At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the bank had become the prototype of a bank. It not only operated exchanges, but also provided loans and provided the convenience of issuing postal withdrawals. The bills exchanged between the two places also became a credit circulation tool in the nature of banknotes or checks issued by the bank. In addition, Several small-scale money exchange shops, money rice shops, etc. are quite active in rural areas.
There is usually not much difference between a bank and a bank. Traditionally, people in North China and Northeast China are often called bank. People in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and in southeastern China have both names. When the Zhonghua Company opened a bank, Yin Feng specially chose it. It is named "Qianhao" to show that it is different.
In the areas controlled by the Ming Dynasty government on the mainland, Zhonghua Qianhao-Huaxing Qianhao operated money exchange and lending services with the most traditional Chinese characteristics; overseas, Zhonghua Qianhao also had the same functions as a central bank, the most important of which was to issue currency. , Therefore, most of the gold and silver stored in the Taiwan Headquarters Treasury must be used as currency reserves.
At the end of November, after the preliminary statistics of this year's overseas trade volume were released, the taxation situation of various places was also reported to the port city of Taiwan. This year's war in Nanyang came at an untimely time, which caused most of the military settlements that had already passed the three to five-year tax holiday. Immigration villages and plantations were unable to pay taxes and had to rely on relief from local garrison offices and Chinese merchant houses. Customs tax revenue was almost completely lost due to the war. Due to tight supply of goods, prices rose. Trade profits did rise, but in terms of trade volume, fell sharply.
Yin Feng did not intend to undermine the formal financial industry in his ruling area. Therefore, Yin Feng categorically rejected the suggestion of using Qianhao's reserve funds to ease the company's losses.
Yin Feng turned around and said to everyone: "At present, our currency has just begun to circulate in various places and is on the right track. There are too many places to use money everywhere. Therefore, in response to the current financial crisis, don't have any confidence in the money account and Bank of the East. What a hope. Okay, everyone has seen enough gold and silver treasures. There will be a meeting tomorrow in the palace chamber. All board members, major military officers, and officials from all ministries will participate. Oh, this is called an enlarged meeting."
The crowd poured out of the basement and came to the main hall in a zigzag manner. Lin Tianping, the captain of Yin Feng's personal guard, stepped forward to report: "Urgent report from Jiangnan Manager Chen."
In his study, Yin Feng opened Chen Zhongji's report again by the west wall, then found the location of Chongming Island on the map of the entire Ming Dynasty hanging in the study, then moved his finger westward along the Yangtze River, and finally stopped at Wuchang.
Chen Zhongji's report said: The Chinese infantry troops were divided into four groups within a few days, and within ten days they captured most of the three prefectural areas under the control of the Ming Dynasty's army: Suzhou, Changzhou, and Zhenjiang. The South Road was approaching Huzhou, Jiaxing, and the Middle Road. Having crossed the canal and broken through Danyang, the North Route Infantry and the naval fleet occupied Zhenjiang and were approaching Jinling along the river.
Due to the countercurrent and headwind, the naval fleet moved slowly, but there was no obstacle along the way. It had passed Jinling City and reached the Taiping River. A secret stake from the Military Intelligence Bureau came to report that a large number of Ming warships had been gathered in Wuhu, including nearly a thousand. A fire ship and all civilian ships along the Yangtze River between Huguang and Liangjiang have been looted.
Before launching the Jiangnan offensive, Yin Feng sent a letter to Chen Zhongji and others, asking them to pay attention to the Ming army's fire ship tactics. The Ming Dynasty's naval warships were not worth mentioning. The only thing they were good at was using fire ships to attack. Although in They have never been able to win a battle using this tactic at sea, but on the narrow Yangtze River, large sailing ships have limited room for maneuver, and they still need to be prepared to face the attack of fire ships moving down the wind and river.
Chen Zhongji also mentioned in this report that before the Yangtze River Task Force set off from Chongming Island, a circle of long bamboo poles with iron headers had been installed around the hulls of all major warships. The bamboo poles would be put down in time of war, like
Umbrella support poles were spread around the ship like umbrellas to block the impact of fire ships. At the same time, Taiwan Fleet Commander Mai Dahai rushed to build a batch of hand-rowed speedboats in the south of the Yangtze River. The bows were all covered with iron sheets. When the time came, they would lower the water and use manpower
Row your boat to ram the fire ship.
Yin Feng was still a little worried about this, and wrote another letter, asking Chen Zhongji and Mai Dahai to be careful and not to underestimate the enemy. In any case, the fleet must move westward in unison, with the ultimate goal of hitting Wuchang.
As for the ultimate combat goal of the infantry, most of the staff of the Chinese Army's Operations Department believed that the goal should be to break Jinling City again.
There were originally 60,000 garrison troops in Jinling City. Now the defeated Ming Dynasty troops from all over the surrounding areas are gradually retreating into the city. It is estimated that there are over 100,000 Ming troops in the city. The regular main force of the Chinese Army is more than 7,000 people. In addition, the Li nationality camp and other independent
The troops, including the Jiangnan militia, numbered less than 12,000. It was possible to use heavy artillery to open the gates of Nanjing, but the Ming army, which was already familiar with Chinese weapons and tactics, would they still do what they did in the last anti-sea ban war?
The officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were so frightened by the heavy artillery fire and hot air balloons of the Chinese army that the entire army collapsed after just one city gate was breached.
