Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 585 Money Shortage and Bills ([-])

In the mid-autumn morning fog, with the rhythmic chanting, a large group of shirtless men on the wharf of Qingdao Port were hard at work tamping the ground.They are all immigrants from Yancheng, Jiangbei. There are more than 500 people in total. They are currently leveling the ground under the command of technicians from the First Bureau of Transportation Construction.

After receiving the navy's investigation report on the hydrogeological conditions in Qingdao (Montevideo) Bay, the Government Council immediately decided to build a large port here to accommodate the new immigrants.A total of 1.1 immigrants came from Daming this year, including 6000 adult men, 2000 women of childbearing age, and 2000 boys and girls (all orphans, generally under the age of 10, and a considerable number of them are orphans of the Shun Army).

Two thousand men, women and children were naturally sent to the Corps Fort, but this Corps was not the Corps Fort in Rocha County, but on the north bank of the Carrasco River in the northeast of Montevideo, near the mouth of the sea.The land here is fertile, water is convenient, and the environment is quite good, so the executive committee decided to build a new corps fort here, and formally recruit students from this year.

In this special institution known privately as the Second Fort of the Bingtuan, apart from some of the instructors being transferred from the Bingtuanbao in Rocha County, a considerable number of them are graduates of the 35th and 36th classes of the Bingtuanbao.This year, the first batch of [-] students will be recruited. They will first build their own school buildings, playgrounds, dormitories, and fences by the river, and then farm while studying until they graduate and start working ten years later.

Among the remaining 8000 people, about 5000 single male refugees without families were allocated to the five new settlements of Chengshanbao, Tielingbao, and Hejinbao built this year. Later, the executive committee will arrange 1000 Ottoman female slaves To these places - well, to multiply the population.Then the remaining [-] people will be distributed in groups of [-] to the former Spanish colonies east of the Uruguay River, such as the Esmeralda Post (Fray Bentos), the town of General Garcia (Durasno ), the Montevideo outpost, and the city of Colonia, which is jointly managed by both parties.

There are currently 500-1500 Spanish farmers settled in each of these strongholds. After the East Coast people occupy here, these people are allowed to live as usual, but they are also prohibited from leaving or engaging in activities against the East Bank.As for these settlements, the East Bank government seems to have made up their minds that they will not return them to the Spaniards anyway. The Government Council even gave these places a lot of names with conquest meanings. For example, Fray Bentos was It was renamed Yong'an, Durasno was renamed Yongjing, Colonia was renamed as a shopping mall because it used to exist as a commercial port, and of course there is Montevideo-Qingdao, which is suspected of having a bad name.

Each of these four strongholds has a thousand Ming people, who are engaged in agricultural work here.It is mainly to continue to expand the reclaimed area near the wasteland reclaimed by the original Spaniards, while digging canals and building reservoirs.Local Spanish residents who originally owned more than 30 mu of land will be forced to buy it back, so as not to violate the state's ban on per capita farmland ownership of no more than 30 mu.

This kind of forced redemption will of course cause strong dissatisfaction among the Spaniards, but they can't make any waves under the strong suppression of the government.This is the case here in Qingdao Port. The Spaniards originally reclaimed a lot of wasteland on the banks of the Miglete River, and then planted crops such as wheat and corn.After the people on the east bank occupied this place, they immediately confiscated the land on both sides of the Miglete River, and only allowed the Spaniards to keep the wheat fields on both sides of the Pantanoso River.As for the confiscated land, it was allocated to the new Yancheng immigrants. These Ming people were ecstatic to get the land, and of course they also suffered the anger of the Spanish farmers.

The forced repurchase price of arable land set by the East Bank government is only two yuan per mu (East Bank mu), which makes the Spaniards very dissatisfied, and of course the more dissatisfied is yet to come.Because the east bank government has not paid them silver dollars, but something called "bank acceptance draft" filled with unknown characters, which makes them a little dumbfounded.

The staff of the Northwest Reclamation Bank who issued the money order patiently explained to them: "This one-year bank acceptance bill is issued by the Qingdao Branch of the Northwest Reclamation Bank, and will be paid in full after one year expires. Received cash at the counter, but no interest. This money order can be transferred to any individual or enterprise without restriction before it expires, and the transferee shall not refuse to accept it for any unjustified reason, otherwise it will be punished by the police station, such as detention and fine. In addition, this draft cannot be discounted in advance."

Although commercial bills such as bills of exchange were frequently used in commercial trade in Europe at this time, it can be said that almost all large-scale trades were carried out by mutual payment of commercial bills. As far as farmers are concerned, they are only serious about gold and silver, and they don't recognize money orders, promissory notes, checks and the like.Therefore, although the explanations given by the staff of the Northwest Reclamation Bank were not very clear to them, it still did not prevent them from realizing that they would not be able to get cash within a year.This makes them very frustrated, but also very dissatisfied, but what can be done?Now the East Coasters are the occupying army, and the victor has the power to take everything.It was a surprise that they hadn't confiscated their land for nothing now, and it was even more a surprise that some bill of exchange was paid for it.

