The trade, politics, and military aid between the Empire and Ottoman Turkey was much more significant, and if they had to pay in silver, the Empire accepted it, but naturally at a higher price.

But when the Pacific Trading Company accepted the silver, it was exchanged for gold in London and shipped back home.

This kind of behavior is not just the sole act of the Pacific Trading Company, in fact, the official institutions of the empire have been reducing domestic silver reserves in exchange for gold for several years.

Large quantities of silver collected from the private sector were shipped abroad to be exchanged for industrial raw materials or machinery, or simply exchanged for gold.

Over the past decade, the outflow of silver from within the empire has been quite severe.

But on the other hand, the scale of gold inflow is also very large, due to the trade surplus for many years, and the empire's international trade is mostly settled in gold, so the domestic gold reserves are also increasing.

At the same time, in order to increase the gold reserves of the empire, many gold mines in the country also increased production.

By 1872, the Empire's mixed gold and silver standard had been effective.

However, with the insistence of the Ottoman Turks on paying in silver, and the sale of this silver by the Pacific Trading Company, the price of silver in London fell further, resulting in considerable losses.

This incident attracted the close attention of the Imperial Ministry of Finance, and in November, the Ministry of Finance wrote a request to abolish the mixed standard of gold and silver and establish a single standard system for gold.

This major economic reform naturally caused shocks throughout the empire!

There is a fierce debate about this, both officially and non-governmental. One of the biggest objections was that the empire still had very large reserves of silver, which completely abolished the monetary status of silver. Then there will be major economic upheaval, and countless people's belongings will be lost.

But about this. The Ministry of Finance has also responded early, and they have come up with corresponding solutions.

The first is to recognize the value of existing banknotes and silver dollars, which are directly inherited from previous banknotes, and silver metal and silver coins are recycled at their original prices.

However, after recycling, it was not gold coins that were exchanged, but gold yuan banknotes.

And the launch of a new generation of banknotes program.

With the empire beginning to promote paper money in the fifties, paper money has become more popular and popular for more than ten years, and there are not many people who actually trade silver or copper coins.

Now there are a large number of coins deposited by the people. A lot of it is used as a reserve fund, and it is not much for daily use.

At present, the financial system of the empire is relatively chaotic and complex, and the auxiliary coins used by ordinary people on a daily basis, including copper coins and paper money, are basically general, and the larger transactions are made with silver dollars or silver dollar banknotes.

In the case of large business transactions, cash is rarely used, and cheques or cashier's checks are often used. Among them, cashier's checks are the most widely used.

The cashier's check of the Royal Bank, the recognition of the ticket does not recognize the person, and the branches of the Royal Bank are in foreign areas except for branches in every county-level administrative district in the country. In particular, there are branches in major cities in Asia, such as Edo, Kagoshima, Seoul in Korea, Hue, Hanoi, Quang Ninh in Vietnam, and Singapore, Yangon, and Ninh Kingdom in other colonies.

There are even a small number of Royal Bank branches in the United States, America, Europe, basically Royal Bank branches. They all follow in the footsteps of the Imperial Embassy, where there are Imperial Consulates. There is usually a branch of the Royal Bank.

There are many branches, and the convenience of telegraph communication is also available. Cashier's checks can be verified and exchanged worldwide.

Cheques are also available, but they are more restrictive.

Due to the implementation of the mixed gold and silver standard, in addition to silver yuan, there are also gold yuan.

When the gold yuan was issued, it was stipulated that one silver yuan contained 24.3 grams of pure silver and one gold yuan contained 1.5887 grams of pure gold according to the gold and silver exchange rate of the year.

Later, due to the continuous depreciation of silver, the exchange ratio of gold and silver yuan changed, and by 1872, the exchange ratio of gold and silver yuan had increased by 9.3 percent compared with when it was first issued.

This is equivalent to the fact that in the past, 100 silver yuan could be exchanged for 100 gold yuan, but now it takes 109.3 yuan to exchange it for 100 gold yuan.

Even if the extent of this silver depreciation has changed slowly in the past seven years, ordinary people may not feel it much, but the financial department of the empire feels it very deeply.

This means that if the empire had continued to use silver as a currency for international trade for many years, it would have lost at least 9.3 percent of its wealth, not 9.3 percent of the tariff, but 9.3 percent of the total value of imports and exports.

Moreover, due to the continuous increase in silver production, France, Germany, the United States and other countries have successively adopted the gold standard, and the price of silver will fall further in the future, in order to avoid this situation, the empire must follow the pace of other countries and implement the gold standard at the same time.

In short, the empire must not be allowed to become a dumping ground for international silver after other countries implement the gold standard.

Historically, the Manchu Qing Dynasty continued to use the silver standard, but after 1870, as countries successively used the gold standard, the price of silver fell again and again, and China became the world's largest user of silver.

