Korean TV series: King of Peninsula 1997

Chapter 471 War Profits

Afghanistan and Iraq are very close.

On March 20, 2003, the British and American coalition forces suddenly launched a war in Iraq. It was a very sudden event.

Fighting on two fronts not only made the situation in the Middle East more complicated, but also caused an uproar in many countries in the world.

Moreover, this is a controversial and illegal war that has not been authorized by the UN Security Council.

Li You also saw the war begin on TV.

After the war broke out, US President Booker delivered a televised speech to the nation, announcing the start of the war to overthrow Saddam's regime and emphasizing that the war would be resolved quickly.

Although he claimed that forty-nine countries supported military action.

However, the only countries that actually participated in the war were the United States, Britain, Australia and Poland, and many other countries provided logistical support.
South Korea is not included at the moment. Even when Li Lianchang and Li You met at the Blue House, they looked exhausted.

The day before the inauguration, the North tested missiles, and there was even a shadow of the big boy.

The Daegu subway arson case has just been almost dealt with. It was barely suppressed with the help of government subsidies and large compensation payments led by four chaebols.

"President Li," Li Lianchang was really a little tired. He leaned back in his chair and yawned when he saw Li You rushing over. "I just received a letter from the United States."

“We need to take care of the logistics.”

"Shit." Li Lianchang scratched his hair in annoyance. "They only informed us after the fighting started. Afghanistan has already sent people, but they still want us to send people here."

"We have no choice," Li You comforted him, "We have to do what they ask us to do."

"The president should first think about how to allocate manpower."

"The Minister of Defense has a plan," Li Lianchang sighed. He also knew that things were unstoppable. "We are going to transfer the members of the 707th Brigade stationed in Afghanistan to Iraq."

"At the same time, 900 regular troops will be dispatched there."

"In Afghanistan, we will transfer some marines to provide logistical support," Li Lianchang looked at the personnel transfers, "General Yin should stay in Afghanistan and lead the marines to provide security and protection for the South Korean military medical unit."

On the Afghan side, South Korea, as a logistical support country, mainly provides some material assistance and rear-line surveillance tasks.

After he said that, Li You felt a little sad. These soldiers were living in a blessed situation but didn't know how to appreciate it.

The people who were previously sent by the American Kinmen Company to act as CIA fighters and carry out Operation Anaconda did suffer a lot of casualties.

Not only the mercenaries of the American Kinmen Company, but also the regular troops suffered heavy casualties.

It was also in March last year that Operation Anaconda officially began.

The original plan foresaw that Operation Anaconda would be a small-scale battle that would be over within three days.

It was only due to the Taliban's frenzied resistance that the operation lasted for a full seventeen days, and the fighting was extremely fierce.

From the start of the operation to its final victory, the participating troops killed hundreds of enemies, forced the remnants of the enemy to withdraw, and seized control of a strategic location.

Of the more than 1,700 U.S. troops, eight were killed and more than fifty were injured in the operation.

Others do not appear to be very important in statistics.

The United States sent only forty people to Kinmen, more than half of whom were veterans from Suriname who voluntarily accepted conscription, and more than a dozen of them died.

All the mercenaries from different companies added up to about 300 people, and the casualty rate reached 40%.

Not to mention the Afghan troops who have only received simple training from the US military.

These logistical support countries suffered few casualties.

Li You told Li Lianchang these things, which made him smile bitterly and explain the reasons to Li You.

"What worries me most is not getting involved in the war there. After all, we are also a logistics country. But if I decide to send troops to Iraq,"

He shook his head. "I am afraid that the North will take tougher measures on various weapons research and missile issues. What should I do if the situation deteriorates rapidly?"

There was a knock on the door of the president's office and the new presidential secretary walked in.

"President nim, Chairman nim."

"Secretary General Jiang," Li You nodded at him.

"Something is not right." Secretary Jiang turned on the TV and there was a news report.

Above, there were people gathered on the street, surrounding a building that Li You and Li Lianchang were quite familiar with.

"Just a rough count, there are more than 4,000 protesters gathered here."

Li You and Li Lianchang looked at each other. Li You knew that the war would break out, so he had been laying the groundwork in the automotive and oil industries, but he had no idea that the commotion on the Korean Peninsula would be so big.

They gathered in front of the embassy to protest the military attack on Iraq.

"Troubles keep coming one after another"

Secretary-General Jiang was also annoyed. He was just the new secretary-general. "Not only that, but there are still a steady stream of people pouring into the streets to participate."

"Send out the riot police first," Li Lianchang said solemnly, "Don't create conflicts with the people. Try to resolve this matter with gentle means."

"If conflict is unavoidable, use water cannons to defend and ensure the safety of citizens' lives."

"clear."

That night, riot police used buses to surround the embassy and increased security on all sides.

