Chapter 1043: Misty Mist

  Chapter 1023 – Heavy Mist

It was fine to pretend to be confused, but not to be truly confused. Junior was unwilling to pursue the matter in depth, mainly because he was worried that what they found out in the end would happen to be the enemy they least wanted to face.

Without lifting the lid, everyone can still pretend to be confused. Together will this political game to play on, once found out something, and then want to restore to the present will not be able to.

Marquis Taboada nodded thoughtfully, his complexion somewhat gloomy. The former Sunset Empire had actually fallen to the point where it had to pretend that nothing had happened even when it was being assassinated.

Only pretending to be deaf and dumb was fine, but the problem still needed to be solved.

One more hidden enemy means that the Spanish government must allocate an extra portion of energy to prevent unforeseen circumstances.

This is undoubtedly a kind of torture for the Spanish government, which already has a lot of headaches.

Seeing the indoor atmosphere is silent, Antonio decisively chose to change the topic: “Well, the colonial issue, we are vigilant is. Let’s talk about the loan first!

Unlike last time, now there is no incense accumulated in the war against France, I’m afraid it’s not easy to get an interest-free loan again.”

As an old empire, although Spain has fallen, but the rules of the political game between the powers, Antonio is still skillful.

Frankly speaking, before being able to get a large interest-free loan from the Vienna government, Antonio has been very surprised.

According to the normal rhythm, the Vienna government should take advantage of the fire in the Philippine War. Unexpectedly, just because of a previous promise, the Vienna government gave up.

It was indeed good to be with a credible boss, but the boss also had to eat meat. For the Holy Roman Empire to be able to have the Norse territory it has today, the Vienna government is definitely not as harmless as it looks.

The last time it was willing to help, perhaps it was out of credibility, or perhaps it was because the Holy Roman Empire needed a political show after becoming the hegemon of the continent.

Something like this can never happen twice, even if the Vienna government is willing to help for free, Spain can not afford it.

Based on his past political experience, Antonio knew very well that in this world, “the more you want to get, the more you need to pay the price”.

The advantage of the hegemonic country, absolutely not good to take advantage of. Once stained, the future repayment time, may be able to kill Spain’s half life.

For example: the escalation of the Anglo-Australian conflict, took the benefits of Spain, must act as a pawn.

Don’t expect to be able to renege on the debt, Spain simply does not have the money. Just a France, but also can not stop the retaliation of God Luo.

Do not want to become the British and Austrian hegemony in the struggle for cannon fodder, Spain in the embrace of God Luo thigh at the same time, but also must maintain enough autonomy.

European governments did so. Despite the existence of the Continental Union, the Vienna government still has no mandatory binding force on the countries, to do something still need to take the interests of the exchange.

Finance Minister Siegfried: “Forget about interest-free loans, the Austrians are not in the business of charity.

Unless we can come up with enough benefits in exchange, or this loan, is an ordinary commercial loan.

The Ministry of Finance has already communicated with the domestic banking consortium, and they have asked the government to use the salt tax as collateral, and can only provide a loan of up to 50 million matcha.

The loan fee is 8% and the interest rate is 8.9% per annum, to be repaid in 30 years, with monthly principal and interest payments of 398,700 matcha.

I have done the math, the loan of 50 million actually came to 46 million and the principal and interest to be repaid totaled 143.532 million.

This is already the most favorable commercial loan we can get. An ordinary private commercial loan would have to double the interest rate.

With such a high interest rate, even the government can’t afford it, let alone the general public. With all the money being made away by these vampires, it’s no wonder our economy can’t grow.

We need to fight two wars at the same time, and 46 million matcha is only enough to pay two months of soldiers’ salaries. If it was used for war, it would be a miracle if it could last a month.

According to the most optimistic estimate, if we quell the Philippine insurgency in six months and suppress the Cuban insurgency within the year, then the government will still have a shortfall of 880 million.

Converted to SHG, that’s around 70 million. At an interest rate of 8.9%, the interest we need to pay on the funds each year alone is about to catch up with a quarter of our revenue.

The actual situation will be even worse, with our current financial situation, no commercial bank would dare to lend us so much money.

Even if there is some greedy vampire who dares to take up this business, the interest rate will be horribly high. A mere 8.9% return is not enough to make them risk losing their money by lending.”

(1 match tat is about 0.29 grams of gold)

Since the outbreak of the Philippine War, the Spanish government has been living in debt, and to this day Spain’s debt has totaled a staggering 330 million guilders.

The debt has already caught up with one-fifth of the total debt of the Shenroe, but the financial revenue, Spain is far less than one-fifth of the Shenroe, and even less than one-twentieth.

There was no way around it, this was the difference between a semi-industrialized country and an industrialized country. Spain, which has one-seventh of the population of Godroe, has less than one-twentieth of the fiscal revenue of Godroe.

To this day, more than half of the Spanish government’s annual revenue is used to pay off domestic and foreign debts.

Against this background, the Spanish government’s finances were naturally not good. From the first day of becoming the Minister of Finance, Siegfried has been living in the days of tearing down the east wall and mending the west wall.

This is still the establishment of a large number of interest-free loans in the background, otherwise the interest on the funds alone, are able to crush the kingdom of Spain.

