Chapter 337

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Protagonist:

Chen Yi

Chen Zhongguo was brimming with energy, as if he had returned to his fifties.

Twenty years ago, the fifty-year-old Chen Zhongguo was at the height of his brilliance; his special knowledge background and outstanding organizational ability meant he bore extremely heavy responsibilities. Chen Zhongguo would often spend his days traveling by chauffeur-driven car among the various embassies and ministries in the capital, and after meeting various figures in the evenings he still had to read the latest domestic and international intelligence, sleeping less than five hours a day.

During that period, the domestic "ultra-left" trend of thought had just ended; China, sandwiched in the Cold War between the two superpowers the US and the USSR, urgently needed to adjust its foreign policy, but the Chinese people, including the Central Leadership, had no clear understanding of China's future path, and both physically and mentally they were in a state of extreme flux.

It was precisely the changes of that period that propelled China's foreign policy from the "International United Front" to an "Independent Non-Alignment" foreign policy, and under this guiding ideology came the transformation of Sino-US relations, the normalization of Sino-Soviet relations, and the partial resolution of the Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan issues...

In the early days of his retirement, when Chen Zhongguo lay sunbathing in the backyard, he would always reminisce about himself in that era, his vigorous fifty-year-old self...

And now, he felt as if the energy of his fifties had been injected back into his body.

Chen Zhongguo began frequently meeting with figures from officialdom.

This was a signal, and also a display of muscle.

Health is the real muscle!

Old Master Chen's "vigorous" spirit not only delighted the Chen Clan beyond measure, but also shocked the Xijing officialdom.

The Health Care Committee dispatched doctors several times in succession to assist Li Zhun in examining Chen Zhongguo's health. At first Chen Zhongguo still declined somewhat, but later he became indifferent — when Kennedy was in office he had to use twenty kinds of drugs every day, including amphetamines and diuretics, and amphetamines could even be classified as a type of narcotic; the key was health and a clear, alluring wisdom, everything else was unimportant.

As the health reports came out, more people came to the Chen Family Lao Zhai to report on their work, and the Xijing officialdom also began to pay frequent attention, even asking Old Master Chen's opinion on some trivial matters.

For a politician, speaking is the best method to maintain influence. In US presidential elections, when describing the victor they always tirelessly elaborate on how he "traveled tens of thousands of miles and gave thousands of speeches." China is no different — politicians describe their governing platforms and their views and suggestions on various issues to the gentlemen who determine the political direction.

When voters determine the political direction, politicians speak to voters; when officials determine the political direction, politicians speak to officials... Western countries have both, but Chinese politicians can completely skip the first step.

In just a month and a half, Chen Zhongguo met all the important officials of the Chen Clan and its collateral branches. He refused to discuss personnel issues outside the Jiangning officialdom, yet showed tremendous interest in international issues.

This was an extremely clever move. Personnel issues are the most sensitive, while international issues are issues that few officials outside the top leadership care about — the Chinese populace counts as a member of the top leadership, all added together they count as one.

Chen Zhongguo was originally a red elite who rose on the diplomatic front; it was only natural for him to discuss international issues, and this invisibly allowed him to reintegrate into the atmosphere of officialdom.

When Chen Yi returned from the West Continent, Chen Zhongguo had already begun receiving foreign ambassadors and attended several banquets specially held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jiangning.

The days of the Chen Group and Jinsheng Securities also became easier; without needing to inquire, people naturally delivered inside information to their door — favorable news on spin-offs, mergers, or technological innovations — Jinsheng Securities even learned of things earlier than the ministries.

After all, they used to burn incense, worship Buddha, and offer pig heads; now receiving the Buddha Lord's favor was only natural. Luo Xiaoshan conveyed the cadres' sincere blessings to Chen Yi more than once, while handing over report forms showing revenues of tens of millions every day.

Although still inferior to Gold Source International's daily revenue of 20 million US dollars, Jinsheng Securities' revenue was continuously rising; Chen Yi could imagine how carefree and at ease his old man must have been making money in his sleep back then.

"Although Old Dad was diligent and conscientious, business operations are ultimately conventional and mediocre, not as good as being an official." This thought arose in Chen Yi's mind, and he could not suppress it no matter what.

However, although he had quite a few ideas in his mind, Chen Yi had no intention of putting them into practice immediately. He first dealt with the wood pulp from the West Continent and some natural rubber latex, then summoned Zhu Guangliang and spoke directly: "I have five subordinates who are returning meritorious ministers. They are returning home to visit relatives; I worry both that they might be harmed by foreign forces and that they might be easily tempted, so I need you to handle it."

