There was heavy snow in the second and third places, the visibility was very poor, and the train had to slow down: ... When the train finally entered the Beijing railway station, it was already five o'clock in the afternoon, almost half an hour later than the scheduled time.

Before the train entered the station, Bu Tingbi heard the dense sound of firecrackers coming from outside the station, and when the train stopped and Bu Tingbi and the passengers got off the carriage and stood on the station, the sound of firecrackers became more intensive, and the air was filled with a strong smell of gunpowder.

It's almost dinner time, it is indeed the time to set off firecrackers, and in two days it will be Chinese New Year's Eve, people have begun to celebrate the New Year with firecrackers, since it is the Spring Festival, this meal must be exquisite, in fact, the reason why the Ministry of Tingbi rushed to Beijing is also to go to the banquet, but the people who invite guests are not ordinary people, nor friends in the mall, but the president of the Republic of China.

Those who rode in the same carriage with the Ministry of Tingbi basically came to Beijing for a banquet. And like the Ministry of Tingbi, they are all business people, and there are many brains of the chaebol group, in fact. Even the former president Xu Shichang, who has always stayed away from politics, also received an invitation to the banquet, and now, Xu Shichang is standing next to the Ministry of Tingbi, followed by several entourages, everyone is dressed similarly, and the whole body is wrapped tightly, there is no way. It's too cold in Beijing.

"The people in this capital have changed this rule, and before they saw it, the firecrackers exploded, and I think the money in their pockets was a little useless."

A businessman from the Beiyang Consortium Group standing beside Xu Shichang muttered a few words, causing Xu Shichang to sigh.

"Things are not people. When the former Qing Dynasty was clear. Before Chinese New Year's Eve, it was rare to hear firecrackers in front of this ordinary person's door, and now it is different. I just don't know, is this firecracker a local or foreign product? ”

"Poof!"

Someone next to him couldn't help laughing, and said, "Xu Xiang, you have done too much business." In everything, we have to think about where the product is better and the price is fairer. ”

"I've been doing business for almost ten years, and this businessman's habits have also been infected a lot, and he is full of stench, but he looks a little like a profiteer."

Xu Shichang smiled self-deprecatingly, and then led everyone to the front of the team that greeted them on the platform, without much greeting, and after a while, he followed the people sent by the presidential palace out of the train station, boarded the car in front of the station, and drove to Zhengyangmen in this snowstorm.

The convoy soon stopped in front of the imitation weaving building behind the Zhengyang Gate, and everyone got out of the car, where there were already many people waiting in the parking lot, because the person was none other than Zhao Bei, the president of the Republic of China, who was standing in front of the main entrance of the banquet hall.

Zhao Bei wore a tweed coat, a suit and leather shoes, a black top hat on his head, and in addition to the president's wife, he was still surrounded by a large group of plainclothes guards, all carrying suitcases in their hands and bulletproof steel plates. If an assassin carries out an assassination, he relies on this steel plate to block the bullet for the president.

"Mr. Xu has worked hard all the way, please sit in the lounge first. The banquet will start promptly at 7 p.m. When the time comes, I will have a few glasses of Shaoxing wine with Xu Lao. ”

Seeing Xu Shichang, Zhao Bei held the other party's hand and greeted him very warmly.

Xu Shichang smiled faintly and said, "There is not much old wine. When the time comes, please ask the president to raise his noble hand. ”

After that, an adjutant from the attendant room stepped forward and invited Xu Shichang into the banquet hall. And Zhao Bei was still standing in front of the door, shaking hands with the businessmen who came to the banquet. The people invited to the banquet today are basically the leaders of China's industrial circles, including the big chaebols who were politicians like Xu Shichang, and the business celebrities who started from ordinary businessmen like Bu Tingbi, these people come from different fields and have different backgrounds, but one thing is the same, that is, they are all representatives of the industrial community, they not only took advantage of the opportunity of the war in Europe to get rich, but also maintained their industrial and commercial empires in the world economic depression after peace, and they did not go bankrupt. Rather than being heavily indebted, they took advantage of the recession's rare opportunity to buy and acquire businesses and factories that were not doing well, further expanding their industrial and commercial empires.

The economic crisis is not a disaster for these chaebol figures, but an opportunity, Britain, the United States, Germany, Japan, France, these economic powers have many trust enterprises, closely related to the economic crisis, and now, China's economic system is also repeating the scene that the economic powers once staged, big fish eat small fish, small fish eat shrimp, until everything is eaten, and then there is a temporary ecological balance again.

