money player

"Mrs. Xian, be careful."

In Michelle's office, Michelle helped Zhou Ruoyun sit down in a chair.

Zhou Ruoyun sat down and smiled at Michelle. "Thank you."

Michelle opened the window wider to dispel the smell of smoke, then sat back in her executive chair and looked at Zhou Ruoyun with a light smile, "What business does Boss Zhou want me to do?"

Zhou Ruoyun smiled and said, "Director Morgan, I would like to ask you to agree to mortgage the funds in Jin Fugui Holdings' account to HSBC and ask Manager Morgan to arrange a loan from Singapore."

Michelle laughed heartily, "How much do you need?"

£100 million.

“Mrs. Zhou, the Morgan board has agreed. Michelle will now serve you.”

After half an hour.

Grace walked into the office of John Paterson, manager of HSBC’s mining and plantation division.

“Mr. Patterson.”

"Miss Sassoon."

Grace sat down opposite Patterson and got straight to the point: “I have a client who wants to buy a tin mine.”

Patterson laughed and said, "That's great."

HSBC controlled over 70% of the loans for tin mines and rubber plantations in Malaya, held mortgages on hundreds of tin mines, and was the trustee of mining emergency assets appointed by the colonial government.

The Mining and Plantation Department has an intermediary business that facilitates transactions between mine owners and buyers, charging an intermediary fee of 1.5% to 2.5%.

“The client has £100 million but wants to acquire a tin mine worth no less than £500 million.”

"installment?"

“先支付20%或更少的首期款，其余部份1952年1月5日支付，客户可以给矿业与种植园部5%的利息。”

Patterson immediately understood Grace's meaning: "If the tin mine's title is mortgaged to HSBC, I can acquire a tin mine worth £1000 million for my clients."

The price of refined tin kept rising, but British mine owners in Malaya were terrified by the Malayan Communist Party guerrillas. They could make a lot of money by mining tin, but they couldn't mine it smoothly or transport it out. What was the point of playing? They might as well sell and leave while the tin price was rising.

The reality is that Paterson has dozens of listings for sale, and £1000 million can only absorb a few of them. This is no problem for him. What he needs to do is keep all the 5% interest in HSBC, and he will take the personal benefits that the mine owners are entitled to.

Xian Yaowen grabbed Wang Youjia's wrist, pulled her hand out of his crotch, took out a letter from his briefcase, and wrote a letter to Zhou Zhilan.

She was instructed to contact traders in Jiamusi to place an order for Zihua No. 11 soybeans to be harvested in November of this year.

This type of bean makes an exceptional tofu. It's time to improve the quality of the bean products we eat at home. Let's buy a plot of land near a mountain spring with good water quality, build a tofu workshop, and hire two skilled tofu makers to manage it.

Oh, the market for mountain products at the foot of Changbai Mountain is almost bustling with activity. I need to find a reliable person to be in charge of purchasing some rare mountain products.

or……

Why not expand it further and contact the supply and marketing cooperative there? The Xian family can use some mountain products for trade to supplement their income.

Write the letter and ask the hotel to mail it for you.

Jakarta.

Ban Chi Lan, Tak Kee Tea House, is a shop that mainly sells iced coffee.

Xian Yuzhen sat in the corner, holding a cup of Luwak coffee, which was quite rare at the time.

Luwak means civet cat.

Ruwak coffee is still a rarity; few people in Jakarta can afford it, and it's mostly reserved for Sukarno's cronies—it's practically a special supply. However, cat feces collectors in Aceh and South Lamphu secretly sell cat feces to Chinese middlemen in Banjran, so you can get it there, though it's a bit pricey.

Xian Yuzhen took a sip of coffee, pondering for a moment how to complete the order given by Zhongfeng Company.

Chung Fung Company plans to import large quantities of civets from Indonesia to Hong Kong, extracting their scent from live animals to supply Juliet brand management, which is entering the perfume industry, and to supply Jin Jitang with civet incense. The skin and flesh will be supplied to the wild game market at low prices, using low prices and wild game to tame the taste buds of low-end consumers and lead the trend of eating civets.

Before wild civets become endangered, Zhongfeng Company will start large-scale breeding, and the not-so-tasty skin and meat need a mature processing channel.

Because Sin Yu-chen was coming to Indonesia, Sin Yiu-man placed an order with Chung Fung Company to find suppliers for her. The company purchased large quantities at high prices, which, while completing the business, also caused the number of civets in Indonesia to decrease rapidly, cutting off the lifeline of "Indonesian civet coffee" and ending its rise.

This world only has Zhongfeng Kopi Luwak (civet coffee), the origin of which is yet to be determined. Kopi Luwak is not unique to Indonesia; the Philippines has the even older Alamid coffee. In fact, as long as there is an environment with "civets and coffee trees," wild Kopi Luwak can be produced.

Currently, the influence of Kopi Luwak is limited to small circles in Indonesia and the Netherlands. The brand story has not even begun, so it is entirely possible to start from scratch and rebuild a new story.

Within five minutes, Xian Yuzhen had sorted out some clues. She turned to look at the door and happened to meet the eyes of a man.

