Chapter 898 Do You Know the Duties of a Banker? (Second update, please subscribe)
Relations between countries are essentially based on mutual exploitation, and this is true even for so-called allies.
Once one party has no use value, then for the sake of national interests, the best option is of course to abandon the other party.
On this point, British Prime Minister Benjamin's words in a speech to Parliament in 1848, "There are no eternal friends, no eternal enemies, only eternal interests," fully demonstrate the essence of relations between countries.
Any country that tries to sing the praises of "friendship forever" will pay the price for its actions. After all, betrayal is the eternal theme in the interactions between countries.
As Brazilian bonds plummeted, London's banking industry immediately stopped lending to Brazil. Although there was no evidence that London had abandoned Brazil, financial bankers around the world saw this fact.
“Brazil is finished!”
When Hu Xueyan, the president of the Imperial Bank, learned that Brazil's bonds were being sold off and fell by 80%, he just said the same thing indifferently.
"They're done!"
"What?"
Standing in front of the president, Chen Dewen said with a little surprise.
"Brazil is finished! From the moment they can't sell their bonds, this country will cease to exist!"
After saying that, Hu Xueyan walked to the window and stared at the city outside.
"Without the money, they can't continue the war. Now they are just bombing. If nothing goes wrong, the army should have already started to march towards Brazil. We should strike at their weakest point, Brazil..."
It ceased to exist from now on!
As a banker, Hu Xueyan often analyzed problems from an economic perspective. War itself costs money. No country in the world would prepare hundreds of millions of yuan in funds like the Ming Dynasty before the war broke out. Most countries rely on borrowing money to wage war.
"This airstrike not only destroyed the market's confidence in Brazil, but also destroyed Brazil's confidence in whether it could continue to fight. More importantly, it made the General Staff see through Brazil's weak nature. Based on the usual practices of those generals in the General Staff, they will never miss any opportunity to annex Brazil and destroy it!"
At this time, Hu Xueyan seemed to have transformed into a staff officer rather than just a banker, but he was still a banker after all.
"So, now is our chance!"
"What? What does the president mean?"
Chen Wen thought about it and said.
“Is it the Imperial Bank that is entering Brazil?”
"Yes, expansion has never been a simple military expansion. The army went to conquer, but it was not just the army that conquered the land in the end, but business. Why were we able to turn Chile and Argentina into the homeland of the empire? In essence, while we were conquering militarily, the financial industry and business were also conquering the land at the same time. Through appropriate financial policies, we allowed our immigrants to gain a huge advantage in a short period of time, usurp local wealth, control local wealth, and form an overwhelming economic advantage over the locals. This is the true meaning of conquest!"
What is conquest?
In essence, conquest is plunder, not just the land, but everything. Land is only the surface of wealth, but what is behind it? There are also various other kinds of wealth plundered, even the right to reproduce is within the scope of plunder. Why are there fewer and fewer Indians in South American countries, and mixed-race people have become the mainstream of the local population? Is it because Indian men married white women? What kind of dream is this?
It is clear that the European whites who occupied the upper wealth class married Indian women, but what about Indian men? Because of poverty and low status, they could not marry wives, and poverty could not last for more than three generations... and the Indian family was directly wiped out.
As a result, South America became Latin America, and European-Americans became the masters of this continent!
This is conquest!
As for the rest, including colonies, it was not conquest at all, but occupation.
After a pause, Hu Xueyan said.
"Manager Chen, you should prepare yourself. If nothing unexpected happens, the army will march into Brazil in the next few days. From now on, no matter which city the army conquers, the Imperial Bank must follow suit. Not only the Imperial Bank, but also other Ming banks and commercial institutions must enter at the same time to force local banks to close. Only in this way can we achieve true conquest."
"And what about foreign banks?"
Looking at the president, Chen Wen asked.
"Oh, you mean the Bank of England? We can just squeeze them through policies, just like we did in Buenos Aires. Remember this: without financial autonomy, there will be no national autonomy. Financial power must be firmly in our hands."
Picking up the teacup and swiping the tea with the lid, Hu Xueyan asked:
"This is also the original intention of establishing the Imperial Central Bank! This is also the reason why I asked you to go to Brazil!"
Chen Wen was half a classmate of Hu Xueyan. When Hu Xueyan visited the UK to inspect banks, Chen Wen was his translator, classmate, and even his English teacher. After returning from studying abroad, Hu Xueyan invited him to join the bank. From that day on, they were partners, and now, Hu Xueyan chose him to go to Brazil just to give him a step.
"Brazil is the biggest target of the Ming Dynasty in recent years. Brazil's economy is very backward, nothing more than slave plantations and slave rubber mining. What are you going to do there? To put it simply, it is to use financial power to disintegrate the local economy and improve the economic status of Ming Dynasty immigrants. In practice, it is to destroy the local economy and let the local plantations go bankrupt. When they go bankrupt and the plantations disintegrate, the land can belong to us in a reasonable way. Of course, the government will definitely introduce some policies to implement them. In a word, you will definitely have a lot to do there. With this step, it will be easier for you to return to the head office in the future."
"In a word, I went to Brazil as a bandit, right? It doesn't seem like we did it."
Chen Wen said jokingly.
"Bankers are essentially robbers. Otherwise, how can they make money?"
Hu Xueyan grinned and burst into laughter.
"If you want to be a qualified banker, you must have the character of a robber. Only in this way can you succeed. However, what we plundered was never our own people, but outsiders, such as Brazil... We occupied that place, but did not plunder them. Can we be worthy of the blood of the soldiers?"
For bankers, everything is so naked. They can discuss plundering without scruples and even use beautiful words to justify their actions, but in essence it is just plundering!
"The British are very powerful there. I think it's not enough to just squeeze them exclusively. The British are also very powerful there!"
Chen Wen said with some concern. After all, Britain has been operating in Brazil for more than half a century.
"So what? After completing the military conquest, we will be the most powerful. In short, the soldiers shed blood and conquered with guns, and we conquer and occupy with money!"
The driving force of expansion from ancient times to the present can be summed up in one word: the pursuit of profit. However, in the process of pursuing profit, some people pursue land, some pursue wealth, and their degree of violence is also different.
But one thing is certain: commercial conquest, which accompanies military attacks, may seem more civilized, but in essence, its cruelty is no less than that of military conquest, and even the number of deaths it causes is far greater than that of military conquest, but it is more hidden and less noticed by people...
When airships kill people, they use bombs, so you can see blood. But when money kills people, it is often invisible.
(End of this chapter)
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