Master Yuan, start!

"Although I like it, but looking at Ju Ren's face, he probably can't get used to it," Yuan Xiangcheng said with a smile, pointing at Xu Shichang's painful face.

"Hahaha." Kuang Chunhua laughed out loud without any scruples.

"Weiting may not know this, but I'm also quite troubled by this matter," Zhang Bishi took a sip of brandy and talked about the difficulties he faced: "When I passed by Yantai, I saw grapes everywhere on the hillsides in the nearby countryside, and I started to think about building a winery.

We also gave the locals some brandy from the ship's cabin to taste, but after trying it, everyone said they couldn't get used to such foreign liquor and preferred the wine left by their ancestors.

Having said that, Zhang Bishi drank the brandy in the glass in a gloomy mood.

"Brother Bishi, this wine is probably too strong," Yuan Xiangcheng said, taking another sip. "If you could lower the concentration, maybe the people would like it."

"Is what Wei Ting is talking about Cabernet Sauvignon?" Zhang Bishi asked tentatively. He was a little surprised that Yuan Shikai, a Qing official, knew so much about Western wine.

"That's right, Brother Bishi." Yuan Xiangcheng smiled. "Most people in the fields still have to work. They drink low-concentration alcohol to warm themselves up, but if they drink a high-concentration alcohol like brandy, they probably won't be able to work."

Yuan Xiangcheng knew that the Zhang Bishi in front of him was the founder of the famous Changyu Winery, which later created the "Changyu Cabernet Sauvignon" wine that was sold overseas.

Cabernet Sauvignon is a type of wine, generally referring to low-concentration wine with an alcohol content of about 10-15%, which is much softer than strong wine with an alcohol content of 40%, such as brandy.

Although Zhang Bishi originally founded the "Changyu Winery", which introduced brandy, its sales were not good.

916310s fly t: grilled /; gas 6 six grains like 09h fee

It was not until the winery’s later operators introduced the low-alcohol wine “Cabernet Sauvignon” that Changyu’s wine became an instant hit and quickly captured the low-alcohol wine market in China.

“Don’t make brandy, make Cabernet!”

Zhang Bishi's eyes lit up. After Yuan Xiangcheng's guidance, he felt as if he had discovered a new way to collect materials.

He stood up again and bowed solemnly to Yuan Xiangcheng: "Thank you Wei Ting for your advice. I will set up a winery in Yantai soon and make sure the name of Cabernet Sauvignon spreads throughout the world!"

Yuan Xiangcheng gladly accepted Zhang Bishi's bow. The reason why he had been discussing wine with Zhang Bishi for such a long time was not to allow himself to drink wine as soon as possible, but to let Zhang Bishi stay in the north with peace of mind and invest in his territory, Yuan Xiangcheng.

Only with Zhang Bishi as the link can Nanyang capital further take root in the Northeast.

He must fight for the Chinese capital and cannot let Li Hongzhang take all the advantage!

If he did not publicize to the Chinese in Southeast Asia the good investment environment in Yuan Xiangcheng's place, why wouldn't they invest in their hometowns of Guangdong and Fujian, but instead run to the Northeast, thousands of miles away?

In this way, the name of Changyu Cabernet Sauvignon came to China 40 years ahead of schedule.

However, this time he asked Zhang Bishi to travel thousands of miles north not just to open a winery and a few factories, he wanted something bigger.

"Brother Bishi, I wonder if you have ever opened a bank in Nanyang?"

The host and the guest were in a good mood. After three rounds of drinks, Yuan Xiangcheng slowly spoke and finally stated his ultimate goal.

Chapter 168: One Yuan Coin, First Encounter of Industrial and Agricultural Complementarity

"Brother Bishi, please look at this," Yuan Xiangcheng took out a shiny coin from his pocket and placed it on the table. The silver light shone so brightly that the rich white Northeastern mandarin fish soup beside it lost its color.

The obverse of the coin features a coiled dragon with the four characters "Made in Three Provinces" arranged in a circle above it.

　The back has "China Silver Coin" written in the middle and "One Yuan" engraved below.

"This is a silver coin that I had someone buy a mold from the British and then test-minted at the Incheon Machinery Bureau."

Zhang Bishi took the silver dollar in his hand, played with it carefully, and weighed it.

"Weiting, this is minted in the style of the foreign eagle dollar, right?" Zhang Bishi said as he placed the silver dollar on the table.

"That's right," Yuan Xiangcheng took out another silver dollar, which was the famous Mexican Eagle Dollar: "It's also 7 cents and 2 cents silver, with a silver content of about 9%."

