Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 506 Hongguang Bank
New book for collection: "The Rise of Great Powers 1900"

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Zhang Guoben is a businessman.

Since he was ten years old, he learned to stand at the counter with his uncle who runs a grocery store, and he has developed the ability to receive people, treat people, and observe words and demeanor.

Yang Chao has always believed that businessmen are good managers and are more suitable for managing the country than the landlord class. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Lu Buwei's management in Qin State was very good.

These businessmen are smooth, flexible, good at dancing with long sleeves, and can deal well with all classes. However, due to historical reasons, they have been oppressed by the landlord class for thousands of years, and they have lost confidence in themselves. It has become a consensus that being a businessman is useless and will never gain a respected position, because he has completely lost confidence in his own origin.

People need self-identification and being recognized by others, so businessmen will continue to move closer to land property owners instead of letting capital stay in more lucrative business, not entirely because land assets are more reliable.

At the age of 17, Zhang Guo has already independently operated a grocery store, and has grown it step by step. In Nanjing, it is stronger than the North-South grocery store that the Wang family spent a lot of money on.At the same time, after the Jinchai Building Exchange was opened, he entered the exchange to trade. It took him three years to overwhelm the brokerage family He Mingyu's family and become the master of the exchange.

In the end, after the exchange was burned down, he directly joined several big brokers to conduct transactions in the teahouse without interrupting the business in the exchange.

This is similar to the earliest stock and bond transactions in the West in coffee shops.

The over-the-counter trading called by Zhang Guo did not disband after Yang Chao rebuilt the Jinchai Building. Instead, it took away the business of the exchange completely, because some trading rules he formulated were more flexible than the exchange.

When trading on the exchange, if there is no transaction, Yang Chao will get three points, two points go to the exchange, and one point goes to the broker, which is a kind of account sharing model.And Zhang Guo agreed with dozens of brokers to cancel this unreasonable commission fee, and everyone will not take commission for transactions, and only earn the price difference by buying low and selling high.

This is obviously closer to the future market than Yang Chao's exchange, and it is more in line with the interests of the brokers, so his off-exchange transactions almost squeezed Yang Chao's exchange.And Zhang Guo also used his vision to buy and sell frequently, and a piece of goods could be sold more than ten times, and the atmosphere of speculation was very strong. He also made more than [-] yuan in a short period of time through this method.

But after his family became rich, this person was devoted to his official career. After Yang Chao took the imperial examination, he immediately passed the examination of the head of the official department, and was assigned to Wujiang County to be the head of the office.

Ordinarily, he should work conscientiously in the future, but this financial crisis has given him a huge opportunity.

Through Zhang Guo's good communication skills, he persuaded dozens of wealthy businessmen in Suzhou during the crisis. Together with these wealthy businessmen, when the bond price was at its lowest, he bought a large amount of bonds with a face value of ten taels for one tael of silver, and bought a total of more than 300 million taels. When the bond prices rose a year later, the amount of bonds they bought increased tenfold.

The wealthy businessman in Suzhou who made a lot of money responded to Zhang Guo's call and donated millions of taels of silver, built thousands of stone bridges in Suzhou, and dredged more than ten miles of canals in Suzhou city.

To be honest, this Zhang Guo is completely out of business, but his work is too outstanding, and he was recommended by the inspector, who thinks that he is very capable.

Yang Chao was inexplicably surprised. He didn't expect such a financial predator to appear under his rule. Obviously, his understanding of finance has far exceeded that of ordinary people.

Zhang Guo was quickly recruited to Nanjing, but he didn't meet Yang Chao all at once. Instead, he got an exam question, asking him to try to discuss the difference between bank notes and silver coins.

Yang Chao wanted to continue to test his ability to understand finance.

As a result, Yang Chao was quite surprised by this person's answer sheet.Because his strategy was completely out of Yang Chao's guess, Yang Chao originally thought that he either thought that the bank note was equal to silver, or that the bank note was a piece of paper, and even guessed whether he would touch the depth of the government's credit.

But this person explained it completely from another direction. He said that whether it is a bank note or silver, its own value is different.

He gave a few examples, which impressed Yang Chao deeply.

For example, he said that at the beginning, everyone was unwilling to ask for silver notes, and they were all willing to accept silver. At that time, in private transactions, one tael of silver could buy one liter of rice more than one tael of one bill, but silver bills could be exchanged in banks. to the full amount of silver.

