Chapter 271 Silver War

Let Britain mediate, which is an acceptable situation for both China and Russia.

After returning to Europe, Bannerman personally went to Moscow to make final coordination on the issue of the Sino-Russian armistice. In the end, Britain persuaded Russia to accept the second choice proposed by China on the condition of promising to provide a guarantee of treasury bonds.

China has made some concessions and no longer requires the reading of the Kazakh region. The Russian Empire still retains most of its territory in Central Asia. Britain returned Hong Kong to China, the Kashmir region was completely transferred to China, and Kuwait's suzerainty was transferred to China. As a condition, China recognized Britain's main debt to Russia. As a power country, the United Kingdom provides a state debt guarantee for Russia, and Russia pays 170 million pounds of war compensation to China in installments for ten years.

The area east of the Lena River, including the Novosibirsk Islands, belongs to China, starting from Ustikut and Bratsk to the upper reaches of the Yenisei River as the dividing line, from Novonysek to Obisk (Hant-Mansiysk), Topolsk, Omsk, Babloda Er and Semibarakinsk have always taken the main road in the upper reaches of the Ob River as the dividing line, and China has obtained the eastern part of the Western Siberian Plain.

From Semipalatinsk to Ayaguz and Aledka, the Central Asian Railway is the dividing line, the eastern railway line is China, the western line is the Russian Empire, and the west bank of Lake Balkhash is the dividing line. Lake Balkhash is the domestic lake of China, including Tashkent, Samarkand and other places continue to be demarcated, and the west of the boundary belongs to China.

Since there is Britain as a guarantee for Russia's treasury bonds, China does not need to continue to occupy Tyumen and other places as collateral collateral. After the agreement is reached, China will complete the withdrawal of troops from the region before May 1903.

As for how many benefits Britain extorted from Russia, Hu Chuyuan did not ask and was not jealous.

After the end of the Far East War, China's land area increased to 21.73 million square kilometers, with a total area of the first in the world, while the Russian Empire was cut off 30% of its territory and ranked second.

If you want to calculate colonies, China is still the first.

China's overseas colonial provinces include Congo, Guinea, Kuwait, Guyana, Central Somalia, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Fiji Islands, and protected countries and suzerains in Sumatra, Java, Sumandia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, New Guinea and North Korea. Status of the country.

China and France have common suzerainty in Madagascar and New Caledonia, China and the United Kingdom have common suzerainty in Singapore, Myanmar and Assam, China and Germany have common suzerainty in New Guinea, and China and the United States have common suzerainty in the Kingdom of Hawaii.

The furthest island on the west side of China's actual territory is the Andaman Islands, the southernmost is the Natuna Islands and Anambas Islands, the easternmost is the Bering Strait, Midway Island, the Marshall Islands, the Lane Islands, the Cook Islands and the Polynesian Islands, and the northernmost point is the Novosibirsk Islands.

In the territory of the southern mainland, China has steadily taken over the North Vietnamese region north of the Lanjiang River to its own and set it as Guangnan Province.

Guangnan Province is very important to China. It not only integrates Yunnan and Guangxi in the strategic terrain, but also completes the deployment of the southwest region as long as the deployment of troops in Guangnan. Economically, the Yunnan-Guizhou region also has a huge outlet.

Guangnan Province is very rich in coal mines and iron ore reserves. With non-ferrous metal minerals in Yunnan and Guangxi, it can form a new industrial system on its own, and the complementary surnames are very strong.

In the Myanmar region, in the Sino-British transactions, most of the Shaanxi Plateau has been transferred to Chinese territory and temporarily remains under the jurisdiction of Yunnan Province.

On January 24, 1903, the foreign ministers of China and Russia reached the Sino-Russian Treaty on Armistice and Delineation of the Territory in Omsk. According to the agreement, Russians in the Far East, Novosibirsk, the eastern part of the Western Siberian Plain, Omsk, Semipalatinsk and other places, if they are unwilling to If you apply for Chinese nationality, you will be transported back to Yekaterinburg, Russia by railway.

Since then, the Far East War, the largest international war in Asian history, has officially come to an end.

China has not only nearly doubled its land area, but also received 444 million pounds of military compensation.

The first task to consider at this time is large-scale immigration. In addition to policy forced immigration, stable housing subsidies will be provided for areas with more difficult conditions, a 10-year agricultural tax-free policy will be given for newly opened areas, and there will be no land policy limit for 30 years. The system will also provide loan support to qualified people and landlords.

In this way, they encourage farmers to go to new territories to become big landlords and effectively control the economies of these areas.

