Drink Black Tea Calmly at Hogwarts

The wall clock on the wall struck four times. Scrimgeour behind the desk yawned deeply and blew out the candles on the table. After rubbing his eyes that were a little dry from staying up late, he put down the financial statement in his hand that he had read countless times tonight.

At this time, Scrimgeour felt that he was getting old. When he was an Auror, he could stay awake for a week to arrest dark wizards, but now he couldn't stand it after only two or three consecutive all-nighters.

Before preparing to take a break, Minister Scrimgeour picked up a brand new swan quill that he had just bought from the Literary Quill Shop last night. After dipping ink in the ink bottle, he made several purchases of medicines, etc. He signed his name on the supply contract.

In the Hog's Head Bar, there is a lounge next to Scrimgeour's office for him to rest after working overtime.

Scrimgeour was lying on the bed and found that he was tossing and turning and couldn't fall asleep. His mind was still thinking about the financial statement and contract just now.

A few days ago, Mr. Zhang quietly came to him and told him that there was an opportunity to make a fortune and asked him if he wanted to follow suit. After listening to Zhang's explanation for more than ten minutes, he still didn't understand how Zhang made money through currency exchange.

But out of trust in Mr. Zhang and his own intuition, Scrimgeour signed a contract worth ten thousand Galleons with the other party in the name of purchasing medicines. If Zhang makes money with this money, it will be easy for everyone. If he loses the money, he can still use this contract to find Zhang to get the medicine.

Just after dinner today, Zhang found him again sneakily, and then quietly thrust a financial statement into his hand.

Scrimgeour opened the financial statement and found that after some operations and deducting the corresponding handling fees and commissions, the 10,000 Galleons had become 10,000 Galleons in a short period of time. Four thousand galleons.

Before leaving, Zhang bought an "antique quill" stuck on Scrimgeour's desk for five hundred galleons, and said that if the Ministry of Magic continued to increase investment, he would "purchase medicines and other supplies" "If so, he would spend a lot of money to buy the "art ink bottle" on his desk.

The invested capital would yield a 40% return within a few days, which was enough to make Scrimgeour, who was worried about the Ministry of Magic's upcoming financial problems, take the risk.

In the summer, the Ministry of Magic almost emptied out the entire Diagon Alley, causing the pseudo-Ministry of Magic in London to suffer a big loss during the tax season at the end of September, forcing Lucius Malfoy to use extremely easy methods. The tax package system that intensified the contradictions was used to solve some tax problems. The Ministry of Magic succeeded. In the following time, the extortionate Death Eaters and the wizarding residents started to confront each other.

This caused people's hearts to turn towards Hogsmeade.

However, just as the tax season at the end of December was approaching, Old Malfoy directly cut off the salary, forcing a large number of merchants who moved north to Hogsmeade to return to Diagon Alley under the threat of supply shortages from upstream suppliers. Hogg Mod's market suddenly became depressed.

It's not a good feeling to be treated the same way as the other person. Scrimgeour can predict that if the situation is allowed to develop, in the upcoming tax season, the Ministry of Magic will end up in the same situation as the pseudo-Magic Ministry three months ago. end.

The cost during the war was huge. In the past, the Ministry of Magic could use it for a year, but now it was spent in one quarter.

At this time, faced with Zhang's temptation that "if you make medium to long-term investments, you can get profits ranging from those who dare to trample all human laws to those who dare to commit any crime," Scrimgeour began to consider whether to "divide short, medium, and Conducted multiple large purchases of medicines and other supplies over a long period of time."

As for the cost of "purchasing", the Minister of Magic, who was unable to come up with so much money at the same time, planned to use the Ministry of Magic's underground building in London to obtain a mortgage loan from Gringotts. Anyway, they are in the hands of the Death Eaters now, so let's exchange them for money first.

Scrimgeour couldn't sleep because he felt the money was a bit hot to hold. Unlike Mr. Zhang of (￡_￡), he has more issues to think about in this matter than Mr. Zhang. In addition to economic issues, he also needs to consider the social and political issues behind it.

Hundreds of years ago, in this pig's head bar, goblins led a rebellion. Although the rebellion was suppressed, the goblins also obtained the right to operate Gringotts. From then on, when it comes to money issues, the goblins always look down on the wizards with a superior look. They think that sharpening their knives on the wizards on economic issues is a matter of course.

Scrimgeour didn't know how much money Zhang and the others had invested in total, but referring to his own actions of doubling additional investment after seeing the profits of this period, he felt that in the subsequent operations, this investment activity would The total amount will be a very exaggerated figure.

Different from the normal trade in the past, if the goblins learned that someone had made a lot of gold coins from them just by exchanging currency through the asymmetry of information, it would be strange for their mentality not to explode. If this situation gets worse, maybe a second goblin rebellion is not far away.

Gringotts is not helpless in facing this situation. As long as the goblins strengthen their ties with Muggles and adjust the currency exchange rate in a timely manner, this problem can be solved to a large extent.

But Scrimgeour doesn't think the goblins will change in a short time, even if they have been friends with the gold coins for hundreds of years. Since he had interacted with Gringotts a lot after becoming the Minister of Magic, he had a deeper understanding of the goblins.

"They are a group of greedy, stubborn and blindly arrogant people." Scrimgeour himself once told others privately, "and the whole Gringotts is full of decay and indolence."

When Gringotts in the east of Asia discovers the real reason for its massive loss of gold coins, and then passes the accurate news to Gringotts headquarters in London, Scrimgeour estimates that it will be next spring or even summer.

Scrimgeour has no control over tomorrow's spring or summer. His next task is to get a good night's sleep and recuperate his energy. He will also need to deliver a speech at the opening ceremony of the "1997 Hogsmeade Christmas Shopping Carnival" tomorrow morning. .

Looking at the alarm clock on the bedside table, he found that it was already half past four, but Scrimgeour found that although he was tired, he was not sleepy at all. He sat up from the bed, opened the drawer of the bedside table and took out a bottle of potion. After drinking half of the potion bottle's cap, he got into bed before the potion took effect, and immediately fell into a deep sleep.