1928: The rise of giant merchants

In order to avoid Japan's fate of comprehensive deflation due to the collapse of the monetary system, the Republic of China must control silver prices and silver transactions before a large amount of silver flows out.

But as Chen Lifu said, the price of silver is determined by the market. The countries that really control the price of gold and silver are the United States and other major powers. They forcibly bind the price of gold and silver to their own country's currency, allowing the world's finance to follow their currency. Ups and downs, once a financial tsunami occurs in the United States and other major powers, small silver and gold standard countries like the Republic of China will have no choice but to suffer.

Now that the United States is aggressively purchasing silver and gold, the price of silver has begun to soar, not to mention the black market, where the price of silver will only be higher than the market price.

Trying to ban silver trading through legal or coercive means is simply a fantasy.

"Blocking is worse than sparing. The best way is for the government to come forward to purchase a large amount of silver circulating in the market, at least to prevent it from flowing out, and then supplement it with policies to dispel the people's desire to save money, and use the advantages of independent tariffs to develop a large number of Domestic products and curb imports will solve the problem.”

Kong Xiangxi said.

Ye Luo nodded in agreement: "Yes, a multi-pronged approach can effectively suppress the rising trend of silver prices. Of course, trying to fight against the US Silver and Gold Act is really a trap. But as long as we act quickly and have the right strategy , at least it won’t completely collapse like Japan.”

Kong Xiangxi is worthy of being the richest man in the Republic of China. His knowledge of business and finance is not inferior to that of Song Ziwen, and is several levels higher than the Chen Guofu brothers!

Song Ziwen also agrees with this moderate approach and does not recommend the use of extreme means to forcibly curb silver trading.

Except for Ye Luo, everyone present was at the highest level related to the Kuomintang. Now, except for the Chen Guofu brothers, everyone else agreed with Ye Luo's views and proposals, and the matter was finalized.

But another thing made the principal embarrassed.

Where does the money come from to purchase silver at high prices?

The war in the Central Plains had just stopped, and he was busy seizing the trophies left by Yan Xishan's group of warlords, but fighting was a waste of time and money, and the trophies were not enough to fill his teeth.

A war in the Central Plains cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It would cost hundreds of millions more to take over the territory and settle the remaining pieces. It cost tens of millions more to ask Zhang Hanqing to leave the country. After going back and forth, the principal knew that the treasury was empty without asking Song Ziwen. There is absolutely no money left to buy silver.

It just so happened that this time we couldn't collect money from the merchants.

If you use their money to buy the silver they have, doesn't that mean you're asking them to give you their silver? This is worse than forcibly seizing their company.

Even if the principal has a good relationship with the Jiangsu and Zhejiang chaebols, he can't play like this. No one will agree.

Thinking of the Central Plains War, the principal remembered that he had issued a batch of military coupons before. Although the helpless Kuomintang military and political officials and businessmen were forced to claim a bunch of them, most of them were given to them at extremely low prices. The speculators were killed, but the military coupons were still there. For the sake of the credibility of the Jinling National Government, he had to redeem them one by one.

You have to exchange it at a high price.

Who let him win?

This is another expense.

The money is even gone!

The more I thought about it, the more headache I got. The principal was stuck, and he was too embarrassed to tell them that he had no money. Everyone stared at him, a little at a loss.

Ye Luo found the right moment and said directly: "Is the principal worried about money?"

"Yes, the war has just ended, and everything is waiting for improvement. The deposits of the Ministry of Finance should not be enough to purchase a large amount of silver." The principal looked at Song Ziwen.

Song Ziwen kept shouting in his heart, "Don't look at me, don't look at me." When the principal looked at him, he had no choice but to nod: "Not enough."

It’s not enough!

According to Yelo, the United States will not give up until the price of silver reaches $1.29 per ounce.

Then their purchase price starts at 1.3 US dollars, which is 6.5 yuan when converted into oceans. 1 ounce is about 28 grams, and 1 ton is 35,274 ounces.