In order to strengthen control over Western Siberia and Novosibirsk provinces, it not only forced the expulsion of Russians, but also transferred households from Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan and other places to supplement the past. The state spent a large amount of loans to support emerging industries and agriculture in local areas.

In Yakusk, in the upper reaches of the Lena River, the state provides large-scale subsidies to build new cities.

The Pacific islands acquired from France have also begun to promote immigration and accelerate the development of the regional plantation economy.

Through a new round of Sino-British negotiations, Singapore's territory will be expanded, and a larger scale of Chinese workers and immigrants will be used to prepare to occupy Singapore in a longer period of time, and develop Singapore into a forward post in the Southern Ocean and the financial and port transportation center of the Southeast Asian economy.

On March 4, 1903, China, Germany, Britain and France reached a French national debt guarantee agreement. China became France's main creditor. The French national debt turmoil stopped, and the world economy began to gradually return to the normal track.

At this time, Hu Chuyuan has changed his strategy, mainly considering trying his best to stabilize the situation of the world economy first, and then suddenly carry out the reform of the gold standard next year.

At this stage, the inflation crisis cannot be transferred through the change of the gold standard. Hu Chuyuan's new plan can only reduce the exchange rate, that is, to reduce the exchange rate of silver and gold, control the exchange rate, increase the growth of domestic exports, and alleviate domestic economic problems.

The problem is that with China's victory in the Far East War and the world's long-term forecast of China's economy, silver prices have begun to surge significantly.

On April 1, 1903, Daqing Bank, which assumed the authority of the Central Bank of China, was reorganized into the Bank of China and began to intervene in international silver prices. The Bank of China sold nearly 23,000 tons of silver reserves to the world silver market in one month, and more than 600 million taels of silver were sold out to barely suppress international silver prices. To the price of 15.7 to 1.

On May 7, Bank of China, CITIC Bank, United Bank of Asia and Bank of America began to further sell silver and silver assets. On June 14, the price of silver fell to the 16.5:1 threshold estimated by Hu Chuyuan, with a promotion to domestic industrial exports. The possible surname is used.

On July 12, the price of silver continued to rise.

After a period of game, on July 17, the silver price rebounded to the 16:1 mark.

Hu Chuyuan is a capital crocoon. He knows very well that behind all this is the speculation of international capital, including some domestic capitalists and retail investors who are also investing in silver crazily. The ideas of various international capital forces may not be unified. Some of them want to cash out the price increase of silver, the really the most powerful part... Especially JP Morgan, Rothschild and other European and American financial oligarchs are forcing China to give up the unstable silver standard.

As long as China enters the gold standard, the price of silver will plummet, and international capital will instead invest in gold capital, especially the bonds of France and Russia with a low price-earnings ratio.

JP Morgan is the leader of these people, and the amount of French treasury bonds held by him and his partners is also very amazing. In July, he secretly went to Yanjing and kept in contact with Hu Yanyuan.

Hu Chuyuan is very embarrassed now. The silver reserves of the Bank of China are less than 20,000 tons. He and the Hu family and the capital forces of the main cooperative capital are now in French and Russian bonds, and the other part does not dare to easily intervene in the silver market.

There is no way.

On July 18, 1903, the Prime Minister's Office officially announced that China and its major protector countries had withdrawn from the silver standard and entered the gold standard system. The Qingyuan was transformed into the Zhongyuan. Each Zhongyuan was exchanged for 1.125 grams of gold. The Zhongyuan was the foreign settlement currency of the protecting countries, which was undertaken by the Central Bank of China and the United Bank of Asia. Gold exchange business.

In the same period, the US dollar was 1 US dollar to 1.55 grams of gold.

Relatively speaking, the exchange rate of the China Central Yuan is relatively low, but it also achieves Hu Chuyuan's goal. It squeezes out the domestic inflationary pressure and increases the growth momentum of the domestic export economy by adjusting the exchange rate.

Because the total national gold reserves are only 3,550 tons of gold, China adopts a relatively conservative gold limit system. The basic unit of gold exchange is 100,000 yuan, and foreign trade settlement gives priority to the exchange of sterling, US dollar, mark and franc.

The domestic gold exchange institution is the State Administration of Gold Reserves. The exchanger must fill in the application form. After investigation and approval, domestic citizens can exchange gold. Foreign citizens do not need to fill in the application, but they must reach 100,000 yuan to exchange.

Sure enough, China's withdrawal from the silver standard has had an extremely strong impact on the world economy. With the support of the United Kingdom, India entered the gold standard in the next day. Portugal, Spain, Mexico, Japan and other South American countries can only withstand the impact of the financial turmoil due to the lack of sufficient gold reserve support.

