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Because before the collapse of the "Bremmerton Woods system", the US Congress passed a bill to prohibit the export of gold as strategic reserves and hard currency reserves, so any country's central bank or institutional organization that wants to buy US gold can only deposit it in the Federal Reserve Bank. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

All the way down, there are only more than fifty rooms on both sides of the corridor.

There is nothing surprising that the gold of those "small customers" is kept in the custody of the Federal Reserve Bank and is not stored separately in the room marked with a nameplate.

Of these fifty-four rooms, forty-seven belong to the state and seven to institutional organizations.

Liu Wei took a general look and recognized Saudi Arabia marked with "SA", the United Arab Emirates marked with "AE", Kuwait marked with "KW", Egypt marked with "EGY", the Japanese version marked with "JPN", Singapore marked with "SGP", and some countries with close ties with the United States. The rooms in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are very large and contain large quantities of gold, with more than a thousand tons in the Saudi rooms alone. To Liu Wei's surprise, there was not much gold in the room, less than 300 tons, while there were about 500 tons in the room in Singapore.

None of this gold can leave the United States, but it can be used to pay off debts or buy American products.

For example, when Saudi Arabia needs to buy arms from the United States, if the Saudi government can't come up with enough dollars, it can pay with gold deposited in the United States.

It's just that there are very few such cases, after all, countries that can afford to store large amounts of gold are not short of foreign exchange.

Among the seven institutions, there are the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and some international institutions that Liu Wei does not know much about.

"It's about 4,000 tons, which is about the same as we predicted."

Liu Wei nodded and said, "The Yankees really have the ability to make so many countries willing to put them here." ”

"We're no exception." Zhou Fen smiled bitterly and shook his head.

In the passing room, there was a mark "CHN", in which not a thousand tons of gold, but eight hundred tons, were placed, second only to a few countries such as the Saudis.

"You say, did the Federal Reserve Bank insure the gold?"

"Insurance?" Zhou Fen was stunned for a moment, and then said with a smile, "This is the safest place in the world, definitely much safer than the vault of an insurance company." ”

"That's just before."

Zhou Fen smiled and didn't say much.

"Ship them all out, let's hurry up."

"Don't you want to see the rooms in the United States?" Zhou Fen pointed ahead.

At the end of the hallway, the door beam of the room is marked "USA" and is the largest room in the entire vault. Instead of an iron railing, a large iron gate was used.

Liu Wei did not refuse, he also wanted to know how much gold the Yankees had.

Although the US Federal Reserve Bank publishes data on gold reserves every year, it never mentions the exact amount, especially the amount of gold reserved by individual countries. No one knows how much of the gold in the Federal Reserve Bank's vaults belongs to the United States. It's just that no one can deny that the United States is the world's largest gold reserve.

According to outside estimates, before the financial crisis, the United States had more than 8,000 tons of gold reserves.

This was after the subprime mortgage crisis, and before that, during the administration of President Bill Clinton, the United States had paid off almost all of its national debt, and its gold reserves had reached their post-war peak, at a peak of more than 17,000 tons. If it weren't for the Republican Party's George W. Bush who fought two large-scale regional wars after taking office and exhausted his national strength, the United States' gold reserves would certainly not have been greatly reduced.

Even then, eight thousand tons is quite impressive.

You know, France, the world's second largest gold reserve after the United States, has only 3,000 tons of gold. Further down, Germany, Britain, and Ben, which rank third to fifth, have 2,400 tons, 1,600 tons, and 1,400 tons, respectively, and they are not as good as the United States.

Liu Wei didn't know how much gold the mainland had, but it certainly didn't exceed a thousand tons.

According to conservative estimates, if you include the gold stored in the United States by other countries, it accounts for 60% of the world's total gold reserves.

In fact, this gold does not belong to all countries, because if a war breaks out between these countries and the United States, the United States can freeze or even confiscate all the state-owned assets of these countries in accordance with international law, including gold reserves. For example, after the outbreak of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the United States froze 400 tons of gold from Iran's political axe and never returned it to Iran.

It took a little effort to open the door to "America".

After entering, Liu Wei and Zhou Fen were eye-opening.

Although this room is not very large, no more than 400 square meters in size, it is stuffed with gold bricks, and they are all neatly stacked on pallets.

Because it is necessary to exchange gold reserves with other countries frequently, for example, when paying off the national debt, the US political axe will buy gold from the Federal Reserve Bank, and then use the gold to redeem the national debt, and it is also necessary to transport the gold in this room to the room of those countries that hold the US Treasury bonds, so the gold bricks are also placed on the pallet, which is convenient for transportation, and is also convenient for regular management and maintenance.

In fact, gold bricks are rarely stored for long periods of time.

After a certain period of time, the Federal Reserve Bank will take the gold bricks, return them to the furnace to dissolve, and then cast them into a new form.

