Chapter 1144: Falling, Falling, Falling Again!

Of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, retreat is best!

Yao Daqiao did not dare keep playing. He hurriedly called in the accountant to settle the books, and once the accounts were cleared — which really just meant calculating the net assets — Yao Daqiao did not dare ask for a premium. He even gave Zhu Cihuan a ten percent discount, and in the end walked away with one hundred eighty thousand taels of silver.

After completing the transfer procedures at the exchange (according to regulations, changes in member-bank shareholding must be supervised by the exchange), Yao Daqiao went straight off to sell his houses without a pause — not selling the houses to plunge back into the stock market, but selling both stocks and houses, preparing to flee.

The first thing to go was Yao the Skinflint's house in Shanghai, and then he had to return to Hankou, where he also owned half a street that needed someone to take it over. After dumping the Shanghai and Hankou properties at low prices, the proceeds plus the ready silver on hand would come to nearly four hundred thousand taels of white silver in total!

That was a huge sum!

If he went through the two banks — the remittance channel of the Pacific Bank (a subsidiary bank jointly launched by the Sea Merchants Bank and the Salt Merchants Bank) — not only would he have to pay a handling fee, but he would very easily be found out. The America Prefecture on the other side of the great ocean was also the Zhu family's domain!

As for physically shipping the silver over, that was not only far too dangerous, but also offered no way to capture the trade profits between the two shores of the Pacific.

So after much deliberation, Yao Daqiao finally chose iron, copper, and lead — these three "war metals" — as his trade goods. Using the name of his old Hubei fellow-townsman Ye Jiaxin, he rented several seagoing ships in Shanghai capable of crossing the Pacific, loaded them with three hundred thousand taels of silver's worth of iron, copper, and lead, plus tens of thousands of one-tael silver coins, and finally brought his whole family aboard, ready to leave and never return.

Today was already the twentieth day of the twelfth month of the thirteenth year of Hongxing — the coldest time of the year.

Most of the Yao family had already boarded a 600-ton (deadweight) class "Pacific junk" and were waiting for the wind to turn favorable so they could set out on their long voyage.

The "Pacific junk" was an improved type of Chinese junk. It was not fast, but the hull was sturdy and it required few crewmen, so costs were very low. This time Yao Daqiao had rented four such Pacific junks from the Northern Ocean Shipping Company, a subsidiary of the Shen family's Sand Ship Guild head office, and all four were now moored on the Wusong River.

Yao Daqiao himself had not boarded, because he suffered terribly from seasickness and disliked life on board ship. He had therefore rented a room in a luxurious hotel on the Bund with one of his concubines. Today, when he came out of the hotel and was strolling along the Wusong River, as if moved by some ghostly impulse he walked into a stockbroker's office packed with people.

The moment he entered, he heard someone crying out in a tearful voice: "Falling, falling, falling again!"

Falling? Falling again? Was the Retired Emperor's retirement money still there?

At that thought, Yao Daqiao shuddered. He hastily looked around. The main hall of the stockbroker's office was very spacious, but at this moment it was crammed full of small investors with mournful faces. Half of them were even wearing short jackets.

Here in Shanghai, merchants, officials, and wealthy farmers generally wore long robes when going out. Only laborers, odd-job men, or poor peasants wore short jackets on the street. So how had these people ended up in a stockbroker's office?

Yao Daqiao edged closer to those in short jackets, and after a round of observation, he spotted several faces blackened from constant sun exposure, all twisted up and covered with regret and remorse!

At that point, the men in short jackets began pouring out their grievances to one another.

"Ai, it's fallen again — my money for a wife is almost all gone!"

"Right, I lost another five taels of silver today. Two more months of work for nothing."

"The Sea Merchants Bank! Such a big bank — how can it be falling too?"

"Isn't the Northern Ocean Shipping Company big? It's falling just the same!"

"Isn't Yiguan Bank falling too?"

"Ai, what you're all holding hasn't fallen that much. My United States stock is the real disaster! Three months ago, at the rights issue, it was worth over four thousand a share; now there's only fifteen hundred left. I bought one fen-share and lost more than twenty taels! What am I supposed to do?"

One fen-share? A loss of over twenty taels? Yao Daqiao thought to himself: these crooked merchants have taken stock-splitting all the way to one-into-a-hundred? That is simply outrageous!

