In the late spring of the fifth year of the Republic of China, although the spring was bright and beautiful, for some people, this spring did not seem to be very bright, and it was even a bit "bitterly cold", especially for the tycoons in the Shanghai Concession.

Since the opening of Shanghai in 1844, hundreds of thousands of Western adventurers who were impoverished in their own countries have wandered to the beaches of Shanghai, which was not long after the opening of the port, to pan for gold. For them, Shanghai is a paradise for adventurers. Among these people, some

Some people left Shanghai in poverty or died in Shanghai. There are also some people who transformed from poverty into wealth.

For these Western adventurers, especially for the Jews from Iraq, Shanghai made their fortunes. In the past few decades, these Jews accumulated tens of millions of wealth through the "foreign medicine trade" and later through

Supported the concession authorities to expand the concession by building roads across the boundary, and engaged in real estate investment business. Relying on the privileges of the concession and the speculative means of only renting but not selling, Jewish businessmen such as Sassoon, Hartung, Haiyim, Madden, and Maibian

The consortium has obtained huge wealth that is unimaginable to the outside world.

The economic activities of these Jewish business groups are mainly concentrated in highly speculative finance, trade and real estate, and their investment in industry and urban infrastructure is obviously insufficient. This is partly due to the Jewish business tradition and self-defense characteristics, but also because of

These Jewish merchants were predatory in their economic activities in Shanghai.

This nature had a negative impact on the economy of modern Shanghai. For example, although Jewish real estate management brought modern concepts and methods to the development of land resources in modern Shanghai and promoted the prosperity of the city, the disparity caused by frequent transactions

The high level of land prices also led to the skyrocketing real estate prices in modern Shanghai and the abnormal development of the city's appearance.

However, in the past year, real estate has become a thing of the past for Shanghai, at least for foreign companies in Shanghai. First, the central government passed a decree prohibiting the construction of roads across the concession areas in various places. And last year, even through the central government sent

The army forcibly took back the extensions of Dou Le'an Road, Shigaota Road, Hesgel Road, Baibao Road, Di Siwei Road, Baibaozan and Oujia Road that were built across the boundary by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Bureau of the Public Concession after the first year of the Republic of China. They also took back the extensions.

The French Concession Public Security Bureau crosses the boundary of Baolong Road, Qiqi Road, Fululi Road, Jaryeai Road, Enlihe Road, Guba Road, Lafayette Road, Masnan Road, Corneille Road and Moliere

Roads. Of course, these out-of-bounds roads that have been recovered are all road sections that have not been recognized by the central government.

Forcibly sending troops into cross-border areas even triggered a diplomatic crisis. In the face of external pressure, the government not only took back the road sections, but also confiscated all the buildings on these cross-border road sections under the pretext of "illegal construction" during the negotiation period, thus causing

The Shanghai shipping industry lost hundreds of millions of yuan. But in the end, faced with the "wave of demonstrations" set off in Shanghai and other places and the toughness of the Chinese government, especially the fact that two combat ships were sent to Wusongkou, the concession authorities of various countries finally

Concessions were made. While these foreign envoys understood that "the Chinese government cannot be considered with the old eyes," the foreign business leaders headed by the Shanghai Jushang Group also realized that their "golden age" was over.

As early as the real estate market was hit, another major trade foundation of foreign companies headed by the Jushang Group - the foreign medicine trade, that is, the opium trade, was also hit hard. Because as early as the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Qing government also signed agreements with various countries.

The anti-smoking agreement was signed, and all countries also supported China's drug control out of the need to develop legitimate trade. Therefore, the anti-drug activities in the four years of the Republic of China were carried out extremely smoothly. With the cooperation of the concession authorities, in just three months,

More than 150,000 boxes of opium were seized and confiscated in the concession. Although they could not be held accountable, the first step in drug control was taken.

First, the imported opium trade was completely banned, and the subsequent crackdown on the real estate market made the Youshang Group realize that the golden age was over. At the same time, they had no intention of "leaving this land of flowing silver." Instead, due to the Shanghai Stock Exchange

The prosperity of the market has turned its attention to the financial speculation industry.

Before the European War, Shanghai's stock market was often engaged in speculation in the foreign stock market. It was controlled by a group dominated by Jewish businessmen such as Sassoon, Haiyim, Madden, and Maibian. Taking advantage of the Chinese people's admiration for foreigners

Psychologically, foreign stocks are used as the main speculative chips to stir up trouble. For example, the "Rubber Stock Case" in 1910 caused China's financial industry to suffer heavy losses, thousands of banks went bankrupt, and hundreds of thousands of Chinese people suffered serious losses.

