"Honestly… what in the world is he thinking…"
Charles de Toulon said, staring at the letter in his hand.
It was because the letter, sent by his third son—Guillaume de Toulon, a talent destined to one day lead House Toulon—was stuffed with content that came out of nowhere.
[To the Head of House,
Are you in good health? I'm doing reasonably well here.
(omitted)
I am writing to ask that you send 5,000 livres as soon as possible. I have written the detailed reason in the enclosed contract, so please read it carefully.
—Guillaume.]
The enclosed contract was extremely strange.
Even Charles—who had handled a lot of money in his youth as Toulon Harbor's acting manager, and who prided himself on understanding the flow of money—found it full of things he couldn't make sense of.
He was going to create a company.
No—about three.
And the owner name wouldn't be one person, but three.
But the one who would actually run things would be a single "real" boss.
Why do it that way?
Because they had to inflate the paid-in capital. If they wanted a loan from the Chamber of Commerce, they had no choice.
What did that have to do with anything?
He'd understand when the time came.
"I just don't get it… and 5,000 livres, too. That's not a small amount if you're just setting up some little hole-in-the-wall shop."
5,000 livres.
In other words, 100,000 sou.
In France, where a skilled laborer earned 20 sou as a day wage, that was a huge sum.
If Charles's fief hadn't built significant wealth through the wine-grape business, it wouldn't have been money even a noble would hand over readily.
But Charles trusted Guillaume.
Over the six months since the child left for Paris, every report card Charles received had been perfect scores. And though he'd been born a bastard son and could have complained at least once, he had grown up without a single pathetic word even now, nearing fourteen.
"Fine. Whether you fail or succeed—if you learn something, it's not money I can't give."
"Alain! Are you there?"
"Yes, sir. Do you have an order for me?"
"Send Guillaume a bill of exchange in my name. The amount is 5,000 livres."
As he spoke, Charles signed the contract Guillaume had sent.
May, 20xx.
With the cold winter fully gone and spring perfuming the air with fresh green grass, the entire world sank into leisure.
But the campus of OO University was a living hell, filled with the screams of students groaning under the midterms that were right around the corner.
Professors are definitely demons. How can they tell us to write a ten-page report right before an exam?!
No doubt about it—this is a wicked plot by evil professors to work students to death!
Down with professors! Abolish presentations! Take back our sovereignty over grades!
Aaaagh! You think I'll go quietly to grad school if you do this?! Let go! Let go! Aaaagh!
This pre-exam spectacle unfolding everywhere, and the grim mood sharpened by professors' iron-fist rule, was more than enough to turn the eyes of freshmen—who'd sparkled with dreams and hope at the start of the semester—into soulless zombie eyes.
So on this day, Professor Kim, dean of the business department, took pity on these lifeless freshmen, decided to tell them something "interesting" instead of holding his business lecture, and stepped onto the podium.
"Mm. There's no class today. Instead, I'll just tell you a simple story—something you might want to think about at least once—and we'll end early."
"""!!!!!""
"Now—has anyone ever heard of circular shareholding?"
Of course, Professor Kim's story dragged on and—unlike the original plan—continued right into the break.
But a teacher couldn't ignore students this passionate, so today too, he pushed his lazy self onward.
Pulled out of that brief trip into the past, I returned to the present.
Right. Im Gichan was already dead. Now I was Guillaume, not a business student at OO University.
"Still, I'll put what you taught me to good use, Professor."
Circular shareholding.
It's like those YouTube "how much did the jeweler lose?" type problems.
Depending on how you put it, you could call it a basic version of what business and economics people call "window-dressing accounting."
Huh? Isn't that bad?
Well—if you overdo it, sure, it's bad. Especially if the money going in is other people's money.
Company A has money. 1,000,000 won.
Company A lends Company B 500,000 won, and records "receivable debt: 500,000" in its books.
Now Company B lends Company C 300,000 won, and records "receivable debt: 300,000" in its books.
Now Company C lends Company A 100,000 won, and records "receivable debt: 100,000" in its books.
All right—now crack open Company A's books.
Cash it already had: 500,000 won.
Receivable from B: 500,000 won.
Debt borrowed from C: 100,000 won.
The money started at 1,000,000, but on the books it became 1,100,000.
"If this were a stock company, I'd get beaten up at the shareholders' meeting and kicked out. And before that, the tax office isn't stupid—they wouldn't just let it slide."
But this was 18th-century France.
There was no place like the 21st-century National Tax Service or Financial Supervisory Service that would glare with razor-sharp eyes and forcibly strip a company bare.
Sure, there were merchant groups like a Chamber of Commerce, but they'd only catch accounting tricks at this era's level. There was no way people like that would recognize accounting tricks so spicy they weren't just "hot" but "21st-century nuclear-fire spicy chicken ramen."
