The contradictions between China and the United States in the economic, political, military, and scientific and technological competition have expanded and intensified, which has seriously threatened China's development and the interests of Chinese capital in the United States. As Mr. Vanderbilt was dying, Song Biao spent a long time in the United States, and after the Singapore meeting, he remained in California until Conns. Vanderbilt died of illness and was buried.

Connes. Vanderbilt is a legend in the United States, as the third generation of the Vanderbilt family, he gradually led the family to become the richest man in the United States through large-scale investment in China and investment in the American automobile, machine tool, steel, and electrical fields, and established the largest bank in the United States, Bank of America.

In attendance at Conens. After Vanderbilt's funeral, Song Biao continued to visit some of the more important states and universities in the United States, and only went to Mexico in early November 1933, and then visited Colombia, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Argentina along the route of South America, and visited Australia in March 1934, followed by a short visit to Brunei for two days, and continued to travel by ship to Thailand and Cambodia, where a final unanimous agreement was reached on the accession of Thailand and Cambodia to the Asian League.

Song Biao's global visit this year has a very important impact on expanding China's influence in the world, as well as expanding economic and trade cooperation, and when China is gradually recovering as a world hegemonic competitor at the same level as Britain and the United States, China needs such a large-scale diplomatic activity to attract the world's attention, let the world realize China's strength, and let the global media report on China's strength and prosperity on a large scale.

Even if the China threat theory and the yellow peril theory spread more widely in such an environment, it is better to have news than no news, and it is better to get the world's attention than not to pay attention to it at all.

But the trip around the world was also largely like a farewell performance for the Song emperor on the international political stage.

In July 1934, the Lushan Summer Palace held the Asian Cooperation Forum, which was formally led by China to establish the Asian Cooperation Alliance, and China, Cambodia, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Thailand, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan became the ten founding countries.

Even in such an important meeting, Emperor Song did not attend in person, but the central cabinet was responsible for himself, in the two years when Ouyang Geng was about to officially leave office, this will also be the most important international conference in the modern history of the empire, such an opportunity, Emperor Song believes that the cabinet should be responsible, not his emperor.

This year was also the first time Song Biao went to Chengde Summer Resort to spend the scorching summer.

After the establishment of the inner court, the Chengde summer resort was included in the scope of the imperial court's assets, although the emperor has not come, but the general administration of the inner court is still constantly funded every year to renovate, one of the most important things is to repair those previous dynasties, especially in the use of color, with the characteristics of the Manchurian and the shamanic characteristics of the color, decoration have all been erased.

Because he has always been in a place with beautiful natural scenery like Lushan, Song Biao still had some discomfort in the two days when he first arrived in Chengde, but the children were very novel, and they have been playing everywhere for the past two days.

Song Biao accompanied his family and played in various scenic spots in the summer resort.

This year was a year when he gradually faded out of imperial politics, the Central Discipline and Political Council changed from once a month to once a quarter, and he usually needed to report to him only when there were major events, and he didn't care much about many things in the military, so he took more time out to spend with his family and consider how to deal with the problems of the royal family.

China is complex.

Since the royal family has been established, it should establish a long-term prestige and foundation for the royal family, and at least leave enough back roads.

The private affairs of the royal family are also matters.

Everyone is a human being, and the emperor is no exception.

Everyone has many goals, and Song Biao hopes to make the imperial family the richest in the world, and not in the way of scraping the people's fat and people's ointment.

To achieve this goal, in addition to relying on the management of talents, we must rely on the improvement of the overall strength of the country, and sometimes we must also rely on some lofty ideas of the Song Emperor himself.

The Asian Cooperation Forum in Lushan was in full swing, and although Britain and the United States had known some information about this for a long time, when it really happened, Britain and the United States were still very nervous about their reactions.

Just as Africa and India are to Britain, and America is to the United States, each country has a stable backyard, and China's backyard naturally comes from Asia, and its strength has developed to the point where it has developed to the point where China must first become the leader of Asia, and then it can dominate the world based on Asia.

What really worries Britain and the United States is that China's leadership style of adopting the Asian alliance is too special, and once China succeeds, the whole of Asia will be monolithic, and the vast majority of the interests of the whole of Asia will also be occupied by China, but if they want to oppose it, it will be difficult for either Britain or the United States to find a reason, especially since China has just the right time, and at the end of the Great Depression, Britain and the United States lack sufficient energy and financial resources to intervene in this matter.

