Conference Room, Pacific Railroad Building, 80 Fifth Avenue, New York, USA.

Dozens of giant companies from the United States, Britain, France, the Netherlands and other countries gathered together, waiting to join the Pacific Railroad Corporation.

"What's going on, why hasn't that Rand guy come yet?" A man from London, England, who had come to New York on behalf of the Bolts consortium, Britain's largest railway company, was about to sign an investment agreement with the Pacific Railroad.

"Rand, this guy doesn't want to regret it, right?" Another representative from the French Hipps consortium also looked worried, fearing that Rand would change his mind.

There are also many people who are also worried, all of whom are representatives of the big chaebols from the United States and around the world, who have come today to negotiate the purchase of ancient tickets for the Pacific Railroad.

The Pacific Railroad Company is very young, only four years old, but it has unparalleled financial resources and means, and at the beginning of its establishment, it invested $50 million to win the 50,000-kilometer railway construction contract issued by the US Government Department of Transportation.

The contract looks tempting, as the U.S. government enacted a cash grant law in the bill that stipulates that any company that will use the land on either side of the track will be used for development. The Pacific Railroad, which was involved in the construction of the railroad, could acquire more than 5.261 billion acres of land from the government, which is larger than the entire state of Texas; At the same time, it was also allowed to issue 1 million antique tickets with a face value of $100. Because the company's public debt, land grants, and subsidies were based on the miles of the railroad built, and the government did not specify where the railroad was built, it was a loophole in the agreement that allowed Pacific Railroad to take advantage of the loophole to receive subsidies for railroads built in the United States.

But it's a huge investment like never before. At that time, all the consortia in the United States were not optimistic about the 50,000-kilometer railway plan released by the US government, so they all reserved it, and did not dare to bid a high price during the auction, only the newly registered Pacific Railroad Company was very strong and decisive, and directly won the contract.

At the time, most of the consortia throughout the United States scoffed. Rand, the president of the Pacific Railroad, was a fool and that $50 million would have been wasted, knowing that the Pacific Railroad had almost a few dozen employees and had no business with any railroad in the United States, and God knows how they had managed to convince the U.S. Department of Transportation officials that they were capable of building 50,000 kilometers of railroad.

However, just as these consortia laughed at Rand and waited to see his jokes, they suddenly discovered that consortia from European powers such as Britain and France had injected money into the United States. In particular, they all coincidentally focused on the railroad industry in the United States and showed great interest.

Two years later, there was an upsurge in the construction of railways in various parts of the United States, and huge amounts of capital from Europe entered the American railway market, especially in the United Kingdom, where there was a surplus of capital, and the domestic railway capital in Britain was saturated, so it injected capital into the American railroads on a large scale. This made the American railroad industry hot, and the one million ancient tickets issued by the Pacific Railroad quickly rose from a face value of $100 to $300. And it continues to go higher.

The 50 million dollars invested by the Pacific Railroad Company at the beginning rose from $100 million to $300 million in market value just by issuing 1 million ancient railway tickets, making a net profit of $250 million, or $1,000 per kilometer of 50,000 kilometers if the US government's financial subsidies are included. That's $50 million, and if you count the 5.261 billion acres of land on both sides of the railroad tracks, which are all land that the U.S. government gave to the Pacific Railroad Company for free, all of this adds up to a market value of $500 million. That's a tenfold increase from the original investment of $50 million.

Since then, no one in the major American consortia has been laughing at Rand, the president of the Pacific Railroad, and they have praised Rand as a shrewd investor, regretting that he did not get a piece of the pie at the beginning, and began to negotiate cooperation with the Pacific Railroad Company one after another.

RAND neither rejected the American consortium nor agreed to cooperate, and the two sides have been negotiating, and later the British, French, Dutch and other business giants have joined the negotiations, making the negotiations continue for several years, until now.

Today, the major consortia have been notified by the Pacific Railroad that the final transaction price of the ancient ticket will be finalized today. Therefore, representatives of the major consortia have brought contracts and are ready to sign contracts with the Pacific Railroad.

At this moment, Rand, the president of the Pacific Railroad, was talking to several men with faces from the East in his office.

What is strange is that in Rand's office, one of the men with an oriental face is sitting in the president seat of Rand, and Rand is standing across the desk, respectfully, it seems that Rand is not the boss, but the oriental is the boss.

