Wild North America 1846

Chapter 675 Raw Silk Business War
Emperor Li Cha was satisfied with the new prime minister, Baron Tang Dezhao's domestic and foreign policies, and finally let him leave the palace after a few words of encouragement.

After leaving the palace, Baron Tang Dezhao was surprised to find that the clothes on his back were wet with sweat until he got into the car.

From this, it can be seen how much pressure His Majesty the Emperor put on him?

Like a god who has insight into the world, there is nothing to hide in front of his wise eyes, and it penetrates people's hearts. It takes a lot of energy to deal with it.

Since then
Baron Tang Dezhao did not dare to slack off more and more. After taking office as the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, he managed the state affairs conscientiously and showed extraordinary abilities...

Chicago and Detroit are the two major heavy industrial centers in the Great Lakes region, with the former as the head and the latter as the supplement.Together with more than a dozen surrounding cities, it formed the largest heavy industry city group in the empire, and played an irreplaceable and important role in the industrial system of the Tang Empire.

The Five Great Lakes Heavy Industry Zone is the most convenient place to export to Europe. It has rich coal and iron resources, mature industrialization facilities, and complete development of categories. It has many incomparable advantages. It has now become the leading heavy industry zone in the Datang Empire.

The production capacity of this region is quite large in the fields of steel production, agricultural machinery and equipment, automobiles, machine tools, mechanical products, chemical products, military industry and shipbuilding, ranking first in the world in many fields.

Emperor Richard spent two weeks traveling all over the key industrial cities of the Great Lakes, and went deep into the first-line inspections of steel plants and machinery plants, and visited the Chicago Institute of Technology, Teachers College, Northern Iron and Steel College, Detroit Institute of Technology and other colleges , to make a series of important speeches.

while in detroit
Emperor Richard also met with the French special envoy, Admiral Jean-Casimir, and had a separate meeting with the admiral for half an hour to fully communicate...

Shenzhou thousands of miles away

At this time, after more than three years of business wars, with the help of a mysterious person, Hu Xueyan, a red-capped businessman known as "Zuo Zongtang's money bag", finally ended with difficulty and won the victory of challenging foreign businessmen.

To explain this clearly, we have to start from three years ago

Master Zuo Zongtang greatly strengthened the prestige of the imperial court and greatly boosted the morale of the people in the series of wars in which he quelled the Agubai rebellion and defeated the Tsarist Russian foreigners to regain Xinjiang.

Therefore, in 1881, he was able to add an official to the military aircraft department. For a time, the holy family was rich, and the ministers who advocated the fortification and defense were very popular.

This aroused Li Hongzhang's deep dissatisfaction, and he planned to deal with the biggest political opponent who was an official in the same dynasty.

On the surface, he was also a pillar of the imperial court. Li Hongzhang couldn't shake Zuo Zongtang, who had outstanding military achievements, for a while.

Specifically, Sheng Xuanhuai, Li Hongzhang's protégé, was looking for opportunities to act.

opportunity will come soon

In 1882, Hu Xueyan opened a silk reeling factory in Shanghai, which cost 2000 million taels of silver, in order to bring down the price of silk.

This incident aroused strong resistance from foreign businessmen, so the first Sino-foreign business war in history broke out.Foreign businessmen united to resist Hu Xueyan's actions of lowering prices and trying to monopolize the market.

Originally, Hu Xueyan had the chance to win, because he had already spent a lot of money to buy all [-] tons of new silk in the country.Once you have mastered most of the sources of goods, you have the right to speak in bargaining.

This move is intended to break the situation that foreign merchants have monopolized the bargaining power of raw silk for more than ten years.

Without any choice
Foreign merchants rushed to buy raw silk. Seeing that Hu Xueyan would not let go, some foreign merchants offered to buy his raw silk at the market price plus 1200 million taels of silver.

But Hu Xueyan didn’t let go. What he wanted was obviously not these things, but the initiative to negotiate between Chinese merchants and foreign merchants in the future, to prevent Chinese merchants and raw silk households from being exploited by foreign merchants all the time, and to grasp the initiative in raw silk bargaining.

When Hu Xueyan was in a stalemate with foreign merchants, Li Hongzhang sent Sheng Xuanhuai to appear.

Sheng Xuanhuai secretly found foreign merchants and told them:
The only condition that foreign merchants can eat raw silk is "not to buy Hu Xueyan's raw silk."

So bureaucratic capital colluded with foreign merchants to mobilize raw silk from various places to ease the urgent needs of foreign merchants, which made it difficult for Hu Xueyan to digest the huge raw silk inventory, and instead accumulated a large amount of silver funds.

Immediately afterwards, Sheng Xuanhuai pushed Hu Xueyan, who was somewhat blind and conceited, to the brink of life and death through two tricks, one inside and one outside...

One move was to spread the news that in the new year 1883 there would be a bumper harvest of raw silk in Italy.