As protesters threw stones at riot police and began to advance, riot police used water cannons to try to disperse the crowd.

In the end, about dozens of people were injured in the accident, and more than a dozen instigators were taken away by the police.

“Celebrate the rebirth of the future of automobiles!”

In the following days, the outside world was bustling with activity, while Li You and Chen Daojun concentrated on the restart of Shunyang Automobile.

Finally, the capital restructuring was completed at the end of March, and Sunyang Motor was renamed Future Motor, and the matter was announced to the entire Korean Peninsula through the media.

Due to the coming of the Iraq War, there was great uncertainty in the early stages of the war, and the combination of risk aversion and stockpiling led to rising oil prices.

The impact of oil prices is transmitted downward through the industrial chain, and the cost of industrial products such as diesel, kerosene, and fuel oil has begun to increase.

Subsequently, the prices of metal products, plastics, etc. will also rise, and the costs of industries such as transportation, post and telecommunications will also rise.

As a result, the automobile market on the peninsula, which had just begun to develop due to public transportation issues, was once again suppressed.

Even Daying Auto and Future Auto in the market have temporarily calmed down their disputes for these reasons and started waiting for oil prices to return to normal.

But the good thing is that a one-sided war will quickly restore market stability and calm oil price fluctuations.

That's clearly what happened with the Iraq War, where they're just waiting for the volatility to pass.

At the beginning of the war, the US-UK coalition launched large-scale air strikes and ground offensives against Iraq, code-named "Operation Decapitation" and "Operation Shock and Deterrence."

In just the past few days, under the order of US President Booker to win a quick victory, the US-UK coalition forces have dropped more than 2,000 precision-guided bombs of various types on more than a dozen cities and ports in Iraq, including 500 of the famous Tomahawk cruise missiles alone.

After a few rounds, the resistance army was already confused.

Although Saddam Hussein of Iraq also addressed the nation, it was clear that they were powerless to resist.

So just as the war was about to become one-sided, Daying Auto and Tianxia Auto were about to rekindle the fighting, when suddenly a Future Auto intervened and came out first to attract attention. Naturally, both companies were very surprised.

Especially when they knew that this was the reorganized company of Shunyang Automobile and that Li You was still the controlling shareholder, the two company presidents Zhu Mengyong and Jin Jianying became even more fearful.

Then Li You announced that the future of automobiles will focus on foreign markets, which is even more confusing. They know that foreign markets are very profitable, and even 80% of the profits of their two car companies are earned abroad, but that does not mean that the domestic market is not important.

Lee You did not simply announce to the public that several Future Motors' car factories on the Korean Peninsula have already started to restart.

Fortunately, Chen Yangzhe had only been dead for a few years. The new car he developed in the year of his death was a small car.

Due to the infighting between Chen Rongji and Chen Dongji after his death, this model was not produced, and Li You got it for nothing.

After the car factory started operation, it also manufactured the Shunyang car model, but with a changed name.

There were even some old Shunyang auto parts still stored in the factory.

Thanks to these, the vehicle was assembled within two days and testing began.

This small car has low cost and low price, and its main focus is on sales.

In the Korean Peninsula, many people are interested in low-priced cars because they don't have that much money in their pockets after problems with public transportation.

In the past, Shunyang Automobile had some reputation.

When the title of "President Chen Yangzhe's last work" was released, and Li You emphasized its safety protection and conducted multiple impact tests on the car, the test results were very good. The widespread publicity of the test video on the Internet and the ultra-low selling price almost immediately attracted the attention of the public.

The future of automobiles is just starting out, so Li Youcai is too lazy to make any high-end cars.

Anyway, no matter how high-end it is, it’s not that high-end. Rich people still prefer expensive foreign cars like Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

The main attraction is the low price, so that people who don’t want to spend a lot of money but don’t want to take public transportation can buy it.

Once the car has gained a small share of the market, Li You will immediately export this model of car to Suriname, where the local Kinmen Heavy Industries and Suriname government employees will "voluntarily" purchase it in order to boost sales first.

The Iraq War was in a stalemate for the next ten days. Because the supply lines were too long and the Iraqi resistance was very tenacious, the US-UK coalition forces failed to achieve their goal of a quick victory and the ground offensive was constantly obstructed.

The Iraqi army is engaged in street fighting with the US-UK coalition forces in several cities in central Iraq. At the same time, hundreds of Iraqis return to Iraq from neighboring countries every day to join the fight.

This has caused oil prices on the Korean Peninsula to continue to rise, even higher than the initial stage. Everyone thought that in the Iraq War, the coalition forces would be dragged into an endless quagmire like the coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Especially since Iraq's oil content is the second highest in the world, and now the export of oil has stopped due to the war, the oil price in the Korean Peninsula is no longer simply rising, but soaring.

"President Li, what can you do?"