Because the planning cycle of this matter is very long, and it has been unstoppable so far, Song Biao does not have much to continue to pay attention to, Ouyang Geng is a very measured and experienced senior prime minister, he naturally knows what to do and what not to do.

…… The temperature in Chengde in summer is not much lower than that of Yanjing, but it is better to build on the mountains, high mountains, cool and pleasant, and the surrounding mountains also block the heat of the north.

Chengde Songhe Zhai.

During the day, he accompanied his family to play in Chengde Villa for a day, and when it was time for dinner in the evening, Song Biao went to Songhezhai to meet the new directors of the Far Eastern Group Consortium.

Song Biao is already the year of knowing the destiny of heaven, the old ministers who founded the Far East consortium in the past have retired, the new generation is based on Chen Guangfu, Zhang Naiqi, Yan Qingling, Hu Yongtao, the times are different, there are many technical talents in the empire, and the technical type of industrialists is rare in the Far East consortium, most of them are proficient in management of the birth, but Yan Qingling and Hu Yongtao are still from science backgrounds, both of them are also graduated from the University of Berlin, Germany, the former is to study mechanical engineering, the latter is to study chemical engineering.

Chen Guangfu is the president of China Far East Holdings, that is, the helmsman of the big ship of the Far East, and personally controls the banking backbone of the Far East Financial Consortium, and the other three are the general directors of each sub-consortium, and are in charge of the three major sub-consortiums of the Far East.

During this period, Chen Guangfu has completed a major change in the Far Eastern consortium, the Far Eastern consortium itself only retains stable investment-oriented industries such as finance, shipping, aviation, real estate, department stores, hotels, ports, power grids, infrastructure, railways, petrochemicals, etc., and has also implemented a large-scale restructuring of the financial industry, and the Far Eastern Bank has been reorganized into an unlisted private banking company, retaining its core position in the consortium, so that there is no need to announce financial reports to the outside world, etc., which is conducive to the concealment of the consortium's strength, and the restructuring of China Commerce Bank and Crédit Agricole CIB. The banking business was concentrated in China Commerce Bank, while Amundi CI concentrated the insurance business of the consortium and reorganized into Amundi CIB Insurance Company.

The entire consortium focuses on Far Eastern Bank and China Commerce Bank, and implements equity participation and holding operations in more than 40 banking companies around the world, including Bank of China, Bank of America, Bank of Shanghai, Jinshang Bank, Crédit France, Swedish Bank, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Nanyang Bank, Bank of Korea, Bank of Mexico City, Commercial Bank of the Philippines, Bank of New York, etc., to build a global financial network.

In the industrial field, Zhonghua, Northeast Heavy Industry, Great Wall Electric, United Electronics, Changjiang Industrial and other companies are distributed in different industries, and behind them is still China United Industry Holding Corporation as the center, and these companies also jointly control China United Bank Corporation.

Through this series of changes and reorganization, the Far Eastern Group was gradually divided into two parts by Chen Guangfu during these years, one is the direct enterprise group of the Far Eastern Group, and the other is the Central Union, which is characterized by the fact that the direct subsidiaries of the Far Eastern Group jointly hold Zoomlion Holdings, and Zoomlion Holdings is responsible for controlling the subsidiaries, and each subsidiary then cross-holds shares to control the China Union Bank.

During the Great Depression, the Far Eastern Consortium took the opportunity to expand rapidly abroad through mergers and acquisitions on a large scale, and in the European and American markets it was the main business strategy to establish new sub-consortia, and in the Asian market, it was mainly based on the transnational development of the Far Eastern and Sino-Chinese connections, and at the same time, the Nanyang Consortium, as well as the European and American consortiums and large enterprises maintained close cooperation, mutual mergers and equity participation.

Thirty years of development, two generations of directors have made unremitting efforts.

Today, the total assets of the Vanderbilt consortium, the richest consortium in the United States, are only $2.7 billion to $2.8 billion, while the total assets of the Far East consortium have exceeded 40 billion yuan, which is seven times that of the former and 30 percent of the annual GDP of the Chinese Empire.