At several thousand taels a share, a one-into-ten split still meant an entry threshold of several hundred taels. Anyone who could put up that much was a big investor, just losing a bit of spare money.

But if it was split a hundred ways, the threshold dropped to a few dozen taels.

"What to do? Go farm in America Prefecture. One fen-share can still be redeemed for ten mu of land."

At this point, others began chiming in.

"Are you joking? How much does a ship ticket to America cost! Besides, you can't even withdraw a fen-share! You can't exactly cut one share certificate into a hundred pieces, can you?"

"Then just buy more and make up a full share!"

"How am I supposed to make it up? That takes over a thousand taels!"

Yao Daqiao sighed softly, thinking: thank goodness I got out fast, or I'd probably have toiled for nothing too.

He quietly shifted his steps away from the short-jacketed men and moved toward several middle-aged men dressed as gentry nearby.

"Done for, done for — the land is gone, the house is gone, everything's gone. The whole family will have to drink the northwest wind!"

"Brother Wang, don't you still have two shares of United States stock? Why not go to America Prefecture and redeem them for two thousand mu of land!"

"Ai! Other people buy stocks and get rich. Me? I bought stocks and bought myself a one-way trip ten thousand li away."

Yao Daqiao thought: same here!

At that moment, someone suddenly burst into tears — also a middle-aged man of gentry appearance.

"Wuwu... it's all the stocks' fault! My fine three hundred mu of paddy fields are gone, all gone. I'm going to throw myself into the Wusong River!"

"Brother Zhizhen, what are you saying? You still have United States stock, don't you? At worst, you go to America Prefecture."

"Go where? I long ago pledged the United States stock I held to the bank to borrow money and add to my position. Now it's all lost — everything's gone!"

"Brother Zhizhen, you must think it through!"

"Yes, yes, don't do anything foolish!"

"As long as the green hills remain, there's no fear of running out of firewood."

The people around him tried to console him, while Yao Daqiao sighed, turned, and walked out of the stockbroker's office. As he reached the door, he suddenly heard someone shouting: "Something big has happened! Something big! The Chongqing Stock Bank has collapsed!"

"What? The Chongqing Stock Bank has collapsed too? Wasn't that one run by the Prince of Chongqing?"

"What's so strange about it? The Chongqing Stock Bank has always played fast and loose. It was the first to split shares a hundred ways, and it also made loans in violation of the rules."

"I heard this Chongqing bank also signed guaranteed-return agreements with a lot of big investors, and its internal affairs were a complete mess. It'd be strange if it didn't collapse!"

Yao Daqiao's heart lurched, and even his calves began to tremble.

He had known things would go bad when he handed the Chongqing bank over. There were too many crooks in this business — it was never something that foolish prince could handle.

Now it had happened: the Chongqing bank had collapsed. Had that prince lost all of the Retired Emperor's retirement money or not?

If it was all gone...

Yao Daqiao quickly picked up his pace and headed back to the hotel where he was staying — check out at once and get on the ship! Once the wind rose, he would leave and never come back!

At this moment, Zhu Cihuan was sitting dumbly in his rented residence in the city of Shanghai, not knowing what to do. The residence was rented, not purchased. He had not followed the Chongzhen Retired Emperor's advice to buy land and build a house in Shanghai. He had not even redeemed his own princely mansion, and had even transferred out his five thousand mu of princely land under a "long lease," then poured all the money into the Chongqing Stock Bank.

All told, more than three hundred thousand taels of investment had bought him only eight months of glory — truly spectacular glory!

He still remembered the days before the stock market crash, when the Chongqing Stock Bank was thriving beyond belief. Its book net assets had once reached over seven hundred thousand taels! Among the many stock banks in Shanghai, it could rank in the top ten.

And because he was a prince, wherever he went there were crowds of wealthy merchants and great traders eager to do business with him. When the Sea Merchants Bank and the Salt Merchants Bank sharply tightened credit against the Chongqing bank (on Zhu Cilang's orders), the owners of small and medium money shops even begged to lend him money. At that time, the total funds and stocks under his control were worth over two million taels — wealth enough to rival a kingdom!

But no one could have imagined that after more than two consecutive months of decline, his Chongqing Stock Bank would lose all its principal, and on top of that leave him saddled with a mountain of debt.

What was he to do now!

(End of Chapter)