In the morning mist in Zhongqiu, with the rhythmic horns shouting, a large group of naked men on Qingdao Port Wharf were working hard to consolidate the ground. They were all immigrants from Yancheng, Jiangbei, with a total of more than 500 people. They are currently leveling the ground under the command of technicians from the First Bureau of Transportation Construction.

After obtaining the Navy's investigation report on the hydrogeological conditions in Qingdao (Montevideo) Bay, the State Council immediately decided to build a large port here to accommodate new immigrants. This year, a total of 11,000 immigrants came from the Ming Dynasty, including 6,000 adult men, 2,000 women of childbearing age, and 2,000 men, women of women and children (all of them were orphans, generally under 10 years old, and a considerable number were orphans of Shunjun).

Two thousand men and women were naturally sent to the Corps Fort, but this Corps was not the Corps Fort in Luocha County, but was near the sea outlet on the north bank of the Carasco River in northeastern Montevideo. The land here is fertile, convenient for water withdrawal, and the environment is also quite good. Therefore, the Executive Committee decided to build a new Corps Fort here and officially recruit students from this year.

In this special institution called the Second Fort of the Corps, in addition to some of the instructors who were drawn from the Corps of Luocha County, there are also quite a few graduates from the 35 and 36 classes of Corps of the Corps. This year, the first period of this year recruits these 2,000 students. They will first build their own school buildings, playgrounds, dormitories and walls on the riverside, and then study while farming until they graduate ten years later and start working.

Of the remaining eight thousand people, about 3,000 single male refugees without families were assigned to five newly built settlements such as Chengshan Fort, Tieling Fort, Hejin Fort, and later the Executive Committee will arrange 3,000 Ottoman female slaves to these places - well, breeding population. Then the remaining five thousand will be distributed in groups of one thousand to the original Spanish colonies east of the Uruguay River, such as the Esmerada Post (Frebentos), the town of General Garcia (Durasno), the Montevideo Post and the City of Colonia jointly managed by both sides.

Currently, there are 500-1,500 Spanish farmers from each of these strongholds settled. After the East Coast people occupied this place, they were allowed to live as usual, but they were also prohibited from leaving or engaging in activities against the East Coast. For these settlements, the East Coast government seemed to have made up their minds and would not return them to the Spanish. The State Council even gave these places many conquering names, such as Frebentus was renamed Yong'an. Durasno was renamed Yongjing. Colonia was renamed as a mall because it was a commercial port. Of course, there was also Montevideo's suspected naming of being a very bad-talking Montevideo, Qingdao.

Each of these four strongholds was assigned a thousand Ming people, who were engaged in agricultural work here. The main purpose was to continue to expand the reclamation area near the wastelands reclaimed by the former Spanish, and at the same time dig canals and build reservoirs. Local Spanish residents, who originally owned more than 30 acres of land, were forcibly redeemed to avoid violating the ban set by the state that farmers should not have more than 30 acres of arable land per capita.

This forced redemption behavior will of course cause strong dissatisfaction among the Spanish. However, under the strong suppression of the government, they could not make any waves. This is the case here in Qingdao Port. The Spaniards originally reclaimed a lot of wasteland on the banks of the Miglet River, and then planted crops such as wheat and corn. After the East Coast people occupied this place, they immediately confiscated the land on both sides of the Miglet River, allowing only the Spanish to retain the wheat fields on both sides of the Pantanoso River. As for the confiscated land, they were allocated to the newly arrived Yancheng immigrants. These Ming people obtained the land ecstatically, and of course they also endured the anger of Spanish farmers.

The forced repurchase price of arable land set by the East Coast government is only two yuan per mu (the East Coast a mu), which makes the Spaniards very dissatisfied, and of course the dissatisfied are still at the back. Because the East Coast government has not paid them silver dollars, it is a kind of thing full of unrecognizable words called "bank acceptance bills", which makes them a little stunned.

The staff of Northwest Reclamation Bank who issued bills of exchange to them patiently explained to them: "This one-year bank acceptance bill is issued by the Qingdao Branch of Northwest Reclamation Bank and is fully redeemed after one year's expiration. The holder can receive cash at the counter of Northwest Reclamation Bank, but there is no interest. This bill can be transferred to any individual or enterprise without restrictions before maturity. The transferee shall not refuse to accept it for any unfair reasons, otherwise he will be punished by the police station for detention, fines, etc. In addition, this bill of exchange shall not require advance discount."