This kind of merger in times of economic crisis has both advantages and disadvantages for the national economy, and is also a direct product of free competition, but Zhao Bei does not want the national economy to be held hostage by the chaebol. It is for this reason that he is now working on a law, the so-called "Antitrust Law", to regulate competition between economic entities and to break up trusts that threaten the country's economic security, but at the same time, it must also ensure that the international competitiveness of Chinese companies is not weakened.

Invite so many business people to the banquet one day, nominally a New Year group meeting, but in fact Zhao Bei has ulterior motives, he wants to use this opportunity to show these business leaders the central position, remind them to accept when they see good, Zhao Bei is not against the emergence of regional trust enterprises, but he will not tolerate a trust enterprise to control the pricing power of a certain commodity in the country, there is competition to have pressure, and similarly, there is competition to have the breathing space of the small people.

Zhao Bei is not an absolute egalitarian, but he also does not approve of the unbridled law of the jungle, and he will not make unconditional compromises with any powerful group. This is not only out of the need for basic social fairness, but also in consideration of the need to maintain social order, as a fast-moving country, in the face of foreign powers, China now needs basic fairness even more, and Zhao Bei is the arbiter of this basic fairness.

When sending the invitations, Zhao Bei had already explained in the invitation that the banquet was not only to enhance the ties between the president and the business community, but also to discuss how to get out of the current difficult economic situation encountered by the country. At the same time, the government also has the responsibility to maintain basic social fairness and social order. It is to make the government and the opposition reach a forgiveness opinion.

As one of the people attending the banquet, the Ministry of Ting Bi was in a complicated mood at the moment, as a successful businessman with a very unusual relationship with the presidential office, he had learned the inside information of the "Antitrust Law" in advance, from the bottom of his heart, he really did not have a good impression of this law, he was bent on building a huge financial empire and unifying China's financial industry, but now, this law undoubtedly shattered his dreams, but on the other hand, he also had expectations for this law. According to some of the details that have been learned so far, this law will also further regulate the order of commercial competition, and completely prevent the local government from using local methods to screen and erect disorderly "visual obstacles" in order to protect local businessmen. This is undoubtedly conducive to the ministry to extend his financial tentacles to a broader space.

There are pros and cons in everything, and it was with this complicated mood that Ministry Tingbi walked into the banquet hall of the Textile Building. and was arranged to sit next to the president, and on the other side of him was Xu Shichang, the former president of the Republic of China.

"Brother Shu, have you heard that this banquet is a Hongmen banquet?"

Xu Shichang asked Bu Tingbi in a low voice. This made the Ministry of Justice stunned for a moment, and quickly reacted, but he was afraid that Xu Shichang had also received the gossip of the "Antitrust Law".

"What do you mean by that?" The Ministry decided to wait and see for a while, and did not show the hole cards.

"I heard that the president intends to use a new law to restrict mergers and trusts."

Seeing that the ministry was pretending to be stupid. Xu Shichang simply made his words clear. To tell the truth, as soon as the news of the imminent enactment of the Antitrust Law reached the Beiyang Foundation, it immediately caused a controversy, for the simple reason that so far, the coal war between the Beiyang Foundation and the Hannagan Foundation is in full swing. With the defeat of Germany, the influence of the German Hannagen has declined, and at this time, it is a good time for the Beiyang consortium to defeat the Hannagan consortium in one go. However, Zhao Bei planned to throw out a law restricting mergers and acquisitions at this time, which was a bit annoying, and even some Beiyang Chinese thought that Zhao Bei was deliberately biased in favor of Hannagan. After all, Hannagan is a frequent visitor to the presidential palace and has a close relationship with President Zhao, and now, the defeat of the Hannagan consortium has been revealed, and he is waiting for the Beiyang consortium to give a fatal blow.

It turned out that Xu Xiang was talking about this. I've heard about it, but I didn't pay much attention to it. The banking industry is not as competitive as the industrial sector, and the mergers are not fierce, and I have no intention of expanding my strength, because banks are now shrinking their capital to cope with the recession. ”

Zou Tingbi's words were not very real, and Xu Shichang immediately understood that he was going to soften. "However, I heard that some time ago, Brother Zou seemed to be busy merging several small banks?"

