At the end of February, the Lanfang naval exercise was nearing its end. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

In the past half a month, the Lanfang Navy has conducted more than 20 exercises of various kinds, dispatched more than 600 naval vessels, and dispatched more than 500,000 soldiers, including the Marine Corps, and exceeded all the scheduled subjects.

Just as the exercise was about to end, on 26 February, the destroyer "Chen Sheng" of the Lanfang Navy spotted a ship of unknown nationality intruding into the exercise area in the waters south of the Marshalls.

Supposedly, the matter should have ended here, but the fishing boat did not leave the exercise area as requested by the "Chen Sheng," but continued to move towards the center of the exercise area.

The "Chen Sheng" immediately opened fire and sank the fishing boat.

The next day, on the 27th, Britain issued a statement condemning the Lan Fang Navy's heinous act of firing at civilian fishing boats in the Fiji area of the United Kingdom, causing casualties among Fijian fishermen.

Fiji was not yet a country at this time, but in 1643 the Dutch first arrived in Fiji, then Europeans began to emigrate to Fiji, and in 1874, Fiji officially became a British colony.

Lan Fang immediately refuted the accusations of the British, long before the Lan Fang Navy started the exercise, the Lan Fang Navy had already announced the exercise area, the Fijian fishing boat illegally intruded into the exercise area, and did not heed the advice of the Lan Fang Navy to continue to advance, the Lan Fang Navy opened fire is a legitimate act, and it cannot be said irrationally.

In other words, the Lanfang Navy's exercise area is in the Marshall Islands, which is Lanfang's territory, even if the Lanfang Navy does not exercise here, Fijian fishing boats should not run here.

Even if it's fishing, you've crossed the line.

Of course, the British did not think that they were wrong, although Lan Fang explained the matter, but the British did not accept it, and the local government of Fiji, with the support of the British, filed a complaint with the British court, demanding that the Lan Fang government compensate the families of those fishermen who were killed.

I'll compensate you for it, Lan Fang's Ministry of Foreign Affairs put this matter behind after explaining, and didn't pay attention to the farce directed and acted by the British at all.

In the course of the Lanfang naval exercise, the Lanfang Navy killed nearly 100 people of unknown nationality, sank six ships of unknown nationality, and seized more than 20 British and American ships that illegally intruded into the exercise area.

At the beginning of March, all the subjects of the exercise were completed, and all three major fleets withdrew to their home ports, and the exercise ended smoothly.

After returning to Penglai Island, the first thing Qin Zhiyuan did was to find Lao Renault and prepare to let Lao Renault contract a part of the national debt.

"You want to issue Treasury bonds?" Old Renault is still a little incredible.

Just as Qin Zhiyuan didn't know how much money Old Renault had, Old Renault didn't know how much money Qin Zhiyuan had, but according to the figures that Old Renault received every year, it can be roughly calculated how much Qin Zhiyuan can earn every year.

"Yes, how about issuing treasury bonds, do you want to learn from Mellon to underwrite, then I will also get you a finance minister to do it." Qin Zhiyuan was half joking.

In fact, not only the Mellon family, but also those big families in the United States have the habit of underwriting national bonds, such as Rockefeller and Morgan, they all rely on this, maintain close relations with the US government, and at the same time exert family influence on the US government.

Qin Zhiyuan also wanted Old Renault to underwrite, in fact, it was not difficult for Old Renault, it was only 2 billion Lan Fang Yuan, and Old Renault could afford to buy it with all his own money.

"Hehe, how much interest can you pay me-" Old Renault was a little disdainful, but he didn't refuse.

"It's certainly not as much as you can invest in, but what you gain is my friendship." Qin Zhiyuan was not ashamed.

"I thought our friendship was on a solid footing." Old Renault cooperated and made a sad face.

The two giggled for a while, and old Renault still took care of it: "Leave it to me, it's only two billion - you are too small, do you want to make more?" ”

"How to earn? A little more? Qin Zhiyuan didn't quite understand what Old Renault meant.

Qin Zhiyuan makes money, using information asymmetry that is almost like a "prophet", but if it comes to making money with money, Qin Zhiyuan will really be able to play with Old Renault.

"Forget it, don't worry about it, just sell your treasury bonds to me, in addition, you can indeed print more, and it's no problem to get another four or five billion." Old Renault seems to have regarded this as a way to make a fortune, and is ready to do a great job.

"No problem, I'll let the Ministry of Finance fully cooperate with you." Qin Zhiyuan immediately agreed, the more money the better.

Sending off the old Renault, Qin Zhiyuan found Gao Hongshi, and as soon as he finished talking to Gao Hongshi about the national debt, Gao Hongshi looked strange.

