Chapter 403: The dispute begins

Time came peacefully to September. After making all necessary preparations, the Iris Club finally started to issue paper money.

Before that, their senior executives personally went to Ethan to negotiate many times, hoping that Maro City would agree to the issuance of paper money.

To this end, they raised Ethan's share to 8.5%.

And the extra 3.5% was made up by senior members of the Iris Club, each of whom sacrificed part of their own interests, which can be said to be full of sincerity.

However, Ethan was not moved at all, and even refused to see him.

As long as there is no control over the issuance of paper money, Maro City insists that all commodities are settled on the gold standard.

This behavior made the Iris Club and many major shareholders of the Iris Club who had shares at the table extremely angry, and they began to formulate sanctions strategies to reduce the flow of gold coins to Maro City.

With the arrival of September 15, the Iris Club and the 16 regional dukes jointly announced the issuance of paper money to replace traditional metal currencies.

Along with this news, there was another blockbuster news.

The leaders of the 16 regions announced that they would form a new free alliance.

The rights and interests of members of the alliance in the free port will remain the same, while the rights and interests of non-alliance members in the free port will be restricted.

In other words, the free port will no longer be free.

Any goods from non-alliance members entering the country will be subject to a 100% tariff to protect local industries.

And merchant ships of non-alliance members will be charged double fees for supplying in these 16 regions.

They are even considering revoking the qualifications of non-alliance members to supply in their free ports.

At the same time, the Iris Club also suddenly held a meeting to discuss membership issues.

And quickly passed a resolution to set a membership qualification line.

The main content is about the determination and review of membership qualifications.

It was decided to kick out members who do not meet the membership qualifications from the Iris Club.

The first investigation list was released on the same day, and the Stein family and the Lawson family of Maro City were both on the list.

In addition, hundreds of sanctions of all sizes were introduced.

Each of them seems fair and just, but in fact each one is aimed at Maro City.

And it targets all walks of life in Maro City.

When the news was announced, Maro City exploded instantly.

You know, since the rise of sea transportation, Maro City has always been a top export area.

Especially after the establishment of the parliament, the regulation was fully liberalized, and with the rise of various new economies, such as clothing, entertainment products, furniture, etc., exports were unstoppable.

While the economy is developing comprehensively, it means that countless people are eating this meal.

Now the sixteen regions have begun to set thresholds and collect tariffs, which means that in the future, the goods from other regions to their sixteen regions will be much higher than their local goods.

It also means that unless they don’t have things locally, no one will buy these imported goods, after all, the price is there.

And because of the tariff issue, the goods that they originally didn’t have locally but were in demand will also be turned to local production, and other foreign merchants who have occupied the market will gradually lose the market.

After all, there are no high-tech things like chips in this era, and what can’t be copied.

It won’t be long before various industries will rise in their local area to replace high-priced goods.

And it won’t be long before Maro City will go bankrupt because things can’t be sold, and then a lot of people will go hungry.

In the end, there will be many hungry people. It is obvious that this will cause unrest in the whole society.

Of course, these have nothing to do with Ethan directly, after all, the main export destination of the Lawson family is the North.

But doubling the port supply fee, even canceling the supply qualification, and the qualification review of the Iris Club members, will hit his soft spot.

If they implement this, the dock assets that the Lawson family has worked hard for decades to build will be wiped out in an instant.

How can Ethan tolerate this?

Originally, he was not going to use dirty tricks, but since they were targeting him so much, he was not going to be polite to these people.

Since the other party wanted to play economic sanctions, Ethan decided to play with them and see who would cry.

However, although there was a countermeasure, Ethan kept his troops in place and did not even show his face.

The Maro City Council was already arguing at this time. All members knew that it was because Ethan issued banknotes in different regions of Maro City that Maro City was sanctioned.

Since exports were related to their vital interests, everyone was as anxious as ants on a hot pot.

Paparria, Ethan's agent, kept urging him to come up with a solution.

Paparria did not come up with any solution, but he always insisted on two principles. One was that Maro City insisted on gold standard settlement, and the other was that Vilen Port still adhered to the principle of free trade and would never charge any tariffs.

He was extremely tough and even warned other members that it was best not to try to bypass the parliament and reach a paper currency settlement agreement with the Iris Club in private.

Of course, after the warning, he also carefully explained to the members that paper currency would lead to the outflow of gold coins and that Maro City did not get a share.

And once the credit of paper currency collapsed, it would cause irreversible serious consequences.

At the same time, he also assured everyone that Ethan would immediately begin to sanction the Iris Club and the leaders of the sixteen regions.

And everyone was still afraid of Ethan because they had just experienced the punishment of the Blue Dragon incident.

Besides, they really hated the paper money plan without their share, so they were quite obedient and did not contact the Iris Club privately.

The two sides tortured each other until October, and no one was willing to compromise.

Although the Iris Club verbally emphasized the membership qualification review and actually kicked out several small chambers of commerce, it was just thunder and rain for both the Stein family and the Lawson family.

They didn't even dare to send investigators.

This made the sixteen major shareholders extremely angry, and they kept sending people to urge them to act quickly.

After all, they started to collect tariffs ten against ten, and charged double supply fees ten against ten.

It's impossible for one party to act while the other party is still watching the show!

And the Iris Club also has its own difficulties in not taking action.

First of all, the strength of these two families is obvious. They are definitely not just cats and dogs. If they want to kick them out of the Iris Club, the consequences will be serious.

After all, no one can let others forcibly take away the assets they have worked hard to build for decades.

If they use force, they will also use force.

Secondly, the issuance of paper money was not very smooth.

Many people did not believe in paper money. They would rather trade with metal currency than paper money, which resulted in very little exchange.

Most of Iris's energy was spent on dealing with this matter, so there was no time to control Maro City.

Moreover, the sanctions against Maro City were originally more formal than practical. As long as this attitude was imposed, it was equivalent to putting pressure on Maro City.

Then we just had to wait for them to lose their composure due to the pressure.

By then, we could easily clean up the mess.

Of course, Iris believed that the above two problems could be solved in a short time. After all, with the intervention of power, there was no problem that could not be solved.

All it took was time.

As long as there was enough time, Maro City would definitely not be able to withstand the pressure, and people would slowly begin to accept paper money, and then things would develop in the predetermined direction.

Everything takes time.

Time!

Time!

Iris knew this very well, so they withstood all the pressure and insisted on their own approach.

However, something happened at this time, which almost drove the entire Iris Club and the leaders of the sixteen regions crazy...