"I heard that banks in various countries are buying dragon coins, and the dragon coins in Zhili Province have been copied to 1 dragon coin to 1.12 US dollars, and they are rising every day."

"Wang Chenhao, this kid thinks he is amazing? He dared to take over the errand of the imperial court's currency reform, thinking that he could control the financial resources of the Qing Dynasty, but now he is shooting himself in the foot, I see how he ends. ”

"Your Majesty's trick is really clever! Now Wang Chenhao will have to go bankrupt if he doesn't stop, and the emperor will punish him for the crime of misleading the country and the people, but it can't be light. ”

…… In Wuchang City, in the Huguang Governor's Palace, and in the waiting room of Zhang Zhidong, governors or envoys from Nanyang provinces gathered together to discuss the financial reform.

Deshou, the governor of Liangguang, said: "According to me, the Bank of America estimates that the banknotes printed every day are not even satisfied with the estimates of Zhili Province, and I think we should also hoard dragon coins at this time, so that Wang Chenhao will not care about his head and kill him in a hurry." ”

Sheng Yun, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, said with a smile: "Are you a typical fallen stone?" ”

Deshou asked rhetorically, "What?" Does Seung-yoon-sama think it's inappropriate? ”

Sheng Yun smiled: "I just said that you are not kind, you didn't ask Wang Chenhao for benefits, right?" ”

Deshou said dissatisfiedly: "What benefit did I take from him?" It's that he is not authentic, as soon as Lao Tzu took office, he occupied the Whampoa Shipyard, and the Sailor School became his. ”

Then, Deshou asked rhetorically: "However, I found out that Wang Chenhao occupied the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau and Mawei Shipyard of Lord Shengyun, you are very generous, and you have reaped the benefits, right?" Then you are kind? ”

Shengyun was suddenly embarrassed, and hurriedly smiled: "But it's not a gentleman to be rich and don't make money, since the dragon coin has appreciated, then let's directly ask the imperial court to let Wang Chenhao put down the share of the dragon coin circulation given to the provinces, and take advantage of the appreciation of the dragon coin, let's sell it and make a big profit?" ”

Deshou suddenly rolled his eyes and secretly scolded Shengyun for being more shameless than him.

Liu Kunyi, the governor of Liangjiang, said: "This is indeed a clever move, if Wang Chenhao agrees, we can make a lot of money first, and second, we will sell all the dragon coins to foreigner banks, and continue to circulate our own printed currency in the market." We have made a fortune without affecting the original profits. ”

Zhang Zhidong nodded and said, "Also, if Wang Chenhao doesn't give us an allocation, then we will have reason to oppose the monetary reform." Let Wang Chenhao no longer be able to reform, and let the court punish Wang Chenhao. ”

Deshou said: "Then encourage Weng Tongyi and those imperial historians who have nothing to do, and impeach Wang Chenhao ruthlessly, even if he doesn't die, he will have to shed his skin." ”

Sheng Yun sighed: "This Wang Chenhao was praised too high at a young age, it must be this ending, or is it too tender!" ”

When everyone saw that Shengyun pretended to be a good person and said the opposite, they were immediately angry and funny.

On August 12 of ※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※, the Great Qing Household Bank was renamed the Imperial Bank and became the administrative organ of the Qing Empire's finances and taxes.

The gold of the Imperial Bank is deposited in the Tianjin branch of the Bank of America, and the dragon coin issued by the Imperial Bank is actually issued by the Tianjin branch of the Bank of America, but the number of the new dragon coin has changed from the original Zhili Dragon Coin to the Imperial Dragon Coin and the English version of the English has also been changed from Zhili to the Chinese Empire.

Originally, it was supposed to be changed to the Qing Empire, but Wang Chenhao made a fuss about it in English and deliberately distinguished the political axe from the state. The Qing political axe represents only the flag people, but the China in Wang Chenhao's heart represents all the people.

The establishment of the Imperial Bank announced that Wang Chenhao had completely grasped the financial lifeline of the Qing Empire. However, from the day she was founded, the Imperial Bank faced formidable challenges and dangers.

