Dume Point Estate.
After dinner, Jennifer instructed the maids to clean up the dining room and checked on the six little ones at home before grabbing a file and heading to the study on the lower level of the Shell Villa.
Having been Simon's assistant for a long time, Jennifer was very familiar with the routine.
Simon and Janet were standing in front of a large world map on the study wall, discussing something and occasionally marking the map with a pen.
After watching for a moment, Jennifer gestured with the file in her hand: "This is the guest list for Thursday's luncheon. Simon, do you need to make any adjustments?"
"You guys handle it," Simon said, not taking the file. Instead, he pulled Jennifer closer and pointed to the world map in front of them. Switching to Chinese, he joked, "Look, this is the empire I've conquered for you."
Over the years, Jennifer's Chinese had become nearly as fluent as Janet's, though she still didn't quite understand Simon's spontaneous quip. Thinking he was just being playful, she rolled her eyes at him but continued to lean against him, studying the map.
Jennifer, along with a few trusted maids, was responsible for cleaning and organizing this private study. She was well aware of the world map Simon had been scribbling on for some time and quickly noticed some new annotations on the routes extending from Africa. She pointed to them and asked, "Batteries? What does that mean?"
"This was inspired by a conversation I had with Paulson from Goldman Sachs at a New York cocktail party a few days ago," Simon explained with a smile. "You know I've been paying a lot of attention to rechargeable batteries in recent years. But after Paulson's unexpected reminder, I realized my plans are far from sufficient."
At the cocktail party last week, Simon and Paulson had casually discussed the future of the automotive industry. Paulson had concluded that "whoever controls batteries will control the future," and after their brief conversation, Simon had come to the same conclusion.
Before that, Simon's focus on the rechargeable battery industry had primarily been for the electronics business of the Westeros system, such as ThinkPad's flagship products and Nokia's mobile phones.
He hadn't thought much further ahead.
But after that conversation, Simon realized he could indeed start laying the groundwork for more ambitious plans.
The global ripple effects of the Asian financial crisis provided the perfect opportunity for such a strategy.
Jennifer asked, "What does this have to do with Africa?"
Simon pointed to the Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa: "According to current exploration results, this region holds vast reserves of lithium, nickel, cobalt, and other critical minerals needed for future rechargeable batteries."
Without waiting for Jennifer to ask further, Simon continued, indicating the three main routes extending from Africa to the East Coast of the United States, Ukraine in Europe, and China: "Africa provides the raw materials. After initial refining, they're shipped to North America, Eastern Europe, and China for further processing. Then, they're turned into the batteries we need—lots and lots of batteries."
Jennifer smiled and played along: "What do we need so many batteries for?"
"For cars," Simon said. "Imagine replacing all the internal combustion engine vehicles in the world—billions of them—with electric vehicles. How many batteries would that take?"
Even after several years as a homemaker, Jennifer's mind was still sharp. She quickly grasped the implications and her eyes widened.
She could easily imagine it.
If Simon's vision came true, batteries would likely become as crucial as oil is today. And controlling the global battery industry would mean controlling the world's "energy" lifeline.
Janet, standing on Simon's other side, chimed in excitedly: "Who knows, maybe there'll even be wars fought over the core industries related to batteries. The First Battery War, the Second Battery War, haha."
Jennifer shot Janet a look, unimpressed by her enthusiasm for war: "The third one would be World War III, and we'd all be destroyed."
"I've been looking forward to it," Janet quipped.
Jennifer didn't have time to indulge their nonsense. "I'm heading upstairs. Don't stay up too late," she said, kissing Simon before leaving the study.
As soon as Jennifer was out of sight, Janet, still holding the pen, marked something on the map in Latin America and said, "I'll talk to my brother more about this. If we're going to do this, we should expand our exploration and acquisition of battery-related core mineral resources globally, not just in Africa."
Simon nodded. "We don't need to make it too obvious. We don't want to alert others. We can take ten years to slowly build this up."
"Ten years? That long?"
Simon smiled. "Over the next decade, we'll continue to solidify our dominance in tech sectors like the internet and expand into emerging markets like China. Once that's done, we'll need a new growth driver, and that's when the electric vehicle plan can take off."
Janet thought for a moment and nodded in agreement.
After discussing the map a bit more, the two moved to the large desk by the window. Simon sat in the leather chair, and Janet, instead of pulling up another chair, simply sat on his lap. Together, they went through the day's financial updates from Asia.
Janet suddenly remembered something and tilted her head back: "Darling, if that's the case, shouldn't we start laying some groundwork in the automotive industry now? You know, for technical accumulation?"
Simon kissed her soft cheek and smiled. "Not only should we not do that, but we should also minimize any involvement in that area."
Janet blinked, confused.
Simon explained: "Think about why it's so hard to develop a more efficient and cost-effective rail system in North America."
Janet thought for a moment and understood.
It was all about interests.
North America certainly had railroads, but compared to the aviation and highway systems, the rail system was outdated and dilapidated.
Why?
Because the powerful aviation and highway interest groups wouldn't allow it.
Boeing wouldn't allow it. The airline unions wouldn't allow it. General Motors and Ford wouldn't allow it. The truck drivers' unions wouldn't allow it.
Extending this logic, why were public transportation systems in major U.S. cities so underdeveloped? In some world-class cities, subway systems took decades to build. The reason was the same: if public transportation were too efficient, fewer people would buy cars.
So, it wasn't a lack of funds. It was that too many people didn't want to see that outcome because it would hurt their interests.