The main purpose of this is to indicate the casting time of the gold bricks and make it easier to manage.

"How many?" Zhou Fen swallowed.

"It's definitely not more than 8,000 tons, maybe 9,500 tons, maybe 10,000 tons."

"So much!?"

"It's about the same as we estimated." Liu Wei smiled and said, "Although the outside world has always believed that the United States only has 8,000 tons of gold reserves, counting the gold from Afghanistan, maybe it also got a batch of gold from Iraq, which must be more than 9,000 tons." ”

"The Yankees are so bold that they put all that gold of unknown origin here."

"Didn't you say it's the safest place in the world? Besides, the managers of the Federal Reserve Bank don't take a regular count. ”

Zhou Fen shook his head with a smile and said, "It's just that the Yankees forgot that they shouldn't put all their eggs in one basket." ”

"Ship them all out."

Zhou Fen whistled at the FOS fighters who were busy outside.

Liu Wei didn't stay in the room for long, and asked Zhou Fen to go out.

"How long will it take to dissolve all the gold?"

"At least for a few days." Zhou Fen sighed and said, "There are too many of them, and the rainwater pipes are not large enough, even if they are not delayed for a moment, it will take three days and three nights." If you run into some trouble, I'm afraid it will take an extra day or two. It's better to find something for the Yankees to do, so that they don't have the energy to pay attention to us. ”

"I'll arrange it, you have to hurry."

"Do you want to go to the pipe?"

"No need, I'll go find the old jackal and cause some trouble for the Yankees."

"Okay, if there's something wrong, I'll look for you again."

Liu Wei didn't delay much, returned to the hall, and called Takeuchi Kotone to return to the command center.

At this time, the dissolution of the gold has already begun.

The gold bricks are neatly stacked in the rainwater drainage pipes, stacked for more than 10 meters, and all are placed on grid-like shelves made of composite materials that will not be corroded by special solvents, ensuring that all six sides of the gold bricks can be fully in contact with the solvent to speed up the dissolution.

In this system, the most critical is the source of solvents, that is, how to send the solvents stored on the LNG freighter.

The solution is simple, still using Manhattan's underground network. The solvent first enters the storage warehouse at the dock and is then poured into the underground pipe network. In order to stop the volume from flowing into the sea, Zhou Fen's men have blocked the port's drainage pipes and increased the height of the injection point. Because the pipe network is underground, and the Federal Reserve Bank side is less than 10 meters above sea level, the underground vault is even below the surface of the sea, and the injection point on the port side is 25 meters above sea level, so the solvent can flow through without external force.

In addition, how to transport the solvent that has dissolved the gold is also a big problem.

At first, Liu Wei even considered giving up the gold, because for him, as long as the United States lost all its gold reserves, even if it was a big victory, it didn't matter whether he could get it. It's just that others don't agree, and even Li Tingxuan thinks that it shouldn't be so "wasteful".

The solution was proposed by Zhou Fen, which was to pump the solvent into the upper layer of the pipeline and then flow back to the port.

The key is the pump.

Ordinary water pumps are definitely not good, because the special solvents that can dissolve gold have very strong corrosive characteristics, which can not only dissolve ordinary metals, but also dissolve some inorganic substances.

In order to get this pump, Liu Wei spent a lot of effort.

To be precise, Zhou Fen spent a lot of effort.

Since it was the solution he proposed, it was natural for him to solve the relevant problems.

The pumps are custom-made, except that instead of being customized in one factory, the parts are customized separately from different factories and then assembled.

As the first batch of special solvent flowed through the stormwater drain pipe, dissolving the gold, a water pump set up about 500 meters ahead began to work, pumping the solvent into the sewage discharge pipe about 20 meters above. FOS warriors have dealt with the various entrances and exits of the sewage discharge pipes, which should be blocked and sparsed. It's just that the pipes are not clean, there is a lot of domestic wastewater, and there is a lot of waste, and there are even a lot of small animal carcasses. It's just that these are not important, if the solvent can be transported back, there is naturally a way to dispose of the impurities inside.

Because the special solvent is very corrosive and highly toxic, the FOS fighters responsible for dissolving the gold wear special protective clothing. When preventing gold bricks, special pliers are used to avoid contact with solvents.

The dissolution was not carried out quickly, and only a batch of gold bricks was replaced every fifteen minutes.

According to the calculation that only 1,000 gold bricks can be dissolved at a time, and it takes 15 minutes to replace them, that is, half an hour in batches, only 48,000 gold bricks can be dissolved in a day, that is, about 1,500 tons of gold. This speed was far lower than required, and Zhou Fen had to organize manpower to open a second dissolution point under the pipeline. In this way, it was possible to dissolve 15,000 tons of gold in five days.

The question is, will you be able to buy five days?

(To be continued)