It is still a low point in the world economy, and with the gradual recovery of the world economy from 1934, the total market capitalization of the Far Eastern consortium will surely reach an astonishing level by the time of World War II.

Wealth is a snowball, as long as there is a clear direction and principal, it will always roll more and more.

For the royal family, the wealth of the Far East is always an indispensable special force, and these wealth need to be operated and managed by Chen Guangfu and Zhang Naiqi, without their operation, wealth can only be a pile of paper in the bank.

Therefore, Song Biao will personally banquet these four most important directors today.

From this day on, Song Biao also hoped that the Far East would begin to expand abroad on a larger scale, no longer limited to the country, so as to avoid some unnecessary doubts in the future, such as making the people suspect that the wealth of the royal family comes from monopoly operations at home, and if the royal family wants to run industry, it must be a more international multinational enterprise that can represent the interests of the empire overseas.

After meeting the four chief directors in Songhezhai, Song Biao invited them to sit down, chatted and asked their parents, and waited for the imperial dining office of the inner court to arrange the dinner completely.

The state banquets and royal banquets of the Song royal family are generally relatively light and pleasant, and there are few big meat dishes, such as roast suckling pig and roast whole sheep, which are definitely not seen, and shark fin, bear paws and the like are basically none, which is still the case that night.

Originally, there were only five people dining, four cold and eight hot and two soups, the wine was Xinjiang Province dry red, Xifeng wine and Ningxia wolfberry wine, the tea was Qimen black tea, and the only banquet was Malayan bird's nest and Fujian abalone.

After the banquet was arranged, Song Biao invited the four of them to the table and drank two glasses together, which could be regarded as a celebration, and the Far Eastern consortium still had no loss after the Great Depression, which was a gratifying miracle in itself.

These belong to the real royal retainers, they are well-known big industrialists in the whole country outside, and they belong to the big stewards who handle the family property for the royal court, in fact, they do have titles such as the head of the inner court, directors, etc., and the royal family will also give them special titles to show glory.

Chen Guangfu was a baron of the first rank, and the other three were lords.

Unless there is a special grant from the emperor, the title of the empire is generally not hereditary, and it is even rarer to get a title during his lifetime, and the army is usually easier, but all the generals can be awarded viscounts, and the others must be people who have made significant contributions to the country, nation and society, such as education, science and technology, and business, and there are relatively few cabinet political axes.

Song Biao didn't like to talk about business during the meal, Chen Guangfu and they all knew this rule, so they only talked about some well-known interesting things in the industrial and commercial circles and Chinese business circles in the past two years, some of which Song Biao had also heard.

Song Biao and everyone talked about some interesting things, chatting and laughing, and drinking a few rounds.

Enjoying the royal banquet in the royal family is just a very face-saving honor, it is rare to have a few times in this body, and it is a bit extravagant to expect to be full, and no one dares to eat a full meal in the emperor's house, let alone in front of the emperor.

The inner court also knows that some snacks will be arranged for the guests before the imperial banquet, and they will roughly eat half full, so as not to gobble up the rudeness when the emperor is entertained.

Controlling the heat, when the emperor stopped eating more, Chen Guangfu and the others also claimed that they were full, which was grateful.

Anyway, this is just a courtesy, it was not a banquet that was too full, and Song Biao also let them go, which made people end the banquet and invite them to the living room next door to take a seat.

When Chen Guangfu and the others sat down again, Song Biao said to Chen Guangfu: "You have made great contributions to surviving this depression in the past two years, and now that the economy is gradually recovering, what do you plan to do next?" ”

Chen Guangfu replied without hesitation: "The department is still dominated by the financial industry, in previous years too concentrated on the banking business, after the recent concentration of the insurance business in Amundi Agricole, we expect that the main development direction in the next ten years lies in the insurance industry, especially the domestic insurance industry is not deep enough, the domestic insurance industry is also in a nascent stage, the need for more powerful consortium intervention." In terms of banking business, one of our plans is that Far Eastern Bank will focus more on professional wealth management and credit, focusing on some areas with higher professional surnames to issue credit, while China Commerce Bank will focus on savings, credit and international trade and foreign exchange business, in the international market, Far Eastern Bank has its own system layout, and China Commerce Bank will expand its business network through holding regional banks, and its main business is still concentrated in the domestic, West Asian and Southeast Asian markets. ”

Song Biao bowed slightly, he had always recognized this idea, and asked, "What about the external system?" ”

The Far East belongs to the main system, the Central Union belongs to the foreign system, and the combination of the two systems is the Far Eastern consortium in a broad sense, but both are part of the royal property.