As domestic and foreign banks and money banks speculated, bought and sold dragon coins, and the dragon coin production line of Bank of America could not meet the market demand for a while, resulting in a shortage of dragon coins, and the actual value was raised to 1:1.32 US dollars.

The impact of this forced appreciation on the country's economy is enormous, as exemplified by the huge inflation brought about by the forced appreciation of the renminbi in Wang Chenhao's time. Wang Chenhao is well aware of the harm, although it is not enough to highlight the problem in a short period of time, but it will have a huge impact in a year or two.

On the one hand, Wang Chenhao promulgated the Dragon Coin Enforcement Act "Announcement on the Implementation of Dragon Coins", the basic contents of which are as follows:

"1. From October 1, 1897, the banknotes issued by the Imperial Bank of the Qing Empire, the Bank of America, and the Great Qing Commercial Bank, and the three banks shall be designated as dragon coins, and all taxes on grain and all receipts and payments of public and private funds shall be limited to dragon coins, and no cash shall be exercised, and all offenders shall be confiscated in order to prevent the leakage of silver. If there is any concealment and intent to evade, the punishment shall be governed by the emergency punishment law for endangering the people.

(2) Bank notes approved and issued by the Household Bank, other than the Imperial Bank of the Qing Empire, the Bank of America, and the Great Qing International Commercial Bank, shall be allowed to be exercised as usual; The issuance amount is limited to the total amount in circulation by the end of the year, and no additional issuance is allowed. The Treasury will gradually redeem the Dragon Dollar banknotes within a time limit at its discretion, and hand over all the statutory reserves of the total amount in circulation, together with the new banknotes that have been printed but not yet issued and the old banknotes that have been issued and recovered, to the Issuance Reserve Management Committee for safekeeping. The new banknotes that are to be printed shall be photographed and kept as soon as they are printed.

(3) The custody of the reserves of dragon coins and the exchange of their issuance shall be handled by the Management Committee of the Imperial Bank. The charter of the committee will be published separately.

(4) All silver coin shops and other public or private institutions or individuals who hold silver standard coins or other silver coins and the like shall, starting from November 4, hand them over to the Issuance Preparation Management Committee or any bank designated by them for exchange for dragon coins. Except for the silver standard currency, which is exchanged for dragon coins according to the denomination, the rest of the silver types are exchanged according to the actual amount of pure silver.

(5) The old contracts concluded in silver coins shall be settled and paid in dragon coins at maturity in the original amount.

6. In order to stabilize the foreign exchange price of the dragon currency against the current price, the Imperial Bank, the Bank of America, and the Daqing International Commercial Bank will buy and sell foreign exchange without restrictions.

The promulgation of the "Proclamation on the Implementation of Dragon Coins" has to a certain extent cracked down on domestic money banks and unscrupulous merchants who buy and sell dragon coins. On the other hand, Wang Chenhao forced the banks of various countries in China to report to the Imperial Bank the amount of dragon coins in their banks' inventory, so as to judge the impact of the dragon coins in their hands on the domestic market, so as to make emergency preparations as much as possible to control the appreciation of dragon coins and maintain price stability.

At the same time, Wang Chenhao changed the Imperial Bank to a joint-stock system, with Wang Chenhao holding 51% of the shares and the remaining 49% of the shares being issued to the outside world. Of course, this is another empty glove white wolf.

Wang Chenhao didn't pay a penny, and issued a total of 400 million dragon coins of stocks in the name of the country, calling it one dragon coin per share, but in fact, the price of each share entering the market was two dragon coins, so that Wang Chenhao was equal to not spending a penny, so he directly collected 200 million and 4 million yuan of dragon coins.

At first, the dragon coin enforcement bill was effective, but due to the disobedience of the governors of the provinces, the domestic and foreign banks and money banks in their territories concealed or falsely reported the figures, and the local people were disrupted by the expiration date, disrupting the judgment of the imperial bank on the number of dragon coins circulating in the market, resulting in different prices of dragon coins in some provinces.

