money player

The place to eat is a restaurant called Silver Wing next to the Ximen Red House in Ximending.

Before entering the door, Chen Changtong introduced that Silver Wing was originally an Air Force restaurant, which was recently privatized. The name Silver Wing refers to the image of the silver flying wings on the Air Force badge. The chefs and waiters remain the same, and the guests are mainly bigwigs of the party, government and military.

Because the Air Force Academy was originally located in Jianqiao, Hangzhou, and moved to Chengdu after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Yin Yi mixes the characteristics of Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine with Sichuan cuisine.

Finally, let me end with what he thinks is the most important point - Silver Wing is currently the only restaurant in Taiwan that sells mainland Chinese cuisine.

Xian Yaowen agreed and followed him into the restaurant. As soon as Chen Changtong's right foot landed, his left foot wanted to fly forward. He stopped and said, "Yaowen, let Baoqi take you to your seat. I saw an acquaintance and I'll go say hello."

"Brother-in-law, please do as you please."

The troops split into two groups, one group followed Fei Baoqi to a round table and sat down. As soon as Xian Yaowen sat down, he turned to search for Chen Changtong and locked onto him. He saw Chen Changtong talking to a young woman in front of a small table.

The woman looked a little old. At a glance, she could be between twenty-four and twenty-eight and twenty-nine. Upon closer inspection, she was at most twenty-one or twenty-two years old. The reason for the huge difference was that based on the not-so-obvious dark spots on the woman's face, it was a face that often wore oil paint or heavy makeup. The woman was most likely an actress.

It's strange that Chen Changtong took the initiative to greet an actor and was so humble. What hidden identity does this woman have?
"Yao Wen, come and order the food."

Hearing Fei Baoqi's words, Xian Yaowen turned his head back and said, "Sister, I have never been here, so I don't know what the sign is. You should make the decision."

Seeing Xian Yaowen's politeness, Fei Baoqi turned to ask Lu Xiaojia and his wife. When she turned around, her eyes glanced at Chen Changtong, but she only stayed there for a moment before passing by without changing her expression.

Seeing this, Xian Yaowen became even more curious about the woman's identity. Fei Baoqi remained calm and not jealous. Most of the time, the woman's noble status was not because the man who slept with her mother was great, but because the man who slept with her was not ordinary.

Putting his curiosity aside for the time being, Xian Yaowen turned to look at Qiong who was sitting next to him.

“Have you ever had Chinese food?”

"Is Li Hongzhang's offal considered Chinese food?" Qiong asked back.

"Calculate."

The fact that Joan asked this question shows that she has some understanding of Chinese food, so there is no need to worry that she cannot accept Chinese food.

"Eat."

“Were you forced to come to Taiwan?”

"No." Qiong took out the bubble gum she had been chewing for who knows how long, took out a piece of waste paper from her pocket, wrapped it up and put it aside, then looked at Xian Yaowen and said, "I was forced to come to see you."

"To travel?"

"Work."

"So, what are you an expert in?"

The United States' aid to Taiwan is comprehensive, aimed at helping Taiwan restore its post-war economy, build a basic industrial system, and strengthen its military defense capabilities. This time, not only military personnel but also a large number of experts from various industries arrived in Taiwan.

"Cement," June said quietly.

Xian Yaowen is no longer calm. Being assigned to Taiwan, she is definitely not the best in the United States, but she is not a unqualified person either. She is definitely qualified to be called an expert. The rock girl has transformed into a female expert. Is this a cute contrast?

"Institute? University?"

“UI-C, University of Illinois Cement Laboratory.”

"Wow." Xian Yaowen chuckled, "Dr. Charlotte?"

"postgraduate."

Xian Yaowen pointed at Qiong's hair and said, "You have achieved your goal. I really don't like your hairstyle."

"You're not that important. I want a change of mood." Joan's tone remained calm.

Xian Yaowen nodded, "I wish you a good mood."

"I will."