The same logic applied to the Westeros system. If they invested too heavily in traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, even if Simon were willing to sacrifice the profits from that sector to transition to electric vehicles, there would be too many vested interests dragging their feet and preventing him from doing so.
Even the development of controlled nuclear fusion by the Westeros system would inevitably face resistance from traditional fossil fuel interest groups.
Therefore, to minimize internal resistance, Simon wouldn't get too involved in the traditional automotive industry.
Janet, understanding this, didn't press further and turned her attention to the financial reports with Simon.
After the New Taiwan Dollar and the South Korean Won abandoned their exchange rate controls last week, Asian stock, bond, and currency markets continued to tumble on Monday.
With everyone working in tacit agreement, Hong Kong's stock market was once again the first to take the hit. The Hang Seng Index plunged another 7.3%, from 11,392 points on Friday to close at 10,561 points. Except for a few informed groups secretly planning behind the scenes, most clueless onlookers believed the Hang Seng would inevitably fall below 10,000 points.
Since no one was willing to take on Hang Seng short positions above 10,000 points, most speculative capital had to place their bets below that threshold. And these short positions were almost fully absorbed.
Over the next two days—more precisely, until a press conference at 2 PM local time on Wednesday—the Hang Seng would be tacitly pushed into the 9,000-point range, specifically around 9,500, to lure in the final wave of short-sellers.
Then, the net would close.
After reviewing the data from Hong Kong, Janet looked up again: "The Hong Kong government has prepared $15 billion to actively prop up the market. This means they're abandoning the principle of non-intervention in free-market financial fluctuations. I'm wondering if other countries will follow suit, like South Korea. If they do, some of our plans might not be so easy to execute."
Simon was impressed by Janet's insight.
In the original timeline, in August 1998, Hong Kong abandoned its non-interventionist policy and injected funds to prop up the Hang Seng Index. This was a risky move because it could damage Hong Kong's reputation as a free market. However, it ultimately proved to be the right decision.
After the Hong Kong financial defense, international speculators finally backed off, bringing calm to Hong Kong and, by extension, mainland China.
Seeing the positive effects of Hong Kong's market intervention, Malaysia also began actively intervening a month later, followed by Russia, which went even further by essentially defaulting, avoiding the complete collapse of its financial system while screwing over a prominent U.S. hedge fund called Long-Term Capital Management. Due to the massive scale of Long-Term Capital's positions, this nearly triggered a systemic financial crisis in the U.S., forcing the Federal Reserve to intervene.
Thus, Hong Kong's active market intervention could be seen as the first bucket of cold water poured on the two-year-long Asian financial crisis that had spread globally.
This time, with China making a certain decision a year earlier, there was a possibility that other countries might follow suit.
Simon thought for a moment and said, "At least South Korea won't have the chance. The situation in South Korea is completely different from Hong Kong's. Hong Kong has ample foreign exchange reserves, a sound economic structure, and almost no external debt. Although their approach this time bends the rules, it's still within the bounds of financial gamesmanship. South Korea is different. Their main issue is external debt. If the South Korean government wants to intervene, the only option is to completely disregard the rules—impose foreign exchange controls, fix exchange rates, and even ban capital outflows. As an export-oriented economy, doing this might temporarily stop the bleeding, but it would also mean South Korea completely abandoning its economic future."
After Simon finished, Janet narrowed her eyes: "I'm not so sure. The world is always forgetful."
Simon pondered for a moment and had to admit that Janet's judgment was likely correct.
In the original timeline, Russia had defaulted once, but after internal reforms and the surge in oil prices in the early 2000s, it briefly returned to the ranks of the world's top ten economies by GDP.
Similarly, countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, which had imposed controls during the Asian financial crisis, were later criticized by economists for the long-term negative impacts of their actions. However, if you looked at their GDP rankings over time—1997, 2007, 2017—there was little change, and in some cases, their rankings even improved.
The world was indeed very forgetful.
Still, Simon said, "I don't care about the others. But if South Korea dares to ruin my plans, I'll make sure they have no future."
This time, Janet didn't argue. She nodded and nuzzled Simon's chin.
In fact, Janet had initially been puzzled as to why her husband was so focused on tiny South Korea.
Now, of course, she understood.
The core issue was semiconductors.
Simon had long wanted to enter the semiconductor industry but hadn't found the right opportunity.
This was his chance.
In truth, after suppressing Japan's semiconductor industry, the U.S. semiconductor sector wasn't weak. The problem lay in production. Over the years, the U.S. semiconductor industry had rapidly shifted toward a fabless model, and the weakness in production became increasingly severe. With his foresight, Simon knew that semiconductor production would increasingly shift to Asia.
In Asia, Japan would be coasting on past achievements for a long time. Taiwan only needed to secure TSMC. South Korea, however, was comprehensive and, compared to Japan's massive economic scale and protectionist policies, was just weak enough to be fully taken over during this financial crisis.
Therefore, it was time to act decisively.
Beyond semiconductors, there were also LCD screens.
Simon planned to take control of this sector as well while maintaining a balance to prevent South Korea from monopolizing it.
Then there were South Korea's construction, machinery, and shipbuilding industries.
In short, they were all juicy targets.
Moreover, behind all this lay the potential to control an entire country.
As for South Korea's entertainment industry, while it seemed glamorous and prosperous, its scale was ultimately limited. Taking it over would simply be a bonus, making it easier to play with their stars.
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