Purchasing one ton of silver costs 230,000 oceans, and one hundred tons of silver costs 23 million oceans.

Based on the current situation in the Republic of China, if the market is casually circulated, silver will start at a thousand tons, and an ocean of two to three billion will just be sprinkled with water.

Ye Luo estimated that to really prevent the United States from acquiring silver from the Republic of China, you would have to start competing at at least ten dollars an ounce.

The purchase price of one thousand tons of silver light is 352 million oceans, as well as various other expenses.

"To meet the minimum standard to prevent the United States from acquiring silver, it would cost at least 1.2 billion." Ye Luo reported a number.

This amount of money is neither big nor small.

For example, for an elite army of 30,000 people like the Tax Police Corps, the total annual expenditure is about 50 million, and 1.2 billion can last them for 24 years.

But if a war breaks out, this number will have to be reduced by half.

The principal now claims to have a million-strong army. The actual number of troops is about 2.2 million, but more than half of them are of extremely poor quality. They are either bandits or bandits who surrendered or motley crews who surrendered. Compared with the treatment of the tax police corps, these 2.2 million are just More than 800,000.

Therefore, if the principal does not go to war, the annual military expenditure will be almost 1.3 billion oceans.

It is equivalent to asking the principal to use one year's military expenses to plug the silver hole.

The principal was not happy with this calculation.

Raising an army is useful. When fighting a war, he can win only if he has people in his hands.

The people who benefit the most from the purchase of silver are the ordinary people. They do not have to be as poor as the Japanese people now, with no clothes to cover their bodies and no food to eat.

Secondly, those businessmen do not have to bear the consequences of the collapse of the economic and monetary system.

After that, those aristocratic and upper-class families can continue to suck the blood of the people with peace of mind and live their lives of earthly emperors.

After that came the warlords in power like the principal.

He is not willing to use his own money to do good things.

This time I was embarrassed again.

"This 1.2 billion cannot be collected in the past few years." Song Ziwen had no choice but to continue to answer the question.

"The matter is urgent. Even if we can get it together in three to five years, it won't be worth it by then." Kong Xiangxi sneered. He would not use the Kong family's money to do good deeds anyway. "Since Aluo made this suggestion, there must be someone There’s a solution.”

The Chen Guofu brothers also looked over.

To be honest, they look down on businessmen. Those who have no power or guns are just fat pigs waiting to be slaughtered, aren't they?

Zhang Hanqing was also curious about Ye Luo's follow-up approach.

Ye Luo smiled: "I have a way, it just depends on whether you are willing or not."

"As long as I can save the market, I'm happy to do whatever it takes." The principal said directly.

"1.2 billion, I can provide it." Ye Luo frightened them all with just six words.

1.2 billion, equivalent to 240 million U.S. dollars. The only people in the Republic of China who could come up with so much liquidity at once were the major warlords and the four major families.

Or those consortiums work together to provide money.

The principal knew that Ye's investment had developed very rapidly in the past three years. Ye Luo had also made some money in the United States, Japan and other places, but it was still a bit shocking that he could come up with US$240 million at one time.

To be honest, even without the money earned in these few times, he could still come up with a mere US$240 million based on YB Bank's US$1 billion in circulating funds in the United States.

During his last trip to Tokyo, Japan, he got 300 tons of gold from Yuyuki Hamaguchi and the Japanese consortium. Due to the high price, it was equivalent to making $100 million. But when the United States raised the price of gold to the predetermined value, it turned out that 300 tons of gold worth US$200 million will suddenly double to US$600 million.

Excluding Ye Luo's cost of 100 million US dollars, he can also make 500 million in vain.

Even if only 100 tons of these 300 tons are deposited in YB Bank, one-third of the profit would be as much as US$166 million.

Of course, you can't tell the principal these things. (End of chapter)