Pirate Kingship.

Chapter 656: The Crazy Inflation of the Tulip Bubble
September 1473 of the Silver Age, Kingdom of the Netherlands, capital of Amsterdam.

squeak
The huge windmills turn with the wind, like giants standing tall, and are spectacular in the morning light.

About 40% of this coastal country's land is below sea level, and they have to continuously strengthen the sea-blocking dams.

A large number of windmills and pumping facilities were built to ensure drainage and irrigation of the country.

Windmills of all sizes have become a beautiful landscape on this land.

The capital of the country, Amsterdam, is the brightest pearl among them.

It is the tulip capital and diamond capital of the east coast, one of the most important return ports in the Age of Discovery, and the largest financial center in the entire Silver Continent.

Although its land area is not large, it has more than 16,000 merchant ships and hundreds of large and small warships, making it undoubtedly one of the powerful countries in the Age of Discovery.

At this time, in a large plantation outside the capital.

"Be careful not to damage the bulbs.

The price of tulip bulbs changes every day. If you damage a rare variety, you won’t be able to pay for it even if you sell it.”

"Didn't you eat? Hurry up, the buyers are already waiting at the guild gate, and every minute you waste is a waste of Mr. Cromwell's money!"

“Hey, my carriage is here, but your goods are not ready yet?
The contract has been signed, 500 kilograms of common species and 20 heads of rare species, not a single one can be missing."

The fields were crowded with people harvesting, but what they were harvesting were not grains, but tulip bulbs that looked like onions.

There were more supervisors, clerks, guild brokers, professional managers, and anxious buyers than workers, all gathered around to watch.

Just from this scene, we can see how hot the tulip trading market is now after two months of fermentation from July to September.

An atmosphere of frenzy has engulfed everyone in this land.

"Hurry, hurry, come on, two people, send our orders first."

Thomas, who wears a bow tie and has a messy beard, is a clerk at the Tulip Guild. He has been working overtime for a month and has not even returned home.

At this time, he only had the guild work in his mind and put all other unimportant things behind him.

Kids skipping school? Not important.

Wife complains? Let her.

Parents are sick? Small matter.

A good friend's funeral? That's the smallest of all small matters. Asking someone to send a gift would be enough.

Only the boss’s matters are the most important. Even the most insignificant matters of the company or guild are huge matters to us.

Must go all out.

Of course, none of this was his original intention. He was just a poor worker who could not afford such precious flowers. Taking advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune had nothing to do with him.

Just because Thomas is the [Silver Servant] of a certain [Banker] of the Gold Dollar Sequence.

This extraordinary ability comes from a famous saying of a modern economist: "Money is a good servant but a bad master."

[Banker] After signing a labor contract with the employee, he only needs to pay a small amount of silver coins agreed upon regularly to meet the other party's basic living needs.

The other party must act like a "good servant", disregard family, kinship, love, and friendship, and give priority to meeting all his work requirements.

“Like Mr. Cromwell said, it is the platform of trade companies and guilds that gives us the opportunity to develop. As long as we work hard and gain wealth and status, others will look up to us.

Even if you don't attend many important occasions, no one will say anything. If you go once in a while, others will feel honored.

So we don’t need to socialize ineffectively, we just need to focus on our work.”

After learning self-PUA, he is simply a perfect worker chosen by God.

His immediate boss, Manager Taylor, who is already bald, is in an even worse condition than him.

At least although Thomas looked haggard, he still had a lot of humanity in him. He could empathize with the flower growers and laborers at the lower level. He knew that they had a hard time, and while he urged them, he also knew to step forward to help.

The latter only had indifference and the tasks assigned by the top management in his eyes. He only looked at the results and did not ask about the process.

He would yell at every turn:

"You clumsy idiot, if you make another mistake, I'll have the HR manager fire you.

Let your wife, children, and sixty-year-old mother all live on the streets!"

Moreover, Manager Taylor was only 35 years old, but his back was hunched, his hair was gray at an early age, and every step he took seemed like he was carrying a mountain on his back.

Because he was not only a [Silver Good Servant], but also took the initiative to find himself a [Gold Evil Master] in order to purchase real estate in the royal capital.

It's a banker at another bank.

A mid-sequence [Banker] can forcibly turn someone into a slave of money by lending them excess gold.

He will have to struggle to repay this loan for the rest of his life.

Even if he was under great pressure, his back was bent, and his teeth were bleeding, he would never let himself relax for a moment for the sake of his family's survival, and he dared not lose his job.

Most people in the Netherlands Kingdom cannot afford to pay this interest in their lifetime, and until they die they will be a walking corpse controlled by the [Golden Evil Lord]
Compassion?

As a middle-level manager burdened with heavy debt, he could no longer afford such luxuries.

