The discussion of the value of silver, gold, and copper in the Daming Times, and the arrangement of storytellers to focus on promoting this series of articles, finally made the merchants of the Ming Dynasty begin to think about whether the value of silver in their hands is really so stable. Because of this doubt, some merchants finally began to keep gold, ready to wait and see which way the wind went.

The opening of the gold futures market in Beijing has also attracted some funds investing in gold. In late April, the price of gold in the market finally began to recover again.

On April 28, three Japanese merchant ships arrived at the port of Tianjin, bringing with them the principal of 500,000 yuan borrowed from the central bank last year, plus 750,000 yuan in interest, 1.5 million yuan of funds for this purchase, and 600,000 yuan of arms money brought by Tokugawa Tadanaga through Sasuke Hamada.

The Keicho Ding Silver carried by the Japanese this time is basically 43 gauge Ding Yin. The Japanese unit of weight is equivalent to 3,759 grams of the new weights and measures, so a piece of silver weighs about 1,616 grams. The silver content of Qingchang Ding Silver is 80%, that is, 1293 grams of sterling silver. According to last year's agreement, each 43 pieces of Qingchang Ding silver were worth 47 Ming Yuan.

For every 50 boxes of Keichodin silver, the three ships contained 11,500 boxes. When Chongzhen heard the news, he immediately thought of an idea.

He instructed Lü Qi and Wang Fengyuan to go to Tianjin in person to meet with the Japanese businessmen and invite them to put on a good show. As a result, the news that three Japanese merchant ships had come to buy goods with 30,000 boxes of silver at a time quickly spread from Tianjin to the capital.

When loading and unloading these silver boxes, a few boxes were accidentally dropped on the dock, and the black-painted Qingchang Ding Silver fell out. The people watching at the Tianjin wharf were obviously frightened, although Tianjin is also regarded as the junction point of the north and south freight transport, and the money and goods that come up and down from the Tianjin wharf every year will not be less than the silver transported by the Japanese.

However, in the past, when the imperial court transported Taicang silver, it was afraid that it would be known to others, and it was too late to block the news along the way, where would it be for ordinary people to watch. Seeing that the ship was like a cash cow, how could the cash box be moved, it suddenly made some good men in the market red-eyed and began to move.

Lu Qi, who was in charge of handling this matter, hurriedly transferred a battalion of sergeants from the Tianjin Acropolis, and watched the heavily armed soldiers guarding the outside of the inn where the Japanese merchants stayed, so that these dizzy heroes could wake up.

It took 6 days to carry 5,000 boxes a day, and the silver boxes on the ship were removed, and the news spread quickly with the good deeds among the onlookers.

Soon, Wang Fengyuan came forward to announce that the silver taels brought by Japanese businessmen had been deposited in the central bank, and all the materials purchased by Japanese businessmen in Daming had been handed over to the central bank for purchase.

After 10 days, a bidding meeting will be held at the headquarters of the Central Bank of Beijing, and all powerful businessmen can go to bid for it. At the same time, several Japanese businessmen also published a statement in the Daming Times, hoping to meet some honest Daming businessmen in this bid and establish long-term trading relationships.

These Japanese businessmen promised that based on this bidding, the number of goods purchased each year for the next three years will not be less than the number of goods they won this time.

The arrival of these Japanese merchants made the merchants in the capital finally understand two things. 1. Japan is indeed a country with many silver mines, as the newspapers say; 2. To be able to obtain this opportunity to trade with Japanese merchants is equivalent to gaining the right to trade with Japanese merchants for the next three years.

But mortals in the capital, powerful businessmen or firms, have rushed to the central bank, ready to understand what kind of charter this so-called bidding is.

Wang Fengyuan was very talkative, and he told these businessmen that as the chairman of the board of directors of the central bank, he must take care of the customers of the central bank.

The materials purchased by the Japanese will be divided into two batches, the first batch will be the more profitable kind, and any individual or firm that has opened an account of 100,000 taels of silver with the central bank will be able to participate in a secret bidding first. The remaining categories will be subject to a public tender, but each bidder must present a letter of guarantee guaranteed by any bank, valued at not less than 50,000 taels, as a guarantee for the completion of the transaction.

Through this purchase incident by Japanese merchants, Chongzhen further undermined confidence in the market for silver. By the way, it also replenished part of the funds for the central bank, and also allowed more speculators to participate in the side of betting on the rise of gold.

After this incident, the gold futures market and the price of gold in the private sector finally began a slow but continuous upward process. The shareholders of the three banks finally realized that the gold bill issued by the imperial court alone could not influence the direction of gold in the Daming market.

Once again, the three banks mobilized their shareholders to raise and expand their own capital. Among them, Shanxi Bank has the largest capital expansion, and Shanxi Bank was initially established with only 350 yuan of shares. Years ago, because of the Gold Act, it was expanded to 6 million yuan.

