America 1881: Legend of the West

Chapter 531: Confrontation in the Capital Market

"Let's take it!" Chen Jianqiu made a quick decision.

"Take it? The market is now like a patient who is slightly better. He can't bear the slightest fright." Silas shook his head. "Panic is spreading, and more and more people are selling. Maybe it's not good." It’s going to collapse, is it appropriate for us to go in at this time?”

"You also said that the market's confidence has just stabilized." Chen Jianqiu looked at Silas, "If the market really collapses, who will buy our gold bonds?"

"In this battle, the winner takes all, and the loser will die without a burial place." He said solemnly.

"But, we can't handle this market situation!" Silas was a little anxious.

It seems that his big boss is overconfident in his own strength and financial situation.

More than 10 million US dollars in gold have just been sent to the federal Treasury to fill the hole. The remaining 20 million plus the money from Sanjiang Bank are all the funds that can be used.

When the market collapses, it triggers a stampede effect, just like a mountain falling. The money that goes into it becomes a bottomless pit.

If you go against the current, you are going against the entire market. What is enough money for you?
If you have a hard time, will you be able to survive the rest of your life?

"Believe me, pick up!" Chen Jianqiu's voice was unmistakable, "You have to nail it there today. If anything happens, just call back."

Silas was helpless and prepared to get up and go to the exchange.

But halfway through, he turned back again:

"Boss, I can't accept everything even if I want to. We don't have that much money."

"Railway, Pacific Railroad and several other railroad companies in the west stock, we will take whatever they sell!" Chen Jianqiu seemed to have already set his sights on the target and replied.

Silas was confused again:

"Boss, let me remind you that since you left the Pacific Railway, Hopkins has been messing around for a while. The company is in chaos and is on the verge of bankruptcy. There is no hope of profit. The stock is worthless. It is garbage among garbage. .”

Chen Jianqiu was happy:
"Trash is great, I really like picking up trash."

He looked at Silas and said to him seriously:
"The stocks of railway companies account for a large proportion of the market, and they are also the main battlefield between us and those European guys. The railway assets of a country that covers an area of ​​more than 9.3 million square kilometers and is constantly developing will definitely not be NPLs, they just need to be managed and consolidated.”

Silas had no way to convince his boss.

He no longer insisted on his opinions. As an excellent executor, he decided to do his best to do the things at hand instead of arguing with his boss again.

On the other side, in the headquarters of Belmont Bank.

Belmont and his European think tanks are also paying close attention to market trends.

They gathered in a large room.

Boards hung on the walls of the room recorded the latest information from the New York Stock Exchange.

Like Chen Jianqiu's "command center", this place is equipped with seven or eight telephones, each of which is connected to the exchange.

Belmont's orders were conveyed along these telephone lines to the stockbrokers on the exchange side.

Belmont was standing in front of the blackboard at this time, watching his men stepping on stools to update data.

He is very satisfied with the current battle situation.

The stock market in New York was in dire straits after a morning sell-off.

At the end of the 19th century, European capital accounted for a huge proportion of the American market, especially the British.

As the world's largest capital exporter at the time, the British were very willing to invest all over the world, especially in booming countries like the United States that had huge demand for capital.

And American railway companies are naturally their heavy warehouse areas.

This round of short selling was dispatched by Rothschild Bank, with the goal of knocking down the slightly improved U.S. market again.

"Where's Morgan? Why didn't I see him today?" Belmont looked at the people around him, but found no trace of Morgan.

"I seem to be sick. I said I had a bad cold due to too much cool wind at night." A follower said, "I just met someone from their bank this morning."

"Shall we wait for him?" asked an Englishman standing next to Belmont.

"Ignore him, I'm here." Belmont put his hands behind his back and looked up at the board on the wall, extremely confident.

Suddenly, the phone behind me rang again.

The operator picked up the phone:

"Huh? Oh, um, um, okay, I understand."

Belmont turned his head and looked at the operator.

"Boss, we have a big order to take over." The operator put down the phone, raised his head and said to Belmont.

"Do you know who the buyer is?" asked the British man next to him.

"Um, I don't know." The operator shook his head and picked up the phone again, "I'll go ask."

"Which company's stock is it?" Belmont asked.

"Pacific Railroad, Santa Fe Railroad and several other railroad companies. Someone took over and held up the price." The operator replied.

"No need to ask." Belmont chuckled, "It must be the country bumpkin named Chen. This guy is a guy who doesn't know how to live or die."

He said to the British: "Let Simon and the others continue to sell, and release the chips in Williams' hands. Let me see how much money he has!"

"Wouldn't that give him an advantage?" The British man was a little confused.