And anyway, I was doing this precisely to fleece the Chamber of Commerce guys for a loan. If I was going to get caught, I wouldn't have started.
"Hehheheh—khuhhehe."
Thinking about the Chamber of Commerce gentlemen who were about to get played by a soon-to-be fourteen-year-old made me laugh without meaning to.
I'm France's J.P. Morgan and George Soros!
Getting a loan from the Chamber of Commerce went smoothly. If anything, it went too smoothly—that was the problem.
All right, your name is… "People of Isaac"? That's really the shop name?
Let's see. Your books are clean, and—oh? That's a sizable capital base. 7,800 livres…
Hmm… good. Our Chamber of Commerce will lend you 6,000 livres.
For a place that was basically acting like a bank—lending money—it was… kind of sloppy.
France isn't checking the national treasury this way too, is it?
Well, even if I knew how they did it, it wouldn't change anything.
Anyway, with the loan, my capital was now 13,800 livres.
I had enough to buy business land and enough to hire people—so now it was time to start the business in earnest.
Khuhheh—eumhehah.
"That guy… ever since he started talking about some 'business' thing, his eyes have looked kind of weird…"
That was what Napoleon Bonaparte was thinking as he followed along.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! God-fucking-fuck!"
Inside a luxurious room lavishly decorated in the Baroque style—the architectural style used to build the Palace of Versailles—
a well-dressed man, despite his refined and aristocratic air, was spewing filthy curses in a thick, vulgar stream.
It was inner rage, resignation, and fear—poured out only after confirming nobody was nearby.
The French kingdom's Controller-General of Finance, Necker, was so damned cursed he couldn't stand it.
First: the nobles and clergy who amassed obscene wealth yet acted like the state's finances weren't their problem.
Second: the previous kings, Louis XIV and Louis XV, who ran the country at a level beyond "wasteful"—straight into "natural-disaster" territory.
Third: himself.
And the most cursed of them all was himself.
He was bewitched by the "Controller-General" hat that the king and a handful of high nobles dangled in front of him—and without even being able to tell whether it was shit or soybean paste, he swallowed it whole. That fact made him want to curse himself more than anything.
"Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Where the hell am I supposed to pull 3.5 billion livres from?!"
3.5 billion livres.
France's annual budget was about 100 million livres, so it was a sum equivalent to roughly thirty-five years of national budgets.
And that 3.5 billion livres was France's current "national debt."
"Damn it—Turgot, that old bastard, was right. I should've realized it when that fox of an old man quit…!"
Necker muttered, chewing his fingernails to bits.
His predecessor, Controller-General Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, took office in 1774 and implemented various economic policies to reduce France's national debt.
Naturally, included among them were policies targeting the privileged classes—nobles and clergy—who held most of France's wealth yet were free from taxes and corvée labor.
So from the viewpoint of the noble and clerical lords carrying France's wealth—
how infuriating would Turgot's behavior have been?
In the end, Turgot was driven out after only two years by the noble cartel known as the "Society of Thirty." More precisely, he stepped down himself—but anyone who knew the inside story didn't believe it was truly his choice.
By now, anyone with even a little sense knew that the Controller-General post was basically a poisoned chalice.
But Necker wanted that chalice too badly.
Necker, a banker born in Geneva, wanted those four words—the dream of every merchant—so badly he could taste it.
So he took it.
And when he finally drank the shining chalice to the bottom, he saw the clear curse carved inside it.
"National debt: 1.5 billion livres."
Realizing what he'd drunk wasn't merely a "poisoned chalice" but the forbidden fruit itself, Necker fainted on the spot.
But there was still a chance.
If in 1776—when Necker took office—he had tightened unnecessary spending and sincerely appealed to nobles and clergy, maybe that 1.5 billion wouldn't have become today's 3.5 billion.
But Necker hid it.
He hid every flow of money from the public, deceiving them into believing the nation had solid finances with no debt.
Thanks to that, people believed France was running a surplus of 10 million livres every year.
People praised Necker. The king, Louis XVI, even hailed him as a loyal minister for the ages.
"Just as expected of Controller-General Necker! He's nothing like that madman Turgot!"
"Wasn't appointing you my greatest achievement? Hahaha!"
In reality, the country was taking on 50 million livres of debt each year.
It wasn't that Necker only lied and did nothing.
He tried selling off his own wealth to reduce the debt—but it wasn't enough.
Even a rich banker like him was nothing but an ant in front of money on a national scale.
In the end, Necker's lie—now nearly nine years old—became something he was too terrified to expose because of the backlash it would cause. So he kept the con going.
As a result, over nine years, that 1.5 billion swelled like a snowball and produced a "bubble" called 3.5 billion livres.
Today, too, Necker prayed for mercy from God, begging that this "bubble" wouldn't burst before he could resign as Controller-General.