Expedition to Europe

At the end of February, the Lanfang Navy exercise was nearing its end.

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

Just when the exercise was about to end, on February 26, the Lanfang Navy destroyer "Chen Sheng" discovered a ship of unknown nationality intruding into the exercise area in the southern waters of the Marshall Islands. The "Chen Sheng" immediately intercepted it, warned the ship, and ordered it to leave the exercise area immediately.

In theory, the matter should have ended here, but the fishing boat did not leave the exercise area as required 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, the United Kingdom issued a statement condemning the Lanfang Navy for firing at civilian fishing boats in the British Fiji region, causing casualties among Fijian fishermen.

Fiji was not a country at that time. The Dutch came to Fiji first in 1643, and then Europeans began to immigrate to Fiji. In 1874, Fiji officially became a British colony.

Lan Fang immediately refuted the British accusations. Long before the Lan Fang Navy began its exercises, the Lan Fang Navy had announced the exercise area. The Fijian fishing boats illegally entered the exercise area and continued to move forward without listening to the advice of the Lan Fang Navy. The Lan Fang Navy fired the guns, which was a legitimate act and could not be said.

The Lan Fang Navy's exercise area was in the Marshall Islands, which was Lan Fang's territory. Even if the Lan Fang Navy did not exercise here, the Fijian fishing boats should not have come here.

Even if it was fishing, you crossed the line.

The British certainly did not think they were wrong. Although the Lan Fang side explained the matter, the British did not accept it. With the support of the British, the Fijian local government also filed a complaint with the British court, demanding that the Lan Fang government compensate the families of the fishermen who died.

I'll pay you a lot. After explaining, the Lan Fang Ministry of Foreign Affairs forgot about it and ignored the farce directed and performed by the British.

During the Lan Fang naval exercise, the Lan Fang 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 entered the exercise area. If they were to compensate one by one, who knows what an astronomical figure the British and Americans could come up with.

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

After returning to Penglai Island, Qin Zhiyuan's first thing was to find Old Renault and prepare to let Old Renault contract part of the national debt.

"You want to issue national debt?" Old Renault was still a little incredible.

Just like Qin Zhiyuan didn't know how much money Old Renault had, Old Renault didn't know how much money Qin Zhiyuan had, but based on the number that Old Renault got every year, it can be roughly calculated how much Qin Zhiyuan can earn every year. In Old Renault's view, if Qin Zhiyuan also reached the point where he had to borrow money to live, then everyone in this world should go bankrupt.

"Yes, issue treasury bonds. How about that? Do you want to learn from Mellon and underwrite them? Then I can get you a job as the Minister of Finance." Qin Zhiyuan was half joking.

In fact, it is not just the Mellon family. The big families in the United States have the habit of underwriting treasury bonds, such as Rockefeller and Morgan. They all rely on this to maintain close relations with the US government and also exert family influence on the US government.

Qin Zhiyuan also wants Old Renault to underwrite them. In fact, it is not difficult for Old Renault. It is only 2 billion Lanfang yuan. Old Renault can afford it if he buys it all by himself.

"Haha, how much interest can you pay me--" Old Renault was a little disdainful, but he did not refuse.

"It is definitely not as much as you can earn from investing, but you gain my friendship." Qin Zhiyuan said shamelessly.

"I thought the foundation of our friendship was very solid." Old Renault cooperated and made a sad expression.

The two laughed for a while, and old Renault still took the responsibility: "Leave it to me, it's only 2 billion - you are too stingy, do you want to make more?"

"How to make money? Issue more?" Qin Zhiyuan didn't quite understand what old Renault meant.

Qin Zhiyuan made money by taking advantage of the information asymmetry that was almost like a "prophet", but when it comes to making money with money, Qin Zhiyuan can really beat old Renault.

"Forget it, don't worry about it, just give me your treasury bonds to sell, and in addition, you can indeed print more, and it's no problem to have another 40 or 50 billion." Old Renault seemed to have regarded this as a way to make a fortune, and was ready to do something big.

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

After sending old Renault away, Qin Zhiyuan found Gao Hongshi. As soon as he finished talking to Gao Hongshi about the treasury bonds, Gao Hongshi looked strange.

"Mr. Louis' recent friends are a bit complicated, one of whom is called Charles Ponzi——" As soon as Gao Hongshi said this name, Qin Zhiyuan suddenly realized it.