"Hehe, he thinks he has the bottom. I will let him understand that there is another bottom below. I will completely break through their defense!" Belmont's eyes were fierce.

"What about the gold bonds?"

"Same, I want all the assets in their hands to turn into garbage!" Belmont gritted his teeth.

He couldn't bear the thought of Chen Jianqiu's insult to him that night.

Hillbillies, go back to your west!

That afternoon, there was panic inside and outside the New York Stock Exchange.

On the stock exchange floor.

Merchants and brokers crowded in front of the trading booth and scrambled for the window, waving their bills frantically and shouting at the top of their lungs.

The floor was filthy, with all kinds of paper balls strewn about.

The air was turbid, and the smell of sweat and other strange smells were intertwined.

No one wants to sit back in their seats because their belongings are evaporating, which makes them sit on pins and needles.

People are once again reminded of the fear of being dominated by a stock crash.

The bond trading floor next to it was also bleak.

Many people who were once confident are now shy away from gold bonds.

The second tranche of gold bonds went unnoticed.

34 Bell Street, afternoon, 4:.

In the command post of the big office, a group of people gathered around Chen Jianqiu with serious faces, looking at the large piece of paper on the table.

The most frustrated of them all was Silas.

At this moment, he was standing opposite Chen Jianqiu, holding the table with both hands, his tie was crooked, and his usually neat hair was messy; and beside him, Okafor, the general manager of Sanjiang Bank, looked even more ashen.

The New York Stock Exchange has closed.

Unsurprisingly, their resistance was of little use and only slightly slowed down the pace at which the prices of several railroad companies' stocks were being penetrated.

It’s Black Friday again.

Today, both bonds and stocks were hit hard.

"All the funds we can mobilize today are now in there. No more money can flow into Sanjiang Bank, and we also have to face the possibility of a bank run down there." Silas said dejectedly, pulling at his tie.

The tie was suffocating him now.

This was something that rarely happened to the old gentleman Silas.

"I'll see if I can get some more money." Little Astor scratched his hair.

This was the first time that the rich young man felt that he did not have enough money.

"If only the Astra Hotel hadn't been built, I would have had enough cash to deal with these guys."

"Don't we still have $20 million worth of gold on the way?" said the tall Okafor. "Maybe we can stabilize it a little bit."

Silas shook his head. "That's not enough."

"That amount of gold was not enough, whether it was loaned to the federal government as promised and put into the government's treasury, or used to bet against the British in the stock market."

He sighed:

"We are facing the Rothschild family. They have been planning for a long time and have too many chips in their hands."

"Or should we go to the federal government and see if there is any way to intervene," Attorney Dylan suddenly said.

"It's impossible. Under the current free economic policy, the federal government will never intervene in the market through administrative means. This is a creed that is regarded as a guiding principle."

Chen Jianqiu, who had been silent, suddenly spoke up. If the federal government was capable of overturning the table, it would have done it long ago and would not have delayed it until now.

He walked up to Silas and patted him on the shoulder:

"Everyone did a good job today, and things are not as bad as everyone thinks."

Chen Jianqiu looked at everyone with a smile.

"The sky won't fall, and even if it does, I'll hold it up."

"The market will be closed tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Everyone should take a good rest, eat and have fun. Life is not just about work."

Everyone looked at each other.

My boss has a really good attitude. He is so calm even though he is almost losing all his pants.

"It's time to get off work, it's time to get off work. I don't want to pay you overtime." Chen Jianqiu took out his pocket watch to check the time, then waved at everyone.

Since the boss said it's time to get off work, there's no reason not to get off work.

The "Command Center" was soon empty, leaving only Chen Jianqiu and Little Astor.

The sky has darkened.

There was no light on in the large office, and the light was dim.

Chen Jianqiu took out a cigar from his inner pocket, then took out a cigar cutter from his pocket and cut off the tail.

"How about I go find my cousin and think of a solution?" Little Astor came over and whispered.

"No need." Chen Jianqiu lit up his cigarette slowly. "Do you think I don't know what your relationship is with your cousin? You two are just one step away from never seeing each other again. Otherwise, who would you build the Astra Hotel for?"

Little Astor didn't know what to say, so he sighed and turned to leave.

"But you have to do me a favor."

Chen Jianqiu's voice suddenly sounded behind him.

"Ah?" Little Astor quickly turned his head and found Chen Jianqiu looking at him.

The glow of the cigar flickered in the darkness.

"I want you to help me organize a party this weekend and invite all the bankers on Wall Street who have not yet stood against us."

Little Astor nodded, but he hesitated:
"Is Morgan still a thing?"

"As long as they don't clearly stand on the side of the Europeans, they count," said Chen Jianqiu.