By this time, in front of the Spanish government’s biggest problem, is not the high and low interest rate of the loan, but the ability to repay the debt.

The richer you are, the easier it is to borrow money. The same applies to the country, the loss of debt repayment ability of Spain, want to loan naturally will not be simple.

Loans can not be obtained, the issuance of bonds, let alone think. The capital market has always been the most realistic, no one wants to lend money to a poor man.

Antonio rubbed his forehead: ”The issue of high domestic financing costs, we will discuss it later. For now, it’s better to find a way to raise funds to get through the difficulties at hand.

If we were to obtain this loan from Shen Luo, what kind of price would we need to pay?”

Obviously, this was not the first time these questions had come up. As a matter of fact, the high cost of financing was also a common phenomenon in this era, and was not an isolated case in Spain.

Ten or twenty points of interest on a commercial loan might seem high, but in this day and age, it really wasn’t anything.

Behind the high interest rate, accompanied by high delinquency, high risk. Defaults and runs are common, and once the debtor leaves the territory, the bank simply can’t pursue the matter.

Even if there are assets as collateral, there are often multiple and repeated mortgages. Restricted by the poor exchange of information, banking institutions, even if they are cautious, it is inevitable to step on mines.

The “high risk” does not deter bankers, as long as the loan interest rate is increased, the loss of default will be spread to other debtors.

This is why the cost of government borrowing, much lower than the interest rate of commercial loans, after all, lending money to the government default risk is small.

Of course, the Spanish government is clearly not a quality customer. So both to give collateral, the loan interest rate can not be low.

Siegfried shrugged his shoulders and said with a sense of humor, “It depends on what the government of Vienna wants. It’s not likely that they are in a good mood and suddenly have a good heart, so they just lend us the money.”

This was something that Siegfried himself didn’t believe, and the crowd would believe it even less.

70 million divine guilders wasn’t 7,000 divine guilders, unless the top echelons of the Vienna government had a collective brain in their heads, or else such charity definitely wouldn’t be done.

……

Having taken the blame for someone for no reason, Franz’s mood was the same as the British. Explanation is impossible to explain, this kind of thing can only be smeared more and more black.

Analyzed from the point of view of pure interest, the motives of the Vienna government to lay hands on Spain were too sufficient.

Spain, the “little boy in the market,” is the object of everyone’s attention. As long as there is strength, there is motive.

Not happy to be unhappy, but Franz can not do anything. The Spaniards just secretly suspected, not even check down, what else can be done?

Eating this dumb loss, Franz to the black hand behind the scenes, also resentment.

This means, method is really too familiar, the same formula, the same set, Franz really did not think that one day will be applied to himself.

One can only say that there are still many people with hearts in this world, and while provoking the Cuban Independence Movement, not only did they hide themselves, they even found several scapegoats.

If he hadn’t been calculating, Franz didn’t believe that with the British taking the blame, he would have let the Spanish find out that there were other international forces involved.

……

Franz asked, “Has the man behind the curtain been found?”

Just because the Spanish government was worried about finding out the truth they didn’t want to see couldn’t be wrapped up and wasn’t willing to look down the line, didn’t mean that the Vienna government wasn’t looking down the line as well.

Although it is not for such a small matter to make a big fuss, but to find out the black hand behind the scenes, to be on the defensive is still indispensable.

Prime Minister Karl shook his head: ”No! This black hand is hiding too deep, and after provoking the Cuban independence movement, it quickly went into hiding.

The clues left behind are all in disarray, some pointing to us, and some pointing to the British, the United States, and the Union State, so there’s no way to distinguish between the real and the fake.

But directing the Spanish government’s attention to us was mostly the work of the British. The government in London is going crazy trying to dismantle the Continental Union.

Only the British didn’t think that the Spanish government was so abashed that they wouldn’t look down at all, so much so that their setup did nothing.”

Not being able to find out means that the Vienna government will take the blame for this. It’s not like you need evidence for this kind of thing, it’s enough to think it was that.

Just like Prime Minister Karl’s belief that the British were setting up Shinra, a conclusion drawn from mere speculation, Franz took it as true.

“Forget it if you can’t find out. But the government’s attention to the United States, the Union State, is about to be raised a notch.

Especially since there’s the possibility of the British in the middle of this.

The international situation right now is very unfavorable for Britain. Against the background of being unable to break up the European Union, it is inevitable that the British will not panic and run off to embrace the Americans.

The best way to stop the merging of Britain and the United States was to bring up the conflict between the United States and the Union. As long as there is no détente between their two countries, the British will have to choose between the two.”

Frankly, Franz wasn’t too worried about a détente between the United States and the Union State. Giving up hatred was easier said than done.

The resentment of the southern states against the North in the original time period has lasted well into the 21st century and has not been able to be completely eliminated.

Now there is even less to say, the north and south fighting blood flow not to mention, the key is that the two have been separated.

To this day, it has become politically correct to hate the other side.

Unless the external oppression is too great and threatens their survival. Otherwise, there is no possibility of détente between the United States and the Confederacy until this generation dies out.

There is no doubt that such pressure simply does not exist. Neither Britain, nor the Holy Roman Empire had the power to exterminate the United States and the Union State.

The vast ocean was their best line of defense, limiting the power projection of the European powers.

(End of chapter)