On May 23, 1898, the Celestial Axe and the Joseon royal family formally signed the "Peninsula Mineral Loan Agreement" that had been agreed upon by both parties.

According to this agreement, the DPRK will use several precious metal minerals in its own country as collateral to obtain a total of 50 million Chinese yuan in "business loans" from the China Development Bank of Seris, and for this huge amount of loan funds, the DPRK royal family will use all of them to purchase Seris's military supplies, which can be called the largest single foreign arms sales project since the founding of Seris.

After the news broke, the world was immediately shocked, and the Donghak Party members in southern Korea, in particular, began to become uneasy.

After learning of this incident, the governor of the southern part of Korea, Chun Bong-joon, immediately urgently sent his own envoy to Yanjing to "negotiate." Chen Zeyu was too lazy to meet these disobedient Donghak Party members, so he asked the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to casually send a small staff member to have a conversation with the envoy.

……

In June, not long after Chen Zeyu had finished dealing with the Korean Peninsula issue, US Minister to Serris Tian Xiali made a surprise visit to Zhongnanhai. After a long period of silence, the new US political axe finally began to send personnel to negotiate with Seris and Germany on the previous issue of "sharing the spoils in Hawaii."

On June 17, at the Ziguang Pavilion in Zhongnanhai, Yanjing, Secretary of State Liang Cheng and the heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense were holding a meeting with Chen Zeyu, the head of state of the Republic, to discuss the handling of the Hawaii issue in the United States.

“…… The Americans are asking us to abandon our claims to the 'Western Hawaiian Islands' and to recognize these territories as part of the U.S. political axe. Can you tell us what you think? ”

Chen Zeyu sat in the hard chair of the conference in the Ziguang Pavilion and brought out the latest diplomatic issues.

"You must not accede to their demands! The Hawaiian Islands were bought by us with huge sums of money from the Spanish political axe, and the Americans should go to the Spaniards if they want! Minister of Finance Rong Wai waved his hand and said, "Besides, the western islands of Hawaii have now entered the political axe development plan, if we agree to the request of the Americans, our losses will be very serious, not to mention anything else, the construction cost of the first phase of the wharf on Kauai Island has invested more than 14.5 million private capital...... We should forcefully refuse the unreasonable demands of the Americans! ”

Vice Foreign Minister Wu Tingfang shook his head and said, "...... The Americans want to buy back the Hawaiian islands such as Kauai and Honolulu in our hands at a premium, and according to the tone of their negotiations, if we agree to their demands, the American political axe is willing to compensate us in full for the upfront construction costs. ”

"I don't agree with Vice Minister Wu's statement! You can't sell your land just because the other party gives you money! Since the western islands of Hawaii are already the territory of the republic, they must no longer be measured with any money, and the Americans will let them exchange their blood if they want! ”

Defense Minister Yang Yu smiled without anger, "Not to mention the strategic position of these islands in the ocean, which has allowed my country to leap thousands of nautical miles in the Pacific Ocean and directly infiltrate into the vast eastern Pacific Ocean." Let's just talk about Honolulu's submarine sailor base and several air stations! Does Vice Minister Wu want the military to give up these things and give them to the Americans?! ”

Wu Tingfang was speechless by his colleagues, and then fell silent.

"I think the Americans are a little whimsical, Führer! I agree with Minister Rong and Lao Yang's opinion, we cannot agree to the demands of the US political axe, and there is no room for maneuver in territorial sovereignty! Secretary of State Liang Cheng slapped the table and said loudly.

Chen Zeyu took a slow puff on his cigar, nodded and said, "Okay!" Just reply to them! There is no room for manoeuvre in territorial sovereignty! ”

"In addition, send a telegram to the Minister in Germany, Gu Hongming, to ask him to keep an eye on the negotiations between the two sides in Berlin and strive to bring about an agreement between Germany and us on this matter!"

"Good! I'll do it! Foreign Minister Li Enfu nodded in response.