Zhu Guangliang had now sidelined the Bureau Chief and held all power himself; he was immensely grateful to Chen Yi and immediately suggested with Chen Yi's interest in mind: "I have no shortage of shrewd people under me, but they are not suitable for this kind of work; why not transfer a few people from the Public Security Bureau's Inspection Division to help, and I will send two more to coordinate."

"That would be best." Chen Yi, very satisfied, brought Li Changning, Qin Dajiang, Liao Fou, Li Duo, and Cui Ying to the Security Bureau and handed them over to a section chief under Zhu Guangliang for training.

In this way, as long as Zhu Guangliang did not go ask that section chief, he would not know who Chen Yi's so-called five people were, and within the Security Bureau the five people's actions and thoughts would be greatly restricted. For the sake of that plaque, Chen Yi simply housed the five people in the Security Bureau's secret guesthouse, only letting them go out to visit relatives and friends during the day.

Zhu Guangliang naturally would not go ask the section chief; when he gave the order he said: This matter need not be reported up; if anything happens, inform Mr. Chen directly.

That section chief would jump at the chance to speak with Chen Zhongguo's grandson, even if it meant acting like a grandson himself, so why would he create complications?

The next day at noon, Chen Yi took position at the Meijiang Building — which was the Mitsubishi Company property he had newly acquired — and began taking inventory of assets.

"How much money do I have?" For an ordinary person this question could not be simpler; if it's a youngster just entering society, opening their wallet tells them every penny, but for a multinational corporation, figuring out the exact figure is quite difficult.

The difficulty in inventorying Jinsheng Securities' assets lay in their dynamism; ever since Luo Xiaoshan took over the supervision of Jinsheng Securities, it had been run by professional managers, and Chen Yi had never even met them. In reality, with the Chen Family background, as long as those managers weren't insatiably greedy, guaranteeing around 30% profit was no problem, but to earn more commissions they would inevitably keep buying and selling more stocks, bonds, and futures... The first accounting firm Chen Yi hired, De Sheng Accounting Firm, sent only a junior partner, who after one day felt like dying...

Accurately estimating Gold Source Company's assets was even harder; Tang Xiongfei maximized the 500 million US dollars in permissions he could mobilize, entangling them inextricably with Wall Street's numerous hedge funds, commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities groups... As one of the largest domestic accounting firms, De Sheng simply handed Gold Source Company's business to the US PricewaterhouseCoopers to act as a third-party auditor... Not that they didn't want to do it, but that they couldn't.

As for the Martial Arts Hall, scattered paper companies and machinery companies, and Fang Zhong's investment department, those were instead simple manual labor.

In fact, compared to those world-class multinational corporations, Chen Yi's business was much smaller, but the inventoried assets were not small at all. The two accounting firms together found 3.76 billion US dollars in assets; adding the roughly 1.8 billion US dollars in cash Chen Yi had on hand, his total mobilizable assets were around 5 billion... Because both companies were financial companies, asset liquidity was very strong, and almost the majority of assets could be liquidated within three days...

The above-board money: half came from the "Siren" computer, half from investments in China and Southeast Asia. The West Continent was a de facto negative asset; its only value was precious metals value, and it had no large-scale cash flow. If examined closely, the 2 billion US dollars earned by Siren just barely offset its own costs, while the bulk of Jinsheng's investment belonged to political capital.

Seeing such glaring report forms, Chen Yi understood even more deeply the importance of political resources. But he had no moral fastidiousness — making good use of his own resources to obtain more resources conforms to human nature, and does not violate the Knight's moral code.

After collecting all the data, Chen Yi kept only the final general ledger portion, then drove to the old residence.

He drove very fast; the Raptor was like a tank, ignoring all traffic lights. This saved him two-thirds of the time, and he would not get a single ticket.

At least in Jiangning City, the first thing the on-duty traffic police do every morning is memorize license plate numbers, especially those low-profile official plates chosen for discretion, which make the traffic police hate them so much their teeth itch, but they have to memorize them anyway; if they touch a bad spot and the person decides not to be low-profile anymore, the unlucky one is themselves. Chen Yi's license plates were naturally within the sequence, and he had more than one.

Under the plane trees outside the old residence, various vehicles were once again parked full.

Officials waiting for an audience sat resting in the front yard; the old housekeeper directed the gatekeepers to pour tea and serve water, busy and delighted; seeing Chen Yi arrive, he freed his hands and said quietly: "A high official from Lushan Province, Chang Bo, is passing through Jiangning and is inside speaking; you'll have to wait a while."

"How long has he been talking?"

"Nearly an hour, not common." The old housekeeper deliberately added that, then led Chen Yi through the middle gate and handed him over to the secretary inside.

