The temperature in Qingdao Port in May gradually cooled down. However, compared with the temperature, the atmosphere here has indeed become hotter. For no other reason, the first Qingdao Autumn Commodity Fair officially kicked off in the Qingdao Expo Hall on May 1, 1648.

The large expo hall with hundreds of rooms and partly completed (it may take several years to complete) has now become a landmark building of Qingdao Port, a foreign exchange exchange, a trading registration center, a commercial clearing bank, a bank of La Plata, customs, tax offices, commercial arbitration institutions and other units have entered the museum area half a month ago and then officially started operation.

In the exhibition area, major enterprises have also applied for booths on grasslands that are comparable to two large football fields, and have also specially sent some technical personnel to communicate with customers. Almost all enterprises in the East Coast Republic of China have sent personnel to participate in the exhibition, such as the famous Ping'an Iron and Steel Plant (mainly engaged in steel bar export), Northern Pharmaceutical Plant (exporting aspirin, sodium sulfate, ferrous sulfide, cod liver oil, etc.), Northern Arsenal (fuslock rifle, bayonet, armor, etc.), Northern Arsenal (fuslock rifle, bayonet, armor).

, saber, artillery, etc.), Northern Chemical Factory (exporting sulfuric acid, soda ash, soap, etc.), dye factory (various dyes), two domestic textile factories (launched a variety of new fabrics), three major shipyards (mainly engaged in flute-shaped ships, warships, special ship manufacturing), the first machinery factory (mainly engaged in metal agricultural tools, hardware tools, small machinery), Southern Vehicle Factory (mainly engaged in various animal load trucks and buses), and Dafeng Food Processing Factory (mainly engaged in refined flour, soybean oil, soybean meal), etc.

These companies represent the essence of industry and agriculture in the East Coast Republic today. This time, the development achievements of seventeen years have been collected at the fair and concentrated displays to customers around the world (mainly Europe) in public to better promote East Coast goods. I believe that the East Coast goods are of good quality, cheapness and technological advancement. Merchants who come to participate in the exhibition cannot be unwilling to be moved. Perhaps they will consider the residual guild system, trade barriers, local protection and the mercantilist principle that the monarchs of various countries follow. These East Coast goods will inevitably encounter many obstacles when they are sold in the old continent, but it should not be a problem if they are sold on a small scale. As for the practice of expanding sales in the future, they have to seek the support of local nobles.

Captain Kuait got up early this morning. He had lived on the east coast for nearly a month, and had almost all stayed in Qingdao Port in the past half month. Now he has two boats, managed by his eldest son. According to the agreement, these two boats should arrive at Qingdao Port in the past few days with lead, tin, zinc, graphite, mercury, sulfur and other materials from Amsterdam. However, it is difficult to tell whether the sea sailing is clear. It is normal for ships to arrive late or a month or two earlier. Qingdao Autumn Commodity Trading Expo only lasts for one month. He can only pray that God will let his son arrive in Qingdao smoothly with two ships.

Captain Kuait opened a special account in the Commercial Clearing Bank, which now has about 4,000 pesos of deposits. In addition, he also holds several bank acceptance bills - most of them from Amsterdam exchange banks, but the tragedy is that the Dutch bank's bank does not have direct contact with the East Coast. At that time, he can only see if he can find other merchants to exchange them in the trading market, otherwise his available funds would be too small.

Today, in the Qingdao trading market, only commercial papers issued by five banks, namely commercial clearing banks, La Plata Bank, St. George's Commercial Bank/Bank, Sao Paulo Bank and Palermo Bank, are not recognized for their validity. These five banks form a bank group to provide financing for Qingdao trading market, and exchange (exchange is mainly done by commercial clearing banks and La Plata Bank) services, with gold marks (28 ounces of gold), yuan or rounds as bookkeeping/circulation currencies.

The currency you choose depends on the customer's own wishes. If you choose Jinmak, then your certificate of deposit, bill of exchange, check and other commercial papers can be used throughout Europe - at least there is no problem using them along the Mediterranean coast; if you choose a currency such as yuan or round, you can only use them on the east coast. Of course, the European St. George Bank also recognizes the validity of commercial papers with yuan/round as accounting units. But they will first ask you to exchange them with Jinmak or bank lira as accounting currency, otherwise other European banks or merchants may not recognize them.

