All the money houses, banks and pawnshops in Xuzhou City were concentrated on Nanmen Street.

Coincidentally, Hengtongji is right opposite Jiangnan Bank.

At this time, the brocade window on the second floor of Hengtongji was open, and the shopkeeper Song stood in front of the window with his hands behind his back. The sunlight was a bit dazzling, so he used a folding fan to make a canopy and watched the customers of Jiangnan Bank coming in and out across the street.

The person who was withdrawing money came out of Jiangnan Bank and went straight into Hengtongji.

"You idiot, don't you know to go around from the back?" Song Cai, the shopkeeper of the Xuzhou branch, stood behind Song Xiaoming. As soon as the man came upstairs, he started to curse.

"I was careless, I deserve to die." The guy who acted arrogantly in Jiangnan Bank was now as obedient as a little white rabbit and slapped himself hard.

"Okay, an honest person should not do shady things. We must let them know who is against them." Song Xiaoming said, shaking his folding fan lightly.

"Why did you come out empty-handed? Didn't I ask you to take out the silver?" Song Cai stopped scolding but still asked unhappily.

"According to the rules, it can only be paid after five days." The person who was withdrawing the money quickly replied, "I think I will be in the wrong if I make a scene, so I have to agree to go back in five days."

"Oh?" Song Cai was surprised and said, "Yesterday, all the money below two thousand taels was paid on the same day."

"You are the ones who alerted him." Song Xiaoming said with understanding, "How could he not notice after you took all his banknotes?"

"This Jiang Dou really can't be treated as a side dish." Song Cai was quite surprised when he heard this and said, "I never thought he was so vigilant before. Could it be his deputy named Richard?"

"It makes no difference." Song Xiaoming said calmly, "They can't deliver the silver in ten days, let alone five."

"Hehe, even a month won't be enough, unless their silver ship can grow wings and fly over Huai'an." Song Cai hurriedly said with a smile.

"Since the other party is already alert, let's not withdraw 2,000 by 2,000." Song Xiaoming instructed Song Cai, "Switch to large-amount exchange this afternoon. We must get at least 1 million taels from him today."

"Yes." Song Cai nodded in response. The reason why the limit is 2,000 taels is that in Jiangnan Bank, for remittances below 2,000 taels, it is customary to pay the silver directly. This can show their wealth and it can also simplify the procedures and make it convenient for everyone.

Unexpectedly, the opponent retreated so quickly, forcing them to fail before they could even steal the tower.

But the result is no different. If the money cannot be paid out in five days, Jiangnan Bank will be bankrupt.

~~

Manager Song’s plan was simple: a run on the bank.

This move is not uncommon in later generations, but it was definitely a pioneering effort during the Longqing period of the Ming Dynasty.

It’s not that others are too stupid, but because the business strategies of money shops and bill shops in that era were very conservative, making it difficult for malicious runs to succeed.

For example, money houses are very cautious in choosing locations for their branches. In addition to a developed economy and prosperous business in the area, convenient transportation is also very important.

For example, Chengdu was one of the most prosperous cities in the Ming Dynasty, but none of the four major banks had branches there. The reason was that the traffic was not smooth, and it was inconvenient to transfer the silver inventory from other places. In order to ensure the safety of the Chengdu branch, it was necessary to prepare several times more silver inventory than other places.

Therefore, each bank simply gave up Chengdu and only operated in cities along the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal. In this way, if there was a shortage of silver in a certain place, the head office could immediately use the convenient water transportation to transport cash from other places to provide support.

Why is a five to ten day payment period required? It is to prevent this from happening. With a grace period, they are not afraid of large-scale withdrawals from other places. Although money houses and ticket shops also lend money at this time, the amount is not large, accounting for at most 10% of the deposits, and definitely not 20%, so money houses are not afraid of runs.

However, the interruption of the canal transport destroyed the convenient transportation on the Grand Canal, and naturally the money houses were unable to support each other, which led to great risks in inter-regional remittances.

But for money houses, credit is everything. Since you promised when you made a deposit that you have branches all over the country and that the money can be withdrawn within five days, then any excuses are useless. If you don't see the cash within five days, the customer will just smash your signboard and force you to close down.

Of course, only the section from Xuzhou to Huai'an was abandoned, and ships could still sail north from Xuzhou. Jiangnan Bank could still borrow some positions from its branches in Jining, Linqing and other places in Shandong to help with the emergency.

However, Song Xiaoming had calculated for them that even if the Jinan branch and all four branches of Jiangnan Bank in Shandong were included, they would only be able to provide Xuzhou with 3 million taels.

As for the branches in northern Zhili, they were out of reach, and by the time they delivered the silver, it was too late.

Over the past few months, Manager Song has secretly had people open more than one hundred accounts in branches of the Jiangnan Bank across Jiangnan in batches and deposited a total of five million taels of silver!

Now, more than a hundred people have come to Xuzhou with their tickets to withdraw money at the same time. I don’t believe that his branch alone can withstand it!

~~

However, Jiangnan Bank has one more moat than other money houses, that is, their silver notes already have basic credit.

This made it possible for them to send silver notes with fast horses to get the job done. Although Song Xiaoming's men would definitely not take the silver notes, it was hard to say who would follow suit and take the money.

In order to destroy the last hope of Jiangnan Bank and to create a crazy run on the bank, Mr. Song ordered all money houses to buy up Jiangnan Bank's silver bills in large quantities.

Now, all the ammunition is ready, let’s fire the cannons and blow him up!

A smile finally appeared on the face of Manager Song.

It’s a sure win!

~~

Opposite, the lobby of Jiangnan Bank.