In order to divide the united camp of the governors of the provinces, Wang Chenhao followed Ruan Zhongshu's advice and chose the tactics of division and disintegration. Zhang Feng, Yang Shixiang, Zhou Fu, and others, as Wang Chenhao's special envoys, successively visited the governors and governors of Shandong, Gansu, Shaanxi, Henan, and other provinces north of the Yangtze River, and told them about the benefits and disadvantages and won their support for Wang Chenhao.

Because most of the chief officials in these provinces had an old relationship with Li Hongzhang, they had to sell Li Hongzhang's face, and then Wang Chenhao promised them benefits and income higher than the original level according to their different incomes, and they were not willing to make enemies with Wang Chenhao, so they took the lead in obeying Wang Chenhao's currency reform, and implemented the dragon coin circulation bill in their respective provinces, closed down the mint, stopped issuing messy currency and ticket numbers, and cracked down on money banks and individuals who privately hoarded and resold dragon coins in various places.

Then, Wang Chenhao sent a large number of envoys to the southern provinces, according to the different provincial officials, to collect money and income, threaten with a big stick in his left hand, and send benefits with his right hand, and soon disintegrated their alliance.

First of all, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, Shengyun, after receiving Wang Chenhao's promise to give him 1 million dragon coins worth of shares in the Imperial Bank, immediately implemented the dragon coin circulation bill in Zhejiang and Fujian, shut down all mints and ticket numbers, and cracked down on speculative and unscrupulous businessmen.

Then Ruifang, the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, Li Bingheng, the governor of Sichuan, and Tang Jingsong, the governor of Taiwan, were persuaded to follow Shengyun's lead and start to implement dragon coins, and at the same time, they also received shares in the Imperial Bank ranging from 500,000 to 1 million dragon coins.

Since cracking down on speculative unscrupulous businessmen could increase the stock of the Imperial Bank, the governors of the provinces, out of their own interests, cracked down and imposed restrictions on foreign banks.

The governor of Liangguang, Deshou, saw that Shengyun had changed his hexagram, and scolded Shengyun for being shameless, and at the same time, he also sent someone to contact Wang Chenhao's envoy, because the dragon coin issuance involved in Liangguang was huge, so Wang Chenhao promised to give Deshou 2 million dragon coins worth of Imperial Bank stocks. With two million dragon coins, Deshou immediately chose to give in and instead supported Wang Chenhao's currency reform.

The rest are Liu Kunyi, the governor of Liangjiang, and Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, and their attitude is still very resolute. Wang Chenhao knew that money and force alone were not enough to make these two veteran figures submit, so Wang Chenhao first took Liu Kun a hand, and he encouraged the news media of Liangjiang and three provinces to expose the corruption of a group of local officials, exposing Liu Kun's crime of minting coins without permission, lacking two catties and two catties, and indiscriminately issuing currency, and sent a task force to incite the people to be upset, causing the resentment of the people in Liangjiang and three provinces to boil, and immediately Liu Kun was so angry that his old illness relapsed and he was admitted to the hospital.

Subsequently, Wang Chenhao played the court to impeach Liu Kunyi, and the court issued an order to let Liu Kunyi recuperate at home, and at the same time appointed Zhang Renjun, the governor of Jiangsu, to exercise the power of the governor of Liangjiang on his behalf.

Zhang Renjun was more familiar with current affairs, and immediately accepted the favorable conditions given to him by Wang Chenhao, so as to shut down the mints in Liangjiang and three provinces and implement the dragon coin law.

A month later, the provinces of the country are left with Zhang Zhidong's Huguang two provinces, Wang Chenhao wrote to the court every day to impeach Zhang Zhidong, Guangxu has the intention to maintain Zhang Zhidong, delay Wang Chenhao's reform process, but because all parts of the country left Huguang did not implement the dragon coin, in the face of huge domestic public pressure, Guangxu finally ordered Zhang Zhidong to immediately shut down the mint, stop issuing other currencies, and implement the dragon coin.

Zhang Zhidong is also angry, in this regard, he thought that Wang Chenhao was no more than him, but Wang Chenhao was particularly good at creating public opinion advantages, but as a result, Zhang Zhidong was counted down by the imperial court above, and was blamed by the people below, so he had to choose to make concessions.