Given that Astor's mother was a top figure in New York's social circle, it was not difficult for her to convene a party full of bankers.

However, due to the panic on Friday, no one seemed to be in a good mood.

Out of respect for Mrs. Astor, most of them decided to come and participate.

The party was scheduled to take place at the same venue as the previous charity gala.

There were no drinks or meals, just some simple tea breaks.

It's more like a meeting than a party.

To everyone's surprise, Mr. John Pierpont Morgan, who announced that he had a bad cold, actually showed up at the scene.

He was wearing a black tweed jacket and sitting in the last row. His face didn't look sick at all, but there was no expression on his face either.

When faced with bankers who came forward to ask about his well-being and chat about family matters, he dealt with them very simply.

He was accompanied by his partner, George W. Perkins, who sat next to him.

In addition to Morgan, those present included George Baker, chairman of the First National Bank, and James Stillman, president of the National City Bank, all of whom were well-known bankers on Wall Street.

Everyone was seated quickly.

Everyone's attention quickly focused on a platform in the front.

As per convention, Mrs. Astor would appear first and give a welcome speech, such as: Everyone, eat and drink well today.

Although it is a cliché, after hearing it for a long time, everyone has become accustomed to it.

However, Mrs. Astor did not appear today.

Because young Astor did not tell his mother about the party, his mother became the convener of the party without knowing it.

His replacement was a Chinese man in his thirties.

He walked up to the stage and came to the round microphone.

Most of the people in the audience knew him.

This man is called Chen Jianqiu. He is the boss of Sanjiang Bank and is considered a rising star on Wall Street.

This man used 20 tons of gold to save the U.S. Treasury and issued gold bonds, but he also angered the European capital, which led to yesterday's market crash.

What is he going to say today?

But Chen Jianqiu was not in a hurry to speak.

He stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the audience, and remained silent.

Silence is powerful.

As his gaze swept across everyone in the audience, they felt as if their bodies were pierced through and their hearts were penetrated.

Abnormally, no one was whispering and the hall was surprisingly quiet.

Everyone was waiting for the Chinese man in front of them to speak.

Chen Jianqiu spoke.

"This morning, I went to the shoe store downstairs to buy a pair of shoes that fit me."

He lowered his head and pointed to the pair of leather shoes on his feet.

"Here, just this pair."

"But when I took out the banknotes to pay, the owner of the shoe store took out a scale and said to me: 'Sir, can you pay me directly in gold?'"

"I asked him curiously: 'Can't I pay in US dollars?'"

"The owner of the shoe store smiled and told me, 'Pounds are fine too. I've already planned to withdraw all my money from the bank. If I change it to pounds, at least I won't be left with nothing.'"

Some people in the audience laughed, but some did not.

They know that this matter may be false, but if the US dollar really collapses, no one on Wall Street will end up well except short sellers like Belmont.

Chen Jianqiu continued his speech:

"More than a hundred years ago, the founding fathers of the United States created this country and made them independent from the control of Britain; a hundred years later, another group of British people came, but this time, they brought an invisible butcher knife."

“But America is no longer what it used to be.”

"Five years ago, its steel production surpassed that of Britain; the total length of its railways is second to none in the world; but its capital market is timid and afraid to fight against these 'butchers'."

Some of the bankers in the audience disagreed, some looked serious, and some looked indignant.

After all, not everyone has a patriotic sentiment.

It might convince some people, but certainly not all.

Chen Jianqiu observed the expressions of the people in the audience.

He remained calm.

"Do you know why I chose to enter the market with funds yesterday?" Chen Jianqiu looked at the people in the audience.

"Because I still have 20 million gold on the way. The Astor family decided to give me all the cash flow in their hands to buy these high-quality assets."

Chen Jianqiu said with certainty.

"And as far as I know, Mr. Rockefeller is also ready to enter at any time."

The bankers in the audience could no longer sit still.

The relationship between Aster and Chen Jianqiu is known to everyone and does not seem to be fake.

So, is the Rockefeller story true?

If that were the case, wouldn't the richest people in the United States be ready to enter the market?
While the bankers were still speculating, Morgan, who was sitting in the last row, stood up.

He coughed slightly and then said:

"Mr. Chen is right. Mr. Rockefeller has given me half of his liquidity. Together with Morgan Bank itself, we are ready to buy gold bonds and enter the market to buy at the bottom."

"We will work with Mr. Chen to do our best to stabilize the market and the dollar. We will not hand over the future of our country to others."

He looked around at everyone calmly.

This is the most prestigious banker on Wall Street. His words are as powerful as his words:
"So, what do you think?"

(End of this chapter)