The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 576 Yikuang's Trouble
Hearing that the branch of Aurora Bank in Beijing had encountered trouble, Teng Yuzhao felt nervous.

Even Yang Shixiang, Yang Shiqi, Zhou Xuexi, Ning Xingpu, Huang Chujiu and others were a little surprised. This was the first time they heard about this matter.

The Aurora Bank controls the economic lifeline of Zhili and all economic operations of Zhili.

The Aurora Bank not only supported the start-up of a large number of state-owned enterprises with a steady stream of large sums of money, but now also shoulders the burden of providing low-interest loans to a large number of private enterprises that have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.

Since Zhili had extremely low taxes on private enterprises, a large number of private owners from other provinces came to Zhili to set up factories and do business. Most of these private owners did not have much capital, and business operations required loan support.

What attracted them to set up factories in Zhili was not only the low tax rates, but more importantly, they could get low-interest loans from the Aurora Bank.

This saves these small business owners from the trouble of having to bear high-interest loans when operating in other provinces.

Because of the low-interest loans from Aurora Bank, the loan interest rates of all the money houses and bill shops in Zhili were lowered, and even foreign banks followed Aurora Bank in lowering their loan interest rates.

Aurora Bank has a heavy responsibility and cannot afford any mistakes.

Although Xi Ligong now submits an operating report of Aurora Bank to Teng Yuzao every quarter, Teng Yuzao has a basic grasp of the bank's operating conditions and plans. However, any temporary bank operating problems that arise, small ones, will naturally be solved by Xi Ligong himself, and there is no need to disturb Teng Yuzao.

Only some of the more serious issues were reported to Teng Yuzao.

Xi Ligong didn't mention it before the meeting today, but suddenly brought it up at this moment. Presumably, this matter was still within his ability to resolve and was not a big deal, which made Teng Yuzhao feel a little relieved.

But after all, it was Aurora Bank that was in trouble. No matter how small the bank's matter was, Teng Yuzao did not dare to take it lightly and asked Xi Ligong.

"Yucheng, what's the trouble?"

Xi Ligong said helplessly, "General, you should know that Yikuang contacted a group of princes and ministers in the capital, and also contacted Sheng Xuanhuai in Shanghai, and established a "Beijing Commercial Bank" in the capital based on the model of the "Bank of Commerce". They also hired a consultant from the "Zhengjinjin Bank".

Teng Yuzao knew about what Xi Ligong said about Yikuang contacting princes and ministers to establish the "Capital Commercial Bank" in the capital. He also knew that the Ministry of Revenue had approved the newly established bank to mint silver dollars.

Teng Yuzao would receive timely reports from Li Yaoting on what happened in the capital. According to Li Yaoting, this "Capital Commercial Bank" was likely to have a large proportion of shares held by Japan's Shojin Bank.

The Specie Bank of Japan was a branch of the Bank of Japan in Tianjin at that time.

The Yokohama Specie Bank is a long-established bank in Japan. Twenty years ago, in order to solve the trade and foreign exchange balance with European and American countries, the Japanese established the Yokohama Specie Bank in Yokohama, a major import and export trade center. It became the only specialized foreign exchange bank in Japan after the Meiji Restoration.

Although the Yokohama Specie Bank is privately owned, Japan provides it with special preferential treatment, protection and control.

At this time, it had already established branches in Qingdao, Hankou, Shanghai, Tianjin and other places.

However, Teng Yuzao did not pay much attention to this matter. He thought that it was Yikuang's attempt to compete with him, or even because Yikuang was attracted by the considerable profits brought by coin minting.

As for the involvement of the Japanese, Teng Yuzao did not think it would cause much harm. If they could invest some money, it would only benefit the domestic economy and would not cause much harm.

The reason why Teng Yuzao did not attract attention was that the commercial bank run by Yikuang was modeled after the Commercial Bank.

The organizational management and rules and regulations of the Commercial Bank were completely modeled after the British HSBC Bank. It relied on foreigners, recruited guest officials, and implemented the foreign boss system.

The business mainly focuses on money houses, with the Shanghai head office as the center, and branches are successively established in major cities.

Since its business is mainly money houses, although it is the earliest bank in China, its influence is not very big. It was not until a few months ago that it began to follow the Aurora Bank to implement the deposit interest payment system, just like those foreign banks in China.

Although all foreign banks were implementing the large-class system at that time, Teng Yuzao was not optimistic about this somewhat rigid management model of banks, and naturally did not take the bank headed by Yikuang seriously.

Teng Yuzao nodded, "Yucheng, go on."

Xi Ligong went on to say, “They imported two minting machines from the UK to mint silver dollars, and they started minting and issuing silver dollars three days ago.”