After drinking a mouthful of mandarin fish soup, Yuan Xiangcheng took out a small piece of silver and pointed at it and said:

"This silver is a full ounce, but in trade, it can't even be exchanged for a silver dollar that contains less than 1 cents of silver.

That's equivalent to 3% of the silver price being lost to this silver dollar."

"Why is this happening?" Kuang Chunhua, who had no exposure to financial knowledge, asked in confusion.

"Of course, this is because the silver dollar system is stable and the silver content is guaranteed. However, silver comes in all shapes and sizes, and its purity is inconsistent, making transactions very troublesome.

Therefore, merchants would rather use silver dollars than accept silver in transactions, and this is especially true for larger businesses.

What Yuan Xiangcheng was talking about was a common scene in the financial life of the late Qing Dynasty. Two large silver coins could mostly only be used for daily private consumption. As long as it involved a public scenario, most people would choose silver dollars.

"Oh, so you want to issue silver dollars, Chief Instructor, because you think that instead of letting foreigners make the profit from the price difference, it's better for us to make the profit ourselves."

"That's right!" Yuan Xiangcheng looked at Kuang Chunhua, this boy is teachable.

Of course, his purpose goes far beyond this.

To start a financial business, Yuan Xiangcheng planned to start with coinage. In the late Qing Dynasty, a large number of foreign silver dollars were circulating in society, as well as traditional silver.

In commercial activities, due to the lack of unified units, the transactions between silver dollars and silver taels were asymmetric. Often, 10 silver taels could only be exchanged for 8 to 9 silver dollars, which was a serious discount.

And what Yuan Xiangcheng had to do was to issue two currencies and collect a "three-coinage tax" for himself. After all, it was a net profit, so he had to take it.

By casting 100 million silver dollars, one can make a profit of 10 taels of silver for free. Even if the cost of casting machines and labor is deducted, there will still be 5 taels.

"I heard from Hanyang that Brother Bishi once opened a bank in Nanyang." Yuan Xiangcheng picked up the Northeast silver dollar in his hand and asked, "I wonder if Brother Bishi could help Xiangcheng open a Northeast Border Industry Bank in the three northeastern provinces to provide convenient deposit and withdrawal services for merchants traveling north and south."

"Of course you can." Zhang Bishi was about to agree. It was just minting coins, not a difficult task.

I just don't know why this great Governor Yuan insisted on asking me to promote it? Since it has already been successfully cast, it should be promoted immediately.

As if seeing what Zhang Bishi was thinking, Yuan Xiangcheng explained:

"The most important thing about minting coins is circulation. If this Northeast Dragon Yuan is only circulated in the three northeastern provinces, it would be like being born with one arm broken.

Only by relying on Brother Bishi's business travels across the country can we promote Northeast Dragon Yuan to the world."

Yuan Xiangcheng's explanation was very far-fetched. As long as the silver coins were minted, they could be circulated everywhere. There was no need to rely on transoceanic trade to reach the outside world.

And there is a crucial point here.

"If that's the case, then are there enough Northeast Dragon Yuan?" Zhang Bishi was a capable man who had built a fortune of tens of millions from scratch. He saw the loophole in Yuan Xiangcheng's words at a glance.

The Northeast Dragon Yuan has just been minted. If it circulates too widely, it is likely to cause a shortage of local silver dollars. At that time, the market will be flooded with foreign dollars and various types of silver with different purities.

"If that's not enough, there's this!"

Yuan Xiangcheng took out a piece of paper the size of an adult's palm from his arms, with the six big words "Northeast Border Industry Bank" printed on it.

In the middle are the two characters "One Yuan" written vertically, and on both sides are two columns of small characters: "Payment will be made with this ticket, we only recognize the ticket, not the person."

One dollar note!

Unexpectedly, even the paper money was ready. Zhang Bishi looked at Yuan Xiangcheng in surprise again. Is it possible to play with paper money in the Qing Dynasty?

"Weiting, this paper currency is different from silver dollars. Silver dollars actually contain silver and will not depreciate.

But paper money is simply a piece of paper. If it has no collateral, it will become worthless in an instant. How can it replace silver dollars?

"Yes, how about using something in kind as collateral?" Yuan Xiangcheng held up a bowl of soy milk and gestured to Zhang Bishi, "Look at the soy milk made from soybeans ground from outside the Great Wall. It's as thick and white as snow. Furthermore, the dregs can be used to feed livestock and can be pressed into soybean oil."

"What does soybean have to do with issuing paper money?" Zhang Bishi was puzzled.

"Commodities like soybeans are what I call hard currencies, things that have value at all times and in all places, just like gold and silver."

