@@@@@

The news of the president, vice president and prime minister visiting the southwest of Chongqing for a national economic conference made businessmen with a keen sense of smell smell the strangeness.

The benchmark silver price on the Shanghai Bulk Futures Exchange, which had not been the same for several years, began to fall, from 1 yuan to 20 grams to 1 yuan to 22 grams.

The depreciation of silver was not unexpected by the market, and the currency reform was far less complicated than thought, from 1912, when the southwest was the first to implement the minting of the minting of silver coins, and after the unification of the country in 14 years, the minting of silver coins was stopped, and the arbitrary issuance of currency by foreign banks was stopped, and the status of the minyuan was actually determined. Under the stimulus of the European war, the demand for currency circulation increased sharply, and the influx of a large amount of gold and silver also made the Ministry of Finance and the central bank have sufficient reserves to ensure the sufficient supply of money, which led to a sharp increase in the circulation rate of the yuan.

The thorny problem is that no one knows how much silver there is in the country, and the total amount accumulated over hundreds of years must be extremely staggering, coupled with the late Qing government's inability to effectively control the import and export of silver, a large amount of Mexican silver is circulating in China, and European and American merchants are frantically grabbing silver at the same time, which also makes the market more chaotic. The Ministry of Finance itself can't figure out this number, one says it is about 25,000 tons (a total of 800 million taels, 16 taels of silver trading), one says it is about 32,000 tons, and it is more than 80,000 tons! Even according to the smallest figure, at 1.5 yuan per tael (31 grams per tael), the full recovery would require the issuance of 1.3 billion currency hedges. However, gold and silver currency is overstocked, and a lot of silver will not flow into the market but will be stored as a store of value, and if the silver that floods into the market after the currency reform eventually exceeds expectations, the result of a large increase in currency will be inflation.

On the contrary, silver can not be allowed to remain in the market, no matter how the currency is changed, it is impossible to immediately cut gold and silver and currency directly, nothing more than to replace gold and silver with money, but its value must be reflected through gold and silver, if the amount of silver is allowed to scatter in the market, then it will cause a large outflow of silver. Eventually, deflation, and then factories and enterprises eventually went bankrupt due to illiquidity.

This is a double-edged sword, the solution is to withdraw as much gold and silver as possible from the market, and then fix the gold and silver in the hands of the central bank in the form of bond tokens! This is how Wall Street did after World War I and World War II. The inflation that should have occurred after the massive inflow of gold and silver was locked in by bonds, so that gold and silver remained in the United States for a long time.

Wall Street, which was the first to go, certainly knew the benefits of doing so, but they clearly didn't want China to take advantage of it easily, and even though silver was worth less than gold, it was a precious metal that made the capitalists blush. And their confidence is to control 51% of Shanghai's silver reserves! Equivalent to 3% of the total amount of silver in the Republic of China, in their hands!

China can redeem them, but it will cost a little bit, so Hanger raised his glass and gently touched his glass with Mr. William Hamill, General Manager of Swire & Co. Far East: "Mr. William." Thank you for your support. ”

Swire & Co. is a British giant company entrenched in the Far East, holding a series of large conglomerates including HSBC, which once had a monopoly on China's tea and raw silk trade, and in order to help the British government crack down on China, it implemented weak policies and promoted tea cultivation in Sri Lanka and India, fundamentally cutting off China's largest foreign exchange earnings. It also supported the Japanese raw silk industry, and used Japanese raw silk to suppress the Chinese raw silk market, which not only made huge profits but also almost destroyed Chinese raw silk. As a result, Japan received a large amount of foreign exchange, which secured the supply of funds for the country's reforms after the Meiji Restoration.

Therefore, if you really want to trace the source, Swire & Co. is inseparable from the Jiawu and Gengzi Year incidents. It was not until 1914 that the tariffs were gradually withdrawn by Yang Qiu. The outbreak of the European war and other factors led to the decline of foreign travel. Raw silk was monopolized by China and the United States, tea was challenged by local Chinese businessmen, and finally a number of high-quality assets such as the Yangtze River British Shipyard and HSBC Shipping Company had to be sold to China in order to obtain sufficient liquidity, making the hegemony of the Far Eastern business community more and more precarious.

After the war, the British economy was stagnant, Chinese tariffs and concessions were lifted, and countries began to raise tariff barriers to restrict the departure of gold and silver. In particular, the eyesight of Wall Street in the United States and local Chinese companies has given the directors of foreign banks a smell of decay. Not resigned to defeat, the directors sent William Hanmill to regroup.

But that's easier said than done.

After the Shanghai Communique, people of insight from all over the world realized that China was no longer a feudal and inferior semi-colony. With the gradual improvement of social reforms and industrial and economic policies, a China that is integrated into the mainstream society is rising, and it is almost impossible to recreate the prosperity of the past. Therefore, after William's arrival, he immediately revised his strategy and gradually shifted his main business to Nanyang and India. But what he didn't expect was that Wall Street found him, because Wall Street found a big opportunity. The help of British silver in the Far East was needed.

Silver Wars!

