Super-sovereign power is terrifying. Whoever dominates it will have world economic hegemony and gain the greatest economic benefits.
Obviously, neither the old hegemon Britain nor the new war upstart America would give up this opportunity. In 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill jointly issued the Atlantic Charter, which proposed the establishment of a United Nations with the victorious countries as the core after the war to stabilize the international political order.
Establish a World Trade Organization (WTO) to form a balanced and stable international economic order. In fact, a war for economic hegemony without gunpowder has been undercurrent, and the war has begun between Britain and the United States.
On July 1, 1944, the Mount Washington Hotel in the Washington Forest was packed with people. 730 representatives from 44 countries stayed here to witness the birth of the first international monetary convention in human history - the Bretton Woods Agreement.
But at that time, there were actually only two people in the spotlight. One was Keynes, an economist who represented Britain and had a huge influence on modern economic policies. The other was White, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, who represented the United States.
They brought their own proposals and engaged in heated debates, while representatives from other countries were merely spectators and passive recipients of the final solution.
Both the British and American proposals advocated the creation of an international monetary institution, a world central bank, and the International Clearing Union (the predecessor of the IMF). Consensus was quickly reached on this general direction, but the core issue was who the supranational currency used for pricing and settlement of international trade should be?
The proposal proposed by White was naturally the US dollar, but the proposal proposed by Keynes was not the pound. He proposed a new currency "Banker" - a currency basket composed of sovereign currencies of various countries, and then the International Clearing Union issued Banker; Banker was pegged to gold, and other countries' currencies were pegged to Banker; international trade was settled in Banker, and allocated for use according to the investment ratio of each country and the scale of international trade.
Looking back at the past from the perspective of the future, we can naturally clearly know that Keynes failed. On July 22, 1944, 22 days after Keynes fought desperately, the final plan surfaced, and the US dollar won the crown of the king of international currencies in the Bretton Woods at the foot of Mount Washington.
The core of the Bretton Woods Agreement has two parts. One is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which attempts to unify the trade policies of various countries and restrict countries from adopting incentive trade measures that harm the trade interests of other countries. The other is the Bretton Woods monetary system, which attempts to establish an internationally recognized exchange rate system to prevent individual countries from stimulating exports through active currency devaluation and triggering vicious export competition.
What is the Bretton Woods monetary system?
First, the currencies of various countries were pegged to the U.S. dollar, with fluctuations not exceeding 1%; second, the U.S. dollar was linked to gold, and countries could exchange U.S. dollars for gold at any time, with the gold price fixed at $35 per ounce; third, the International Monetary Fund was established as the world's central bank, and when individual countries experienced temporary dollar shortages, the IMF provided them with liquidity; fourth, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the predecessor of the World Bank) was established to provide infrastructure reconstruction loans to war-torn countries.
Since then, the US dollar has taken a central position in the international monetary system, which has continued to this day.
The two world wars made the United States rich, and the Bretton Woods system allowed the United States to stand at the top of the food chain in the global interest jungle.
On May 8, 1945, the Allied Forces and the Soviet Army met in Berlin, thus announcing the end of World War II. As after the end of World War I, the United States also faced a crisis of overproduction, but the United States learned from the lessons of World War I and had made special institutional arrangements in the Bretton Woods system. The United States indirectly provided import credit to Europe through the World Bank for the purchase of American goods.
By early 1947, World Bank loans had become too “restrictive.” U.S. Secretary of State Marshall visited Moscow and then traveled around the country, finding that the European economy was still weak.
After returning to the United States, Marshall developed a European Recovery Plan based on the Dawes Plan after World War I, known as the Marshall Plan. According to this plan, the United States began to provide more loans directly to Europe, bypassing the World Bank. These loans not only helped the Allies, but also Germany and Japan.
In fact, Britain, France, and the United States have been analyzing the lessons of World War I, and their consensus is that harsh war reparations are actually impossible to achieve, which ultimately led to the economic chaos after World War I. Therefore, after World War II, the Allies, apart from bringing war criminals to trial, did not raise the issue of war reparations.
