In the June 1980 issue of Nature, Sir John Young, who had not published a paper in the most authoritative academic journal in science today, was once again on the cover of the magazine.

The title of "Rare Earth, the Most Precious Wealth Given to Mankind by Nature", accompanied by Yang Weiping's portrait, is particularly eye-catching.

This paper, like a drop of water dripping into hot oil, has sparked heated discussions on the application of rare earths among scientists from all over the world.

Since the discovery of rare earth elements in the mid-18th century, refining and purifying rare earth elements has been a major problem for scientists.

For a long time, rare earth elements could only be rare elements in the laboratory. It took more than 100 years to separate all rare earth elements by step-by-step method, and the separation was repeated 20,000 times.

The step-by-step method does not allow for the mass production of a single rare earth, so the research on rare earth elements is also hampered. After the Second World War, the U.S. atomic bomb development plan, known as the "Manhattan Project," promoted the development of rare earth separation technology, because rare earth elements are similar to radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium, and in order to advance the research of atomic energy as soon as possible, rare earths were used as substitutes.

In the past 30 years, due to the development of atomic energy science and technology, the production of ultra-pure substances and rare elements, solvent extraction has been greatly developed in the nuclear fuel industry, rare metallurgy and other industries.

With the application of nanotechnology in atomic energy science and technology, a qualitative breakthrough has been made in the industrial mass production and preparation process of rare elements. Merely. Research on rare earth technology in some countries has been classified as top secret.

However, Yang Weiping's public paper suddenly published in the journal "Nature" unveiled the mystery of rare earth technology for the first time and entered the public eye.

This is the second time that Sir John Young has made outstanding contributions to the natural science research of mankind after the development of nanotechnology.

As soon as this paper was published, the prices of scandium, cobalt, cerium, indium and other metals in the global rare metal trading market continued to rise, doubling one after another!

The prices of rare earth minerals such as monazite, bas-cerium fluorocarbonite, and yttrium phosphate ore have also increased rapidly.

Mining companies and mineral exploration institutions in various countries in the world have set off a round of search for rare earth minerals on a global scale.

How hot it is. Compared with gold, oil and other mineral exploration, it is only surpassed.

"Boss. We're rich!" Listening to Jessica's excited cry in the mobile phone microphone, Yang Weiping was not too excited, because this situation had long been expected by him.

"Calm. Be calm. Yang Weiping smiled indifferently: "Jessica." When is it shipped to the outside world. Listen to my notification. ”

"Yes, my dear boss!" Jessica said with a smile, "We are now the mining company with the largest number of rare earth mines in the world! Although I didn't understand it at the time, I carried out your instructions unconditionally. It's my job. I have to say, boss, you are worthy of being a son of God, I really love you to death. ”

"Jessica, how much did we spend on these rare earth minerals in the first place?" Yang Weiping asked quite lightly.

"Three large mines in South Africa, two medium-sized mines in Canada, three large-scale mines in India, two large-scale mines in Australia, two large-scale mines in Malaysia, West Asia, and four medium-sized mines in Vietnam and South China have spent a total of $1,576.9 million. Jessica replied, "In addition, we also bought 150,000 tons of rare earth rich ore in the United States, and the price per ton was only $350 per tonne at the time. And now the price has risen to $1,500 per ton!"

"According to my conservative estimates, the price of bonanza will rise to no less than US$5,000 a tonne in three months. "A year later, the price of rare earths will exceed $10,000 per ton. And it will continue to rise year by year. Jessica, you can arrange for people to mine rare earths in South Africa, India, Malaysia, West Asia, and Vietnam. The mined ore is stored in a warehouse on the spot. ”

"Yes, boss!" Jessica replied respectfully.

"Hehe, now I can finally pay off all the loans I owe to the bank in one go. Yang Weiping smiled a little proudly.

"Boss, why do you want to pay it back?" Jessica said with a smile: "All the companies under Tiangong are high-quality enterprises with amazing growth rates, and if you repay all the loans, I estimate that the managers of those banks will be fired by their bosses." ”

"Jessica, how many assets do I have now?" Yang Weiping asked very seriously.

"As of May 30, 1980, your company had a total market value of $28 billion on Wall Street! Jessica happily replied, "And you only owe $3.7 billion in loans to the bank." Banks can always lend at least $3 billion if you wish. ”

"It's less than $30 billion!" Yang Weiping sighed and said: "It seems that there is still a big gap between me and family consortia such as Rockefeller, Morgan, and Mellon." ”

"My dear boss, you have only been in less than five years since you started from scratch!" Jessica exclaimed speechlessly: "And those old consortia, all of them have nearly a hundred years of accumulation! Don't you know that you have created an unsurpassed legend in the history of business development in the world?"

