Section 127
"Go over there and wait for a while. Brother Yue... Brother Yue will need a long time... before..."
When she recovered from the aftereffect, Sister Zhuzhu had already walked away.
Ren Tingting wiped the saliva from the corner of her mouth. It was really embarrassing. She had lost control just now and her saliva was flowing out.
At the same time, she couldn't help but observe Brother Yue from behind. In the past few months, Brother Yue's ability seemed to have become stronger. Before, she and Butterfly teamed up to barely subdue the dragon.
And now, the two of them have been defeated again.
How could they know that Yue Zhenshan's martial arts cultivation had broken through many times, his body had entered the innate level, and his entire body cells were almost evolving into extraordinary creatures, which was beyond the reach of mortals like them.
At this time, Yue Zhenshan also missed the foreign motorcycle he once owned.
It was really tough.
Half an hour later, Yue Zhenshan packed up and came to the study.
"Sister Zhuzhu, long time no see, you have become more beautiful!"
"Ayue, you only know how to lie to me, so bad--"
Asking Yue Zhenshan with his hormones bursting, Ren Zhuzhu couldn't help blushing again.
"Haha--"
"Do you like me to lie to you?"
"Hate it, I came here to discuss business this time, Ayue, take a look at these two documents first!"
Once she was teased by Yue Zhenshan, she pushed Yue Zhenshan away and handed him the documents on the table.
Although Yue Zhenshan is lustful, he never procrastinates when it comes to doing business.
After all, Prime Minister Cao will not delay the fight for hegemony because of his love for popularity, and he will never show mercy to those who should be killed.
"Analysis of the loss of wealth in Shenzhou?"
It turned out to be an investigation report. Ren Zhuzhu was responsible for the financial work under Yue Zhenshan's rule. After she took office, in addition to preparing her own bank, another job was to prepare for financial work.
Opening the first page, the first thing is a few questions.
All the war reparations of the previous dynasties added up were not as much as the 900 million taels of silver that Heshen embezzled back then. Why didn't Heshen lose all of China, but was instead impoverished by the war reparations of the great powers?
China had been leading the world for a thousand years, how did all the accumulated wealth flow out to the West in a short period of time, and China has since become a poor country with a difficult survival, how did the wealth flow out?
What is the essence of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895?
Why did China have to pay the indemnity of the Treaty of Shimonoseki in pounds?
What are the deep-seated reasons for this?
Several propositions successfully attracted Yue Zhenshan's attention. Even if he came from the future, he had no knowledge reserves in this area.
From the data collected by Ren Zhuzhu, first of all, unless a miracle happened, China was almost doomed to fail in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.
All this was the result of the British calculations behind the scenes.
The British lent the Japanese 150 million taels of silver, all of which were used as armaments to fight this war.
How much did all the equipment of the Beiyang Fleet cost?
The Beiyang Fleet cost only 20 million taels of silver. How could it not lose when it was 150 million against 20 million?
Behind the war was the heinous international financial capital.
Many people believed that Japan made a fortune in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.
But the real winners were international financial capital and Western powers. The huge indemnity of the Treaty of Shimonoseki was paid by the international banking consortium with a principal and interest of 600 million yuan. The interest and re-agent, which were nearly twice the indemnity, were all earned by international financial capital. The windfall earned by international financial capital far exceeded Japan's war profits.
And Japan's war proceeds were mostly used to repay foreign debts to international financial capital, and to purchase arms from the powers again. Most of the profits still flowed into the pockets of the powers and the crocodiles.
What was even more terrifying was the financial and monetary war that the powers launched. They threatened the devaluation of Shenzhou's silver and demanded that the Shenzhou court must pay in pounds, so that Shenzhou had to sell silver in exchange for pounds.
The silver exchange rate between Shenzhou and the powers against pounds was originally fixed. Under the run of the Japanese war reparations, this fixed exchange rate was broken.
According to the announcement made by the General Commissioner of Customs, Hart in 1896, the price of silver against the British pound has been constantly depreciating, and it has been six to seven taels to buy one pound of British currency. China's silver has depreciated to half of its original value. Before, it was three taels to one pound.
Such depreciation is the depreciation of precious metal currency with resource nature against paper currency, which is the intensification of our silver outflow and resource outflow. Our silver outflow has caused greater currency deflation, and the economic development of China has been completely strangled.
Such a huge depreciation of silver will inevitably cause greater losses to China.
Chapter 160: Advancement of the God of Fortune
The depreciation of silver has led to the collapse of the exchange rate.
After the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the repayment of loans from the powers and financial capital will result in huge exchange losses, which is called pound loss. The manipulation of the exchange rate between gold and silver by international financial capital, as well as the exchange of British pound paper currency for real silver in China, has huge benefits.
Not to mention these indirect financial benefits, after the depreciation, the customs tax revenue and our trade losses will be huge after the depreciation.
All these losses added up are definitely not 230 million taels of silver.
