The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 653 Great Era (Request for subscription and ticket)
The bronze clock of the Shanghai Stock Exchange pointed to noon, and the light from the gas lamp hanging from the dome fell on Rothschild's sweaty forehead.

The Jewish banker's knuckles turned white as he gripped the gold-plated pocket watch. The glass of the dial reflected the terrifying numbers on the blackboard - raw silk, flour, rice, gold. The prices of these commodities and precious metals listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange are still relatively stable, but the number of uncancelled contracts looks terrifying!
Each contract has a margin, which adds up to an astronomical amount of money. Moreover, these futures contracts are not "limited liability" and are not a matter of losing the margin. Once the position cannot be closed in time (in a one-sided market, it is very likely that the position cannot be closed due to a one-sided situation), the exchange will pursue the holder of the warehouse receipt.

And with the number of warehouse receipts that Nathaniel Rothschild currently holds, if his positions are really blown up, even the Bank of Vienna might go bankrupt - although the Austrian Empire will definitely help the Bank of Vienna to default on its debts, but now that the Rothschild family has been turned into a deadbeat, how can he survive in the European financial circle in the future?

In addition, the money Nathaniel brought to China this time was not all from the Rothschild family! There were also Habsburgs and other German feudal dynasties who had money in his possession. How would he explain if he lost all the money?

The closing bell tore through the frozen air. Rothschild mechanically turned his neck and saw the silver cane of Little Dent falling to the teak floor. The opium dealer slumped in a mahogany chair, his gold-rimmed glasses hanging askew, his pupils behind the lenses shrunk to the size of a needle tip: "Nathaniel, are we betting too much?"

Nathaniel Rothschild turned his head and looked at the two annoying Americans at the Citigroup trading desk. If they hadn't been constantly adding long orders for raw silk and short orders for flour, rice, and gold, Nathaniel, Dent, Chatton, and Van der Veer wouldn't have kept adding positions. If they didn't add positions, the transaction price of the futures contract would change in a direction that was not favorable to them.

But Lehman and Morgan didn't know where the money came from. No matter how Nathaniel, Dent, Chatton, and Van der Veer increased their positions, the two of them always followed up. As a result, the amount of unsettled contracts was astonishingly large.

At this point, Nathaniel, Dent, Chatton, and Van der Wiere all knew that something was wrong. But they were also trapped in it. Futures contracts cannot be closed at will. If no one takes over, it will cause a stampede, and longs will be killed, and shorts will be killed. They simply cannot afford to lose.

So holding on became the only option.!

"Gentlemen!" Morgan's deliberately drawn-out American accent pierced the silence. The assistant manager of Citibank leaned against the seat of Citibank and waved the futures contract document he had just received: "Raw silk 85, as much as you can get. Gold, flour, rice. I have plenty! Plenty!"

Rothschild's back teeth were clattering. He could clearly hear the blood vessels in his temples pulsating, just like the cables of the steam cranes in Manchester Harbor twisting in his ears. He turned his head stiffly and looked at Van der Wiel of the Dutch East India Bank. The Dutchman had a very ugly face and kept smoking.

"Any news about Mr. Deville?" Rothschild asked in a low voice.

Of course, he was asking about the news of the Dutch East Indies Fleet - the bottom of finance is the military! And the Dutch navy in the Dutch East Indies is the bottom line of Rothschild!

As long as the Dutch East India Fleet has the power to blockade the South China Sea waterways and prevent the export of Chinese silk and the import of grain, Luo Yaoguo will not dare to let Rothschild lose.

"No news," Van der Weer shook his head and forced a smile. "No news is good news."

"I hope so," Rothschild muttered, then, leaning on his cane and dragging his tired steps, he walked towards the gate of the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

"Here they come! Here they come!"

Maria's scream suddenly rang out in the large office on the top floor of the HSBC building. Luo Yaoguo, who was sitting behind his desk anxiously flipping through a top-secret military report that had just been sent by the Navy Department, looked up and saw Maria with almost half of her body leaning out of the arched window on the top floor of the bank.

"Here they come! Our warriors are here!" Maria pointed to the surface of the Huangpu River, tears flashing in her blue eyes. Six scarred "Shanghai-class" cruisers split the muddy river water, dragging billowing black smoke, hanging the red flag of the victor, and slowly sailed towards the most prosperous place in Shanghai.

Luo Yaoguo was already standing at the window, his telescope following the fluttering red flag on the mast. When the destroyed bridge of the fourth warship came into his sight, the Prime Minister of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, who was born with a heart of stone, felt his eyes moisten.