After a year, everyone is willing to accept the cashier's bills, because the silver bills save trouble and will not wear out, and they can be exchanged for full amount of silver at the bank at any time.At this time, one tael of silver bills can buy one more liter of rice than silver.

Zhang Guo said, a bank note is still a bank note, and silver is still silver. It has never changed. What changes is people's hearts.

Then he said that whether it is silver or bank notes, the key is to look at their prices in people's minds.If someone is going to buy citrus, if it costs a penny three streets away, he will buy it three streets away; if he is buying a house, even if it is next door, as long as he is optimistic about it, he will not move half a step.

A penny of money can sometimes make a person walk three streets, but sometimes it can't make a person move a step. Money is still money, the key is to see whether it buys a house or oranges. It also changes people's hearts.

Zhang Guo wrote a lot profusely, fully expressing some of the business knowledge he had comprehended.

"This guy, I'm afraid Ben Du doesn't know him."

Yang Chao sighed, he read between the lines, it can be seen that this Zhang Guo is trying his best to express himself, which proves that this person's desire for promotion is very strong, this is the attitude that a self-motivated person should have.

Yang Chao immediately received him, and Zhang Guo showed another performance. Yang Chao immediately gave him a task, asking him to cooperate with his brother-in-law, that is, the late Emperor Hongguang, to open a bank called Hongguang Bank.

Yang Chao planned to let Zhu Cihong, who was once the emperor, sell his fame for money.

The reason why he made such a bad move was that besides having no money, Yang Chao saw that it was too risky to break ground on Jiangnan Bank. To make money through this bank, he lost a financial dam at a critical moment.

He planned to establish a private bank to create currency, and told Zhang Guoyi about the idea, and let Zhang Guo figure out a way by himself.

This bank will be engaged in savings and loan business, which is the most common business of future banks, and also the most profitable business.

This bank is a commercial bank from the ground up. Yang Chao invested 10 taels of silver, accounting for [-]% of the shares. Zhu Cihong used his country name as the emperor in the past to invest in the shares, accounting for [-]% of the shares. The other [-]% of the shares were given to his sister Yang. Yuehe Dingwang Zhu Cijiong couple, it can be said that this is a family bank.

Zhang Guo was still very excited about being able to work with the former emperor, and immediately took on a workaholic attitude, dragging Zhu Cihong around Su and Song, mainly visiting the gentry class here, because Hongguang's title is very important to these officials. People and squires are much easier to deal with than businessmen.

Let Zhu Cihong come forward, under the banner of benefiting the people, it is easy to persuade these wealthy families to take out part of their hoarded silver, and within a short period of time, they raised a capital of 100 million taels, and got the promise of these wealthy gentry to withdraw it within a year. In fact, these gentry kowtowed when they saw Zhu Cihong, weeping bitterly and denouncing Li Bengyue badly, even if they let them give it away for nothing, no one has any objection.

But the more important thing is business. Based on his one-year experience as an official in Susong, Zhang Guo quickly found a suitable lender, that is, silk merchants and cloth merchants who travel between Susong and Susong. These people have large sums of money. The money is exchanged between the two places, but it used to go through the Jiangnan Bank.

However, Jiangnan Bank has a three-cent handling fee, which can be described as expensive. Later, everyone directly carries bank notes, so there is no need for frequent exchange and remittance, and the handling fee is exempted. However, there are security risks for large-value bank notes.

Zhang Guo persuaded these people to open an account in Hongguang Bank, and then balance the income and expenditure through the book, so that there will be no cash transactions, and it will be safer. No one will doubt the strength of Hongguang Bank. Bank, who would doubt it.

Moreover, these businessmen found that the transfer transaction through Hongguang Bank is not only very safe, but also has no handling fee. It only needs that both buyers and sellers have accounts, but it is enough to perform book conversion in Hongguang Bank. will be able to proceed.

After making it easier for the merchants, Hongguang Bank added another 100 million taels of deposits, but how to increase the value of these deposits, Zhang Guo focused on the exchange. Tell Zhu Cihong that he will increase his bank deposits fivefold in one year, from 200 million taels to 1000 million taels.

With Zhang Guo's vision and the 200 million taels of silver available for manipulation, he really has a good chance of achieving this goal.

The exchange established in Nassau is a big casino. Every day, a large number of brokers buy high and sell low here. Some earn a lot of money, while others lose nothing. All kinds of goods, including bonds , are all ups and downs here, and many people make a fortune by earning the price difference from it.