In addition, everyone knows that Hu Xueyan hoarded a large amount of raw silk, which led to a sudden drop in the price of raw silk in Huaxia. Coupled with the joint suppression by the government and businessmen, it is already less than one-third of last year.

Such a messy market situation actually caused Hu Xueyan a potential huge loss. The raw silk purchased with 2000 million taels of silver in the previous year was worth less than 1883 million taels of silver in 600, a loss of 1400 million taels.

Sheng Xuanhuai kept bewitching people's hearts, making foreign businessmen persist in confronting Hu Xueyan, and finally almost broke Hu Xueyan.

While Hu Xueyan was borrowing money to continue the business war, Sheng Xuanhuai made another move...

At the beginning of 1884, a news spread wildly in the market that Hu Xueyan's Fukang bank was about to go bankrupt.

After the news that Fukang Bank was about to go bankrupt came out, people came to withdraw money one after another.A large amount of silver was withdrawn by depositors, bank branches all over the country ran out one after another, which drove Hu Xueyan into a desperate situation.

At this time, the Fukang Bank did not have enough silver to cope with the run, and the originally stable Fukang Bank immediately fell into a precarious situation.

The only way to survive is to sell a large amount of raw silk stock in the warehouse at a low price.

At this time, the foreign merchants showed bloody knives, and they were only willing to bid 200% of the unified caliber, that is to say, they took out more than 2 million taels of silver and ate 000 dans of raw silk originally worth [-] million taels of silver in Hu Xueyan's hands. Down.

Such a price is tantamount to robbery.

When facing the danger of life and death, a letter from Zuo Zongtang solved the urgent need.

Hu Xueyan took Zuo Zongtang's autographed letter and went to Weihaiwei, where he met Mr. Zhu, who was said to be a large merchant from Lanfangguo. After a secret meeting, the two parties signed a cooperation agreement, and then the market changed suddenly.

Dahai, surnamed Zhu, came to Shanghai in person and made a huge money order of 500 million silver dollars payable at sight at the headquarters of the Fukang Bank. The money order was issued by the internationally renowned Datang Empire Bank of Communications. One of the eight consortiums of the Tang Empire.

More than a dozen newspapers and media outlets in Shanghai witnessed this shocking moment with their own eyes. Dahai, surnamed Zhu, took out a money order of 500 million silver dollars and slapped it on the table like a toilet paper. Then he said slowly; "Deposit this money for me, and I'll talk about it when I think about it."

Without being there, it is impossible to describe the horror of the people present.

Afterwards, the person in charge of the Shanghai Branch of Datang Imperial Bank of Communications issued a public statement, confirming that there was no problem with the money order and that it could be paid at sight.

Bank of Communications handles remittances worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and this amount is nothing more than a normal business transaction.

What kind of financial consortium is the Datang Empire Bank of Communications?

According to public reports;

The Bank of Communications has branches and banking institutions in 37 countries around the world. Its bank remittance business covers five continents. It has a total of 462 tons of gold reserves. It is one of the fourth largest financial consortiums in the Datang Empire.

The international remittance business handled every year is as high as hundreds of millions of Tang Yuan, and it is also hundreds of millions of dollars when converted into silver.

News comes out

The bank run that spread across the country stopped immediately, followed by a large number of depositors depositing silver and other jewelry in Fukang Bank, and a sudden and serious financial risk was resolved.

It was as if with a wave of his hand, the dark clouds dissipated.

The Fukang Bank, which is backed by the financial giant, is no longer the bank run by a red-capped businessman known as the richest man in China, but a big backer with a profound background and astonishing strength.

No matter where the depositor is, in the final analysis it is the word "confidence".

With confidence, naturally there will be no run, but a large amount of money will be deposited in Fukang Bank.

Hu Xueyan survived the catastrophe without any risk, and immediately launched a fierce counterattack.

In 1883, Italy had a bumper harvest of raw silk, which caused the price of raw silk in the Chinese market to cut in half from 1883 to 1884, dropping by more than half.

Hu Xueyan frantically bought new silk by waving banknotes, and his behavior of robbing goods caused great panic among foreign businessmen, who immediately participated in the trend of robbing goods.

The price of new silk soared rapidly from the original price of 115 taels of silver per load to 180 taels of silver per load in just three days, and then launched a strong retaliatory rebound.

A load of 200 taels of silver, a load of 220 taels of silver, a load of 260 taels of silver, a load of 300 taels of silver, a load of 350 taels of silver...

The enthusiasm for snapping up raw silk in the market gradually became crazy. In just ten days, the price quickly surpassed Hu Xueyan's original cost of 250 taels of silver per load, and in the following month or so, it skyrocketed to a high price of 440 taels of silver per load. .

And Hu Xueyan also lost no time in releasing the goods at the price of 300 taels of silver per load, and gradually increased the intensity of the delivery as the price continued to rise.

