Nanyang 1931: From piglets to giants

Chapter 108 Conflict
Silent all night.

Let’s put aside what happened between Zheng Yi and the Persian palace maids for now.

The next day, Zheng Yi reached a deal with Persian Oil in just one day. Through a series of financial operations, he washed out the Chinese's oil shares in the Saudi project, but his share of shares in the Penang Petrochemical project remained unchanged.

All those shares were sold to Persian Oil, which invested a total of 1933 million US dollars. This was mainly because Persian Oil could not come up with more cash at the moment. After all, it was , and the purchasing power of the US dollar was still very strong.

At the same time, Persian Oil also paid Zheng Yi an annual consulting fee of US$2 million, so that when Persian Oil needs to explore for oil in the future, Zheng Yi will come to help them and provide technical consulting services.

In other words, he earned a total of 2200 million US dollars in cash during this trip to the Middle East, of which 1200 million was his own and 1000 million was public funds, of which he accounted for %.

Of course, the big gain isn't in the money.

Persia Petroleum will subsequently build another large-scale oil refinery in Penang within the next year. The scale of the refinery will be slightly smaller than the existing Penang Petrochemical, but it will also be a million-ton-level large-scale oil refinery with oil production first and chemical production later.

Zheng Yi does not directly manage the factory, but provides technical guidance for the oil and chemical process.
Penang provided free land and promised tax breaks. After the factory was completed and put into production, Zheng Yi and the Penang Chinese Group would hold a total of 40% of the shares as the non-cash portion of the oil well transaction.

It's a win-win situation.

Of course, there will be some additional conditions, such as Cadman and Henry jointly guaranteeing Zheng Yi, and Royal Machinery providing Zheng Yi with a batch of old equipment left over from World War I.
In addition to guns, bullets, and grenades, there are also more than 200 types of old tanks and aircraft, as well as 300 old World War I cannons and more than 100 anti-aircraft guns.

The price is only five million US dollars, and the company is responsible for shipping and cash on delivery.

The Royal Machinery will set up a factory in Penang that specializes in the production of light weapons and employ local Chinese in Penang as workers. Part of the weapons produced will be sold directly to the British Far East Army, while the other part will be "retailed" in Penang.

Are people allowed to own guns in Penang?

After all, the major shareholders behind Royal Machinery, Shell Oil, and Persian Oil are all the British royal family, they are all one family.

As for whether the Malayan Colonial Bureau will be happy at that time... who knows.

In addition to introducing the British giant, Zheng Yi also made simple friends with the Americans.

The biggest beneficiary of this trip to the Middle East was of course Standard Oil of the United States. The 10 million US dollars in cash was won through gambling, which was naturally not enough to express Standard Oil's gratitude to Zheng Yi.

It just so happened that they had just opened such a large oil well in the Middle East, but there was no corresponding refinery yet.

It doesn't matter where they build it. Saudi Arabia really doesn't want to build infrastructure here. Moreover, the United States' influence in the Middle East is indeed far less than that in the Far East. At least the Far East has the Philippines as a stronghold.

It was decided that a total of US$2000 million would be invested over the next five years to build a large oil refinery in Penang, which would also be tax-free, and all of Gulf Oil's oil wells in Kuwait would also be sent to Penang.

After learning that Zheng Yi didn't have his own private jet, he also gave him a private jet.

Gulf Oil and Zheng Yi failed to reach a cooperation this time. After all, their main business is in the United States, but it can be considered a good relationship.

The factory itself has nothing to do with Zheng Yi, but the factory is not an oil-first-chemical factory. The naphtha left after refining gasoline will be supplied to Zheng Yi first and for a long time. Zheng Yi can use this to open a wholly-owned chemical plant.

It can be considered as a favor that Standard Oil of California repays Zheng Yi.

Including the original Penang Petrochemical, the small city of Penang will soon have three super-large million-ton petrochemical plants.

Because they all want to build factories, a petrochemical plant is basically a large steel complex, or even a steel town, which requires a large amount of steel. Naturally, the small steel furnace in Penang cannot supply it.

Almost casually, he introduced American Steel to Zheng Yi.

Amid the economic crisis, U.S. steel production has been struggling, leaving them with significant idle capacity. They had also sent representatives to contact Zheng Yi during his ceremony a few days ago. They'd already been considering transferring some of their excess and low-end production capacity to Southeast Asia, and they were wondering why Zheng Yi hadn't approached them about building a factory. Unexpectedly, Zheng Yi remained silent.

In just a few days, U.S. Steel decided to set up a factory in Penang and transfer production capacity. However, the specific construction plan and the amount of production capacity to be transferred required a face-to-face meeting with Zheng Yi, so there was no rush to decide.

Anyway, it must be big.

Steel and oil, these two industries have taken root in Penang and both have large outputs.

Wouldn’t it be unreasonable for the shipping industry not to join in the fun?

Within half a month, the British White Star, Cunard, the German Hamburg, the Italian Mail Line, and the Dutch Royal Dutch Steamship all asked Henry to bring messages to Zheng Yi, hoping to arrange a time for everyone to have a good talk.

Now that we have a shipping company, we need at least a shipyard to build ships.

Following suit, American Bass and British Lederer would send business representatives to Penang to talk to Zheng Yi after a while.

It is not certain whether investment can be made in the end, but it never hurts for everyone to get to know each other.

You won’t know if you don’t count them, but you will be shocked if you count them.

It is surprising that such a small city like Penang has welcomed so many talented people in such a short period of time.

When he returned to Penang in his brand new second-hand private jet, an idea suddenly came to his mind: he was a little reluctant to pay one million US dollars to the Colonial Office every year.

Although this one million is already a small amount of money for him.

"Forget it, let's just be patient for a while. First, we need to build up the army and stand firm. Only then can we speak with confidence."

As soon as he got off the plane, many people who had received the telegram in advance came to greet him. The one leading the group was Li Xiaoshi. When he saw Zheng Yi getting off the plane, he couldn't help but punch him.
He scolded her, "What on earth have you been doing for over two months? Do you know how much has happened in those two months?"

"Huh? How much has happened? I was just about to ask you."

"To the north, Captain Lai and the Malays from Perlis have fought three battles recently. They are on the verge of collapse, and He Shili has already led the first wave of 'training troops' to attack.

But before we reached Perlis, we were stopped by the Malay troops in Kedah and confronted. The Sultan of Kedah refused to let us pass. I went to talk to him in person, but he didn’t give me face. I’m afraid…”

"Afraid of what?"

"I'm afraid it's not just Kedah. The nine sultans of Malaya have already expressed their intention to join forces and are waiting for our response. This Kedah..."

"Fuck, when did this happen?"

"Six days ago. I haven't been able to contact you in these six days."

"Six days ago, there was a standoff?"

"Ah."

"Still giving him a hard time? Damn him! Send a telegram to Ho Shai-lai right now. Damn him! If anything goes wrong, I'll take responsibility."

(End of this chapter)