Chapter 367 Big Hands in the Financial City

London, Westminster, 4 Whitehall Street, Greater London Police.

Arthur sat at his desk, staring at the report that recorded the list of shareholders of George Wilkinson for a long time without moving his eyes.

It is not appropriate to say that he was reading the document. To be precise, Arthur was savoring it.

Even if other shareholders are excluded, the first name on the list of shareholders alone is enough for him to savor it for several days.

It is not accurate to say that it is the first name, but in this document sent by the French Embassy, ​​these people in the front row can be summed up with one name - Lloyd's Insurance.

As the most successful insurance company in the world today, and perhaps the most successful insurance company in the three hundred years from the 19th to the 21st century, Lloyd's Insurance has gradually become a golden signboard for the British and even the world shipping industry since the 17th century.

But most people would not have thought that Edward Lloyd, the founder of this insurance giant, was actually a small self-employed business owner who ran a coffee shop in the 17th century.

At the beginning, Lloyd's Coffee Shop was located on Tower Street near the Thames.

Since Tower Street is adjacent to the docks in London, and is close to important maritime departments such as the London Customs, the Admiralty and the Port Authority, and their coffee may be full of the taste of the sea, and Mr. Lloyd is a talkative person.

So, over time, this place has become a place for captains, sailors, owners of small loan companies and insurance merchants who make a living at the docks to gather and brag and discuss tips for making money.

Some insurance merchants even put their offices directly on the tables of Lloyd's Café because of the large flow of customers here. They drink afternoon tea here while signing insurance policies with customers and conducting business.

A few years later, Mr. Lloyd made some money by running a cafe, so he moved the location of the cafe to a more high-end and upscale place where customers have stronger spending power, the intersection of Lombard Street and Fong Road, the location of the London Royal Exchange.

As a successful cafe operator at this time, Mr. Lloyd's top priority after the relocation was how to attract new customers while retaining those old customers.

He was keenly aware of the insurance brokers' thirst for the latest news. Since the communication conditions were very poor at that time, most of the merchants sitting in the store drinking coffee could only wait for news silently. They were either waiting for the merchant ships that were about to arrive, or exchanging information and discussing international news. Those whose lives were hanging by a thread would come to Lloyd every three to five minutes to ask whether the merchant ship of Captain X had arrived.

In order to better serve customers and expand his customer base, Lloyd began to take the initiative to let the waiters pay attention to the merchants coming and going, and record the most timely shipping information from them, including shipping information of major ports and terminals at sea and inland rivers, international and domestic situations, new trends in the business community, etc.

In the evening, Lloyd would collect these latest news and write them on the bulletin board in the store for customers to browse.

Not only that, Mr. Lloyd also thoughtfully set up a podium in the most prominent position of the cafe, where the waiters would read out shipping information to the merchants every day. After all, not all people who work in insurance can read, right? In this era of widespread illiteracy, there are nouveau riche people in every industry.

However, not every insurance merchant visits Lloyd's Coffee House every day. Everyone may have some family affairs.

In order to solve this problem, Mr. Lloyd specially published a newspaper called "Lloyd's Shipping News" so that merchants who missed the news could check the past information.

In this way, the small Lloyd's Coffee House gradually became the main trading market for the insurance industry in London. By 1719, the amount of marine insurance transactions completed in the coffee house reached an astonishing 9 million pounds.

And "Lloyd's Shipping News" also developed into "Lloyd's Shipping Daily". The authority of this newspaper in the insurance industry is second only to the "London Gazette", which is specially used by the British government to publish major political news. Even "The Times" and "Manchester Guardian" cannot compare with it in this regard.

The old customers of Lloyd's Café also spontaneously organized an organization called Lloyd's Register. Their main business is to evaluate the safety factor level of ships and register them in the "Lloyd's Register of Ships" for reference by major shipowners and insurance merchants.

If only these were the case, the name Lloyd's would obviously not be worth mentioning.

The reason why Lloyd's Insurance was put out separately was that in 1771, insurance merchants found that the small Lloyd's Café was increasingly unable to support the large group of insurance merchants to do business.

Therefore, an old customer of the cafe, Dutch insurance merchant Van Meer, proposed to everyone to establish a "New Lloyd's" firm as a trading platform for marine insurance.

