Banks are the product of financial capital developing to a certain stage. In the Silver Continent, there are no such things as banks, only money houses.
The Silver Continent uses precious metals such as gold, silver, and copper as its base currency. There is no banknote in this world that is issued on credit. The biggest role of the existence of money houses is to facilitate the circulation of metal currencies such as gold, silver, and copper that are inconvenient for people to carry in large quantities. For example, if a businessman wants to go to another place to purchase goods worth thousands of taels of silver, if there is no money house, he will have to carry these huge amounts of money on the road, which is troublesome and cumbersome, and the risk will increase countless times. It is under such circumstances that money houses came into being. With money houses, these people can carry the same amount of gold and silver bills to purchase goods.
Gold notes and silver notes are issued by money houses. In essence, they are not currencies, but IOUs issued by money houses. This is the biggest difference between money houses and banks. The central bank, which has the right to issue currency, can issue currency based on its credit, while the existence of commercial banks is not to facilitate currency circulation, but to collect idle money from the private sector for investment and profit.
The people of the Silver Continent deposit gold, silver and other currencies in money houses mainly for the convenience of carrying and using. The role of the money houses is to help you keep, transport and circulate the money you deposit in the money houses. Therefore, when people of the Silver Continent deposit their money in money houses, not only do they not receive any interest, but they also have to pay a certain fee to the money houses.
Giving you money and paying you a storage fee, if this happened in Yan Liqiang's previous life, it would be a fantasy, but in this world, it is completely reasonable and no one thinks there is anything wrong. In fact, in the previous life, when people took money to the bank, they also paid a storage fee. The storage fee is the difference between inflation and bank interest, but no one noticed it.
When Yan Liqiang received the 500 taels of gold from the Lu family, he had naturally thought of depositing this large sum of money in a money shop to earn interest. At that time, Yan Liqiang also calculated that if the money shop here could have an interest rate of 5%, he could get 25 taels of gold interest every year just by relying on the 500 taels of gold. With 25 taels of gold, he and Yan Dechang would no longer have to worry about food and clothing.
However, the cruel reality of this world soon awakened Yan Liqiang from his dream of "making money just lying down". After understanding the operating mechanism of the money house, Yan Liqiang discovered that if he kept the gold in the money house, the gold would not only not increase, but would become less and less.
Yan Liqiang naturally couldn't accept such a thing.
This time when he returned home, while trying to find a way to resolve the threat posed by the Hong family, Yan Liqiang was already thinking about the use of the gold.
Yan Dechang is already quite old and has not practiced martial arts. As he gets older, his physical strength will decline, and it will become increasingly difficult for him to make a living as a blacksmith. Moreover, Yan Dechang was seriously injured this time. Even if his body gradually recovers, he will have to recuperate for a long time, at least half a year. He cannot do heavy work and has to be careful when swinging a hammer. Faced with these realistic issues related to survival, Yan Liqiang has to consider the future source of income for his family. This source of income is not only related to the future livelihood of his father Yan Dechang, but also to whether Yan Liqiang can live a better life in this world.
Practicing martial arts may not be a necessity for everyone's survival, but eating, clothing and housing are necessities for everyone's life, and the latter all require money to solve.
Yan Liqiang has been thinking about how to use the money these days. He wanted to invest in it, produce a four-wheeled carriage, and produce lighters that are more convenient to carry and use than flints. But after careful research, he found that although his ideas were good, they were unreliable and difficult to realize for him now.
First of all, there is no such thing as stocks in this world. Those who do business also have partners, but investing and finding a partner is not a matter of one day or one night. Now their family does not have such background and connections.
Secondly, he also thought about using the blacksmith workshop at home to make some small inventions and creations. The principles of the four-wheeled carriage and lighter are actually very simple. Their blacksmith shop is actually making flints, which can easily make the key structure of a lighter or a four-wheeled carriage that can be easily turned. But unfortunately, there is no such thing as an invention patent in this world. If he improves the flint into a lighter or makes a four-wheeled carriage, others will buy one, take it apart, and suddenly realize the truth in three seconds. Then the same thing will continue to come out from other larger and more powerful blacksmith workshops. The things he worked hard to make, except for making a little money for his family at the beginning, will probably be mediocre in the future.
After considering various possibilities, Yan Liqiang finally found that the best option before him was to buy land and a shop.
After buying the land and hiring farmers to farm it, and agreeing on the rent ratio with the farmers, as long as there are no major natural disasters or man-made disasters, you can basically get a harvest regardless of drought or flood. You can keep some food for yourself, and the excess food can be sold for money, so you don't have to worry about your family's life.
Once you have money, you can buy more land. The more land you have, the faster you accumulate it, the more people you will rely on for a living, and the larger the territory will be. Once you have land, money, and people, you naturally need someone to protect them, so you have to recruit guards and servants. If you want to be safe and not be targeted by others, you naturally have to have good relations with the government and all parties. In this way, your tentacles will spread out, and your power and influence in the local area will slowly emerge, and the so-called local tyrants and local snakes will be created.
The Hong family took this path, the Lu family took this path, the Shen family took this path, and all the larger and more powerful families took this path. Countless heroes in ancient China took the same path. Since so many people took this path, and there was no better path, Yan Liqiang had no choice but to take this path. He couldn't just sit there with so much gold and eat it all up.
A few days ago, Yan Liqiang wanted to talk to Yan Dechang about buying land, but Yan Dechang's health had not recovered well in those days, and he had not yet finished the national martial arts examination, so Yan Liqiang held back. Unexpectedly, his house was suddenly crowded with people today, and he received so many gifts that the house could hardly hold them all. Yan Liqiang took the opportunity to tell Yan Dechang his thoughts.
In addition to buying the land, the house at home has not been repaired for decades and is already a bit dilapidated. It's time to renovate it.
Yan Dechang just thought about it for a moment and agreed.
Seeing that Yan Dechang agreed, Yan Liqiang breathed a sigh of relief.
Why didn't he go when Shi Dafeng invited him to travel? He just wanted to use the two months before he went to Pingxi County Martial Arts Museum to take care of the family affairs, so that after he left Qinghe County, his father could live a more relaxed life at home without having to be unkempt and save money every day. This was also a little thought from his children.
Yan Liqiang himself didn't know much about buying land, bedding and building a house, but it didn't matter, there was someone in his family who knew about it, so Yan Liqiang simply handed the matter over to Lu Wenbin.
With the gold given to him by the Lu family and the gift money he received this time, Yan Liqiang planned to use the rest to buy land, shops and build houses, except for keeping fifty taels of gold and five hundred taels of silver for reserve.
…
After finishing all these things, just the day after the big exam, before dawn, Yan Liqiang threw himself into cultivation without hesitation...
The reason why he was determined to do so was because Yan Liqiang suddenly discovered that if time and energy could be used for investment, then investing his time and energy in cultivation would be a very profitable business in this world.
Think about it, cultivation can bring you a healthy and strong body, can bring you great strength, can let you protect yourself and your family, can let you take revenge, can also let you gain a lot of real money, beautiful women, luxury houses, live a good life, let you be respected and admired, and become a member of a higher class - where can you find such a good thing...
(End of this chapter)