Chapter 1013: The Tough Leopold II.

  Chapter 993: The Tough Man Leopold II

At the Grand Hotel Vienna, a touching side of the story appeared, two unlucky people told each other their misery, and the scene was one of sadness for the hearers and tears for the listeners.

Then there was no more, no matter how much Massimiliano wanted to help, there was no point.

Over the years, in order to restore the country, Massimiliano not only exhausted his own contacts, but also owed a butt of favors. To this day, his influence on the Vienna government has been infinitely close to zero.

In addition to face good-looking, Massimiliano this Mexican emperor in exile is an empty shelf. The only role is probably high enough identity, in critical moments can help to speak, as to whether it can play a role that is not known.

Just a little help, Leopold II is still not willing to give up. No matter what, it was better to have someone to help talk than no one.

Even if Massimiliano’s political power was low, he was still able to exert direct influence on Franz. The fact that he was able to get hundreds of thousands of restoration funds every year was the best proof.

But people grow up, although very moved and very happy to provide help to Belgium, but Massimiliano is no longer the same teenager.

“Leopold, I personally advise you not to get your hopes up. As far as I know, the Vienna government is in the red again this year.

If you really want to obtain funds from Vienna, it would be best to go through private channels for financing. Although the interest rate that needs to be paid on the funds is a bit higher, it is unnecessary to pay too much politically.”

These were Massimiliano’s sincere words; aid, interest-free loans and the like were too difficult for people. It is no longer the time of the Continental War, Belgium’s importance to the Shen Luo Empire has been greatly reduced, and the Vienna government is not an ingrate.

If the number is small, perhaps Belgium crying poor and miserable is still useful. The problem is that Belgium now has a huge funding gap, the interests involved are much larger.

These problems Leopold II naturally want to get, but now is no way. Ordinary international financing is not only high interest, but also comes with a lot of political strings attached.

The most critical is the Belgian government in the previous loan has been able to mortgage all mortgage out, now can not get enough collateral items, purely relying on the government’s credibility guarantee, financial consortiums simply do not buy the account.

Not only Vienna, the whole of Europe’s major financial markets the Belgian government have gone to borrow money. Now the whole of Europe is a little bit of big banks, financial companies, are the Belgian government’s debtors.

In order to raise enough money, repeated mortgages, fraudulent things, the Belgian government are not less dry.

Unfortunately, the financial institutions are too shrewd, the Belgian government’s repayment ability is not assured, every time is the collateral collected more, lending out very little money.

Post-war reconstruction expenditures greatly exceeded the budget, the normal commercial channels and can not go, so there is Leopold II this trip to Vienna.

“Massimiliano, what kind of goods are those vampires, are you still not clear? With Belgium’s current situation, do you think it’s possible to get a normal commercial loan?”

Seeing Leopold II’s helpless expression, Massimiliano nodded very sympathetically. At least he was someone who had been an emperor, so he naturally knew what kind of goods the banks were.

“Borrow umbrellas on sunny days, collect umbrellas on rainy days.” It is not a joke, when the emperor position in Mexico, Massimiliano was full of difficulties.

On the surface looks very conscientious loan, that is only used to fool the general public, the real interest rate has never been high horrible.

To this day, Massimiliano clearly remember their first get a loan scenario. With Mexico’s silver mine as collateral, got a seemingly generous loan.

On the surface of the annual rate of only 2.5%, in fact, a variety of fees a whole lot, more pitched loans or installments issued, but the interest is to be calculated in full, and finally converted down to the real interest rate directly up to 14.62% / year.

This is still Napoleon III out of his support, personally and the French consortium communicated with the conscience of the loan given.

If there is no government intervention, let the bank free play, that is the real usury. The highest is how much no one knows, anyway, Massimiliano borrowed the principal 50% discount, interest rate as high as 46.9%, all kinds of additional conditions a whole lot of international loans.

Of course, Massimiliano was not at a disadvantage. The interest rate is a little higher and the additional conditions are a billion points more, but this is a high-risk loan. With the collapse of the Mexican Empire, these debts have become bad debts.

The aftermath was that when Massimiliano wanted to finance the restoration of the country, there was no longer any bank willing to lend money to the government in exile. Even when he borrowed in his personal name, no bank would lend.

Government liabilities were not the same as emperor liabilities, and there was no joint and several liability between the two parties. Theoretically, as a direct member of the Habsburg family, Massimiliano is still a bank in the eyes of a high-quality customers, more than a million or eight hundred thousand borrowing certainly no problem.

Unfortunately, Franz early on the financial sector put the word, who dared to lend money to Massimiliano personal, and the Habsburg dynasty is not good.

Capital for profit and weak, no bank head iron to a little interest income, and the Habsburg dynasty on.

So much so that the uninformed Massimiliano repeatedly hit a wall, only to think that they have become a fallen phoenix, by the vampires fell into the well.

