National Tide 1980.

In January 1989, the book "Japan Can Say No" co-authored by Japanese member of parliament and novelist Shintaro Ishihara and Sony founder Akio Morita was published.

The book makes a bold prediction - although the post-war world has been led by the United States, in the 21st century, it is likely that Japan will be the leader!
So the United States should stop expecting Japan to be inferior to it, and Japan should be tougher on the United States.

The book even cites a conspiracy theory that is widely circulated in Japan - the reason why the United States used atomic bombs on Japan but not on Germany was because of racial discrimination.

But the reality is that the atomic bomb was successfully tested in July 1945, two months after Germany surrendered.

At this time, Emperor Showa, who had lost his mind, as the highest leader of Japan at the time, agreed to the "one-strike peace theory" in order to avoid unconditional surrender.

Japan therefore launched a suicide attack by ramming American warships with planes.

Despite paying a huge price, it still ended in failure, and became the only country in the world to be bombed by atomic bombs, and by two atomic bombs.

In short, this book, which is full of rejection of self-reflection, bullying the weak and fear of the strong, and self-righteousness, quickly became a hot topic once it was published, and caused an uproar when it was spread to the United States.

The voices of criticism from abroad are growing louder and louder. Many celebrities and history experts who have read the book have expressed shock and astonishment at the views in the book, which has triggered a great discussion surrounding the book.

A year later, an American writer who had long been critical of Japan published a book titled Japan As-Anything But-Number One.

It has to be said that in this world, the Japanese are actually a special country where both "good" and "evil" are more prominent.

At the same time, the Japanese are not aware of their own "specialness".

They have always been naive... or one could say, shameless, indulging in the fantasy that "Japan is a perfect and excellent nation", firmly believing that they can travel freely in the world and that the crimes they have committed will be forgotten by the world with the passage of time.

Leaving aside what happened in the past, even in Japan's current bubble economy, this blindly optimistic and narcissistic mentality has still become the fatal weakness of this country.

In fact, behind the Japanese's self-proclaimed wealth and blind self-confidence, they have always only focused on their own achievements, but turned a blind eye to the various problems in their own country.

In Japan of this era, they were immersed in a prosperous era, shouting "The Japanese and the Japanese system are excellent", "If you sell Tokyo, you can buy the entire United States", and "Japan is the center of the future world economy."

However, we fail to see the hardships of the average Japanese worker who works 400 hours more per year than Western workers, lives in cramped rooms, cannot afford to buy a house even after working for 10 years, spends an hour every day on a crowded train to go to work, and then takes another hour on the train home after get off work.

Just like ordinary families like Yujiro Sakai and Midoriko, they live in a social environment full of illusory bubbles and rampant consumerism. They believe in all the glorified praise of Japanese society and the Japanese economy, but are unaware of the dangers of the widening gap between the rich and the poor and financial traps, and their judgment of the future is only blindly optimistic.

Otherwise, how could Zuo Haiyoujiro dare to bet his family's future to borrow so much money?

From a certain perspective, this is undoubtedly a tragedy of the times, and they are the victims of the times.

Of course, in Japan of that era, there were many people who were more exaggerated than them and ran further on the wrong path.

Some people are even quite lucky. Not only did they not feel the contradictions and distress in life because of the economic bubble, but because they dared to participate in the speculative game in a "all-in" manner, they became the darlings of the times and speculative heroes in the minds of the public, and their net worth skyrocketed.

But this temporary glory cannot make these people successful forever. It can only aggravate the arrogant and domineering part of their temperament, making them do more absurd and unreasonable crazy things under their arrogance.

As the old saying goes, too much is as bad as too little...

.........

One day at the end of January 1989, Ning Weimin, who had to attend a social event and was only able to go home and go to bed in the early hours of the morning, slept until about ten in the morning.

He opened the window, drove out the stuffy air in the house, and let in the breeze and bright sunshine.

The light was bright, and at a glance, over the trees in the garden, you could see Keiko Matsumoto holding her child and basking in the sun.

Ning Weimin got dressed and went downstairs. The maid put the toast in the oven without any instructions.