Originally a normal person, he has completely become an absolute implementer of the will of the higher-ups.

Not to mention interpersonal relationships, at critical moments, even they themselves can be sacrificed to the top's money-making cause.

Of course, on the surface it seems that there is hope of getting out of the predicament with continuous promotions and salary increases, but how can the usury of the bankers in the Jinyuan Sequence be so easy to repay?

In order to develop the financial industry and advance their own careers, they have developed countless financial products. Only those who have not fallen into the trap are the outliers.

With the hard work of these clerks who are very efficient.

The tulip bulbs were dug out of the soil, put into sacks with fresh soil still on them, and sent to the carriages that had been waiting for a long time.

Whether it is a distributor or a tertiary market, once it appears, people will quickly snap it up by waving gold pounds.

A small number of treasures can be put on auction and even exchanged for a property in a short time.

It’s a pity that no matter how enthusiastic everyone is, they can’t create new tulip bulbs out of thin air, as the supply per unit space and time is really limited.

If you fail to make more money, you lose money.

Even though the guilds and suppliers were beating their chests and stamping their feet in anxiety, they were helpless.

Tulips originated in the Crescent-Star Empire on the west coast, and later came to the east coast along trade routes and the nine Crusades.

The climate and soil conditions of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are very suitable for the growth of tulips, and it has gradually become the largest tulip cultivation and trading base on the East Coast.

However, due to the limitations of the previous breeding technology of "Don't Starve Hunter" and the not-so-strong demand, the scale of planting has never been too large.

The most important thing is that there are only two ways for tulips to reproduce: one is through seeds; the other is through tulip bulbs.

If propagated by seeds, it will take at least 7-12 years to get relatively ideal bulbs.

What was traded in the bulk tulip market was never the flowers, but rather the bulbs, which were easy to store and transport.

If you plant the bulbs in spring, they will bloom in April and May, and the flowering period is only about ten days.

The rich and powerful need it urgently for a ball, so it is convenient to let the [Famine Hunter] give birth to it violently.

In September of each year, new bulbs will grow from the roots of the tulips in the ground, and the new bulbs can be up to twice as large as when they were planted.

If priced by weight, the value can also double.

Therefore, new bulbs will only be available in September every year to meet customers' ever-increasing demand for tulips.

Catherine's purchasing plan started at the right time. With the arrival of September, the entire tulip market in the Kingdom of the Netherlands was pushed to its climax.

However, due to the natural supply ceiling, the selling price remains high.

In a luxurious villa next to the tulip plantation.

A group of bigwigs who were parasitic on the Kingdom of the Netherlands and held real power were also discussing this enormous wealth.

“I am very happy to have made a fortune, but I am extremely distressed that I cannot make more money due to insufficient supply.

If only I could order a few more tulips this spring."

“Who could have predicted that the market changes this year would be so drastic?
Led by the Lancaster royal family of the North Sea Empire and the Valois royal family of the Iris Kingdom, the upper classes of many countries began to follow the trend and pursue tulips.

In just two months, the price of ordinary bulbs has increased several times.

We were unable to plant in advance to expand production, and even if we dug up all the bulbs in the field this year, we still couldn’t meet the market demand.”

Most of the dozen or so gentlemen present were already elderly, but they were all neatly dressed and in good spirits, with even every strand of their gray hair meticulously groomed.

They are completely different from the group of front-line clerks outside who work in the wind and rain.

This is probably a true portrayal of "vigorous old people and listless young people".

Among them, William Jones, president of the Tulip Trading Guild, saw his wealth skyrocket during this period, earning in just two months a fortune that he could never earn in his entire lifetime.

But in this conference room, we still have to rank at the bottom.

Infected by his emotions, other wealthy and powerful people also expressed their regrets:

“The total amount of bulbs is really limited, and even if the unit price is higher, the market ceiling has already been seen.

If we had prepared earlier, we could have expanded our influence ten or a hundred times and reaped the huge wealth of half the continent.

It looks like we can only intensify the planting of bulbs in the early spring of next year and then make another effort at this time next year.

But by that time, the war between the Orthodox Union and the Protestant Union may have reached a fever pitch. I wonder if there will still be enough hot money in the market to push up the price of tulips?"

"Alas! Not being able to earn this money is more painful than killing me."

Sitting next to the president William Jones was Hal Black, a banker who had secretly joined Byron. Like all the noble gentlemen here, he belonged to the "Free Masons". Hearing the complaints of his colleagues, Black pretended to be silent for a moment, and then very "kindly" reminded:
“President Jones, and gentlemen.

Normally, we are all very smart people, so why do we all fall into the backward thinking of those industrialists at this time?
Although this year's output has bottomed out, next year's output will still be there.