In fact, it is precisely the case that the man with the eastern face is named Rong Hong, the president of Danfu University and Li Weiguo's economic adviser. And Rand in front of Rong Hong is Rong Hong's classmate and good friend in college.

This matter starts four years ago, after Li Weiguo launched the May Fourth patriotic money robbery operation, he defrauded a huge amount of 57 million pounds from the Bank of England, such a huge amount of money, it was difficult to digest for a while, and Li Weiguo is not a person who sits on empty seats, he has always liked to use power to make money and make money with money, and the huge amount of 57 million pounds cannot be put in the vault without waiting for hair to grow and moldy.

Li Weiguo wanted to invest, including investment in European powers such as Britain, France, the Netherlands, and the United States, and Rong Hong stayed in the United States for a long time and was an American expert.

However, Li Weiguo knew that the Civil War would soon break out in the United States, and investors would lose a lot at that time, so Li Weiguo only wanted to invest in some industries in the United States for a short time and withdraw his capital after making some money. At that time, Rong Hong was very far-sighted, and heard Li Weiguo say that if he wanted to get rich, he would first build roads and build railways around Shanghai, so Rong Hong suggested to Li Weiguo to invest in American railroads.

Originally, Li Weiguo also wanted to invest in the American steel industry, but when he heard Rong Hong talk about the prospects of the American railway market, he suddenly realized that the first full-scale outbreak of the capitalist world economic crisis was on the eve of the American Civil War, because the first economic crisis flashpoint was not the strongest Britain at that time but in the United States, which was unexpected by people all over the world, so it was easy to remember.

And this time the US economic crisis has swept the entire Western world. The fuse was the American railroad, because the British realized the huge profits of railway transportation, so they frantically built the railway, which made British capital pour into the American railroad market on a large scale, leading to the vicious expansion of the American railway, and finally the collapse of the American railroad ancient ticket, which affected the entire European and American world.

After thinking about this. Li Weiguo suddenly had an idea, and he ordered Rong Hong to go to the United States to find a way to open a company to invest in the railway industry. Because Li Weiguo's relationship with the U.S. government was hostile, Rong Hong did not dare to open a company as a Chinese, so he could only find reliable American friends, and finally Rong Hong found his classmate and friend Rand and opened the Pacific Railroad Company in the name of Rand.

Li Weiguo was not worried about Rand, and secretly sent agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to control Rand and his family, and at the same time secretly invested in the Pacific Railway Company with a huge amount of money. It is necessary to set off an upsurge in the construction of railways in the United States, make a ruthless profit, and pit the Americans again.

In this way, under the intervention of RAND, the Pacific Railroad Company obtained the 50,000-kilometer railway project through the "Huilu" US government congressmen and officials of the Department of Transportation for 50 million US dollars, and obtained the right to issue 100 million US dollars of ancient tickets, and then began to hype up the ancient tickets. Raise the stock price.

As Li Weiguo predicted, the British began to invest heavily in American railroads. As a result, the price of the Pacific Railroad's ancient tickets soared from $100 to more than $300, setting off a railroad frenzy in the United States.

In 1857, Li Weiguo knew that the ancient ticket price of the American railroad was about to rise to the highest point and the economic crisis was about to break out, but Li Weiguo did not know the specific time, so he could only immediately send Rong Hong to the United States again at the beginning of the year. Sell off all the shares of the entire Pacific Railroad Company and cash them out as gold and ship them back.

In the office, Rand heard that Yung Hong was going to sell all his shares and even transfer the railroad contract to other American companies, but he didn't understand. Persuasion is being made.

"Mr. Rong, please believe me, I will definitely grow the Pacific Railroad, it will become the largest railroad company in the United States, and we are not short of money, there is no need to sell the stock."

Rong Hong smiled and said: "Old classmate, I believe in your ability, you can rest assured, this time it is just our strategic capital transfer, we are ready to invest in the US steel industry, we need a large amount of money, as long as we take the US steel and operate it, we can in turn subsidize the Pacific Railway." You should know that our rails are controlled by the American Morgan consortium, they have a monopoly on steel, which is very bad for us, and we must make sacrifices in order not to be blackmailed by them! ”

Rong Hong didn't tell Rand the truth, but he found a good excuse to make Rand believe it. Only if Rand believes that it is true, can he better deceive the representatives of the various countries and consortia who were waiting in the conference room in the past.

