1890 King of Southeast Asia

As expected by Lin Anmin, when he arrived at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the next morning, Cyril was already waiting there with two big dark circles under his eyes.

"Good morning, Sir Cyril, you are waiting for me here early in the morning, is there something important?" Lin Anmin looked at Cyril's thick dark circles and couldn't help feeling happy.

Three times the amount of tea leaves sounds like a lot, but it can't last a whole night.

However, after talking so much last night, Cyril must have been worried, and with the influence of tea leaves, it is certain that he didn't sleep all night.

When it was close to dawn in the early morning, the effect of tea leaves had passed, and he felt sleepy, but Cyril couldn't sleep yet, because the reply from London had arrived, and he had to deal with it as soon as possible.

"Good morning, Your Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs." Cyril saw Lin Anmin, squinted his eyes fiercely, and said hello with all his strength.

Lin Anmin looked at Cyril's irrelevant answer, and the corners of his mouth twitched.

"Is it too strong? Will it kill me?" Lin Anmin thought to himself.

"Oh! Sorry, Your Excellency. I drank two cups of coffee after I went back last night. I didn't sleep at all in the second half of the night. I'm not in a good state now." Cyril, who realized that he had lost his composure, apologized quickly.

"It's okay, Your Excellency. However, although work is important, you must take care of your body. In your current state, I don't think we can talk about anything today. Why don't you go to rest and come back in the afternoon?" Lin Anmin was really afraid that Cyril would die suddenly here.

The British diplomatic ambassador died suddenly at the door of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Huaxia Empire. Not to mention the content, the title alone is extremely explosive.

Lin Anmin could not allow this to happen, otherwise Huaxia would be absolutely passive. No matter when, conspiracy theorists exist, and their arguments still have a certain market.

If Cyril died suddenly here, more than one person would definitely think that Huaxia killed him. It would be impossible for Huaxia to prove its innocence.

In addition, immediately stand on the side of the Allies.

"It's okay, it's just a few words, we can finish it here." Cyril yawned and shook his head.

"Right here? Are you sure?" Lin Anmin looked around, buildings, pedestrians, passers-by or couples, and elderly people sitting on the roadside to rest.

This is simply the best environment for spies.

"Right here, no big deal." Cyril shook his head.

"Please wait." Seeing that Cyril didn't seem to be joking, Lin Anmin waved to the security guard.

After a few words of advice, the security guard immediately ran back, and a minute later, he came back with a dozen people.

A dozen people formed a circle facing the outside, surrounding Lin Anmin and Cyril.

"Please go ahead." Lin Anmin saw that he had been surrounded and there was no possibility of being seen, so he said softly.

"Lin, you won. The British Empire agreed to your conditions. The specific terms are still to be discussed, but London has agreed to your demands."

"When the first batch of the Chinese Empire's troops set out, the first batch of returned cultural relics will set sail from London."

"You know, the whole world is short of ships now, and we can only use a small part of the shipping capacity to transport these fragile things, so the speed will be slow."

"In addition, regarding the issue of military expenses, we agree to pay all the expenses of all Chinese soldiers who join the war."

"But London's financial situation is not very good, and we have to maintain the logistics of France and Russia, so we can't give cash."

"We will transport 100 million pounds worth of gold. This is an advance payment and the only amount that Britain will actually pay during the war."

"We will solve the subsequent expenses through loans. We will send people to supervise the use of military expenses. I hope your country understands."

Cyril leaned over and said softly beside Lin Anmin.

It can be heard that Cyril has a dissatisfied tone in his voice. After all, it is the British who pay, the Chinese fight, and the results are still the Chinese.

Moreover, the UK no longer dares to print banknotes at will, because it has already printed a lot of them during this period.

If it is just buying things, it is okay. With a volume of several hundred million or tens of billions, the UK can still hold on. After all, the huge volume is there, and every year there is gold produced by gold mines in various places to make up for the gap.

But the pound cannot be printed at will, especially the pound that flows out of the country.

Previously, in order to purchase war materials, the British waved pounds all over the world to buy everything they could buy, but not everyone was willing to sell.

Because the British have banned gold exports and suspended the exchange of pounds for gold.

In this case, the more pounds are printed, the lower the public's confidence in the pound, because they know that these pounds do not have enough margin.

And they don't know when the gold that originally belonged to them will disappear, and they are also afraid of this.

For this reason, the exchange rate of the pound has fallen on the black market. Although the magnitude is not large, it has sounded the alarm for the UK.

If there is a person or group holding a huge amount of pounds at this time, and they are desperately selling pounds, then the pound is likely to collapse directly.

Or if the UK makes an exchange, the result is that all the gold will be exchanged out, and it may not be possible to fully recover the pounds.