And it will expand three times, five times, or even ten times based on this year's level.

Isn’t this the perfect source of goods?

Apart from the dignitaries of various countries, do most buyers really want bulbs? They want to speculate and make money. "

The others were just stunned for a moment, and then their eyes lit up:
"Mr. Black, are you saying that we should imitate the futures exchange on the online financial street and establish our own tulip futures?"

The financial product "futures" is nothing new.

It was first invented by two people in the online financial street whose identities are still unknown, "Mr. Wednesday" and "Ms. Friday", and has been sold for who knows how long.

Who here has not bought the famous whale oil futures on the online financial street?
Due to the existence of the "trap door", whale oil trading has a natural cyclical nature. No one knows the specific production and trading price of a new batch of whale oil until the trading day at the end of the month or the beginning of the month.

It will suddenly make people rich and attract countless people.

By analogy, everyone instantly understood the key and secretly applauded Hal Black's keen insight.

William Jones, president of the Tulip Guild, was even more delighted and laughed loudly:
"Mr. Black is right. The biggest problem we are facing now is the imbalance between the supply and demand of tulips.

If we put the output of September next year on the market in the form of the Guild Standard Sales Contract.

And if we make a clear agreement that when the tulip bulbs are harvested, they must be delivered according to the current transaction price, wouldn't that be the best of both worlds?

Tulip futures are a great idea tailor-made for us!"

Thus, in just a few words, tulip futures appeared in this world for the first time.

After the cake suddenly expanded tenfold, others began to gear up and prepare to mobilize funds to join this feast.

From today on, the tulips traded in those taverns will no longer be physical bulbs, but "Guild Standard Sales Contracts".

There is no need for the complicated steps of warehousing, transportation and storage. You only need to pay the money and the contract at the same time, and then pick up the goods with the contract on the delivery date.

Transactions immediately became countless times more convenient!
In the past, it took several days to trade once, but now it can be traded countless times in just one day.

As for whether this group of people will suffer losses?
All kidding aside, the game rules and supply are in their hands, so how could the dealer lose money?

The top leaders of the Free Masons had no idea what this thin futures contract written on bagasse paper meant to them.

Only Blake knew that the last shackles suppressing the expansion of the bubble had collapsed, and this trend was destined to sweep across the country and even the entire East Coast.

In the heated atmosphere, the most prestigious meeting host at the head of the meeting room suddenly spoke:
“Gentlemen, tulip futures are indeed a great idea.

We can take this opportunity to reap the wealth of the entire country and even the surrounding countries to support the Orthodox Alliance's war.

Everyone, please do not forget that our most urgent task, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is to help the Orthodox Alliance win the religious war.

If it works well, in the end not only will the money we spend be ours, but even the land and country of the Protestant Alliance will be ours.

We are now infinitely close to the goal of becoming "world nobles"!
If we win this battle, the future material world will be the era of our great bankers."

The Free Masons present all touched their chests and saluted, solemnly promising:

"Yes, Lord Cromwell, we can prioritize."

The person sitting at the top was none other than the Kingdom Guardian of the Netherlands, President of the Free Masons, and the fifth-level legend of the Remit people [Banker] Elon Cromwell.

At the same time, he was also the kingdom's finance minister and the actual controller of the parliament, and was named "Duke Protector of the Realm" by the young king.

Salome, the Wild Hunt servant [Love Elf] who had been killed once under Byron, was his daughter.

[Lord Protector] Elon Cromwell looked at everyone with sharp eyes and continued the pre-war mobilization:
“Everyone must remember that no matter how much time has passed, the Holy City of the Three Religions will always be the ancestral land of us Remit people.

If we could rebuild our country, that would be our only choice.

The last time, even the Western Silver Empire was destroyed by Muhammad II, the Lord of the Two Seas and Two Lands, and all the male members of the royal family were killed.

This brutal act horrified everyone.

Even the radical factions of the "Golden Power Restoration Party" no longer proposed returning to their homeland, and instead chose to establish a country overseas.

Now, our once-in-a-millennium opportunity has finally arrived."

A very detailed world map was projected from the gorgeous jewel ring on her hand, with two red battle lines drawn on it, one in the east and one in the west.

“The strength of our Orthodox Union is unquestionable.

Although the Pyrenean Empire was fighting on both the eastern and western fronts, the North Sea Empire, the strongest of the Protestant Alliance, could not devote all its energy to participating in the war.

If he guards the end of the third circulation belt, his enemies will be more numerous and stronger than those of the Pyrenees Empire.

The Pope promised that when the other party developed the Corridor of Truth, they would further reduce the support for the Silver Law, causing him to suffer greater losses.

