Chapter 899: A Run on the Bank and Reflection

In Zhuolan's hotel, Lans sat on the sofa, holding a wine glass.

Alcohol is not prohibited locally, so they can freely taste these delicious alcoholic beverages at any time and in any place.

The liquid in the glass looks very beautiful, and the taste is also good; this is whiskey with an aging process, a liquor that conforms to the whiskey craft process.

Many liquors, including the whiskey Lans himself produces within the Federation, mostly do not conform to the craft process; they lack the aging process.

Gold Label Liquor used to perform the aging process on their whiskey as well, for about a year to two years.

If it weren't for the appearance of Prohibition, if Lans were to produce liquor, he would also age it according to craft standards.

But precisely because of Prohibition, the market needs a large amount of liquor, and it would be sold long before it could age in the cellar for such a long time.

So, never mind two or three years of standard-grade aging; his liquor doesn't even reach two or three months of aging time!

However, the distillery side is already working hard; every day, they store a portion of the liquor in cellars for long-term aging.

The liquor in these cellars is basically aimed at starting from two years, so the quality is very good.

Because of the busy trade, there is simply not much time for the liquor to fully age in oak barrels, so the taste is a bit lacking.

To make up for these shortcomings, Lans used technology, thickeners, flavoring agents, and added some spices and essences to adjust the liquor's mouthfeel and flavor.

Of course, he also has aged liquor, Silver Label and Gold Label, but the years are not very long.

Unlike the bottle in his hand, which is about two thousand Para, converted to Federal Sol, that is over thirty dollars.

Its flavor is obviously very "mature"; that long aging time makes it become "mellow," no longer having such great fire, and after the liquor enters the mouth, the change in flavor is very obvious and timely. It is a very good liquor, with a high level.

Of course, in Lapa, the only people who can afford to spend two thousand to buy a bottle of liquor are the ruling group.

Here, all luxurious enjoyments are prepared for the ruling group, as perfect as possible.

Luojiefu sat next to Lans, also holding a wine glass in his hand; he has been living very comfortably during this period.

Some local officials regard him as a distinguished guest, constantly trying to corrupt him through means they consider effective.

He dares to swear that it is absolutely not because his will is weak, but because the intensity of these people's corruption is too ruthless.

He did something that let his wife down, but... it felt pretty good.

From those young girls, he felt something he once had, later lost, and wanted to find back more than anything—

Youth.

Originally, he thought this trip would be dangerous, but now it seems it is not dangerous at all.

Swirling the wine glass, he took a small sip, "Lans, actually, I don't quite understand something."

Lans pulled himself out of his thoughts, turned his head to look at Luojiefu, and signaled for him to continue.

"What is the purpose of us acquiring this grain bit by bit?"

"They still have quite a few grain depots; I heard there are mountains of grain in the depots, and some farms also have quite a lot of grain reserves."

"Why don't we acquire it from them?"

"Wouldn't that be faster and more than us acquiring it bit by bit from the civilians?"

Lans put down the wine glass, "The purpose of acquiring grain from those grain stores and grocery stores is to create a sense of tension."

"Actually, people don't know how much grain is missing, but they will observe."

"When the grain in grain stores and grocery stores is sold out as soon as it arrives, they will worry about whether there will be a situation where there isn't enough grain."

"People, they are all like this; do you still remember Mr. Qiaobafu?"

Suddenly hearing a very familiar name, Luojiefu was a bit distracted.

Mr. Qiaobafu was absolutely the most powerful person in the minds of the Imperial people living in New Jincheng a few years ago!

As an Imperial immigrant, he realized the Federal Dream here, possessed countless wealth, and was the object of everyone's envy!

In the blink of an eye, several years have passed; after hearing this familiar name again, he had a feeling of space-time confusion.

It felt as if everything was actually yesterday, but when thinking carefully, a very, very long time has passed.

After a few seconds, he broke free from that vortex of consciousness; he sighed while nodding, "Yes, I still remember, Mr. Qiaobafu and his bank."

Now Lans's company is the former site of Mr. Qiaobafu's bank; if one were to say Lans had nothing to do with Mr. Qiaobafu's downfall, Luojiefu himself wouldn't believe it.

But capital is just like this; he has been in the Federation for many years, and he has long been accustomed to the Federal capital environment.

When a capital conflict breaks out, let alone fellow countrymen, even between father and son, it is a bloody fight!

So Mr. Qiaobafu's downfall, to him, only felt a bit of a pity, but there was no thought that he shouldn't have fallen, or any dissatisfaction with Lans's methods.

In this world, although wealth is always increasing, if one wants to violate the laws of natural development to obtain more wealth that one cannot obtain through labor, the only way is plunder.

Just like the wealth he possesses now, he also obtained it through plunder, and there will be people who, because of his plunder, directly or indirectly, have their families destroyed.

This is the Federation; this is capital.

Lans didn't know that in such a short time, so many things had passed through his mind; he smiled and said, "Actually, what brought down Mr. Qiaobafu was a run on the bank."

