money player

Since Tang Yiying was keen to expand Jing Shu Zhai's calligraphy and painting brokerage business, this matter naturally needed to be handled properly. The next day, Xian Yaowen spent time learning about the calligraphy and painting market in Taiwan.

There are many mainland painters in Taiwan, such as Huang Junbi, Ma Shouhua, Chen Fang, Tao Yunlou, Zheng Manqing, Liu Yantao, Gao Yihong, Zhang Gunian, etc. There are also some noblewomen who are skilled in painting, but do not consider themselves painters.

Others, like Zhang Daqian, are currently traveling around and don't spend much time in Taipei.

There are also many painters from this province, such as Chen Jin, Yan Shuilong, and Li Zefan. The market is mainly for gouache/watercolor, and because the upper class prefers traditional Chinese paintings from the mainland, their sales are lower than those of painters from other provinces.

When it comes to the best-selling painter in Taiwan, Pu Xinyu is undoubtedly the one. He carries the aura of royalty and symbolizes the continuation of mainland traditions in Taiwan. His works are in the highest demand and fetch the highest prices, often circulating among the upper class as high-end gifts.

This is the current situation, and the situation decades from now will likely be no worse.

Today's powerful and wealthy will become tomorrow's relics of the past. Based on the simple truth that "what the superiors like, the inferiors will follow even more fervently," the pursuit of Pu Xinyu's paintings will continue as the old powerful and wealthy decline and new powerful and wealthy rise to power. His paintings may not be the most valuable in the future, but they will remain valuable.

In order to maximize profits, after Tang Yiying took over Pu Xinyu's agency business, she had to win over Li Moyun and change Pu Xinyu's assembly-line style to a pretentious handmade customization, thereby reducing output.

In addition, by promoting a "major improvement in craftsmanship," claiming that Pu Xinyu's skills had greatly improved and that his painting level today was vastly different from his previous work, the price of his new works was inadvertently diminished, thus reducing the number of his surviving paintings and driving up the price of his new works.

During afternoon tea, Sin Yiu-man put aside his calligraphy and painting and sat in the pavilion, reviewing the third-quarter reports of various companies. Quan Danru sat opposite him, peeling longans.

At the same time, in Hong Kong.

Cen Peipei sat in her study, holding a telegram from Wu Yimei sent from Los Angeles. After a period of investigation, she had finally figured out Yu Fengzhi's "business".

Yu Fengzhi's biggest business right now is smuggling. She not only smuggles medicines and medical equipment to Macau through Hong Yingdong, but also directly smuggles or supplies other goods to other smugglers.

In addition, she also smuggled goods into Taiwan, primarily to the military.

In the telegram, Wu Yimei explained the basis for her speculation—she discovered military personnel who did not belong to the Northeast Army on a smuggling ship, but could not be sure whether they were in active service.

Besides smuggling, Yu Fengzhi also had many legitimate businesses. She constantly sold antiques and important artifacts through Sotheby's to raise a lot of money. She was a VIP at JPMorgan Chase and was suspected of having a large amount of deposits. She also purchased a large amount of short-term treasury bonds through Brown Brothers Harriman Bank.

She has invested heavily in real estate, owning properties in Beverly Hills, commercial buildings on Sunset Boulevard, warehouses at Santa Monica Pier, buildings in San Francisco's Chinatown, and beachfront apartments in Honolulu, Hawaii.

She has substantial investments in securities, including confirmed ownership of shares in General Electric and Raytheon, investments in South African gold mining stocks, and appears to have plans to short the British pound.

Besides smuggling, Phoenix Trading also has legitimate cross-border trade business.

She also invests in film and newspapers, is one of the investors in two independent films currently in production, and is in the process of acquiring a stake in the San Francisco Chronicle, a newspaper with significant influence in San Francisco and the ability to influence voter direction.

After reading the telegram, Cen Peipei added her own comments and sent it to Taipei via fax.

About half an hour later, the fax arrived in Xian Yaowen's hands. After reading the contents, he categorized Yu Fengzhi's investments into two types: one was normal investment aimed at returns, and the other was political investment. After a little analysis, he could determine that Yu Fengzhi's purpose was to rescue Zhang Xueliang.

The real estate investments in San Francisco's Chinatown and Honolulu, Hawaii, are somewhat baffling. If the goal is investment returns, they are very poor choices. With the same amount of money, one could choose a better investment even blindly.

Looking at Yu Fengzhi's other investments, it's clear she's shrewd and unlikely to make basic mistakes. This only suggests that some of her investments weren't for financial returns, but for other kinds of returns.

After a moment's thought, Sin Yiu-man labeled the buildings in San Francisco's Chinatown as "safe houses," guessing they were prepared for intelligence personnel. It was just hard to guess which side they were on. Yu Feng-chi was straddling the political wall, swaying back and forth, and could be on either side.

Labeling the Honolulu beachfront apartment in Hawaii as a "transit station" suggests it was intended for Zhang Xueliang, implying that Yu Fengzhi likely already had a rescue plan she considered highly feasible.

Yu Fengzhi's investments in securities are quite interesting. There's nothing special about her buying shares in General Electric and Raytheon; even a vegetable vendor at the market could list a bunch of positive reasons for it.

The arrangement of buying South African gold mining stocks and shorting the British pound is interesting. The former may be to hedge against the depreciation of the US dollar, indicating that Yu Fengzhi has a deep understanding of finance or has financial experts around her. It also suggests that she may be pessimistic about the prospects of the US military in the Korean War, or that she is taking precautions.

Leaving aside hedging, the current global demand for gold is showing a moderate upward trend. European countries are gradually accumulating gold to balance their dollar holdings. With the global economic recovery, demand for gold is rising in the jewelry, dental, and emerging electronics industries. Investing in gold is a good strategy to combat currency devaluation.

If the former only demonstrates a financial professional's basic skills, then the latter, the arrangement of shorting the pound, requires a very keen insight into the current situation and a strong ability to predict the future.

Under the Bretton Woods system, the official exchange rate of the pound sterling was unlikely to depreciate in the short term. However, in addition to the official exchange rate, there was a black market exchange rate that more accurately reflected the state of the economy. Sin Yiu-man analyzed the situation and concluded that the current British economy only had a few abnormalities, which could not coalesce into widespread abnormalities, and there was no concern about currency depreciation.

Conversely, in the political sphere, there are many ticking time bombs. The Middle East is sitting on a powder keg, and the Suez Canal could explode at any moment. A sharp devaluation of the black market currency is possible, and highly likely.

However, he did not see any possibility of a significant devaluation in the near future, and he did not know whether Yu Fengzhi's analysis was too optimistic or whether his demands were not high, and that a price difference of only a few percentage points would suffice.

After finishing the analysis, Xian Yaowen put the fax paper aside and said to Xie Tingyun, "Report back to Yu Fengzhi's ship. Launch an attack before the handover. Leave no one alive among Yu Fengzhi's men. If Hong Yingdong's men dare to make a move, take them all out."

"What if Hung Ying-tung was on the ship?"

"If he were on the ship, he would have guessed who was behind it. Daring to make a move means he was prepared to break ties with me and made arrangements in advance. The entire Hong family will be wiped out."

"Understood." (End of Chapter)