Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The richest man is the richest man, but the Tokyo market is big enough, and the Li family has no say.

If they don't care about the consequences, they can just do it.

But if you want to deal with the aftermath and prevent merchants from losing all their money and attracting crazy revenge from Prince Zhu, several big cloth merchants must join hands.

Only by joining forces can they quickly control prices.

Big businessmen across industries don't trust each other, but they can actually advance and retreat together in the same industry. Because their business environment has always been so bad, even if they have backers behind them, those backers are also vampires.

On the one hand, they have to deal with the blood-sucking backers, and on the other hand, they have to deal with government exploitation. If the big businessmen are not united, they will not be able to stand!

Several major families in Tokyo Fuhang held meetings to discuss for half a month, and finally finalized the entire plan.

Perhaps it was because Prince Zhu’s knife was too sharp, and some people even backed off midway.

In the end, they had to make a blood alliance, swear an oath in the name of their ancestors, and then verbally agree on the charter. That is to say, we must not be greedy in the end, we must leave a way for merchants to make money, and we must not push small and medium-sized merchants into desperation even after a few waves of harvest. Once the situation goes bad, we must join forces to control prices. Those who make money are harvested regardless of the consequences, and several others join forces to suppress them!

Why do they take such a big risk and make it so complicated to execute the harvest plan?

Because the emergence of exchanges mainly targets them.

The prince has set his sights on them, and now there are only two options:

First, be obedient and only make honest money from now on. However, as the exchange system matures, the room for making money will become narrower and narrower in the future, and even mistakes in market judgment will lead to losses.

Second, find new ways to make big money under the rules of the exchange, and also take into account the prince's face.

There is no third way.

Oppose the prince's exchange like he opposed Wang Anshi's market change? Stop it, they haven't lived enough.

…

Early winter season.

The price of cloth in shops is still increasing normally, but on the exchange it is rising every day.

Major shops selling cloth also joined the cloth trade. They belong to small and medium-sized merchants, also called merchants.

Most bank accounts were completely confused about the situation. When they heard that cloth prices on the exchange had soared, they quickly went to the cloth bank bosses for instructions. After some discussion, everyone agreed to raise prices together (ordinary bankers are not allowed to bypass the guild and increase or decrease prices privately).

Seeing the sharp rise in cloth prices, ordinary people were afraid of the shortage of cloth in winter, so they went to stores to buy.

Faced with the crowds rushing to buy cloth, merchants naturally have to increase their purchases. Moreover, seeing that the price of cloth on the exchange was still rising, and hearing that several major merchants were frantically purchasing goods, they also ran to the exchange to place orders.

Soon someone realized that after buying a bill of goods on the exchange, there was no need to go to the warehouse to cash out the cloth.

As long as you get ahead of the delivery period and resell the delivery orders, you can make money.

Even if the delivery period has arrived, as long as you pay the warehouse usage fee, you can continue to sell the goods. The profit earned from selling orders is far more than the warehouse usage fee.

As if Pandora's box had been opened, Tokyo quickly descended into madness.

In the beginning, it was just big businessmen secretly inducing traders to speculate in cloth futures. Gradually, even ordinary citizens joined in, and some even took out loans to speculate in commodities.

The exchange was so frightened that it quickly reported it to the account department, and finally made a rule: if the price of a certain commodity increased by more than 10% every day, the exchange would stop buying and selling orders for this type of commodity.

It's useless.

Because you can buy and sell privately, bypassing the exchange!

The exchange reported to the Ministry of Accounts and soon issued regulations again: all orders must be bought and sold within the exchange, and handling fees must also be charged.

Still useless.

This is not the electronic age, primitive paper futures securities, there are too many ways to get around the regulations.

For example, when the stock market first appeared in China, ID cards were required to subscribe for quotas. As a result, someone came over with a large bag of ID cards.

The same is true for the Tokyo Stock Exchange in the Ming Dynasty. They can always find ways to circumvent any restrictions imposed by the government.

The plan of the big merchants in the cloth trade was so successful that even merchants from other industries came to the exchange to speculate in cloth with their money.

But they always felt like something was wrong.

Li Wenzhong frowned: "The price of cloth has risen like this. Why don't the officials of the exchange convene a guild to talk and solve the problem?"

Li Dunyi said: "It can't go up any more, otherwise it will definitely anger the prince."

"My warehouse is almost full," Li Mao said. "We can hold a cloth trade meeting and let several major merchants release goods together, and the price of the goods must also be agreed upon."

Li Wenzhong scratched his eyebrows with his fingers: "Why can the officials of the exchange keep their composure? Could it be that they have been prepared for this? It can't be that there is still a large amount of cloth in the warehouse."

The warehouse is where the treasury stores money and physical objects.

Li Dunyi shook his head and said: "After the salary reform, only the silks and satins used for official uniforms are still stored in large quantities in the treasury warehouses. The rest of the cloth is sold every month through the department, and it is all bought by our cloth shop. We, the Li family, have the largest share of the department and the warehouse The remaining fabrics in the market cannot hold down the price.”

"Is it possible that from the beginning of the price increase, four hundred miles have been rushed to dispatch it?" Li Mao thought.

"It's impossible, those officials are not immortals," Li Wenzhong said, "Besides, it takes time to transport the cloth from other places. We can finish it when the new cloth arrives."

Li Dunyi said: "If something goes wrong, it must be a monster. Discuss with those companies immediately, and we will work together to lower the price tomorrow!"

…

The Tokyo Stock Exchange is located in the Shangqing Palace in the southeast corner of the outer city.

Next door is Jingde Temple.