"If a run hadn't occurred, he could have persisted for a while longer, and perhaps there might even have been a chance to come back to life."

"But it was precisely the run that ended everything."

"People are afraid, afraid of becoming the last one. If Lapa now is a bank, and grain is people's savings for life and living, then now it has begun to become tense."

"We only need to push it a little more, and a run will occur."

"People will find that there isn't enough grain to eat, and they won't be able to buy more grain; they will hoard everything they can buy in multiples."

"Even if they actually can't eat that much."

"Look!", Lans spread his hands, "If a person only needs one unit of grain a day to fill their stomach."

"Now there are ten units of grain, enough for two people to eat their fill for five days."

"But because of the run, one person monopolizes ten units of grain, while the other person doesn't have a single unit of grain, which means he will have to go hungry for at least five days."

"The taste of hunger is not pleasant. In order to fill their stomach, will this person without food do some crazy things?"

Lans picked up the wine glass again and took a sip, "Let them continue to acquire; every once in a while, they can raise the price a bit."

"Not only must we collect them, we must also let the people of Lapa spontaneously hoard them, and then create a run."

"Even if the remaining food is enough for everyone to eat, under the circumstances of a run, the price of food will become ridiculously high, and every family will store far more food than their daily consumption."

"Soon, the people here will start to go hungry."

Listening to these words from Lans, Luo Luo Jiefu was already breaking into a cold sweat.

The consequence of a bank run is that the bank cannot fulfill its obligations and goes bankrupt.

If the country cannot provide food to the people, what will happen?

Massive riots!

This kind of thing has happened in the Empire, and he vaguely remembered what happened at that time.

Angry crowds rushed into the nobles' castles, killing everything they could see on the way...

After a brief silence fell in the room, Lans asked, "Have those invited to attend the seminar been confirmed?"

This time, while they were playing movies for publicity, Lans and the federal government staff had scouted some people.

These people have the potential to become the first batch of "Awakened," but they still need polishing.

For any matter, there always needs to be someone who stands up first, acting as the existence that breaks the deadlock.

These people are the chisels that break the ice, the seeds that push through the soil.

During this time, Diege has also been paying attention to these foreigners; he sat in his chair, constantly adjusting his posture.

If anyone were observant enough, they would discover that these chairs and sofas in the Presidential Palace are all upholstered and have very thick cushions.

This is precisely because Diege's weight is too great; maintaining a certain sitting posture for a long time makes him feel extremely uncomfortable.

Many people think that obese people have more flesh on their buttocks and shouldn't exhibit this situation. But in reality, it is not like that.

Having more flesh, on the contrary, makes one more likely to fear compression, and Diege's compression is long-term; his body had long since developed various symptoms of discomfort under the immense weight.

The doctor he invited from the Federation also made some arrangements for his health, including stopping the consumption of fruit juice and increasing exercise, but all were rejected by him.

He had not yet realized the seriousness of these problems; he thought he was just fat.

"Has our money arrived?", his eyes were filled with greed; of the sixty million this time, twenty million was his, and the others would split the remaining forty million.

Twenty million—in the past, it would have taken fifteen to twenty years to earn that much money.

But this year, the goal was achieved all at once, which gave Diege an indescribable sense of satisfaction.

Actually, this is a very interesting thing.

In Diege's federal account, adding these twenty million, there is already about fifty or sixty million, but he rarely engages in large-scale consumption in the Federation.

Within Lapa, his consumption is actually not high; every day he just drinks several large bottles of fruit juice and then eats some delicious food—these actually don't cost much money.

He had absolutely no need to sell the grain to continue increasing numbers that no longer had meaning, but all people who pursue extreme wealth cannot resist large numbers.

Perhaps in a whole year, he wouldn't spend thirty or fifty thousand, but as long as there was an opportunity, he would continue to increase this number.

The Minister of Finance nodded, "I have confirmed by phone that the money in our bank accounts in the Federation has all arrived."

Diege was very satisfied; he patted his belly, "Although I don't like the Federation people, the Federation people are still very prompt when it comes to doing business."

The Minister of Finance coughed, which made Diege look at him with a face full of confusion, "What's wrong?"

"Diege, we have deposited too much money in the Federation; all of us combined exceed two hundred million."

"I think this is a bit unsafe."

"Once the federal government freezes our bank accounts, we won't be able to get a single cent out."

The Minister of Finance still had a point; Diege considered it for a while, "What you say makes a lot of sense, so which bank should we divide a portion of the money into?"

This question left the Minister of Finance speechless for a moment.

Currently, the most stable economy and finance in the whole world is the Federation.

Other countries are either poor and backward, or affected by war.

The Empire is still very peaceful, with no chaotic situation, but they are very far from the Empire, and they have no friendship with the Emperor of the Empire.

Rashly depositing so much money into an Imperial bank, Diege felt it was not very safe.

Actually, the National Bank of the Jiede Republic is a good choice; their reputation is very good and they are very stable, but Diege dared not deposit money there.