This is the name that William Hamill gave to this project. Since the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of China had restricted the outflow of gold and silver after the withdrawal of tariffs in 1916, it was necessary to take away large quantities of silver unless it was a war. Wall Street certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to go to war for silver, and if it were gold, it would still be worth the risk. Therefore, the method they adopted was very simple, that is, to hit the Shanghai bulk trading market with a large amount of silver, and take advantage of the fact that all walks of life in China were worried about the currency reform and sold silver, and frantically bought silver, raising the price and hoarding it.

The gold and silver belts can't leave the country, why do they want so much gold and silver? In fact, it is very simple, the current currency reform of various countries is actually based on the amount of gold and silver in the national reserves to stabilize the value of the currency, so it is impossible for Yang Qiu to let such a large amount of gold and silver in the hands of the British and American banks, otherwise his currency will be seriously threatened, and in the end it is the bond, futures and stock markets that are unlucky, and even the real economy will lead to violent inflation or deflation due to the lack of gold and silver protection.

This is a common method in Europe and the United States, and Wall Street is very skilled in this process. The experience of manipulating South America countless times allowed them to quickly see business opportunities in currency reform, as they did in Mexico and South America. Although Yang Qiu has a strong political skill, innovative industrial and commercial development, and extraordinary military talent, he does not have anything to do in the financial system of money, which makes Wall Street, which has been studying him finally find an opportunity.

Once the plan begins, the Chinese government, which wants to stabilize the market, will have to use its silver reserves to keep prices from rising, but both sides have about the same amount of silver, so to win, they will have to take out their foreign exchange reserves, and even force them to use their gold reserves! Judging from experience, either Yang Qiu opened the money printing machine without restrictions and used massive currency to buy back silver at sky-high prices, causing serious inflation, or he suspended monetary reform or closed the market to terminate all free exchange business.

This is inconceivable, and once this means that China's first eight years of economic reform are all in vain.

This is a huge business opportunity, and the rapidly increasing wealth of the Chinese market is enough for a single shearing. The only thing that makes William curious is that it is said that Hanger and Yang Qiu have a good personal relationship, so he is not afraid of offending Yang Qiu and the Sino-US relationship has deteriorated since then? Hanger pushed down his gold-rimmed glasses slightly, and slowly hooked the corners of his mouth: "Yang is a good man, but I have to serve my employer, and I believe that with his wisdom, he should know how to make trade-offs, because China needs us." ”

William nodded. They have all heard of the recent investigation by China's Ministry of Finance, and they have a general understanding of the data. Both the scale and the total volume show a surprising side, but one thing is very bad. That is, although the per capita land area was increased after the Cheng Cheng Act and the immigration movement and the food and clothing of the majority of the people were solved, in fact, the scale of the small-scale peasant economy in the short term was expanding rather than shrinking.

This is not Yang Qiu's mistake, but the right choice. Because he inherited the illusion of the world's third largest economy of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the abject poverty of half of the population, 9 percent of the embarrassment of illiteracy, the first thing to solve when any politician came to power was the illiteracy rate of the people's food and clothing, otherwise his government would have no credibility and would not receive any support. Moreover, if he wants to carry out industrialization and urbanization, he must also build on the basis of food, clothing, and universal education, especially after the rapid increase in the urban and industrial population, the more necessary it is to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of food, otherwise this will be the end of the recent Japanese riots.

This can be seen from last year's list of China's bulk imports. In 1920, China imported grain first, with a total of 3.3 million tons of various types of grain imported from the United States to reserve and curb grain price increases, followed by 2.7 million tons of crude steel and 1 million tons of crude oil, and the rest was complete sets of industrial equipment. It can be seen that Yang Qiu also knows where his shortcomings are. The problem of low agricultural efficiency cannot be changed overnight, and the Cheng Cheng bill has indeed stimulated peasants' enthusiasm for growing grain. However, the bill was only introduced in 16 years, and it was not until the end of 18 years that it began to be popularized nationwide, and according to the laws of nature, it took 21 years for grain production to explode, which also needed to be stimulated by grain seeds, machinery, and fertilizers. So if he is given enough time, this gap will be slowly filled as the recovered land gradually merges, the population dilutes and expands, and the use of mechanical cultivation and fertilizer increases.

In addition, Yang Qiu is also inseparable from the help of Britain and the United States in industrial and national construction, although China has been engaged in construction for 8 years, and the total industrial volume has accounted for 5% of the world, but the vast majority of them are low-end industries, and high-end manufacturing has always been in the stage of imitation or simply none. No one would think that to design a better weapon is to have high-end manufacturing, which requires a lot of talent investment, so Yang Qiu can't do without American technology to help him solve important projects, chemicals, petroleum, large hydropower stations and other projects.

So a qualified politician will know how to make trade-offs.

When the wine glasses collided again, the situation in the Shanghai Bulk Futures Exchange changed sharply, and the price of silver, which had been falling every day, soared. By May 9, it had risen from 1 yuan to 22 grams to 1 yuan to 18 grams.

The Silver Crisis Erupts! …… (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to come to the starting point (qidian) to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support, is my biggest motivation. )