Although Manager Mao personally took charge, using his decades-long skill of dawdling to handle business like a sloth, completely wearing out the patience of every customer, he still handled nearly one million taels of exchange before leaving get off work in the afternoon, and all in cash, without any bills!

This number is the business volume of Xuzhou Branch for a full two months.

At this time, even the ordinary tellers could see that someone must be causing trouble...

President Jiang kept staring at the hourglass. As soon as the afternoon came, he immediately gave the order to ring the bell to close the bank!

Normally, he would wait until the customer had completed their business before ringing the bell, but today, he couldn't wait even a moment.

As the bell rang, Manager Mao stood up as if he had been pardoned. He bowed to the customers in line and said,

"Sorry, we are off duty. Ladies and gentlemen, please come back tomorrow."

The customers wanted to complain, but the security guard had already paid for someone else to come. They had no choice but to leave the bank cursing.

When the security guards put up the door as quickly as possible, everyone in the bank breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's no big deal. The sky won't fall." Jiang Dou appeared at the front desk and said to his uneasy subordinates, "After checking the business, go eat quickly. We'll have an extra meal tonight."

After saying that, he turned and went into his office.

Richard had been waiting there for a long time, and soon, three managers came in one after another.

Manager Mao walked in last, bolted the door, and then placed a stack of withdrawal slips on the table.

"How much is it in total?" President Jiang asked while chewing his fingers. The other three people also looked at the pile of withdrawal slips as if they were facing a great enemy.

"One million, thirty-three thousand taels." Manager Mao replied with difficulty.

"Hiss..." Although they were mentally prepared, the four of them still gasped in surprise.

One million and three thousand taels, just enough to use up all the silver in stock in the bank!

"It looks like there will be more tomorrow, not less," Richard said with a dry mouth.

"Yes." Everyone nodded. This morning, the withdrawals were all small amounts. By the afternoon, they had all turned into tens of thousands of taels!

Maybe tomorrow we can make 2 million in one day! How can we pay them?!

"Let's give up on asking for help from the head office." Jiang Dou leaned back in his chair, feeling a huge sense of powerlessness coming over him like a tide.

The pursuit of fast communication is in the nature of money houses, so each bank has a dedicated pigeon breeder. After the pigeons fly to their destination and return home, there will be a dedicated pigeon delivery person who will put the pigeons in a cage and send them back safely with good food and water.

But since the other party was deliberately planning to set up a branch in Xuzhou, there must be bird hunters nearby. It was too dangerous to release pigeons from the bank in broad daylight. If they couldn't fly out of Nanmen Street, they would be shot down.

Therefore, the pigeon releaser had to ride out of the city on horseback and release the pigeons in a deserted wilderness to ensure that they would not be shot down during takeoff. In addition, they had to prepare a few more pigeons in case they encountered birds of prey such as eagles on the way.

~~

After calming down, President Jiang said to everyone, "We can't just sit there and wait. We have to go to each company's docks and see if we can get some of our positions back. Don't worry about the interest. If we can't make it through these few days, we'll give up everything!"

"Understood." Everyone nodded. Richard hesitated and asked, "Shouldn't we first understand what they want? If they want us to die, there's no need to humiliate ourselves."

"It's already this late, why are you still caring about your face?" Jiang Dou sneered, and stood up with the help of the table, saying: "I'll visit each dock one by one. Even if I can't get the position, I can still find out what's going on."

"I understand." Richard nodded and said to Jiang Dou, "Count me in, too."

"Old Li, you are unfamiliar with the place, so you don't need to go." President Jiang advised.

"I can't sit still in the line, so let's go together." Richard said with a smile.

"Okay, then let's go and get humiliated together." President Jiang laughed and felt that this Li Jianjun was much more pleasing to the eye.

~~

Sure enough, when the five people came back from outside in the middle of the night, they were all covered in dust and had empty hands.

The five of them sat in the hall in silence, no one wanted to speak. The kitchen brought them midnight snacks, but no one picked up their chopsticks.

They had visited all the money houses and banks on Nanmen Street, all of which offered interest rates that were twice the normal rate, but in the end they were only able to borrow 200,000 taels from Wanyuan.

The rest of the money houses either cried poor and couldn't pay, or made sarcastic remarks... Those money houses and silver shops that bought up silver notes in large quantities were even more abusive, saying things like "You have come to this day", "This is really retribution", etc., which were enough to make people die of anger.

After a long while, Jiang Dou, the bank president, recovered first and said to the four people with a forced smile, "The good news is that Wanyuanhao and Xinlong are not involved. As long as Hengtongji is the leader, we are not deserted by everyone."

But the crowd couldn't laugh. There was always a bank owner who was not careful with his words. He revealed that the manager Song of Hengtongji had been planning this for months! Hengtongji, a powerful and wealthy company, had planned this attack so deliberately. How could Jiangnan Bank withstand it when it was caught off guard?

"President, how about tomorrow..." Manager Mao asked tentatively, "Let's find a reason to close the business?"

"Nonsense! They have arranged everything step by step. How can they let you hang up the banner of exemption from fighting?" Jiang Dou cursed and said decisively: "If we don't open on time tomorrow, someone will definitely smash our store and it will be finished in an instant!"

As he said this, he picked up the bowl and said, "Eat, there will be a fierce battle tomorrow."

"Yeah, let's eat." Richard also picked up his chopsticks and said to the three managers, "Aren't there still five days left? The group's board of directors and the president will definitely be able to come up with a solution. We have to stick to it, otherwise it will be useless even if we have a solution."

"Oh, let's eat..." The three of them finally picked up their bowls and reluctantly started eating.

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