Who knows if these people would find a way to take his money away?

He didn't trust those people in the Jiede Republic; he always felt these people were not good people.

For a moment, the people in the room couldn't find a place more suitable than the Federation to store their funds.

"How about we split our accounts and deposit the money inside equally into different accounts."

"This way, even if individual accounts are affected, what we lose will only be a portion."

Don't put all your eggs in one basket—this is not exactly profound knowledge.

This was the new method the Minister of Finance came up with; although it had no practical significance other than adding trouble to himself, Diege and the others still agreed with his suggestion.

It sounded much safer than putting it all in one account, but they didn't stop to think.

Once the Federation decides to freeze their wealth, even if they split their money into one hundred accounts, it would freeze one hundred accounts; not a single one would be left for them!

After finishing this matter, he asked, "Have those grains of ours been loaded onto ships and transported away?"

The Minister of Agriculture nodded and said, "They were all transported away yesterday."

"I had someone inquire, and these cargo ships did not send the grain to Tanfei, but sent it directly to the Federation."

Diege waved his hand, interrupting his statement, "After the goods are sold, let's not care whether they eat it themselves or resell it; this no longer has anything to do with us."

Although the Minister of Agriculture still wanted to say something, he chose to shut up.

Diege looked for a moment, then paused, "What have those Federation people been doing lately?"

Another official hurriedly replied, "They are busy playing free movies everywhere, and are also holding some seminars, salons, and the like."

"I heard the Federation people intend to run a newspaper here."

Diege looked like he wanted to frown, but he was too fat; one could only see his eyebrows move, but not see them bunched together, "Don't we have a newspaper?"

Lapa currently only has one newspaper in circulation, because Lapa's illiteracy rate remains high—seventy percent of the people are illiterate; they cannot possibly buy newspapers to read.

And those who are not illiterate, such as students in school, are very likely not to buy them, and they don't have much money to buy newspapers every day, so basically the only newspaper has no sales.

Originally it covered all of Lapa, but over these years sales and the market have gradually shrunk; now it can only be bought near Zhuolan.

The official in charge of this matter seemed to have a mocking laugh on his face, "Who knows?"

"Maybe they aren't used to being squeezed onto a newspaper with us."

Diege thought for a while, then smiled and shook his head, "I don't know who they intend to sell the newspaper to."

In his view, with such a high illiteracy rate, newspapers, magazines, and the like simply couldn't have much of a market.

If it weren't for the ruling group supporting the only newspaper behind the scenes, it probably would have gone bankrupt long ago.

Since the Federation people aren't afraid of spending money, then let them spend it.

During this period, someone also sent some magazines and books that the Federation people were distributing locally; after Diege flipped through them for a while, he didn't find any problems—the main content introduced the social form, human culture, and some tourist scenery of the Federation.

Among all the content, there was nothing extreme; everything appeared very peaceful, mainly introducing the Federation.

Rather than suspecting whether the Federation people were hiding something in their cultural exchange promotion, Diege was actually more concerned about the tax issue.

"I have been thinking about this matter for the past few days; the Federation people have built factories in our country, then produced goods with extremely cheap production costs, and then transported them to the Federation to sell, earning more money."

"What have we gained in this entire process?"

"Take those alcoholic beverages as an example; the cost of the liquor they produce here might only be a few dollars, but after transporting it to the Federation, it can sell for three or four times the price—this is clearly a form of exploitation of our cheap labor."

"We need to come up with some measures."

He shifted his buttocks again, his body's center of gravity moving to the other side, "Taxes!"

Taxation is a big project; Diege wanted to change the tax standards, as he believed more foreigners would come to Lapa to seek development opportunities.

They are very likely to be like Lans, building factories here, producing, and then taking the goods and profits back to the Federation, without leaving anything for them.

So Diege wanted to carry out some reforms to the tax law—for example, people working in factories built by foreigners would need to pay an extra sum of money; he hadn't thought of a name for it yet.

Today he gathered everyone here just to discuss this matter; they had to find a way to squeeze some more oil and water out of the Federation people and those working for the Federation.

Lapa is too poor—so poor that even though they are already very rich, as long as there is an opportunity, they will definitely pounce and bite.

After a day, Pedro finally arrived in Zhuolan.

This is his fifth time coming to Zhuolan; every time he comes to this city, he has different feelings.

At the very beginning, he felt Zhuolan was the most magnificent city in the world, until he went on a trip to the Jiede Republic.

Then he felt the Jiede Republic was the most prosperous place in the world, and this place could only be considered average.

Until he saw the Federation in the movies.

The high-rise buildings in the movies were firmly imprinted in his heart; he found it hard to imagine how two or three-hundred-meter buildings were built.

Would standing on top feel the same as standing on a mountain?

The more he marveled at those skyscrapers, the more he felt the decay and backwardness of Zhuolan.

Sitting on the swaying ox cart, he was thinking about a question.

Where exactly did the Lapa people's money go?