It took more than a month

Hu Xueyan’s hoard of 11.2 dans of raw silk was more than half of it, and 3300 million taels of silver was returned, leaving 1.9 dans of raw silk in hand. After the return, the market price was still close to 800 million.

On May 1885, 5, Fukang Bank under the management of Hu Xueyan announced the introduction of the Datang Empire Bank of Communications, accounting for 9% of the shares, as the largest shareholder, followed by the Hu family, accounting for 55% of the shares as the second largest Shareholders, and there are hundreds of large and small shareholders among them.

This news further fueled the momentum of Fukang Bank, making it the first local bank in China to introduce foreign capital, putting on a cloak of foreign businessmen.

According to sources;

The Tang Empire Bank of Communications was most likely to make the move at the beginning. It is said that after the Sino-foreign raw silk business war was completed, Hu Xueyan personally deposited 1300 million taels of silver profits into the account of a sea merchant surnamed Zhu, and shipped all 1.5 dan of raw silk by sea. Did not ask for a cent silver taels.

After this crisis-ridden raw silk business war, Hu Xueyan understood that Fukang Bank must find a big backer, otherwise it would be over sooner or later, and all the billions of dollars of wealth would be in vain.

This big backer must be able to make Li Hongzhang, the real power faction of the court, deeply afraid. Otherwise, under the collusion between officials and businessmen, Fukang Bank will never have a bright future, and the future will be dark.

Thinking back to the danger back then, it still makes people tremble with fear...

When Fukang Bank was facing a frenzied run, Sheng Xuanhuai greeted Shao Youlian of Shanghai Daotai, causing Shao Youlian to deliberately default on Hu Xueyan's salary for 20 days.

This trick is extremely vicious

At that time, Fukang Bank's bank branches across the country were in a hurry. Hu Xueyan had no choice but to cut his flesh to survive. The 20 taels of salary was a life-saving money, and one day later it would kill him.

But the court didn't refuse to give it, it was just 20 days late.

This made Hu Xueyan suffer a solid loss, but he still couldn't pour out the bitterness. Should he sue the court?

Another more vicious move was that Li Hongzhang made efforts at the same time in the court, demanding to investigate and deal with the case of the bank deficit in Fukang, in order to "calm public anger and comfort the dissatisfaction of people in the south of the Yangtze River."

Immediately, the imperial court ordered the seizure of the assets of Hu Xueyan, a red-capped businessman, and He Jing, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and Liu Bingzhang, the governor of Zhejiang, supervised the case.

You must know that He Jing was the same year as Li Hongzhang, and Liu Bingzhang was Li Hongzhang's family friend. If the two of them made a move, it was tantamount to adjudicating Hu Xueyan's whole family to be executed.

When Li Hongzhang made frequent moves, Zuo Zongtang finally wrote to the court, Li Chenyuan excused Hu Xueyan, and bought time for Fukang Qiankang to win a chance.

It is difficult to detail the complicated officialdom battles inside.

End of 1884
The imperial court finally changed course under Zuo Zongtang's strong statement, and handed over Hu Xueyan's bank deficit case to Zuo Zongtang himself to investigate and deal with it, gaining a respite for the reversal of the raw silk market.

Zuo Zongtang is also a veteran of the officialdom, and he has been procrastinating on the pretext of physical reasons, and finally ushered in the victory of Hu Xueyan's reversal of the business war.

The price of the raw silk market soared, and a large amount of silver poured into the Fukang bank, and the original "bank deficit case" naturally disappeared.

Of course, Hu Xueyan also had to manage millions of taels of silver before he was able to escape.

It sounds flat, but in fact, several of them are on the verge of life and death, and there are many crises, which can be described as frightening every step of the way.

End of May 1885
Hu Xueyan galloped to Fuzhou with the starry night, and saw Zuo Zongtang who was seriously ill. After the two discussed secretly for a long time, Hu Xueyan cried and left.

On May 5, the news that the Tang Empire Bank of Communications took over the Fukang Bank came out, which shocked the world for a while.

At the beginning of July, Zuo Zongtang, who was seriously ill, died of illness in Fuzhou. The pillar of the imperial court who carried the coffin into the river finally finished his brilliant and splendid life.

Only then will those with a heart understand;

Hu Xueyan, who dared to be loyal and always loyal, had a great idea to betray his master. Zuo Zongtang knew that his days were numbered, so he found another big backer for Hu Xueyan, a red-capped businessman who had followed him for decades. Consortium Bank of Communications.

As for what the court thinks, it doesn't matter what Li Hongzhang thinks. Zuo Zongtang's official career has come to an end. Do the dead still fear the living?

As for the Fukang Bank with big thick legs, there is no need to worry.

If the imperial court or Li Hongzhang make another move, then they will have to face the wrath of the Bank of Communications, and then someone will stand up and uphold justice.

At that time, hehehe...

(End of this chapter)