Chen Guangfu replied: "On the other hand, I feel that investing in the United States may be risky this year, but the problem is that the assets of the United States are also at a low point, and it is not cost-effective to withdraw and cash out now, so we are still trying our best to lobby the US Congress not to pass the American Business Protection Act, at least not until the economy recovers." In order to diversify risks, whether it is the own department or the foreign system, the investment in these years will gradually withdraw from the US market, from the safety of the capital market, Australia and Southeast Asia are still the most suitable regions, the northern part of West Asia is also more suitable, Afghanistan, Iran is more risky, and the local pressure is also greater. Considering the possibility of the United States passing the "American Enterprise Protection Act", we are now accelerating the adjustment, increasing the withdrawal of scientific research investment to China and France, and in the future, we will consider establishing a China General Science and Technology Research Institute in Shanghai to continue to strengthen domestic scientific research investment. In terms of U.S. assets, we are reducing our stake in each company through equity transactions with other consortia to avoid excessive damage. Considering the pros and cons, China is still the safest region for Far Eastern consortiums to invest, and overseas investment can only be based on capital export. ”

Song Biao said: "Last year's meeting with President Roosevelt, he promised not to let the corporate protection bill pass, but now it seems that the situation is still very dangerous, and the [***] voices of the people in the United States have come and gone, even if the queen and I visited the United States for a few months last year, the effect is actually not very great." With the further development of China's economy, there are more and more economic and trade disputes between China and the United States. There is no doubt that the domestic market is safer than the U.S. market, but I think Sweden, Spain, Brazil, Australia, Canada, these markets are still relatively safe, as the main direction of capital export, Asian countries are still the most important, to put it mildly, the United States can enact a corporate protection law to exclude us, we have no way at all, but if it is Southeast Asian and West Asian countries, we can still directly intervene economically and politically to ensure that their legislation is beneficial to us. ”

Chen Guangfu said: "Investment in Asia is also inefficient, especially in West Asian countries, the possibility of investment in industry is very low, at present it is mainly investment in the resource industry, purely in terms of comprehensive return on investment, the domestic market is still the best, but in the long run, investment in Asian countries is indeed profitable, relatively speaking, the domestic market is also relatively crowded, long-term investment in the Asian market is meaningful." ”

Song Biao did not like to interfere too much with the management rights of these industrialists, although he felt that investing abroad was conducive to the development of the entire empire, but the real operators focused on profit and security, and it was normal for them to be reluctant to invest in foreign countries if the investment in a foreign country was risky and the rate of return was low.

Song Biao can only be said to give a suggestion to these things, to discuss the big picture, and in this discussion, to explore some of the current problems of the imperial economy from another aspect.

At present, the most important issue for the Far Eastern consortium is the conservative tendency of American society, which has reacted violently as China's economy and industrial technology have developed, especially after the total size of China's economy has surpassed that of the United States.

The United States has maintained a leading position in the world in terms of economic size for half a century, and it is not a terrible thing in itself to be surpassed, but the point is that the whole world must face the overtaking of the Anglo-Saxon race by the race in Asia, and if Germany or Britain surpasses the United States in terms of economic size, this is not a particularly shocking issue for the American and European societies.

One of the main judgments of the United States and Europe is that most of the high-tech enterprises in the United States are under the control of Chinese capital, which has caused a steady flow of American and European technology into China, and caused Europe and the United States to lose their technological leadership over China.

There is some truth in this kind of reflection, but the ensuing [***] Sinophobic and racophobic fascist ideas have also begun to spread throughout the European and American worlds, and it is against this background that Song Biao's global visit is also to curb the spread of this fascist ideology.

Compared with the Jews, Chinese must be much luckier, first of all, the territory of the Chinese Empire is vast, and the vast majority of Chinese live in their own country, and do not have to worry about foreign [***] exclusion and massacre, and secondly, the strong imperial and economic power, as well as the influence in the international world, also force European and American countries not to overreact.

