Chapter 477: Negotiations doomed to fail

On December 1, Duke Asino officially began to issue paper money in Saint-Franc.

Although he also did enough publicity like Maro before the issuance, the response on the day of issuance was mediocre, and the amount of exchange was pitifully small, almost negligible.

This made Duke Asino very angry, and he immediately intervened with administrative power, forcing people to exchange and use paper money.

However, due to various reasons, he did not dare to go too far, and only dared to force people to exchange by requiring that grain must be traded with newly issued paper money.

It's a pity that Duke Asino is not the only one in Saint-Franc who has the right to operate grain. People can't buy grain from him, but they can still use metal currency to buy it from the Holy Light Church.

Therefore, his compulsory measures have almost no effect except causing inconvenience to some civilians.

And the most ridiculous thing is that he has been advocating that paper money is convenient for transactions, but the result is only more inconvenience.

Therefore, people are more and more disgusted with the paper money he issued.

Among them, other nobles in his territory are the most disgusted.

Because the Duke of Arsinoe required that the industries they operated and the salaries of their employees must be settled in new paper money, but he did not give them any benefits.

More importantly, once the gold coins were exchanged for paper money, they were not allowed to exchange them back for gold coins, which was equivalent to completely locking their retreat.

They were not stupid, so how could they cooperate with the Duke of Arsinoe's paper money promotion?

However, they did not dare to offend the Duke of Arsinoe.

Therefore, most of them exchanged some paper money symbolically, and then directly suspended the operation of their own industries, and deposited all the money into the Iris Club to earn interest.

Anyway, the purpose of business is to make money. If you don't make money, or even lose money, what's the point of business.

Depositing money into the Iris Club not only doesn't require you to operate it yourself, but you can also earn interest. Although it's a little less, it's better than losing money!

As for living expenses, everyone has food in their hands, so they don't have to worry about food and clothing.

If you really lack any daily necessities, everyone knows each other, and you can borrow from each other, or barter.

In short, it is impossible to trade with new paper money.

The only thing that the nobles had to worry about was not to give the Duke any evidence against them.

Some families were worried that the Duke of Arsino would be desperate, so for safety reasons, they sent important family members away in advance.

For example, high-ranking heirs and their wives and children were sent to other places.

Those whose mothers lived in other places were sent directly to their mothers' homes.

Those whose mothers lived in the same family were sent directly to the imperial capital.

Those who had nothing were sent directly to Maro City, because a large amount of money was deposited in the bank of Maro City, so where else could they go?

For a while, a large number of young men and women suddenly appeared in Maro City, and the second and third generations of the rich in Maro City doubled in an instant.

As soon as these people came, they bought all kinds of assets, and they were generous, causing the land prices in Maro City and its surrounding areas to rise sharply.

Originally, a two-story property with a small courtyard was capped at no more than 3,500 Malaysian dollars, but after this group of people came, this small property more than doubled.

An idle manor in the city was sold for more than 2.6 million Malaysian dollars, which is almost equivalent to more than 700,000 gold in the past.

Many manors in the imperial capital cannot catch up with this price.

This also shows how arrogant these nobles are, and of course how much they trust the city of Maro.

Of course, for the nobles of Saint-Franc, they can transfer assets and residences at will, and even suspend their own industries at will.

Therefore, the Duke of Asino issued paper money, which had almost no impact on them.

But for those businessmen and civilians, it was not so easy.

Needless to say, civilians are always the most direct victims as long as there is a policy that cheats people.

Although civilians are not the subjects of the nobles, nor are they slaves, according to common sense, they can move freely without restrictions.

But as civilians, how can they have the capital to leave their original residence at will.

Since they can't leave, they must accept the policies of the rulers, otherwise they can't bear the consequences at all.

But after they accepted the policy and exchanged the real gold and silver in their hands for paper money, they found that there were very few things that these paper money could buy, so that they could hardly make a living.

The merchants were also suffering, and they could not leave easily because their businesses were all here.

Without these businesses, they would have no source of income and would be nothing.

Fortunately, they found that Iris could save money, which not only ensured the safety of funds, but also paid interest, so there was more or less a way out.

However, most of them did not stop operating their own businesses.

Jace was one of them. He did not stop his business just because his assets were guaranteed.

But after operating for a month, he found something wrong.

Since the magic metal processing products he operated were basically foreign trade, all the money he earned was gold coins.

However, before these gold coins were in his hands, they were forcibly exchanged by Duke Asino for the paper money he issued, which made him feel bitter and he dared not export any goods to the outside world.

But if he did not export goods, he would have no income, so he thought of a way, that is, after exporting goods, he would keep all the money he earned in the bank set up in the foreign city of Maro.

If there was no bank at the merchant's place, he would rather not do this business, so that he could finally ensure the safety of funds.

However, his behavior was immediately discovered by the tax bureau.

The local tax bureau found that he had clearly exported, but there was no settlement record, which was obviously to circumvent the paper currency settlement business.

This was good, he was called to have tea by the tax bureau that day.

Fortunately, the tax bureau did not make it too difficult for him, but only asked him to settle the account on the same day and then pay a large fine.

Of course, the fine must be paid with imperial gold coins, not the paper money they issued themselves.

This made Jace see the true face of Duke Asino.

After he paid all the fees that day, the first thing he did was to close all his industries, and then exchange all the remaining funds for Malaysian yuan through the Iris Club,

while sending people to other places to sell his industries, as well as various properties and shops in Saint Fran.

As long as he could get real money back and the price was not too low, he was ready to completely clear out the industries and assets he had been operating for decades.

He had decided to leave this place of right and wrong with his family.

And there were many businessmen who had the same idea as Jace, and they were almost doing the same thing without any prior agreement.

It has only been more than a month since the city of San Fran issued paper money. Not only did it not facilitate transactions for the people, but it also caused the decline of all industries, soaring prices, and even money could not buy anything.

As a result, people were full of complaints.

However, in the face of all this, the Duke of Asino, as the ruler, turned a deaf ear.

The only thing he did was to send an envoy to Maro City to discuss the establishment of a bank to promote the Ma Yuan.

And Ethan warmly received the negotiation team sent by the Duke of Asino and showed a positive attitude towards negotiations.

However, on key issues, they adopted a completely different attitude from other regions.

For example, other regions only need to hand in 30% of the reserves, and reserve 50% themselves, and there are still 20% to be distributed.

But when it comes to the Duke of Asino, the city of Maro requires them to hand in 75% of the reserves, and they have to reserve 20%, leaving only 5% for them to distribute.

This is definitely unacceptable to the Duke of Asino, so they firmly disagree and only agree to the same distribution method as other regions.

However, Ethan has not given in and insisted on following this distribution method.

Therefore, although both parties are actively negotiating, there has been no progress...