Dreaming back to 1949, the great powers were there to deceive us

As soon as Carter entered the city, he was blocked by a group of marching students.

The leader stood on the ladder and shouted,

"Do you want to turn the Demon City into ruins?"

Countless students immediately shouted,

"In no mood!"

"Do you want to be displaced?"

"In no mood!"

The leading student shouted in a loud voice,

"I don't want to either! This is my hometown, with its shengjianbao (steamed buns), opera, movies, the Great World, Coca-Cola, and the bustling foreign market! This morning, the Magic City was still thriving, but now, the market is withering. Why? Because war is coming!"

"Don't think war is just the responsibility of soldiers! In fact, we are closely connected to the war! China's 5,000-year history of civilization tells us that in troubled times, ordinary people are worse than dogs! If you want to keep your house, car, and money, you must support the national army to win this war!"

"We must make everyone understand that only if the national army wins the war can housing prices go back up! Only if we win can the foreign companies gain a foothold, and only if we win can the prices of the raw materials hoarded by the people increase!"

The leading student clenched his fist and shouted,

"Although we can't carry anything on our shoulders or lift anything with our hands, we can promote and encourage the national army and raise funds for them!"

"The national army will win! The national army will win!"

Carter waited for a long time before the marching students turned to another block!

Just as the driver was about to drive away, a young man holding a donation box knocked on the car window and said expectantly,

"Sir, the Demon City is our home. Our defense depends on everyone. I hope you can contribute to the soldiers on the front lines. Not a penny is too little!"

Carter casually took out a dollar and handed it over!

The young man was overjoyed and bowed 90 degrees to express his gratitude!

The car had gone less than a mile when it was blocked by the marching crowd.

After this round, Carter donated another million dollars.

In this way, Carter walked and stopped along the way, and it took more than two hours for him to reach the consulate.

I thought I could finally have some peace and quiet, but I was stopped again at my doorstep, but this time there were many old acquaintances there.

Carter got out of the car and greeted the wives of the officials.

"Good evening, ladies!"

He took a quick look and found that there were more than 100 wives of officials.

When the consulate staff saw Carter coming back, they quickly explained the reason to him in a concise manner.

Carter suddenly got a headache. Behind the official's wife were more than 100 senior officials.

Carter, in line with the principle of not offending others, said,

"Ladies, I'm aware of your intentions. Please don't worry. This difficulty is only temporary. On my way back, I saw many people raising funds for the National Army. As long as we hold on to the Magic City, housing prices will eventually go back up. As for Hu Zhenhua, the man you're looking for, he was assassinated this afternoon and narrowly escaped death. It's really inconvenient for him to show up right now. You can see the injuries on my body; they were caused by the explosion during the assassination attempt today."

Carter looked a little miserable, with gauze wrapped around his forehead, his face was swollen, and his whole body smelled strongly of medicine!

Mrs. Lin suddenly held Carter's hand and asked with concern,

"Who the hell is doing this cruel thing?"

"Still investigating!"

Everyone's mind was as clear as a mirror, and when they looked at each other, there was deep fear in their eyes.

Wang Yu!

It must be Wang Yu!

A lady asked,

"What's happening here?"

Carter immediately described the tragedy of that time in vivid detail!

Wang Yu is gone, and Carter must gain more moral support for Hu Zhenhua to dilute the impact of this incident.

The power of pillow talk is enormous.

The wives of officials were emotional creatures. After listening to Carter's description, they immediately felt deep sympathy. The bold ones began to condemn Wang Yu by name!

Carter cooperated very well and showed his wounds. He even elevated the incident to the level of damaging Sino-American relations, accusing the murderer of only caring about personal grudges and disregarding national interests. Otherwise, how could the real estate in Shanghai collapse!

Even if the market collapsed, Hu Zhenhua would save it. But now, everyone can only wait for death!

After everyone was outraged, Carter said loudly,

"Ladies, please be patient. Just over two hours ago, Director Wang Yu's sanatorium villa was bombarded. The doctor came out of the infirmary and said he did his best!"

When everyone heard that Wang Yu was dead, they had no scruples and started exposing his negative information!

From private life to work!

The darkest news is that Lao Wang’s ex-wife was actually Director Dai’s mistress. Lao Dai was tired of the old and loved the new, so in order to shirk responsibility, he stuffed that woman into Wang Yu’s arms.

In order to get a promotion and a raise, Lao Wang happily accepted it and ended up becoming a cuckold!

Once women start gossiping, they talk endlessly. They actually forget the sadness of plummeting housing prices and are very interested in chatting!

After a long time, a wife of an official finally got to the point and said,

"Mr. Carter, Chairman Hu is frightened, and we should express our condolences. However, during this special period, it is not convenient for us to visit him in person. Could you give us his telegraphic contact information? Or An Lan's contact information would also be fine."

This request was not too much. Carter took out the pen from his waist, wrote a note and handed it over, saying with a smile,

"Ladies, the Magic City is in chaos right now, everyone should go home quickly!"

After saying that, without waiting for any reaction from them, Carter walked quickly into the consulate. By the time the wives of the officials reacted, the consulate door was already closed.

