New Book Collection: The Rise of Great Powers 1900

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Zhang Guo was originally a businessman.

Since the age of ten, he has been learning to stand at the counter with his uncle, who runs a grocery store, and has developed the ability to receive people and things.

Yang Chao had always believed that merchants were good managers and were more suitable for managing the country than the landlord class, and Lü Buwei in the Spring and Autumn Period was very good at running the Qin state.

These businessmen are sleek, flexible, long-sleeved and good at dancing, and can deal well with all strata, but for historical reasons, they have been oppressed by the landlord class for thousands of years, and they have lost confidence in the oppression.

People need to identify themselves and be recognized, which is why businessmen will continue to move closer to the land owners, rather than allowing capital to remain in more lucrative commerce, not entirely because the land assets are more reliable.

By the age of seventeen, Zhang Guo had already run a grocery store independently, and gradually grew bigger, and in the city of Nanjing, it was stronger than the northern and southern groceries that the Wang family spent a lot of money to build. At the same time, after the opening of the Jinchai House Exchange, he entered the exchange to play trading, and it took three years to overtake the brokerage family He Mingyu and become everyone in the exchange.

In the end, after the exchange was burned down, he directly united with several large brokers to trade in the teahouse, and did not interrupt the business in the exchange.

It's similar to the earliest stocks and bonds in the West that were traded in cafes.

The over-the-counter transaction convened by Zhang Guo was after Yang Chao rebuilt the Jinchai Tower. It was also not disbanded. Instead, it completely robbed the exchange's business. Because some of the trading rules he sets are more flexible than the exchange.

If you trade on the exchange and don't make a deal, Yang Chao will draw three points, two points to the exchange, and one point to the broker, which is a kind of account sharing model. And Zhang Guo agreed with dozens of brokers to cancel this unreasonable commission fee, and everyone will not take a commission on the transaction. Earn the spread only by buying low and selling high.

This is obviously closer to the market of later generations than Yang Chao's exchange, and it is more in line with the interests of brokers, so his over-the-counter trading almost squeezed Yang Chao's exchange. And Zhang Guo also through the vision, frequent buying and selling, a piece of goods can change hands more than ten times, the speculative atmosphere is very strong, he also in this way, in a short period of time, more than 100,000 fortunes.

But after the family was rich, this person devoted himself to his career, and after Yang Chao held the imperial examination. He immediately passed the examination for the director of the official department and was assigned to Wujiang County as the director.

It is said that he should work diligently in the future. But the financial crisis gave him a huge opportunity.

Zhang Guo persuaded dozens of wealthy businessmen in Suzhou during the crisis through his long-sleeved and good communication skills, and united with these wealthy businessmen to buy a large number of bonds with a face value of ten taels of silver at the lowest price of bonds, and ate a total of more than 3 million taels of bonds, and when the bond price was pulled up a year later, the batch of bonds they bought increased tenfold.

The wealthy businessmen of Suzhou, who made a lot of money, responded to Zhang Guo's call and donated millions of taels of silver, built thousands of stone bridges in Suzhou, and dredged more than ten miles of canals in Suzhou.

To be honest, this Zhang Guo is completely unprofessional, but his work is too prominent, and he was recommended by the inspector, thinking that this person is very capable.

Yang Chao was pleasantly surprised, he didn't expect this kind of financial predator to appear under his rule, obviously his understanding of finance has far exceeded that of ordinary people.

Zhang Guo was soon recruited to Nanjing, but instead of seeing Yang Chao at once, he was given an exam question that asked him to discuss the difference between silver tickets and silver.

Yang Chao wants to continue to test his ability to comprehend finance.

As a result, this person's answer made Yang Chao quite surprised. Because his strategy was completely detached from Yang Chao's speculation, Yang Chao thought that he would either think that the silver ticket was equivalent to silver, or that the silver ticket was a piece of paper, and even speculated whether he would touch the depth of the government's credit.

However, this person explained in a completely different direction, and he said that whether it is a silver ticket or a silver, its own value is different.

He gave a few examples that impressed Yang Chao.

For example, he said, in the beginning, everyone was reluctant to ask for silver tickets, but they were willing to accept silver, and at that time, when trading privately, one tael of silver could buy one liter of rice more than one tael of one bill, but the silver ticket could be exchanged for a full amount of silver at the bank.

After a year, everyone is willing to collect cash notes, because silver tickets are less troublesome, they will not wear out, and they can be exchanged for full amount of silver at the bank at any time. At this time, one or two silver tickets can buy a liter of rice more than silver.

