On May 23, 1898, the Seris government 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 sent his own special envoy to Beijing 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 administration finally began to send personnel to negotiate with Seris and Germany on the issue of "sharing the spoils of Hawaii."

On June 17, at the Ziguang Pavilion in Zhongnanhai, Beijing, Secretary of State Liang Cheng and the heads of the government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Defense were 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 ask us to relinquish our claim to the 'Western Hawaiian Islands' and recognize that these territories belong to the U.S. government. 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 from the Spanish government with huge sums of money, and the Americans should go to the Spaniards if they want! Finance Minister Rong Wai waved his hand and said, "Besides, the western islands of Hawaii have now entered the government's development plan, and 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 yuan in 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 that we have at a premium, and according to their negotiating tone, if we agree to their demands, the US government is willing to fully compensate us for the cost of the initial construction. ”

"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 that we cannot agree to the US government's demands, 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, just as the Americans were hitting a wall in diplomatic negotiations in Beijing and Berlin, the price of silver in the international market suddenly began to plunge sharply, with its unit value falling 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 government employees 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.

After the exchange operation in this financial turmoil, the central bank of Seris has cleaned up its own silver reserves at the same time to greatly enhance its own country's gold reserves, in addition to the future international trade convenience and the retention of pound foreign exchange, the entire central bank of the original silver and precious metals have now become a large amount of gold, the total amount of national gold reserves in Seris has also risen from the previous 1500 tons to 3990 tons, more than the previous international financial community of France, Germany and the United States, 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 has played 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 Qing Dynasty's economic position in the world has been weakening, 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 the Ceris government made a lot of money from this, the silver crisis also hit Mexico, Japan, India and other silver-standard countries harder than ever before! 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 of the Japanese Navy, which had been sunk by the Russians, were originally priced at 2.2 million pounds, or 21 million yen at the exchange rate at the time, but after July, it was completely different, and according to the current exchange rate that has plummeted between Britain and Japan, the Japanese government will have to repay 57.3 million yen in the principal of these two warships alone, even if the interest on the loan is not counted.

According to the original history, the Japanese government should have used the huge war reparations obtained from the First Sino-Japanese War to gradually reform its original monetary system, and soon after the establishment of its own gold standard system, to survive the storm of silver depreciation at the end of the 19th century. Now, it is clear that Japan, which has been mired in war one after another, will not be able to do so even if it wants to establish a gold standard.

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