Chapter 5 3. Old Rothschild's first pot of gold

On February 23, 1744, Meyer A. Bauer was born in the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt. His father Moses was an itinerant goldsmith and moneylender, earning a living in Eastern Europe all the year round.When Mayer was born, Moses decided to settle in Frankfurt.Meyer has shown amazing IQ since he was a child. His father devoted a lot of effort to him, carefully trained him, and systematically taught him business knowledge about money and borrowing.A few years later, Moses died, and at the age of thirteen Meyer was encouraged by relatives to become a banking apprentice at the Oppenheimer Family Bank in Hanover.

Meyer quickly mastered all kinds of professional skills of the bank with his extraordinary savvy and diligence. During the whole seven years, he absorbed and digested all kinds of financial ideas from the UK like a sponge. .For his outstanding work, Mayer was promoted to junior partner.During his working days in the bank, he met some clients with very good backgrounds, including Feng.General Eastover.It was here that Mayer realized that the profit and insurance factor of lending money to the government and the king was much higher than that of lending to individuals. Not only was the loan amount much larger, but there was also government tax revenue as collateral.This new financial idea from the UK refreshed Mayer's mind.

A few years later, the young Meyer returned to Frankfurt to continue his father's moneylending business.He also changed his surname to Rothschild (Rot is red in German and Schild is a mark in German).When he learned that Feng.When General Eastover also returned to Frankfurt and worked at Prince William's court, he immediately thought of making good use of this relationship.When Feng.General Eastover was also very happy to see Meyer again.The general himself is a coin collector, and Meyer's research on coins has been passed down from generation to generation. When talking about various ancient coins, he is very familiar, and the general is delighted to hear it.What made the general even more delighted was that Meyer was willing to sell a few rare gold coins to the general at a big discount, and soon Feng.General Eastover considered Mayer a confidant.The scheming Meyer quickly became acquainted with important figures in the court.Finally one day, Jing Feng.General Eastover introduced that Prince William summoned Meyer. It turned out that the prince himself was also a gold coin collector. Meyer used the same method to quickly make the prince favor him.

After selling rare and rare gold coins to the prince at a low price several times, the prince also felt embarrassed, so he asked Meyer if he needed help. Meyer lost no time in proposing to become the official agent of the palace, and he finally got his wish.On September 21, 1769, Meyer inlaid the royal coat of arms on his signboard, and wrote in gold letters next to it: M. A. Rothschild, appointed agent of His Royal Highness Prince William.For a time, Mayer's reputation soared, and the business became more and more prosperous. Prince William himself was a money-hungry person in history, and he was famous in Europe in the eighteenth century for leasing troops to other countries to maintain peace.He has a close relationship with various royal families in Europe, and he especially likes to do business with the British royal family. Because Britain has many overseas interests, it often needs to use troops, but its own army is not enough. Britain pays more money and rarely defaults. So it hit it off with Prince William.Later in the American Revolutionary War, Washington dealt with more German soldiers than the British.Later, Prince William accumulated the largest inheritance of the royal family in European history, equivalent to about 200 million US dollars.No wonder people call him the coldest loan shark in Europe.

After joining Prince William's tent, Meyer tried her best to perfect every errand, so she won the trust of the prince.Soon the French bourgeois revolution (1789︱1799) broke out, and the wave of revolution gradually spread from France to the surrounding monarchy countries.Prince William grew anxious, increasingly worried that the revolution would resonate in Germany and that mobs would rob him of his fortune.Contrary to what the prince thought, Meyer was very happy about the French Revolution, because the panic caused his gold coin business to soar.When the revolution was directed against the Holy Roman Empire, trade with England was cut off and the price of imports skyrocketed.Meyer made a fortune selling goods from England to Germany.

Meyer has been a very active leader in the Jewish community.Every Saturday night, after the synagogue service, Meyer would invite some of the brightest Jewish scholars to his home, and they would gather together to discuss at length over sips of wine. The sequence of doing something until late at night. Meyer famously said: Families that pray together stay together.Later people still couldn't understand what kind of power made the Rothschilds so obsessed with conquest and power. By 1800, the Rothschilds had become one of the wealthiest Jewish families in Frankfurt.Meyer also received the title of Regent Royal of the Empire from the Holy Roman Emperor in the same year.This title allowed him to travel through various parts of the empire, exempted other Jews from various taxes, and his company personnel could also be equipped with weapons, etc.

In 1803, the relationship between Meyer and Prince William became increasingly close, which brought Meyer's power to a new level.The thing is like this, a cousin of Prince William is the king of Denmark, he asked Prince William to borrow a sum of money, Prince William was afraid of revealing his wealth and refused to agree.When Meyer learned of this, he thought it was a good opportunity, so he proposed a solution to the prince. The prince would pay for it. Meyer came forward to negotiate and gave the Danish king a loan in the name of Rothschild. The interest Meyer could pay commission.The prince thought about it carefully, and thought it was a good idea. People are afraid of being famous and pigs are afraid of being strong, and they want to lend money to collect money but don't want to leak their wealth.For Mayer, the fame of lending to the king is his dream, not only to get a reliable return, but also an excellent opportunity to improve his credibility.The result was a loan that was a huge success.Immediately afterwards, six more loans to the Danish royal family were completed through Meyer.Rothschild's fame rose, especially as his close ties to the royal family became known in Europe.

After Napoleon came to power, he once tried to pull Prince William to his side. Prince William had both sides, and he was unwilling to choose a side before the situation became clear. Finally, Napoleon announced that Hess.Kaiser (Prince William's family) was cleared from the list of rulers in Europe, and then the French army invaded the country. Prince William fled to Denmark in a hurry.It was the three million cash that brought Meyer unprecedented power and wealth, and became Meyer's first pot of gold leading to his financial empire. Mayer has much bigger ambitions than creating a Bank of England!When he got the huge sum of money from Prince William, he was about to start dispatching troops.His five sons are like five sharp arrows shooting at the five hearts of Europe.The eldest brother Amslow guards the headquarters in Frankfurt, the second child Solomon goes to Vienna to open up a new battlefield, the third child Nathan is sent to England to preside over the overall situation, and the fourth child Karl goes to Naples, Italy to establish a base and shuttles between brothers as a messenger. Five James at the helm of the Paris operations.

A financial empire unprecedented in human history kicked off its prelude.