Korean TV series: King of Peninsula 1997

Chapter 603: Entering Spaceflight
As soon as we entered 2008, time began to pass faster and faster.

In fact, the Korean Peninsula was not peaceful before and after Emperor Choi Chang took office.

Fifteen days before his inauguration, on February 10, the Sungnyemun Gate, the number one national treasure of the Korean Peninsula, was set on fire.

Fortunately, Li Lianchang's cabinet was still in charge at that time, and the Director of the Cultural Heritage Department, who had resigned, was about to retire.

The director designated by Emperor Cui Changdi's cabinet took office more than ten days in advance.

As the financial crisis continued to expand, Li You also began to ask Kinmen Securities to re-enter the international financial market.

This time, the target is to bet on a market decline by shorting the stocks of financial institutions.

In this year's financial crisis, more than one financial institution went bankrupt, and the most serious one was undoubtedly Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the United States, which filed for bankruptcy protection after failed investments and failed acquisition negotiations.

Although it is still more than six months away from bankruptcy, there is no doubt that betting on a market decline is a sure-fire way to make at least $1 billion.

However, these are all bets on the future. At this time, Li You has begun to ask Kinmen Securities to sell weak currencies, first borrow currencies that have depreciated sharply, such as the Korean won in 2008, and then convert them into US dollars and other safe-haven currencies. After the Korean won depreciates, he will buy it back at a low price to repay the loan. This operation not only avoids his own losses, but also makes an extra profit from the difference.

"President Nim,"

Chen Yajun gave his office chair at Kinmen Securities to Li You and stood in front of Li You to listen to Li You's request.

“Will this offend the Peninsula’s central bank and government?”

"What are you afraid of?" Li You glanced at her, "Now you can sell the CDS in your hands one by one."

CDS is also called credit default swap. Buying this thing is equivalent to buying a default guarantee. If that kind of high-risk bond defaults, you can get compensation.

Last year, under the instructions of Li You, Kinmen Securities competed with financial institutions for a small part of the market. Although it did not make tens of billions of dollars, it made tens of billions.

"Take action now?" Chen Yijun seemed a little greedy, "If we wait a little longer..."

"It's risky to keep it," Li You waved his hand, "We've made enough profit."

"Don't let a guaranteed profit turn into a loss."

"As for daily stock investment." Li You thought for a moment, "From last year, low-end consumer goods, whether food or daily necessities, as well as related maintenance industries, have maintained a stable demand during the crisis. You can decide which stocks to buy."

"In the midst of market panic, you have to calmly identify undervalued assets and keep a clear head. Don't be like those two idiots in Daying and Tianxia," Li You mocked Jin Jianying and Zhu Mengyong. "Even if Daying Ocean is a livelihood industry, so what? It won't be able to recover in the next seven years and will only drag itself down."

This time, Li You not only went to Kinmen Securities, but also went to several of its subsidiaries.

However, in Kinmen Trade, the conversation was more relaxed.

At least Ding Qing is mature and more cautious in his work.

Listening to Ding Qing's rambling, complaining as if he was chatting with his family about the drastic decline in global trade and trade on the Korean Peninsula due to the crisis, Li You smiled and comforted him.

Just talking about the affairs of Daying Group and Tianxia Group, Ding Qing seemed to be gloating over their misfortune.

"Orders from both China and South Korea are decreasing, so we should try to keep the high-quality ones," Li You also knows that these things are unavoidable, and we can only reduce losses as much as possible, "and we should also pay attention to foreign investment in local cooperation."

"The Korean won has depreciated a lot," Li You reminded Ding Qing. "It's only been two months since 2008, and it has already depreciated by nearly 10%. I have already told Kinmen Securities that the foreign exchange reserves within the group must be sufficient to withstand the pressure."

As the two were chatting, Li Zicheng, who had been called back from Suriname a few days ago, came over to join the conversation after sorting out the documents.

"I asked you to come back mainly because of the recent oil situation," Li You sighed, "International oil prices have plummeted recently, from $140 to $70, and it is likely to fall further."

"Suriname doesn't have much oil, so it's better to stop exporting it for now."

Li Zicheng nodded silently, and at the same time reminded Li You, "In Latin America, the future sales prospects of automobiles are also unclear."

