God of Technology: Creating the Internet in Another World-Chapter 428: Changes Under the Massive Pressure on Landed Nobility

Chapter 428: Changes Under the Massive Pressure on Landed Nobility

"To establish credit currency, there are several key points."

Viscount Roster said with a smile: "First, establish financial infrastructure and a credit mechanism."

"No doubt about it, we’ve already done that. Whether it’s Dragon Bank, the stock exchange, bond exchange, futures market, or Magic Net-related functions—everything’s backing this up."

"The second point is transitioning from an agricultural society to a commercial and industrial one. Through ultra-high-yield crops and these financial operations, we’ve pushed most landed nobles onto the path of reform."

"To keep their money from losing value, they’ve had no choice but to pull all the gold, silver, and copper coins stored in their castle vaults."

"A tiny portion of that money went into Dragon Bank accounts. The rest started looking for all kinds of investment opportunities."

"This futures trading thing has completely forced them down this road."

"That’s why I said the opportunity’s right in front of us."

"Of course, there’s one more critical point—the dragons."

"Dragons?" Nidhogg was clearly caught off guard, a bit confused.

"Everyone knows dragons love gold, silver, all kinds of treasures." Viscount Roster said with a smile.

"What do you mean?" Nidhogg still didn’t quite get it.

"Credit currency needs to break free from precious metals—meaning break free from gold, silver, and copper—but you can’t completely get rid of them, especially gold."

Viscount Roster stopped beating around the bush and cut to the chase: "Gold reserves make people feel secure."

"Everyone will think that when necessary, they can still exchange future dragon paper currency for gold, silver, and copper coins. Only when they have that mindset can credit currency become widespread."

"This point is extremely important. Most people think this way, and we have to account for it."

"Who in this world would believe you dragons don’t have gold?"

Without Viscount Roster needing to continue, Nidhogg already understood.

Yeah!

Probably nobody in this world would believe they dragons didn’t have gold.

Dragons loving gold was common knowledge.

Right now, dragons had quite a few businesses, each one raking in money like crazy. Even the main currency in circulation had become gold dragon coins.

After all, every country, every lord issued their own currency, and the quality varied wildly. Some were high purity, some low. Some were heavier, some lighter.

The trading market was total chaos.

People preferred storing high-quality coins in their vaults and using the crappy ones for transactions.

The coins commonly seen in the market were almost all the bad ones.

This kind of situation had been going on for who knows how long.

But as Dragon Bank became more widespread, people gradually noticed that gold dragon coin quality was super stable.

So gradually, people selling goods only wanted gold dragon coins.

Eventually it spread everywhere.

Especially as Dragon Bank got more and more users, people could only send their currency to Dragon Bank for exchange.

And as the dragons issuing gold dragon coins—would anyone believe they didn’t have money?

Plus there was the bank’s reserve business. Countless people stored their gold in Dragon Bank, and most of that gold lived on Dragon Island.

Bottom line, everyone believed dragons had endless gold.

This was the final trump card for issuing currency.

After Nidhogg figured all this out, realization dawned: "This really does provide an excellent foundation for us to issue credit currency!"

"We just need to wait for all of them to default, and that’s when we officially launch."

After a slight hesitation, he asked uncertainly: "Are there really no risks in this?"

"Of course there are risks. For example, some traditional nobles might fight back—those who mortgaged their assets to Dragon Bank during this period might not accept reality and refuse to hand over those assets. They might even start wars over it, or warn others not to buy those assets."

Viscount Roster thought carefully for a moment before continuing: "Besides that, the biggest risk is that people at the very bottom—slaves—might have trouble accepting paper currency."

"But I think this is a gradual process. As long as those controlling large amounts of capital are willing to use it, naturally, inevitably, paper currency will completely replace gold, silver, and copper coins."

If Viscount Roster had said there were no risks at all, Nidhogg would definitely have become quite suspicious about the whole thing.

How could something like this not have risks?

But after hearing Viscount Roster’s analysis, he was completely reassured.

During the spread of new currency, these two areas did indeed carry risk.

But these risks were totally acceptable.

For those landed nobles who wanted to resist with force, Dragon Bank could hit back hard.

Didn’t matter what kind of military power they had—worst case, send a few more dragons over.

Even if the dragons didn’t act, even if these assets got sold to Viscount Roster, those guys wouldn’t be able to take money from the Church of Technology by force, right?

Everyone was being civilized now. They were the ones who gambled away their own assets. If they refused to pay up, well, don’t blame us for using force!

As for those people at the very bottom who hadn’t encountered Magic Net, hadn’t encountered Dragon Bank, hadn’t encountered other dragon-run businesses.

Sure, there were tons of them, but they had basically no purchasing power and hadn’t saved up much money.

Probably all people like that across the entire continent combined didn’t have even 1% of these tycoons’ assets.

That being the case, while it would slow down credit currency adoption and credit currency couldn’t immediately match the adoption rate of gold, silver, and copper coins in the short term.

It wouldn’t affect the overall credit currency system starting to operate.

Plus, as magic-tech industry developed, more and more of these bottom-tier people would gradually enter places like factories or various construction sites, and the wages they got would be in paper currency.

It was a slow process, but it would keep chipping away at the old system.

No need to worry.

Actually, if there were a war that could end slavery, the effect would definitely be even better. But now wasn’t the time yet.

Viscount Roster and Nidhogg discussed intensely, talking through the practical operations based on the strategy Ren had given Viscount Roster today.

Though they made localized adaptations in the process, if Ren knew about it, he’d clearly realize this was almost identical to the Austrian reforms from his previous life’s history.

The landed nobility’s core assets were land and the agricultural economy built on that land. When they smashed through traditional agricultural economics and used financial methods to seize land, everything fell into place naturally.