Water Margin: The opening scene involves assassinating Emperor Huizong of Song and forcibly taking L

Li Wenzhong walked to his grandfather's side: "It's alright."

Li Mao held his grandson's hand and said, "Although you failed the exam last year, you can still retain your title of Juren twice."

"Even if I fail the exam twice more, I must pass it again to become a Juren (a successful candidate in the provincial-level imperial examination) and then become a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the metropolitan-level imperial examination)."

"If a family has no members who have passed the imperial examinations, even if they are the richest in the world, they will still be bullied. Their wealth of millions will be nothing more than fleeting clouds."

Li Wenzhong said, "The Ming Dynasty is not like the former Song Dynasty. As long as you do business in accordance with the law, you will not be exploited."

"I have heard that the imperial court has issued bonds many times. The first two batches of war bonds issued in Sichuan have now been repaid to the merchants with interest."

"What do you know?"

Li Dunyi scoffed, “It is natural for the newly established dynasty to keep its promises. Even the previous emperors Taizong and Taizu punished powerful merchants.”

"After another one or two emperors, the court will no longer be so strict about rules."

"While the imperial court is still keeping its promise, our Li family should take the imperial examinations and become officials, and quickly transform from a merchant family into a prominent gentry family!"

"Don't worry about the family business; just focus on your studies."

Chapter 3344 The Great Merchant

Li Wenzhong could only say, "My son has already studied mathematics, physics, astronomy, and geography very thoroughly, and he is more than capable of taking the imperial examinations."

“I am also studying the chemical principles proposed by the Emperor last year, and I often invite students from the Imperial Academy to discuss them.”

"But those Confucian classics still need to be studied diligently."

"You can take the Imperial Academy exam again next year,"

Li Dunyi said,

"I've already found out that next year's Imperial Academy exam will place more emphasis on miscellaneous studies than before."

"Since you are proficient in those miscellaneous subjects, you must be very confident of passing the Imperial Academy entrance exam."

“Alas, if I had known earlier that the Emperor wanted to promote chemistry, you should have advised the agricultural students after you failed the exam last year, so that you could take the opportunity to study at the Imperial Academy through the study of chemistry.”

The grandfather, father, and grandson talked for a long time about the imperial examination system, seemingly completely unconcerned about business.

Suddenly, Li Wenzhong asked, "I've heard that the imperial court's establishment of a stock exchange has had a significant impact on the major merchants in Tokyo."

"Don't worry about that, studying hard is the most important thing!" Li Dunyi said.

Li Mao also said, "The reason why my Li family has been able to do business in Kaifeng for two hundred years and survive the changes of the Song and Ming dynasties is because we know how to assess the situation."

“When the previous dynasty’s Prime Minister Wang implemented reforms, we did not stand up to oppose them.”

"We waited until the old party made their move before we acted accordingly."

"It's the same now. Whatever His Majesty wants to do, we'll follow His Majesty's lead."

"It's just an exchange; anyone can buy and sell there."

"With the Li family's wealth, we can still make money, just not as much as before."

Li Wenzhong said, "Actually, there are loopholes to exploit, but we must be careful not to anger His Majesty."

Li Mao looked at his grandson with interest: "Tell me about it."

Li Wenzhong said, "Winter is coming soon, and the prices of coal and cloth will definitely rise."

“Coal cannot be manipulated. In Tokyo, the coal industry is 30% government-run and 70% private. If the private sector manipulates coal prices, the government sector will immediately intervene.”

"After all, the coal industry in the former Song Dynasty caused a great deal of trouble, and the court has always attached great importance to it ever since."

"But it's different in our cloth trade; people don't die there so easily, and the imperial court is more tolerant."

"Once the weather gets cooler, you can go on a shopping spree at the exchange."

"They even buy the goods by raising prices before the merchants even enter the exchange."

"Having an exchange has actually made things more convenient than before."

"Because when you buy a delivery order from an exchange, there is a limited delivery period."

“As long as we make a move, other major cloth merchants will follow suit, and we can drive up the price of cloth within a day or two.”

“Once the price of cloth rises, small and medium-sized merchants who have already placed orders will not pick up their goods in order to make a profit.”

"Instead, they sell the invoices before the delivery period, which means they can make a profit without doing anything."

"In this way, it is equivalent to us controlling small and medium-sized merchants as well, and all the large, medium and small cloth merchants in the capital will join forces to speculate on cloth."

"The government's response was delayed. They dared not easily do something like sending goods by express courier over 400 li."

"Because the urgent 400-li delivery involves the Ministry of War, it must ultimately be reported to the Ministry of War and the Cabinet. If it is not handled properly, one will be held accountable."

"The officials of the exchange will definitely summon the major merchants of the cloth trade for a talk first."

“We’ll just go along with the officials, give them face, and let them achieve the political achievement of stabilizing cloth prices.”

"At this point, the price of cloth has already risen very high, so we can release a large batch of goods."

"You know, we were the first to buy up the goods. We bought a lot of fabric at low prices, and even if we lowered the price a little, we could still make a huge profit."

"Moreover, we have warehouses where we can store the remaining cloth."

"But those small and medium-sized businessmen who follow the trend and buy at high prices will definitely make a profit if they sell early, but they will be stuck with their stocks if they sell late."

“They might be raising money everywhere to speculate on goods, and suddenly the price of cloth drops, and the orders also have a delivery period.”

“If they don’t lower the price, they’ll have to pay warehouse fees.”

"If they lower the price, they will lose money."

"When the price of cloth continues to fall, countless small and medium-sized cloth merchants will rush to lower prices to sell their goods."

