You were tasked with guarding the Sihang Warehouse, and you brought out a Tiger tank?

"The mountains."

Lin Feng slammed the gold brick back onto the iron rack, making a dull metallic clang.

"Here!" Zhao Dashan immediately straightened his back.

"Send men immediately to retrieve all the account books from the vault."

Lin Feng pointed to the gold, silver, and foreign exchange piled up on the ground and set out the rules:

"Find a few knowledgeable accountants to check the information overnight."

As long as the money deposited there belongs to ordinary people or legitimate businessmen of our Great Xia, it will be returned in full after verification.

As for those belonging to the Japanese trading companies, and the ownerless wealth looted by the Japanese from various places.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I'll gladly accept it. It will all go towards the military expenses of the 33rd Army Corps."

"Understood." Zhao Dashan grinned and immediately turned to arrange manpower.

Two hours later.

The underground vault of the Peninsula Bank Qingchenggang branch, located on the same street, was also blown open by engineers using directional explosive charges.

The old steward, Lin Peiji, along with a dozen or so accountants wearing reading glasses, were frantically counting the money, their foreheads covered in sweat as they worked on their abacuses.

Later that evening, Lin Peiji, carrying a thick ledger, found Lin Feng, who was resting with his eyes closed in the governor's temporary office.

"Young Master, the preliminary inventory is complete."

Lin Peiji's hands were trembling slightly as he held the account book. No wonder, what decent person would ever see so much money in their entire life?

Lin Feng opened his eyes and sat up straight: "Uncle Lin, sit down and talk. How was the harvest?"

"You've struck it rich, young master! You've really struck it rich this time!"

Lin Peiji opened the account books and reported on each item one by one:

"In the vaults of these two banks, there is a considerable amount of the treasury reserves of Daxia Bank and Bank of Communications that were forcibly seized by the Japanese, and there is also a portion of the deposits of major members of the local chamber of commerce."

"This money must be kept; not a single penny can be touched."

Lin Feng interrupted Lin Peiji without hesitation, his tone resolute:

"We now want to take over the entire Shandong province, or at least gain absolute control of the entire Jiaodong Peninsula."

We must cultivate a strong image of our 33rd Army Corps as an iron-willed force that never commits any offenses.

The battle for public opinion is crucial; we must not give anyone ammunition to use against us, allowing that person in Jiangcheng to find fault with our plundering of the people's property.

Lin Peiji nodded in agreement: "Young master is wise. I have already sealed this part separately. The rest all belong to the Japanese."

"read."

"According to the account books that were seized, although a lot of hard currency such as gold and silver had already been loaded onto ships and transported back to Japan by the Japanese in advance."

Lin Peiji looked at the accounts and swallowed hard.

"But it remains in the vault for now."

Various gold bars and international gold bricks, totaling more than 500 kilograms.

Based on current market prices, it's equivalent to over 2.8 million silver dollars.

Sixty-one tons of silver ingots, equivalent to two million three hundred and twenty thousand silver dollars.

There are also two million two hundred thousand silver dollars in cash.

At this point, Lin Peiji sighed:

"Originally, there should have been more than six million silver dollars."

According to the account books, when Lao Han was still alive, he was forced by the Japanese to hand over six million yuan of silver from the Qingcheng Port Customs and the Daxia Bank's inventory, nominally to be "managed" by the Yokohama Specie Bank.

Now that Lao Han has been executed, the money has long since ended up in the Japanese pockets, and most of it has already been transported back to Japan.

Lin Feng snorted coldly:

"Old Han, that spineless coward, deserved to die. Keep reading."

"Fiat currency, twenty-two million."

Lin Peiji turned the page:

"This amount of money is enormous. It's estimated that the Japanese were keeping it to cash out in Hong Kong or to purchase supplies in the Kuomintang-controlled areas."

It's only been a year since the war started, and the Nationalist government's printing presses haven't been running at full capacity yet, so the devaluation of the national currency is limited.

Lin Feng estimated that this amount of legal tender alone could be exchanged for about four or five million silver dollars on the black market.

"There were also over ten million counterfeit reserve notes that the Japanese printed and were preparing to issue."

More than 1000 million is not a small amount, Lin Feng stroked his chin.

However, this money can only be spent in areas occupied by the Japanese, such as the Beijing-Tianjin area. It seems I need to find someone to use this money to purchase supplies.

"Two million yen in Japanese banknotes. As for the military scrips that the Japanese printed haphazardly, they filled half a warehouse."

Lin Feng was delighted to hear that there were still quite a few Japanese soldiers.

At that time, Japanese yen was still quite valuable, unlike in the 21st century when it can easily cost thousands or tens of thousands.

At this point, 1 knife equals 4 Japanese yuan.

However, as the Japanese started printing extra money after the war began, their currency also depreciated slightly.

I wonder if the local banks in Qingcheng Port, such as White Eagle and John Bank, would accept over 200 million Japanese banknotes. They could probably be exchanged for over 50 dollars.

As for military scrip, even the Japanese themselves didn't recognize it; it was really only good for toilet paper.

Lin Peiji closed the ledger and announced the last item:

Finally, there are various foreign exchange currencies.

John the Pound, Gallic Lang, and the White Eagle's Knife.

The total is approximately $560,000.

Five hundred and sixty thousand dollars—that was no small sum in 38.

Keep in mind that in New York City these days, a detached house with a garden costs only a few thousand dollars.

This amount of money could buy 120 detached houses in New York, or more than 800 brand-new Ford cars.

Unfortunately, Lin Feng's system is inflexible.

The system only accepts hard currencies like gold and silver; it doesn't accept any paper money, not even sturdy knives.

The Japanese yen plus other foreign exchange totaled over a million dollars, and Lin Feng's eyes lit up.

"All of this foreign exchange and Japanese yen will be deposited into the legion's public account."

He quickly made arrangements:

"Go back to those foreign firms in Qingcheng Port and spend all this money."

If you can buy gold and silver, then buy gold and silver.

If that doesn't work, buy grain, canned goods, rubber, seamless steel pipes—any military supplies, buy as much as you can get.

He quickly calculated in his mind that before the outbreak of the full-scale War of Resistance against Japan in 1937, the total gold reserves of the entire Republic of China government were only about 48 tons.

Of these, only a pitiful eleven tons remained in China, while the remaining twenty-seven tons were all deposited in foreign banks.

If he captures Qingcheng Port today, he can directly pick up half a ton of gold from the Japanese bank.

This is already an extremely terrifying windfall.

Add up all the gold, silver, silver dollars, foreign exchange and all sorts of other things.

The direct profits from this bank robbery reached an astonishing 16 million silver dollars!

In terms of purchasing power conversion, that's equivalent to over 30 billion RMB in later generations.

"Sixteen million..."

Lin Feng leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping lightly on the table, his mind racing.

In the system store, you can find the basic models of the BF-109E3 fighter jet and the JU-87B Stuka dive bomber.

The exchange price is 200 merit points.

Based on the system's silver dollar exchange rate of 1:50, that's 10,000 silver dollars per aircraft.

Of course, Lin Feng couldn't possibly use all 16 million silver dollars to buy an airplane.

"The Japanese Third Fleet is about to arrive."

Lin Feng turned to look at the map on the wall:

"First, spend over a million dollars to get over a hundred Stukas and BF-109s out."

Let's teach the Japanese heavy cruisers a lesson.