The old master's former secretary had been arranged into a ministry bureau before retirement; the current secretary had never met Chen Yi but had seen his photo. At their first meeting, he carefully poured tea and brought a chair, providing thorough and quite attentive service.

But Chen Yi found him too attentive; the old residence was where he grew up, why would he need you to wait on him, and pursing his lips without saying a word was simply too bureaucratic.

So he didn't even ask for a name, just sat there with eyes on nose, nose on heart, wasting time.

There were far fewer people waiting inside the middle gate; they were people with priority, or special status, or urgent matters — nowadays urgent matters were fewer, but people with special status were more numerous.

Back when the old master was in power, many people wanting to report on work had to wait until after 10 PM for a chance, and that was with them queuing up past noon. Some high officials didn't like working at night, so subordinates had to find other opportunities to report, often even harder to serve, and not necessarily clean.

After a while, High Official Chang Bo came out from inside.

The old master saw him to the threshold, moving with ease and composure, looking like he was in very good condition. This also showed Chang Bo was not a Chen Clan disciple, but he had fulfilled all proprieties.

Chen Yi bounced up like a sprinter, stood before everyone and said with a smile: "Delayed you ten minutes, thank you various uncles."

Everyone laughed and made way; Secretary Liu hurried to the front to lead the way, making a show of escorting Chen Yi inside.

"Grandpa. I've also come to report on work."

Chen Zhongguo smiled, reached out his hand: "Bring it here, let me see."

Chen Yi handed over the report forms tucked under his armpit, turned and closed the door, saying: "On one hand I'm reporting my asset situation; on the other hand I have some ideas."

"Oh, this is 376 million... dollars... ah, is it 3.76 billion?" Chen Zhongguo was startled, the bit of old-school atmosphere he had just cultivated couldn't be held together either, and he asked in surprise: "Where did you snatch so much money from?"

"There's over a billion inside, earned from doing futures trading internationally and domestically... for example, if the south has a flood, or the northeast has a bumper harvest, or a certain province is going to strictly investigate a certain mineral, or a ministry/commission issues a document restricting transactions, I can earn some money on Wall Street. Of course, it's them proactively informing Luo Xiaoshan." Chen Yi doesn't tell lies now; even the report forms are taken out without changing a single word.

"Hmm..."

"As for money, if you want to use it, a few hundred million in one or two days, several billion in one or two weeks, several tens of billions in one or two months, are all achievable." Chen Yi coughed once, and said: "This is a report; specific figures depend on the situation at the time."

Chen Zhongguo had to use tea drinking to conceal his astonishment. He pondered for half a day, then said: "You can get several tens of billions?"

"US dollars, no problem." Chen Yi answered very affirmatively.

Tang Xiongfei hid under the big tree of Gold Source International, stayed on Wall Street for over a year; if he couldn't borrow a hundred billion US dollars, that would truly be living in vain.

The four-pointed star on Chen Yi's chest heated up twice, obviously reacting to his promise.

Chen Zhongguo sat down, touching his forehead, suddenly laughing and saying: "A couple of days ago I was still thinking, I'm just like a young person; now I know, I'm old after all."

"Where is there any."

"When I was young, a loan of over a hundred billion US dollars was something banks didn't even dare promise. Although it's better now, to say private legitimate funds can be taken out... hehe." Chen Zhongguo waved his hand, and said: "You said you still have some ideas?"

"It's about Father." Regarding the matter of money, touching on it briefly was enough. Chen Yi brewed his words for a moment, and said: "I feel that Chen Group has no necessity to exist anymore."

"Oh?"

"Father did business for 20 years and only earned less than 20 billion. Although it's not a small amount, it's truly not much, and fixed assets are the majority, the industry also tends toward sunset." Chen Yi shrugged, and said: "Judging from the past two years' situation, once there is no political background, Chen Group only has losses to bear. Since that's the case, why operate it."

Chen Zhongguo naturally asked: "You want Chen Group?"

"I want Father."

"What?"

"Let Father enter politics." Chen Yi said with a determined look: "Although Chen Clan's forces are not few, Elder Brother is in the military after all. Now military power is becoming less and less effective. Since that's the case, better to let Comrade Chen Congyu play his remnant heat in a government department."

Chen Zhongguo of course knew the drawbacks of his second son doing business. Limited by that era, correcting it now seems a bit late.

Chen Yi, who had long been prepared, quietly explained: "From the Jiangning City Federation of Industry and Commerce, to the United Front Work Department."

... (Unfinished. If you like this work, welcome to Qidian (qidian. com) to vote recommendation tickets, monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)