Chapter 247 Currency Exchange
From being surprised at the boldness of the Haihan people at the beginning, to gradually understanding the situation and getting used to the Haihan people's control of the Victory Port area, Li Nai gradually accepted this fact through several contacts with the Haihan people in the past few months. ——In Victory Port, it is not the Yazhou government that is in charge, but the all-powerful Haihan Executive Committee.
Although Shengli Port plus Tiandu are only one county, the capabilities displayed by the Haihan Executive Committee are far beyond the comparison of ordinary county yamen. Even for state-level yamen like Yazhou, Li Nye thinks that there is nothing outstanding about it in front of the Haihan people. However, for these merchants who came to Victory Port for the first time, the relatively independent status of Victory Port really surprised them.
The next place Ren Liang took them to was the Victory Port Currency Exchange Center, which is currently the only building in the business district that has been completed and put into use. The four walls of this building, which covers an area of about one acre, are made of heavy stones. The style is thick and simple. It looks dusty and inconspicuous from the outside, but it is one of the most important places in the port area. Almost all the cash in the port area is stored in this building.
After Ren Liang brought the merchants here, staff from the Ministry of Finance took over and introduced the merchants to Shengli Port's unique circulation voucher financial system.
At present, the Ministry of Finance of Kuaishou Group mainly focuses on basic accounting work, but recently the executive committee has also given full responsibility for the preparation of the banking system to the Ministry of Finance. Therefore, this department has also suddenly changed from an idle yamen doing odd jobs. Even Qiu Yuan, who had long been assigned to the foreign affairs department at the Cliff Office, reported and asked to be transferred back to the finance department. After all, he was working as a cashier before time travel. He had a serious background in the finance department and was engaged in banking business. I also came into contact with more people. However, even if Qiu Yuan can have an additional identity in the finance department, he will not be able to gain much advantage in the competition within the finance department, because the executive committee has basically finalized the leadership candidate for the bank's work.
This candidate came from Schneider's recommendation. As head of the Finance Department, he recommended several available people to the Executive Committee before leaving the country to be responsible for preparing the future central bank in Port Victory.
Cai Jinmei was one of Schneider's favorite candidates, and he was personally invited to join the team to participate in the time travel. This woman, who was not yet thirty years old, worked in the credit management department of a city's commercial bank before time travel, and had already become a deputy director. Her future was bright. However, after her supervisor was investigated for corruption, she was implicated. She was also treated as a henchman. Although Cai Jinmei herself had done nothing illegal or disciplinary, this whirlwind still blew her away from Guangming Avenue and was transferred to a remote district or county to serve as the head of the sales department.
Schneider and Cai Jinmei met at work and became friends as soon as they went back and forth. After Schneider went to Guangzhou to meet Tao Donglai and others for the first time, he received the news of Cai Jinmei's transfer, and immediately tried to encourage Cai Jinmei to participate in the time-travel operation. At that time, Cai Jinmei, who suffered a serious setback in her career and was in a discouraged state, did not think too much, so she resigned from her job and flew to Guangzhou under Schneider's persuasion. After that, she naturally entered the Ministry of Finance and was regarded by Schneider as a subordinate who could be reused.
The reason why Schneider values Cai Jinmei so much is not because of any personal relationship with her, but because of her professionalism. Cai Jinmei has worked in the bank for seven or eight years, from teller to deputy director of the credit department. Her personal abilities are beyond doubt and she is very familiar with the operation of the banking system. She is an indispensable and important chess piece in the financial system planned by Schneider. . With such a number one figure, Chuan Chuan Group can make fewer mistakes and take fewer detours when building its financial system.
Cai Jinmei is probably not considered a beauty in the eyes of most men. Her height of 1.75 meters is enough to make half of the male compatriots in the time travel group feel inferior. However, she is as thin as a match, and there is no body curve or beauty at all. Moreover, she also has a very fatal problem, which is her sharp tongue. Most of the people who have dealt with her have been humiliated by her words. The ID used by Cai Jinmei on the internal forum of the Time Travel Group is her original name, and she is also one of the well-known trolls. The executive committee members probably have the exception of Mr. Yuan, who is too senior to make bad remarks. Almost everyone she wrote has been criticized by her, including her boss Schneider.
In view of this situation, although Cai Jinmei is single, she is still no one interested in the time travel group where there are more men than women. However, Schneider and other executive committee members believe that because of this, Cai Jinmei, who has extremely simple social relations, is more suitable to manage the money bag - she has a grudge against everyone so she will not form gangs easily, and without a family, the possibility of using power for personal gain can be greatly reduced. possibility.
"Bosses, this is Ms. Cai Jinmei, who is in charge of finance. Ms. Cai Jinmei will explain the detailed rules of local currency exchange to everyone." After Ren Liang gave a brief introduction, he immediately wiped the soles of his feet and walked away. After he became the director of the Port Management Committee, he often dealt with the Ministry of Finance. Because of the slow construction speed of the currency exchange center, Cai Jinmei was chasing him more than once. He knew that this woman was not to be messed with.
