The morning dew is hazy. As the sky gets brighter, the fog gradually dissipates. The golden brilliance of the morning sun shines on the pavement where you got up early. The steaming boiler makes the morning even colder. Take a slight breath, as if
Even my heart and lungs felt a little cold.
However, such a quiet morning was soon broken by various sounds.
Although Tongjia Bank has just opened its doors on Guli Street, it is still very busy. There are people everywhere in the bank and it is noisy.
The shopkeeper took a few banknotes from a customer, counted them, and frowned, seeing that there were tens of thousands of taels of silver again.
This morning alone, in less than two quarters of an hour, tens of thousands of taels were sold out. But this is not all. In fact, since the beginning of the month, there have been a lot more people coming to exchange money with their banknotes. Recently,
And especially many.
The customer waiting for the silver in front of the counter urged: "Shopkeeper, hurry up, I'm in a hurry."
The shopkeeper quickly came to his senses, checked the authenticity and quantity of the banknote, and handed it to another person behind him. That person walked into the inner warehouse with the banknote. Not long after, a group of strong men began to carry more than ten boxes from the side door.
Silver comes out.
The customer who took out the silver quickly ran out of the bank and called his carriage.
There were tens of thousands of taels of silver and more than ten boxes weighing seven to eight hundred kilograms, and it took three carriages to load them all.
The cashier got on one of the carriages, and several people dressed as escorts carried swords and got into three carriages respectively, and then the carriage procession drove away.
The boy in charge of counting the silver stopped and looked at it for a while, and then returned to the bank with the strong men carrying the silver, and was ready to take the silver for the next guest.
...
The whole morning of Tongjia Bank was spent in this repetition. And the shopkeeper, after careful consideration for a long time, finally made up his mind to close the store early and hurried to Tongzhai.
Tong Yaowen, the head of the Tong family, happened to not be out today, so he was quite surprised to hear that the shopkeeper of his bank had come to see him.
Everything in the shop is reported at the beginning of the month. If it were not urgent, how could the shopkeeper suddenly come to see him, so he went to see him immediately without delay.
The shopkeeper obviously came in a hurry. Although it was a cold moon, his forehead was hot and sweaty. When Tong Yaowen saw this, he didn't have time to say anything and asked directly: "What happened in Yinzhuang?"
The shopkeeper quickly took out the account book and said a little anxiously: "My boss, I feel that something is going to happen at Yinzhuang."
Tong Yaowen frowned, and while flipping through October's accounts, he said, "Please tell me in detail."
The shopkeeper then recalled: "Since October, many people have been coming to the bank to withdraw large amounts of silver with banknotes, all of which are more than 10,000 taels.
I didn't pay attention at first, but recently, more and more people have come to withdraw silver, and they all have as little as a few thousand taels and as many as tens of thousands of taels. Especially this morning, the silver bank was taken out in just one morning.
Got seventy thousand taels of silver.
I felt something was not going well, so I closed the Yinzhuang at noon on the pretext of having something to do at home."
Tong Yaowen frowned even more after reading the accounts, "It's only been more than half a month, but four hundred thousand taels have been paid out?" He turned to the income section, and was even more shocked, "Only one hundred thousand taels have been put into the warehouse?
"
The cold sweat on the shopkeeper's forehead became even worse, "I also noticed something was wrong, so I hurriedly came over to respond to you.
There is nothing wrong with the accounts, and the banknotes are all genuine. Now I don’t know what the problem is, and why there are so many people exchanging money all of a sudden.”
Tong Yaowen thought for a moment with a solemn brow, and then asked, "Are they using banknotes to redeem money, not depositing banknote stubs?"
The shopkeeper hummed, "I checked, and they are not the people who deposited the money at the bank. But the banknotes are indeed genuine."
There was a banknote but no ticket stub, which meant that the banknote was obtained through other means. Tong Yaowen thought of his various businesses, then he was startled and quickly called out "Come here."
Soon a servant walked in quickly and said, "Master."
Tong Yaowen pointed at the servant, "Hurry up and notify the pawnshop owners and ask them to bring their account books over quickly."
The servant hurriedly responded, and hurriedly retreated to arrange for people.
The shopkeeper was reminded, and he suddenly clapped his hands: "Yes, it must be the pawn shop." He also thought to himself, no wonder the pawn shop business soared when reporting at the beginning of the month. There was something wrong here.
...
The Tong family has more than twenty pawnshops scattered throughout the country. By the time the servants delivered the news and shopkeepers from all over the place arrived one after another, it was already an hour later.
Tong Yaowen did not explain much, but directly asked each pawnshop to report on the situation from the beginning of October to the present.
The pawnshop owners looked confused, but they still reported to each other. After they finished their reports, everyone understood the problem.
The pawnshop owners were very surprised and puzzled, and those sitting next to each other began to discuss in low voices.
"Why is your business so good? I thought I was the only one."
"I didn't expect that I would encounter a lot of big orders this month, all of which cost tens of thousands of taels."
"Me too, I have land deeds here, starting from 10,000 to 20,000 acres."
"Huh? Why do you also have the title deed? It's the same with me."
"Me too..."
For a moment, all the pawnshop owners were confused. Forget about one or two, everyone was in the same situation. This was obviously a big problem.
Everyone looked at Tong Yaowen in fear.
Tong Yaowen frowned even more. He looked through the account books of each pawnshop and found that the sum totaled was nearly two million taels.
In other words, in just half a month, there were two million taels more Tongjia banknotes on the market. Once these banknotes were redeemed, Tongjia Bank would directly face the risk of bankruptcy.
The shopkeeper of Yinzhuang also turned pale with anxiety, "Boss, I think we are being targeted by someone. Someone has obviously set a trap for us."
The pawnshop owners didn't dare to speak. Some of them were more or less confused. But because each of them only needed to manage their own pawnshop, they were only slightly confused. After all, everyone wanted to run the shop they owned.
Take in more.
And from an individual point of view, there is actually not much of a problem. The real problem is that more than two dozen pawnshops are in this situation. Two million taels, which has exceeded the amount of cash in circulation at Tongjia Bank.
Tong Yaowen recalled carefully, trying to remember where he had offended whom, but after much thought, he had no clue. In the end, he could only ask Xiang Yinzhuang and the pawnshop owner.
"Have you offended anyone recently?"
The twenty or so people in the hall all shook their heads. In the business world, harmony is valued. They are all old shopkeepers, so naturally they cannot make such a mistake. If the other party is really a noble person, they would rather suffer a loss than offend.
Tong Yaowen was stunned now.
If it was really just two million taels of silver notes, it would not be a big problem. But now, it is obvious that the Tong family has been tricked, and the two million taels of silver notes must be cashed into cash by the person who set up the trick.
If that person really cashed in all the two million taels of silver notes in one go, it would only be a matter of time before the Tong family bank collapsed.