After China announced the adoption of the gold standard, in just half a month, the price of world silver based on gold fell to 35:1, a decline of more than 50%, and there was still room for decline.

These days, Hu Zhenyuan has been staying in Yanjing and often contacts Hu Chuyuan by phone.

That night, the two brothers met directly in the Zizheng Park to talk about things.

It's definitely not a good thing to use power for personal gain.

However, people are not sages, not to mention that Hu Chuyuan is quite self-interested.

After dinner at home, Hu Chuyuan went to the study with his third brother Hu Yuyuan. He drank tea and Hu Yuyuan smoked. The two discussed the recent situation carefully.

The Hu family began to buy French treasury bonds at the beginning of the year. In April, Russian treasury bonds were involved, which entered the market from a low value of 17% to 30% of the average denomination. At present, the treasury bonds of the two countries have basically increased to the normal standard of price-earnings ratio.

A total of 140 million pounds has been invested, and the current market value has reached 432 million pounds, or about 3.5713 million yuan.

This is an astronomical figure, which is equivalent to the total fiscal revenue of the British Empire for two and a half years. Even if it wants to be recovered, it needs to be cashed and turned over in the international bond market for a long time. Even if it is collected, where to invest in it to continue to increase in value is an unknown.

Hu Zhenyuan calculated the account clearly, and then asked Hu Chuyuan, "Brother, do you think the silver price will continue to fall?"

Hu Chuyuan thought silently and drank hot tea silently. After a while, he asked, "What do you think?"

Hu Zhenyuan said, "I think it will, and may even fall to 40 to 1."

"Hmm!"

Hu Chuyuan also agreed. He said, "The domestic private silver holdings are still very large. We stopped issuing silver dollars in 1897. In 1988, we announced that the circulation of silver dollars would be suspended and officially exchanged for clear yuan coupons. In the past two decades, our total circulation minus the recovery depreciation, there are at least 1.4 billion silver dollars in the market, and the actual recovery exchange amount is less than half. Many families still have a few, even more than a dozen silver dollars, and some rich families have larger reserves, even tens of thousands or millions of silver ingots. These silvers are under great selling pressure. Only on the precious metal exchanges in Tianjin, Shanghai and Hong Kong, 30 million taels of silver are sold at a low price every day. Whether it's the world or us, the total private reserves of Chinese silver are still undervalued. The world silver price... I expect that it may fall below 45, and then there will be no rebound in at least five years, unless there is a large-scale new war or a large-scale production reduction.

Hu Yuyuan nodded repeatedly and asked, "Then let's enter the market to buy the bottom standard metallurgical company when the silver price falls to 45?"

Hu Chuyuan thought for a moment and said, "No, start to intervene now. If you wait any longer, others will consider intervening."

Hu Yuyuan hummed and asked, "What about the rest of the funds and continue to invest in China?"

Hu Chuyuan thought for a moment and said, "Domestic investment is still relatively saturated. Just maintain the original plan and make reasonable and effective use of Shanghai stock market capital to operate in China. You should hurry up and go to Persia, Portugal and Spain. They must need financial guarantees to enter the gold standard system. You can talk to them and do this business as long as the conditions are right. If it can be negotiated, we can give priority to investment in Persia, and the investment in Europe can also gradually develop to Spain and Portugal. At the same time, we can invest in agriculture, mining, rough processing of agricultural products and basic industries in Nanyang to promote their appropriate economic development. Only in our domestic heavy industry can expand new markets.

Hu Yuyuan nodded again and said, "So, do we fully withdraw our investment in the industrial field with low technical difficulty in China, expand new investment to deeper fields, and then invest in basic industries in Persia and Nanyang?"

Hu Chuyuan nodded slightly and said, "The situation in the Philippines, Sumansia and Singapore is relatively good, and it is appropriate to consider increasing the scale and depth of investment. In addition, I now plan to reintegrate my various consortia and integrate them into the Fukang company. After you go back, talk to others and see what they think.

Hu Zhenyuan said, "Os, when I go back at night, I'll talk to my second brother first. He should not have any idea. The key is the eldest brother and second brother of the fourth master's family.

Hu Chuyuan smiled and didn't say anything more about it.

Taking this opportunity, the two brothers also talked about some of the following investment trends, including the idea of re-integration of various consortia. Hu Zhenyuan left the Capital Garden late at night.

After the Far East War and financial fluctuations during this period, China's domestic economic construction has stabilized, and the northeast has begun to become the focus of large-scale construction. Jilin Province has added the eastern part of the Changbai Mountains, the Zihot Mountains and Sakhalin Island in the Far East. Heilongjiang Province has added Qiqihar as the provincial capital, and Hailan Pao and Miao Street. In other areas, Jilin Province, which is surrounded by Vladivostok, is the focus of construction.