Yuan Xiangcheng slowly explained:

"Whether it's minting silver coins or producing paper money, it consumes a lot of real gold and silver. But silver is also hard currency. If you want to save silver, you have to use other hard currencies instead."

The purpose of Yuan Shikai issuing paper money was to save gold and silver.

Purchasing overseas machinery, introducing new industries, and recruiting talents all require money.

However, the Northeast does not produce much silver. Siping, Jilin is the only silver mine in the Northeast, but its reserves are small, mining is inconvenient, and it cannot be supplied on a large scale.

As for the Zhaoyuan gold mine in Shandong, which was under his control, it was similar. After sending people to explore, Yuan Xiangcheng found out that the average burial depth of the large veins was more than 300 meters underground.

It is simply impossible to achieve a stable annual production of more than 10 tons of gold as in later generations. At present, the annual gold production of the Qing Dynasty is only more than 600 kilograms, and the output of Zhaoyuan gold mine is even less.

It’s not that the Qing Dynasty didn’t want Shandong’s gold, it’s just that it couldn’t be dug out.

Therefore, after Yuan Shikai took control of Shandong, he could only collect some exposed gold mines on the surface sporadically. If he wanted to mine on a large scale, it would be impossible with his current level of technology.

Therefore, all he could think of was to learn from the experience of the revolutionary border areas and use physical objects as collateral to issue currency.

The Northeast doesn't have much else, but it has a lot of hard currency like grain, soybeans, and timber.

The Northeast Border Industry Bank that Yuan Xiangcheng was preparing to establish would, on the one hand, melt a small amount of silver and issue silver dollars; on the other hand, it would use these three physical objects as a benchmark, determine their values ​​according to a certain ratio, and then issue paper money based on the values.

One yuan of paper money could be exchanged for one silver dollar. If people felt that the paper money was not trustworthy, they could take the paper money to the bank to exchange for food at any time.

Absolutely fair and honest.

"Weiting's plan is very clever. All countries in the world use gold and silver as reserves, but you use grain as collateral." Zhang Bishi thought about it carefully, and it seemed to be true.

What do people do with the money? They just spend it on food, clothing, housing and transportation.

As long as you can ensure that the money in your hand can be exchanged for food at any time, what does it matter if you have a piece of "paper"?

Zhang Bishi thought this idea was very feasible, but there was a fatal flaw, which was the food problem, so he asked:

"I just don't know if this food is enough."

"Third uncle, you don't have to worry about this." When Zhang Bishi asked about food-related issues, Kuang Chunhua, the Minister of Agriculture and Industry, explained confidently without waiting for Yuan Xiangcheng to reply.

"The General Instructor has long ago established production and construction corps in the three northeastern provinces and Korea, promoting large-scale land reclamation and establishing farmers' associations. Now, 3% of the grain production outside the Great Wall is directly controlled by us, and another 3% is also more or less influenced by farmers.

As for timber, that goes without saying. The three timber export routes are all guarded by the National Defense Forces, so we can sell as much as we want."

Production and Construction Corps, Peasant Association, one unfamiliar word after another popped up in his head as Zhang Bishi tried hard to digest what his distant nephew was saying.

What Kuang Chunhua was talking about was the results of Yuan Shikai's farming in Northeast China in recent years.

After several years of hard work, the Production and Construction Corps under the leadership of the Red Confucian Society finally achieved certain results and was able to provide support for the industrialization of Yuan Xiangcheng.

Relying on the military corps and the farmers' association, Yuan Shikai now controls more than 6% of the annual grain production outside the Great Wall, which is enough for him to control the grain prices outside the Great Wall.

In the future, during the harvest season, grain price controls will be implemented in these places, and only Northeast Dragon Yuan or Northeast banknotes can be used to buy grain. All other silver dollars will not be recognized.

Of course, it is not a complete rejection. If you are willing to pay 10% more, it can be sold.

What the Red Confucian Society wants to do is not to hoard goods, but to rely on the Northeast's grain hegemony to advance its paper currency plan.

Although Northeast Dragon Yuan or Northeast banknotes were used to purchase grain, farmers were not afraid of not being able to spend it as long as they held it in their hands.

The Northeast Dragon Yuan is a silver coin and can be spent anywhere, needless to say.

In order to ensure the smooth circulation of paper money, Yuan Shikai also provided a variety of supporting measures.

In the Incheon Telegraph Office, telegrams can be sent with banknotes. Matches can be purchased with banknotes at the match factory, and cotton yarn can also be purchased with banknotes at the Incheon Spinning Mill. Coal and iron mines in Pyongyang also give priority to using Northeast banknotes when delivering.

Paper money is issued based on agricultural products such as grain and timber, and is digested by industrial products.