Nor is it 600 million taels of silver with interest.
Rather, it is a loss of tens to hundreds of millions of taels of silver.
Using physical silver to fight against the mature financial system of paper money in the West is an extremely terrible thing.
The Opium War opened the customs door for China's material trade, and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 opened the door to China's financial market.
After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, from 1898 to 1913, the average annual import and export volume of China increased to more than 600 million taels, of which the export volume was about 250 million yuan.
China is a self-sufficient agricultural society, and what it needs to purchase from abroad is basically rigid demand, such as foreign goods, black slices, etc.
The change in imports will not be very large, and the growth of import trade volume exceeding 200 million taels is basically the effect of silver depreciation.
China spends more than 200 million taels of silver every year for no reason.
And foreign countries buy our goods with the same money, but can buy twice as many things with the same money.
More than 200 million exports can buy 200 million more materials and resources, so the total is two Shimonoseki Treaties every year, or one Boxer Protocol indemnity every year.
These wealth will disappear forever for China.
When Heshen confiscated 900 million, the two families were more antiques, calligraphy and paintings, and the value of industrial real estate was less than 30 million yuan in silver.
No matter how the internal wealth is circulated, it is still in the country. The meat is rotten in the pot and will be transformed into new wealth by us.
The outflow of resources is the transfer of wealth to other countries.
Such losses year after year will soon consume the historical wealth of China. Such losses are much more terrible than war. They directly hollowed out China and pulled China down from the throne of the world's richest country.
From here we can see a combination of punches from Western powers and financial capital.
The war against China supported by Japan, the financial war launched with the help of military war.
The outflow of silver from China caused deflation in China.
The specific manifestation is the serious imbalance of the exchange between silver and copper coins.
It is devalued externally and appreciated internally. Comprehensive calculation shows that there is a gap of more than four times here, considering the changes in the actual purchasing power of silver. As mentioned earlier, the West plundered more than 400 million taels of silver from China every year through financial and monetary wars, which actually doubled. What was actually taken away was the value of 800 million taels of silver.
Moreover, silver cannot be used as a financial derivative like paper money. After a large amount of silver from China was outflowed, it would inevitably cause domestic deflation. The great powers could then use silver to buy things and exchange them for more resources.
That's not all. After they obtained silver, they sold it in large quantities on the international market, causing a greater depreciation of silver and the pound.
China does not have a financial system and a central bank, and it has no ability to maintain the price of silver on the international market. In this way, China will pay a higher price when using silver to purchase imported materials, and domestic deflation will become more serious, creating a vicious cycle.
In China's modern history, don't always focus on the compensation for China's various defeats.
The loss of resources in China is the key to China's decline into a poor country, and the main means of outflow is not military.
The efficiency of economic means of plunder is far greater than that of military means. We cannot always focus on military and war, while ignoring finance and currency. Only financial war and currency war can plunder wealth at the fastest speed.
Before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the GDP of the previous dynasty was equivalent to that of the 1990s in the previous life, and the per capita GDP was higher. Shenzhou has accumulated wealth that is 1,000 years ahead of the world. Wealth cannot be judged only by annual GDP production, but also by GDP accumulation. Such a huge wealth.
With more than 400 million or even 1 billion taels of silver flowing out every year, under such circumstances, the wealth of a country that has been passed down for 5,000 years and once ranked first in the world in GDP for a thousand years was looted by Western powers and financial capital in a short period of time.
Don't worry about the financial investigation report made by Ren Zhuzhu.
Yue Zhenshan himself fell into deep thought. In his previous life, to put it bluntly, he was just a otaku, and he didn't know anything about finance.
And Ren Zhuzhu's report revealed the bloody wound on the Shenzhou dragon, allowing Yue Zhenshan to see clearly how the sleeping dragon lost blood, so that it almost fell apart and was dismembered into warlords of different sizes by Western powers.
It's really shocking! !
First, I separated the God of Fortune clone to increase my fortune. It seems that I made the right choice. The more markets I occupied, the less blood the powers would suck through trade, which would also leave some vitality for Shenzhou.
"Sister Zhuzhu, is there any way to solve this problem now?"
"The solution is very simple, that is to establish a modern financial system and issue our own paper money. Have our own central bank, learn from Western countries, use gold as an anchor metal, and establish a monetary system with gold as the standard currency."
"Uh..."
"We can't rush this matter, let's take our time."
Yue Zhenshan stopped asking questions instantly, because if he took a big step, it would be easy to pull his balls.
He only controls the territory of five counties now, how can he issue paper money based on the gold standard? This is just a mess!
In any case, at least two or three provinces must be occupied, and the scale must be large enough to have the confidence to do this. Otherwise, it will make things uncomfortable for yourself. Building financial barriers will provoke Western countries to fight against you, right?
"Ah Yue, don't you want to build a modern bank?"
Seeing Yue Zhenshan's refusal, Ren Zhuzhu was a little disappointed. This report took her a lot of effort.