Far East, Far East.

The Far East is the first modern chaebol in the true sense of the word in Chinese history, it is a symbol of China in this era, creating a benchmark for an era, and becoming an object of emulation for other Chinese enterprises and Chinese businessmen.

Focusing on the core of the financial industry, among the top ten banks in China, the Far Eastern Group occupies three seats in the top four, and also occupies the seat of the king of finance in insurance, trust, investment banking, futures, securities, microfinance and other financial businesses through holding and equity participation.

In order to avoid the sanctions of the Anti-Monopoly Law, the Far East Consortium has set up seven sub-groups under the Far East Group, including Zhonghua, China United Group, Northeast Heavy Industry, Great Wall Heavy Industry, Yuanhua, Yudafeng, Shenyang Electromechanical and Putian to control important national pillar industries such as energy, metallurgy, mining, chemical industry, machinery, electric power, ships, locomotives, automobiles, aircraft, and electronics. The dominant position of traditional industries such as hotels.

Over the past twenty-three years of history, the Far East consortium has created many firsts in Chinese history, building China's first train, first steam turbine, first generator set, first automobile, first airplane, first battleship, first transformer, first mechanical calculator .......

Some people say that there is nothing remarkable about the Far East consortium, but it is just relying on the cooperation with the Vanderbilt consortium of the United States to import a large amount of technology from Europe and the United States.

Yes, so to speak.

But in the past five years, the Far Eastern consortium has also built China's first electronic scanning television, the first radar, the first high-voltage power grid system, the first electrified train, the first oil pump diesel engine, the first tube computer, the first three-phase synchronous motor, the first 10,000-ton hydraulic press, the first heavy-duty gantry milling machine, and the first 50,000-ton mechanical crawler crane.

Since the launch of the 201 project, the Far East consortium has invested up to 330 million yuan in scientific research every year, and while cooperating with the 201 project and the scientific research projects of various universities, the Far Eastern Group has maintained more than 300 scientific research projects every year, and the scale of scientific research investment in domestic and foreign enterprises has been in the leading position in the world.

The total scientific research expenditure of the enterprises under the Far East consortium in China, the United States, France and Germany is equivalent to four times the national scientific research project expenditure in the same period, and the domestic scientific research expenditure also accounts for half of the entire China's scientific research expenditure.

The Far East is half of modern China.

This is no exaggeration.

Money is not everything, but without money there is certainly no modernization in the true sense.

As an emperor, Song Biao did not need to become richer, because wealth could not solve all problems, it was by no means an insurance lock to ensure the safety of the imperial family, he did not care how much wealth and gold the Far Eastern consortium had, he only cared about whether the Far East could become the flagship of China's modernization process.

On China's road to becoming a world hegemon, the Far East Consortium is an absolutely unsinkable flagship of the pilot, and it is the first yardstick for other Chinese companies to learn and imitate.

…… There are many deep causes of the Great Depression in 1929, and the Coolidge prosperity is one of the main factors, and the source of the Coolidge prosperity is the large amount of national debt income and war reparations of the United States after the end of World War I. First, the United States has increased the pressure on the export of industrial, agricultural, and resource products, and has increased a large amount of consumer credit and installment payments in order to stimulate consumption, and second, the international and domestic capital has turned to the real estate and securities investment markets, resulting in an extraordinary prosperity in these two markets.

There are two fundamental factors, one is that the additional issuance of US dollars is too large; Second, the scale of industrial investment is too large, and two factors have led to a Coolidge-style credit and investment boom, when this prosperity level exceeds a certain level, it is a bubble, and if it exceeds too many levels, it is the world's economic crisis.

After the end of World War I, China faced exactly the same situation as the United States, first, the scale of domestic investment increased sharply, second, the rate of international capital influx increased, and third, the country's fiscal surplus was huge.

In order to avoid excessive prosperity and bubbles, Ouyang Geng's cabinet has been cautious in monetary tightening and financial regulation, and has shifted the danger to the United States by transferring the country's fiscal surplus to American investment.