And placed today's morning paper on the dining room table.

At his home in Denenchofu, Ning Weimin likes to tear a slice of toast every morning, spread butter on it leisurely, and eat it with half-cooked scrambled eggs, bacon and juice while reading the newspaper.

Especially recently, Japanese society has been extremely lively, with eye-catching news everywhere.

Whether it is political news, economic news, or entertainment gossip, there are many highlights, which makes Ning Weimin enjoy reading the newspaper and eating breakfast even more.

"Corrupt politics! Economic Planning Agency Director General Ken Harada has been exposed! Resign!"

Just as Ning Weimin opened today's "Daily News", such a sensational headline caught his eye.

He stared at the title with wide eyes and quickly read the content, only to realize that the news was actually about the follow-up to the Recruit incident that broke out in Japan on June 6 last year.

Japanese human resources and media company Recruit bribed several politicians with unlisted stocks. After the stocks were listed, the price increased fivefold. These politicians made huge profits by selling the stocks.

The opposition parties seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and pursued the case relentlessly, resulting in more and more LDP members of parliament and senior government officials being exposed for being involved in the scandal.

In December 1988, Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, embroiled in a scandal, was forced to resign.

On December 12, the then Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita had to reorganize the cabinet, but just three days later, the new Minister of Justice (Tani Kawasaki) was exposed and resigned, forming a domino resignation phenomenon.

As 1989 approached, the scandal showed no signs of ending and instead intensified.

The Minister of Economic Planning mentioned in today's newspaper is clearly another politician who has fallen because of this incident.

It has to be said that after Takeshita came to power, Japan's economic bubble had not yet burst, but the Liberal Democratic Party's political bubble burst first.

That’s not all. Looking further down, the conflict between the Japanese people and the Japanese government over the “self-restraint order” became even more entertaining for Ning Weimin.

It turns out that after the death of Emperor Showa, the Japanese people's reaction was relatively good during the first two days of mourning.

Although most normal TV programs were suspended and replaced with a 48-hour loop of the Emperor's special programs, all public entertainment activities were stopped and all entertainment venues were closed, the Japanese people still basically complied with the requirements of "self-discipline."

But if this continues for too long, ordinary people will not be able to bear it.

Just as the saying goes "it is difficult to go from extravagance to frugality", the Japanese people are used to a life of debauchery and happiness every day, and it is difficult for many Japanese to adapt to this sadness.

As a result, the national mourning period became too long and the people were fed up with it.

First, NHK received thousands of protest calls in just one day, demanding to "watch programs other than the Emperor's." With the sharp increase in customers at major video rental stores in Japan, sales increased to four to five times the usual level.

Furthermore, those working in the sex industry are almost cursing their mothers.

These people began to protest to the Japanese government. No one wanted their livelihood to be affected by the emperor's death.

So much so that when Emperor Showa was buried, some people disrupted the funeral, planned bombings, and demanded that the emperor be held accountable for war crimes.

The people's starkly different reactions to Hirohito's death seem to foreshadow Japan's contradictory situation this year - amidst prosperity, there are hidden crises.

Just think about it, these various bizarre events are just like a series of absurd and funny jokes. In Ning Weimin's eyes, how could he not be happy?
Naturally, I think it is more exciting than the monkey show farce.

But then again, the entertainment section of the day should have been more interesting, but the news about the entertainment industry made him feel less relaxed.

Because the newspaper disclosed such a news that Haruki Jiaochuan's Jiaochuan Agency is about to invest in the shooting of two films.

One of them is "Heaven and Earth", which is adapted from the historical novel of the same name written by Kaionji Shiogoro. It tells the story of the duel between the famous Japanese Warring States generals Kenshin Uesugi and Shingen Takeda.

The other is "Under the Aurora," an emotional story about a Siberian hunter and an husky teaming up to face the challenges of nature.

The specific content of the news not only surprised Ning Weimin that Jiaochuan Agency was willing to spend 2.2 billion yen to produce "Heaven and Earth" and 1 billion yen to produce "Under the Aurora", but more importantly, the choice of directors for the two films also surprised Ning Weimin.