Maybe I can take these money orders and buy something?The Spaniard looked at a stack of bank acceptances with a denomination of five yuan and ten yuan (convenient for circulation), and began to wonder whether he could go to the market to buy a cow?Or buy some farming tools?Well, it seems like you can also buy some waterproof asphalt to fix your own leaky roof.In short, it is better to spend the unreliable "paper" on hand first, and at most keep a few on hand for tax payment. Didn't the bank clerk just say that this kind of "paper" can also be used for tax deduction? .

It is said that since the downward trend of the government's fiscal revenue has become more and more obvious, while the expenditure has been increasing, the domestic silver has been outflowing rapidly in the previous year, and there are signs of a money shortage in the market.Considering that the domestic silver stock is used to import strategic materials to maintain industrial and agricultural development and sufficient war materials, after the approval of the Executive Committee, the Government Affairs Council began to instruct the two financial institutions, the Northwest Reclamation Bank and the United Industrial Credit Bank Immediate issuance of all types of commercial paper: ie banker's acceptances, promissory notes, checks, etc.

Moreover, they also require that all settlements between major state-owned enterprises be settled by various commercial papers and offset each other, so as to reduce the demand for precious metal currencies.As for the commercial settlement between some domestic small private workshops, small enterprises and state-owned enterprises, they are also required to use commercial papers issued by the two banks. In order to dispel their doubts, the Government Council allows them to use money orders, checks, etc. to offset taxes.In such a situation, these companies are forced to open current accounts at neighboring banks and settle their daily transactions through the banking system.

At present, all large and small enterprises in the five coastal counties in China have gradually begun to use these commercial papers. For example, the Xuji Oil Extraction Factory in Meilin County was the first to respond to the government's call and announced in a high-profile way that it would accept the [-] yuan issued by the Northwest Reclamation Bank. RMB half-yearly acceptance bill—this is the payment for soybean oil purchased by the Ministry of War for the front line.Xu Wenxuan, the director of the factory, said that the risk of bank acceptance bills is low, and it will not take risks because of the different colors of coins, and it will not depreciate due to the increasing wear and tear of coins in circulation. It is 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 paper to cooperate with national policies.After Xu Wenxuan finished speaking, the Ministry of Civil Affairs ordered an additional [-] barrels of soybean oil the next day.

In order to prevent others from forging bills, banks that issue commercial paper will keep an internal deposit.That is to say, when the bank fills in the bill of exchange, it will put carbon paper on the bottom, so that when it is written, it will be in duplicate. The upper one will be issued for circulation, and the lower one will be kept in the bank for deposit and comparison, so as to prevent others from forging bills.

The technology of so-called carbon paper is relatively mature in today's east coast.At first, everyone used white paper soaked in ink, and after it was air-dried, it was used under the writing paper, and the effect was so-so.The year before last, the Ministry of Education and the coking plant jointly launched a carbon paper that uses dyes extracted from coal tar as a coating. The test effect surpassed the original simple ink-impregnated carbon paper, so it was quickly adopted in various systems across the country. promoted.

Nowadays, commercial acceptance bills, bank checks, promissory notes and other commercial bills issued by banks all use carbon paper to keep the bottom. Once the information and handwriting of the bill held by the bearer are different from the bank deposit, it is very likely to be refused. At this time, the bank and the Ministry of Internal Affairs will intervene to investigate the authenticity of the money order.Once it is found that someone forged the bills, then this person will go to Changshan Iron Mine to do hard labor for labor reform, so as to make an example.

The Spaniards in Qingdao Port have cultivated more than 100 mu of land, and more than 200 mu of land (all converted into east bank mu). More than 700 people add up to more than [-] mu.Although a lot of land was full of weeds, the Spaniards still plausibly said that it was indeed their arable land, and produced the land ownership certificate issued by the colonial agency of the Kingdom of Spain.

After discussing the land sale documents issued by the Spanish government, the people on the east coast decided to hold their noses and accept it. Therefore, the east coast government needs to pay these Spanish settlers a total of nearly 20 yuan in compulsory land redemption fees— —Of course now all paid by one-year banker's acceptance.

Based on the extreme distrust of these money orders, these Spanish farmers immediately ran to the market and the state-run stores opened by the East Coast government to buy a lot of luxury goods such as sugar, red wine, shredded tobacco, and expensive aspirin drug.And it was their actions that inadvertently led to the first circulation of bank acceptances in the domestic commercial retail system.

(End of this chapter)