Therefore, the Far Eastern consortium is the flagship of the empire, and it is precisely because of the Far Eastern consortium's large-scale involvement in American investment that, on the one hand, it has left a relatively broad investment space for other domestic consortiums, and on the other hand, it has also transferred the risk of overheating the imperial economy, and the profitability of the Far Eastern consortium itself has also been maintained at a high level for a long time in the process, and its own technological and scientific research strength has been greatly improved.

With the Far Eastern consortium and the Central Reserve Bureau drastically shrinking their investments in the United States, more than $7 billion shrunk from the U.S. capital markets at all levels within six months, and China, Britain, and France all adopted high-interest policies in order to increase gold reserves, the U.S. securities market began to appear precarious at the end of 1928.

In the second half of the 19th century, leveraged trading has appeared in the London securities market in the United Kingdom, and the first large-scale use of this kind of trading was in the Coolidge boom in the United States.

The market capitalization of the stock market is always an illusory number, even if the market capitalization of the New York stock market exceeds the $100 billion mark, because behind this number is a large amount of leverage and credit trading, a dollar can buy tens of dollars of stocks, and take advantage of the spillover price to make a profit.

Similarly, stocks can also be sold short, borrowed from a securities company to sell, and then bought at a low price and repaid to the securities company.

After the withdrawal of the Far Eastern consortium and the Central Reserve Board, and the sharp retreat of Central European capital under the influence of the high-interest rate policy, the US stock market was actually at a very high risk, and with a secret and strange large short selling, the New York stock market, which had maintained a great bull market for ten years, suddenly ushered in the darkest day in history.

Tuesday, January 8, 1929.

There was a sudden big drop in the New York market, almost all index stocks were falling across the board, the biggest losers fell by more than 40% in a day, the Dow Jones 65 index fell all the way from 377 points to 335 points, the whole stock market was in a panic, no one knew why, and all investors were selling stocks to reduce losses.

On 14 January, the United States fell into an unprecedented panic, the stock market spread unprecedented pessimistic news everywhere, rumors spread everywhere, frightened investors constantly ordered brokers to sell stocks, the US stock market suffered heavy losses in a row, and the market began to plummet incessantly every day.

On January 22, US President Herbert Hoover issued a proclamation declaring that there was no problem with the US economy and that there would be no problem with the US stock market.

However, the old Jewish consortium in Europe and the emerging Far Eastern consortium are still selling short at a rapid pace, and most American securities investors are still panicking, and after only a week, on Tuesday, January 29, the New York stock market ushered in a new round of plunge.

On Wednesday, January 30, the New York stock market once again ushered in a panic sell-off, the most powerful Morgan consortium and the American consortium were no longer able to save the market, and all investors were frantically selling stocks, causing the Dow Jones index to hit 27%, setting a new record for the darkest in the history of American securities.

Since then, there has been no more money willing to enter the market to save the market.

…… Just after the New Year, I returned from stepping on the snow.

This period was supposed to be a national holiday, and the cabinet was also on holiday, but the collapse of the New York stock market and the collapse of dozens of American banks made the central government axe dare not take a holiday at all, and all financial-related staff had to continue to work overtime during the Spring Festival.

On the morning of Song Biao's return from a trip to the Eight Places in Xishan, he quietly read the newspapers in the office of the New York Times and the U.S. News, and the CIA would always send all the manuscripts to China in the form of telegrams the next day for sorting.

Therefore, the two yesterday's newspapers that Song Biao saw were not the original versions, but the translated versions compiled and printed by the Central Intelligence Administration.

During this time, Song Biao must be most concerned about the latest news of the US financial crisis.

In order to make up for the huge losses caused by the Far Eastern consortium being involved in the US economic crisis, under Chen Guangfu's proposal and Song Biao's decision, the Far Eastern consortium shorted American stocks in the United States in advance, hoping to make up for the losses of the consortium in the entire stock market crash by making profits from short selling.