The reason for doing this is that Germany and Japan will be future export markets for the United States.
What the United States was coveting at this time was export benefits in the traditional sense. From the perspective of later generations, the trade competition among the great powers was actually a competition for surpluses. By providing credit to Europe, they digested the United States' production capacity and obtained huge trade benefits.
More importantly, a large amount of US dollar loans were invested in Europe, which cultivated the habit of Europeans to use US dollars and established the unparalleled status of the US dollar in the entire Western world. The United States stood at the top of the food chain in the economic jungle. It only needed to issue a large amount of currency and export loans, and American goods could be exported overseas on a large scale.
With the excess profits brought by trade, Wall Street also swept away the gloom of the 1930s. In contrast, the New York branch of the Federal Reserve, the executive agency for issuing US dollars, was extremely busy, and the supply of US dollars continued to grow significantly, and behind this growth was the huge influx of gold from all over the world into the United States.
The famous Marshall Plan made Americans rich quickly and accelerated the recovery of the European economy. Two years later, in October 1949, the US gold reserves had reached more than 40 billion US dollars, accounting for 78% of the world's gold reserves.
On June 25, 1950, after the outbreak of the Korean War, American Donald Trump's President Truman, who walked into the White House in the footsteps of the Bretton Woods system, felt really uneasy.
The United States, which had suffered repeated defeats on the battlefield, began to impose an economic blockade on China. The first thing it did was to freeze all of China's assets in the United States, but unexpectedly, this move scared the Europeans.
Firstly, a large amount of Western Europe's dollar income comes from trade with Eastern Europe, so Western Europe is afraid that the United States will also freeze its dollar assets; secondly, the United States, which is deeply involved in the Korean War, has begun to have a fiscal deficit. Will its dollar assets depreciate as a result?
At this moment, Britain saw an opportunity to restore London's status as a financial center. Therefore, Britain adopted a series of measures such as not asking where the money came from and offering tax incentives to try to attract European dollars to London and form the world's largest dollar market outside the United States.
This tactic is indeed effective. Not only do European countries no longer have to borrow the dollars they need from the United States but instead go to London, but some American companies also place their overseas earnings in London to avoid high domestic tax rates.
This trend has continued to this day, and the City of London is not only the European dollar market, but also the world's largest currency trading market.
There is no doubt that maintaining the Bretton Woods system requires two prerequisites: first, the United States must maintain sufficient gold reserves to maintain its balance of international payments and unconditionally exchange gold with other countries at $35 per ounce; second, the U.S. dollar remains strong and maintains the world's confidence in the dollar.
But with the emergence of the Eurodollar market, more and more dollars are leaving the United States, which is bound to threaten the Bretton Woods system.
In particular, Europe recovered from the ruins of war and used newer and more advanced machines than the U.S., producing better and cheaper goods than the U.S. Therefore, under the combined forces of war, aging industry, and European scramble, the global trade pattern began to reverse.
In terms of trade, the US trade surplus turned into a deficit; in terms of finance, to make up for the deficit, the US can only increase the amount of US dollar currency, but as the currency increased, gold no longer flowed into the US, which shook the foundation of gold at $35 per ounce. The expectation of US dollar depreciation hurt the world's confidence in the US dollar.
In 1958, the world's skepticism about the dollar finally turned into a sell-off.
On January 2, 1960, Kennedy announced in front of 300 supporters in a secret meeting room of the Senate that he would run for the 35th President of the United States, but at this time, the dollar selling frenzy reached its peak in Europe. The gold price in London rose to $41.5 per ounce, which meant that the dollar depreciated by more than 20%.
In this year, attracted by the average investment return rate of 16% in Europe, which was twice as high as that in the United States, 47 billion US dollars of US capital flowed to Europe. In 1957, this figure was only 25 billion US dollars. In this year, the US gold reserves declined rapidly. In 1950, the total value was more than 40 billion US dollars, but now it was less than 20 billion US dollars.
