***
In Zuo Liangyu's army, Qin Mu's reputation was so fierce that he was comparable to the King of Hell. Many of Zuo's army even said that he was a demon with three heads and six arms, who ate people without leaving any bones.
Zhao Xun saw Qin Mu walking in wearing the hat of a third-rank governor. He was handsome and elegant, and his attitude was quite warm. This formed a sharp contrast with the rumors outside, which made him very uncomfortable.
Qin Mu smiled and said, "Mr. Zhao, you are welcome. Please take a seat."
"Thank you, Lord Qin." Zhao Xun then sat down at the guest seat.
"I wonder why Mr. Zhao is here?" Qin Mu raised his hand to offer tea and asked with a faint smile.
"Master Qin, there is no need to beat around the bush. My General Zuo asked me to come here because he hopes that Master Qin's troops will withdraw from Wuchang and Jingzhou to prevent the two sides from fighting again."
"Oh, this makes me feel strange. General Zuo is neither the general of Wuchang nor the garrison commander of Jingzhou. On what basis can he ask me to withdraw from Wuchang and Jingzhou?" Qin Mu's smile was still warm and his tone was still calm.
"Wuchang was originally recaptured by my General Zuo, but Lord Qin took advantage of the situation and attacked Wuchang while my General Zuo's army was heading north to Xiangyang to fight the bandits. This is simply unreasonable. My General Zuo now has 500,000 soldiers, hundreds of miles of camps, and armor like clouds. If Herdsman Qin wants to occupy Wuchang and not return it, then my General Zuo will have to lead his troops to take it back. But by then, I'm afraid it won't be a matter of just taking Wuchang."
Zhao Xun, hehe, you are really lame. Are there no people under Zuo Liangyu? He sent such a bunch of people. Qin Mu was too lazy to answer him. He smiled and picked up the tea to drink.
Yang Shen answered on behalf of Qin Mu: "Mr. Zhao, who recaptured Yuanzhou, Liling, and Yuezhou from the rebels? I don't know why your army came to seize them..."
Qin Mu waved his hand to Yang Shen, and then said to Zhao Xun: "Mr. Zhao, go back and tell your General Zuo that I will not offend others unless they offend me. If someone offends me, I will return the favor double."
"Master Qin, are you determined to become an enemy of my general?"
"I have no intention of being an enemy of your General Zuo, but I am not afraid of being an enemy of your General Zuo. I led only 2,000 people to fight against Zhang Xianzhong's army of hundreds of thousands. How does your General Zuo compare to Zhang Xianzhong? The reason I am talking so much nonsense to you today is because I don't want to let the fisherman benefit from the quarrel between the two. As long as your General Zuo is willing to make peace, I am willing to provide some help to General Zuo when the Dashun Army returns to Henan. Haha, if General Zuo insists on being an enemy of me, I don't mind attacking the Dashun Army from both sides."
Qin Mu's casual words made Zhao Xun's expression change drastically. This time Zuo Liangyu sent him here because he learned that Li Zicheng had sent his general Yuan Zongde to lead tens of thousands of troops to counterattack Xiangyang, and they would arrive soon.
In order to avoid being attacked from both sides, Zuo Liangyu sent him to Yueyang. He thought Qin Mu had not yet learned about Yuan Zongdi's return to Xiangyang, and wanted to show off his power in order to gain more benefits in the negotiations. However, he was exposed by Qin Mu, and now he could no longer show off his power.
Qin Mu has an unclear relationship with the Dashun Army. He and Hongniangzi fought against Zhang Xianzhong together. Who knows if he will join forces with the Dashun Army again this time to attack Zuo Liangyu from both sides
"Lord Qin has misunderstood. My General Zuo has no intention of becoming an enemy of Lord Qin..." Zhao Xun looked embarrassed under Qin Mu's half-smiley gaze.
