After the New Year, Nanjing is in the spring rain season, with cloudy and drizzling for several days. Powell stood in front of the large floor-to-ceiling window of his office and looked out. The whole city was gloomy, and the streets were like a layer of gray veil, which was blurry, and the streets were deserted, but occasionally there were people traveling with umbrellas.

Powell looked in front of the window for a long time before taking off the pipe he held in his mouth and murmured: "It seems like he is back in London in this weather."

At this time, the office door opened and the secretary said, "Sir, the telegram from Shanghai is here."

Powell was stunned for a moment, hurriedly left the floor-to-ceiling window, received the telegram from the secretary, and watched it impatiently before he could sit down. After Powell finished reading it, he waved his hand excitedly and said repeatedly: "That's great, great, the East China Government has agreed to exchange silver dollars, they have agreed."

It turned out that Powell had moved a total of 17 commercial banks. When the situation was not clear, the company exchanged silver dollars to the East China government. The first batch of six commercial banks were arranged, and the amount of silver dollars exchanged was the highest. However, the plan was arranged, but Powell was not sure. What he was most worried about was that the East China government refused to exchange silver dollars. Although the system of the East China government had already stipulated that paper money and silver dollars could be exchanged freely, although the rules were determined by the East China government, whether it was respected or not, it could only be decided by the East China government itself, and no one could force it.

If the East China government really refuses to exchange silver dollars, Powell will have no choice. Of course, the East China government refuses to exchange silver dollars, which will definitely have many adverse effects. For example, let the government's credit decrease, but the two evils are less likely to meet. If Powell is asked to choose, he will probably choose to refuse to exchange silver dollars. At least he will use delay tactics, which will delay for ten days and half a month. The government's credit decreases, and find other opportunities to make up for it later. But Powell's plan will naturally fail completely, and this also means that Powell's political life will be completely over. Therefore, Powell was also uneasy.

Now the telegram sent from Shanghai told Powell that the Shanghai banks had officially notified the six commercial banks and the companies not only agreed to their appointment request for exchange of silver dollars, but also the time for the determination was only within these two days. They basically acted in accordance with the rules set by the East China government, and there was no intention of refusing or delaying. This meant that Powell finally won the bet, so how could Powell not be ecstatic!

However, after a while of excitement, Powell finally calmed down again. After all, it is not the time to be happy. Although the Shanghai banks have agreed to exchange silver dollars, it does not mean that their plan is successful. Two things must be done next. One is to let several other businesses and companies follow up immediately and continue to expand the momentum of exchange silver dollars; the other is to take the opportunity to encourage the people in Shanghai again, triggering a craze for bank dollars. Therefore, Powell immediately ordered his secretary to notify the consulates of other countries in Nanjing and go to the British consulate to negotiate the next action.

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Bank of China, Shanghai Xuhui Branch.

In the bank's lobby, most of the windows are open, and the seats in the lounge area are full of people waiting to handle affairs. Except for the sound of calling numbers from time to time, no one speaks loudly, but the hall is still full of noises.

The people who had finished the business left immediately, but people kept coming in through the bank gate, took the license plate from the security guard guarding the door, and waited in the rest area. There were more than 10 security guards in the hall, looking back and forth. There were also several staff members who were guiding customers to handle business. Therefore, although there were many people in the hall, the order was very diverse and not chaotic.

At this time, two carriages stopped at the bank gate. One person got off the carriage in front, wearing a top hat, a black Yanxi suit, and a crutch in his hand. As many as he got off the car, he handed a document to the security guard at the door.

The security guard took the document and after reading it, he nodded to the man, pushed open the glass door in the hall, and made a gesture of inviting him. The man immediately waved to the carriage behind him, and four people got off the carriage, and they also had a black top hat suit in the same color, and moved a large box from the carriage. The four of them carried the four corners of the box and entered the bank together.

In the bank, several staff members came up to meet him. After a few conversations between the two parties, one staff member opened the door of a house on the wall next to him and opened the lights in the house. The man in black carried the box in and followed the two staff members of the bank. At the same time, four security guards came over and stood guard at the door.

The actions of this group of people suddenly attracted people waiting in the lounge area to stand up and look sideways. Through the large glass window on the wall, you can see the scene inside the house. There was a long square table in the middle, and a row of chairs against the wall. The man in black placed the box on the long table. After opening it, it was filled with banknotes. The bank staff took out the banknotes from the box, then began to count them one by one, and placed the counted banknotes neatly on the table.