For the sake of secrecy, the Far Eastern consortium chose to merge a French credit company ahead of schedule, and then shorted the stock index in the United States in the name of this company, and its credit was secretly guaranteed by Crédit Agricole, Crédit Agricole CIB and other companies.

Kill 1,000 enemies and lose 800 yourself.

This is an unbreakable truth, but in the financial market, sometimes there is no need to exchange for winning chips in such a tragic way, and it is very possible to kill a thousand enemies and earn 800 for yourself.

After minimizing losses and shrinking the front as much as possible, the Far Eastern consortium chose to go directly into the market to short sell U.S. stocks, and used more than $200 million in capital to sell 65 stocks in the Dow Jones stock index.

Others do it, so why not do it yourself?

Song Biao never likes to wait for the rabbit to happen, he prefers to take the initiative to force the crisis to happen, and try to use the crisis to win more benefits, and whether China can seize the opportunity to become the most powerful country in the world depends on the development trend in the past few years.

After reading all the latest developments in the United States, Song Biao can only say that the east coast of the Pacific Ocean is simply miserable, many bankers who were once prominent have been forced to commit suicide, hundreds of small and medium-sized banks have collapsed, and the trend of the spread of the entire crisis is getting deeper and more serious.

Song Biao lit a Yuxi cigar and smoked silently for a moment, then called Premier Ouyang Geng to come over in person, and while waiting for Ouyang Geng, he sat alone in front of the balcony of the office.

Outside the window, the wind was fierce and the snow was falling.

Song Biao is so quiet, he did not have any panic, two days ago, Zheng Guiting of the Far Eastern Consortium just came to report, in the short term, although the Far Eastern Consortium is not profitable, but there is no exact loss, but in the long run, the Far Eastern Consortium's loss in the United States will be very large.

It's just that compared with Morgan, America, Mellon, Rockefeller and other consortia, the Far East consortium of foreign investors must have suffered the least loss, and the gold reserves of the United States have plummeted from 4,124 tons to 3,055 tons, and the Central Reserve Bureau accounts for half of the large amount of gold assets withdrawn by international capital.

Unconsciously, China's total gold reserves naturally ranked first in the world.

This is the death knell of the gold standard, the total amount of newly mined gold in the world is less than 900 tons per year, only about 600 million US dollars, and the simultaneous economic development of China and the United States, coupled with the recovery of Europe and the development of South America, the gold standard simply cannot support this growth trend, if the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden and other small countries can only choose to reserve foreign exchange to solve the problem of national currency reserves, thus exacerbating the tightening of the US dollar and the British pound, in order to solve the tightening of the national currency, Britain and the United States can only increase the supply of money, and in the gold reserve market, As a trade exporter and surplus country second only to the United States, China is also the country that absorbs gold reserves the fastest, and has been engaged in a fierce reserve competition with Britain, the United States, France and other countries.

While the US gold reserves have been greatly reduced, China's gold reserves have exceeded the 5,000-ton mark for the first time, although it is also facing the risk of another decline due to the withdrawal of European and American investments, but in terms of the total amount, the basic risk rate is relatively low.

Starting this year, the Chinese dollar will gradually start a year of becoming an international currency, and increase the supply of gold in the domestic market, if Britain and the United States adopt currency depreciation competition, China will also depreciate, and will definitely not pay for this world economic crisis.

Without sufficient benefits, China will not be held accountable.

Gently dusting off the ashes, Song Biao's inner world is extremely quiet, he is not worried at all about the damage that this crisis can cause to China, it is a tragedy for the United States, a crisis for China, a crisis crisis, and there are naturally very powerful opportunities in danger.

After Song Biao finished smoking this Yuxi cigar, Ouyang Geng just arrived in Xuanzheng Garden, accompanied by Colonel Chen Jiayou, a first-class chamberlain, and walked into the office, bowing to the emperor, his face was very stiff, and even had an inexplicable sense of tragedy.