Wang Chenhao originally did not intend to give Zhang Zhidong benefits, but Wang Chenhao did not want to form a mortal enemy with Zhang Zhidong, so he gave Zhang Zhidong 2 million dragon coins to close down the Hubei Mint in the Imperial Bank stock compensation.

The resistance of the governors of the provinces in the country was solved, so that the dragon coin could be circulated normally in the country, and soon became the main currency in the market.

However, foreign banks such as the Bank of England, HSBC, the Chinese Bank, the Deutsche Imperial Bank, the Russo-Chinese Daosheng Bank, and the Bank of Zhengjin are still quietly hoarding and reselling dragon coins. To deal with them, it was necessary to negotiate with the political axes of the great powers, so Wang Chenhao had to send notes to the ministers and consuls of various countries in China.

In dealing with Yue Ben, Wang Chenhao's attitude was very tough, and he directly warned Yu Ben. If the illegal scalping action is not stopped, all banks in China will be expelled. The confidence of the minister Lin Dong had no choice but to issue an order to the Zhengjin Bank to stop the illegal trading of dragon coins.

It is said that he was Wang Chenhao's enemy, followed by Russia. Wang Chenhao's attitude towards Russia is equally tough. Wang Chenhao knew that there would be a war between China and Russia, and the time would not wait too long, so it was also a warning. The Russian minister Cuman immediately quarreled with Wang Chenhao, but Russia is also carrying out the reform of the gold standard, and it has also been invaded by international financial predators, if he does not agree with Wang Chenhao's words, when Wang Chenhao takes a breath, he instructs his Bank of America to maliciously speculate on the Russian ruble, it will be disadvantageous. Considering that the Bank of Russia was far less harmful to the Chinese dragon coins than the Bank of America to the Russian ruble, Cuman finally chose to bow his head and ordered the Russian banks not to participate in the reselling of dragon coins.

Among the remaining powers, Wang Chenhao only cared about Britain, France, the United States and Germany. Among them, Germany and France pose the least threat to Wang Chenhao, Germany is far away in Europe and does not have a large ocean-going naval force, so Wang Chenhao is not afraid of offending Germany.

Similarly, although France has colonies of French Vietnam in the Far East, the focus of French studies is now on Europe. On the one hand, France's land relations with Germany were tense, but on the other hand, France's relations with Great Britain were even more tense, and France's military confrontation with the British navy in the English Channel left France vulnerable on both sides.

At the same time, the military expansion of France and Britain on the African continent was on the verge of war, the Fashoda crisis.

The Fashoda Crisis was a conflict between Britain and France in August 1897 over the African colonies in the Sudanese town of Fashoda (present-day Kodok) on the upper Nile.

In 1896, the French government sent an expedition from the French Congo eastward to realize its "2S Plan" ("Senegal-Somalia Plan") to establish a French colonial empire across Africa. In July 1897, the French expedition arrived in Fashoda. After the British occupation of Egypt in 1882, they actively pursued their "2Cs" ("Cairo-Cape Town Plan") in an attempt to establish a British colonial empire across Africa. In August 1897, after the British conquest of Sudan, part of the British army moved south along the Nile and also reached Fashoda, where they met the French army that had arrived earlier.

The British insisted that Sudan be a British sphere of influence and demanded that the French withdraw. The two sides are at a standstill, and the situation is extremely grim.

Wang Chenhao knew that the crisis had finally been resolved, and it was the French political axe that considered that its forces in Fashoda were limited, especially in the situation of Franco-German confrontation, it was not suitable to have a conflict with the British, so he decided to compromise with the British, and the French [***] team ordered the expeditionary force to retreat in November 1898. In March 1899, Britain and France reached an agreement to use the center line of the Nile and Congo rivers as the demarcation line between their spheres of influence. The settlement of the Fashoda incident created the conditions for Britain and France to get closer to each other in the future.

At this time, the relationship between Britain and France was at its most tense, and France had no time to look eastward, so Wang Chenhao was not afraid of France.

