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Chapter 2519 Tehran Turmoil (First Update, Please Subscribe)
Tehran, Iran.

As the New Year approached, there was absolutely no festive atmosphere in Tehran.

The city was in chaos, with protesters everywhere. The streets and alleys were littered with all sorts of garbage, and the sanitation workers had gone on strike.

The morning in Tehran was shrouded in a layer of gray dust, and the sunlight struggled to penetrate the clouds, casting a dull gold hue on the glass curtain wall of the Beta Engineering Company’s office in Iran.

The office is located on the edge of the embassy district in northern Tehran, an area that should be under the most security, but at this moment there is an indescribable restlessness – the sound of chanting comes from the mosque across the street, mixed with faint shouts of slogans in the distance, breaking the usual sense of order.

In the office, the air conditioner hummed, and the monotonous mechanical sound made people feel a little depressed. Jin Shihui, the company manager, had a cigarette between his fingers. He would take a few puffs from time to time, and the hissing sound of him smoking was also a bit annoying.

He was in his early fifties, with graying temples and dark circles under his eyes, clearly having had a restless night. He stared at the engineering drawings on his desk, but his gaze drifted to the window, where a group of Iranians in traditional robes stood by the roadside, looking on with solemn expressions.

"Seriously, is this really the end of everything?"

He said that because of the current situation, which is becoming increasingly tense. In such a tense situation, how can they, as businessmen, stay out of it?
With a "bang," the office door was pushed open, and senior engineer Ma Yueyang rushed in, his briefcase strap still dangling, his face showing urgency.

"Manager, did you see the morning news? The King's Royal Guard clashed with protesters in Ahvaz, and reportedly several people were injured!"

As he spoke, he slammed a copy of today's Tehran Times onto the table. The headline on the front page, printed in bold, read: "People Call for an End to the Monarchy."

Jin Shihui looked up, forcefully stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, and then, without even glancing at the newspaper, said:

"Damn it, this is the situation now. What's worse, I got a call from the ministry this morning. He said no one dares to sign off on our project payments now—even the king's confidants are busy transferring assets, who cares about the project's progress?"

His voice was low as he glanced at the office staff who were whispering amongst themselves, and he said:
"Yesterday afternoon, half of the security team responsible for the construction site suddenly withdrew, saying they received an 'emergency transfer order,' but who knows where they were transferred to."

Everyone is now preparing for the worst-case scenario—the worst possible future!

Ma Yueyang pulled out a chair, sat down, and took a large gulp of mineral water from his briefcase.
"No one can know how bad the worst future will be, Manager. Haven't you noticed? Now, Iranians on the street, whether they are middle-class people in suits, left-wing students, or religious right-wingers wrapped in Chador's coattails, can actually stand in the same line and shout slogans."

Last week when I went to the market, I overheard two vendors chatting. One was a supporter of the left wing, and the other was a follower of Khomeini. They were actually saying, "The king must go."
They've all now united on one front: the king must go! This was unimaginable just six months ago!

"Six months ago? I wouldn't even dare to think about three months ago."

Jin Shihui gave a cold laugh, his brows furrowed, and then said in a worried tone:
"We don't know Chang'an's current attitude yet, but everyone knows that the overseas Chinese could be evacuated at any time, and the representative office has already advised all non-essential personnel to evacuate. The embassy's marines have increased their vigilance, and our company's security level has been raised to the highest. But the problem is that our equipment is still scattered across several construction sites in several cities, buildings, highways, factories, and hydroelectric power stations. The evacuation plan for several hundred employees will take at least a week—but right now, Iran's railways and airports are almost paralyzed."

Actually, what he's most worried about right now isn't just the situation, but the evacuation of hundreds of employees. For the company, that's the most important thing; nothing is more important than people.

"Yes, this is indeed a big problem."

Ma Yueyang tapped his fingers on the table, speaking in an anxious tone:
“I spoke with an Iranian engineer at the construction site yesterday. He is a graduate of the University of Tehran and has always supported the King’s modernization policies.”

But he said that even conservatives like his father now think the king is too corrupt—of the hundreds of billions of dollars earned from oil exports each year, the vast majority goes into the pockets of the royal family and the powerful, while ordinary Iranians get nothing.

He added that although the left-wing National Front and the right-wing groups differ in their ideologies, they both consider the Shah a common enemy. They both believe that the Shah's existence endangers Iran.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend. This saying is more valid in Tehran now than ever before."

Jin Shihui sighed, got up and walked to the window, watching the marching crowd in the street gradually grow larger. The signs read "Down with the King" and "Americans get out" in Persian and English.

