Although they were dissatisfied with Wang Anhou for letting Zhang Guoji express his opinions at the meeting, since Wang Anhou had been elected as the host of today's meeting, most of the people still sat back with a frown and listened to what this wealthy businessman in Jiangzhou said.

Zhang Guoji walked to the middle of the main hall, and after looking around at the expressions of everyone for a week, he said in a deep voice: "Although the imperial court has issued this golden bill, we always have to find out whether it can be implemented or not.

To be honest, according to the information we have received from the market, it is very likely that the bill issued by the imperial court this time will be realized. The gold to silver side in Jiangnan is 1 for 8, the Beijing side is 1 for 7, and the Guangdong side has reached 1 for 10. This is an increase of 2 to 30 percent from the exchange rate of gold for silver at the beginning of the year.

As long as the imperial court does not put forward too outrageous proposals at the next meeting of the Ministry of Households, then our three banks will definitely be able to obtain extremely high profits from it this time.

Therefore, what we need now is to elect representatives as soon as possible, participate in the financial meeting hosted by the Ministry of Households, and find out what these adults in the Ministry of Households think.

I would like to draw everyone's attention to one thing, among the three banks, I heard that the central bank's shares exceed 12 million taels of silver, and those Huizhou merchants now run the Bank of Communications more than 18 million taels, while the Shanxi Bank of Shanxi, in which our Shanxi Jin merchants have joint shares, is only 3.5 million taels.

I think that in addition to discussing this representative today, should we talk more about the expansion of Shanxi Bank's shares? ”

What Zhang Guoji said before still made everyone present deeply agree. But in the end, he changed the topic and actually put forward a proposal to expand the shares, which immediately caused an uproar among everyone.

However, after the uproar, the crowd did not immediately raise objections, but fell into deep thought.

At the beginning, under the pressure of Chongzhen, a group of Jin merchants had to raise 3.5 million taels of silver to form this Shanxi bank.

No one thought about what they would gain from this so-called bank. But all the Jin merchants knew that the emperor probably didn't care who was involved in the establishment of the bank. But he will definitely remember who did not finance the establishment of this bank.

Therefore, as long as there are some famous Jin merchant families in Shanxi, they have invested some money in this Shanxi bank. However, because they were worried that Chongzhen was using this name to loot their assets, everyone did not invest much in the share capital, and in the end, it was the Chang family's Sandetang who underwrote the remaining shares.

However, a few months passed, and Chongzhen did not reach out to the newly established Shanxi Bank, which reassured the Jin businessmen who held shares in Shanxi Bank.

Subsequently, the expansion of investment in coal and iron mines, coking coal plants, iron-making plants, and track casting factories around the construction of the Shanxi Railway by the Inner Government finally made these Jin merchants understand that the imperial court said that it was not a pretext to build the Shanxi Railway.

Although the railway has not yet officially started, it has in fact created a lot of profits for the Jin merchants who operate the timber, coal, and iron industries.

These Jin merchants were shrewd people, and they soon discovered that it was a question whether they could recover the cost of investing in the construction of the railway. But the money invested will not run out of Shanxi.

On top of that, Shaanxi's drought-stricken and near-infinite availability of cheap labor allowed them to build the railway at a lower cost.

When the Jin merchants accepted the paper money, they quickly felt the benefits of using it. Although there were silver scrolls similar to silver bills for trading between Jin merchants, there were also small receipts issued by Jin merchants for trading with familiar customers.

However, this kind of banknote, which is equivalent to privately issued, is not widely popular, so it has not caused a great impact.

However, when the Jin merchants accepted the exchange of paper money, they immediately found that in the state of ensuring that paper money can be exchanged for silver taels anytime and anywhere, the convenience and stability of using paper money in transactions is certainly not comparable to silver taels.

At least the two tasks of checking the fineness of the silver taels during the transaction and transporting the silver taels after the trade is completed, can now be regarded as reducing the burden.

In just a few months, most of the Jin merchants, who used paper money, soon discovered the mystery of the exchange between paper money and silver.

According to the order issued by the imperial court, each banknote with a face value of one yuan can be exchanged for a silver coin with a fineness of ninety and a weight of seven coins and two cents.

However, as long as the bank can guarantee the exchange and maintain the credit of the banknote, most people will not exchange the banknote in their hands for silver coins, but will choose to trade it.

Some Jin merchants were even able to roughly estimate the rate of exchange of paper money for silver coins from the circulation of paper money in the market. According to their estimates, about one-third of the banknotes will be exchanged for silver taels and withdrawn from the market.

This is still the result of the Ming people's half-belief in paper money, if with the growth of the use of paper money, can wash away the bad influence of the people on the treasure banknote, the exchange rate will be reduced.