In this year, the US fiscal deficit exceeded 20 billion US dollars, exceeding the total value of gold reserves for the first time in history; in this year, the US industrial output value fell by 14%, exports shrank, and coupled with a large outflow of capital, the US international balance of payments showed a deficit of 2 billion US dollars.
This was the first crisis of the US dollar after the establishment of the Bretton Woods system. The frightened United States immediately invited Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Canada and Japan to hold an emergency summit to discuss how to deal with the crisis.
At the meeting, the heads of state accepted the US proposal to pool their gold reserves and build the famous "10-nation gold reserve pool". At the same time, all parties signed a currency swap agreement - a reciprocal loan agreement, and through this agreement, nine European countries provided the US with a loan of US$20 billion.
With a series of measures, the US dollar barely managed to get through the difficulties.
In January 1961, Kennedy entered the White House. In the same year, the 28-year "Cold War" between the United States and the Soviet Union officially began.
However, another Cold War wall was also formed inadvertently. Given the dominance of Keynesianism, the competition for policy resources between industrial capital and financial capital created a huge gap.
Kennedy was very concerned about the healthy development of the US real economy. He believed that the real economy was the foundation of a country's economy, the source of wealth creation, and the cornerstone for more people to move toward the middle class. However, Kennedy's path to industrial development was very bumpy because he ran into resistance from many financial power groups.
At the same time, Kennedy encountered another big trouble. The European and American markets had long been connected by financial giants, and the Bretton Woods system actually constructed a fixed exchange rate system. Against this background, the US monetary policy was basically invalid.
That is to say, if the United States cuts interest rates or injects a large amount of base currency, capital will flow to Europe where interest rates are high; if it raises interest rates or reduces money supply to prevent capital flight, the U.S. real economy will inevitably be further suppressed.
On July 18, 1963, Kennedy had no choice but to rely on fiscal policy. He strongly demanded that Congress pass a bill to impose a heavy tax of 15% on outflow of capital. As soon as he finished speaking, Wall Street was furious, and the bill was fiercely opposed by British and American financial giants.
After 127 days of debate, Kennedy did not have the opportunity to see the bill passed. It was not until about ten months after his death that the bill was approved by the US Congress. However, the provisions of the bill were subtly modified and failed to achieve the purpose of preventing the free flow of capital.
After World War II, Latin American countries adopted an import substitution industrialization strategy, encouraged the development of their own manufacturing industry, and exported large quantities of resource-rich primary products. As a result, these countries developed rapidly economically.
Especially from the mid-1950s to the 1960s, Latin American countries' industry grew at an average annual rate of more than 8%, and their GDP grew at an average annual rate of 6.5%. In just over 10 years, per capita GDP increased from more than US$400 to more than US$1,000, which was called the Latin American miracle of the world economy.
In order to achieve industrialization faster and catch up with developed countries, these Latin American countries adopted expansionary economic policies, borrowed heavily from abroad, and increased government spending on public utilities.
On the one hand, the two oil crises in the 1970s caused a sharp rise in crude oil prices, and oil exporting countries earned huge amounts of US dollar income. There was a strong demand for asset appreciation and value preservation, and the supply of US dollars in the international market was sufficient.
On the other hand, the Federal Reserve's monetary policy was generally loose. Except during the oil crisis, the federal funds rate remained at a low level. The average interest rate for the whole year of 1970 was 7.2%, and it fell back to 5.8% in 1975. The low interest rate environment reduced the borrowing costs of Latin American countries.
With the progress of global financial integration, European and American commercial banks have increased their credit supply to Latin American countries.
One party wanted to lend and the other party needed money, so the two parties naturally hit it off. As a result, Latin America as a whole borrowed more than 20 billion US dollars. However, the borrowed money lacked good planning and management. A large amount of foreign debt was used to invest in large-scale public utilities with long investment cycles, low efficiency, poor liquidity and cash conversion capabilities, and part of it was used for non-productive expenditures, such as making up for losses of state-owned enterprises and purchasing arms.