“We sold a lot of cloth when prices were high, and then we could buy it back at a low price after prices plummeted.”

"They made money twice, inside and out, and they even gave the government plenty of face!"

"And all these things will not have a significant impact on people's livelihoods."

"After we buy the fabric at a low price, we store it in the warehouse and sell it off little by little. The price of fabric will gradually rise back to normal levels."

"At this time, a large amount of cloth was stored in warehouses by several large merchants, and small and medium-sized merchants could only purchase goods from us."

"Once the price of cloth returns to normal, the exchange will not send goods over 400 miles as quickly as possible."

"If customers learn that the price of fabric in Tokyo has soared, they will rush back to transport their goods here."

"By the time they deliver the cloth, the price of cloth will have already been driven down."

"We can continue to lower prices to force those merchants to sell at a loss, and then we can take advantage of that to buy their new goods at extremely low prices."

Chapter 3345 The Third Way

"Of course, it's best not to push the price down too much at this point, otherwise the exchange will become useless, which would be tantamount to offending His Majesty to the death."

"Therefore, it's okay to make money repeatedly, but you can't completely destroy the market."

"It's best to let the merchants make a small profit on the newly delivered cloth; we can't let them lose money, no matter how ruthless we are."

“If they lose money, the exchange will be finished, and His Majesty will surely take action in his anger.”

Li Mao and Li Dunyi exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with indescribable shock.

Li Mao was overjoyed and grabbed Li Wenzhong's hand, saying, "My grandson is truly a business genius!"

Despite being the richest man in the world, the Tokyo market is large enough that the Lee family's word doesn't count.

If they don't care about the consequences, they can just start doing it.

However, to handle the aftermath and prevent merchants from losing everything and incurring Emperor Zhu's wrath, several major cloth merchants had to join forces.

Only by joining forces can they quickly control prices.

Large businessmen from different industries may distrust each other, but those within the same industry can actually advance and retreat together.

Because their business environment has always been terrible, even though they each have powerful backers, those backers are also bloodsuckers.

On one hand, they had to deal with the exploitation by powerful figures, and on the other hand, they had to deal with the extortion by the government. If the big merchants did not unite, they simply could not stand on their own!

After holding meetings for half a month, the major families of Tokyo's cloth merchants finally finalized the entire plan.

Perhaps His Majesty's sword was too sharp, as some even gave up halfway through.

In the end, they had no choice but to swear a blood oath, vowing in the name of their ancestors, and then verbally agree on the terms.

In other words, one should not be greedy in the final stages; one must leave a way for merchants to make money, and even after several rounds of profit-making, one should not drive small and medium-sized merchants into a desperate situation.

If things go wrong, we must work together to control prices.

They recklessly exploited those who made money, while the other companies joined forces to suppress them!

Why would they take such a huge risk and go through all this trouble to carry out the harvesting plan?

The emergence of exchanges was primarily aimed at them.

His Majesty has his eye on them; now there are only two choices:

First, obey orders and only earn honest money from now on.

However, as exchange systems mature, the potential for making money will become increasingly limited, and misjudging the market may even lead to losses.

Secondly, within the rules of the exchange, we must find new ways to make big money, while also keeping His Majesty's reputation in mind.

There is no third way.

Like opposing Wang Anshi's market exchange laws, are we going to oppose His Majesty's stock exchange?

Stop kidding, they haven't lived enough yet.

……

Early winter season.

The price of fabrics in the shops is still rising normally, but the price on the exchange is increasing every day.

Major fabric shops also joined the fabric trade.

They belonged to small and medium-sized merchants, also known as merchants.

Most traders were completely clueless about the situation. When they heard that the price of cloth on the exchange had surged, they rushed to consult the bigwigs in the cloth industry.

After some discussion, everyone agreed to raise prices together (ordinary customers are not allowed to bypass the guild and raise or lower prices arbitrarily).

When people saw the price of cloth soaring, they were afraid of running out of cloth in the winter, so they rushed to shops to buy it.

Faced with crowds rushing to buy fabrics, merchants naturally had to increase their purchases.

Moreover, seeing that the price of cloth on the exchange was still rising, and hearing that several major traders were frantically buying up goods, they also rushed to the exchange to place orders.

Soon, people realized that after buying the goods on the exchange, they didn't need to go to the warehouse to cash out the cloth.

You can make money by reselling the order before the delivery deadline.

Even if the delivery period has expired, as long as the warehouse usage fee is paid, the order can continue to be sold.

The profits earned from selling orders far exceed the warehouse usage fees.

As if opening Pandora's box, Tokyo quickly descended into madness.

At first, it was just the big merchants who secretly induced their clients to speculate on cloth futures.

Gradually, even ordinary citizens joined in, and some even borrowed money to speculate on goods.

The exchange was so alarmed that it immediately reported to the Ministry of Revenue, and finally set a rule: if the price of a certain commodity increases by more than 10% every day, trading of that commodity will be suspended on the exchange.

It's useless.

Because it allows for private trading, bypassing the exchange!

The exchange reported to the Ministry of Revenue again, and soon issued another regulation: all orders must be bought and sold on the exchange, and a handling fee will be charged.

Still useless.

This isn't the electronic age; with primitive paper-based futures and securities, there are far too many ways to circumvent the regulations.

For example, when the stock market first appeared in China, you needed an ID card to subscribe to a limited number of shares, and as a result, some people brought a whole bag of ID cards and rushed over.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange of the Ming Dynasty was the same; no matter what restrictions the government introduced, they always found a way to circumvent them.