The Shadow of Great Britain-Chapter 704 - 340

"Arthur, let me introduce you," this is the MP and currently the chairman of the Public Works Committee, Mr. Francis Baring."

In a small coffee shop on Oxford Street, Arthur looked at the gentleman in front of him who had a friendly smile and an unexpectedly receding hairline for his young age. He removed his gloves and shook hands with him.

"It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Baring. Although this is the first time I am meeting you, I have been using your family’s products for many years now," Arthur said.

Baring burst into laughter at Arthur’s joke and responded, "It’s always a pleasure to be recognized by a customer. I would have been very happy to keep you for dinner unless you came asking for more public debt!"

For the people of 19th century England, Baring was a surname they couldn’t avoid from the moment of their birth.

Whether you liked it or not, you would inevitably use products from their family in your lifetime.

As for the reason, it was simple: they ran a bank, and they ran it big, also holding the rights to issue banknotes in the England region.

Of course, unlike those obscure small banks, the Baring Bank had enough credibility that it was even more popular than the banknotes issued by the Bank of England.

If you were to ask anyone in the London Financial City which banker dared to compete with the Rothschild Family, the first one everyone would think of was the gentleman’s brother standing before us—Alexander Baring.

It wasn’t just the Britons who trusted their credibility; even their arch-rivals across the Channel, the French, as well as the North American rebels, greatly acknowledged the formidable strength of Baring Bank.

When the Americans purchased the territory of Louisiana from France, Baring Bank acted as the intermediary for this transaction. They provided the Americans with financing worth millions of dollars and, after collecting a 12.5% service fee, handed the ten million dollars to Napoleon.

Although these actions attracted investigations by the Cabinet and criticism from domestic public opinion, the Barings, branded as traitors and colluders with the French, eventually passed the financial audits by Parliament smoothly.

Moreover, they even became the largest underwriter of British government bonds during the Napoleonic Wars.

The affair not only didn’t affect the ongoing trust of the British Cabinet in them but even earned them high praise from the French.

Thus, after the failure of Napoleon’s restoration, it was only natural for Baring Bank to provide France, which couldn’t produce the enormous war indemnity, with a substantial amount of loans.

At the time, the French negotiating representative, Mr. Talleyrand, even claimed, "The loan provided by Baring Bank is a strong guarantee for peace in Europe."

And at the Congress of Vienna, representatives from Britain, Austria, and Prussia believed that without Baring Bank’s guarantee for the French Government, the treaty on the negotiation table would be almost as good as waste paper.

To this, the French could only sigh, "Today in Europe, there are six major powers: Britain, France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and the Baring Family."

This way, the Barings not only earned good repute through the indemnity loans but also took the opportunity to make a whopping 720,000 pounds.

Of course, although the Baring Family was only involved in banking, that didn’t mean they had no interest in other industries.

As bankers who controlled Britain’s largest liquid funds and maintained good relations with several countries, the Baring Family long dominated the lifeline of trans-Atlantic trade between Britain and America through providing liquidity loans.

And they had an advantage that the Rothschilds couldn’t match—they weren’t Jews but were Deutsch who had immigrated to Britain from Hamburg in the early 18th century.

Just like the history of the rise of the Rothschilds, Mayer Rothschild, the founder of the Rothschild family, started as a small antique dealer in Frankfurt.

The founder of the Baring Family, Johann Baring, was a Hamburg broker who sold cheap German linen to Britain and brought back cheap British wool to Germany.

And these two Deutsch elders had one thing in common: they both had several good sons.

The old Rothschild had five sons, each in charge of a family branch.

The eldest, Amschel, stayed in Frankfurt to manage the home base.

The second, Salomon, went to Vienna to establish the Rothschilds’ business in the Austrian Empire.

The third, Nathan, made a name for himself in London, becoming the most powerful branch of the Rothschild Family.

The fourth, Carl, went to Naples in the Apennine Peninsula and wielded great influence in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The youngest, James, was one of King Louis Philippe’s favorites, and the Rothschild Paris branch was his most important financial instrument.

As for the Baring side, they naturally were not to be outdone.

The eldest son, John, was determined to enter politics, while the second, Francis, displayed astonishing talent in commerce.

Building on his father’s foundations, Francis started with industries like dyes, rouge, and diamonds. During his time managing tangible industries, he realized the importance of financing and decisively shifted from tangible to intangible assets.

In 1763, he founded the first private commercial bank in world history—John and Francis Baring Company, despite opposition from within his family.