This banking group system is exclusive, and they refuse to recognize the validity of bank notes outside the system here. If you want to squeeze into this circle, you must get the unanimous agreement of the five banks. Currently, the negotiations are the Northwest Reclamation Bank of the East Coast Republic, the United Industrial Credit Bank and the Venetian Circulation Bank of the Republic of Venetian. Among them, the first two are basically no major obstacles, but the Venetian Circulation Bank of the Venetian Bank encountered a little trouble because the Genoese opposed their joining the banking system and were still conducting difficult negotiations intermittently.

Many merchant ships have come one after another in the harbor, most of which are Portuguese ships, a small number of them are from New England and Virginia in North America, and of course there are Dutch merchant ships from Brazil, but not many. Captain Kuait sat on the second floor of a restaurant on the top of the mountain, sipping West Lake beer while looking into the bay.

Today, Qingdao Bay has been built to look like a ship repair shop, lighthouse, wharf and a boom called "steam power". The facilities are quite complete and advanced and quite modern. There are two port roads on the wharf, which effectively divert the pressure of freight and passenger transport. One of the asphalt roads is partly responsible for passenger transport and partly carriages, and both are transported by four-wheeled carriages; the other railroad is specially designed to transport bulky carriages, especially for transporting bulky goods, such as grain, steel bars, arms, etc.

There are also some small restaurants and hotels built like mushrooms in the dock area, which mainly engage in catering and accommodation businesses. Some of them have a few prostitutes who come from Italy to do business - Italians are very good at this, which is very popular among the over-energy sailors. After making money, sailors always like to drink strong liquor in the dock area and then have fun. However, they dare not make trouble. The unlucky guy who had made trouble in the past is said to have been sent to a place called "Australia" by the "Black Skin Police" (Ministry of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) on the East Coast, which sounds like a place that can never come back.

Merchants from all over the country who came to Qingdao Port for trade brought a large amount of goods, almost everything! The Portuguese and the Dutch were more familiar with it. They would bring goods from the zero-tariff catalog imported from the East Coast to sell; while the English did not have as strong ability to organize goods, and they exported their own specialties, such as Virginia tobacco, New England pickled fish and dried fish, and in addition to cotton they purchased from the Spanish Florida and Georgia colonies; there were also Spanish people in the port. Although the two countries were in a war period at this time, there were still two courageous Spanish captains who found out the news from somewhere, and then risked the confiscation of ships and cargo by the East Coast people, and brought a whole ship of wool and a large number of horses to Qingdao Port - high-quality horses from Europe were also goods with zero-tariffs.

The merchants who landed ashore registered at the customs office, then went to the tavern and settled in the hotel. The captain or merchant who had finished resting usually rushed outside the expo hall as soon as possible. They would first be shocked by the grand expo hall building, and then, under the guidance of the waiter, go to the foreign exchange exchange to exchange currency.

In Qingdao Port, direct transactions between foreign currencies are not allowed, and cash transactions are also not supported here (transactions above 100 yuan must be transferred through bank accounts, and almost no one has a transaction volume below 100 yuan). The foreign currency carried by merchants must first be traded in the foreign exchange exchange in the expo hall area. The transaction is free. Merchants negotiate prices with foreign exchange dealers (some companies run by travelers) based on their own judgment, and then each transaction price is registered by the foreign exchange employee who acts as an intermediary and published on the big blackboard.

The transaction price is made with round bookkeeping, which is a non-circulating currency that only exists in the East Coast banking system and is also the only transaction bookkeeping currency at Qingdao Autumn Commodity Expo. When customers deposit, they can choose three units: Yuan, Yuan and Mark, but Mark is generally only used for bulk trade settlement with Genoa. Of course, if merchants are willing to settle in this unit privately; Yuan is a circulating currency that exists in real life, and commercial activities below 100 yuan can be used, but the round is an account currency, and the price is fixed to 2 grams of gold, which is also a concept that the East Coast is gradually promoting (preheating for the future gold standard).

In order to strengthen the concept of circles and to facilitate everyone's understanding, before this Qingdao Autumn Commodity Trading Expo, the Eastern Coast State Administration of Precious Metals has recently revised the conversion ratio between yuan and circles to 1:1. The expo is a festival for retail merchants to have a carnival. After the captains convert their foreign currencies into East Coast silver dollars, they can open an account to deposit and convert it into circles. Of course, you can also directly ask foreign currency exchangers to issue commercial papers to you with round accounts, and you can even go directly to the commercial clearing bank to open an account. You should know that this bank accepts foreign currency deposit business.
Chapter completed!