"Alas, the revolution has not yet succeeded, and comrades still need to work hard. Yang Weiping sighed: "Such a little wealth is just a drop in the ocean from my goal." ”

"Boss, you don't want to be the second Rothschild in the world, do you?" asked Jessica, tentatively and cautiously.

"Why not?" Yang Weiping smiled indifferently: "I'm only twenty-one years old this year. My life has just begun! I will not be anyone else, I am who I am! I am the only one in this world!"

"Boss, I wish I could always be by your side!" Jessica said solemnly.

"Loyalty, only action. Yang Weiping smiled and said: "When my subordinates only need to pay loyalty, you can all become tens of millions and billionaires in this world!"

After deciding to launch the rare earth strategy, Yang Weiping remotely commanded through the phone and issued a series of orders to Jessica, who was flying around the world to enclose land for him.

And Jessica will often report to him on the phone from time to time.

During these days, Yang Weiping lived quite leisurely and relaxed.

When Hughsfield returned to England, he brought back a personal letter written by Yang Weiping to the British Prime Minister, Mrs. Tearcher.

Soon, Britain began to secretly buy a large number of rare earth raw ore and semi-finished and finished products of rare earth metals.

The United States has also taken a series of protective measures for 87 rare earth mineral areas in the country, and has begun to control the supply of various rare earth ores.

Yang Weiping's paper in the journal Nature has not yet been published, and the prices of various rare metals in the international metal trading market have already fluctuated.

Yang Weiping, of course, did not give the US and British governments much time to prepare, and on May 28 he sent the paper to the editorial office of the journal Nature.

As a result, the battle for rare earths in the world, which was originally going to start in the nineties of this century, was kicked off more than ten years ahead of schedule because of Yang Weiping's deliberate promotion.

It is conceivable that Japan and South Korea, which started with manufacturing and electronics industries, will have to pay a huge cost ten times or even dozens of times higher than in history in terms of importing rare metal raw materials from now on. The electronics industry, in particular, has been set a fairly high threshold.

Without the cheap rare earths imported from China, the development speed and scale of the electronics industry and manufacturing industry in Japan and South Korea will shrink significantly!

This is a typical behavior of harming others and benefiting oneself! Therefore, Yang Weiping is in a very good mood during these days.

In addition to remotely directing Jessica every day, he also finds time to talk to Qiu Fang in Myanmar on the phone. Every once in a while, he will accompany Ye Xiaoqiao to the street to shop and visit the park. Enjoy the normal life that a young person should have.

It has been almost two months since the resignation of the state public service, and the four new ministries and commissions of the General Armament Department, the Ministry of State Security, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense have also begun to formally implement their respective work functions. The fierce confrontation between the major political factions in the country in this round has also entered the stage of closing the palace.

Yang Weiping stayed at home honestly every day and didn't make any demon geese, which made Chief No. 1 and Ye Jianxiong and others deeply gratified.

During this period, he went to Chang'an to participate in the test flight of the first ten verification planes of Xinyun, and Yang Weiping left the capital.

Although the test flight of the Xinyun 10 verification aircraft has been successful, there are still many aspects that are unsatisfactory and need to be continuously improved, especially as a civil airliner, the safety performance of the aircraft needs to be tested through various destructive test flights.

For this new Yunyun Ten has not yet been finalized, Yang Weiping has long been mentally prepared. After all, it is much more difficult to build a large aircraft than a military fighter. The main thing is that our country has never had previous experience in creating such giant aircraft with an empty fuselage of more than a hundred tons.

However, although the new Yun-10 has not yet been finalized, a number of breakthroughs have been made in the development and improvement of the Yun-8 and H-6.

In particular, after the successful test launch of a newly developed C803K air-launched cruise missile on the New H-6 with two WS8 Kunlun engines, the Huaxia Strategic Air Force now has a powerful long-range attack weapon.

As far as the current situation is concerned, the national defense military industry and various scientific and technological research work have not caused confusion because of Yang Weiping's resignation as director of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, and everything is advancing normally according to Yang Weiping's previous established development policy and road.

Missiles and fighter aircraft are exported to foreign countries, and orders are increasing day by day. In particular, the C802 anti-ship missile and the FC-1 Thunder multi-role light fighter have occupied an unshakable place in the global arms market.

Yang Weiping has made a lot of money this time by speculating on rare earths! According to conservative estimates, his wealth can increase by at least $5 billion.

With money in hand, Yang Weiping decided to enhance Panshi's combat effectiveness once again, and submitted an order for twelve FC-1 Thunder Dragons to Huaxia Third Aviation Industry Group at one time. (To be continued......)