White, British.

The man sat down opposite Xian Yuzhen. "Would you like another Americano?"

"The American style is not the dollar, and not everyone likes it."

"I've gotten used to drinking Americano in Washington."

"What's the difference between American style in Washington and American style in Tokyo?"

"I've never had a Tokyo Americano, so I don't know."

Xian Yuzhen took out a copy of "Oliver Twist" and placed it on the table, saying, "It's a sign of care from home."

Then he took out a copy of "Great Expectations" and said, "My greetings to you."

The man picked up two books, tucked them under his arm, and asked, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Who are exporting tin?"

On August 1, Indonesia took a major step in nationalizing its tin mines, announcing that 100% of tin exports would be monopolized by the state-owned "National Bank" and that all private export licenses would be abolished.

"the day after tomorrow."

After saying this, the man got up and left.

Xian Yuzhen picked up a local Chinese newspaper, "Xinbao," and began her leisurely reading time.

But her leisure did not last long. An Army intelligence officer came over and placed a stack of documents on the table. She also took out a stack of documents and placed them on the table. The two completed the intelligence exchange in silence.

The UK and Indonesia cooperate on intelligence matters, and she entered Indonesia under the pretext of exchanging intelligence, revealing her identity to Indonesian intelligence agencies.

With the documents in hand, she returned to the Hotel des Galeries in Pasar Baru, a French-style hotel and a popular venue for wealthy Chinese businessmen to book wedding banquets. Chinese girls in Jakarta all hope to create beautiful memories here.

She sat by the window, opened a intelligence report, and read it carefully, trying to extract interesting passages from between the lines, such as the claim that a certain wealthy Chinese businessman was colluding with the Malayan Communist Party.

Xian Yaowen took off his leather shoes, squatted down on the stool, took a large bowl of rice from the stall owner, pulled a pair of chopsticks from the chopstick holder hanging on the support post, and shoveled a large mouthful of rice into his mouth.

Just as his chopsticks reached for the dish, an older man squatting to the side with a rice shovel spoke up, "Young man, dressed so smartly—a sharp suit, shoes so perfect they reflect in the mirror—and you still dare to come here and squat on a stool to eat a couple of dishes? Aren't you worried about oil stains ruining your nice clothes?"

Sin Yiu-man looked at his uncle and smiled, "Uncle, nice clothes are for others to see, food is for yourself to eat, just be happy."

"Young man, you're really sharp."

Sin Yiu-man smiled in response, then turned to look at Wong Yau-ka sitting to the side, who was holding chopsticks and staring blankly at the dishes.

"Don't you like the food?"

Wang Youjia was startled awake. He turned his head and whispered to Xian Yaowen, "The hair on the flesh is so long, it makes me feel nauseous."

Xian Yaowen looked at the dish, picked up a piece of fatty and lean meat with hair, plucked the hair off with his fingernail, put it in his mouth, bit off the skin, and put the meat on top of Wang Youjia's mountain of food. "You should be secretly happy. There are only a few big pieces of meat in a whole pot of dishes. The boss used it as a decoy, and he took a piece off you."

Upon hearing this, Wang Youjia looked at the vegetable basin and found that the larger pieces of meat she had seen earlier were still lying there quietly, except for one piece missing from her bowl. Looking at Xian Yaowen's plate again, there was only one large piece of meat, which looked like it had been magnified by an eight-times magnifying glass, and it would have been difficult to get it stuck between her teeth if she was even slightly too big.

She picked up a piece of meat and put it into Xian Yaowen's bowl, saying, "I don't want it, you can have it."

Sin Yiu-man picked up a small piece of rice, took a small bite, put it aside, and shoveled two large mouthfuls of rice into his mouth. While chewing, he looked at the beer bottle that his uncle had placed beside him. The bottle was corked and had a cloth strap tied to the body for carrying. The bottle was two-thirds full of liquid, which, judging from the color, should be tea dust.

During tea processing, some tea leaves cannot remain intact. Larger fragments are called "high-broken" leaves, smaller ones are called "high-foam" leaves, and granular leaves are called "tea dust." These are tea scraps, suitable for making "tea bags" and packaging them in elegant gift boxes to give them a cultural feel, and then selling them at a high price to gift-givers.

Tea dust is cheap; good quality tea dust costs only four or five cents a pound. Just boil it in a pot, add some low-quality coarse sugar, and the finished product is tea dust. Even if you drink a lot of tea, one pound can last you a month.

After a moment, he turned his gaze away and whispered in Wang Youjia's ear, "The dockworkers and construction workers here drink tea dust, which costs 3 cents a cup outside. The rickshaw pullers drink coarse tea, usually the coarse leaves from Java that were not sold last year, which costs four or five cents a cup."

In teahouses run by Fujianese, there are leftover black tea scraps, and refills are free, costing 5 to 8 cents per cup. In coffee shops run by Hainanese, there's "sock tea," where the owner repeatedly boils tea leaves and stems in old tea socks, and the employees drink the leftover tea after get off work.

Malays in the village will buy a cup of teh tarik (pulled tea) on payday or when they are in a good mood, which costs 8 to 1 cents.

