Chapter 2380: Financing (Part 15)

"This Chu He has been on Jeju Island far too long. These past years, his mind has been occupied entirely with women and children. His thinking remains stuck in the early days after we landed—deal with problems as they arise. But this is already '35, seven years since crossing over. Everyone has become a leader of some consequence. If you're still operating the same old way, how can that possibly work? Everyone has two empty bowls waiting for meat. If the Nanyang Company succeeds and harvests plenty of stock leeks, what does that have to do with Liu Xiang, Zheng Shangjie, or Mu Min? Though if they bungle their elaborate schemes, it would certainly keep those men busy for a while. History shows that every financial storm leaves wreckage for the administrative agencies to clean up. Liu Xiang is eyeing the big households' silver, but he has no intention of contributing it all to the central government for 'coordinated allocation.' He's something else—not even leaving taxes for the local government. He simply doesn't consider that if everyone is expected to support him, what's their incentive?"

"These intricacies are probably beyond the comprehension of Senators who don't work locally," Zhang Xiaoqi observed. "They always feel it's all for the Senate, so what's there to haggle about?"

"Where you sit determines what you consider. That's simply human nature. They'll come around eventually." Wang Qiyi sighed. "Since ancient times, fiscal distribution between central and local governments has always been a thorny issue. Handle it well, and the nation prospers. Handle it poorly—the Ming Dynasty stands as the classic example."

Both men had been tax cadres in their former lives and hadn't handled financial work directly, but taxation and finance are inseparable, so they were quite knowledgeable about fiscal matters. How the Senate might overcome the flaws of their original timeline, leverage strengths while avoiding weaknesses, and properly copy the homework—this had always been a question the three Senators at the Tax Bureau contemplated.

When word arrived that a telegram had come, Zhou Wei felt a surge of anxiety. Without even taking time to read the details, he hurriedly presented his identity documents and signed for it. Only after returning to his bedroom and retrieving the codebook from his luggage did he notice the sender was his wife, Huang Qi.

"Wife, you've really done me in!" he muttered, thinking of how Secretary Zhou had been personally selected by his wife. A wave of grief and indignation washed over him.

Following the general merchant-confidential codebook used by Senators—"merchant-confidential" being a classification level indicating that encrypted information could be transmitted over public networks, commercial networks, or general commercial channels—Zhou Wei decoded the ciphertext into two strings of meaningless English letters. Then, following his private agreement with his wife and performing a simple dictionary substitution, he could finally read the full message:

"CGCI@GZ"

"GD#D3AUT#42y"

This was the third layer, a knowledge-based cipher...

Zhou Wei's mind worked for a moment before he finally grasped what his wife wanted to convey. He was immediately moved to tears of gratitude. "Wife! You're truly my lucky star!"

The first line's CGCI was the abbreviation for China Gold Coin Corporation in their original timeline, but Zhou Wei and Huang Qi had long agreed to use it to refer to the Central Reserve Bank being prepared by the Senate. The meaning of @GZ was even clearer. The whole message translated to: the Senate has argued out a preliminary result—the Central Reserve Bank is about to be established, and the location is Guangzhou!

The establishment itself wasn't surprising. Ever since the Administrative Affairs Yuan Finance Meeting had decided to issue precious metal currency and corresponding paper exchange notes to replace food distribution vouchers, the creation of a professional central bank had been inevitable.

Once the Central Reserve Bank was established, Delong, which had been acting as the central bank, would inevitably undergo some kind of adjustment. Its role would likely be repositioned as a national commercial bank. Were there new opportunities here? Unfortunately, there was no time to ponder that now.

The second line—GD was obviously Guangdong. D3AUT was a deliberate misspelling of "drought." English vowels followed no consistent pattern, with each vowel capable of making all sounds—a quirk Zhou Wei and Huang Qi often joked about in daily conversation. They had agreed that when using formal words to communicate, they would spell directly according to American IPA phonetics. Consonants like dr- were written as 3 based on similar phonetic symbol shapes. The 42y that followed was simple enough. The entire string meant "Guangdong major drought for two years."

This second sentence should be what he had asked his wife to pay attention to and investigate in Lingao—what stances Liu Xiang's group had taken in major meetings, what they cared about most.

"Major drought for two years" was actually easy information to overlook, precisely because it was practically public knowledge to the Senators. Anyone could visit the Big Library to look up relevant ancient disaster records. Information being too easily obtainable often made insensitive people overlook it when considering matters.

So Liu Xiang and his people, along with their "accomplices" in Lingao, had been pressing the Senate for grain recently?

No wonder in the previous two meetings, he had seemed completely uninterested in all my explicit and implicit offers of benefits...

Now that I know your pain point, I'll have to calculate carefully. The meeting's tomorrow evening? There's still time!

Little Tan walked in. "Chief, this is the joint proposal regarding the Nanyang Company that was just delivered."

With no one he could rely on at the moment, Zhou Wei had been forced to use this accountant as a temporary secretary.