In order to promote the implementation of the import substitution strategy and stimulate rapid economic development, major Latin American countries have long implemented deficit fiscal and expansionary monetary policies, making them the region with the most serious inflation in the world.
In 1976, Argentina's GDP deflator grew by 438% and its CPI reached 444% year-on-year. Severe inflation, economic recession and political instability stimulated capital outflows from some companies and individuals in Latin American countries. The increasing shortage of funds further strengthened the motivation of Latin American countries to borrow foreign debts.
The scale of foreign debt continues to expand, and the proportion of short-term debt rises rapidly, increasing debt risks.
In terms of total volume, the scale of foreign debt of Latin American countries expanded rapidly in the 1970s, and the proportion of foreign debt balance to GDP continued to rise. In 1970, the average foreign debt balance of Mexico, Argentina and Brazil was US$6.3 billion, while in 1980, the average foreign debt balance had soared to US$52.3 billion.
Around 1980, the economies of Britain and the United States fell into trouble and they implemented "financial shock therapy". In order to cope with the stagflation crisis and attract international capital inflows, the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates continuously since August 1980. Most of the foreign debts borrowed by Latin American countries were floating interest rates, and the international borrowing costs rose sharply, the debt burden increased, and the fuse of the debt crisis was ignited.
From the perspective of income, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike has caused the US dollar to continue to appreciate, global commodity prices denominated in US dollars have fallen, Latin American countries’ export income has plummeted, and their debt repayment basis has been destroyed.
From the perspective of expenditure, the rise in lending rates in the international financial market has caused the borrowing costs of Latin American countries to rise and interest expenses to increase rapidly. Under the double pressure, the debt repayment capacity of Latin American countries has declined significantly.
The US interest rate hike will naturally induce the outflow of international funds invested in Latin America, which will aggravate the capital shortage in Latin America, and then the balance of payments will deteriorate, capital outflow will intensify, and the currencies of Latin American countries will be forced to depreciate.
Argentina, located in Latin America, is a country with extremely rich resources. It was once the world's granary and meat storehouse. Its national income is comparable to that of the United States, and its social welfare is aimed at Northern Europe.
Some people say that when the welfare of a country's people is guaranteed, they will naturally be keen on consumption. This is what the Argentine people who enjoy high welfare do. They have no habit of saving and usually spend lavishly. If you ask a few Argentines at the end of the month, they usually have only a few cents left in their pockets.
Argentina's domestic commodity production relies heavily on foreign investment. After the massive withdrawal of international funds, Argentina could only increase its foreign imports. Therefore, under the triple pressure of weak exports, surging imports, and the need to maintain high welfare, in 1981, Argentina's foreign debt jumped to third in the world, reaching US$34 billion. Coupled with the appreciation of the US dollar under high interest rates, Argentina's foreign debt burden increased day by day.
Faced with such a situation, Argentina over-issued currency to devalue the peso in order to stimulate exports and exchange currency to repay debts. However, the major developed countries at that time were suffering from economic recession and severe unemployment. Even if Argentina provided a large number of cheap goods, they were unable to consume them.
Therefore, this move not only failed to bring Argentina's economy back on track, but instead caused severe inflation, with the inflation rate as high as 230%. Workers' actual income was only 50% of that in 1970, and the national unemployment rate for the working population was as high as over 30%.
As a result, Argentina's economy fell into a vicious cycle. On the one hand, the currency devaluation policy did not bring about an increase in exports, nor did it generate sufficient foreign exchange earnings; on the other hand, the devaluation caused domestic companies to face an increase in foreign debt repayment costs, making the burden increasingly heavy.
On March 31, 1982, a massive protest took place in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, and quickly spread across the country. The people accused the Galtieri military government of bringing the Argentine economy into a quagmire.
At a time of great distress at home, Galtieri, who was a military man, quickly decided on "war" as the solution to the problem - to retake the Falkland Islands by military means and divert domestic conflicts.
Fortunately, Galtieri succeeded.