在军营那边做生意的阿兵哥妓女一次收费5角至1元；街头站壁8角至1.5元；码头流动船妓1元至2元；柔佛路、罗威尔路的木板间2元、3元；德斯加路、景锡路的短钟4元至6元。

The Japanese-style tenement buildings on Bugis Street also house Karayuki-san, Tang Xing-san, and Nanyang women who were left behind by the Japanese. They have bathrooms, air conditioning, and long-stay services, costing $8 to $15 per session.

Sin Yiu-man paused for a moment, then said, “The people who drink tea and the customers of prostitutes largely overlap. They would rather splurge a little from their mouths than miss a single visit to a prostitute.”

"Why are you saying this?" Wang Youjia asked, puzzled.

"The blacksmith kneeling in the hall would never know that the customer bought the machete to kill someone, but the wholesale tea merchant would want to know who the downstream tea merchant sold the tea to and at what price."

Xian Yaowen picked up a piece of food with his chopsticks and put it into his bowl. "I brought you here to eat so that you could get closer to the end customers we serve, understand their income structure, analyze how money is allocated to clothing, food, housing, transportation, prostitution, gambling, and kickbacks, and think about whether there is a way to motivate them to allocate more money to tea."

Wang Youjia stared in disbelief and said, "You want to control how other people spend their money?"

Sin Yiu-man said irritably, "If you want a filial son to die, you don't necessarily need to shoot him. You can also stick a gun into his parents' foreheads and let him end his own life."

Is your brain smeared with lard or something? You're always thinking about what's going on at the head of the bed or what's going on at the foot of the bed. Can't you ever think about something else?
"If I hadn't been born into a good family, I wouldn't even be able to eat warm shit!"

Wang Youjia nudged Xian Yaowen and said coquettishly, "Watch your mouth, don't spew nonsense."

"What, did I not describe Beiping enough?" Xian Yaowen chuckled.

"How could it not be enough? We've already leveled the road all the way to Caishikou Hutong. If we level it any further, it'll reach the Tianqiao street performance stalls!"

"Alright, enough with the teasing, let's get serious."

"All done!" Wang Youjia slapped his right palm with the back of his left hand: "Stop joking around. Tell me what legitimate business you have to do. I'm listening."

Wang Youjia was born in Hubei and moved to Beiping (Beijing) when she was young. She studied in Beiping before going to the United States. In the blink of an eye, there were no people to banter with her in the Beijing dialect for years. It was still quite nice to banter with her.

Sin Yiu Man took a bite of food and said slowly, "Don't be fooled by the fact that there are many tea shops in Singapore and Malaysia. They are actually just a few groups of people: Chinese, Baba Nyonya, and British. The latter two don't deal in mainland tea, so you can ignore them."

Chinese people can be further divided into the Anxi gang, the Chaozhou gang, and others.

Anxi merchants make oolong tea, and Chaozhou merchants make dark tea. In 1948, due to the situation on the mainland, a large number of tea merchants switched to making Taiwanese tea. This year, with the embargo, the number of people making mainland tea has decreased again. Even those tea merchants who are still making mainland tea do not get their supplies through legitimate channels.

Tieguanyin tea travels from Changkeng and Gande in Anxi to Gaoqi in Xiamen, and then to Hong Kong and Singapore; Wuyi rock tea travels from Xingcun in Wuyishan to Mawei in Fuzhou, and then the same way; Lao Cong Ya Shi Xiang and Song Zhong teas travel from Phoenix Mountain in Chaozhou to Shantou.

Currently, there are only three routes for tea to come from mainland China. These three routes have one thing in common: the section within mainland China bypasses customs and is purely smuggled; the Hong Kong and Singapore routes only require high-end goods to participate in Singapore government tenders to pay taxes honestly, otherwise, they try to evade taxes whenever possible.

Xian Yaowen leaned close to Wang Youjia's ear and said, "It's precisely because they pay almost no taxes that tea merchants here can sell cheap tea. I am the largest tea distributor in mainland China. I get my tea from state-owned companies, and my costs are higher than theirs. It would be too disadvantageous for me to compete with them, so I have to do something."

"doing what?"

"To combat smuggling, we must completely block the source. If we can't block it in Hong Kong, we must force them to pay bribes to customs officials. The same applies here in Singapore."

By raising everyone's costs, we force them to stop producing coarse tea and inferior tea, indirectly changing the consumption pattern of end customers and forcing them to reduce their visits to brothels and increase their spending on tea.

"With the price of tea from mainland China and Taiwan rising, tea merchants can start producing other types of tea."

“They can’t do it; the British and the Baba Nyonya won’t agree.”

Tokyo.

Lin Baocheng sent a fax to Hong Kong from his office at Daiwa Garment Manufacturing.

It's insane! Orders are pouring in! Yamato Garment has taken 280 million of the 120 million cotton military shirts ordered by the US military in August. There's simply not enough time to make them all, so 100 million of them have to be dumped on China Garment.

That's not all. Half of the 410 million pairs of military trousers ordered in September were also taken by Yamato Garment, and will still have to be passed on to China Garment Manufacturing to handle. (End of Chapter)