Song Biao raised his hand and motioned for Ouyang Geng to sit at his desk, threw the latest news summary report compiled by the CIA to Ouyang Geng, and said, "You should know very well how bad the situation is in the United States, do you have a general countermeasure now?" ”

Ouyang Geng immediately replied: "Back to the emperor, His Majesty has ordered the temporary closure of the country's joint securities market, ordered the central bank to provide emergency reserve funds to deal with possible domestic runs, and at the same time raised the domestic deposit interest rate again. From the current point of view, the financial crisis is spreading to other international regions, British and American capital is retreating from South America and Asia in a large way, China has obviously suffered more shocks, in the last ten days, the large-scale withdrawal of British and American capital has led to great fluctuations in the country's gold reserves, but in terms of total amount, it is certainly maintained at 4,500 tons at present, and the national financial system is also safe. ”

Song Biao thought about it, took out an emergency proposal he had drawn up earlier from the drawer, and threw it to Ouyang Geng again: "It's not enough to just do this, this crisis is spreading very quickly, and it is likely to expand into a financial crisis with the surname of the world, for my country, the worst situation is that the foreign market has shrunk in a large area, resulting in the blockage of exports, and then affecting the normal production of domestic industry and agriculture." The economic downturn is not a problem, if even employment cannot be guaranteed, then that is the problem, the central government should promote some new national industrial and agricultural plans as soon as possible, as a supplement to the Fourth Five-Year Plan, increase water conservancy, transportation, and energy construction, the national urban electrification projects that have not been effectively promoted before should be accelerated, domestic industry and agriculture must be greatly reduced, increase credit expenditures, and use a series of methods to increase employment and domestic demand market. In addition, investment in overseas colonies should not only not be reduced, but should be increased, sending people to South America and Australia, if necessary, China can directly buy government bonds and increase short-term debt, Brazil and Australia are the two major focuses, Indonesia and the Philippines should also stabilize the market, use the leverage of state and bank credit, take the opportunity to pull some countries into our sphere of influence, Britain and the United States want to shrink, we must expand, of course, things should not be done in a hurry, we must continue to look at the situation, waiting for the crisis to get bigger and bigger, to fall to the bottomLet's make a decision when the situation is most favorable for us. ”

Ouyang Geng was noncommittal, he always felt that these things would have to wait for the cabinet to discuss again, and he didn't dare to answer in a hurry, and carefully looked at the emperor's emergency supplement plan, and couldn't help but feel more pressure.

Song Biao seized the opportunity to carry out large-scale domestic construction, railways, highways, and water conservancy facilities at the same time, in seven years, and demanded the construction of more than 30,000 small and medium-sized water conservancy projects throughout the country, almost to completely replace the water conservancy and irrigation conditions throughout the country, and there are as many as 20 large-scale hydropower station projects, according to such a plan, the scale of hydropower in the whole country will exceed the entire global market.

Seeing that Ouyang Geng was still very hesitant, Song Biao didn't want to explain more, and instructed very plainly: "The cabinet will follow the program of this proposal, do a comprehensive research plan and forecast, estimate the demand for electricity growth, and make up for the shortage of hydropower by thermal power, and in recent years, it can only rely on internal investment and stimulating domestic demand to stimulate the country's development, tax reduction is a must, if there is financial pressure on the central government, then it must be resisted, how much surplus there has been in the past, it has been used up in the past few years, Ensuring economic growth and development is your number one priority. ”

Hearing these words, Ouyang Geng knew that this matter was no longer negotiable, he had to do it if he didn't do it, and the emperor had already made up his mind.

He could only solemnly put away this draft proposal, and replied to Song Biao: "Please rest assured that the emperor will live up to the emperor's trust and complete these important things!" ”

Song Biao bowed slightly, and there was nothing else to add, which asked Ouyang Geng to return to the central government first, and after returning to the other cabinet ministers, he stepped up consultations and research, and on this basis, he launched a more feasible national industrial and agricultural supplementary project plan and the Fifth Five-Year Plan.

(To be continued)