On April 2, 1982, the news of the recovery of the Falkland Islands reached Argentina and the whole country celebrated. There was still a large-scale parade in the Plaza de Mayo, but this time it was an action to support the government. Argentina's 12 political parties and the Confederation of Labor Union put aside their past grudges and vowed to unite around Galtieri.
Argentina's actions naturally irritated Britain's nerves. Downing Street was well aware of this and was very worried. If Britain was frightened by Argentina's move to recover the Falkland Islands and did nothing, Argentina would default on its debts next. It should be noted that many of Argentina's foreign debts are in the hands of Britain.
If there is one, there will be two. If there is Afghanistan, there will be Pakistan. It is easy to form a chain reaction. Therefore, the 42nd Commando Battalion of the Royal Marines, a small team of the Army SAS and the Royal Navy Special Boat Commando went to the island to fight the Arab bandits while eating fish and chips and humming songs.
After the war, the follow-up work of both Britain and Argentina was carried out according to the standards of war. There was no communication about the Argentine economic crisis. Both sides knew what the other was planning. If you don't mention it, I won't mention it either. If you mention it, I won't respond.
After the Falklands War, Latin America's mess remains.
Four months later, in August, at the United Nations General Assembly, Mexico, which was already unable to repay its foreign debts, became the first to speak out. President Portillo publicly stated: "Mexico and many third world countries cannot abide by the original repayment deadline. We developing countries do not want to become vassals, and we cannot paralyze our economy or put our people into greater disaster because of debt repayment.
What's more, the interest on these debts has tripled, and such high interest was imposed on us without our knowledge, so it is not our responsibility at all.
Our efforts to defeat hunger, disease, ignorance and dependency are not the cause of this international crisis.”
Latin American countries' attitude towards high-interest foreign debts has strongly stimulated the City of London and Wall Street, and they must force Latin American countries to obey and accept the debt repayment arrangements of "capital".
Also on October 1, 1982, the creditors and debtors had a showdown.
The IMF changed its previous low profile and lack of presence and prescribed four good remedies for Latin American countries:
First, Latin American governments took over private debts in the country, under the pretext of preventing corporate bankruptcies from causing losses to the national economy, but in reality it was a debt preservation measure; second, they drastically cut government budgets, canceled government food and living subsidies for citizens, and saved financial resources to repay foreign debts;
Third, allow the currency to depreciate to increase exports and earn foreign exchange to repay debts; fourth, the IMF will carry out debt restructuring for Latin American debtor countries.
Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and all the countries included in the IMF list played the role of Wu Dalang and listened to the gentle voice: "Dalang, be good and take your medicine."
In order to repay their debts, Latin American debtor countries tightened their belts and almost all social welfare was eliminated. Mexico suffered from a serious shortage of imported medicines and a sharp increase in infant mortality. Although the debtor countries were actively repaying their debts, the debts kept increasing. In 1982, the total debt was $839 billion. By 1987, this figure had increased to $1.3 trillion.
It is not difficult to see that the IMF is like chemotherapy. Although there are several cases of cure through chemotherapy, compared with the numerous failed cases, it is not worth mentioning at all. As long as chemotherapy is used, regardless of whether the disease can be cured or not, the patient will first lose half his life.
For Nan Yi, the evil side of the IMF is none of his business. He just wants to have some connection with the lovely side of the IMF. Nan was born at the wrong time and missed the Latin American feast, but he cannot miss the Southeast Asian feast again.
Ma Shimin of Nan Guo Bank: "Thailand's total external debt is currently US$68.9 billion, of which one-year short-term debt is US$18.7 billion, while Thailand's foreign exchange reserves are US$35.45 billion . It is unlikely that Thailand will experience a debt crisis this year.
According to the currently known data and the possible increase in Thailand's short-term debt in the next 10 months, when the time comes to April 1996, the short-term debt that Thailand needs to repay within one year will exceed 40 billion US dollars.
This is a conservative estimate, and the actual number is likely to exceed $40 billion.”
"Simon, what is the probability you are talking about?" Nan Yi asked.
Ma Shimin: "I will write 80% in the written report."
