Qing Yao

Chapter 132 Major Client, Teacher Zhao
Having connections in the central government makes things easier; having connections within the industry makes things even easier.

Zhao An felt that the bank's efficiency was worth the money.

The saying "money can make the devil turn the millstone" is absolutely true.

The old mother-in-law was dazzled by the ten thousand taels, and so was this Bank Manager Shi in front of her.

Everything is settled. Now all that's needed is for the Yangzhou branch to submit the materials to the head office for approval. Since all the asset certificates are available, Manager Shi confidently assured that approval would be granted within half a month at the latest.

In other words, Zhao An's account will receive another large sum of money in half a month, and Manager Shi will also receive a benefit of 10,000 taels.

"I'll have to trouble you, shopkeeper!"

Zhao An was very happy, and the shopkeeper was also happy. When they were happy, they naturally wanted to have a cup of tea and chat for a while before leaving, which was also a way to deepen their relationship and facilitate further cooperation in the future.

Zhao An would definitely not discuss education with Manager Shi; he would only talk about the other person's profession.

As they chatted, the conversation drifted to the Imperial Household Department's lending business.

According to Manager Shi, the Imperial Household Department had several money shops in the capital, and at least fifty or sixty pawnshops. Including those run by princes, ministers, and private individuals, there were over a thousand money shops and pawnshops of all sizes in the capital.

With so many financial companies crammed into the capital, the competition for business was bound to be fierce. Therefore, unlike branches in other regions, the head office in the capital faced immense pressure.

The shop assistants at the Yangzhou branch were locally hired, while the shop assistants at the head office were all directly dispatched by the Imperial Household Department, and the manager was a member of the Imperial Household Department, such as a secretary or assistant secretary.

A true bank president.

However, the bank managers are under a lot of pressure because they are assessed by the Ministry of the Interior every year.

What will be assessed?

Of course, it's performance.

Branch managers who fail to meet performance targets must cover the costs themselves, while those who exceed the targets receive a bonus.

There are usually two types of rewards: cash rewards and promotions with salary increases.

"The day before yesterday, I received a message from the head office saying that Lord Mu Keshan, the head of the jade pawnshop under our Imperial Household Department, exceeded this year's lending revenue target. The Emperor was overjoyed when he learned of this and promoted Lord Mu directly from a fifth-rank head to a second-rank Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue. From now on, when I see Lord Mu, I will have to address him respectfully as Minister Mu."

When he mentioned this, Manager Shi was extremely envious. Unfortunately, although he came from the Imperial Household Department as a bondservant, he did not have many connections within the department. Otherwise, he would not have been assigned to manage the branch in Yangzhou.

Compared to the head shop managers who could deal with the Minister of the Imperial Household Department every day, he, as the branch shop manager, could only be envious, let alone be able to rise to prominence like Mu Keshan, from a minor manager to an important minister in the court.

To be promoted from the fifth rank to the second rank, that's six promotions in a row?

Zhao An was stunned by what he heard. Even though the enemy and his own camps were clearly distinct, he had to admire the old man for being a rare and excellent leader throughout history.

They promote people whenever they want, and raise them several ranks whenever they want, without any ambiguity or consideration of the imperial court's personnel system.

Which subordinate wouldn't like to suddenly rise to power like a rocket?
Zhao An also experienced a meteoric rise, didn't he? The only reason to blame him is that he started from a low point. If he had been a few levels higher, he might be attending a provincial meeting right now.

During the Qianlong era, there were many high-ranking officials and generals who were only 21 years old.

There's nothing we can do; the old man just likes young people.

After thinking for a moment, Zhao An smiled, picked up his teacup, and said thoughtfully, "So, as long as the tasks set by the Imperial Household Department are completed, the manager can also be promoted to the head office, and even enter the court as an official like Lord Mu?"

"This"

Shopkeeper Shi laughed, “That makes sense, but Lord Zhao thinks too highly of me. Even if I were promoted to the head office, I would only be running errands for the lords. How could I possibly have such immense wealth as Lord Mu?”

"Hey, why belittle yourself, shopkeeper? Everything has its destiny. What if one day you catch the eye of someone higher up?"

After laughing, Zhao pretended to take a couple of sips of tea, hesitated for a moment, and said, "There's something I'm not sure if I should ask you?"

Shopkeeper Shi hurriedly asked, "What does Lord Zhao want to ask?"

"As a branch of your firm, how much silver do you have on hand?"

Zhao An meant that he wanted to know how much savings Hengli Yangzhou branch had available for lending.

Don't keep masturbating until you go bankrupt.

It's okay if you go bankrupt, the problem is that the head office will definitely come and investigate how you caused this disaster.

Upon investigation, things really took an unexpected turn.

"this,"

Manager Shi was initially hesitant, since this was a "trade secret" of the money shop. However, considering that he had received a great deal of benefits from Professor Zhao and had even helped him falsify documents to deceive the head office into issuing loans, there was no secret between them that couldn't be revealed.

The bank frankly admitted that the silver used for lending by its branches came from customs silver in Yangzhou and Huai'an, with a fixed surplus of over 600,000 taels available for lending each year.

However, the interest collected by the money shop each year must be deposited into the Guangchu Department's internal treasury. Currently, the amount of silver that the Yangzhou branch can lend out is not much, only a little over 1.7 million taels.

This number is roughly the same as Zhao An's estimate.

Based on this calculation, the amount of silver used by the Imperial Household Department for lending must be tens of millions of taels.
What was the total annual revenue of the Qing Dynasty's national treasury?
Zhao An couldn't calculate it all, because he couldn't fathom the full extent of it. He only knew that the number of officials in the Imperial Household Department was in the tens of thousands, just like the number of officials in the Outer Court. In other words, the Imperial Household Department was actually a separate court, except that this court served only the emperor. Moreover, this court "monopolized" all the profitable businesses in the Qing Dynasty, including pearls, furs, and livestock outside the Great Wall, as well as the customs and paper money offices in various places inside the Great Wall, textile manufacturing, salt administration, and so on.