Zhang Guo said that silver tickets are still silver tickets, silver is still silver, and they have never changed, what has changed is people's hearts.

Then he said that whether it is silver or silver tickets, the key is to look at their price in people's hearts. Someone goes to buy citrus, and three streets away for a penny less, he will go three streets away to buy it; If it is to buy a house, even if it is next door, as long as he is optimistic, he will not move half a step.

A penny of silver can sometimes allow a person to walk three streets, sometimes it can't make a person move a step, silver is still silver, the key is to see whether it buys a house or buys citrus, and it changes the same people's hearts.

Zhang Guoyang wrote a lot, fully expressing some of the business knowledge he had comprehended, and the conditioning was very clear, although the writing was insufficient, but it also made Yang Chao look at it with relish.

"This guy, I'm afraid Ben Du doesn't know him."

Yang Chao sighed, he just read between the lines, and it could be seen that this Zhang Guo was doing his best to show himself, proving that this person's desire for promotion is very strong, which is the attitude that a self-motivated person should have.

Yang Chao immediately met him, Zhang Guo behaved again, and Yang Chao immediately gave him a task to cooperate with his brother-in-law, the late Emperor Hongguang, to open a bank, which was called Hongguang Bank.

Yang Chao planned to let Zhu Cihong, a guy who had been an emperor, sell his fame in exchange for silver.

The reason why he made this decision, in addition to the lack of money, was that Yang Chao saw it. Groundbreaking at the head of Gangnam Bank. It's just too risky. By using this bank to create money, a financial is lost at a critical moment.

He planned to establish a private bank to make money, and told Zhang Guo about the idea and let Zhang Guo figure it out on his own.

This bank will be engaged in savings and lending, which is the most ordinary business of the future bank, and it is also the most profitable business.

This bank is a commercial bank through and through, and Yang Chao invested 100,000 taels of silver, accounting for 50% of the shares. Zhu Cihong used his country name as an emperor in the past to buy shares, accounting for forty percent of the shares, and the other one percent of the shares were given to his sister Yang Yue and Dingwang Zhu Cijiong and his wife, it can be said that this is a family bank.

Zhang Guo was still very excited about being able to do things with the emperors in the past, and immediately took out a workaholic attitude, and pulled Zhu Cihong to travel between Su and Song, mainly visiting the gentry here, because Hongguang's title was much better for these eunuchs and squires than for businessmen.

Let Zhu Cihong come forward as a banner for the benefit of the people. It was easy to persuade these wealthy families to take out part of the silver in the cellar, and in a period of time they raised a capital of one million taels. And got the promise of these gentry to withdraw their deposits within a year, in fact, when these gentry saw Zhu Cihong one by one, they kowtowed, crying bitterly and denouncing the etiquette and breaking down, even if they gave it away for nothing, no one had an opinion.

But more importantly, the business, Zhang Guo with his one-year experience as an official in Susong, soon found a suitable loan partner, that is, silk merchants and cloth merchants who traveled between Susong and Suzhou, these people had large amounts of money from the two places, but they used to go through Jiangnan Bank.

However, Jiangnan Bank has a three-point handling fee, which is a lot of money, and later everyone directly carries the silver ticket, so that there is no need for frequent exchange and exchange to exempt the handling fee, but there is a hidden danger of safety in the exchange of large amounts of silver tickets.

Zhang Guo persuaded these people to open an account in Hongguang Bank, and then balance the income and expenditure through the books, so that there would be no cash and silver exchanges, and it would be safer, and the strength of Hongguang Bank, no one would doubt the bank opened by the emperor in the past.

Moreover, these businessmen found that the transaction through Hongguang Bank transfer is not only very safe, but also has no handling fee, as long as both the buyer and the seller have accounts, but in Hongguang Bank to carry out book conversion, as long as they have enough deposits in the account, the transaction can be carried out.

After facilitating the merchants, Hongguang Bank increased its deposits by another million taels, but how to increase the value of these deposits, Zhang Guo's eyes were fixed on the exchange, he personally sat on the Songjiang Exchange, and opened and closed the goods, he told Zhu Cihong that he would increase the bank deposits five times in a year, from two million taels to ten million taels.

With Zhang Guo's vision and the two million taels of silver available for operation, he still really has a chance to achieve this goal.

The exchange established in Nassau is a big casino, where a large number of brokers buy high and sell low every day, some make a lot of money, some lose a lot of money, all kinds of goods, including bonds, are up and down here, and many people make a fortune by earning the difference in prices.

