On the morning of 23 February, Zhou Ming was playing game consoles in the underground air-raid shelter of the presidential palace, because after the disastrous defeat in Cubal, the United States began a retaliatory attack on Iraq, which began at 6 o'clock in the morning and is now almost 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and the air raids have hardly stopped.

God knows how many bombs the angry Americans dropped in Iraq during the day, and Zhou Ming felt the vibrations of the entire room from time to time caused by the violent explosions, which made him really feel like he had returned to the war years.

Suddenly, the door to the room opened, and Acting President Majid hurried in, still saying "crazy".

Zhou Ming put down the game console and looked up at him meaningfully and asked: "What is crazy? Is the bombing of the Americans? I told you a long time ago, victory has a price, we destroyed one of his infantry regiments of 6,000 men in Gubar, they will definitely retaliate, after all, this is a defeat they have never had since the start of the war, how can they give up?"

But Majid shook his head and said: "No, Mr. Zhou Ming, of course I am mentally prepared for the air raids of the Americans, and I have already arranged for all the troops to evade the air raids and minimize the losses, I am not talking about air raids, but oil! Mr. Zhou Ming, should you remember the incident when you asked me to use my family's wealth to invest in international crude oil futures?"

Zhou Ming thought for a while, he did let Majid invest in oil futures before the tiger killing operation, the purpose was to be able to get some arms from him.

Although the Saudi royal family still has unpaid arms spending, it is not always the same thing to let an unrelated country pay for this military spending, and of course, more importantly, if there is an opportunity to get another large amount of money from Iraq, it is not unacceptable. How can I say that I am working hard for the war situation in Iraq here, and it is not too much to ask for money.

With this in mind, Zhou Ming nodded and said, "There is indeed such a thing, according to the time difference, the futures market in the United States should be opened, right?"

In response to this question, Majid nodded like a chicken pecking rice and said: "The market opened an hour ago, and the oil price has been soaring since the market opened, and now it has risen by more than 30 percent.

"This is really good news, so how much money have you or your family invested in it?" Zhou Ming asked.

"A billion dollars!" replied Majid happily.

"That's true, if you analyze the super increase of more than 50 percent a day according to the comments you listened to, you could make more than $500 million today, and this money can at least cover part of the cost of arms. Zhou Ming said.

Zhou Ming's words were tantamount to a basin of cold water poured directly on his head, which made him instantly sober up a little from the ecstasy of making money, and indeed his investment was not discovered by himself, but Zhou Ming specially told himself in order to ask for arms expenses, and the money earned in the international crude oil futures market was basically paid to him as arms expenses.

Seeing that Majid's mood was a little sluggish, Zhou Ming continued: "But now that the futures price of international crude oil is so high, is Iraq, as a major oil producer, still worried about making no money?"

Zhou Ming saw that Majid was still confused, so he had to explain: "The so-called oil futures actually refer to a special contract on the exchange, simply put, I want to buy oil now, and you want to exploit oil, and we sign a contract between us on how much quantity and quality of oil you are responsible for giving me in a week, which is oil futures." ”

Of course, the specific operation steps and methods in futures have their own specific methods, but in general, this is what it means. Zhou Ming said.

In the face of Zhou Ming's explanation, Majid seemed to understand a little, and he asked in a daze: "Mr. Zhou Ming, do you mean that I want to use my own oil for this kind of futures trading?"

Zhou Ming smiled and gave him a thumbs up: "That's right, that's what I mean, after all, no matter how the futures change, there must be physical delivery in the end, so I believe that when the oil price fell before, many oil companies secretly bought back a lot of futures contracts, in order to get the oil they want at a low price in the future." ”

"So since futures are finally going to be physically delivered, then now in turn, you have physical goods, coupled with the skyrocketing price of futures now, I think someone will definitely be willing to help you turn physical goods into futures. Zhou Ming continued, "So in this way, as long as you sell the oil into futures, won't the money come in naturally?"

Majid nodded desperately and said yes, but then he asked suspiciously: "But now that Iraq is in a stage of sanctions, who can help me?"

"You don't have to worry about that, as long as you can have the oil ready to meet the standards. ”

After Zhou Ming finished speaking, he let Majid leave his room, and then when the US air raid stopped for a while, Zhou Ming moved to the ground, took out a satellite phone, and dialed Lin Muqing's number.

The phone was immediately connected, and then Lin Muqing's voice came: "May I ask if it's Zhou Ming?"

Although Lin Muqing had deliberately hidden her emotions, Zhou Ming could still hear the concern behind this ordinary question.