Charles Ponzi, many people may be unfamiliar with this name, but if we talk about the "Ponzi scheme", then I'm afraid many people have an impression of it.

That's right, Charles Ponzi is the initiator of the "Ponzi scheme".

In 1919, the World War had just ended and the world economic system was in chaos. Charles Ponzi, who had been imprisoned in Canada for counterfeiting and in Atlanta for smuggling people, claimed that he could make money by buying certain postal notes in Europe and then selling them to the United States.

Due to policies, exchange rates and other factors between countries, many economic behaviors are generally not easy for ordinary people to understand. On the one hand, Ponzi was mysterious in finance, and on the other hand, he set up a huge bait. In order to make people believe in this plan, Charles Ponzi claimed that all investments could get a 40% return within 90 days. Moreover, in order to prove that his words were true and effective, Charles Ponzi gave people "seeing is believing" evidence: the first batch of "investors" did get the returns promised by Ponzi within the specified time, so a large number of investors followed up.

According to incomplete statistics, within about a year, 40,000 residents of Boston, USA, became investors of Charles Ponzi, and they invested a total of about 15 million US dollars in this plan.

However, in 1 Ponzi finally went bankrupt and was sentenced to five years in prison by the court.

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.

The original text can be read in Liu # 9 @Book/Bar!

"Yes, I know that Charles Ponzi is a liar, a not very smart liar, but don't worry, Charles Ponzi may be able to deceive those ordinary citizens, but he dare not deceive me, because if Charles Ponzi deceives those ordinary people, the government will only lock Charles Ponzi up, but if Charles Ponzi dares to deceive me, I will kill him." Old Renault has everything under control, and he is not afraid that Charles Ponzi can jump out of Old Renault's Five Fingers Mountain.

It is indeed as Old Renault said, Charles Ponzi dare not deceive Old Renault, because Charles Ponzi cannot bear the consequences.

People like Old Renault actually have no bottom line when dealing with their enemies. Even Qin Zhiyuan is like this. Even if he is as great as Ludendorff, he can send someone to kill you even if he can't kill you on the battlefield. This is easy to understand and not criticized.

"What do you want Charles Ponzi to do? Set up a Ponzi scheme in Lanfang? Then you better be careful." Qin Zhiyuan's words are threatening.

Old Renault and Qin Zhiyuan are old friends, of course he can hear it, but Old Renault is not very frightened, because Old Renault has no intention of doing this: "How is it possible? This is also my country, and rabbits don't eat grass near their nests-"

Uh, this sentence-well, it's really appropriate.

"Charles Ponzi's character is not very good, but he has a trait that he can always make people believe what he says, especially ordinary people, so I plan to let Charles sell these treasury bonds to Europeans, Americans, anyone, and I have made it very clear to Charles that he must sell these 2 billion treasury bonds for 4 billion cash, otherwise he will be in trouble." Old Renault made a good calculation, without spending a penny of his own, and he can help Qin Zhiyuan a lot.

"Yeah, let's split the money we earn -" Qin Zhiyuan was really a little guilty when he said this.

All along, Qin Zhiyuan and Old Renault basically split the money they earned equally. Of course, Old Renault often asked for less, because relatively speaking, Qin Zhiyuan's burden was really a bit heavy.

Hearing Qin Zhiyuan's "generosity", Old Renault still had some contempt, but his words were more compassionate: "I'll give it all to you, I don't want a cent, as long as you don't want to eat my big family, I'll be thankful."

Old Renault is open-minded, and is quite clear about some "traditions" in Chinese society. Old Renault himself is now worthy of the title of "big family".

"Then I won't be polite, you know, I'm really a little tight on money recently." Qin Zhiyuan's attitude is humble, without the airs of a king, and looks like a small businessman who asks friends to borrow some money for turnover.

"Why do you do this? You are forcing things to grow, which is not good for the Lan Fang government and the Lan Fang military. The Lan Fang military should develop according to normal rules, and the Lan Fang government should bear everything they should bear. This is a healthy and progressive society, not like it is now." Old Renault has a lot of complaints about some of Qin Zhiyuan's practices.

"Louis, you may not believe me, we don't have much time to do it slowly--" Qin Zhiyuan wanted Lan Fang to develop healthily, but the current objective conditions did not allow it.

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