Clan Rise: Starting as a Grandfather

Chapter 443: Chapter 422 Crown Princess Consort’s Invitation

After Pang Tang left, Yang Zhenshan finally let out a sigh of relief.

”Good, good, it’s only 200,000 taels! This old man is quite easy to fool!”

Things like futures housing are just a spur of the moment idea; he isn’t even sure if it will work.

After all, the merchants here aren’t so easily fooled.

In the days that followed, Chongshan Bank continued its boom, as officials from the Governor’s Office bought the debt notes, followed by officials from Governor’s Office and Inspector General’s Office, and the news about the debt notes spread even wider.

Officials from the Governor’s Office bought them next, as did officials from the General Mansion.

When the news reached the Camp, the soldiers from the Camp also started buying.

Did the soldiers from the Camp have silver?

The answer is yes.

The soldiers who had just joined the Camp may not have had silver, but the original soldiers from the Tenglong Guard Five Army Camps had quite a bit of silver.

During the battle at Guanshan Pass, Yang Zhenshan had distributed one third of the captured Silver Coin as reward silver to the soldiers; six thousand soldiers from Five Army Camps shared 300,000 taels, averaging fifty taels each.

Before that, the soldiers had also received reward silver at Qinghua Prefecture City, Songzhou City, and Chongshan Pass.

Moreover, let’s not forget, these soldiers all came from Tenglong Guard and had previously received full salary.

It can be said that none of these soldiers were poor.

To say the least, having three to five hundred taels of silver for them should not be a difficult issue.

Little by little, six thousand soldiers, even if one person bought one debt note, that would be 600,000.

So, on the third day after the news spread, the debt notes of Chongshan Bank were sold out.

Inside the General Mansion, the study room.

Song Dashan came before Yang Zhenshan and said carefully, ”Marquis, can we print more debt notes? My brothers all want to buy, but they can’t get them anymore!”

”...”

Yang Zhenshan leaned back in his chair, scrutinizing Song Dashan with a critical eye, ”How much did you buy?”

”Uh, not much, just 8,000 taels, it was my wife who bought them!” Song Dashan grinned sheepishly.

Damn~~

Even the Song family bought so many, then his subordinates probably bought even more.

The Song family is not as wealthy as the Yang family. Don’t look at Li from the Song family as a good housekeeper; the Song family doesn’t have many sources of income, at most just the rents from shops and farmlands.

The 8,000 taels of silver could be all of the spare money the Song family had.

This was also Yang Zhenshan’s oversight; he should have considered whether his soldiers would buy the debt notes at the outset.

He didn’t object to his soldiers buying debt notes, because he was confident about repaying the debt.

”I’ll have to think about this; you go on and do your work!” Yang Zhenshan was also hesitant about whether to print more debt notes.

”When the Marquis makes up his mind, please let me know.” Song Dashan looked eagerly at Yang Zhenshan.

”Get out of here now!” Yang Zhenshan said irritably.

Song Dashan scurried away, then Luo Shang came by.

Upon seeing Yang Zhenshan, Luo Shang asked directly, ”Marquis, our Luo family’s share of the debt notes is still available, right?”

”...”

Yang Zhenshan was once again speechless.

It seemed he had forgotten about the Luo family’s share of the debt notes.

Before the lending meeting, he had already discussed it with Luo Shang. The reason Luo Shang didn’t make a statement during the lending meeting was because Yang Zhenshan had asked him to back up the debt notes.

According to Yang Zhenshan’s plan, if there were any leftover debt notes, then the Marquis Mansion and the Luo family would back it up, with the Luo family taking the major share while the Marquis Mansion would buy a few ten thousand taels.

Yet now, the Marquis Mansion had not bought any, and the Luo family hadn’t got a single debt note.

”Forget it, let’s print another million taels; your Luo family can take 300,000 taels!” Yang Zhenshan no longer hesitated.

”I’ll go prepare the silver now!” Luo Shang walked away delighted.

Yang Zhenshan shook his head with a slight chuckle.

He had been worried that the debt notes wouldn’t sell, but unexpectedly, they were not enough.

This way, the merchants actually benefited.

Actually, Yang Zhenshan overlooked one thing, which is that storing silver in a bank not only earns no interest but also incurs a management fee.

For example, if you take silver to the bank to exchange for silver notes, you need to pay a certain transaction fee, around four percent.

However, the debt notes sold by Yang Zhenshan not only did not charge any fees but also bore interest.

For merchants, such debt notes are indeed a debt, but for others, it might be considered an interest-bearing deposit.

Probably because the debt notes were sold too explosively at Chongshan Pass, those merchants whom Yang Zhenshan had entertained soon delivered their silver to Chongshan Pass and exchanged it for debt notes.

In just seven to eight days, Yang Zhenshan exchanged four million taels of debt notes for four million taels of silver.

However, this amount of silver soon dwindled to just two hundred thousand taels left, as Yang Zhenshan allocated three hundred thousand taels to each Assistant General Mansion as capital for rebuilding the Rescue Camp.

As March arrived, the General Mansion’s survey of the Ying River channel entered its most crucial stage.

To better dredge the Ying River channel, Yang Zhenshan specially invited more than a dozen civil servants from Jizhou City who had experience in river management.

Liaodong did not have a permanent river channel government office; river management was generally the responsibility of local government offices. If there were any issues regarding water conservancy, the government office or county government would enlist laborers for service. If the task was more challenging, they would invite officials from the Ministry of Industry for guidance, while the court also dispatched River Patrol Imperial Censors to supervise.

Inviting officials from the Ministry of Industry to Chongshan Town was definitely beyond Yang Zhenshan’s ability, but inviting some civil servants skilled in river management was still feasible.

It was simply a matter of pulling some strings and spending more silver.