Actually, it can't be blamed on Zhao Xun's incompetence, but no one expected it. Qin Mu, who was busy expanding, quickly built an intelligence department with nearly 3,000 people and learned the news of the Dashun Army's southward march in advance;
Otherwise, Qin Mu, who was eager to recuperate, might have been blackmailed for a lot of benefits. The importance of the intelligence system was fully demonstrated at this moment.
****
On the Yangtze River waterway, a good show was also staged because of the good intelligence work. The elusive water bandit Langlijiao, based on the intelligence from Nanjing, set out excitedly with hundreds of followers and accurately intercepted the silver transport ship of Huitong Bank.
Bandits were rampant in those days, and usually a large number of people would be sent to escort such a large amount of silver. Langlijiao originally thought that there would be a fierce fight this time, but he didn't expect that when the people in charge of guarding the silver ships heard his name Langlijiao, they immediately abandoned more than a dozen silver ships and fled in all directions in their small boats.
Langlijiao was very happy. He had robbed more than a dozen ships of silver without any effort. But when he boarded a silver ship, he found that except for the upper layer which was full of silver, the bottom was all stones. When he looked at other silver ships, there was not even one or two taels of silver. The whole ship was full of stones.
"Boss, there are words here."
"Go and call the military advisor to see what is written." Langlijiao has strong and well-developed limbs, but he cannot recognize a single word.
The military advisor was brought in soon. After reading the note, he said hesitantly, "Boss, this note says: It's not easy for Boss Langlijiao to come from Chaohu Lake. This hundred taels is for you and your brothers to have a drink. The signature is Jin Baiwan."
"Jin Baiwan, how dare you play tricks on me? I will not be a human being unless I cut you into pieces." Having been tricked, Langlijiao was furious. This time, he brought all his brothers and risked his life to come to the vicinity of Taiping Prefecture because Jin Baiwan told him that Huitong Bank was going to transport millions of taels of silver back to Jiangxi.
Now, after searching more than a dozen silver ships, only one hundred taels were found. Since Langlijiao made his debut, he has never been fooled like this. This time he has completely lost face.
Let's not talk about how furious Langlijiao was, but let's say that Jin Baiwan in Nanjing City received a pigeon message and learned that the silver ship of Huitong Bank had been robbed. He was just preparing to take advantage of the time difference and let his men cash out the silver deposited in Huitong Bank first. When the silver was almost cashed out, he would spread the news. This two-pronged approach would definitely cause great panic and trigger a bank run.
However, what Jin Baiwan and the owners of various money houses never expected was that before they could take any action, Huitong Bank took the initiative to announce the news of the robbery of the silver ship.
A large notice was posted at the entrance of Huitong Bank, which stated that the bank's silver-carrying ship was hijacked by Yangtze River pirates, and Huitong Bank lost one million taels of silver at one time. However, the bank also comforted the depositors, saying that even if one million taels were hijacked, the bank would not collapse. If you don't believe it, just come to the bank to cash it out. Whether it is a current deposit or a time deposit, Huitong Bank will cash it out in full. But at the same time, it was stated that the bank needed time to transport silver from other places to make up for it, so if you wanted to cash out more than 500 taels of silver at one time, you had to make an appointment three days in advance.
This certainly could not dispel the doubts of the depositors, so a run on the bank inevitably occurred. Thousands of people crowded in front of the Huitong Bank, half of whom came to exchange money, and half of whom came to watch the excitement. Everyone rushed to the counter, and in the middle of winter, they were sweating profusely, fearing that they would be late and unable to cash in.
"Please don't push, don't push. We have enough money in the bank to cash out to everyone. Don't worry. I, Xu, will say this: if anyone cannot cash out their money, you can take my head."
"What's the use of taking your head? Cash it in and return our silver."
"That's right. Make good on it."
“… ... ... ..”
The crowd outside the counter was in an uproar. Xu Yingjie was not ambiguous and shouted, "Don't take on a job if you don't have the skills. Come on. Bring out the silver from the treasury, assign more people, and cash it out to the customers as soon as possible. But the notice has made it very clear. If you want to cash out a fixed deposit immediately, not only will you not get any interest, but our bank will also deduct a 3% penalty for breach of contract."