The United States is in a hurry to introduce the "American Enterprise Protection Act", which will force all enterprises with more than one-third of the shares attributable to foreign capital to be treated as foreign-funded enterprises, need to pay more corporate income tax, and cannot participate in the bidding projects of the US political axe and the military.

Prior to this, the United States had passed the Temporary Financial Restrictions Act, which used tough financial controls to restrict foreign capital in the United States from freely withdrawing from the American market and avoid further decline in US gold reserves.

Neither can they exit nor hold more shares in enterprises, which forces foreign investors in the United States to buy a large number of US Treasury bonds, which is conducive to the implementation of Roosevelt's New Deal in the United States.

Since 1930, China has replaced the United States as the world's largest exporter of industry and agriculture and a trade surplus.

In terms of labor costs, the per capita labor cost of Chinese is only equivalent to 1/3 of the United States, with China's substantial increase in agricultural productivity, the rapid improvement of industrial production and technical level, by 1933, China and the United States in the level and precision of industrial products have no obvious difference, the two sides basically remain on the same level, but in terms of cost, Chinese products are much cheaper than made in the United States, taking conventional horizontal milling machines as an example, Chinese horizontal milling machines are generally 30% cheaper than the United States, in steelIn labor-intensive industries such as textiles, the price of manufacturing in China is 1/2 lower than that of the United States.

Throughout the Great Depression, the problem was not obvious because of the strict protectionist tariffs adopted by all countries, but with the re-signing of a reciprocal trade treaty between China and the United Kingdom, China's export growth accelerated significantly.

Because of low labor costs, low agricultural taxes, rapid promotion of agricultural mechanization, and substantial improvement in water conservancy and irrigation conditions, China has also clearly occupied an advantage in the export of agricultural products.

In 1933, world food prices were still relatively low, and even so, world food prices were still higher than domestic food prices, making grain exports profitable.

At this stage, a common judgment of European and American countries is that the exchange rate of the Chinese yuan is low, it should have a higher gold content, and China's political axe also holds the world's largest gold reserves, but this is a very complicated problem, first of all, Britain and the United States can not force China to increase the exchange rate of the yuan, they can only reduce their own exchange rate, but these two currencies in the international market are foreign trade circulation currency, once the exchange rate is greatly reduced will further trigger a new round of international financial crisis.

The current international community is in a situation of confrontation and wrestling between China, Britain and the United States, and the contradictions between China and Britain have been weakened compared with the past, and the contradictions between China and the United States have deteriorated sharply, while the contradictions between the United States and Britain are still one of the most important contradictions in the world.

In such a situation, Britain and the United States cannot join hands to force China, and any unilateral country lacks absolute superiority over China.

The United States can only adopt a conservative policy and pass new bills to exclude Chinese products and Chinese capital from intervening in the United States, and the United States cannot directly target China, including the fact that the prices of industrial products are also low, which is also the scope of its defense, so all foreign-funded enterprises will be affected, but the Far Eastern consortium, which has a high proportion of investment in the United States, will suffer the greatest damage.

During Song Biao's visit to the United States last year, Franklin. President Roosevelt promised not to approve this bill, but judging from the current situation, the situation is still very bad, and the investment of British and European capital in the United States is not small, so he is also critical of this bill, but just as Britain and the United States cannot force China, China and Britain cannot force the United States.

From the current stage of the international environment, especially the economic international environment, it is still very chaotic, and now I want to judge what the situation will be like during the Second World War, which countries will conclude alliances, and so on...... It is basically unlikely, because the contradictions between countries are actually very intense.

For example, China and France are real long-term allies, and the relationship as military alliances is very strong, but economically, the contradictions between the two sides have also begun to become fierce with the weakening of the economic complementarity between China and France.

The biggest problem of China's economy now is the all-round development under the spirit of domestic products, so that the conflict with France in the field of imitation and other fields is expanding, in contrast, the economic and trade relations between China and the Soviet Union are extremely complementary, and the bilateral trade volume is increasing.

It is always said that the economy determines politics, and politics determines war, but sometimes this is not very true.

(To be continued)