Chapter 7 The Sassoons: The Rothschilds of the East

Sassoon and the Rothschild family belong to the Sephardic Jews. They have lived in the Islamic Iberian Peninsula (now Spain) since ancient times, engaged in goldsmithing and coin exchange businesses, and often acted as agents for the Genoese banking family , Engaged in credit investigation, loan collection and other services.In this process, gradually establish their own commercial credit and financial network. In the 1490s, as the Iberian Christians drove the Islamic regime out, the Sephardic Jews were also expelled from Spain and Portugal. The Rothschild family went into exile in Germany to engage in their old business, and later became the "court banker" of the German royal family.Another Jewish financial family fled to the Netherlands and Belgium, and quickly made a comeback with the business relationship accumulated over the years, and participated in the establishment of the Bank of Amsterdam, the Dutch Bank and the Dutch East India Company.It was with the funding of 2 million Dutch guilders from Dutch Jewish bankers that William III of England led 15,000 people to land in England from the Netherlands in 1688 and started the "Glorious Revolution".The Sassoon family moved east all the way to Baghdad, the commercial center of the Persian Gulf region in the Middle East.There, the Sassoon family relied on the unique financial sense and experience of the Jews, took advantage of the prohibition of usury in the Islamic teachings, and provided financial loans for business in the Middle East on the convenient conditions that the Jews were not subject to Islamic laws, and soon became the center of the Persian Gulf. The leading financial family in the region has served as Baghdad's chief financial officer for a long time, and has become the patriarch of the entire Jewish community in Baghdad. It is known as "Naxi", the king of the Jews.

But the good times didn’t last long. At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, anti-Semitic sentiments in Baghdad were on the rise. The magistrates stationed in Baghdad by the Ottoman Turkish Empire began to expel the Jews on a large scale. In 1832, the family moved to Mumbai, India.David Sassoon, founder of the Sassoon Empire, began a new saga in India. 【15】Because the Sassoon family arrived in India too late, the huge cake of the opium trade was already running out.Although the East India Company was disintegrated, the three foreign giants continued to monopolize China's opium imports and India's opium supply chain with the support of the Bahrain family.In the entire opium trade chain, production, transportation, insurance, sales, financing, and exchange are almost all in the hands of Jardine, and neither needles nor water can get in.In the opium empire tightly controlled by the Bahrain family, Sassoon, a newcomer Jew, would be in a position to step into the sky.

At this time in the City of London, the emerging Rothschild family had already overwhelmed Bahrain, and the Rothschild family also wanted to cut out their own piece of cake from the opium business, suffering from Bahrain's high control over the East India Company's retail merchants. Can't get in through the door.The appearance of Sassoon perfectly fits the strategic development plan of the Rothschild family. They are both Sephardic Jews, and their ancestors may be good friends, so the two hit it off.With the strong financial backing of the Rothschild family, Sassoon is ready to throw off his arms and do a big job.

After careful research, Sassoon found that there was an obvious loophole in Jardine's control of opium in India, that is, Jardine failed to control the opium poppy plantations in the hinterland of India.Sassoon seized the opportunity and used his strong capital strength to provide up to 3/4 of the loans to inland Indian opium merchants.Buyers from all over the world heard the news, and Sassoon quickly controlled the source of opium cultivation and realized a monopoly on the source of goods.In fact, Hu Xueyan’s thinking is almost exactly the same as that of Sassoon, the difference is that behind Sassoon is the support of the Rothschild family, the international financial overlord.

By 1871, the situation had become clear, and Jardine had lost the fight for the source of opium with Sassoon, who was recognized as the main holder of all opium stocks in India and China, controlling all kinds of opium 70% of the total! From 1840 to 1914, the Sassoon family made as much as 140 million taels of silver in monopolizing the opium business!This is the power of monopoly! With such strength as the backing, Rothschild's daughter married into the Sassoon family, and since then the business alliance has been consolidated and maintained by the Jewish traditional patriarchal power.The Sassoon Empire shocked the Far East.

Since then, foreign firms in the Far East have entered the Sassoon era. The Jewish hypersensitivity to money was no exception to the Sassoon family.After the Sassoon family completed the opium monopoly business, their capital strength was extremely strong, so they began to think about setting up a central bank and enjoy the super pleasure of controlling currency issuance.At this time, there was no central bank in the Far East, and this opportunity was once again seized by Sassoon.