In this activity, Youshang Lincun manipulated the stock market and drove up prices. He was one of the main participants and behind-the-scenes masterminds in causing trouble in the exchange.

The aftermath of the "Rubber Stock Case" made Chinese people reluctant to talk about stocks anymore. After the outbreak of the European War, the foreign stock market continued to be weak. However, after the outbreak of the European War, China's domestic Daxing Industrial, government and financial institutions

Under the multiple influences of encouraging companies to finance development through the stock market, Shanghai's domestic stock market has prospered. This is also the fundamental reason why foreign banks and Jushang Group have turned their attention to this "land full of opportunities."

In the 4 to 5 years of the Republic of China, 98% of the Shanghai securities transactions were public bonds. The stocks were just responding to the market and short selling, which was far from being compared with Lianyungang's "high stocks and low debt". On the Shanghai Stock Exchange,

The public bonds that have been auctioned mainly include: ten-year long-term, 6% fixed-term, 96-year public bonds and four-year treasury bonds issued by the central government, renewal four-year treasury bonds, construction treasury bonds and short-term settlement bonds.

The rise of the government bond trading business is due to the expansion of the issuance market. In the past year alone, in order to fully promote domestic industrial construction and with the good news of recovering tariffs and exempting lijin, the central government officially issued 17 types of public bonds in the country.

The total amount is 972 million yuan, which is many times more than the public bonds issued in the past many years.

With the issuance of huge amounts of public bonds, in order to promote public bonds, the government has given very favorable conditions to financial institutions that undertake public bonds. The Ministry of Finance issues public bonds or treasury bills and mortgages them to banks at a 50% discount, and then sends them to the stock exchange for auction and trading.

The market price for the auction is generally about 60% of the face value of the public bond, and then the price is settled with the bank at 10% to 15% lower than the market price, so that the bank can make considerable profits from underwriting the public bonds.

In addition, in order to encourage banks to purchase public bonds, the government stipulates that banks can use the purchased public bonds at a certain ratio as issuance reserves and guarantee reserves for savings deposits. Therefore, the profits earned by banks are better than any lending. A large number of public bonds are listed on the market, and the banking industry is active.

Participation has made the secondary circulation market of public bonds very prosperous.

Compared with Shanghai's not-so-prosperous stock market, Shanghai Banking Group invested huge amounts of cash into public bond speculation. At the end of the 4th year of the Republic of China, the main holders of public bonds were the banking industry, and the banking industry headed by Youshang

Due to the panic buying by foreign banks, the holdings of government bonds in the banking industry dropped from as much as 500 million yuan to less than 50 million yuan within a few months. During this rush, the market price of the public bonds at the exchange even reached 120 yuan.

% high,

By speculating on huge amounts of public debt, Shanghai Banking Group made hundreds of millions of profits in just a few months. Not only foreign banks were involved, but also Shanghai's foreign banks. Large foreign banks such as HSBC were involved from a very early stage.

From January to May, only more than 30 million yuan was lent, while public bond investment was as high as 10 million yuan...

The rapid prosperity of public bond speculation has long exceeded people's expectations. With the prosperity of the public bond market, more and more people are trying to obtain huge profits from it under the influence of the "buy up" mentality, and this is exactly what foreign banks and banks want.

What they have seen is that for them, the current market is far from satisfying their greedy desires. They control most of the public debt and try to gain more huge profits by controlling the public debt in order to recover their losses.

.

When some Chinese people witnessed huge profits from public debt and got involved in it, Jushang Group and foreign banks relied on huge amounts of capital to drive up the public debt and promote the craze for public debt.

More than 135% of face value!

This may be unprecedented for any country's public debt, and this is exactly the goal of Jewish businessmen and foreign banks. But Jewish businessmen and those bankers are trying to increase the volume of capital in China after reaching this high point.

When participating in this speculation and restoring China's public bonds to their original shape, they obviously forgot one thing - the price of public bonds is far more affected by political factors than market factors.

Across the Huangpu River, the Huaihai Commercial and Savings Bank Shanghai Branch Building, built in the Pudong Industrial and Commercial Development Zone under development, is "enough to eclipse all Shanghai bank buildings". This building has a typical Chinese national characteristic: the roof

It is a flat square with a spire. The four corners are slightly raised and covered with blue glazed tiles, symbolizing the blue sky; the east facade of the building has Chinese coin-shaped hollow window frames from high to low; the nine steps in front of the door symbolize the ninety-nine returns.

1. The pattern of the Eight Immortals crossing the sea on both sides of the ceiling symbolizes the vastness of the supernatural power; coupled with the gentle square peaks on the roof, it gives people a sense of stability and boundless fortune.

