50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 348 Another Treasury

At this critical moment in the business war, Toby is searching everywhere for gold, but he can't find a source. In desperation, he came to the owners' party to relax.

He then heard that the new neighbor owned a gold mine, so, desperate and grasping at straws, he tentatively asked about it.

Unexpectedly, the other party had such a large scale of support, which would likely become his key to victory.

The neighbors all envied Toby. Although they weren't in the same industry, most of them had related businesses.

They were generally aware of the problems Toby had encountered this year.

The economic environment is characterized by inflation, the Federal Reserve is tightening its gold reserves, procurement costs are rising, and there is competition from peers.

Toby's main business is in the gold and jewelry industry, and when his competitors started a business war, he had no choice but to fight back. Although he hasn't been defeated yet, he's finding it a bit difficult to make ends meet.

Now that he has suddenly received generous support from his new neighbor, things are sure to take a turn for the better, and Toby may just be able to get out of his predicament.

"Congratulations, Toby, you're going to win this time."

"Yes, Mr. James, your promise today will be a great help to Toby."

"It's nothing. Gold won't produce offspring if it's just sitting in the bank. Lending it to him for a short period of time is no big deal."

Sun Zhiwei suddenly realized that lending 10 ounces of gold to a stranger was not because he was foolish and had too much money.

Instead, he thought that if he could have his own jewelry store, the profits from the gold mine would multiply.

Selling raw materials and selling finished products are two different concepts. For the jewelry industry, gold is the raw material.

If Toby can't get past this hurdle, then he can naturally take over the jewelry store, laying the foundation for entering downstream industries.

If Toby can overcome this hurdle, he will have established a good relationship with the other party, and his gold will have a stable market in the future.

Why not do something that kills two birds with one stone?

As for the risks involved, it's okay, he has room to maneuver.

Even if Toby goes bankrupt, it would be a good idea to have him work to pay off his debts.

If he wants to default on his debt, then we can use his entire family as collateral; expanding the business space a little will allow us to recoup our costs.

Moreover, he got this batch of gold for free; he wouldn't lose money either way.

Nothing major happened after that. Once everyone got to know each other, they started visiting each other's social circles, and Sun Zhiwei distributed quite a few of the business cards he had prepared.

This group of people already has enough assets to get involved in antique collecting, and their needs are even more upscale than their neighbors in Georgetown. They are all potential clients for him in the future.

The party lasted until 10 p.m. After leaving, Sun Zhiwei did not go home, but went straight to the financial district.

The Federal Reserve Bank is located right next to Wall Street in Manhattan's financial district, and he needed to see the details of that underground vault.

Central Park is quite far from Wall Street, about eight or nine kilometers away. He took out a pickup truck from his spatial storage, one that he had taken from Los Angeles.

The skyscrapers of Wall Street remain brightly lit at night, and capitalists don't care whether it's dark or not; working overtime at night is a common occurrence.

There were far fewer pedestrians on the streets, and police cars patrolled the main roads from time to time.

The capitalists are still very careful about their own safety, and they donate money to the local police department every year. The police here are probably the best paid in the entire United States.

Sun Zhiwei drove his pickup truck directly to Liberty Street, then circled the Federal Reserve Building twice, finally getting a complete picture of the underground situation. There was indeed a lot of gold stored there, but the scale of the storage wasn't as large as he had imagined.

According to later data, the total gold reserves in the United States at that time should have been around 8000 tons.

In addition to the gold reserves held by the Federal Reserve in various countries around the world, there should be at least 15000 tons of gold underground here.

But after scanning the entire underground vault, he discovered that there were at most seven or eight thousand tons, nearly half less than he had expected.

After a moment's thought, he realized that the United States' own gold reserves seemed to have another storage location.

That is the Fort Knox gold and silver vault, located about 50 kilometers southwest of Louisville, Kentucky's largest city.

While the vaults there weren't as fortified as those on Wall Street, the Fort Knox vault was built inside a military barracks.

It is located just outside Fort Knox, the headquarters of the US Army Armored Forces and a training and research base for US armored warfare technology.

More than 2 army armored soldiers are stationed there year-round. In terms of security, the Fort Knox vault is more secure than the vaults on Wall Street.

Therefore, the Fort Knox vault stores half of the United States' gold reserves year-round, which is about 4000 tons of gold.

It is said that the place has not been open to the public for decades, and the last brief inspection was three years ago.

In addition, there are some small gold reserves in other cities in the Federation, totaling thousands of tons.

After figuring out the distribution of the federal gold reserves, Sun Zhiwei's gaze pierced through the tens of meters thick granite strata, locking onto the underground vault as if deep in thought.

Therefore, only about one-third of the 8000 tons of gold below belongs to the United States, while the rest is held by foreign entities in the Federal Reserve.

He really wanted to get his hands on the gold, but he needed a trick to get it quietly.

It's impossible to simply transport it away using space, because the total gold reserves of all countries in the world are only about 3 tons.

Everyone has a general idea of ​​how much gold each country has in reserve.

What if the Federal Reserve were suddenly robbed of a large amount of gold, and another batch of gold of unknown origin suddenly appeared on the market?

So even without evidence, the Americans will still launch an attack.

Sun Zhiwei's intention in acquiring gold was not to store it away in a space, but rather to exchange it for various currencies and use it.

If he takes the gold here but can't use it, what's the point? He might as well just leave it here.

In any case, the underground vault here is completely undefended for him; he can take whatever he wants whenever he wants.

He needed to think carefully about how to get the gold without revealing the theft.

He had already seen the vault, but he hadn't figured out how to get the gold out of it, so he didn't linger any longer.

The pickup truck carrying Sun Zhiwei drove through the narrow, neon-lit streets, brushed past a police car, and headed towards the upper city.

In the following days, he began to travel around New York, frequently driving to nearby attractions to take photos.

After only three days of sightseeing, he lost interest. His wife and children weren't around, and he was starting to miss home.

That very evening, he devised a plan to seize the Federal Reserve's underground gold reserves: a substitution.

(End of this chapter)