According to the official exchange rate, 100 million pounds can be converted into more than 730 million grams of gold, more than 730 tons of gold, and 1 billion pounds is more than 7,300 tons.

Britain was able to find enough gold, but first of all, not all of this gold was in the official bank reserves, many of it was private, and secondly, without gold, how could the credit of the pound be guaranteed?

During the war, why was the United States willing to sell goods but not to accept pounds, but to accept gold or US dollars?

The pound was the global currency before the US dollar. Thanks to the vast market, advanced technology, and developed financial industry in the UK, the pound was extremely strong all over the world.

In the early days, Britain could still buy things in the United States with pounds, and Americans were willing to accept pounds.

But at the beginning of the war, the Germans showed unprecedented aggressiveness. At the beginning of the war, they once approached Paris, and the Allies looked like they were about to fail.

The Americans were afraid that if Britain lost the war and signed a harsh treaty, the pound would become a piece of waste paper, so the Americans would not accept it.

Not only pounds, but also francs, marks, rubles, etc., the Americans did not accept them, and only accepted precious metals or US dollars, Huayuan and neutral country currencies.

Britain did not want a large outflow of gold, which would cause the pound to no longer be strong. It happened that China was willing to accept pounds, so the purchase focus of Britain and France was on the Chinese Empire.

The purpose of printing banknotes in the UK is to preserve gold, and the purpose of preserving gold is to ensure the strength of the currency, that is, the exchange rate remains unchanged.

But now the exchange rate can no longer be supported. If it continues to print, it will hand over its own weaknesses to others, and the British are certainly unwilling to do so.

Moreover, this time it is not just about purchasing materials, but also the cost of an army. Britain itself is in the war and knows that the cost of the army is a bottomless pit.

For the scale of the Huaxia Empire, not to mention the extra money after entering the war, the British will not think it is too much if it burns more than 1 billion pounds a year.

After all, it is not Huaxia who pays for it.

After all, the Huaxia Empire is far away from the Arab enclave, and the industrial facilities in the Arab enclave are not complete. The main logistics support still has to be transported from outside, and the price is high.

In addition to various purchases of materials, the UK may have to pay 1.5 to 2 billion pounds to Huaxia in the future. With such a large amount, even if Huaxia dares to accept it, the UK dare not print it.

But it was not possible to not give anything at all. The British thought for a long time and decided to cut their losses and use 100 million pounds of gold to show their sincerity. As for the rest...

We are all allies. It is not too much to lend some money, right?

"100 million pounds of gold? The first squadron will set off within three months. This batch is mainly composed of cruisers and destroyers. Although the frontal combat capability is not strong, it can participate in the escort mission." Lin Anmin said after a moment of silence.

100 million pounds, more than 700 million grams, more than 700 tons, this number impressed him.

The private gold and silver reserves of the Huaxia Empire are very high. The specific figures cannot be counted, but even after years of plunder, the private gold reserves should be thousands of tons, and the silver reserves should be hundreds of thousands or millions of tons.

Because before the establishment of Huaxia, hundreds of millions of people in this land of Huaxia used silver precious metals as currency circulation, and the quantity was huge.

However, these are private reserves, and they are still in the form of gold and silver bars, blocks, ingots, and even balls and artworks.

After the establishment of the Huaxia Empire, the Central Bank of the Empire only used paper money to purchase a small amount of gold and a large amount of silver. The gold reserves in the vault were not much, only about 2,000 tons.

More than 700 tons, which is more than one-third of the gold reserves of the Huaxia Empire Bank, is already a lot.

In addition to the income from the merger of banks, the Huaxia Empire Bank's largest one-time income in gold was obtained by secretly selling arms during the Boer War.

"Of course, then we will be allies in the future?" Cyril breathed a sigh of relief and said with a smile.

"Of course, but I hope this matter will not be publicized for the time being." Lin Anmin stretched out his hand and shook hands with Cyril, but his expression was very cold.

"If it's convenient, let's go inside to talk, it's still too exposed here." Lin Anmin said, and was about to pull Cyril to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"No, no, no, just say a few words here." Cyril rejected Lin Anmin's proposal, he still had to go back to catch up on his sleep.

"However, Your Excellency, I must remind you that the Huaxia Empire must formally join the Allied Powers before it can get this gold worth 100 million pounds."

Cyril looked at Lin Anmin and said the last request. He didn't have this request originally, but Lin Anmin just said not to make it public, which made Cyril think of Italy.

Italy is also negotiating with Britain and France, but Italy's current asking price is not low. With the South French Alliance, the French are not very willing to cater to Italy's appetite.

"Of course, we just don't want to attract the attention of the Ottomans too early. This is not good for our plan." Lin Anmin explained, and then handed Cyril's hand.

Through the heads of the outer security guards, Lin Anmin saw the car of the Japanese diplomatic embassy coming...