Cai Jinmei succinctly explained the local currency exchange rules and methods, and reiterated the requirement to use circulation certificates as the only currency in Victory Port. After finishing speaking, Cai Jinmei looked around at everyone arrogantly and said: "If you have any questions, you can ask me now."
Someone said: "What if I don't want to exchange money for some of your coupons?"
Cai Jinmei glanced at this person and responded coldly: "If you don't want to change, don't change. No one forces you to change!"
The man didn't expect Cai Jinmei's tough attitude, and said in shock: "Then I won't change it!"
"Mark this business down and don't take any money from them!" Cai Jinmei was even more tempered: "You can't even buy a hair in Victory Port. Let me see how you do business!"
When the man heard this, he remembered that Li Nai seemed to have said before that only circulation coupons could be used here, and money had no use here at all. Just when I didn't know what to do, I saw a middle-aged man wearing a Haihan short coat coming in with a few people: "Xiao Cai, don't be so stiff when dealing with new guests!"
Ren Liang appeared next to him at the right time: "Let me introduce to you, this is Mr. Tao Donglai from our Haihan Executive Committee."
"I have admired Mr. Tao for a long time!" "I have heard of Mr. Tao's name for a long time..." "I have admired Mr. Tao for a long time..."
A group of merchants present stood up to greet each other. Before coming to Victory Port, they also spent a lot of energy collecting information about Haihan from various channels. According to external rumors, Tao Donglai has become the number one person in Haihan. image.
After Tao Donglai greeted everyone, he continued the previous topic: "The reason why we set up this currency exchange system in Victory Port is not to covet your money, but purely to facilitate everyone's transactions here. You can think about it. , the silver and copper coins brought by each family are of different quality, which is quite troublesome during settlement. However, we exchange them into a unified currency for everyone, which is easy to carry and count, and there is no problem of color change. When leaving Victory Port, you can exchange the circulation certificates you hold into cash, and the silver we take out is of uniform quality and will never be lower than the official silver standard.”
Tao Donglai winked at Cai Jinmei, and the latter asked someone to bring out the prepared silver ingot samples. These silver ingots are all cast by Chuan Chuan Group itself. They are standard double-winged silver ingots with Hainan and Chinese characters on them. The weights are divided into five specifications: one tael, five taels, ten taels, fifty taels and one hundred taels for convenience. Count. Silver scales were also prepared for everyone to weigh on site. After seeing the samples, even the merchant who just questioned the necessity of exchange readily admitted that there was indeed no problem with the quality of Haihan silver ingots. Tao Donglai continued: "Everyone, we have a large amount of money exchanges with the outside world, one hundred thousand taels each month, but there have never been any problems. Don't worry, the money is here, we still have it. A special person will be sent to take care of it, and no penny will be left behind!”
Ren Liang helped: "Bosses, if you want to exchange money, hurry up. After lunch, I will take you to visit various locally produced goods. People who don't have circulation coupons will not be able to place orders." Oh!”
As soon as Ren Liang got to the point, the merchants could no longer hold their nerve.
"Exchange, exchange! Exchange two thousand taels first!" "Zhang San, go back to the ship and bring up the silver box!" "Mr. Tao, may I ask how to exchange the gold ingot?"
For this chaotic situation, Cai Jinmei was well prepared and immediately asked the staff to guide these merchants to several counters for exchange procedures. Although there were some minor disputes over the color of the silver, in general the entire exchange process went on in an orderly manner. Every merchant has more or less exchanged some circulation coupons. Although it is a little distressing to see the boxes of cash turned into a pile of colorful small pieces of paper in a blink of an eye, it is thought that these small pieces of paper must be used for subsequent purchases. The film can only be carried out, and the merchants don't care about that much anymore.
In just one hour, the exchange center collected more than 30,000 taels of silver and more than 700 taels of gold, and issued a corresponding number of circulation coupons to merchants. According to the current exchange price, the exchange rate between Haihan circulation notes and silver is still one to one, that is, one Haihan dollar is worth one tael of silver. However, because the silver brought by merchants varies in quality, this exchange will also be discounted depending on the actual situation.
Although it seems that this measure of the exchange center has no intuitive benefits. After collecting silver of different qualities, it has to refine and recast it into high-purity silver ingots and return them to merchants who need to withdraw cash, but the Executive Committee is very clear that this does not It's not meaningless and useless work.
First of all, this measure can gradually establish credit for the banking system, prepare for future output of the financial system, and establish a monetary system based on precious metals; secondly, all precious metals will be concentrated in the hands of the executive committee, and their use will be more controllable The circulation vouchers are used as the local currency, so that the executive committee can effectively control the local economic lifeline, which has a very intuitive effect on price control under the current public ownership environment; thirdly, this is also to allow foreign merchants to form a local The concept of Haihan as the main body has gradually established the external authority of the Haihan Executive Committee. Finally, after the silver ingots cast with the Haihan logo were circulated into Ming society, they could also effectively increase Haihan's economic and cultural influence.