As Xi Ligong spoke, he stood up from his seat and walked towards Teng Yuzhao, taking out a shiny silver dollar from his pocket and handing it to Teng Yuzhao.

"Marshal, this is the silver coin minted by Yikuang and his men."

Since traveling through time, Teng Yuzao, the time traveler, has developed a habit of collecting silver coins.

Teng Yuzhao now has a collection of hundreds of different silver coins, but he is still very interested in the silver coins minted by the bank run by his rival Yikuang.

It was not that the imperial court did not want to take back the main editor circle, but because the provinces were unwilling to give up the right to mint coins, the imperial court's idea of ​​unifying the minting of silver dollars by the imperial court could not be achieved for the time being.

Teng Yuzhao Teng Yuzhao took the silver dollar handed over by Xi Ligong and looked through it carefully.

This silver coin is fairly exquisitely minted, with a dragon pattern on the front and Manchu and Chinese characters surrounding the back, with the words "Beijing Commercial Bank" written on it, and the words "Guangxu Yuanbao" in the middle.

Teng Yuzao looked at Tang Shaoyi behind him. Tang Shaoyi, who was craning his neck to look at the silver dollar in Teng Yuzao's hand, quickly reached into his pocket and took out a silver dollar minted by "Aurora Bank" and handed it to Teng Yuzao.

The casting process of the two silver coins is similar, and they are both exquisite, with neat and rounded edges and clear and distinct patterns.

The only difference is that the silver dollar of "Aurora Bank" does not have the dragon pattern. On the front is an ironclad ship sailing through the waves, guarded by rifles and sabers crossed, while on the back is the pattern of Mount Tai, but under Mount Tai there is the words "minted by Aurora Bank".

The silver dollar of Aurora Bank was the first domestically manufactured silver dollar that did not use a dragon pattern. Because of the pattern on the silver dollar, the silver dollar minted by Aurora Bank was also called Junyang by the people.

When Teng Yuzao reported to the Ministry of Revenue and the Grand Council, he explained that the dragon was a totem symbol of the nation, and that local provinces could only represent one province or one place, so the dragon pattern should not be used casually on the silver coins minted.

The "Aurora Bank" replaced the silver dollars issued by Zhishan Province and only reflected the characteristics of the two provinces.

Although the Ministry of Revenue and the Grand Council did not comment on Teng Yuzao's explanation, according to Zai Yi's private letter to Teng Yuzao, Cixi privately agreed with Teng Yuzao's statement and called him a loyal minister.

After that, Yuan Shikai did not use the dragon pattern on the silver coins minted in Henan, but used the patterns of Kaifeng Daxiangguo Temple, the Yellow River, and Zhongyue Songshan. Teng Yuzao handed the two silver coins to Zhou Fu, who was also quite curious, and then asked Xi Ligong.

"What trouble are you talking about? It's just the silver coins minted by Yixin!"

Xi Ligong smiled bitterly and said, "First, the day before yesterday, someone published an article in the Capital Times controlled by Yikuang, saying that not using dragon patterns on silver dollars is disrespectful to the court and lacks reverence for the true dragon emperor. It is a high-handed act. The court should ban the circulation of silver dollars, and banks that issue such silver dollars should also be banned."

"Originally, our military dollars were very popular in the capital, but since this article came out, we can no longer issue silver dollars."

"Moreover, since yesterday, rumors have been circulating in the capital that the imperial court will soon issue an order prohibiting all silver coins that do not have dragon patterns from circulating in the capital, and the order will even be extended to other provinces in the future."

"At the same time, the Capital Commercial Bank announced in the newspaper that in order to protect the people from losses, they would buy back all the silver coins without dragon patterns at a discount."

"Because the rumor was so widespread, it caused panic among merchants in the capital. In order to reduce losses, all the people who held silver dollars issued by us and Henan, as well as those who held eagle dollars and silver dollars, asked the Beijing Commercial Bank to exchange them for the silver dollars they minted."

The so-called Eagle Dollar is the silver dollar minted by Mexico. As early as before independence when it was still a Spanish colony, these silver dollars with eagle patterns flowed into the country and the stock in the country is huge.

Silver dollars refer to all foreign silver coins except Eagle dollars, and the number of these coins is as high as hundreds. It is estimated that the total amount of various foreign silver coins circulating in the country is as high as one billion.

For example, a kind of British trade silver dollar is commonly known as Renyang, Zhanyang or Zhanren by the domestic people because there is a standing statue of the goddess Britannia holding a staff on the coin face. This is a silver dollar minted by Britain in India and Hong Kong specifically for circulation in China. There are Chinese patterns and the Chinese characters "One Yuan" on the back.

This silver coin was issued by British banks in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and other places, with a total of about 1.5 million pieces issued. It was popular in Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Nanjing.