He issued shares of the new firm at a price of 100 pounds per person and quickly raised nearly 10,000 pounds of funds, while John Angerstein, a Russian insurer from St. Petersburg, proposed that the company should rent office space at the Royal Exchange.

But although the merchants were satisfied with the location of the Royal Exchange, they were not happy with the method of renting.

Therefore, they directly took over the office building of the Royal Exchange with full payment and used it as the trading venue of Lloyd's Insurance.

The difference between Lloyd's Insurance and other insurance companies is that it is not like a company in the popular sense, but more like a public trading platform for individual insurance merchants.

If we apply the concept of later generations, Lloyd's Insurance is a complete syndicate-type monopoly organization.

In terms of independence, although the participants of the syndicate remain independent in production and law, they are completely subject to the head office in business and cannot act independently.

The members of the syndicate must be highly unified in business. They cannot have direct contact with the market and can only negotiate business through the syndicate.

If a member of a syndicate wants to withdraw, it will cost a lot, including rebuilding the purchase and sales agency and reorganizing the connection with the market.

In addition, the withdrawal may be obstructed and excluded by the syndicate.

Lloyd's Insurance is such an insurance syndicate, which is composed of thousands of insurance merchants from all over the world, all of whom are independently or jointly underwritten through the platform of Lloyd's Insurance.

In the underwriting business of Lloyd's Insurance, there may be only a few people underwriting some small projects, while some large projects may be jointly underwritten by hundreds or thousands of people.

The special structure of Lloyd's Insurance has also led to a rapid growth in the number of its members since its inception.

Here, as long as you can show proof of assets of 500 pounds, you can become an insurance partner of Lloyd's Insurance.

And this special development model has also enabled Lloyd's Insurance to win 90% of the insurance business of the British shipping industry and 50% of the world's shipping industry after more than half a century of changes.

It is no exaggeration to say that almost all ships moored at London docks are basically insured by Lloyd's Insurance.

Moreover, due to the huge cash flow held by Lloyd's Insurance, it is also a force that cannot be underestimated in the London Stock Exchange. Even in the political circle, the bigwigs in London have always attached importance to this group of insurance merchants who support the maritime empire.

The reason is simple, because this group of people can earn hundreds of millions of pounds of wealth for Britain from overseas every year, and send a steady stream of gold and silver to Britain.

Moreover, after they had money, the partners of Lloyd's Insurance also developed a strong interest in politics. They like to sponsor MPs and also run for MPs themselves.

As for their political views, apart from other aspects, at least in foreign relations, they, like most businessmen, uphold the principle of peace.

As we all know, wealth is naturally risk-averse. So except for a few industries, war is usually avoided.

As for which type of wealth hates war the most, there is no doubt that it must be the insurance sellers, especially large multinational insurance companies like Lloyd's Insurance.

No matter which side wins the war between the two countries, they basically lose money.

There are many names on the list in Arthur's hand that he feels familiar with, and he even met them directly when he was listening in the House of Commons that day.

Since the Polish issue emerged last year, these MPs who have close ties with Lloyd's Insurance have been calling on Poland and Russia to maintain a restrained position in the House of Commons.

And when the Westminster Union hoped that the government could send troops to intervene in the Polish issue, these guys reacted quite strongly.

Now that Lloyd's Insurance does not want Poland to go to war with Russia, since this has become an established fact, their top priority now is to coordinate the relationship between Britain and Russia as much as possible to avoid further conflict between the two world powers.

After all, Poland being flattened by the Russians did not have much impact on Lloyd's Insurance, but once Russia and Britain started to quarrel, it would be difficult for these insurance merchants not to remember the news that merchant ships were sunk at sea during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Seven Anti-French Alliances were not only a disaster for France, but also a disaster for Lloyd's Insurance.

For these insurance brokers, the white pounds were all sent to the muzzle of the gun, which was simply a sin!

Facing this group of "pacifists" with strange views, Arthur couldn't tell what he felt in his heart.

If Lloyd's Insurance was deeply involved in the assassination in Liverpool, then many problems could indeed be explained.

With the strength of these insurance merchants, it would be easy to find out Arthur's whereabouts in a port city like Liverpool. It can even be said that it was a miracle that Arthur was not killed in this assassination.