"Just deduct it, just cash it in quickly..."
"Make good on your promise."
Amid the shouts of the crowd, the bank clerks carried out boxes of silver and piled them up on the counter to form a mountain of silver. The whiteness of the silver was dazzling, and the crowd outside finally felt a lot more at ease seeing such a mountain of silver. But just in case, everyone still rushed to cash in. If something like this happened, it would be safer to hold the silver in their own hands.
Jin Baiwan and the owners of various money houses were a little dumbfounded. They had deposited huge sums of money in Huitong Bank. Their original plan was to deposit the money first and then run on the bank together. At the same time, they would spread some rumors in the market to cause panic among depositors and make them run on the bank together, so as to bring Huitong Bank down.
Later, Huitong Bank transported silver to Jiangxi. Jin Baiwan felt that if a run on the bank was carried out, Huitong Bank could delay the process and then transport the silver back, so it would not be difficult to deal with the run. However, if the pirates hijacked the silver ship, it would cause a huge funding gap for Huitong Bank. When another run on the bank took place, Huitong Bank would not be able to fill such a huge funding gap and would be doomed.
Since this was a safer approach, Jin Baiwan certainly would not miss such an opportunity and secretly sent someone to deliver the news of the silver ship to Langlijiao. Originally, everything was going well, but now... ... ... ....things don't seem to be going well.
Huitong Bank dared to take the initiative to announce the news of the silver ship being hijacked, which not only made them lose the opportunity to take advantage of the time difference and fail to cash out their silver before the people knew the news, but also Xu Yingjie dared to do so. Does it mean that Huitong Bank has enough silver in its deposits and is not afraid of a run on the bank by depositors
How could this be possible? They had a very good understanding of the details of Huitong Bank. After being robbed of 1 million taels of silver, at least the Nanjing branch would never be able to fill the gap immediately.
"No matter what, everyone, send someone to cash it in, hurry up." Jin Baiwan shouted to the butler. The owners of various banks also took action and sent their men to run a run on Huitong Bank.
The shopkeeper and clerk of Huitong Bank seemed to have sharp eyes. When they saw them coming to cash in, they shouted, "Hey, isn't this man from Wanyuanhao Tongshang Silver Shop? It turns out that Mr. Jin has also come to our bank to deposit money."
"Hey, everyone, look, the people from Juyuan Bank are here too. Thank you, Mr. Qu, for your trust in our bank."
"Haha, you are a clerk of Fugui Bank, right? Your boss Liu has deposited money in our bank. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Please forgive me, brother. You are also in this business. You should know that when there are too many people running on the bank, the bank will always need some time to raise money. So today I can only cash you 500 taels. If you want more than 500 taels, please make an appointment three days in advance."
"Don't worry. Although our bank was robbed of one million taels of silver, this is just a drop in the bucket. As you all know, our business is all about credibility. No matter what, our bank will not lose a single cent."
The people from the various banks were pointed out by the shopkeepers of Huitong Bank, and they could not help but feel very embarrassed. The depositors who came to run for the bank also looked at them strangely. Even the banks deposited their money in Huitong Bank. What was going on? Isn't it said that competitors are like rivals? Did the banks trust Huitong Bank, or was there something else going on
The people have sharp eyes. The people from the banks who came to run a run on the bank were really embarrassed. They deposited their money in Huitong Bank, and no matter what the reason was, they couldn't say it out loud.
The manager and clerks of Huitong Bank did not make things difficult for them. They greeted them warmly and laughed, and all amounts below 500 taels were cashed equally.
In order to ease the anxious hearts of depositors, Huitong Bank announced in advance that it would not close at night and would cash out depositors' money overnight. At the counter, boxes of silver were cashed out and more silver was brought in. The depositors felt more at ease, and under the organization of bank guards, order became better and better.
Everything was in order at Huitong Bank, but things were chaotic at the counters of other money houses.
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.(To be continued..)
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