Wang Chenhao lodged a formal protest with the German and French political axes, demanding that the two countries stop the illegal acts of the bankers of the two countries, otherwise it will have a negative impact on Sino-French relations and Sino-German relations. Germany and France, in the posture of a strong country, refused at first, but Wang Chenhao protested one after another, becoming tougher and tougher each time, and finally threatened that if France and Germany did not take measures to stop them, the Qing Empire would cancel the most-favored-nation status of France and Germany, and abolish all the benefits of France and Germany in China.

The French and German political axes did not expect Wang Chenhao's attitude to be so tough, so they began to face up to this matter, and finally out of national interests, France and Germany both chose to back down in view of the strength of the Qing Empire.

After dealing with the bankers in France and Germany, Wang Chenhao turned his attention to the United Kingdom and the United States.

Wang Chenhao needs British technology and needs to maintain friendship with the United States, so when he sent a note to the ministers of the two countries, his attitude was very mild compared to that of the personnel of the other countries.

As for Britain, Wang Chenhao knew that he would take advantage of the interests and maintain relations between the two countries on the premise of jointly dealing with Russia. With regard to the United States, Wang Chenhaoxiao used the advantages and disadvantages to maintain cooperative relations between the two countries on the issue of jointly dealing with Spain.

However, Britain and the United States have huge financial resources, and the international financial predators, led by the Rothsjend family, have intervened in China's currency reform through British and American banks. Therefore, for Britain and the United States, the influence of the Rothsjend family is huge, and if they are not benefited, the political axes of the two countries must not disobey the will of the Rothsjeld family.

At this time, Britain and the United States mainly wanted to intervene in China's economic development, mainly through capital exports, which was manifested in loans and investments to China. Although Britain and the United States aim to make money, Wang Chenhao is not disgusted by this, because in his time, the reform and opening up and the additional preferential treatment of foreign-funded enterprises were the same, but the name was changed instead of the medicine.

In order to maintain the stability of the dragon coin, Britain and the United States believed that the Qing government did not have sufficient gold reserves, because the total GDP of the Qing Empire occupied the second place in the world, second only to the United States. Therefore, Britain and the United States used this as an excuse to ask the Qing Empire to borrow money from them. In fact, it is a disguised excuse for the export of capital. At the same time, another purpose of Britain and the United States was to continue to control the customs of the Qing Empire, because as long as the Qing Empire borrowed money from Britain and the United States, then Britain and the United States could continue to use foreigners to control the customs in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Yanjing.

Wang Chenhao knew that China's monetary and financial reform had reached the critical level, and there could be no mistakes, so Wang Chenhao persuaded the Qing government axe and agreed to the terms of Britain and the United States.

On September 19, 1897, on this day, Wang Chenhao and Yi Xuan, on behalf of the Imperial Bank of Qing Zheng Axe, signed a large loan of up to 50 million pounds on behalf of the British representative Dou Nale and the American representative Charles, with the Imperial Bank of Qing Zheng Axe as a guarantee, with an interest of 2 miles, to be paid in installments of ten years.

This kind of thing imposed on Wang Chenhao, Wang Chenhao naturally hates it to the core.

Of course, all this happened because Wang Chenhao changed history, and history is no longer moving forward according to the original succession, especially the reform of the gold standard, which is a financial system that China has not experienced.

Historically, the first time the United States exported capital was around 1897, when the United States supported the British and Russian spheres of influence in the Far East, and because the United States could not absorb all the American funds, the United States provoked the Spanish-American War, and after consuming most of the funds in the war, it fell into colonial wars in the Philippines and Cuba, consuming about one billion dollars, so it successfully passed on the problem of excess funds, and then because there were colonies that could inject funds, it was not until 1935 that the second inflation broke out. That is, the world economic crisis of 1929 at that time.

The colonies were saturated with funds, so the United States once again set its sights on China on the silver standard, and the then American government once again implemented the "Silver Purchase Act" to raise the purchase price of silver, causing a large outflow of silver from China and shaking the foundation of the silver standard. In order to stabilize the value of the currency and get rid of the financial and economic crisis, the Nationalist Axe adopted the advice of the British financial expert Li Zross and decided to abandon the silver standard and implement the fiat currency policy.

It has to be said that this obscene behavior of the United States is the main reason for forcing China's currency reform.