However, Rand still questioned: "I know that steel is closely related to our railway, and there would be no railway without steel, but I am not reconciled, now our stock is still rising, and it will be difficult to buy it back after selling it to these big conglomerates!" ”

Rong Hong is humble and doesn't want to use his identity as a big boss to suppress his old classmates, so he has been very tactful to persuade Rand.

However, when Rong Hong found out that Rand was brainless, in order not to affect Li Weiguo's "great cause of pit America", he had to take a tough stance.

"Alright, I've decided, you can go to the conference room right now, sell them all our shares, and remember to act like you have to do it, and tell them that we were forced by the Morgan consortium too."

Rand was also startled when he saw Rong Hong's face sinking, so he weakly left the office and went to the conference room.

When he arrived at the conference room, Rand sold the shares of the Pacific Railroad Company to various consortia according to Rong Hong's explanation, but he was still very attentive and insisted that the price of $310 per share was too high to $320.

For the performance of the RAND, the representatives of the major consortiums are well aware, they know that the railroad tracks required by the Pacific Railroad Company are coerced by the Morgan consortium, and the import from overseas is also controlled by the major consortiums that are doing it, so they are forced to sell the shares as a last resort, so they do not doubt the RAND, and they do not want to delay it any longer, so they happily agree and sign the stock transfer agreement.

Soon, all 1 million shares of Pacific Railroad were sold and bought by more than 30 major conglomerates from the United States and abroad, totaling $320 million.

At the same time, RAND also transferred the Pacific Railroad contract to the Morgan consortium for $170 million, including several railroads built by the Pacific Railroad over the past four years and some land developed along the railroad. As for the U.S. government, the Morgan consortium said there is no need to worry, they will settle it and will not punish Pacific Railroad.

In the end, the Pacific Railroad received $490 million, and after removing the $50 million mortgage given to the U.S. government four years earlier, the Pacific Railroad recouped $440 million, netting out the cost of several sections of railroad built in the United States over the past four years, making a net profit of $425 million.

This is a huge amount of money, but fortunately, more than 30 consortiums from Britain, France, the United States, the Netherlands and other countries are large consortia, so all the funds were transferred to the account of the Pacific Railroad Company in less than a month.

Three months later, Rong Hong converted all the $400 million into hard currency, originally wanting to convert all of them into gold, but almost caused the collapse of the New York gold market, and under the intervention of the Bank of America, Rong Hong only exchanged $100 million in gold in order not to arouse the idea of the US government, and the remaining $300 million was converted into silver, which was secretly shipped back to Shanghai.

As for the remaining $25 million, Rong Hong bought two copper mines in San Francisco, on the east coast of the Pacific Ocean, on Li Weiguo's orders. The Pacific Railroad Company was sold to the Rockefeller consortium, and the funds obtained were invested in the two copper mines, which are still run by RAND, and are responsible for processing and shipping copper ore from the United States to Shanghai, because as Li Weiguo expanded the strength of the Shanghai army and mass-produced Patriotic rifles and 9mm standard rifle cartridges, the demand for copper increased significantly, so he had to find cheap copper resources overseas.

On June 3, 1857, when Rong Hong had just left the United States with a huge amount of gold and silver, the stock of the American railroad crashed, and the stock of the original Pacific Railroad Company fell sharply from $320 to $50, causing the American Morgan, the American Rockefeller, the British Botus consortium, the French Hilps consortium, and dozens of other European and American consortiums that bought this stock to suffer heavy losses, and soon swept the entire American economy and affected the capitalist countries in Europe and the United States.

This was the world's first large-scale capitalist world economic crisis in history.

Li Weiguo greeted Rong Hong on the dock, and when he got the news for the first time, he was immediately overjoyed.

What a happy thing to slap the Americans!

However, while Li Weiguo was happy, he was also faintly worried that in the capitalist world economic crisis, the European and American powers were bound to plunder the colonies of the entire world on a large scale in order to pass on the economic crisis.

"It seems that no matter how the imperial court makes concessions, Britain and France are bound to invade militarily in order to pass on the economic crisis!" (To be continued......)