If you follow the ideas of these Jin merchants, in fact, it is most suitable to issue three times the banknotes for every tael of silver.

This was equivalent to three taels for every tael of silver, and these merchant families, who were immersed in the sea of commerce, immediately realized that they could use it by tripling their liquidity through the bank, as long as they could convince the imperial court.

This is also an idea they had when they went to Beijing this time. And the reason why these Jin merchants and nobles are so fiercely competing for the place of representatives is that they want to take this opportunity to get in touch with the household department, so as to seize the power to dominate the Shanxi Bank.

Although these Jin merchants are quite good in business, their thinking about running business is still in the mind of officials and businessmen who use power to monopolize business operations.

Although Sandetang now holds the largest equity of Shanxi Bank, according to the past experience of these Jin merchant families, as long as the imperial court speaks, even if Sandetang takes more equity, he must obediently hand over the current dominant power.

However, these Jin merchants are also a little hesitant, those officials in the household department are easy to deal with, but those fathers-in-law in the palace are not easy to deal with.

At present, in addition to the financial office established by the Ministry of Households, the affairs of the bank are the governors of the inner government.

It's not that the Ministry of Household wants the palace to intervene, but for something new like a bank, not to mention that the officials of the Ministry of Household Affairs are not clear, even the most outstanding talents of this era may not be able to understand the operation of banking business.

Therefore, when Chongzhen intervened in the management of bank affairs through the governor, the officials of the household department could not object.

Therefore, if they let the household officials intervene in the bank's business affairs, then the palace will also have an excuse to directly meddle in the bank's internal affairs.

But now Zhang Guoji has come up with a good idea for them, taking the opportunity of the Golden Bill issued by the Ministry of Households to directly expand the bank's share capital, so as to leverage Sandetang's controlling stake in the bank.

For these Jin merchant families, as long as they can ensure the safety of their funds, they do not lack the courage to invest funds, and their families are not short of funds.

"Zhang Changan is right, if the gold bill issued by the imperial court can really be completed, with our current bank share capital, it is obvious that we can't compete with the other two banks.

The Hui business-run Bank of Communications will not take care of it first, it was established later than our bank. But this central bank is different, it is not only the first bank to be established, but also presided over by Wang Fengyuan was knighted by His Majesty.

In fact, even if I don't say it, everyone should know that the central bank has been slowly absorbing gold in various places for a long time, otherwise the gold exchange rate would not have risen so fast. Houmarlean finally broke the silence and spoke.

As he spoke, the representatives of the various families present really began to shift their attention, and soon the venue was automatically divided into three factions.

Jin Shang, who was good friends with the Chang family, thought that this matter was too sudden, and it was better to notify the principals of the bank who were now in charge first.

Because of their strong influence in the DPRK, several prominent families in Puzhou are still inclined to bring in the influence of the DPRK and China into the bank.

As for the majority of Jin merchants, they are more inclined to Zhang Guoji's suggestion that they should take the form of expanding their share capital and adjust the current management power of the bank.

After a day of gambling, the three parties finally reached a compromise. Chang Jia, Zhang Jia, and Hou Jia, as representatives of the bank, attended the meeting of the Ministry of Households, but after the meeting, the three representatives had to return to announce the contents of the meeting to the public.

As for the issue of the expansion of the share capital, they discussed it after the meeting held by the Ministry of Households. Of course, this is also a time for everyone to report back to their families.

Zhang Guoji was shocked to find that after listening to his proposal, these representatives of the Jin Shang family stole his idea, threw him aside again, and formed an alliance between the families again.

When he walked out of the main hall, Zhang Guoji's face looked a little gloomy. He rushed to the capital in such a hurry, naturally he didn't want to come to help these big families.

As a Jin merchant, he can't get rid of some Jin merchant habits. For example, they like to be attached to power, and they always want to use the power of the government to expand their industries.

He befriended the Donglin Party, and from time to time funded those Donglin Partymen, in addition to wanting to gain the favor of the Southern scholars, he also bet that the Donglin Party could turn over in the court, so as to obtain greater returns.

However, after the new emperor ascended the throne, the Donglin Party was not reused, but those Hui merchants actually got the favor of Chongzhen, especially Wang Fengyuan's knighthood, which inspired the ambitions of many businessmen.

He also hopes to use this opportunity to get a chance for himself to improve. He didn't think that he would be inferior to Wang Fengyuan.

Especially Zhang Guoji, he has been traveling for most of his life, and finally from an ordinary businessman to a well-known businessman. But under the backdrop of Wang Fengyuan's circumstances, his struggle experience is really a little inadequate.