As for the vice president surnamed Li, he was parachuted in from the head office to be in charge of risk management. In addition to being responsible for the specific accounts, he also has a say in the bank's daily operations, deposit and loan accounts, and personnel structure, as long as they have something to do with risk.

And when the president ignored his opinions, he could bypass the president and report directly to the risk control department of the head office.

Even in extreme cases where the president has committed serious corruption, dereliction of duty, and disloyalty, and may destroy evidence, kill people to silence them, or abscond with the money at any time, Vice President Li has the power to declare a state of emergency and directly take over the bank.

In an emergency, the security team and all employees must obey his orders, and even if he orders the detention of the bank president, they must not disobey.

Of course, after the state of emergency, the deputy governor will be subject to strict scrutiny by the head office, and if there is any abuse of power, he will be severely punished.

In President Jiang's view, Vice President Li was the military supervisor sent by the higher-ups, so he naturally would never dare to neglect him.

Fortunately, the vice president named Richard, although he attaches great importance to risk control, never interferes in the specific business of the bank, and everyone gets along well with each other.

~~

If the bank performs well, the salary will naturally increase.

Take the food for example. Not only do we have three meals a day, but we also have fruit in the afternoon and supper for those on night duty at night. All are prepared by a special cook, and the 40 to 50 people in the Xuzhou branch eat to their heart's content.

The management also has a special kitchen, with seven or eight different breakfast items every day, which is no different from eating out.

President Jiang sat at a rosewood round table, drinking five-nut oil tea with eight-strand fried dough sticks, while chatting with Vice President Li about the progress of the river-sea dispute.

The three managers were also very concerned about this fight, which affected the group's future plans for the next few decades. However, they had no right to interrupt and could only listen with their ears perked up.

Wu Ji originally had the function of collecting intelligence. Although it was renamed Jiangnan Bank, it was still well-informed.

"It is said that the game is even." Vice President Li drank half a bowl of spicy soup, which was so spicy that he was sweating all over.

Richard was from Huizhou, and had just arrived here, so he was not used to drinking oil tea. However, he liked the spicy soup made with chicken bones and pepper powder.

"Officials from Shandong and Guangdong abstained from voting, but Lao Xier and the Huguang gang all voted for the grain transport officials."

"What a bunch of idiots!" President Jiang took a bite of the fried dough stick and chewed it angrily, "They only know how to stab me in the back!"

"Ah, who says it's not true?" Vice President Li came from above, so he naturally knew the pros and cons better. He sighed and said, "The whole of Jiangnan is waiting for you to succeed."

"So what should we do next?" asked President Jiang.

"They said they would send someone to conduct an on-site inspection, but that was all a cover-up. It depends on the outcome of the fight between you and them." Vice President Li said, "The head office reminded us to be careful at this time, otherwise the Caoyun Group might become desperate and attack us."

"Haha, you, Old Li, always talk about your business." President Jiang couldn't help but joked, "You are really competent."

"In an emergency, it is better to be cautious." Richard said sternly, "I checked the treasury yesterday. In addition to the reserve silver for silver notes, our silver inventory is just one million taels. It's too dangerous."

Cash is the lifeblood of banks, and this has been the case since ancient times.

"One million taels is not a small amount, Old Li." President Jiang said with a wry smile, "Our Xuzhou branch is ultimately dependent on the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal has been cut off for several months, and business is not going well for all the businesses. All we see is money being withdrawn but no money being deposited. The river is dry and the lake is dry too."

After a pause, he continued, "Besides, the total amount of silver in the warehouses of other banks is only a few million taels. We have one branch with one million taels. What else do you want?"

"We are not competing with others, but our funds are close to the yellow line." Richard sighed and said, "Of course there is no problem with normal operation, but we are afraid that someone will mess with us."

"That's true..." President Jiang didn't say anything now. The canal from Xuzhou to Huai'an was completely abandoned. The Xuzhou branch had lost its financial connection with the head office, and its ability to resist risks was indeed greatly weakened.

"President, these days, the money houses and pawnshops on the street seem to have made an appointment to buy our silver bills together." Manager Gou, who was in charge of banknotes under him, finally couldn't help but interrupt and said, "In addition to paying one tael of official silver for one tael of silver bill, there is also a ten-cent commission. Many people lined up to exchange them. Some even exchanged all the silver bills on our counters and took them to other money houses for arbitrage."

If you use loose or privately minted silver to exchange for silver bills at the Jiangnan Bank, you will be charged a fire consumption fee after weighing the silver.

As for the "official silver" minted by the government to exchange for silver notes, no additional fire consumption was required. One tael of silver was one tael of silver note, and the ten cents were pure profit, so naturally some people flocked to it.

"Hmm." President Jiang nodded. He had naturally noticed the commotion. He went to ask the people at the banks and they said that their boss couldn't stand it anymore and was going to collect some silver bills to make it easier for their depositors to use.

This kind of thing had happened in Jiangnan a long time ago, and it was reasonable. Moreover, the money houses had no choice but to use their own bank's silver notes, which made President Jiang feel very happy.

