this Zhou Lichun, the head of the Shanghai Tiandi Association, who defected to Zhu Ming Group shortly after Zhu Jishi arrived in Hong Kong, is now also coming to HSBC as the owner of Lixin Money - the behind-the-scenes boss of Lixin Money is of course Zhu Jishi, and now this money bank is under the supervision of Jinyi Wei Detective Factory, which is the big base of Jinyi Detective Factory in Liangjiang (referring to Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang). Zhou Lichun himself has the official title of Jinyi Wei Shi. He served as the supreme commander of the Jinyi Wei Jiangnan region.

Recent times. Jinyiwei's mission in Liangjiang (referring to Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang) is two. The first is to find ways to infiltrate Huaiyong, Minyong, and Lu Yong on the ground of the two rivers, and earnestly grasp all the dynamics of the training of these three armies; The second is to cooperate with Lord Rodriguez, the adviser of the Ming Dynasty, to carry out a "financial war" in Liangjiang.

Zhou Lichun actually doesn't really understand what "financial warfare" is, and he doesn't even understand the word "finance". But since there is an order from above, he just does what he is told. But the "financial warfare" method of Lord Rodriguez is very familiar to Zhou Lichun, that is, counterfeit banknotes - in fact, since the appearance of silver bills, the counterfeiting of fake silver bills has been repeatedly prohibited, and Lixin Money's own silver bills have been counterfeited. Other than that. Privately minted copper coins have always been a windfall business, and they have been repeatedly banned in all dynasties.

Today, Lord Rodriguez recruited himself to HSBC, probably to get more counterfeit money out, right?

It didn't take long to see the door of the living room gently opened. Zhang Zegen, the head of Jinyiwei in Shanghai, and Wu Chunqiu, the representative of the Ming Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Shanghai, accompanied Rodriguez into the house. Zhou Lichun hurriedly stood up to greet each other, exchanged a few words with the three of them, and then sat down separately.

Rodriguez's face was a little solemn, and as soon as he sat down, he spoke: "I just got the news that the Manchu Qing Eight Banners New Army was defeated by the Taiping Army in Huaxian County, Henan, with a loss of 50,000 people...... Monk Greenqin in order to block the pursuit of the Taiping army. The Tongwaxiang Yellow River Dam was also dug and flooded the three provinces of Luzhou! It seems that the Qing Dynasty is really coming to an end! ”

Of course, it is a good thing that the Qing Dynasty is coming to an end. However, Rodriguez is about to smash the counterfeit banknotes worth tens of millions of taels in his hand, and it is normal for his face to be ugly - I am afraid that this one will lose more than two million!

Zhou Lichun didn't know that Rodriguez's counterfeit banknotes were "wholesaled" from Zhu Jishi for 2 million yuan, and seeing his ugly face, he thought that he was worried about the strong rise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so he just smiled and said: "Lord Luo, once the Qing Dynasty is over, Jiangnan will definitely be the land of our Ming Dynasty." If you count Fujian, Guangdong, Huguang and Sichuan, my Ming Dynasty has expanded ninety percent of China's wealth, and even if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has the north, it is not my Ming Dynasty's opponent. ”

Rodriguez smiled slightly, he is not afraid of losing money in business, but he is afraid that he can't afford to lose. A mere 2 million is not a big amount for him now, and besides, it may not be impossible to get back any capital - as long as the Qing Dynasty is still hanging, there will be a market for his counterfeit banknotes.

"Jiangnan must be our Daming, but it's not easy to get it, Lin Zexu is still a little difficult to deal with......" Wu Chunqiu took over the topic, his face was uncertain. Now that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has won in Henan, the Ming Dynasty must take Jiangnan and Sichuan, at least to determine the situation of the Northern and Southern Dynasties first, and then seek to unify the world, right? But how to take this Jiangnan is exquisite, it is one thing to take the text without blood, and it is another thing to take the martial arts with a knife and a gun. For Wu Chunqiu, a lobbyist and strategist, if he can "speak" Jiangnan, at least there will be a reward for the marquis, right? It's just that Lin Zexu is very stinky and hard, and unless the Qing Dynasty officially closes down, he will not lift Jiangnan to return to Ming.

"If you don't see the coffin, you won't cry! As long as the Ming Xiong soldiers arrive, Lin Zexu will keep it to Wu Shilang and you will come to the table! Zhou Lichun snorted.

Wu Chunqiu glanced at Zhou Lichun leisurely: "If you want to kill the soldiers to collect the two rivers, what is the use of the king asking me to wait?" ”

Zhou Lichun was stunned for a moment, and asked rhetorically: "Wu Shilang has a way to take Jiangnan?" ”

Wu Chunqiu said with a smile: "To take Jiangnan, we still have to start with finance. ”

"Or finance? But...... Treasure banknotes probably won't circulate in Jiangnan, right? Zhou Lichun hesitated.

He knew that the treasure money had been transported to Jiangnan, and a secretary of the Yamen of the Liangjiang Governor had recently gone to the head office of Lixin Money Village to talk to him about the circulation of treasure money. Lin Zexu hoped that several of the largest money banks in the south of the Yangtze River could jointly bear the responsibility for the circulation and exchange of treasure banknotes, but it was not unlimited, and he only needed to bear the responsibility of circulating and redeeming 8 million taels of treasure banknotes, and he only needed to hand over 4 million taels of silver to the Yamen, the governor of Liangjiang, to get the 8 million treasure notes.

In addition, the treasure banknotes circulating on the ground of the Liangjiang River will be stamped with the official seal of the Liangjiang Governor's Yamen to distinguish the treasure banknotes flowing into other places, and all the treasure banknotes stamped with the official seal of the Liangjiang Governor's Yamen can be used to pay imperial court taxes, apportionments and gold on the ground of the Liangjiang River.

As a result, the total circulation of the Qing Dynasty treasure banknotes on the ground of the two rivers (now referring to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui) was 8 million. For the general plate of Liangjiang Finance, it is just a drop in the bucket. Because in this era, the most developed regions of China's commodity economy are Liangjiang and Guangdong. Compared with the two places, the two rivers are still better, and the silver precipitated in the people of the two rivers will not be less than 500 million taels, if you count the copper coins, the total plate of Jiangnan Finance is only afraid that it can increase by five or six percent, so it is fully capable of digesting the treasure money of 8 million taels.

(Note: China has seen a continuous outflow of silver since the late period, and before the Republic of China, according to the estimation of Shanghai's financial industry, the total number of silver dollars and silver taels in the country is still no less than 2 billion.) By 1848, the amount of silver in China must have been much larger than it was during the Republican period. ）

But now, the situation in the north is very bad, and the rule of the Manchus in Jiangnan is already precarious, and the circulation of this treasure money will probably be stopped, right?

Wu Chunqiu and Rodriguez looked at each other and smiled, their expressions sinister. Rodriguez coughed and smiled: "Without treasure money, we still have HSBC!" Mr. Zhou, you probably haven't realized that HSBC is not an ordinary commercial bank, it is now the master of South China's finance! We can use it to suffocate Jiangnan's finances, so that Lin Zexu has no way to raise a tael of silver through Jiangnan's money bank, ticket number, and pawnshop! Without military spending, his 70,000 mercenaries would not have been able to fight, and at that time, apart from going into the wilderness with dignity, I can't imagine what other way Lin Zexu would have to go? ”

"Use HSBC to suffocate Jiangnan's ...... Finance? Zhou Lichun looked at Rodriguez with some disbelief. Isn't it just a bigger money bank, with such power? (To be continued......)