50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 228: Changing the Heaven and the Sun
After getting off the car a few kilometers outside of Utaburg Airport, Sun Zhiwei turned into a nearby alley and disappeared.

In the following days, Sun Zhiwei checked into a small hotel nearby, leaving early and returning late every day. Even the hotel owner knew that a businessman from Hong Kong was looking for a suitable grain seller.

During the day, Sun Zhiwei didn't actually go to the US military base. Instead, he diligently contacted nearby grain merchants and visited several warehouses to inspect the goods.

However, once it gets dark, apart from a few charming streets frequented by American soldiers, the other streets fall into silence.

Sun Zhiwei would then climb out of the hotel window and head to the nearby Utaburg Airport.

Although it's called an airport, it's actually a military base. Besides the hangars, runways, and control tower, there's a large area that belongs to military barracks and family quarters.

Especially in recent years, due to the withdrawal of troops from Annam, the airport has received a large number of soldiers and expatriates from Annam, so the personnel in the base are somewhat mixed.

Many of the soldiers who withdrew from Annam took their local lovers and children with them.

Some of these soldiers would take people to the United States, while others had wives in the US, leaving their lovers and children in Bangkok.

Many more lovers and children were left behind in Annam, and those people were truly miserable.

In short, the area around U-Tapao Airport is quite chaotic right now, with Americans, Annamese, and Thais all mixed together.

Therefore, Sun Zhiwei was not conspicuous here after putting on makeup.

A few days ago, he rented a warehouse not far from the base. The warehouse is less than two kilometers from Utaburg Airport and less than 10 kilometers from the port of Laem Chabang.

In recent days, during the daytime, grain has been gradually transported here.

At night, when no one was in the warehouse, Sun Zhiwei would secretly come over and dig a tunnel.

He cleared the path to the airport last night and is now digging towards the hangar.

From the edge of the airport towards the hangar, you pass the tarmac. Sun Zhiwei dug and looked around, noticing all sorts of planes parked on the tarmac above him.

Besides fighter jets, transport planes, and helicopters, he also saw quite a few B-52s.

When he dug down to the bottom of the hangar and counted all the B52s in the hangar, his brows furrowed even more.

Including the B-52s on the tarmac, there are fewer than 30 aircraft in total, and four of them have been disassembled for maintenance.

At that time, U-Tapao Airport was the US B-52 base in Southeast Asia. All the nearby B-52s had to take off, park, and be maintained here. Theoretically, there should have been hundreds of them.

But now only this much remains, which shows that the US withdrawal is accelerating.

In the latter half of the night, after confirming the location of all the B52s, Sun Zhiwei left the warehouse and returned to his hotel to sleep.

Starting the next day, he increased the speed of rice collection, raising the purchase price from £340/ton to £350/ton.

At the same time, he contacted the Huo family via international long-distance call, directly calling the head of their family.

"Mr. Huo, hello. My name is Sun Wei. I am a grain merchant. I got your number from my friend Xu in the north. I apologize for bothering you."

Mr. Huo was quite puzzled. He had no recollection of this Hong Kong businessman named Sun Wei, but the fact that he had obtained the number already indicated which line the other party came from.

"You're welcome, Mr. Sun. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Mr. Huo, I have a batch of Thai rice that I need to urgently transport back. I would like to ask if you can help me transport it using your cargo ship. I wonder if you have any large ships in Thailand?"

"What size vessel do you need?"

"At least a 5000-ton open cargo ship is needed."

"Please wait a moment, let me check." Then, there was silence on the phone, but the call wasn't disconnected. After a while, the voice on the other end came back on: "Mr. Sun, a 10,000-ton ship, the 'Lisa,' will arrive at Laem Chabang Port in three days."

“After the ‘Lisa’ arrives at the port, it will take 5 days to unload and rest before it can continue its journey. Is that alright with you?”

"Okay, then I'll trouble you."

"You're welcome, we're all on the same side."

"Mr. Huo, I have a suggestion. I wonder if you would be interested?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know if you are interested in this batch of rice. The price of rice arriving in Hong Kong is £460 per ton, and the retail price is £680 per ton."

"My rice is only £350 per ton, excluding shipping costs. If you are interested in buying it, I will save myself the trouble of going back and making just a handling fee."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, clearly someone was checking prices.

How is the quality of this batch of rice?

"These are all new rice from this year, of excellent quality. You can pay after they arrive at the port. I can wait a few days."

"Okay, I'll take it. How many tons are there in total?"

"We have already received 5000 tons, and deliveries are still continuing. We expect a maximum of 1 tons."

"I want it all."

"Haha, Mr. Huo is indeed a straightforward person. Then it will be a pleasure to cooperate with him."

"Pleasant to work with."

After hanging up the phone, Sun Zhiwei immediately began purchasing grain, working day and night. By the third day, he had already received 6000 tons, and more rice was still being stored in the warehouse.

That noon, he arrived at Laem Chabang Port and saw the 10,000-ton cargo ship named 'Lisa' unloading its cargo.

He immediately found the captain of the 'Lisa' and, after verifying the information with him, the two parties agreed to start loading the cargo in three days.

Two days later, 9000 tons of rice were ready. This rice cost him more than £300 million. Fortunately, the Clay brothers in London were very wealthy last time.

Thailand exports large quantities of rice year-round, so a single ship carrying 10,000 tons of rice is nothing special. The port has a large number of freight vehicles, manpower, and machinery that can quickly load rice.

Sun Zhiwei contacted the port, and then the port's convoy began shuttling between the warehouse and the 'Lisa' to load rice onto the ship.

It only took two days to load 9000 tons of rice onto the ship. The captain also checked the quality of the rice, and the results showed that, as Sun Zhiwei had said, it was indeed this year's new rice.

That evening, after the rice was loaded, Sun Zhiwei used the ship's phone to call Mr. Huo, explaining that the rice had been loaded onto the ship, and also asked the captain to speak with Mr. Huo.

Before hanging up, Sun Zhiwei suddenly picked up the phone, walked to the side, and made a presumptuous request to Mr. Huo on the other end of the line.

“Mr. Huo, I would like to invite ‘all the crew’ ashore for a relaxing evening tonight.”

On the other end of the phone, Mr. Huo was silent for a moment before asking, "Is it necessary?"

"Yes, I need at least an hour's break. You know, there are some things that the crew members are better off not knowing, or at least not seeing."

"Okay, give the phone to the captain, and I'll give him instructions."

(End of this chapter)