Zhang Guo quickly made a lot of money through the price difference, and then many big brokers were dissatisfied with him and began to attack him. Enter, and then release all kinds of false news, such as a natural disaster in a certain place, a cargo ship capsized and so on.

The point is that he still has the ability to affect the supply of goods, such as making some small tricks to make the silk ships from Suzhou to Wusongkou stay in Chaoguan for two days. Using this kind of political means, a large number of brokers who fought with him lost very badly. There are not a few who lost their money.

Soon everyone learned how to behave. They bought whatever Zhang Guo bought. After a period of time, Zhang Guo started to play with light and dark lines. He ordered his subordinates to secretly sell. When he finished selling at a high price, the price would plummet immediately, causing a group of brokers who wanted to make a fortune with him to jump into the river at a loss.

In short, what Zhang Guo played was what he did at the Nanjing Stock Exchange. He was a master at the beginning, but now he has a lot of money in his hand, and has an official background. The Hongguang brand is almost invincible. Quadrupled the funds to 800 million taels.

Let alone 1000 million in a year, it is not a problem to reach 2000 million at this speed, but the problem is that this kid is playing the game of manipulating prices and hoarding. He is cheating a large number of brokers, and the result is Large fluctuations in the market.

If he is allowed to continue playing like this, Wusong Exchange will be ruined for him. After Yang Chao knew the situation, he immediately stopped it, telling him not to make money as the first goal. The purpose of the bank is to promote production and let him focus on it. It is good for lending to factories, such as textile households.

This stopped a crazy capital operation game, and the brokers of Wusong Exchange were greatly relieved.

These are all things to say later. In fact, Yang Chao went straight to the Jiangbei front line as soon as the new year was celebrated, otherwise it would be impossible for Zhang Guo to do that.

In fact, Yang Chao is not far from Nanjing. He just crossed the river and arrived at Anqing. If the weather is good, he can reach Nanjing in a day.

And Yang Chao was just a fake attack. He knew in his heart that he would not be able to launch a large-scale battle this year, but he couldn't let Manqing rest. He couldn't attack them, so he let Sun Kewang attack them. Sun Kewang had been holding back in Yunnan for three years As for time, it is not a lie to call Shijia Ma Teng.

In the past two years, the Qing court has also trained a large number of Eight Banners soldiers. There are 20 Mongolian Eight Banners in Monan and Mobei alone, and the Han Eight Banners have also expanded to 20. On the other hand, there are only 5 people in the Eight Banners, but the total number is 40. There are more than 30 green battalion soldiers, and the total number is as high as 80.

Yang Chao couldn't figure out what the combat effectiveness was. Based on Zhao Kang's experience, the combat effectiveness of those Mongolian cavalry was astonishing. They had already reached the strength of the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners a few years ago. The Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty had never encountered it. If we compare it with the army under Wu Sangui , is still very scary.As for Hong Chengchou's Green Battalion soldiers, their combat effectiveness is not bad. They are not as good as Yang Chao's army, but they are much stronger than the Ming army.

Faced with such an 80 Qing army, Yang Chao thought that he was even slightly inferior in terms of overall strength.

After all, if the Eight Banners soldiers who are the main force are stronger than Zhao Kang's elite, then it is clear that the Qing army has 40 troops whose average combat effectiveness is higher than that of Yang Chao's elite.

In fact, the level of Yang Chao's army is also uneven. The strongest is Li Wuliu's bird gun troops, and the second-rate is the cavalry and infantry led by Zhao Kang and Wang Pu, as well as many male troops. Kun and many men's troops can only be ranked third-rate in terms of combat effectiveness. Sun Changfu's and Zheng Yongwang's troops, who have rarely fought in recent years, are basically fourth-rate, while Yang Chao's army in Nanjing is basically fifth-rate. It can be compared with Jin Shenghuan's soldiers.

This kind of army level also made Yang Chao guess that in terms of overall combat effectiveness, there is still a gap between himself and the Qing army, so he did not dare to rashly launch a large-scale unification war. It must be successful, otherwise the country will be completely smashed if it seesaw back and forth.

So this year, he still focused on defense and took care of training. He transferred 8 troops from Lu Mo's army in Jiangxi to Jiujiang, and at the same time dispatched Zheng Yongwang's 7 troops from Fengyang to go south to Anqing, from Jiujiang to Wuchang Prefecture in Hubei. Invaded Huangzhou Prefecture, Hubei from Anqing.

(End of this chapter)