The North Sea Empire has stirred up a hornet's nest in the East Continent, and there will definitely be an endless stream of clan colonists coming to attack them.

Just the spontaneous beast tide in the sea of ​​monsters is enough to make them anxious and exhausted."

Seeing the Masons nodding in agreement, his voice suddenly became louder:

“If we can help the Pyrenees Empire defeat the Star-Moon Empire and dominate the Sea of ​​​​Sand and even the West Coast.

It may be impossible to divide the Holy City of the Three Religions among us, but it is definitely not a problem to allocate an area outside the city for us to establish our country.

By then, with the help of the Level 0 holy relic [Dead Sea Scrolls] that we possess, we will surely be able to obtain the land promised to us by the Holy Father.

Even if the Lunar Age that submerges the world comes, we, the Remit people, can become the chosen people of God in the new world!"

"Roar--!"

Everyone was so excited about the bright future that their hands turned red from clapping.

Only Hal Black's eyes flickered slightly as he transmitted the first-hand information on the scene to his Lord God.

North Sea Empire, Kingston, Ganquan Palace.

In September, the garden is filled with large tracts of tulips in addition to the red roses that bloom all year round.

In other places, September is the season for harvesting bulbs, but here the tulips are blooming particularly brightly.

clang!clang!clang!
In the colorful flower garden, the whirlwind was howling, and two mithril swift swords collided, exploding into sparks all over the sky.

Two blurry figures flashed, one in front and one behind. They were chasing each other in the flowers just a moment ago, and in a flash, they took a step forward and stepped into the stratosphere.

The sword light flashed across the sky, cutting the white clouds into pieces.

Only at the moment when the two swords collided could their figures be vaguely seen.

One is naturally Byron wearing a white shirt, and the other is Catherine, the [Queen of Finance] with a blonde shawl and a ribbon.

A slim red skirt with black lace sleeves, and ties at the waist and back that made her waist slender. When she spun around and swung her sword during the fight, the hem of her skirt spread out like a grand red rose.

The two of them have already reached the pinnacle of the fifth level and have gathered all the prerequisites for promotion. Only the half-step to the sixth level of the ascension ceremony is left. The aftermath of the battle alone is likely to severely damage an ordinary fourth-level hero.

"Phew, that feels good. You weren't home for a while, so there was no one to practice with me. My body is almost rusty."

Byron smiled at her fondly and raised his hand to help Catherine brush a strand of golden hair behind her ear:

"It's different now. As long as sister is willing, I can always be with you."

After morning exercise, the brother and sister lay shoulder to shoulder on a white cloud, silently looking at the miniature version of the Kingdom of the Netherlands below.

There is also information transmitted back by Hal Black in real time.

Catherine embraced Byron's arms and pursed her rosy lips:
“In my original scenario, I started to increase purchases in July, which would trigger speculation, ferment throughout the second half of the year, and reach its peak in the winter.

When they realize that when spring comes, they have to plant the bulbs in the ground and will no longer be able to make deliveries, they will gradually realize that these "contracts" cannot be left in their hands.

This then triggered panic selling.

The harvest will be carried out in January or February early next year.

I didn't expect that the old Pope would be willing to spend so much money to convene the Orthodox Alliance and catch us off guard.

By then, as the war spreads, the financial market will no longer develop according to our ideas.

However, this is not a big problem.

I have the [Financial Priesthood] in my hands, I just need to give it a push. "

As he spoke, he stretched out his tender little hand and grasped Byron's big hand, activating the [Finance] priesthood and launching the [Invisible Hand].

Byron also activated his own [human] priesthood, launched the [spiritual undercurrent], and then together they gently pushed towards the Kingdom of the Netherlands beneath their feet.

It easily created a huge wave in the collective subconscious of this country, especially the Remit people.

call--!
A spiritual wind blew through everyone.

The [invisible hand] and [man] of both of them are the personal authority of God that can best touch the essence of humanity’s collective subconsciousness.

As long as they want to do harm to their human opponents, the power of any of the Old Gods cannot match their destructive power.

Especially in the financial market which is heavily influenced by human hearts, at this time they are like demigods looking down on all living beings!

At this moment the tulip bubble began to expand rapidly.

Listen carefully, and in the collective subconscious of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, waves are rolling up, and a mixed voice of men, women, old and young is singing sadly:
“Finally, the money-worship craze overwhelmed everything like a raging flood;
Greed slowly rolls in, spreading like a dark mist, blocking out the sunlight;

Politicians and national warriors have become addicted to futures;

The noble lady received the same dividends as the head servant;
The judges become brokers; the bishops prey on the common people;
The monarch put his kingdom on the card-table for gold and silver;
All of you dance, spend the rest of your lives pleasing your queen!"

(End of this chapter)