The only unpleasant thing is that silver certificates have to be withdrawn from the head office and cannot be printed by ourselves, so we missed this arbitrage opportunity in vain.

As for running out of silver certificates on hand, it is not a big deal. Cash will be paid out anyway. Just write a report and ask the head office to allocate another batch as soon as possible.

However, after being reminded by Richard and Xiao Gou, President Jiang became a little nervous.

"Fuck, they're not going to cause trouble, are they?" Jiang Dou subconsciously tore the eight-strand fried dough stick into eighteen pieces.

"It doesn't feel right." Manager Gou continued, "They should have just collected enough to use, why did they collect all the silver certificates in the city?"

"Are you trying to use this method to get our silver certificates out of circulation?" another Manager Mao whispered.

But he was looked down upon by everyone, because only a fool would do that.

The interruption of the canal transportation only affected bulk cargo transportation. It was impossible to transport cash from Jiangnan, but the transportation of light silver certificates was not affected.

If necessary, they could use a few fast horses to transport tens of millions of taels of silver overland within a few days. Even if those banks had silver mines, they couldn't afford to exchange paper with Jiangnan Bank.

However, there must be some reasons behind the abnormality that they did not expect.

Everyone thought about it for a long time but couldn't figure it out. At this time, the bell for work rang, and the five people had to stop talking.

President Jiang thought for a moment and told the three managers, "You should be more cautious recently, especially when it comes to lending. Stop lending for a while. Tell them that the head office has stepped up its review and that you can only lend after the review is over."

"Yes." The three managers nodded.

"There are still people coming to exchange money. Let's wait for five days." President Jiang added, stroking his increasingly bald forehead, and said to Vice President Li: "Let's jointly report this matter to the head office and ask them to urgently replenish the banknotes. Of course, it would be best if they could transfer some cash from the north."

"Yeah." Vice President Li nodded, and the purpose of his reminder was achieved.

However, they both knew that the situation in Linqing and Jinan was not optimistic either. Whose flesh would the head office use to heal whose wounds? In the end, the result would probably be that no one would be helped.

~~

After the guys cleaned the counters in the bank lobby, they removed the door panels and started their day's business.

Before the teller in charge of foreign exchange had even sat down on his chair, many people came to handle foreign exchange business.

The so-called "exchange" is a settlement method in which the payer entrusts the bank to pay the silver deposited in the bank to the payee. This method is convenient for merchants to trade in different places and has always been the main business of the bank. So the teller didn't care at first and began to verify the seal and compare the secret seal step by step.

The first payee had an account at the Suzhou branch of Jiangnan Bank and requested that two thousand taels of silver be transferred to the payee.

As usual, the teller will ask the recipient whether he has an account in the bank. If not, he can open one for him free of charge and deposit the money into the account, which will earn interest.

But the other party said coldly that they didn't have it and didn't want to open it, and they wanted cash.

Seeing the other party's firm attitude, the teller could only helplessly say that cash was acceptable but would have to wait five days.

"Why not give it now? I want to pay the money to someone else today!" The recipient got furious and slammed the table to question, which also attracted the attention of the security guard.

The teller calmly pointed to the wooden sign behind him and said, "This is the rule."

The recipient looked back and saw a wooden sign on the wall that said, "Local cash withdrawals of more than 500 taels require notification to the bank one day in advance. For cash withdrawals from other places, notification must be made five days in advance."

"In the past, payment was made on the same day." The payee also shouted from the side.

"The rule has always been there. Other stores have to wait ten days." The teller said in an irritating tone.

"But in the past we always paid on the same day!" Not only the payee, but also several people waiting to exchange money behind him started to shout.

"Before, it was for the convenience of everyone. Now that the canal is cut off, it is very inconvenient for us to pay. Let's all be considerate of each other." Manager Mao, who was in charge of the exchange, came over, patted his teller, and asked him to go aside. He sat down behind the counter and said to the people outside with a smile: "I am sorry to trouble you all, but the rules set by the superiors, we can't do anything about it. How about this, if this gentleman is in a hurry to pay, I will issue you a free acceptance bill, and the same applies to the other party."

The rules of exchange were there, so the payee had no reason to make a fuss. However, he still insisted on cash and would rather wait five days than accept a bill of exchange which could also be used for payment.

When asked what his concerns were, the man refused to say and left the bank lobby cursing.

Manager Mao gave his seat to the teller and stood behind him and watched for a while, feeling horrified.

Because he found that today was like a ghost, almost all customers asked to withdraw cash, and the payees opened accounts in Jiangnan, and all the money was kept in Jiangnan, and all was transferred from one place to another!

After instructing the teller to give the customer five days to pay, he quietly left the front desk.

As soon as he entered the inner room, he pushed open the door of President Jiang's office without even knocking.

"President, this is bad. Someone is trying to squeeze us!" Manager Mao's voice was trembling.

"What?" President Jiang was horrified, thinking to himself that what you fear is bound to come true!

ps. Second update, please give me your monthly vote!