The Sihot Mountains are far better than the lost land in southern Tibet.

A ridiculous treaty, a Manchu incompetence and timidity made China easily lose a large area of rivers and mountains.

Until now, even without deliberate immigration, the Chinese are still five to six times more Russians in the Far East. With the large-scale repatriation of Russians, the Chinese have become the real owners of this land again.

In order to reduce China's population, since the Russians occupied the Far East, they kept indulging the Russians to despise the lives of the Chinese and shooting at will.

Until the Soviet period, all Chinese-related cultural relics found in the Far East were secretly seized, and it was strictly forbidden to use Chinese words to be fully de-Sinicized.

What is the Sikhote Mountains?

It is what the Chinese call the West River Mountains. Now, the whole book can finally be traced back to the source and renamed the West River Mountains.

Retaliation will finally come. In the Far East War, Wang Shizhen's Northeast Corps completed the task once, delaying 40 years of debt, and completing it within a month. By the end of the Far East War and the Russians began to repatriate, the total number was less than 10,000.

Get out with hatred, the farther the better.

From the bottom of his heart, Hu Chuyuan hates the Russians.

If he hadn't been worried about the outbreak of the Soviets, he really wanted to blow up the Russians.

It doesn't matter now. In Novosibirsk and Omsk, the Russians still live in hell. The treaty on the paper is very good. If you join Chinese nationality, you can stay. The question is whether you can join?

It is a job to expel the Russians and let the Russians lose everything and lie down. Strengthening control over Mongolia is another matter, which need not be explicitly stated in the national policy communique.

The truth is that the Northeast Corps is fully stationed in Mongolia and transforms the two main divisions into mechanized integrated divisions.

The new plan formulated in 1903 is very huge. Northeast, southwest and northwest, including Henan, Shaanxi and Huguang, which have relatively low development levels, have begun to increase infrastructure construction. Agriculture and transportation construction are the focus, increasing industrial development investment and support policies.

According to Hu Chuyuan's plan, in the next five years, the scale of water conservancy construction such as national reservoirs and canals will double, the scale of national railway construction will increase by 14,500 kilometers, and the total power generation will increase by 2.3 times. In the Jiangnan area, the construction of electrical railways will first be promoted, and the construction of national highways will increase by 1. 50,000 kilometers.

In the next five years, the national agricultural economic construction and joint venture system must be further promoted. Long-term support should be given to the development of agricultural mechanized planting and modern animal husbandry, and policy incentives should be given to the research and production of agricultural machinery.

With the offset of the short-term investment of Russian and French bonds by Chinese trust and financing companies, coupled with military compensation, the total amount of treasury bonds has been reduced to 5.5 billion yuan, and the actual available treasury bonds are 3.7 billion yuan, which will be invested in China in five years.

With the appreciation of state-owned government assets in the stock market, the debt ratio of the national finance fell to 13%.

Hu Chuyuan is an investment crocodile. Of course, he knows how to make money. With the gradual recovery of domestic land prices, he sold 25% of the early industrial commercial land held by Zheng Axe, collected 1.3 billion yuan of capital, and injected it into China Trust and Financing Corporation, China Investment Bank and Asian United Bank. Domestic and southern oceans carry out investment and financing services.

Although the total amount of gold reserves of the State Gold Reserves is low and the total amount of national currency issuance is large, the amount of foreign exchange held by the central bank and the United Bank of Asia is huge enough to guarantee the current total currency. While gradually increasing the total amount of gold reserves, it can also ensure the existing central monetary policy.

After entering the gold standard, the power of China's total fiscal and GDP was revealed.

Compared with the British market, the size of the Chinese market is several times larger, and the scale of capital flow is also several times larger. The United Kingdom is a conservative classical free economic policy and does not intervene and invest too much in the internal market. China is a national macroeconomic policy, and the domestic investment and regulation is much greater.

The changes caused by different policies and market environments are also different. China is obviously biased towards manufacturing, and its financial system is basically self-sufficient, while the United Kingdom is biased towards the financial services industry and continues to invest in China and the South China Ocean. Especially with China's further opening up of coastal and investment scope, Britain's China and China's colonial areas The total investment surged to 375 million pounds in 1903.

According to the current exchange rate of 1 pound against 8.267 yuan, that is, the investment of 3.1 billion yuan, while the total domestic capital investment in China is roughly the same, but the total domestic investment is basically concentrated in the internal market.

(to be continued)