When he met Li Lianchang again, he had a few more gray hairs. Li You had called him specifically before and told him that he had a way to deal with the short-term surge in oil prices on the Korean Peninsula.

"Of course it's a good idea," Li You kept it a secret, "but this method still requires the cooperation of President Nim."

"President Li, please speak up."

Li You chuckled. Oil prices affect several important industries on the Korean Peninsula and must not be allowed to continue to rise, otherwise the economy will be hit.

As for the current oil price, even if the war stops, it will not return to the level before the war, but will drop a little and stabilize to a higher value lower than the current level.

"President Nim also knows that I established Kinmen Heavy Industries."

"I know," Li Lianchang nodded, "but aren't all the industries located overseas?"

“Everyone thinks Chairman Lee doesn’t want to compete with Chairman Kim.”

Li You smiled and shook his head. "Kinmen Heavy Industries was built in a small country in South America called Suriname."

"Although the name is Heavy Industry," Li You shrugged, "we actually do everything, such as helping the Surinamese government with infrastructure, but the most important thing is that the main task there is to extract oil and natural gas."

Li Lianchang shuddered. "Oil?"

He now has an inexplicable fear of the word oil.

Everyone knows, or the whole world knows, why the Iraq War broke out.

Just like the attack on Afghanistan, President Booker claimed that Iraq provided support to terrorist forces, so he launched a war against Iraq on the grounds of counter-terrorism and security.

The root cause is that Iraq occupies an important position in both politics and economy of the Middle East.

It is also one of the most important oil-producing countries in the Gulf region. Its oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia. Its exports are huge, and it occupies a pivotal position in the world oil market.

If we can actually control Iraq, we can get rid of our dependence on Saudi Arabia's oil exports and have greater initiative and freedom of development in the economy and military.

Do other countries want it?

Of course I want to, but I just can't do it.

“America has been fighting wars over oil for generations.”

This statement is no joke.

So when Li You mentioned that Kinmen Heavy Industries in Suriname was extracting oil, Li Lianchang was frightened and trembled.

"Don't worry, President Nim," Li You drank the tea that Secretary Jiang brought him, "There are people from the CIA backing me up over there, and the amount is not as large as in Iraq."

He smiled slightly, "But the amount of oil we use on the Korean Peninsula is such that it can still be supplied within ten years."

Since the beginning of the Afghan war, the international energy situation has undergone significant changes in the past year or so.

A silent war for oil is being fought between the major powers.

As the war in Afghanistan continues, the US military has entered Central Asia and established military bases.

The US-UK coalition launched the Iraq War, and France, Germany and Russia also took the lead in opposing their use of force against Iraq, all of which implied a competition for oil to varying degrees.

The competition for oil among major countries appears calm on the surface, but in fact it has reached a fever pitch.

Li Lianchang didn't think of himself as the head of a big country.

Li You looked at his solemn expression and analyzed the situation for him in a relaxed manner. "The competition between them now is mainly about competing for oil resources, oil transportation routes, oil markets and oil pricing power."

"We can't hinder them, otherwise we will become a thorn in their side. Is that what President Nim is thinking?"

"Yes," Li Lianchang nodded bitterly.

Although Li You said that he has some oil resources, it does not mean that they can lower the price of oil. Oil is vital to the lives of major countries. The United States is the world's largest oil consumer, importing 5 million tons of crude oil annually, accounting for more than half of its oil demand.

"It won't affect them," Li You comforted Li Lianchang, "International oil prices represent crude oil. We can just make it into refined oil."

Crude oil, also known as heavy oil, contains impurities and cannot be used directly. Only after refining can useful substances be extracted. Only then can the extracted substances be called finished oil and can be used.

In pipeline transportation, crude oil is heavy and difficult to transport, while refined oil is light and easy to transport, with low transportation costs.

Li You does not need to build an oil refinery in the country to attract the attention of Tianxia Group.

The reason why he invested so much in Suriname Kinmen Heavy Industries was that he hoped that after they mined locally, they would directly process the oil in the newly built refinery locally and deliver the finished oil with low transportation costs directly to the country, thereby posing a real threat to the Tianxia Group.

"International oil prices and domestic oil prices don't need to be the same."

"We can make it into domestically supplied oil." Li You narrowed his eyes, revealing his true intention.

As long as he can shake Tianxia Group's position in the key energy source of oil on the Korean Peninsula, Li You will be able to lead Kinmen to continue to make rapid progress instead of developing steadily as it is now.

The cake is always limited, and only by squeezing the world can you eat more.

"Exclusively for domestic supply?" Li Lianchang was a little stiff.

Does Li You want to control the oil price in the next few years?
So what about the markets related to oil prices?
Also give it to Li You?
Li Lianchang had a blank expression. He raised his head and exchanged glances with Li You. He felt that the other party was confident and that he had fallen into a trap.

(End of this chapter)