Spy Wars: I can get rewards by being a bully!

Chapter 905 Jinling's True Purpose

In the next few days, Chen Junyan either ate, drank and had fun in the restaurant, or met with local officials and gentry in Lishun.

Representatives from the Textile Association, the Transportation Association, and the Eight Major Organizations also met with him.

Some of these people had reported to Lin Ze in advance, and some had not.

However, business people have no taboos in meeting Chen Junyan. In their perception, Chen Junyan is the Deputy Minister of Finance of Jinling, who is in charge of the economy. Master Lin holds the gun, and no matter what happens in Tianjin, it is Master Lin's world. So it is okay to meet with Chen Junyan. As long as they are talking about business matters, they just need to not say anything excessive.

Naturally, someone reported every move of Chen Junyan to Lin Ze.

What makes Lin Ze a little strange is that this grandson's mission is to persuade the top leaders in North China to support Zhao Qi as the chairman, but what is the point of him meeting these businessmen?

To put it bluntly, in the current context of China, unless they are officials or businessmen like the four major families, the rest have no say in the selection of the chairman. Even if someone has great power, he cannot get involved in this matter.

You have become rich, but you are still thinking about who will be the official? What do you want to do?

"Niu Saner, did he have dinner with someone again yesterday?"

Niu Saner nodded. "He even approached Yoshimura Yuta, but Yoshimura didn't go. He also had contact with people from the Bank of Japan. According to our people, Chen Junyan discussed some issues related to the swap between Central Bank notes and Japanese yen. He seemed very interested in currency exchange and also learned about the current circulation of our Northern Federal Reserve savings notes."

"Central Reserve Bank of China notes, he really has the nerve to ask..."

This Central Bank note was produced in Jinling.

If the Northern Federal Reserve's savings notes can barely be used as money, then the Central Reserve's notes are constantly jumping back and forth between the nature of money and waste paper.

This requires us to talk about Jinling’s financial situation.

At the beginning, the funds for Jinling were allocated directly by the headquarters. At that time, they were quite wealthy, otherwise it would be impossible for them to spend millions on Lin Ze just to invite some celebrities and politicians to attend the celebration.

At that time, the salaries of their employees were far higher than those of Shancheng. Not only the employees of the Weixin Mansion, but also the colleges, universities and social institutions they controlled, had salaries much higher than those of Shancheng. At that time, Shancheng owed a large sum of money to major universities. In order to win people's hearts, Wang Jingwei even offered to pay the debt.

Some people were deceived by this generosity and felt that the Jinling Reform House was very good to its own people. Even though they were traitors in terms of stance, they were treated very well.

But this scene of wealth and grandeur did not last long.

The reason is that the Japanese have no money left. On the one hand, the millions of soldiers in China are struggling to make ends meet, which has increased the logistical pressure on the Japanese. On the other hand, they are preparing to attack Southeast Asia and have to make a large amount of military supplies preparations. In this case, where can they allocate so much money to support the Nanjing Reform Government?

So the cabinet discussed it and said that the Weixin Government had an army and could collect taxes, and that its institutions at all levels were already well-established and could operate independently, so they drastically cut funding.

It is said that taxes can be collected, but whose taxes should be collected?

First of all, the big officials and businessmen could not collect taxes. Every traitor in the Jinling Reform Palace had a family that was engaged in business. Since they were doing business with their own people, why should they pay taxes? Not only that, this group of people also controlled the profitable industries, cooperated with the Japanese capital, and carried out large-scale mergers, especially the textile industry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which was almost monopolized by them.

In this situation, the only people to be taxed are small businessmen, small craftsmen, and farmers, so all kinds of exploitation and taxes under various names came into being.

The result is predictable. The little money collected was not enough to maintain operations. The Jinling Reform House had no face left and tried to make money by forcibly promoting the Central Reserve Bank notes. The printing press started and they flooded the market with money without regard for the consequences.

Thinking of this, Lin Ze suddenly realized something.

Chen Junyan's purpose of coming here doesn't seem to be that simple?

If it was just to pave the way for Zhao Qi to support him, then why did they send a Deputy Minister of Finance to the north?

"Niu San'er, what did you say he was most interested in when he met with the people from the Bank of Japan?"

"Exchange. Because the Northern Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan have already established a regular exchange mechanism, Chen Junyan has expressed his hope to include Central Bank Notes in this, and even expand the scope of currency exchange to US dollars. Of course, the Bank of Japan won't agree to this. The Bank of Japan is also short of US dollars. Besides, their Central Bank Notes are simply worthless paper. The Japanese are not stupid. How could they suffer such a loss?"

Lin Ze stood up immediately. "Damn it, Niu Saner, this Wang Jingwei is so cunning! Paving the way for Zhao Qi is probably just one of Chen Junyan's purposes."

Niu Saner was stunned, not knowing what Master Lin meant.

The more Lin Ze thought about it, the clearer it became. He lit a cigarette and took a deep breath. "Think about it," he said, "who is Wang Jingwei? He's had such a bad relationship with the Central China Front Army, he's been criticizing the Japanese openly and covertly all day, and he's even set up his own spy system. He doesn't even want to see the face of the Expeditionary Force Headquarters stationed in Nanjing. Is he going to send someone to ask Okamura for help and submit to him?"

"Besides, North China is not like Central or East China. The devils' control over the south is still much weaker. Nanjing can indeed achieve actual ruling effects by improving various institutions, but what about North China? This place is adjacent to the border areas, and the North China side has been operating for a long time. The so-called Administrative Committee is just a mouthpiece for the headquarters. Even in Peking and Tianjin, when did we ever take the Special Municipal Government Office seriously? I heard someone say the other day that the Special Municipal Government Office in Tianjin has no leaders and no funds. All the people have fled, and it has become an empty government office. Tell me, what's the point of such a North China Administrative Committee coming here?"

"Of course, it's not a big deal, but there are some small things. However, Wang Jingwei is not determined to push Zhao Qi up. They want to make a deal with General Okamura! They are so short of money that they have set their sights on North China!"

Niu San'er took a moment to react, then suddenly realized, "Wang Jingwei also understands the principle of not allowing others to sleep beside his bed. He knows that General Okamura definitely doesn't want someone supported by Jinling to take the position, so they want to make a deal with the general and give up the position of chairman, but for a large sum of money?"

"That's right! And this money definitely can't be paid by the Japanese, nor by large conglomerates or big families. Ultimately, it can only be extorted from ordinary people and small businesses. He sent Chen Junyan, the Deputy Minister of Finance, for a purpose: they want to issue government bonds!"

After this analysis, everything makes sense!