Nan Yi: "Tell me what you really think, even if there is no data to support it."
Ma Shimin: “More than 95%.”
"Poetry sage."
Zhao Shixian: "I support Simon's view. Most of Thailand's short-term foreign debt is in the stock market and real estate. These two are almost unable to hold up. As long as Thailand's short-term foreign debt exceeds its foreign exchange reserves, and someone gives it a push, bomb!"
Nan Yi: "Simon, how much loan have we given out in Thailand?"
Ma Shimin: "7.2 billion US dollars, 900 million US dollars mature in six months, 2.1 billion US dollars mature in one year... All loans will mature within 19 months."
Nan Yi smiled and asked, "Is the collateral sufficient?"
Ma Shimin: "If the Thai baht depreciates significantly, the value of the collateral will not be enough."
"Southland Bank is a trustworthy and humane bank. We will not urge you to pay back your loan in advance if we can. However, the collateral must be in accordance with the contract. If it is insufficient, we will let our customers make up the difference."
Nan Yi knew clearly that once the Thai baht depreciated, most of the Thai customers who borrowed from Nan Guo Bank would not be able to provide the collateral.
When applying for a loan, the customer needs to state the purpose of the loan. For example, if the loan is to be invested in upgrading the factory's production capacity, the customer must use every penny for this purpose. Otherwise, it will be a breach of contract and Nanfang Bank has the right to demand repayment in advance.
The reason is simple. Nan Guo Bank will only lend money to its customers because it trusts that they can guarantee a return by doing something. People and things are a whole that is tied together. Once the customers use the money for other purposes, the basis of trust will be gone and the financial risk will soar sharply.
Usually, bundling requirements will appear in loan projects that are relatively large relative to the customer's assets, such as a customer with assets of 1 million who wants to borrow 700,000, or a loan project with an amount exceeding 100 million US dollars; for loan projects with good credit, where the loan amount only accounts for a small portion of the value of their assets, the bank generally only looks at the person and does not ask about the matter, and the loan money can be used for whatever purpose you want.
Less than half of the loans issued by South Country Bank in Thailand were used for the "specified purpose", and the rest entered the stock market, futures, real estate and other fields. Most customers had already violated certain clauses in the loan contracts, but South Country Bank pretended not to know. When the crisis in Thailand broke out, South Country Bank acted righteously and did not enforce its own rights to urge loans in advance, just to ensure the safety of funds and let customers make up the difference in collateral. This is not an exaggeration at all.
If you can make up the full payment, then wait until the loan expires. If you can pay back what you can, you need to distinguish how to repay it. If you repay the loan by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, you will be listed as a creditable customer. If you repay the loan by making profits, you will be a super high-quality customer, and it will be very easy for you to apply for a loan in the future.
For those who cannot repay the loan, we still need to analyze the specific issues specifically. It is impossible to directly confiscate the mortgaged property.
If the payment cannot be made in full, then it is a high-risk loan project and it must be urged. At least the part that exceeds the mortgage value of the collateral must be collected first to reduce the loan risk level.
In a word, Southern Bank is aiming to swallow up Thailand's high-quality industries, but it cannot be too blatant in the execution process. It has to act like a whore and also act like a saint. It must create the tragic scene of Southern Bank taking over non-performing assets with tears - Thailand is a place where money comes and may never come back.
"OK."
Nan Yi clapped his hands, "Okay, let's talk about our topic today, Shixian, what do you think?"
Zhao Shixian: "In 1990, the IMF had already intervened in Thailand's foreign exchange affairs. A large part of Thailand's foreign debt came from the World Bank."
“So you think Thailand will seek help from the IMF?”
Zhao Shixian: “Yes.”
"Simon, what about you?"
Ma Shimin: “I agree.”
"Uh-huh, let's discuss Malaysia and Indonesia next, starting with... Wait a minute, I have a call."
Nan Yi first muted the satellite phone, picked up the mobile phone on the table and answered the call while walking to the bathroom. He sat there for a long time. Even if the call didn't come, he would have almost started to drain the water.