Although commercial bills and other commercial bills were used very frequently in European commercial trade at this time, it can be said that almost all bulk trade was paid by the mutual payment of commercial bills, for these Spanish farmers who could not see a few dollars on weekdays, they only paid for money carefully. They did not recognize any bills of exchange, promissory notes, checks and other things. Therefore, although the staff of the Northwest Reclamation Bank did not understand the explanation, it still did not prevent them from realizing that they would not want to get cash within a year. This made them very frustrated and dissatisfied, but what could they do? Now the East Coast people are occupying forces, and the winners have the right to take away everything. It is already very surprising that they have not confiscated their land for vain, and it is even more surprising that they pay for some bills of exchange for these lands.

Maybe I can buy some things with these bills? The Spanish looked at a stack of bank acceptance bills with a five-yuan and ten-yuan denomination (convenient to circulation) on hand. He began to think that maybe he could go to the market to buy a cow or some farm tools? Well, it seems that he could also buy some waterproof asphalt to repair his leaking roof. In short, spend the unreliable "paper" on hand first, and leave a few pieces at hand to pay taxes. Did the bank employee just say that this kind of "paper" can also be used to offset taxes.

Speaking of which, since the trend of government fiscal revenue declines is becoming more and more obvious, while the expenditure is getting bigger and bigger, domestic silver has now seen a little shortage in the market after the rapid outflow of the previous year. Considering that the domestic silver stock is used to import strategic materials to maintain the development of industry and agriculture and sufficient war materials, after approval by the Executive Committee, the State Council began to instruct Northwest Reclamation Bank and join hands with the two financial institutions of Industrial Credit Bank to issue various commercial papers: bank acceptance bills, promissory notes, checks, etc.

In addition, they also require that the settlement between major state-owned enterprises be settled by various commercial papers to offset each other to reduce the demand for precious metal currencies. As for some private workshops in China, commercial settlement between small enterprises and state-owned enterprises are also required to use commercial papers issued by two banks. In order to dispel their doubts, the State Council allows them to use bills of exchange, checks, etc. to offset taxes. In such a case, these enterprises are forced to open current accounts in neighboring banks and settle daily transactions through the banking system.

At present, all large and small enterprises in the five coastal counties in China have begun to gradually use these commercial papers. For example, the Xuji Oil Press in Meilin County was the first to respond to the government's call and announced the high-profile acceptance of the 1,500-yuan half-year acceptance bill issued by the Northwest Reclamation Bank - this is the soybean oil payment purchased by the Army Department for the frontline. Xu Wenxuan, the director of the factory, said that the bank acceptance bills are low and will not bear risks because of the different coins. At the same time, they will not depreciate because of the increasing wear and tear of coins in circulation. They are more convenient to carry in daily transactions. It is an extremely ideal commercial paper. In the future, the factory will increase the use of commercial papers to cooperate with national policies. After Xu Wenxuan said this, the next day, the Ministry of Civil Affairs ordered an additional 300 barrels of soybean oil.

In order to prevent others from forging bills, banks that issue commercial bills will keep a deposit base within the bank. That is, when the bank fills out the bill, it will put a copy of paper on the bottom. When writing, it will be written in duplicate, one of the above is issued for circulation, and the other is left in the bank for deposit base and comparison to prevent others from forging bills.

The so-called copy paper has a relatively mature technology on the east coast today. Initially, people used white paper soaked in ink, and then put it under the writing paper after it was air-dried, so the effect was sloppy paper. The two years ago, the Ministry of Education and the coking plant jointly launched copy paper that used dyes extracted from coal tar as coatings. After the test effect was greater than the original simple ink-soaked copy paper, and it was quickly promoted in various systems across the country.

Nowadays, commercial bills such as acceptance, bank checks, promissory notes issued by banks are all made of copy paper. Once the bill information and handwriting held by the holder are different from the bank deposit, they are likely to be refused payment. At this time, the bank and the Ministry of Internal Affairs will intervene in investigating the authenticity of the bill. Once someone finds that a forged bill, the person will go to Changshan Iron Mine to undergo labor reform to serve as a warning.

The few Spanish people in Qingdao Port have also reclaimed more than 100 acres of land, while the most are more than 200 acres (all converted into the east coast acres), and the more than 700 people have combined more than 100,000 acres. Although many of the land is full of weeds, the Spanish still said with confidence that it was indeed their arable land, and took out the land ownership certificate issued by the colonial institutions of the Kingdom of Spain.

After discussion, the East Coast people decided to accept the land sale documents issued by the Spanish government. Therefore, after calculation, the East Coast government needed to pay a total of nearly 200,000 yuan to these Spanish settlers. Of course, they are all paid in one-year bank acceptance bills.
Chapter completed!