Today is another turbulent day. Just like yesterday, Tehran is on the verge of spiraling out of control. No one knows when the king will lose power, or when he will completely lose control of the country.

“Do you remember the scene when we attended the King’s birthday celebration last year? At that time, he was still known as the ‘Guardian of the Persian Gulf,’ and envoys from all over the world gathered there. But now, even his most trusted army is beginning to waver—I’ve heard that some officers have been in secret contact with the opposition.”

After saying this, he sighed deeply and said:
"At this point, everyone is making plans for themselves, and perhaps soon we will see how they abandon the king, or rather, we will see people making plans for their own future..."

This is not the most realistic scene of the end of a dynasty. Whenever a country perishes, people always make choices. When he was young, Jin Shihui had witnessed the chaos of the end of a dynasty. After all, at the age of fifty-three, he had experienced a lot and had seen with his own eyes how people made choices.

Some chose to leave, others chose to pursue a better future; everyone made a different choice, and their fate, and that of their families, changed dramatically the moment they made those choices. So, in the past few months, seeing the chaos in Iran, Jin Shihui sometimes pondered a question—if his family hadn't left Jiaozhou back then, what kind of life would they be living now?

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but sigh softly, because his uncle's family had stayed behind.

Ma Yueyang, only 31 years old, clearly had no idea what the manager was thinking. Born in Chang'an, he had never experienced any of that. He frowned and said:

"What about our projects? We have seven projects here, worth over $300 million. But now, the Iranians are even abandoning the Shah. Who will care about our contracts? Or rather, will they continue to honor them after all this is over?"

All of this is uncertain. After all, no one knows who will come to power in the future—the right wing, the left wing, or the conservatives.

What will their attitude be towards SEA, a member of the West, at that time?

Will the contract continue to be fulfilled?
All of this is unknown.

But Jin Shihui knew very well what was most important right now. He turned around, looked at Zhao Yueyang, and said with a serious expression:
"The project is no longer important; the most important thing now is to evacuate people safely."

I'll go to the representative office again this morning to ask for their thoughts. If there's really no other way, then we'll evacuate by land. We have troops stationed in Iraq, so we'll have everyone evacuate by car from the highway to Iraq.

If transport planes are available, prioritize evacuating families. As for equipment and construction funds, we can only leave it to fate—we can't let hundreds of people stay here waiting to be swept away by this flood.

He paused, a hint of helplessness in his voice:
“You know what? Yesterday I met the manager of BP at the hotel. He said they had received instructions from London to completely suspend all operations in Iran. Tehran right now is like a powder keg about to explode, and the King is the one who lit the fuse. It's just that this time, no one is willing to put out the fire for him.”

"Where are the Americans?"

Ma Yueyang asked:
"Hasn't Pahlavi been aligning himself with the Americans all along? What's the Americans' attitude now?"

"Americans? If the Americans supported Pahlavi, how could the situation have deteriorated to this point?"

Jin Shihui said in an extremely helpless tone:
"It is because the Americans abandoned Pahlavi that the situation here has deteriorated so quickly."

Even as a businessman, Jin Shihui knew that Americans were unreliable and could not be counted on.

"And what about us?"

"us……"

Jin Shihui was silent for a moment, then said:
“We are different from the United States. We are waging a war on terror in Lebanon, but what about the Americans?”

They have the capability and the means to support Iran, but they've done nothing..."

Doing nothing is tantamount to giving up!

Does Iran, abandoned by the United States, have a future?

Outside the office, more and more people gathered, and the slogans grew louder and louder. The sunlight was completely blocked by the sandstorm, and the whole of Tehran was shrouded in a depressing grayness.

Jin Shihui and Ma Yueyang exchanged a glance and saw the same emotion in each other's eyes—anxiety, unease, and a fear of the unknown future.

They knew that perhaps soon Iran's old era would end, and they, as foreigners at the eye of the storm, had to hurry and escape this soon-to-be-boiling land before the massive wave arrived.

　I highly recommend Yi Xiu Qian Kun's new book, "Zhao Nan Ming"—In the early years of the thirteenth year of the Yongli reign, the Qing army pressed in, and Emperor Yongli, Zhu Youlang, fled to Tengchong with his family.

　　At this critical juncture, Crown Prince Zhu Cixuan, possessed by the soul of a time traveler from another era, resolutely went north to Sichuan to oversee the country and resist the Qing!
　　Because he firmly believed:
　　For more than a decade, the land of Kyushu has been in ruins, yet righteous men from the common people still call out to one another.

　　When the royal army marches north to conquer the Central Plains, I refuse to believe that the world will not belong to the Zhu family!
　　

(End of this chapter)