Because the director of "Heaven and Earth" was actually Haruki Kawakawa himself, and the other film "Under the Aurora" was directed by the famous director Kinji Fukasaku who had an emotional grudge with Keiko Matsumoto.

A person who, in Ning Weimin's opinion, should have been completely banned by Mist Studio and Shochiku Films.

A man who should never again be given the opportunity to direct a big-budget film.

How is this going?

How could Fukasaku be so lucky! Has he found a new supporter?

Haruki Jiaochuan is also very interesting. Is he going against the Mist Studio?

Also... where did they get so much money, and how could they be so courageous!

The investment in "Heaven and Earth" actually exceeded that of "Crazy Rich Asians"?
Ning Weimin opened his eyes wide and looked at the relevant news in the entertainment section. The once smiling face of Jiaochuan Haruki and the indignant face of Fukasaku Kinji flashed through his mind one after another.

He really couldn't understand it, because other people of this era were not like him, who knew accurately that the Internet would bring huge copyright income in the future.

If we follow the current movie operation model, aren't they afraid of losing money and not being able to recover the production costs?
This was really strange. He always felt that this matter was not that simple. It was impossible for Haruki Jiaochuan to make such a risky and desperate move based on his own strength.

From a business logic perspective, this doesn't make sense.

There is no need to help Kinji Fukasaku so blatantly to offend the Mist Studio, which is gaining more and more influence in the industry...

But then again, for the moment, Ning Weimin probably didn't have the time to think about this matter carefully and figure out the whole story.

Because just when he felt completely clueless and was lost in thought with the newspaper in his hand, his mobile phone rang.

"I'm Takahashi from Yamato Kanko, good morning! President Ning!"

It turned out to be President Takahashi of the Yamato Kanko Meguro Branch who called.

He was the first person to help Ning Weimin open up the trolley suitcase business.

I had drunk and eaten with Ning Weimin in private many times.

Although they cannot be said to be friends and he is only doing official business, in the cooperative relationship between the two parties, President Takahashi is indeed Ning Weimin's closest partner.

So Ning Weimin also replied happily, "Good morning, President Takahashi."

"Oh, did I wake you up?"

President Takahashi seemed to notice something strange in Ning Weimin's voice and said.

"Oh, sorry, I was having breakfast."

"No, no, I should be sorry, President Ning. I'm sorry to bother you."

"It's okay. I've almost finished eating. Don't be so polite. Oh, by the way, what do you want to talk to me about?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone. "Ah, it's like this. Someone wants to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss a deal. When would be convenient for you?"

"Want to discuss a deal with me? What deal? Who is this person?" Ning Weimin asked curiously.

However, the other party was even more embarrassed this time. Takahashi said in a somewhat uneasy voice, "I'm sorry, I don't know much about the specific situation. This matter was instructed to me by the chairman of our Yamato Tourism. I only know that the person who wants to meet you is very rich, and he is about to become the new controlling shareholder of our Yamato Tourism. As far as I know, he seems to have offered to buy our Yamato Tourism at a price that our chairman cannot refuse. In other words, although the chairman will still be the chairman in the future, the company will belong to this person. So...so the chairman asked me to invite you..."

What? Yamato Tourism was acquired? Ning Weimin was shocked and felt even more strange. He became curious about the person who wanted to see him.

However, his tone was still calm and steady.

"Okay, I get it. I also understand what the president means. Since you and I are more familiar with each other, then I'd like to trouble you to arrange a meeting. If the other party is willing, even today is no problem. I'm available in the afternoon and evening."

"Really? Thank you so much. I'm really sorry, but it's a pity that I can't find out more details..."

It could be heard from the phone that Gao Qiao on the other side was holding the microphone and speaking as if saluting to Ning Weimin.

So the matter was settled smoothly.

"Nothing. Considering our cooperative relationship, don't we have a little trust? Besides, it's reasonable for me to meet this major shareholder. Don't feel guilty. What else can you do in such a situation..."

"Oh, President Ning, I am so grateful for your understanding and consideration. I will arrange the meeting place and time and get back to you soon..." (End of this chapter)