The winter river breeze blew across the pier beside the Bund. Rothschild staggered through the noisy crowd, Van der Wiel lost one of his crocodile leather shoes without even noticing, Chaddon's silk hat was blown onto the bluestone pavement by the river breeze at some point, and Charles Dent came over with the help of two compradors.

The six "Shanghai-class" steam cruisers flying red flags, with decks full of proud sailors, and the forty-eight large and small American sailing ships following behind them were almost their death sentence!

"How is this possible?" Van der Weer asked loudly. "No, no, no," Chaton was almost going crazy.

Charles Dent was so frightened that he could not utter a word.

"Quick, go find someone to ask." Nathaniel Rothschild instructed a senior employee of the Vienna Bank in a trembling voice.

"Mr. Rothschild!" A bearded American captain walked down the gangplank of the Mississippi Beauty and was brought to Rothschild by the senior staff of the Vienna Bank. "I am James Horner, the captain of the American Sanyo Shipping Company. Our company is transporting 60,000 tons of North American flour this time - and of course some Indian specialties. It was the battle angel Wing King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom who asked us to bring him here. His army recaptured Delhi for the Queen of England a few months ago. I heard that they robbed a lot of gold!"

The Jewish banker's Adam's apple rolled violently: "Is the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's navy comparable to the Dutch navy?"

"You're asking about the Battle of Sunda Strait?" Horner took out a silver-plated hip flask and took a sip of whiskey. "It's obvious that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom won! Six of their eight steam cruisers returned, it was God's blessing!
The Dutch suffered a miserable fate. Their ship, the Netherlands, was blown into two pieces a few dozen miles north of the Sunda Strait, the Seven Provinces was completely burned, and several small steam gunboats were sunk.

"As for the sailing ships? Ha! We lost eleven or twelve, including the Java Man and Batavia! Of course, I heard this from the British at Malacca Port. At first, the British said that the Strait of Malacca was blocked by the Dutch and we were not allowed to pass through. A few days later, news came that the Dutch East India Fleet had suffered a disastrous defeat, and then the six Taiping Heavenly Kingdom cruisers arrived outside the port of Malacca!"

"Plop!"
Nathaniel Rothschild looked back and saw that Van der Wier of the Dutch East India Bank had fallen to the ground and was unconscious.

When the afternoon bell rang, Rothschild thought he heard his own death knell. The numbers written in chalk on the blackboard began to twitch like spasms:

“生丝”87——95——111；“黄金”18两——16两——14两；“江南制造局”35——48——66
"Close the position! Close the position! Quickly!" The Jewish banker had no other choice but to admit his loss and get out. Moreover, at this point, it was impossible for him to easily close the positions he had made in the wrong direction.

Boxes of pound notes were carried from the vaults of Vienna banks into trading halls, sent to the exchange's funding counters, and then turned into margin, which then evaporated like snow water poured into a furnace.

"The warehouse has exploded." A senior manager of a Vienna bank slumped on the cold floor of the exchange, his gold-rimmed glasses cracked into spider webs, "All warehouse receipts have been forced to close, and they can't close them to cover the final loss. I'm afraid it will exceed 5 million pounds. It's over, what can I do now?"

"Boom! Boom!"

Suddenly, two muffled noises were heard outside the Stock Exchange. Rothschild rushed to the arched window and saw Little Dent's crocodile leather shoes lying alone in a pool of blood. Then, Chaddon's silk hat fell from the fifth floor, like a withered autumn leaf covering the pale face of the corpse. These two big opium dealers obviously could not accept the fate of losing all their fortunes, so they jumped down from the top floor of the Shanghai Stock Exchange!
"Sir, sir, Vienna Bank..." Another manager of Vienna Bank rushed in like a flash, and said a terrible piece of news, "The bank is being run!"

At midnight, on the top floor of the Vienna Bank, which had been sealed by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Ministry of Revenue in Shanghai, the desperate Nathaniel Rothschild stepped onto the Baroque guardrail, his pocket watch chain dangling thirty feet in the air, and below him was the Bund Street with its gas-lit street lamps.

“The secret of salvation by faith is not in precious stones but in earthen vessels.”

Maria's voice suddenly came from behind the Jewish banker, and then a silk-gloved hand gently rested on his shoulder.

Nathaniel Rothschild turned his head and saw Luo Yaoguo and Maria, both wearing tweed coats, standing side by side behind him.

The bankrupt Jewish banker's pocket watch chain suddenly broke. As the gold-plated pocket watch fell into the abyss, he heard Luo Yaoguo's deep voice: "Five hundred years ago, your ancestors sold old clothes on credit in Frankfurt. Now, are you willing to mortgage your soul to a new era?"

(End of this chapter)