The U.S. silver policy has caused great damage to China's economy and finance. China was the largest of the three countries in the world that implemented the silver standard at that time, but China was not a silver-producing country and had to import a large amount of silver every year. The United States has raised the price of silver, and China has not only been unable to continue to import silver, but has also exported a large amount of silver from its domestic deposits.

The outflow of a large amount of silver has caused a serious decline in China's silver deposits, a shortage of money, financial infarction, falling prices, and difficulties in capital turnover in various industrial and commercial industries. Therefore, abandoning the silver standard, cutting off the silver price from foreign countries, and implementing a system of managing currency and controlled paper money became the direction of currency reform.

Now Wang Chenhao has changed history, the international silver crisis has aggravated the depreciation of silver, the Qing Empire can not return to the silver age, and urgently needs gold to stabilize the domestic currency, and for China, which is short of gold, it will inevitably lead to the influx of British and American gold into China.

In this regard, Wang Chenhao can only sigh that the world is still very fair in the overall situation!

Fortunately, Wang Chenhao doesn't care about 50 million pounds, he can still afford it, especially the huge compensation from Yuben, which can be passed on.

Since Wang Chenhao himself had gold reserves from the Bank of America, and after borrowing 50 million pounds from Britain and the United States, the Imperial Bank had sufficient gold reserves, so the dragon coin could maintain a fixed exchange rate with the U.S. dollar, and the law stipulated that the dragon coin was 1 yuan to 1 U.S. dollar.

At the same time, according to the agreement reached between Wang Chenhao and the United Kingdom and the United States, the Dragon Coin was hijacked by the British pound and the US dollar, in order to maintain the stability of the Exchange Fund. The dragon coin also maintains a fixed exchange rate with the British pound, with 5 yuan of the dragon coin equal to 1 pound sterling.

In this way, although the financial system of the Qing Empire will no longer be blackmailed by Britain and the United States, because the British pound and the US dollar are both international currencies, the newly born dragon currency does not have the ability to pay internationally, so it naturally becomes a vassal of the British pound and the US dollar.

The reason why Britain and the United States forcibly tied the dragon currency to the US dollar and the British pound was that the British and American governments took into account that in the event of an economic crisis or war in the United Kingdom and the United States, the British pound and the US dollar would be printed on a large scale to cope with the crisis. Once the large-scale printing is made, the dollar and the pound will no longer be able to adhere to the gold standard, and the dragon coin will be bound to use the gold reserves of the dragon coin to spread the risk of the pound and the dollar, that is, let China help Britain and the United States pay in disguise.

This situation is similar to the United States in Wang Chenhao's era, where the dollar hijacked the world's currency, and the United States printed a large amount of money as soon as it ran out of money, making the countries of the world pay for it.

Of course, that was in the era of national credit that was not on the gold standard. Although Britain and the United States are also kidnapping dragon coins for this purpose, neither Britain nor the United States dares to easily issue additional pounds and dollars, because once the political axe loses its credit, the consequences will be very serious. Therefore, Wang Chenhao is not worried about Britain and the United States playing scoundrels. At least until World War I, the pound will not depreciate, but the dollar will appreciate. Of course, Britain and the United States will not be able to encounter these things happening, they are just taking precautions at this time, but they don't know that this is what Wang Chenhao is happy to see. On the surface, it seems that the dragon coin was kidnapped by the pound and the dollar and suffered a loss, but only Wang Chenhao himself understands that he does not suffer a loss.

Similarly, Wang Chenhao also believes in China's economic ability, in the near future, the dragon currency will also become an international currency, then Britain and the United States will not be able to take advantage, but when the dragon currency is strong, the pound and the dollar will also become vassals of the dragon currency.

Of course, Wang Chenhao believes that this deadline is not far off. First of all, he knew that after World War I, the British pound would become a vassal of the US dollar, and then the British pound would naturally become a vassal of the dragon coin, and the dragon coin would also be on an equal footing with the US dollar, Wang Chenhao was confident in this. As for when the dollar will become a vassal of the dragon coin, Wang Chenhao just smiled bitterly, it is estimated that it will have to wait until after World War II, after all, the United States is very powerful and cunning.

(To be continued)