This can only mean that they really did not intend to make the relationship with the government too tense, nor did they intend to kill Arthur. Or maybe they had already negotiated with the superiors, and everything was done to a certain extent, just to make some shocking news headlines.

After all, if the superintendent of Scotland Yard really died in Liverpool, then if there was no serious explanation, it would make the cabinet embarrassed.

Thinking of this, Arthur finally understood the slow progress of the investigation of the House of Commons Investigation Committee.

This assassination, the Ministry of the Interior promoted the legislation of the Municipal Police Act.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reached an agreement to suppress the voice of aid to Poland from public opinion, and Lloyd's Insurance reduced the potential risk of war between Russia and Britain.

In terms of cholera prevention and control, the cabinet also has a legitimate reason to increase the screening and isolation of foreign immigrants, and it can also hammer the Liverpool municipal government, which has been acting on various issues in recent years.

As for the Russians, they can calmly deal with Poland without worrying about Britain stabbing them in the back. As for the Poles’ allies, the French…

Judging from the fact that Talleyrand would take the initiative to contact a little person like Arthur, their situation is indeed very bad. The old cripple did not go to his old friend the Duke of Wellington, but chose to start at Arthur's level. This in itself shows that he just wanted to make a last effort before things went completely wrong.

When Arthur thought of this, he suddenly picked up the document and threw it into the fireplace in the room.

He watched the paper burn, curl, and burn away bit by bit in the flames. He just smoothed the hair on his forehead and muttered: "I'm sorry, Mr. Talleyrand, I'm afraid I can't help you this time. But An outstanding person like you should understand that this is not because I don’t value our friendship, but this question has been a multiple-choice question from the beginning.”

Arthur was talking when suddenly, the door of the office was pushed open.

"Arthur..."

Louis held the document he had just received, with a gloomy face and said: "Mr. Harrison, he..."

Arthur seemed to have had a premonition about this, so he just poured two glasses of wine and handed one to Louis.

"What's wrong? Hanging, jumping into a river, jumping off a building, you can't just follow the old Russian methods and have a stroke, right?"

Louis was silent for a while and replied: "He committed suicide with a letter opener. Before committing suicide, he left a handwritten letter in which he admitted that he hired a killer to go to Liverpool to assassinate him. And the investigation committee is still in Harrison Several remittance notes he gave to the killer were found in his mansion."

Upon hearing this, Arthur drank all the wine in his glass, and then opened the drawer of his desk. There were four investigation reports that he had written in advance. This time, he chose the top one.

Arthur raised his hand and handed the document to Louis, and said: "There are two copies inside. One copy should be given to Director Rowan, and the other copy can be forwarded to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and presented to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Viscount Melbourne."

Louis didn't even need to read what was written inside, he fully understood what Arthur meant.

But at this time, he still hopes to fight. Louis hinted: "According to the internal training manual compiled by you, if the victim's body has more than two fatal stab wounds, and the wound distribution is relatively messy, it will be more difficult to understand. Yes, the handle of the knife..."

"Louis." Arthur put down his glass and asked, "What is the full name of the training manual?"

Louis blurted out: "Report! "Criminal Investigation Manual."

"That's right." Arthur shrugged: "This is a political crime, not a criminal crime, so the manual is not applicable in this case. As for why there were multiple fatal stab wounds on Mr. Harrison's body, I tend to think he is a stronger person.”

When Louis heard that Arthur had already said this, he finally stopped insisting.

He sighed and nodded: "Okay, I understand."

He picked up the document and turned around to prepare to go out. He put his hand on the door handle for a long time, and the more he thought about it, the more uncomfortable he felt.

How could members of the Napoleon family tolerate such anger?

While he was still digesting his emotions, he heard Arthur's voice coming from behind him.

"In some cases, there is no rush. Although there is only one truth, in most cases, people will transform it into multiple forms. Clay figures cannot withstand the rain, and the truth cannot withstand investigation. We still have a long way to go. If they urgently need the truth now, then give it to him. Next, we just have to wait and see what comes to the surface and what else they want to do."

When Louis heard this, he suddenly turned to look at Arthur and asked, "What do you think they want to do?"

"I don't know." Arthur held the wine glass and looked up at Whitehall Street outside the window: "I just feel that the disputes between the Whigs seem to be more hidden and complicated than those between the Tories."