What Carter didn't know was that after the trouble outside was settled, there was another trouble waiting for him in the office.

In the office, Morris looked haggard. In just one day, he seemed to have aged twenty years.

Carter was surprised to see him and asked in confusion,

"Morris, what have you done to me?"

why?

Of course it was caused by huge losses!

Morris saw Carter, as if he had seen a life-saving straw, and grabbed his arm tightly, saying earnestly,

"My friend, the real estate market in Shanghai must not collapse!"

Carter was speechless. No one wanted the real estate market to collapse, but human power was limited. Laws were laws and could not be changed by anyone's will.

Carter took a deep breath and asked calmly,

"Morris, if the worst happens, how much money will you lose?"

Morris was silent for a while, then decided to tell the truth.

"At least over $1 million!"

Carter spit out the coffee he had just drunk and asked,

"How many?"

“No less than $1 million!”

Carter's face turned very ugly, he thought of more serious consequences,

"So, the losses of other banks may not be less than yours?"

Morris nodded helplessly.

Carter couldn't understand and shouted,

"I don't understand. Many of your properties were purchased with banknotes. What's the difference between that and buying directly with paper? Also, the prices of your recently arrived goods have doubled. With such a lucrative business, you actually told me I'd lose 100 million!"

Carter remembered something and continued,

"For the Mudan Palace project, you earned tens of millions of dollars just from selling land. Where did all that money go?"

Morris cried, holding his head in his hands, and said in pain,

"Greed is the devil! We used banknotes to buy real estate, and the people exchanged the banknotes for raw materials. If we throw away the banknotes as an equivalent exchange, we have essentially exchanged raw materials for real estate. Now that the value of real estate has plummeted, the major banks will suffer heavy losses!"

Carter thought about it and asked doubtfully,

"That's not right. Your family's losses are over $1 million. How much would the combined losses of dozens of banks in Shanghai have been? You can't possibly own all the real estate in Shanghai!"

Morris suddenly slapped himself.

"Huaqi Foreign Company issued a large number of mortgage loans, most of which were lent out in the form of banknotes. We originally thought that we had sufficient capital reserves and that banknotes would not be too risky. Who could have predicted that housing prices would drop to this level, almost to zero!"

Carter finally understood. He rubbed his brows and said helplessly,

"You are all financial elites, but is the bank's risk control just a decoration?"

Morris lowered his head. He had certainly anticipated the risks involved, but high risk comes with high rewards. In fact, he did get a high return, but this profit was not visible to the public.

If Carter knew that they were manipulating the stock price, he might report it to the regulators!

Morris repeated what he had said before.

“Greed is the devil!”

He suddenly grabbed Carter's arm,

"Where's Hu Zhenhua? I want to talk to him! This fox-like fellow must have anticipated the risks ahead of time, so he didn't touch the real estate at all this time and instead sold it off early."

Carter snorted coldly and retorted,

"Morris, shirking responsibility is ungentlemanly. Why didn't Hu Zhenhua touch real estate? It's because you guys wouldn't let him play. Right in this office, Hu Zhenhua even protested! He accused you of colluding to suppress housing prices and harm the people of Shanghai!"

Morris's face was already red from the beating he had done himself, and now after hearing what Carter said, his face became even redder, and he said angrily,

"Everything is my fault! If Hu Zhenhua wants to fight or kill me, he has to wait until I get through this difficult time first!"

Carter felt soft-hearted after hearing this. No matter how many faults Morris had, he was still a representative of American capital.

You can't just ignore it!

Carter suddenly remembered another serious consequence and asked,

"Did you lend most of the $5 million the consulate injected into you last time to other banks? What would you do if those banks went bankrupt?"

Morris raised his head and looked into Carter's eyes.

"So, we can't let the real estate market in the Magic City collapse!"

Carter slammed the table and shouted,

"How are you going to prevent the real estate market from collapsing? The war is about to begin! Do you dare to invest money to support it at this time?"

"So I want to meet Hu Zhenhua and hear his opinions!"

Carter glanced at Morris and sat back on the sofa. He took a sip of coffee and then said slowly,

"Before I returned from Chongming, Hu Zhenhua had considered rescuing the market, but he had no money and wanted to borrow some from the consulate. But then he changed his mind and wanted to see how the national army performed on the battlefield."

Morris grabbed Carter's hand again and asked,

"If Hu Zhenhua decides to rescue the market, will you lend him money?"

"My credit limit has been used up. If I want to borrow money, I can only submit a report to the higher authorities to apply!"

"Then I suggest you file a report as soon as possible!"

Carter shook off Morris's hand and said unhappily,

"Don't worry about this. I will definitely do what I should do!"

Carter knocked on the table and warned solemnly,

"You'd better get back the $5 million I lent you last time, or you'll spend the rest of your life in jail!"

Morris shuddered and said quickly,

"I will definitely pay this money back! Can you first tell me where Hu Zhenhua is?"

Carter wrote a note and sent Morris away.

After sending this plague away, Carter lay on the sofa, completely exhausted.

Today was a terrible day!