Yin Feng is not a military strategist. The goal he followed when he founded the Chinese Army was the weapons and tactics of the Napoleonic era. However, he himself did not have Napoleon's war art. Therefore, his soldiers were trained to be very elite, and his officers
Observe disciplines, act according to the rules in combat, rarely play tricks, use surprise troops, and rely on too many technical advantages over the opponent to rush directly to the enemy for a decisive battle; or stick to the position and use firepower to weaken the opponent to the point where he can no longer fight, and then
Rushing to deal with opponents, people like Yan Siqi and Zheng Zhilong who are willing to take risks are among the smaller number of alternative elements in the Chinese Army.
However, Yin Feng still knew the principle of "not limited to the gains and losses of one city or one place" in combat, so he rejected the suggestion of attacking Nanjing and only asked the Jiangnan Chinese Army to capture all the areas around Yingtianfu to form an attack on Jinling City.
Loosely encircle, attract the Ming army in the city to come out for rescue, and strive to annihilate the Ming army in the field battle where the Chinese army is best.
The next day, the large conference hall of the China Company headquarters was packed with people early in the morning. This conference hall was newly built according to Yin Feng's wishes. It has a half-moon-shaped hall structure. The chairman's position is surrounded by rows of seats.
This seating arrangement seems very novel and interesting to everyone, but they all think it is just the personal preference of the captain.
The number of people attending the meeting far exceeded everyone's imagination, including all board directors in Taiwan, all school-level military officers without combat missions, chief officials at all levels of government affairs departments, as well as heads of departments of China Corporation and branches in various places,
Many shopkeepers from the store were also present.
Everyone has heard that this is a meeting convened by the Shipowner King to determine the policy direction for a long period of time in the future. Moreover, this meeting will officially announce the official system and local administrative system of the area under the jurisdiction of the King of China, and will adjust the war plans decided years ago.
Plan - that is, next year's plan.
Xu Hongji, Zeng Shan and others, including Zeng Jingshan, the Luzon garrison who rushed back from Luzon, didn't understand why Yin Feng called so many people for a meeting. However, Yin Feng had too many weird and unreasonable behaviors over the years, and he didn't understand. He could see something was wrong, so he kept silent.
No one has ever held such a meeting. Only Yin Feng often went to cover various government and enterprise meetings before time travel, so he was familiar with various meeting procedures. Under his chairmanship, he basically had complete control over the entire meeting, but he did not Cheng Yiyantang, first, director Li Jin reported on this year's overseas trade income, domestic trade income and taxation of each colony, and then the war expenses consumed by the two wars last year and this year, as well as immigration resettlement and farmland development in various places. , arms production, mineral development and other capital investment data... Yin Feng has tried his best to promote the spirit of using data to speak in his business and government affairs team, and now, this is a comprehensive data demonstration.
"...For all these reasons, our area under the jurisdiction of the King of China has so far suffered a financial deficit of nearly 30 million taels of silver. Fortunately, sufficient liquidity has been accumulated in the past few years, and these deficits can still be made up. Yes, but now there is another war in the south of the Yangtze River, the Jurchen barbarians in Liaodong have not yet been pacified, and reconstruction and restoration in various parts of Nanyang also require a lot of funds... In other words, before the end of next year, our budget in any aspect will be very large. nervous,"
Zhonghua Company and the Zhonghua King's ruling area have a budget system promoted by Yin Feng, and implement the financial principle of "living within one's means" and "living within one's means". This does not simply require a balance of revenue and expenditure. This relies on the fact that Zhonghua Company has a strong presence in the jurisdiction. Without the initial financial system and perfect monetary system established within the Ming Dynasty, the Ming court was unable to use financial leverage to mediate fiscal revenue and expenditure. The main source of fiscal revenue was too single (agricultural taxes), so its ability to respond to emergencies was extremely poor.
However, this time the cost of the war really exceeded the budget, and neither Yin Feng nor the board of directors wanted the company's financial situation to worsen. Therefore, Yin Feng's suggestion to the board of directors to "suspend the expansion of the war and digest the existing occupied areas" With the approval of most people, he also hung up a schematic map of the entire Ming Dynasty coastal and Nanyang areas, on which the areas completely controlled by the Chinese army were marked in green, areas where the Chinese army needed to be suppressed by force were marked in yellow, and hostile areas were marked in red. , everyone can see clearly: the only green areas that are completely in the hands of the Chinese army are Taiwan Island, Hainan Island, and the southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula. However, in the Nanyang region, only Malacca and Java have vast green areas. ** area, and the rest are scattered in the yellow and red surrounding areas.
"Therefore, our most important next step is to connect all these green areas into one piece," Yin Feng announced.
Yin Feng asked Li Lihua to announce the "Five-Year Economic Plan" and announced the plan to temporarily stop expansion and go all out for domestic construction. Except for the military representatives, most of the participants agreed. In order to appease the military personnel, Yin Feng also It was announced that the conferment ceremony for the first batch of generals would be held during the Chinese New Year, and it was also announced that the newly occupied area in Liaodong would be designated as a military garrison area, and soldiers and officers in the army would have priority.
At the same time, he announced that he would formally establish a country next year and formally compete with the Ming Dynasty. Then, he faced everyone and said: "The above are my opinions. If you have different opinions, please speak out publicly here."
Looking around, everyone was whispering among themselves, and Yin Feng knew that no one would jump out and openly oppose him at this time.
Therefore, he next announced that the five-year plan will be implemented starting next year.
Xu Hongji took his seat in the first row under the rostrum. At this time, he whispered to Zeng Shan beside him: "The shipowner king's move has profound meaning. In this way, we have public opinion, at least within the company and the Chinese Army, there will be no No more objections,"