Zhou Ming nodded to her and said yes, and Lin Muqing's concern immediately came with a burst of words: "Zhou Ming, how is your situation now? I heard that the United States has launched a large-scale retaliatory action against Iraq, and in one day it has dispatched more than 2,000 sorties and launched more than 300 missiles, nearly one-third of which are aimed at the capital Badina, and you were not injured in the attack, right?"

Maybe it sounds like Lin Muqing is very anxious when she says these things, and even many of the words are illogical, if something really happens to Zhou Ming, how can she still call her? But when people are concerned, how can they still consider so much logic.

And Zhou Ming not only heard Lin Muqing's voice on the phone, he also heard Tang Ran's voice, obviously they were together, when Tang Ran heard that it was his own phone, he also followed Lin Muqing to talk to the phone.

Thinking that there were still two women on the other side of the earth who were thinking about themselves so much, Zhou Ming felt very warm in his heart, so Zhou Ming first reported to them that he was safe: "Don't worry, Sister Mu Qing is still Ranran, I'm fine here, there is no problem at all, the Americans bombed fiercely today, but I am now in the presidential palace, there are underground air defense facilities here, and I have been hiding underground, so I will call you now." ”

Hearing Zhou Ming say this, Lin Muqing and Tang Ran breathed a sigh of relief over there, and the heart they had been carrying was finally put down.

At this time, Zhou Ming said again: "I am calling you from outside through a satellite encrypted phone, I don't know when the next round of bombing by the Americans will begin, so to make a long story short, I am calling you to ask you how the crude oil futures price of the New York Mercantile Exchange is now?"

"It's crazy to skyrocket. Lin Muqing replied, "It has only been more than two hours since the exchange auction started, and the price of light crude oil futures has risen by more than 40 percent, breaking through the $30 mark a quarter of an hour ago." ”

"Then Sister Mu Qing, do you think this increase is a bit wrong?" Zhou Ming asked.

"It's very wrong!" Lin Muqing replied without hesitation, "It is true that the defeat of this Battle of Cuba will prolong the Gulf War, so it will also have a great impact on the international crude oil futures price, but now the increase of forty percentage points in two hours is really too exaggerated, which is impossible to achieve with our ability alone, and there must be other hot money that has also come in to push up the price." ”

Lin Muqing then said her thoughts: "I suspect that it is the Addams family and the Rockefeller family, because they have such strong financial resources to promote it in the first place, and at the same time, they also have a lot of contracts that can be sold, which can support them to make a lot of money in this surge." ”

"There is no way to do this, after all, they are a veteran consortium family in the United States, they have very strong resources in their hands, and due to the particularity of the war, it happened to be the early morning of the United States when the news came out, and they have plenty of time to adjust, under this premise, it is impossible for them not to benefit from market changes at all. Zhou Ming then said, "But we can play with them once." ”

Before Lin Muqing could express his position on Zhou Ming's statement, Tang Ran came over first and said, "Okay! I hate that someone dares to make money with your ideas, Brother Ming, so how are we going to play with those bad guys? Brother Ming, you have prepared the next plan, do you want us to sell oil futures again and let the price of oil come down?"

"I don't have the power to hedge against global markets. Zhou Ming smiled and said, "But I can cause some trouble for those people." ”

Zhou Ming then asked: "I have an idea now, it's about Iraqi oil, Sister Mu Qing, do you see if any consortium has the ability to help Iraq transport oil out under the sanctions of the US embargo." ”

Lin Muqing was a little puzzled by Zhou Ming's thoughts: "I don't understand why you are doing this, and now that there is a war over there, I'm afraid no company will be willing to do such a thing." ”

"I think I could try it with Edward, and I think they'd be happy to help. Zhou Ming said.

After saying this, Zhou Ming hurriedly hung up the phone and followed Zhang Lin back to the underground air-raid shelter, and when the door was closed for less than five minutes, several bombshells fell in the courtyard of the presidential palace, and several mushroom clouds came out with a bang.

In the villa in San Francisco, Lin Muqing and Tang Ran looked at each other, and Tang Ran asked: "Sister Muqing, why did you say Brother Ming did this? Is it to compete with Rockefeller for the oil market?"

"This is certainly impossible, Rockefeller is the oil tycoon of the world, and it is impossible to compete with him for the oil market. Lin Muqing thought for a while and said, "Besides, Zhou Ming also said just now, he just wants to play with them, and he doesn't really want to compete with the Rockefeller family for the market." ”

"Then what is the purpose of Brother Ming's arrangement?" Tang Ran asked strangely, but she didn't plan to answer this question, she continued, "Oh, it doesn't matter, anyway, it's Brother Ming's plan, he won't lie to us, so let's help him realize it quickly!"

Lin Muqing looked at Tang Ran a little helplessly.