Xu Shichang was a little unwilling and continued to dwell on this topic. He knew very well that the ministry was also a frequent visitor to the presidential palace, and he had more inside information than he did.

"Xu Xiang, since even you and I know about this matter, do you think the president will change his course because of the opposition? In my opinion, the reason why the rumors about this matter came out is probably not that the president deliberately tested public opinion, but that it reminded us not to run into the muzzle of the gun. ”

Seeing that Xu Shichang seemed to be in the game and couldn't see the overall situation clearly, he simply opened the skylight and said something.

"Huh? Yes. It turned out to be like this. ”

Xu Shichang suddenly realized, and suddenly understood, and then thought of Zhao Beiping's style of doing things, and never fought unprepared battles. The reason why Zhao Bei dared to reveal the news to everyone was that he had already made all the preparations, and he was not afraid that everyone would not be convinced.

Knowing this, Xu Shichang immediately shut up, no one knows Zhao Bei's methods better than him, such a military and political strongman is ruthless. Yuan Shikai is far worse than him, in terms of shrewdness and wisdom, no one in Beiyang has such a strategic vision as him, such a person, since he dares to show his position and then invite guests, then it can only mean one thing, he is ready to adapt, even if the opposition is strong, he will never change his position.

"Sure enough, it's a Hongmen banquet."

Thinking of Wang Shizhen's advice before leaving Tianjin, Xu Shichang immediately made up his mind that he would never oppose any decision of Zhao Bei, and would never mention the coal war with the Hannagan consortium again.

Don't run a trust, but make a little less profit, run a trust, especially the kind of trust that is enough to affect the price of charcoal, it is really boring, thinking of this, Xu Shichang also saw it.

In fact, there are many people who are as uneasy as Xu Shichang now, and the news that the "Antitrust Law" is about to be formulated and promulgated was deliberately spread by Zhao Bei. Therefore, it is not only the Beiyang consortium that hears the rumors, many of the brains of the big consortium also know the position of the center on the trust, but they have not received a positive response from Zhao Bei, and everyone is somewhat unwilling, in their opinion, China's current industrial scale is not large, even if some large trust enterprises appear, it will not threaten the center, on the contrary, these trust enterprises can further improve industrial production efficiency and enhance the competitiveness of Chinese products in the international community. That is, foreign countries do not establish tariff barriers on Chinese industrial products.

Zhao Bei is also very clear about this. However, he insisted that in the current world economic crisis, it is somewhat inappropriate to talk about industrial efficiency at this time, capital has no position, and there is no morality, and the only purpose of capital is to extract profits to the maximum, so at this time. Those small and medium-sized enterprises are the most important, and large enterprises can tide over the difficulties by laying off employees, shrinking, etc. However, small and medium-sized enterprises are on the verge of survival in the economic crisis, and if they are not careful, they will fall in the price war caused by large enterprises, and the resulting unemployment is not a problem that large enterprises are willing to consider.

Acting as a national dollar, Zhao Bei's position is firm, suppressing the ambitions of large enterprises. Supporting small and medium-sized enterprises is also an important part of the Antitrust Act, and at the same time, tariff barriers will be erected, in fact, the United Kingdom has already begun to set up this tariff barrier, and China is just doing this in a-for-tat.

"Everyone, everyone! Today we gathered together to participate in the Spring Festival banquet, the contemptible people are very honored, but also very happy, drink this cup of Spring Festival wine, the next year is the new year. "I'm a politician. You are industrialists, we have worked together for 11 years, the country is not what it used to be, the road to a strong country is in front of us, although Kanke, but as long as we continue to unite forward, the rise of the country and the rejuvenation of the nation is not an empty word! We may have differences on some details, but on the issue of the country and the nation, we are completely identical, regardless of each other. Why? Because we are all Chinese! ”

The banquet was held on time, Zhao Bei raised his wine glass, and was impassioned, everyone present may not agree with him, but no one can change a basic fact, no matter what they think of the president of the Republic of China, he will not change his grasp of the country's strategy, and he will not give up this power to others.

The tax plan is staggered with the New Year greetings. China is about to usher in a new year, and the world has already entered the roaring era, this is a turbulent era, but it is also an era full of hope, turbulence and hope in the intertwined, Zhao Bei spent the twelfth Spring Festival after he traveled through history. If you want to know what will happen next, please log in to Han, more chapters, support for it