After hesitating for a while, Massimiliano slowly said: “Leopold, on this issue, I can only help you convey your country encountered difficulties.

The one who can ultimately make the decision is still the Vienna government, you’d better not hold too much hope. That elder brother of mine is seldom involved in such matters.”

Politics is so realistic, but anything that offends people is never the cabinet that takes the blame, and Franz the Great, who really makes the decisions, usually only comes out when all is happy.

With Massimiliano’s understanding of his own brother, unless the Belgian government can come up with enough benefits to do the exchange, otherwise this kind of thing for nothing, most likely can’t pass.

“Thank you!”

“If the Vienna government can provide us with the assistance we need, then all future international trade settlements in Belgium will be carried out using S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Leopold II gritted his teeth and said.

In a sense, this was also considered selling out the country’s sovereignty, but Belgium had no better choice.

Post-war reconstruction funds are insufficient, the French can not get the reparations, in order to raise funds, Belgium has been able to mortgage all the mortgage out, and now in the hands of the remaining so little leverage.

If it is not found that the Vienna government is ready to make the shield into an international settlement currency, Leopold II did not know that the settlement currency can also be taken out of the deal.

After all, before this international trade settlement, most is the use of gold to complete, sometimes there is the use of silver settlement. The use of the divine shield settlement, that is all countries with the Holy Roman Empire to start trade time.

All the use of the shield for trade settlement, not only means that Belgium gave up the gold and silver settlement, but also means that Belgium will be linked to the currency and the shield, from the original pure gold standard country, into the shield and gold mixed standard.

Only because of the free exchangeability of gold and guilders, the value of the currency is also relatively stable, the difference between this mixed standard and the pure gold standard is not too big.

Now the gap is not big, does not mean that the gap is not big in the future. Once the shield and gold decoupling, the situation has changed completely differently.

There is no doubt that no one realizes these problems at the moment. Normal people do not dare to imagine the decoupling of the divine shield and gold, who do not know the future economic development will be so fast that as gold production can not meet the real demand.

If you know this, Leopold II would never be so big and bold to take it out as a condition. After all, the negotiations are not officially opened, the eye of the opening conditions can only be counted as good faith, and ultimately need to pay the price will certainly be greater.

Massimiliano nodded, his heart sighing with relief. The battle for monetary hegemony between the divine Shield and the British Pound was not a day or two old, and even he, the exiled Emperor who was far away from politics, had heard about it.

Belgium’s current stance was not just about economic interests, but more importantly, political war parties.

As early as a few years ago, Britain and Austria had engaged in their own settlement system, and also pulled in European countries. Only at that time the conditions were not mature enough, even if there is a tendency, no country dares to announce that all use a certain country’s currency for settlement.

If Belgium stood out now, it would be the first country in the world to publicly announce that it would all use the divine shield for settlement. Based on this alone, it would be able to harvest a large wave of goodwill from the Vienna government.

Such a thing, at present, only the penniless Belgium dared to do. Fully adopting the divine shield for settlement is not only politically evil to the British government, it is also excluding its own commodities from Britain’s market.

Whether for the sake of face, or for the sake of interests, the London government is unlikely to accept the guilder as the settlement currency of the Anglo-Belgian trade. To know the Anglo-Australian trade, now are mainly settled in gold.

Even if the Vienna government wanted to make the Shendun an international settlement currency, it was not that radical, and right now it was only planning to make the Shendun the internal settlement currency of the European Union.

Knowing that the consequences are serious, Leopold II still did it. The reason is very cruel, now have the strength to provide funds to Belgium only Britain and Austria.

Don’t look at the Vienna government seems to be financially tight, that is also relative, squeeze the money will come out.

Moreover, the government’s lack of money is not the same as being unable to get money. After more than a year of buffer, the Holy Roman Empire’s financial markets are no longer tight, but also not to tens of millions of dollars of funds can not be taken out.

Post-war reconstruction funds and not a day spent out, as long as there is a thousand million or so to save the emergency, the rest of the funds can wait for the next month to allocate.

The situation in Europe has become clear, and Belgium can’t afford to continue to be duplicitous. If now for the loan to go and the British hook up, that is absolutely tired of living performance.

Anyway, to be a horseman, Leopold II decided to take a gamble and grab the number one horseman position. Although the number one horseman needed to charge into battle and was a bit more dangerous, the benefits were lucrative!

Before this, the top echelons of the Belgian government had also carefully studied the situation.

With the Holy Roman Empire’s current convergence of great power, as long as the Vienna government does not die, the position of the European land hegemony has been stabilized, and the chances of replacing the British as the maritime hegemony are also very high.

Belgium’s volume is limited, if they don’t lean over immediately, once another country snatches them up, their value will be gone.

(End of chapter)