But when the Shanxi businessmen realized that if they did not win a landslide victory in the gold market, their capital might also be damaged, they quickly expanded their stake to 20 million yuan. The Sandetang Changjia, which once controlled more than half of the shares of Shanxi Bank, had to give up some of its interests, and its shares were reduced to a quarter of the total share capital.

The Puzhou Zhang and Wang families, which were only a molecule before, took the opportunity of share capital expansion to make the equity held by the two families reach 225%. Originally, the Chang family, who had the power to be in charge of Shanxi Bank, can now only listen to the opinions of shareholders.

This situation in Shanxi Bank has made many children of the Chang family deeply dissatisfied. They think that there are too many rights and interests of the Chang family to retreat, and there is an example of Wang Fengyuan in front of them, and many children of the Chang family also dream that the Chang family can turn business into preciousness, and also get a knighthood to change the next court.

Although the Chang family can be said to be the same in the local area, their children do not feel any difference between their own family and those official eunuchs. But out of their hometown, these merchant children are not as high as a poor talent in the countryside in the eyes of others. This psychological contrast is enough to make people lose their psychological balance.

Compared with the Chang family, Wang Fengyuan is just a nouveau riche who has just made his fortune for a few generations. Such a person can get a title, and these children of the Chang family, who feel good about themselves, in addition to envy, naturally think that their own family should also have the qualification to be awarded a title by the emperor.

And Wang Fengyuan was able to enter the emperor's sight, isn't it because he firmly grasps the power of the central bank. Therefore, taking charge of Shanxi Bank has become the goal of these Chang family children. But the sudden appearance of the Zhang and Wang families in Puzhou suddenly broke the dreams of these Chang family children. To say that they do not resent the Zhang and Wang families, it must be unreasonable.

What makes these Chang family children even more angry is that although the Zhang and Wang families in Puzhou were born as merchants, they have now successfully turned into official eunuch families, and they actually don't need the emperor's knighthood. After all, there are ancestors and famous ministers such as Zhang Siwei and Wang Chonggu, and it is unlikely that these two families will be converted from the civil system to the noble system.

The central bank and the Bank of Communications have expanded to 32 million yuan and 27 million yuan respectively, and at this scale, the Hui business groups behind the central bank have essentially mortgaged all their belongings. On the one hand, it is the earliest layout of the central bank, so the amount of gold in reserve is the largest. Once the price of gold reverses, they will naturally suffer the greatest losses, which is difficult to ride.

On the other hand, although the drastic changes in the price of gold in the market mean that their estimates are somewhat biased, it is also a fact that there is less gold and more silver in the market. Otherwise, as long as a large amount of gold in the market is put down, they will not be able to hold on for a long time.

Now that things have taken a turn for the better, it is natural to chase down them in one go, and not let the trend of optimism about silver affect the market again. In fact, as soon as the people began to hesitate to keep the gold in their hands, the gold in the market immediately became scarce. And then, the more gold rises, the more people who own it are reluctant to sell.

After all, according to the advocacy of the Ming Times, the ratio of gold and silver should be between 1:145-155 to be normal. The European countries, which are separated by oceans, maintain this ratio. In Japan, the ratio of gold to silver is 1:12. This news was also confirmed by several Japanese businessmen.

By the end of May, gold-to-silver had once again reached the 1:12 level, with no turning back. When gold and silver broke through the all-time high of 1:12, Zhu Youzhen finally relieved himself and began to resume his normal life and rest arrangements.

In this gold speculation, a large number of people who listened to the Daming Times to bet on the rise of gold have won a lot of profits, for example, after Jiang Chaozong found the gold futures market, he first took out a little money and tried it out, and soon he pressed all the payments. By the end of May, the account profit had reached 1,500 yuan.

When other people began to be disturbed by the rising price of gold, and they all came to participate in gold futures trading, Jiang Chaozong began to slowly withdraw his capital and planned to withdraw from this gamble.

Although he has made a lot of money these days, Jiang Chaozong has firmly remembered that Su Changqing's article. The value of a commodity is determined by the intrinsic socially necessary labor time, and the price is no more than an outward manifestation of value, which may not correspond to value at some point, but in the long run it will inevitably return to a price that corresponds to value.

The income obtained from speculating on gold futures does not represent the growth of total social wealth, but only a pattern of wealth redistribution. Jiang Chaozong felt that since it was a redistribution of wealth, he had already distributed enough, and if he continued, he would just send the money back.

So he decided to use the money to buy a shop and continue his planned tea business. At this time, he wanted to know that Su Changqing even more, and it was precisely because of one of his articles that he saw a new landscape.

In the midst of this war between gold and silver, some discerning businessmen suddenly realized that the power of the imperial court was not unlimited. When the scale of the flow of money exceeds a certain limit, even the great emperor has to bow his noble head.