If this were in the Ming Dynasty, we wouldn't even dare to imagine it.

In terms of economic vitality, it must be admitted that the Qing Dynasty was more powerful than the Ming Dynasty. The Zhu family collected millions of taels of silver a year, and the inner court would be scolded for sending a eunuch out to open a mine. In contrast, the Qing emperors directly collected salt, iron and tea taxes into the inner treasury.

Emperor Chongzhen didn't have much time; if he had been given 20 million taels of silver, he probably could have achieved the restoration of the Ming dynasty under Emperor Guangwu.

When it comes to "plundering," the Qing Dynasty was indeed formidable.

However, the price of the Qing Dynasty's two or three hundred years of rule was naturally the lack of vitality among the people, who were eating chaff and suffering from diarrhea. As the British envoy Old Ma, who was to come in two years, said: "The majority of the population, the poor, lived a life of not being able to make ends meet, not being able to fill their stomachs, and not being able to cover their bodies. There were poor people everywhere without clothes to wear, and a large number of corpses of the starved floated on the rivers. The core areas of the empire were already full of refugees and popular uprisings were breaking out everywhere."

Zhao An is currently in Yangzhou, the most prosperous metropolis in the world, and has never been to other places. Therefore, he has not yet witnessed the miserable state of people in other regions. At present, he has no ability to help the world and the people, so he can only choose to "take care of himself" and fleece the old man first.

Since they've already started talking about the village's savings, other matters are no secret either.

Manager Shi said that the branch's major clients were mainly salt merchants, followed by government officials.

The largest loan ever taken out by an official was 80,000 taels borrowed by the Grand Canal Transport Commissioner last year. For an official of Zhao An's rank, a few thousand taels would be the maximum. It was only because he used his tuition fees as collateral that the head office approved 100,000 taels, which they thought was profitable. Otherwise, it would have been out of the question.

If there is collateral, it will be calculated separately.

Overall, salt merchants accounted for three-quarters of all loans, while officials accounted for only one-quarter.

Borrowing money from ordinary wealthy people is negligible; it's not that it doesn't exist, but it's extremely rare.

As the branch manager, Manager Shi was required to achieve a fixed performance target of over 200,000 taels of silver each year.

That is, an annual interest rate of 1.8%.

The old man set the interest rate at 1.5%, but here they use 1.8% as the benchmark. What's the extra 3% for?

It's a perk, a benefit.

Doesn't the Imperial Household Department, composed of tens of thousands of officials and hundreds of thousands of bondservants, need to pay salaries? Don't the officials need welfare benefits?

If it's all given to the old man to spend, how can he possibly afford it?
This performance target used to be easy to achieve, but now it's a bit difficult.

The reason is that the salt merchants were killed too ruthlessly by the old master, which has led to the fact that the salt merchants dare not borrow money from the Imperial Household Department now. If it weren't for the fact that Manager Shi only came to Yangzhou last year and had a two-year "buffer period", he would probably be so worried that he couldn't eat.

Speaking of the 100,000 taels borrowed by Zhao An, the 100,000 taels borrowed by Teacher Lou, plus the 100,000 taels that Lao Ding and Lao Song planned to borrow, the annual interest generated by this 300,000 taels loan is 30,000 taels, which has alleviated Manager Shi's performance pressure to a certain extent.

This is why Manager Shi was willing to forge documents.

It's a win-win situation – you get benefits and it reduces performance pressure. Only a fool wouldn't do it.

Zhao An nodded, pretending not to understand, and asked if the money shop also operated some projects to offset performance bonuses.

Manager Shi shook his head and said, "The higher-ups only allow the manor to lend out its property; they don't permit it to participate in any specific business operations."

They're probably afraid of losing money.

There's no such thing as a sure thing in business. Even the imperial merchants under the Imperial Household Department wouldn't dare to say they only take in and never give out. A few years ago, there was an imperial merchant who took 100,000 taels of capital given to him by the old master to Kyakhta to buy furs, only to lose everything due to the dumping of goods by the Russian merchant group from the north.

Fortunately, the old master did not kill the imperial merchant. He only ordered the Imperial Household Department to confiscate all of his family's real estate and then made his family repay the loan in installments.

He's old and kind-hearted, so he left room for maneuver.

Why was Zhao An talking about this with Manager Shi? Wasn't it because he planned to secretly take the old master's money out of Manager Shi to start a business?

Borrowing a chicken to lay eggs.

Ideally, it should be the kind of hen that doesn't even charge interest.

It's definitely not a good time to bring this up right now, since Director Shi has only just boarded the boat and we need to get him to the middle of the river before we can bring it up.

In this way, he couldn't get off the boat even if he wanted to.

You can jump, but no lifebuoy. You'd better swim back yourself.

If we don't go swimming, we can all team up to rob the old man. After all, it's not your money we're borrowing, right?
"It's getting late, and I have some things to do, so I won't keep you any longer, shopkeeper."

Zhao An stood up with a smile, but instead of leaving, he took out another 1,000-tael silver note and stuffed it into the hand of the bank manager.

"What is this, Lord Zhao?"

Manager Shi was a little confused. Wasn't his commission supposed to be 10,000 taels? How did it become 1,000 taels?

"Please exchange this thousand taels for receipts, manager. Everyone in the shop, whether a clerk or someone else, will receive fifty taels. The rest is for you to have some tea, manager."

After saying that, without waiting for the shopkeeper and the employees to be polite, he simply turned and left.

(End of this chapter)