Of course, it is not that no one has questioned this, because this recasting process can easily cause the Gresham effect, which is the phenomenon of bad money driving out good money. After a large number of Haihan silver ingots of good quality and uniform specifications enter the pockets of merchants in the Ming Dynasty, they are likely to withdraw from the market circulation and become treasures for collection. However, merchants who trade with Chuanchuan Group will always use inferior silver ingots of different colors. , if this situation continues for a long time, it will have a negative impact on Haihan's economy.
However, the Ministry of Finance soon explained at the public debate held by the Executive Committee that according to the knowledge of modern economics, Gresham's Law is actually a monetary phenomenon exclusive to the coin circulation period, and the current Victory Port area has Convertible banknotes have begun to gradually replace precious metal currencies. This is actually a debt certificate issued by the financial department of the Cross Group. It is currently in the credit establishment stage and still needs to be linked to precious metals. And when the total economic volume of the Cross Group reaches a certain scale and the bank credit is recognized by society, it can start to issue real credit currency, break away from the standard of precious metals, and independently perform the function of currency, which is the currency of various countries that will be used in future generations.
When convertible banknotes and precious metal coins exist at the same time, the role of Gresham's Law often fails, coupled with the guarantee of the semi-mandatory exchange measures adopted by Victory Port, and the current huge surplus in the foreign trade of the Cross-Trade Group , it can be said that the losses that can be caused to the Cross Group on the fineness of precious metal currencies are extremely limited. Compared with the huge gains that the current monetary policy can bring in the future, this loss is completely acceptable.
In the final analysis, this is still a question of actual purchasing power. As long as a single currency system is maintained within the territory controlled by the Crossing Group, the actual purchasing power of precious metal currencies will always be close to zero, and circulating notes are the real "good currency" . As the territory and influence of the Crossing Group continues to expand, the credit of the circulation notes or paper currency will become more and more stable, and this is enough for the early development of the Crossing Group.
After the currency exchange was completed, as one of the local traditions, merchants who came to Victory Port for the first time were entertained with a reception banquet. Of course, during the dinner, Tao Donglai did not forget to promote various local spices, fruits, crops and seafood to the merchants in a timely manner.
Compared with the export of industrial products, which have achieved repeated success, the pace of agricultural development is relatively slow. A large number of commercial crops have to wait one to two years, and even four or five years before they can start to yield profits, so there are not many varieties that can be sold. The only agricultural product stored in large quantities locally is probably rice. In addition to the hundreds of acres of rice fields developed by the Ministry of Agriculture that have been harvested for two seasons, cargo ships returning from North Vietnam will also bring back some rice as a strategic reserve for the base camp. Especially after the North Vietnamese immigration plan began, because the population was about to usher in a period of rapid population growth, the Executive Committee also specially adjusted its transportation capacity to increase the amount of rice imported from North Vietnam. However, there is little significance in exporting rice to the mainland. The price is more than ten times lower than private salt. With this transportation capacity, it is better to transport more salt.
After they had had enough wine and food, each merchant submitted their cargo list one after another, explaining the types and quantities of the goods they brought. These goods are basically purchased in accordance with the requirements of the Guangdong Office. Most of them are various raw materials and daily necessities required by the Cross-Travel Group. Therefore, there is no problem in the intention of purchasing, but there are certain price differences for a small number of goods. Controversial, but generally it will not affect the final transaction result - after all, it has been shipped so far, could it be that if a small price difference cannot be negotiated, it will be brought back to Guangzhou? No one would be so stupid, not to mention that the quotations given by the Haihan people were not without profit, and the deal was often concluded after a few disputes.
Next is the highlight that the merchants have been looking forward to for many days. They came all the way from Guangzhou to this remote port not only to sell those goods, but also to gain much more from trafficking in Haihan goods. "Fu Ruifeng" has made a lot of money in Guangzhou in the past few months by relying on this. Everyone has been jealous of it for a long time, and now it is finally his turn to take this opportunity.
Since there are more merchants coming to Victory Port this time, the commerce department does not plan to adopt a one-to-one trade negotiation model. In fact, after receiving the telegram notification from the Guangdong Office in advance, the relevant departments formulated a series of new sales strategies to cope with this collective visit of foreign merchants.
This product launch event was arranged in the conference room in Base No. 1. All the merchants found a playing card on the arranged seat, which said A, B, C, D and so on. Each household took one.
Ren Liang explained: "Because there are too many bosses coming to Victory Port to take care of business this time, and the quantity of goods we prepare is relatively limited, for the sake of fairness, we will adopt an open bidding method for sale this time."
As soon as Ren Liang said these words, the merchants all made a low discussion. The auction model is not unfamiliar to them. They are not dissatisfied with the Haihan people using this model to sell goods, because everyone knows that Haihan products are in short supply, and it is understandable for the Haihan people to do so. After all, who Everyone wants to sell their things at a higher price. Some people regretted that they should not have waited until the fleet set off from Guangzhou together. If they had immediately gone south after getting the news from the Guangdong Office, they would have returned home with a full load.
(End of chapter)