As a result, in just 30 years, the exchange rate of silver and gold has doubled, and China has also borne a large amount of silver inflows, which has caused inflation.

Naturally, Lin Zhe's empire could not allow this to happen, and the empire had been preparing for the gold standard for many years, accepting only gold payments for international trade, and the annual trade surplus caused a large amount of gold to flow into the Middle Ages.

At the same time, gold yuan was issued, so that the people began to accept the gold standard.

And now, with the further rise of the international gold price, Lin Zhe believes that the gold standard can no longer be delayed. If it drags on for a few more years, it is estimated that all the silver in the world will pour into China. When the time comes, after the doubling of domestic silver reserves, it will be even more difficult to implement the gold standard.

After entering 1873. On January 1, the empire officially promulgated the financial reform decree, announcing the establishment of the gold standard, and at the same time issuing a new version of paper money and gold coins based on the gold yuan.

The new version of the Imperial Halo still contains 1.5887 grams of pure gold per dollar, with one gold yuan and one gold dollar banknote.

The gold and paper money of this gold yuan are the main currency, and in addition, there are auxiliary coins. They are the auxiliary coins of the denomination of five jiao, two jiao, one jiao, five cents, and one cent.

In order to ensure that the wealth of the people does not pass away, the Imperial Ministry of Finance announced that all the silver yuan banknotes previously issued in China can be recovered according to the relevant gold and silver exchange rate on January 1, 1873, and exchanged for a new version of gold and silver banknotes.

The relevant silver dollar assets deposited in the bank were immediately exchanged for a new version of the gold yuan assets at the exchange rate of January 1, 1873.

The existing silver and silver coins in China were exchanged for gold and silver before June 1, 1873, and the exchange rate was based on the gold and silver comparison of January 1, 1873, and after June 1, 1873, they were repurchased according to the gold and silver comparison in the market.

As a matter of fact. The number of silver coins issued by the empire was not large, because the empire implemented the issuance of paper money very early, silver coins were only issued more in the early sixties, and more were basically issued in paper money in the later period.

The repurchase of banknotes does not involve the price of metals. So just recycle at a fixed exchange rate.

At the same time, due to the limited domestic gold reserves of the empire, it was impossible to issue unlimited gold coins, so the currency issued was still mainly paper money. A round of gold coins is actually mainly symbolic. It is issued in small quantities and is still mainly used for international trade.

In order to maintain the value of the new banknote. Naturally, the Empire officials needed to stand up and endorse it, the most important of which was to announce that from 1873 onwards, all tax and administrative agencies of the Empire would accept the new version of the banknote.

At the same time, in order to demonstrate the strength of the Empire's reserves for the issuance of new versions of the gold standard banknotes, the Central Bank and the Royal Bank entered into a gold swap agreement.

The Central Bank purchased 330 tonnes of gold reserves from the Royal Bank at the prevailing gold price to replenish the Central Bank's gold reserves.

In this way, with the original gold reserves of the Central Bank, some of the gold supported by the palace, and some of the gold supported by the Ministry of Finance, the gold reserves of the Central Bank have been raised to the level of 880 tons.

This part of the gold reserve is enough for the empire to issue more than 570 million yuan of new banknotes, and these more than 500 million yuan are still banknotes that can be exchanged without restrictions.

In the actual issuance of banknotes, over-issuance is a common thing, and in terms of the scope of the empire, even if it is issued one billion banknotes, it is difficult to meet the monetary needs of the empire, so this time the issuance of banknotes, the over-double issuance is the least, and it may be more than two or even three times the issuance.

However, in order to maintain the value of the currency, the total amount of currency issued and the amount of gold reserves are a secret that cannot be said for the time being, and the public only needs to know that there are large gold reserves in the central bank.

And this time the issuance of gold standard banknotes also revealed a very embarrassing thing, that is, the central bank of an empire still has to buy or borrow gold from commercial banks, and then it can make up enough gold reserves.

This cannot be said that the central bank is too weak, but that the Royal Bank is too strong.

As the largest bank in China and even the largest bank in Asia, Royal Bank has a very wide range of business, and they may not have much capital of their own, just one or two billion, but the funds they control are very large.

At the same time, the Royal Bank is also the main bank in China for international trade payments, and it can even be said that it is the only bank, and the payment in international trade is often real money, and no one recognizes you when you take a box of banknotes.

Foreign customers save money to exchange cashier's checks, which are also traded in real money, or in pounds.

As a result, a considerable part of the deposits controlled by the Royal Bank are in the form of silver and gold.

The Royal Bank's vaults contain more gold and gold bonds, such as the British pound and the gold ruble, which are currencies of the gold standard countries, with a total value greater than the central bank's gold reserves. (To be continued.) )