"Put it on the desk." Zhou Wei watched the thick document bag land on his desk like a yellow bomb.

In truth, these people had originally come to peddle their own plans. However flawed those plans might be, brushing them off should have been simple enough. Zhou Wei was confident he possessed at least that much ability—worst case, he could draw a few more enticing pictures. Now that things had reached this point, the proposal had become genuine "hard goods." The cost he would have to pay couldn't be resolved with empty promises.

With this mood weighing on him, he tore open the document bag with more force than necessary. Inside was a disorganized pile of papers, mostly handwritten and simply stapled together. Judging from the varied handwriting and revision marks, they had merely pieced together their individual proposals without even developing a general outline.

Looking at this was worse than reviewing the memoranda they had each sent separately.

He flipped through casually, with little interest. Most of his "little brothers" had already put forward proposals or suggestions covering these same topics, some more thorough and professional. Other proposals were obviously impractical at first glance.

What Zhou Wei cared about most now was Chu He and Ren Youzi. He already knew these two were the ringleaders...

Chu He's proposal was quite meticulous, specially placed in a paper bag with "Draft Plan for Nanyang Company Fundraising" written neatly on it. Zhou Wei then searched for Ren Youzi's proposal but couldn't find it.

"Huh? Why isn't his draft in here?" Zhou Wei found this strange. He called Little Tan over.

"Is the memorandum from that time still in the document basket?"

"Those memoranda were all taken by Chief Mu—as evidence..."

"Oh, right, of course." Zhou Wei patted his forehead.

"But I have a copy of the specific memorandum names here." Little Tan produced a copy of the registration book.

Fortunately, he had thought to keep a backup at the time, Zhou Wei reflected.

"Bring it immediately."

The copy detailed each Senator's memorandum with their specific titles. Ren Youzi's memorandum was titled "Preparing the Guangzhou Stock Exchange to Serve Nanyang Company Fundraising."

"So that's what it was!" Zhou Wei thought. No wonder his proposal wasn't in the joint draft. He must have figured out the situation!

What a blunder, truly a blunder!

He racked his brain in his office for a long while, then suddenly looked up and called out: "Little Tan!"

Little Tan had only just left. Hearing the chief's summons, he hurried back—ever since Secretary Zhou's arrest, the staff at Zhou's office had been highly nervous, fearing they might be dragged into some sensational case.

"Go to the guesthouse quietly tonight..."

At 6:30, the large conference room of Guangzhou Municipal Government finally fell quiet.

Chu He, who had been handling the main presentation, had talked until his throat was raw. He had finally finished explaining the "overall plan" hastily assembled at the tavern. Because everything had been so last-minute, the plan didn't even have a properly transcribed version, so Chu He had been forced to speak from draft paper, occasionally asking his partners in corresponding fields to supplement details.

He lectured while internally cursing. What the hell is this! Decorum, decorum—one after another looking too unprofessional! Not polished at all!

But he could only say this to himself. After all, he was still counting on his fellow sufferers' support.

"Thank you, Comrade Chu He! Everyone, let's take a thirty-minute break for dinner. At seven o'clock, we'll reconvene for discussion." Liu Xiang spoke up. "Little Zhang, take everyone to the cafeteria. I've notified them to keep food ready. Also, have the staff bring boxed meals for me, Director Wang, and Director Ai. The three of us will stay here and review everyone's valuable opinions while we eat."

Zhang Yunmi immediately closed her meeting notebook and cheerfully led the seven Senators toward the cafeteria. After everyone had departed, the three remaining men rushed to the nearby restroom to relieve themselves. Only after feeling thoroughly refreshed did they separate—Liu Xiang didn't actively smoke, which everyone knew from experience. When someone smoked during meetings, Old Liu wouldn't say anything directly, but he would personally open windows for ventilation. Faced with that stance, you wouldn't have the nerve to keep lighting one cigarette after another. Wang Qiyi didn't smoke either—perhaps all fathers with daughters were like that. But this meeting had truly dragged on too long. Ai Zhixin had been holding it in unbearably and was now strolling to the municipal government's small courtyard to satisfy his craving.

In the conference room, Liu and Wang, waiting for their boxed meals, each refilled their tea and began chatting.

"How is it?" Wang Qiyi asked first. The whole Nanyang Company matter—Wang Qiyi actually approached it more as a spectator. He was deeply invested in his work in Guangzhou, so much so that many people forgot he was a centrally-dispatched cadre. He had come locally to cooperate, not to serve as Liu Xiang's subordinate. In his view, this entire affair involved the local faction contributing people, effort, and supplies, while when credit was distributed, they could probably only appear in the "acknowledgments." Hence their reluctance and desire to make a fuss. However, from his centrally-dispatched perspective, however the two sides quarreled didn't truly matter. In the end, the benefits would definitely flow to the central government. The only difference was observing both sides' styles and eating manners, to assess what attitude to take when dealing with these people in the future.

(End of Chapter)