"uh-huh."

Seeing Chen Changtong coming over, Xian Yaowen ended his conversation with Qiong.

As soon as Chen Changtong sat down, he said to Xian Yaowen, "Does Yaowen like to listen to opera?"

“I go to listen occasionally, but I’m not an amateur.”

"There is a Yongle Theater nearby. Boss Gu's Gu Opera Troupe has been performing there for a long time. I have already reserved a seat. Let's go over and listen to the opera after dinner."

"Listen to my brother-in-law's arrangements."

As soon as Chen Changtong mentioned Boss Gu, Xian Yaowen instantly realized who the woman was. She was Gu Zhengqiu, only 21 years old. According to the newspapers, she was Taiwan's number one Peking Opera master and the most popular star. Jiang Fangliang was her number one fan, and Jiang Jingguo was her rumored lover.

Judging from Chen Changtong's attitude just now, the word "scandal" is probably superfluous.

Tsk, look at this couple, one is greedy for someone's craftsmanship, the other is greedy for someone's body, and the division of labor is quite clear.

Xian Yaowen secretly said it was a pity, this melon can only be eaten as a melon, it has little effect on him. After all, he came to Taiwan to poach people, and he poached people from the Chiang family. It didn't make much sense to connect with Chiang Ching-kuo, so could he invite him to poach together?

As the cold dishes were served, the atmosphere became lively and the focus of the topic shifted to Sun Shuying. She was able to connect everyone present and would not leave anyone out.

This meal is a family dinner. There is not much dinner culture to promote. The wine becomes casual and we can enjoy the food.

During this time, Xian Yaowen also took care of Qiong and found that her chopstick holding movement was very standard and eating was even easier.

In the past few years, the University of Illinois accepted 30% of Chinese students studying in the United States, making it the university with the highest proportion of Chinese students. It is not surprising that Qiong has several Chinese student friends.

After having a good meal and a few drinks, we moved to the Yongle Theater.

The theater was not far away. Just a few steps away, I arrived at the theater entrance and joined the crowd of people.

As the crowd flowed into the screening room, the scene that came into view was a little simple. There was no decoration in the screening room, and the stools were made of solid wood, not even coated with tung oil, but they were full of buttocks.

Looking forward, facing the stage, the seats in the first five rows were sparsely populated with only three or two people, in stark contrast to the full seats in the back.

Chen Changtong brought everyone to the second row and occupied a row of seats on the right. Fei Baoqi sat at the outermost seat, Chen Changtong sat next to him, Fei Baoshu sat next to him, Xian Yaowen sat between Fei Baoshu and Qiong, next to Qiong was Sun Shuying, and then came Lu Xiaojia and his wife.

This seat is an interesting arrangement.

Without asking Xian Yaowen, one can guess that the seats in the first five rows are reserved for dignitaries, but no one knows how they are specifically allocated. If this is clarified, one can probably get a glimpse of Taiwan’s power structure from the chairs.

The show had not started yet and it was inconvenient to talk, so Xian Yaowen was happy to have some free time and sort out the things he needed to do in Taiwan.

First of all, as a reason for coming to Taiwan, investment in a garment factory was a must, but not in the name of "Hong Kong" Chinese Garment, but in the name of "New York" Chinatown Group.

Some time ago, he registered the Chinatown Group in New York, listing the China Garment and MLM companies as subsidiaries. Above it, there is a parent company registered in Zurich.

If the Dubai strategy goes well, Chinatown Group will soon become a Dubai company. If there are setbacks, the place of registration will probably be changed to the Cayman Islands or Andorra, a populous country in Europe.

It is so complicated just for one ultimate purpose - tax avoidance.

Of course, there were some small thoughts before the ultimate goal. For example, when it came to investing in and building a factory in Taiwan, the Chinese Xian Yaowen and Hong Kong China Garment Co., Ltd. came forward, and the ones who signed the contract were American Adam Hepburn and the New York Chinatown Group.