A temple and a Buddhist temple were all repurposed for other purposes in the second year after the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

Today, the Shangqing Palace, which Song Huizong liked very much, has become the residence of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Different Buddhist temples are arranged to trade different types of goods. Because the business was so popular, a temporary shelter was set up outside the temple to cover the rain.

At this moment, there was a huge crowd.

Zhao Kai, the former King of Song Dynasty, was waiting anxiously in the crowd.

After waiting for a long time, my compatriot Zhao Shu came over and said: "I can't borrow money, so I'd better forget it. If we sell the order now, we can make two to three hundred guan, so there's no need to continue taking risks. The price of cloth has risen too ridiculously. , I really don’t know what to do.”

Zhao Kai said: "Wait a minute, the price is one day, and it will definitely rise sharply tomorrow. How about going to those Tiechi (Jews) to borrow money? When my father was still alive, he often visited Tiechilou. I also often visited it at that time. Go, I have a good relationship with the shopkeeper there."

"No, no, the interest rate paid by the iron filings is too high," Zhao Shu said. "Besides, those iron filings only recognize money and not people, so how can they miss the old relationship? Our family property has been mortgaged, and the iron filings are not I will borrow again.”

Zhao Kai added: "You can also ask Lao Ba to borrow money from the palace!"

Zhao Shu said: "I went to borrow money two days ago. Lao Ba said that he went to the palace to borrow money, but he was scolded by the girl."

Zhao Kai said depressedly: "We are all brothers and sisters from the same father. They are rich, but they are unwilling to lend us a small amount of money to make us rich."

"Dang-dang-dang!"

"The market is open!"

With the sound of the gong, people began to queue up, and some people even traded privately outside the venue.

This is the first time for everyone. The big traders have very rough shipping skills. They put out a huge amount of price reduction orders at once.

But countless retail investors have no judgment. They only know to take advantage of the price reduction to buy more goods and make money as the value rises.

"Grab it quickly, snatch it quickly!"

In the midst of the crowd, an inconspicuous guy immediately said to the people around him: "It's begun."

The traders were all non-staff clerks, and their salaries did not go to the court's finances, but were borne by the exchange itself.

They were busy in full swing, and soon they were stunned one after another.

"Did you fill in the selling price correctly?"

"No, hurry up."

"No, you really filled in the selling price correctly? How could it be the price at the beginning of winter?"

"What are you asking about? It's not like you, as a trader, are also involved in speculating on orders, right?"

"No, no, absolutely not!"

"Then sell it quickly!"

The latest unit price is written on the blackboard in a timely manner and erased immediately after the transaction is completed.

As an ultra-low price appeared for an order, everyone was stunned, including the big businessmen behind the scenes.

The price is too low, it is the price before it was speculated!

Because the price is so low, no one grabs it. Fools all know that there is a problem. Once there are too many ultra-low selling orders, the price of the fabric will be smashed to pieces on the spot, and they will lose money on the orders they bought in the early stage.

The big merchants reacted quickly and ordered their followers: "Eat as much as you can!"

Li Dunyi still stood there in a daze.

A big cloth merchant named Wu Yong came over and said, "Brother Li, why don't you take action?"

Li Dunyi pointed to the blackboard and said: "These sales orders are not intended to make money. They must be goods sold by the imperial court!"

Wu Yong said: "The cloth in the warehouse is all produced by our cloth industry. There is not much left. As long as you eat them all, you can control the situation."

"Do you want to go against the prince?" Li Dunyi asked.

Wu Yong said: "The prince is gone. I don't want to make more money, but I can't lose all my money, right? After finishing the sales orders from the court, we will work together to reduce the price, and we will definitely help the court stabilize the price. There must be someone in Tokyo to buy cloth. , the court must have someone to support it. As long as it doesn’t go too far, the prince will definitely not use the knife. The prince has always followed the rules, and we have not violated the "Da Ming Law". If the prince does not follow the rules, how can this exchange have any credibility? In order to keep the exchange, the prince will definitely let me wait."

Li Dunyi shook his head repeatedly: "The prince must have had a back-up plan a long time ago."

"How can there be such a few pieces of cloth left in the warehouse? Can you really use magic to conjure it up?" Wu Yong said anxiously, "We have agreed to advance and retreat together, how can you, the leader of the line, back down? If you don't take responsibility today, you won't be able to do it?" I’ll choose you to be the leader again!”

"It doesn't matter if you don't do this at the beginning, the prince must still have the goods somewhere. Look where the delivery address is!" Li Dunyi said.

The ultra-low price list I just bought was quickly brought over.

It's just an ordinary warehouse, nothing can be seen at all.

"No," Li Dunyi's pupils tightened, "The pick-up point on the manifest is used to store coal, how could it be turned into a cloth warehouse? We are all keeping a close eye on the cloth that comes to Beijing during this period, unless It can only be moved here using the Five Ghost Moving Technique."

The big merchants discovered something was wrong one after another, but unfortunately they were already riding a tiger.

No matter how many orders the official puts out, they have to catch them all until they finish the goods, otherwise it will be completely out of control.

Countless small and medium-sized traders and retail investors are completely at a loss.

It was the first time that they encountered this kind of thing. They had no idea what was going on and could only watch the gods fight.

Li Wenzhong arrived at some unknown time and said in a low voice: "Dad, don't buy it. I'll accept any compensation this time. We can't finish the prince's goods."

"Do you know where these pieces of cloth come from?" Li Dunyi asked.

Li Wenzhong said: "After thinking about it, the cloth that neither the Ministry of Revenue nor the cloth shop can figure out can only be military cloth that has been hoarded for a long time!"