People watching in the lobby were also talking about it at this time. Of course, some of them knew what was going on and became the focus of everyone.

"It's coming again, it's the third day."

"What's this? What are you going to do with so much money!"

"What are you doing? Do you still need to ask this? Of course, you have exchanged all these banknotes for silver dollars. This is the third day. Every day I see someone carrying a large box to exchange banknotes for silver dollars. Look at the size of this box, there are not 100,000 yuan, but 780,000 yuan."

"I also heard that not only here, but also in several other banks, people carry boxes to exchange them for silver dollars every day in the past few days. I heard that they are all foreign commercial banks and large commercial banks, and it seems that some of our Chinese commercial banks are also exchanging silver dollars."

"Why do they exchange coins for silver dollars? Isn't it the same thing? In another two days, the official coin tax will be officially levied. Now, all the banknotes are converted into silver dollars. Don't you have to pay extra taxes!"

"What do you know! Do you know why the government imposes seigniorship!"

"I know this. Didn't the newspaper keep talking about it a few days ago? Because the cost of minting silver coins is high, there is also losses, which is the previous fire consumption, so the seigniorage tax is levied. If paper money is used, there is no need to pay this tax. We are also advised to use more paper money."

"You are cheated by the government. It is true that you ask us to use more paper money, but the actual purpose is to collect all the money from the people and then invalidate the paper money, which means to cheat us away."

"Ah! Will this be the case!"

"Of course, you don't think about it. Since ancient times, only gold and silver are real money. What is this piece of paper? Can it be considered money? Paper can also be used as money, isn't that a mess?"

"Yes, yes, yes, I heard from the old man that in the Ming Dynasty, paper money was actually popular, called Daming Baochao. My family still had two pieces, which were written for 10,000 taels of silver, but I heard from the old man that at that time, I couldn't even buy a stone of rice, so everyone actually used silver."

"So that's it, what paper money is just the government cheating us."

"No, I think the government is still very good to us ordinary people! The tax donations are much less, and the servants dare not disturb us, but it is much better than during the Qing Dynasty. How could it cheat us!"

"Haha, you're a little bit tender. Since ancient times, all governments and courts have been the same. Only the people who cheated us. Otherwise, those good days for officials came from where. They were better to the people before, but they just gave you some sweetness first. We really believed it, so we could cheat us. Since ancient times, officials were only for making money, so there was a court that really served the people! If you believe in the government, don't wait until you sold you! You'd better be more scheming."

"That's it. Take this seigniorage tax for example. I understand that I want to cheat us. I collect all the silver dollars in our hands. Look at these big trading companies and understand that I would rather pay more seigniorage tax than exchange all the paper money into silver dollars. The big boss with more than 100,000 yuan in assets, isn't the big shopkeeper smarter than you! Don't think that I have paid more seigniorage tax now, and when the paper money has become a pile of waste paper, just wait to cry."

"Look at it, most of the people who came to the bank today came to exchange silver dollars, and these are all sensible people!"

"Yes, fortunately, I came to the bank today, otherwise I really didn't know that this happened! I also want to redeem all the banknotes at home."

"That's right, but hurry up, otherwise it'll be too late."

Similar scenes have been staged in four banks in Shanghai and have spread rapidly to the public. A frenzy of exchange for silver dollars has basically been formed.

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"Since the bank agreed to the appointment of foreign commercial banks to exchange silver dollars, in the following three days, a total of 24 commercial banks issued an application for appointment to exchange silver dollars to the bank, and the total amount of exchange reached 1.93 million yuan, including 21 foreign commercial banks, and 3 other local commercial banks."

"What! Local businesses are here to exchange silver dollars."

"Yes, these three local businesses just issued an application for redemption of silver dollars today. It is said that compared with foreign businesses and companies, the amount they exchanged is not large, and the total amount of the three companies is less than 20,000 yuan."

"No matter how much it is, this is not a good phenomenon, and it happens to appear at this point in time. I'm afraid there is a problem. Let's check what the background of these three local businesses are! Are there any connections with foreign countries."

"It has been investigated. However, we believe that these three local businesses have not been linked with foreign countries. They have only been affected by the trend of exchange of silver dollars and joined in it, because a businessman is very sensitive to the direction of this aspect. And not only merchants, but also the people have begun to be affected. The amount of private exchange of silver dollars today is 426,000 yuan, and yesterday it was less than 100,000 yuan. It is expected that the amount of private exchange of silver dollars tomorrow will definitely exceed 500,000 yuan, or even 600,000 yuan."
Chapter completed!