Zhang Guo soon made a lot of money through the price difference, and then many big brokers were dissatisfied with him and began to unite to snipe him, after Zhang Guo bought a certain kind of goods, they sold it aggressively to suppress the price, Zhang Guo ate like crazy, and then released all kinds of fake news, such as a natural disaster somewhere, the cargo ship capsized and so on.

The key is that he also has the ability to influence the supply of goods, such as playing a small trick to make the silk ships sent from Suzhou to Wusongkou stranded in the banknote customs for two days.

Soon everyone learned to be obedient, Zhang Guo bought whatever they bought, after a period of time, Zhang Guo began to play the light and dark lines, he began to buy, as a result, the brokers followed up, the price of goods rose sharply, and then he instructed his subordinates to sell secretly, when he sold at a high price, the price would immediately plummet, and let a group of brokers who wanted to make a fortune with him lose money.

In short, Zhang Guo played his set in the Nanjing Exchange, he was originally a middle and high master, and now he has a lot of money in his hand, as well as an official background, Hongguang's brand, almost invincible, and he quadrupled his funds in just three months, reaching eight million taels.

In a year, he didn't want to turn to 10 million, and it was not a problem to turn to 20 million at this speed, but the problem was that this kid was playing price manipulation, hoarding Juqi, and pit a large number of brokers, resulting in large fluctuations in the market.

If he is allowed to play like this, the Wusong Exchange will give him a bad out, Yang Chao knew the situation, and immediately stopped, telling him not to make money as the first goal, the purpose of the bank is to promote production, let him focus on lending to the factory, such as lending to textile households.

This stopped a crazy capital operation game, which greatly relieved the brokers of the Wusong Exchange.

These are all later words, in fact, as soon as Yang Chao celebrates the New Year, he will go directly to the front line in Jiangbei, otherwise it would be impossible for Zhang Guo to do so.

Yang Chao actually did not leave Nanjing far, that is, he crossed the river to Anqing, and if the weather was good, he could reach Nanjing in one day.

And Yang Chao is just a fake attack, he knows in his heart that he is not capable of launching a large-scale battle this year, but he can't let the Manchus rest, he can't attack them, so let Sun Kewang attack them, Sun Kewang has been holding back in Yunnan for three years, and it is not a lie to be called a full man.

In the past two years, the Qing court has also frantically trained a large number of Eight Banner soldiers, there are 200,000 Mongolian Eight Banners in Monan and Mobei alone, and the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty have also expanded to 200,000, while the Eight Banners of the Manchurian Banner are only 50,000, but the total number is more than 400,000, and there are 300,000 Green Battalion soldiers, with a total of 800,000.

Yang Chao also didn't know what the combat effectiveness was, with Zhao Kang's experience, the combat effectiveness of those Mongolian cavalry was amazing, and it had reached the strength of the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners in previous years, while the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty had not yet encountered it, if it was compared with the army under Wu Sangui, it was still very terrifying. As for the green battalion soldiers under Hong Chengchou, their combat effectiveness is actually quite good, much worse than Yang Chao's army, but much stronger than the Ming army.

In the face of such a 800,000 Qing army, Yang Chao thought that he was even slightly inferior in terms of overall strength.

After all, if the Eight Banners soldiers, who are the main force, are stronger than Zhao Kang's elite, then it is obvious that the Qing army has an army of 400,000 with an average combat strength above Yang Chao's elite.

And the level of Yang Chao's army is actually uneven, the strongest is Li Wuliu's bird gun troops, the second rate is the cavalry and infantry led by Zhao Kang and Wang Pu, as well as many male armies, Lu Mo, Song Kun, and many male armies can only rank in the third rate in terms of combat effectiveness, Sun Changfu and Zheng Yongwang's army, which has rarely fought in recent years, is basically a fourth-rate, and Yang Chao's army in Nanjing is basically a fifth-rate, which can only be comparable to the surrendered troops under Jin Shenghuan.

Such a level of the army also made Yang Chao guess that there was still a gap between himself and the Qing army in terms of overall combat effectiveness, so he did not dare to rashly go on a northern expedition and launch a large-scale war of reunification.

Therefore, this year, he still focused on defense and took into account military training, and transferred 80,000 troops left in Jiangxi by Lu Mo to Jiujiang, and at the same time sent 70,000 troops of Zheng Yongwang in Fengyang to Anqing south, from Jiujiang to Wuchang Mansion in Hubei, and from Anqing to Huangzhou Mansion in Hubei. (To be continued......)