If a businessman in this province were asked to give the Kuomintang a heartfelt word, it would probably be "Fuck you". The superficial reason for this is the corruption of individual officials, and the deeper reason is that the Kuomintang is currently implementing a predatory economic system, with two overt and covert lines: the overt one is to harm private interests and enrich the public, and the covert one is to rob private interests and enrich the rich.

Since the early 1930s, the Nationalist government has been pursuing a policy of "state-owned enterprises advancing and private enterprises retreating", with the general direction of achieving an economic structure in which the state-owned economy is the mainstay and the private economy is the auxiliary. However, due to various reasons, the progress of this policy has not been fast, and it eventually collapsed halfway.

Living in Taiwan and facing an impoverished industrial system is both a crisis and an opportunity. It is a good opportunity to build a state-owned economic system from scratch. However, the ideological awareness of local businessmen is not high, and they cannot say nice things like "everything in a certain company belongs to the party and the country." Even without chopping off a few heads, they cannot understand what "people's retreat" means.

As for showing sympathy to the pillars who carry heavy burdens for the party and the country, that is even more impossible. With such inconsiderateness, the pillars have no choice but to put aside their manners, roll up their sleeves, go up the mountain to cut bamboo to make bamboo poles, and hum rhymes while knocking on the poles.

In a word, Taiwan currently does not have the soil to nurture excellent private enterprises. It is too difficult to succeed in investing and starting a business here unless you have connections above or in the United States.

Xian Yaowen doesn’t want “or”, he wants “harmony”.

This is not difficult because there are people above us. There are many people who want to get shares, and they have to be given shares. What needs to be done is to pick out those with a longer political life from the countless candidates.

This is not difficult with connections in the United States. Including the Charlotte family in Taiwan's strategy is not just in the interests of Xian Yaowen alone. The relationship between American companies and the US military can completely put an end to harassment from scoundrels. In addition, with connections, there is no need to worry about "serious" investments, but the "improper" ones need to be carefully sorted out.

In 1948, Wang Shijie, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the National Government, and Stuart, the U.S. Ambassador to China, signed the Sino-U.S. Economic Assistance Agreement. In the same year, the Executive Yuan established the Executive Yuan U.S. Aid Utilization Committee, abbreviated as the American Aid Committee.

The following year, the American Aid Commission moved to Taiwan, with Chen Cheng as its chairman. Now, after a period of interruption, American aid has resumed. Out of distrust, the United States has proposed inviting a third party to conduct an audit. This third party is White Engineering Consultants, a company with roots in Washington.

The basic process of the civilian part of US aid is as follows:

In the first step, Washington allocated funds to the American Aid Commission. In the second step, the experts hired by White proposed specific industrial plans and applied for funds from the American Aid Commission. The American Aid Commission approved and allocated funds to specific project teams. White's experts led and supervised Taiwanese personnel to implement the projects.

With this process, the United States can neither control the misappropriation of USAID funds nor supervise the various tricks in the project implementation process. It can only ensure that most of the funds are used in the right way.

Building an industrial system means a huge amount of projects. Everyone in the industry knows that if a project is to be done well, a pyramid construction strategy must be adopted. In layman's terms, it means subcontracting at every level to allow as many people with a say as possible to share the profits. In this way, it will be convenient for everyone to unite as one and work together to shift the blame to ordinary people when the market collapses.

If one person is asked to bear the debt of NT$800 million, it would easily overwhelm him or her. But what if, based on the principle of egalitarianism, 800 million Taiwanese people are asked to bear the debt?
Anyone can do elementary school arithmetic problems. One dollar is nothing. No one will rebel for one dollar. Besides, there is no need to tell the people of Taiwan that they are in debt of one dollar. Just quietly deduct it from what they deserve, without anyone knowing.

It is said that there should be a general contractor among the layers of subcontracting. Xian Yaowen does not want to be the general contractor. He only wants to be a pioneer of the general contracting system, to introduce advanced engineering experience of future generations into the present and promote social progress.

