Mediterranean Hegemony Road

As soon as the meeting was over, Ferdinand summoned the big management and asked, Carl, how much money does the Royal Bank still have?

Karl Palace thought for a while and said: Without affecting the normal operation of the bank, we can raise up to 38 million levs!

Hearing this number, Ferdinand's face sank, and he continued to ask without giving up: Where is Union Bank?

Minister Karl made some calculations and said, The situation over there is a little better. Their business is mainly for domestic capitalists. Usually, it is a bill of exchange transaction. The funds that can be used are about 50 million levs!

Ferdinand nodded, this number is not bad, Bulgaria's economy is so big, it is already very good to have this number!

Ferdinand now misses the era of the credit standard very much. The government has no money to print bills to solve the problem. The big deal is inflation, as long as the amount is controlled!

In terms of the current economic size of Bulgaria, it is a lack of currency, and it is really not a problem to print another 100 to 200 million, but it is a pity that Bulgaria lacks gold reserves!

In the future, the Bulgarian government may face a funding gap of more than 500 million levs. The Royal Bank and Union Bank can form a consortium to provide them with loans. If possible, the National Bank of Bulgaria will be involved!

After much hesitation, Karl said, Grand Duke, there are too few levs circulating in the market in Bulgaria, which has begun to hinder economic development.

From 1887 to now, Bulgaria's economic aggregate has almost tripled, but our monetary aggregate has only increased by a factor of 1.7!

However, the National Bank of Bulgaria has limited gold reserves and is unable to issue so many funds. Therefore, in addition to the lev, rubles, francs, British pounds, and marks are all in circulation in our country!

Karl's words suddenly awakened Ferdinand, who was only interested in developing the economy, but ignored the currency circulation, and a large amount of profits were made by the big powers for nothing!

Having figured this out, Ferdinand decided to change Bulgaria's current currency issuance model! Now asked: How much gold reserves does the Royal Bank and Union Bank have?

Carl thought for a while and said, Currently, the Royal Bank's gold reserve is about 7.43 tons of gold. Apart from some purchases in the market, it is mainly the gold mined by the gold mining enterprises under the Royal Bank, which is directly deposited in the bank and is not sold. !

The gold reserves of Union Bank are much smaller, only 1.32 tons, which are used for daily exchange!

Ferdinand thought for a while and said: Store more gold,

Finding a suitable opportunity, the two banks jointly applied to the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance for currency discovery rights!

I plan to set up a separate institution to be responsible for the issuance of Lev. The current National Bank is no longer able to undertake the heavy task of issuing currency!

Carl thought for a while and said, Grand Duke, since that's the case, can the gold produced by the United Mining Company, the part we share, not be sold?

Ferdinand nodded. After working with Edward to form the United Mining Company, he has surrounded a lot of land. The gold mines that have been mined out one after another over the years are already an astronomical figure!

If you study carefully, you will find that the United Mining Company has become one of the largest gold mining companies in the world, and it can provide Ferdinand with huge profits of hundreds of thousands of pounds every year!

...

After realizing the currency crisis, Ferdinand immediately convened a cabinet meeting. Fortunately, the funding gap in the market was filled by the funds borrowed from the powers.

But it will be troublesome immediately, and the territory has nearly doubled. Do you want to continue to circulate the currencies of other countries?

At that time, it will be embarrassing to find that the mainstream currency in Bulgaria is the pound and the franc, which is ridiculous!

If it happened, the Bulgarian government would not only lose face, but more importantly, a large amount of economic benefits would be seized by the big powers through the issuance of currency!

Chancellor of the Exchequer Kennedy said with a wry smile: My lord, the currency problem not only troubles us, even the Germans and Americans have had a headache with this problem!

During the Civil War decades ago, the U.S. government owed a large amount of loans to Britain and France, and the country lacked sufficient gold reserves and was unable to issue enough currency, so it had to rely on the British, who once controlled the U.S. economy through loans. !

Later, the Americans discovered a large number of gold mines in the country, and only then did they obtain enough gold to issue currency.

Especially after Arisgar's gold was discovered, with enough gold to issue currency, the American economy achieved rapid development. Now their economic aggregate has surpassed that of the British mainland!

Of course, this data is still false, but with the speed of economic development in the United States, it is doomed to surpass the United Kingdom in the not-too-distant future!

Ferdinand was stunned, and there was such an operation!

Americans have actually once troubled economic development because of the lack of gold!

Not to mention Germany, which is also short of gold reserves now, it is no wonder that William II will confront the British over the issue of the Boers!

In recent years, Germany's industrial and commercial products have flooded the two Boer republics, and tens of tons of gold flow into Germany from South Africa every year.

At this moment, the British are beating the Boers, aren't they moving William II's cheese? Ferdinand remembered that the British seemed to spend a lot of money to buy off the Germans in history, but then they defaulted!

This is equivalent to only paying a deposit and taking away the product, and the latter part directly announces that it has reneged on the debt. Of course, the owner of the product does not agree!

It's no wonder that Wilhelm II wants to build a large navy. Ordinary people can't bear it when someone reneges on their debts, let alone Germany! As soon as the large navy plan came out, the conflict between Britain and Germany could no longer be resolved!

So the Ministry of Finance, what is the solution? Ferdinand asked

Kennedy said with some embarrassment: The problem of lack of gold reserves cannot be solved in a short while.

We can buy some from the market, but it is still difficult to solve the problem with this!

However, the Balkan region has always been one of the important gold producing areas in the world. The history of gold mining has been going on for thousands of years. With the addition of gold mine production in the newly added territory, it should be able to gradually meet our needs!

Ferdinand shook his head and said: It's not that simple, except for the gold mines that were hidden and mined by the nobles, most of the other Sudanese governments were mortgaged to the big powers!

At that time, we will only have a gold mining tax at most. If you want to get it back directly, don't dream! And in terms of time, it was too late!

By the way, how did your Ministry of Finance solve the problem of gold that has been issued as currency in recent years?

The chancellor of the exchequer, Kennedy, said bitterly: There is really nothing we can do about it. Most of the gold that was used to issue additional currency was gold products stolen from homes. We smelted it directly and used it as a reserve to issue currency!

In the current situation, we can only rely on the great powers to issue currency by linking it to the pound or the franc!

Ferdinand thought for a while and said, Your Ministry of Finance will continue to think of a solution to this problem! Once the Lev is really pegged to the pound or the franc, our economy will have to be controlled by others!

After hesitating again and again, Ferdinand still did not propose the joint issuance of currency by the three major domestic banks, which would easily arouse criticism from later generations!