Li You thought of this, it was not because the automobile industry would collapse in the next few years like shipping, but because after the crisis, global production stagnated, resulting in the interruption of the supply chain of automobile production.

"It's up to you to decide," Li You waved his hand. The future of automobiles was just a casual move, and he didn't think it was important. "Spending money to acquire parts manufacturers is a good idea. Remember to control costs."

"Yes."

In the following days, not only Future Auto, but also Kinmen Electronics spent money lavishly.

Now that everyone is tightening their belts, the Golden Gate Group has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire two companies.
For now, we are one family.

Golden Gate Electronics spent US$120 million to acquire an American storage technology company dedicated to providing enterprise-level solid-state storage technology. In the future, it will be a very good high-quality asset whether sold to computer manufacturers or used by themselves.

The reason for only acquiring this one company for the time being is that an American parts company that Future Auto had its eyes on was also favored by Daying Group.

When Daying Group takes action against Daying Ocean, it naturally has to keep an eye on the impact of the financial crisis on the group itself.

They also discovered the disruption in the production chain and prepared to make an acquisition.

The result was that the two families collided with each other.

Although Future Automobile, which belongs to the Kinmen Group, is certainly not as good as the Daying Group headquarters, the Daying Group is now fighting on two fronts.

"Daying Group offered 250 million US dollars?" Li You was also a little surprised when he received the report from Li Zicheng.

"What is the name of this company? What does it mainly produce?"

"Halla Climate Control is a company that specializes in automotive thermal management systems," Li Zicheng said solemnly, "It specializes in automotive thermal management technology, including thermal efficiency optimization of engines, batteries and electronic components."

Li You understood. He had little impression of this string of difficult-to-pronounce English names, but the companies acquired by Daying in the automotive industry chain were by no means mediocre.

This company is most likely the 'Hyundai Tandis' in another world a dozen years later, which is indeed the world's leading automotive thermal management supplier.

Hyundai Transmission will also be the only company in the world in the future whose products can cover the entire transmission product group.

It can undoubtedly be called the core parts subsidiary of Daying Group, but Li Youfei is determined to cut his future in half.

"Follow the pace of the main camp," Li You said with a smile, "We have to pay more than them."

"I want to see if Zhu Mengyong has the guts to continue competing with me in financial strength."

As Li You expected, Zhu Mengyong soon gave in. Even though he was optimistic about the company, Zhu Mengyong did not continue to fight with Li You.

He was also afraid of angering Li You, so he directly started to interfere in Daying Haiyang's affairs. Zhu Mengyong already had to deal with his elder brother Zhu Mengyuan and the old fox Jin Jianying, and now there was another stubborn donkey Lu Wuxuan. Zhu Mengyong felt that his life was already difficult enough and did not want to add more pressure to himself.

He also increasingly felt that his acquisition of Daying Ocean in the past two years was a bad move, but Zhu Mengyong also felt aggrieved. Who the hell could have known that the US subprime mortgage crisis would come a year in advance and even expand into a global financial crisis.

You know your own grievances.

As for the Blue House, as soon as Choi Changdi took office, he provided all chaebols with a low-interest loan of 3 trillion won, with an interest rate of only 3%.

The three major groups took the lion's share, leaving less than one-third for the medium-sized chaebols.

Although the government required them to use the money for technological research and development and capacity expansion, none of the three major groups, including the Kinmen Group, did so.

The bulk of this loan was transferred among various accounts and eventually became investment capital.

Not long after, in addition to the loan, the Blue House also received the second payment to the chaebols.

In theory this is a 'subsidy'.

But in fact, only Daying Ocean and Kinmen Electronics received the second sum of money.

This was the subsidy money they agreed on during a meeting in early 2007, and a sum of it was provided last year.

Kinmen Electronics received 1.5 trillion won in subsidies, and Daying Ocean received 800 billion won.

For Kinmen Electronics, this is certainly a windfall. Kinmen Electronics, which was already in good operating condition, is even more powerful with this R&D subsidy.

In the report given by Kinmen Electronics CEO Chen Daojun to Li You, Kinmen Electronics has made great progress in the field of DRAM after a year of research. This thing is dynamic random access memory, a type of semiconductor memory mainly used for auxiliary storage of computer processors.

However, unlike hard disks and solid-state drives, its characteristic is its fast speed.