"Liuzi, what's the matter?" Nan Yi clamped the phone on his shoulder, and his hands rustled.
"Master Nan, we are in trouble."
"What's the trouble?"
"Zheng Baiwan is coming over here."
Zheng Baiwan is not a person's name but the name of a company. It was originally just a state-owned department store and cultural supplies wholesale station in Shangdu. Later, it underwent a shareholding reform and became Zheng Baiwan Co., Ltd. Its business also changed. It no longer focused on cultural supplies, but entered the field of color TVs.
Zheng Baiwan is not engaged in production, but distribution. He is one of the largest color TV distributors in China and a super VIP of Wuchuan Changhong. Every time he purchases goods, he spends hundreds of millions.
Talking about Zheng Baiwan's profit model, it can be said to be very simple. Because of the large quantity of goods and the mutual support with Changhong, the price after Zheng Baiwan added profit is lower than the cost price of other small dealers. Needless to say, where Zheng Baiwan is, other dealers have to stand aside.
"Capital?" Nan Yi frowned.
"Shanghai."
"Um?"
Jingxi Yiguo is a benchmark in the home appliance industry in Beijing and one of the major distributors of home appliance companies. It has a large warehouse in Beijing. In addition to retail, it also acts as a middleman for home appliance companies, mainly radiating to the North China region, making a little money and collecting some intelligence on friendly competitors so that it can accurately take advantage of the situation when friendly competitors need help in the future.
"Master Nan, I just signed a new contract with TCV last month. We can step into North China, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Jingxi Yiguo. Now our people have collided with Zheng Baiwan's people in Shanghai. We fought twice and we won. Then Li Fukun of Zheng Baiwan threatened to enter Beijing."
"Don't tell me that '干' means fighting."
"Uh... just a fight."
"Tell me what happened."
"There is a Haipai electrical appliance store in Zhaojiabang. Our people had just finished discussing the supply there when Zheng Baiwan's people also came. The two sides met, but nothing happened at the time. Later, maybe the boss of Haipai revealed our price to Zheng Baiwan's people. I don't know what happened, but they found the guesthouse where our people were staying, and after a few words, they started fighting."
"One is Changhong and the other is TCV, what's there to argue about?" Nan Yi asked suspiciously.
"Uncle Nan, we are also Changhong's distributor." Liuzi's voice trembled.
Nan Yi zipped up his pants, walked to the sink, and turned on the faucet. "Did you beat someone up, or are you injured?"
"It's on both sides, not serious, just bruises on the face and nose."
"Are we right?"
"Yes... No, our people started it first, and we crossed the line."
Nan Yi wiped his hands, took the phone in his hand and walked out of the bathroom, laughing: "Liu Zi, you are capable. You are also idle. Jingxi Yiguo acts as a middleman just to better maintain the relationship with the manufacturer. Who asked you to work so hard?"
"Uncle Nan, you don't know that this year, the profits of many electrical appliances have fallen. Jingxi Yiguo has so many people. If I don't try to earn more, I won't be able to support them."
"Come on, stop complaining. I don't blame you, but it doesn't make much sense to go up against Zheng Baiwan now. Even if we defeat him, the benefits won't fall into our hands." Nan Yi thought for a moment and said, "Call Li Fukun and make peace first."
"Master Nan, Li Fukun is not someone who is easy to talk to. Maybe it's not okay to admit defeat."
Nan Yi thought for a moment and said, "Let's negotiate first. If we can, that's the best. If we can't, we can talk about it later. However, there are some things you need to do first."
"Master Nan, please speak."
"Stabilize the rear area and don't let others cut off your support."
"Master Nan, do you mean the Huang brothers?"
"As for the internal and home appliance manufacturers, you should either not fight or prepare as thoroughly as possible. You must win and pay more attention. You should know that business wars will also cause casualties. Don't let it be you who dies."
"It will definitely not be me who dies."
"Um."
After hanging up the phone, Nan Yi walked back to the table and turned off the mute. "Continue."
…