Among the high-rise foreign-style buildings lined up on the Bund, the Huaiyin Building facing it is considered to be unique in "Chinese style". Of course, more importantly, it may reflect its opposition to the Bund. This building

At that time, in this "opposing" building, a meeting was in progress.

"I need your support!"

Facing the representatives from the Bank of China and the Bank of Communications, Zhou Zuomin slowly uttered these words. Now, he is engaged in a battle, but in this battle, he has few allies. The domestic banks are extremely powerful.

Unreliable, they are short-sighted and have no sense of confidentiality, so they can never become his allies. Until yesterday, the Prime Minister sent a secret message. At his and Yuan Shikai's request, the Bank of China and the Bank of Communications would transfer their

All public bonds in hand will be handed over to Huaihai Commercial Savings Bank.

This is by no means a simple competition for funds, nor is it even a fair decision! Even China’s two quasi-central banks and the financial resources of Huaihai Commercial and Savings Bank cannot compete with the foreign banks headed by the HSBC empire and Shanghai’s

The wealthy foreign firms have plundered too much wealth in China over the past half century or so.

The representatives from the Shanghai branches of the two quasi-central banks looked at each other, and then one of them asked with some confusion.

"Manager Zhou, are you sure those people will stick to it?"

Unlike Yuan Shikai, perhaps Yuan Shikai would make concessions to Li Zicheng and support his plan for various reasons, but as bankers, they must consider the benefits, even if they sell more than 150 million yuan in public bonds held by two banks

, enough to make it a profit of tens of millions of yuan. However, as a quasi-central bank, they must take into account the interests of the country while considering profits.

"Because, they haven't succeeded yet!"

Facing others' doubts, Zhou Zuomin said with great confidence.

"You haven't succeeded yet?"

"We haven't succeeded yet!"

In the Sassoon Garden, Sassoon looked at his nephew, who had just got off the ship for less than half a month and was using a cane. He was once a pilot of the British Army, but during the battle a few months ago,

, lost an eye and broke his leg. As his only heir, he naturally "retired due to injury" and returned to Shanghai from the UK after recovering from his injuries.

Perhaps because he had been away for so long, Victor did not know the old Sassoon's plan. At least he did not understand the essence of the plan.

"Last year, the Chinese government confiscated 30,000 boxes of opium from us. This alone cost us more than 30 million. Do you know where the Chinese sent the opium?"

Old Sassoon looked at his nephew and asked.

"The Chinese government sent the confiscated opium to the Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Company, where it was made into morphine injections and morphine tablets, and then exported to Europe..."

Morphine tablets…

Victor was no stranger to oral sedatives, not only because he used morphine tablets to fall asleep in the hospital, but even on the front line, many soldiers used low-content morphine tablets to stay calm. As for the one-time morphine

Injections are a necessity for battlefield rescue. If it weren't for the fact that he had received several morphine injections when he broke his leg, he really didn't know if he would have come back from the battlefield alive. Although he knew that the disposable morphine injection was

It was made in China, but Victor had no idea that the opium used to make morphine was confiscated from Sassoon House.

It seems that after he left Shanghai nearly two years ago, too many changes have taken place in Shanghai, or in other words, too many changes have taken place in China that he could not imagine. Just as China has now completely ended the political chaos after the Republic of China, and gradually

The stable political situation, coupled with the new government's emphasis on the industrial economy and financial economy, directly affects the country's economy, and more importantly, the ** companies that had already shown their influence back then are now even more influential.

Big. He knows this very well. The reason is very simple. In the Army Hospital in London, he has seen hundreds of new Chinese drugs, and all of them are widely used drugs.

"And our real estate losses on Cross-Border Road exceeded 100 million yuan. This is the loss caused to us by the Chinese government. From the moment Li Zicheng entered the State Council, we have been suffering huge losses almost every day, and now

…”

Taking a deep breath of cigar, a cold light flashed in the old Sassoon's eyes.

"Now, the Chinese public bonds have created an opportunity for us. Due to the needs of industrial investment, the Chinese government wants to issue more bonds, so they use low-value promotional methods to issue them. This kind of issuance is certainly conducive to its financing.

But it is also more conducive for us to invest in public bonds, well, it should be speculation!"

"Uncle, do you mean that we need to be the creditors of the Chinese government?"

Victor looked at his uncle with some confusion, as if he didn't quite understand his intention. Perhaps, there are some families in Europe who have accumulated a lot of wealth by becoming creditors of the country, but for the Sassoon family, there is no need to do this.

It is impossible to do so. After all, this is China. For them, China is just a "river flowing with silver". Their only purpose is to "drain this river". As for other things, they do not need to consider it.

Something happened.
To be continued...