"Mr. Louis has made a bit of a complicated friend lately, and one of them is called Charles Pounds-" As soon as Gao Hongshi said this name, Qin Zhiyuan suddenly realized.

Charles Ponzi, many people may be unfamiliar with this name, but if you talk about "Ponzi scheme", then I am afraid many people have an impression.

That's right, Charles Pounds was the author of the "Ponzi scheme".

In 1919, just after the end of the world war and the chaos of the world economic system, Charles Pounds, who had been imprisoned in Canada for forgery and smuggled in Atlanta for smuggling, claimed that he could make money by buying some kind of postal bill in Europe and selling it to the United States.

Due to factors such as policies, exchange rates, and other factors between countries, many economic behaviors are generally not easy for ordinary people to understand. In order to convince people of this plan, Charles Pounds claimed that all investments could get a 40% return within 90 days, and in order to prove that his words were true, Charles Pounds gave people "seeing is believing" evidence: the first group of "investors" did get the return promised by Pounds within the specified time, so a large number of subsequent investors followed.

According to incomplete statistics, in about a year, 40,000 residents of Boston became investors in Charles Pounds, who invested about $15 million in the project.

By 1920, however, Charles Pounds had gone bankrupt and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Old Renault would actually make friends with such a notorious liar, which really made Qin Zhiyuan a little worried, so Qin Zhiyuan found Old Renault again.

"Yes, I know, Charles Pounds is a liar, a not very shrewd liar, but don't worry, Charles Pounds may be able to deceive those ordinary citizens, but he doesn't dare to lie to me, because if Charles Pounds deceives those ordinary people, the government will only lock Charles Pounds up, but if Charles Pounds dares to lie to me, I will take his life." The old Renault has everything under control, and there is no fear that Charles Pounds will be able to jump out of the old Renault's Five Finger Mountain.

Indeed, as the old Renault said, Charles Pounds did not dare to deceive the old Renault, because Charles Pounds could not afford this consequence.

A person like Old Renault, dealing with his enemy, actually has no bottom line, even Qin Zhiyuan is like this, even if he is as great as Ludendorff, if you can't be killed on the battlefield, you can send someone to kill you, this is very understandable, and it is not very criticized.

"And what do you want Charles Pounds to do? A Ponzi scheme in Lanfang? Then you have to be careful. There was a threat in Qin Zhiyuan's words.

Old Renault and Qin Zhiyuan are old friends, of course they can hear it, but Old Renault is not too frightened, because Old Renault didn't plan to do this at all: "How is it possible?" This is my country, too, and rabbits don't eat the grass around their nests—"

Well, that's -- well, that's true.

"Charles Pounds's character is really not very good, but this person has a trait, he can always make people believe his words, especially those ordinary people, so I am ready to ask Charles to sell these national bonds, sell them to Europeans, Americans, anyone, and I made it very clear to Charles that these two billion yuan of national bonds must be sold to me four billion in cash, otherwise he will be unlucky." Old Renault's abacus is good, he doesn't spend a penny on himself, and he can do Qin Zhiyuan a great favor.

"Well, let's divide the money we earn equally-" Qin Zhiyuan was really a little weak when he said this.

For a long time, the money earned by Qin Zhiyuan and Lao Renault has basically been divided equally, of course, Lao Renault often asks for a little less, because relatively speaking, Qin Zhiyuan's burden is really a bit big.

Hearing Qin Zhiyuan's "generosity", Old Renault was still a little disdainful, but his words were more compassionate: "It's all for you, I don't want any of it, as long as you don't want to come and eat my big family, I'll thank God." ”

Old Renault can think openly, and he is quite clear about some of the "traditions" of Chinese society, and Old Renault himself is now worthy of the title of this "big family".

"Then you're welcome, you know, I've been a little tight lately." Qin Zhiyuan's posture is not a bit of a king's shelf, and he looks like a small businessman who is looking for a friend to borrow some money to turn around.

"Why do you think you're doing this? You are pulling out the seedlings to help grow, it is not good for the Lanfang government and the Lanfang military, the Lanfang military should develop according to normal laws, and the Lanfang government should bear everything they should bear, this is a healthy and upward society, not the way it is now. Old Renault had a lot of complaints about some of Qin Zhiyuan's practices.

"Louis, you may not believe it when I said it, we don't have much time to take our time-" Qin Zhiyuan didn't want to let Lanfang's society develop healthily, but now the objective conditions really don't allow it.

"What do you mean? Do you really want to go to war with the Americans? Old Renault's face became fast, and his face immediately grew long.