It is expected that the global market share will increase from 18% to more than 30% this year, and will exceed 40% by next year at the latest.

Kinmen Electronics has made progress, but this money really helped Daying Ocean solve its urgent needs.

Emperor Cui Chang, Li You, and Li Mingxue had already discussed this matter privately.

They did this despite attempts by chaebols to interfere in the implementation of policy.

The series of public criticisms in recent days have hit Daying Haiyang so hard that it is at a loss. The bank almost cut off its loans. Zhu Mengyuan was so scared that he asked for help everywhere, and Jin Jianying also looked for people to help Daying Haiyang.

After Daying Haiyang had been weak for a while, the injection of this subsidy was really a timely help.

The first big news in early April ignited the enthusiasm of the people on the Korean Peninsula. Under this extreme national sentiment, even the financial crisis and unemployment wave became less important in these days.

"Korea's first astronaut is about to appear!"

"The first Korean astronaut and woman in history to go into space!"

This is consistent with the usual style of the Korean Peninsula media, which is to promote something before it succeeds.

But this is also worth their excitement, after all, he is the first astronaut on the Korean Peninsula to have received complete training and assessment.

Astronaut Lee So-yeon is also a PhD in biology. She was selected as a Korean astronaut from tens of thousands of volunteers on the Korean Peninsula two years ago and received various training in the Korean Peninsula and Russia.

It is expected to travel to the International Space Station on April 8th aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

A farewell ceremony will be held for her on the morning of April 6th to send her off to Kazakhstan, as the Soyuz was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Starting from early morning, citizens from all over South Korea gathered outside the space center to see her off.

Most of these people held flowers, colorful flags and homemade slogans in their hands.

When the farewell ceremony began, media photographers were already fully prepared.

The lights were bright, the music was playing, and the scene looked warm and solemn.

When she woke up in the morning, Lee So-yeon walked out of the gate of the space center. She was wearing a spacesuit with the Taegeukgi on it and smiling.

As she walked towards the farewell road, the people nearby stood up and cheered like a tide.

"come on!"

"bless you!"

People waved small flags and shouted encouragement.

There was even a team of traditional instrument players walking behind her and playing music.

Li You also saw this scene on TV.
It's the Blue House TV.

"This is the passion of the Korean people for space travel," said Choi Chang-jo, who sat in Lee Yeon-chang's place. "Even astronauts who travel into space with the help of another country's spacecraft can be called our national heroes."

Of course, Li You did not appear here for no reason. It was also because of the craze caused by the astronaut Li Suyan that Li You and Choi Changdi decided to strike while the iron is hot to reach a thorough cooperation between the Korean Peninsula government and Li You's Dome Private Aerospace Company.

It all starts with the document in front of them.
"Let's start with the reconstruction of this space center," Cui Changdi said with a firm face. He knew too well the people's enthusiasm for aerospace. Li Lianchang had not cooperated with Li You some time ago because of the North-South issue, but now that he has taken office, he naturally cannot do such a thing anymore.

"The Naro Space Center is located on Naro Island in Goheung County, South Jeolla Province," Choi Chang-di stared at the document in front of him. "It has been under construction since the end of the millennium. It is also the most technologically advanced space center we can have."

“But that’s not enough,” Li You said, adding with a smile: “The first thing to do is to build a rocket launch site for private enterprises.”

This matter should have been included in the plan of the Korean Peninsula government in 2024. After all, by then, there was the example of Musk's SpaceX, a private aerospace company. The Korean Peninsula realized that if it wanted to break the blockade, there was another method besides working behind closed doors and thinking hard, which could barely be considered "self-research."

But now with Li You's promotion, this matter was brought up sixteen years in advance.

"I will ask American technicians to come over," Li You tapped the document with a smile in his eyes, "and strive for perfect construction."

"Strive for perfection," Emperor Cui Chang nodded heavily.

Of course he knew Li You had an agenda, but it didn't matter.
You know, the Korean Peninsula has launched ten satellites before, but all the vehicles were made in foreign countries, and even the launch sites were outside the country.
We can't even decide the launch time ourselves, it all depends on whether others are available.

As long as he can really send a satellite into space from his homeland, even if it is only one satellite, Emperor Cui Chang will have an indestructible golden body from then on.

(End of this chapter)