"Manager Chen, Mrs. Chen."

"Director Ren, Madam Ren, do you have time to come and listen to the opera today?"

"Yun Qian likes Boss Zhou's play, so I came here with her. Manager Chen, are these your guests?"

"My brother-in-law was invited by the government to come to Taiwan to do market research." Chen Changtong replied and said to Xian Yaowen: "Yaowen."

Xian Yaowen turned and looked.

"Yao Wen, let me introduce you to this person, the director of the Finance Department."

Before Chen Changtong finished speaking, Xian Yaowen had already stood up with Fei Baoshu. After he finished speaking, he bowed slightly and extended his right hand forward, "Hello, Director Ren, I am Xian Yaowen from Hong Kong Chinese Garment Co., Ltd."

"Hello, Mr. Xian, I'm Ren Xianqun." Ren Xianqun held Xian Yaowen's hand and said with a faint smile, "Mr. Xian is really a young and promising man."

"Director Ren, thank you for your compliment." Xian Yaowen gestured to Fei Baoshu, and then nodded to Ren Xianqun's wife, Mou Yunqian, "Director Ren, Madam Ren, this is my wife Fei Baoshu."

"Hello, Madam Xian, I am Ren Zhangyunqian."

"Hello, Madam Ren."

"Xianqun, let's sit with Manager Chen?" Zhang Yunqian said to Ren Xianqun after shaking hands with Fei Baoshu.

"Manager Chen, excuse me?"

"I couldn't ask for more. Director Ren, Madam Ren, please."

The seats moved, the ladies sat in the middle and the gentlemen sat on the sides, with a clear distinction, like the Chu River and the Qiong River.

Xian Yaowen was a little depressed by this. Ren Xianqun was quite famous. He knew that Ren Xianqun and Wu Guozhen were from the same faction. It was not an exaggeration to say that Ren Xianqun was Wu Guozhen's disciple. Wu Guozhen and Chiang Ching-kuo had been at odds for a long time, and later they became enemies with Chen Cheng. He just hoped that some people would not be so petty.

After a few minutes, he wanted to say "Fuck you."

At the beginning of the play, "The Drunken Concubine", as soon as Yang Yuhuan, played by Gu Zhengqiu, appeared on the stage, Ren Xianqun's gaze was like a pair of barbed fish hooks firmly hooked on Gu Zhengqiu. It was obvious from his expression that he wanted to pull a big fish ashore and didn't want to be a punk.

It’s true that the slightly plump Gu Zhengqiu only looks above average in real life, but once he puts on makeup and stands on the stage, especially when he plays Yang Yuhuan, he is simply stunning. No wonder he has charmed so many people.

Xian Yaowen tilted his head and said to Qiong, "Do you understand?"

"I don't understand, it sounds good."

“Because I don’t understand it, it sounds good?”

Qiong glanced at Xian Yaowen and said, "Sometimes, art doesn't need to be understood, it only needs to be felt."

Xian Yaowen chuckled and said, "I understand what you mean, so you don't need me to translate for you?"

Joan ignored it and returned her gaze to the stage.

Xian Yaowen pretended to be intoxicated, watching with his eyes and listening with his ears, but his mind drifted away from the theater and wandered on the streets of Taipei.

Hong Kong.

Not long after the Xian family's dinner ended, Cen Peipei was drinking tea with her guest Meng Xiaodong in the living room.

Xian Yaowen has almost sorted out the relationship of the Cantonese opera museum project. What remains is to provide funds for the construction of the museum and to implement the software. The work will be handed over to the opera fan Cen Peipei.

"Mrs. Du, please try this tea. My master got this Longjing tea from the mainland. He said it was the best Longjing tea picked from the tea trees on Lion Peak near West Lake. I don't know much about tea, so I can't tell whether it's good or bad." (End of this chapter)