Japanese silver coins have a large circulation. Because there are dragon patterns on the surface of Japanese silver coins, they are commonly known as dragon coins or dragon coins.

Others include the American Trade Silver Dollar, the French Annam Silver Dollar, etc.

Xi Ligong continued, "Fortunately, Yikuang still has some conscience and set the exchange price at 95% off."

"That's not all. There are also rumors that since our Aurora Bank is responsible for the military expenses of hundreds of thousands of Zhili troops, and the principal is relatively low, only 5 million, and now it is lending money on a large scale in Zhili and Shandong, it is difficult to operate for a long time. It is possible that it will close down one day."

Xi Ligong said with some worry, "Although, for now, only a small number of merchants have believed the rumor and started to withdraw their deposits from our branch in Beijing, but I am worried that the rumor will spread more and more, and will soon spread to our Zhili territory. Then we will be in big trouble."

Xi Ligong's words stunned everyone in the conference room. Even Zhou Fu stopped playing with and comparing the two silver dollars, and asked Xi Ligong in surprise.

"Yucheng, how big will the big trouble you are talking about be? Will there be a run on Aurora Bank? Can we survive it?"

What Zhou Fu asked was exactly what the people in the meeting room were worried about.

Xi Ligong did not dare to neglect the Governor of Shandong, whose status in Zhili and Shandong provinces was only second to Teng Yuzhao, not to mention that he was Zhou Xuexi's father.

Xi Ligong smiled bitterly and said, "Sir Zhou, this rumor is obviously spread by someone deliberately targeting the Marshal, so it will spread faster. I estimate that it has spread to Zhili today. Even in Tianjin, some people know about it now. I'm afraid it will spread throughout the city tomorrow."

"It is certain that there will be a bank run. It is no problem for Aurora Bank to withstand the bank run. Our capital is very strong. Jizhi's Aurora Industrial Development Company has a large amount of cash flow every day, which is deposited into Aurora Bank. It is beyond their imagination."

Xi Ligong originally wanted to talk about the principal, but now the hundreds of millions of principal of "Aurora Bank" cannot be disclosed because there will be a problem of the source. No one will believe that Ning Xingpu can have such a large fortune, so he had to involve "Aurora Industrial Development Company".

"But the key is that once a bank is run, it will cause anxiety among the people and merchants, and our deposits will be greatly reduced. It will be difficult to recover in a short period of time, and it will even be extremely detrimental to our future issuance of paper money."

Teng Yuzao sneered and took over the conversation, "There's more."

Teng Yuzao stood up as usual, paced with his hands behind his back in the open space in the middle of the conference room, and talked as he walked.

"With less deposits, the amount of money that can be taken out will also decrease accordingly, which will affect the promotion of Westernization in Zhili and Shandong. Now a large number of foreign merchants are willing to come here to invest and build factories. In addition to valuing our low taxes, they also come here for the low-interest loans from the Aurora Bank. Without loans, this will greatly slow down their investment."

Only Xi Ligong, Li Yulin and Li Xianze understood what Teng Yuzao said. Teng Yuzao was speaking to the others.

Even without deposits from depositors, the capital of Aurora Bank is sufficient to cope with it, which is a huge sum of silver worth billions.

"besides."

Teng Yuzao took a deep breath and continued, "This will also make the powerful companies that have joint ventures with us feel uneasy, and may even affect the purchase of new ships by the navy this time."

What Teng Yuzhao said in the latter part is true. If there is no financial guarantee, it will definitely affect the negotiations with the great powers.

"Damn it, that old dog Yikuang is still haunting us and is fighting to the death with us!"

Liu Shijiu said in hatred, "I really regret it. Why didn't I kill him with a knife at the beginning?"

"Marshal, how about..."

Before Liu Shijiu could finish his sentence, Teng Yuzhao glared back at him fiercely. Liu Shijiu smacked his lips, exhaled heavily, and stopped talking.

Teng Yuzao frowned and looked around at everyone and said, "This matter is not that simple. You may not know yet. As far as I know, the Capital Commercial Bank opened by Yikuang and a group of princes and nobles has a large stake in the Japanese Shojinjin Bank in Tianjin."

As soon as Teng Yuzhao's words came out, the conference room exploded.

If it was just Yikuang and a bunch of princes and nobles who were having a grudge against Teng Yuzao, it would be fine, but with the Japanese involved, it would be very difficult.

Zhou Fu said with a red face, "Xingfu, this matter can be reported to the Queen Mother. The mere fact that the ministers colluded with foreigners will make Yikuang pay the price!"

Teng Yuzao shook his head and said, "Sir Zhou, I only got the exact information, but I don't have any evidence."

(End of this chapter)