……

At the beginning of July, when the Americans hit a wall in diplomatic negotiations in Yanjing and Berlin, the price of silver in the international market suddenly began to plunge sharply, and its unit value fell from £0.1764 per ounce in May to £0.0626 per ounce today.

The exchange rate between silver and gold in the international financial community has also plummeted from 1:22 at the beginning of the year to 1:60, and the unit value of silver in the international arena has fallen by nearly three times, causing many countries in the world that originally took the silver standard as the foundation of their economies to suffer heavy losses, and a large amount of private wealth has evaporated.

While marveling at the changes in the international financial situation, the political axe staff of the Central Bank of Seris couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat behind their backs.

Thanks to the previous instructions of the head of state, Chen Zeyu, the central bank of Seris began to gradually sell off its own silver reserves at the beginning of the year, and by the end of May, except for a small part that was still reserved for industrial needs, most of the original treasury totaling 55,000 tons of silver and precious metals had been sold on the international market, with a total value of about 341.28 million pounds. In addition, Seris has already completed the reform of the monetary system of the gold standard in fact, which finally enabled the republic not only to completely avoid the losses in this international financial turmoil, but also to make a lot of money in the current world silver crisis.

In addition to the pound foreign exchange retained because of the convenience of international trade in the future, the original silver and precious metals in the entire central bank have now all become a large amount of gold, and the total amount of national gold reserves in Seris has also risen sharply from 1,500 tons to 3,990 tons, exceeding France, Germany and the United States in the international financial community. The total gold reserves are second only to the British Empire's 5,730 tons, ranking second in the world.

Before the 19th century, silver once dominated the history of Oriental currency, and since the middle and late Ming Dynasty, it has gradually become the main currency of Chinese economic exchanges and trade life, and it can be said that silver plays an extremely important role in the modern society, political stability and diplomatic extension of the East. Although China does not produce much silver, due to the fact that China used silver as the most important currency at that time, coupled with the superior position of the self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy in foreign trade, a large amount of silver from other countries in the world flowed into China. The East, the actual purchaser of silver in the world at that time, artificially caused the scarcity of silver assets in other countries at that time, which greatly increased the value of silver in the international market. It can be said that the price of silver in the international market at that time was completely determined by the speed of silver absorption by the Orientals.

Since the Opium War, with the signing of a series of unequal treaties on land reparations and the unbridled opium trade of the British, the economic status of the Qing State in the world has gradually weakened, and the national currency silver has begun to flow out in large quantities. The East, the world's largest importer of silver, became an "exporter" of silver overnight, creating a dramatic increase in silver on the international market. In addition, the discovery of new gold minerals around the world at that time also artificially squeezed the space of silver in the world's circulating currency, and under the influence of this, the international price of silver has been in a volatile downward trend since 1889. After 1894, Seris, the new dominant country in the East, directly established its own gold standard monetary system, in fact, canceled the qualification of silver in the currency circulation in the East, and the collapse of silver in international exchange has become an inevitable trend.

While Seris made a lot of money with this, this silver crisis also caused Mexico, Ben, India and other silver-standard countries to suffer an unprecedented heavy blow! The country's economy has fallen into an unprecedented depression, the private sector has evaporated a lot, and the domestic strength of the industry has been greatly damaged.

One of the most striking examples is that the two Fuji-class battleships that had been sunk by the Russians before the Navy's were originally priced at 2.2 million pounds, or 21 million yuan at the exchange rate at the time, but after July, it was completely different, and according to the current exchange ratio that has plummeted between Britain and China, even if the interest on the loan is not counted, the principal of these two warships alone will have to be repaid 57.3 million yuan.

According to the original history, it is believed that the political axe of the Qing Dynasty would have used the huge war reparations obtained from the First Sino-Japanese War to gradually reform its original monetary system, and establish its own gold standard system shortly thereafter, so as to survive the storm of silver depreciation at the end of the 19th century. Now, it is obvious that even if the capital wants to establish a gold standard, it will suffer from its own lack of funds and will not be able to do so.