Era: Starting from divorce from female college student

Chapter 177, Rutile
April 22, 1959, the 15th day of the third lunar month.

On the second floor of a tea restaurant near the Central Pier, Zhao Mancang and Alex sat face to face and chatted by the window.

From here you can see the entire Central Pier and Tsim Sha Tsui on the opposite bank.

For Zhao Mancang, sitting here eating egg tarts was naturally not for the egg tarts, but to see if Zuo Changsheng and the others had returned.

He had been sitting here for several days in a row, but Zuo Changsheng and the others didn't seem to have returned.

According to the original plan, they should return to Hong Kong Island first instead of going directly back to Baiyun City.

There are many fishing boats and merchant ships coming and going in Hong Kong and Kowloon. Even the medium-to-large fishing boat driven by Zuo Changsheng and his men is not uncommon in Hong Kong and Kowloon.

Therefore, even if Sam wanted to investigate, he could only watch helplessly.

Last week, a warship and a submarine sank directly to the bottom of the sea in the waters near Haizhou City, resulting in more than a thousand casualties and missing persons.

For Sam, this was huge news.

Well, Alex has already received the relevant investigation information and needs the cooperation of the police in Hong Kong and Kowloon to see if there are any clues.

But how could Alex know what was happening in Haizhou City?
He complained to Zhao Mancang that this was just a way for the Intelligence Bureau to take advantage of the opportunity to make money.

However, such a high-profile search throughout Hong Kong and Kowloon, especially the fishing boats and merchant ships passing by, was the focus of the focus. It was only yesterday that Lei Luo discovered some movement.

A Middle Eastern businessman smuggling rutile ore was caught.

Zhao Mancang, who was originally worried about whether Zuo Changsheng and the others had encountered an accident, suddenly had an idea when he heard that it was rutile. He asked:

"Where is that Middle Eastern businessman going to ship all this rutile? And what's the price of rutile? Will the profit be quite high?"

As a stock trading expert and businessman, Zhao Mancang's question naturally would not arouse Alex's suspicion.

The latter rolled his eyes. It was obvious that he didn't understand the rutile business either. However, seeing that Zhao Mancang was interested in this matter, he said:

"Since you like it so much, I'll go back and ask for you. But Nicholas, when will you be willing to teach me how to trade stocks?"

On the 19th, Zhao Mancang deposited another two million US dollars into HSBC, and later contacted Joseph Grant to ask the HSBC boss for a loan of 200 million Hong Kong dollars.

Although there is no news about the boss yet, Alex was shocked when the news reached him.

Two hundred million Hong Kong dollars?

Zhao Mancang is really awesome. This is 30 million US dollars. Where did he get the courage to ask HSBC for a loan of so much money?

Such a large amount of money certainly couldn't have fallen from the sky, so where did Zhao Mancang get the collateral of equal value?
Anyway, Alex was convinced and no longer dared to grin at Zhao Mancang, the God of Wealth.

But whenever he had the chance, he would still beg Zhao Mancang to teach him how to trade stocks.

Zhao Mancang was helpless about this. Why were people not willing to give their money to him to trade stocks?

I guess Alex is not a fool, or he is not that obsessed, so he has never thought about giving his money to Zhao Mancang to trade stocks.

In this case, it is even more impossible for Zhao Mancang to make any promises to the other party, so unless he catches Alex as a black carp, Zhao Mancang will definitely not use a landing net to catch him.

As for whether the other party will decouple?

As long as Zhao Mancang has a large amount of capital and numerous industries in his hands, Alex will never decouple easily.

Even by that time, when Zhao Mancang had already made friends with high-ranking officials such as the Superintendent, Senior Superintendent, or Assistant Director, Alex was still struggling with the position of Senior Inspector.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, Alex left first. Zhao Mancang sat until five o'clock before getting up and leaving.

Zuo Changsheng and the others have not returned yet. It is also possible that they did not come directly to Hong Kong and Kowloon, but chose to return directly to Baiyun City.

So, Zhao Mancang chose to send a secret telegram to China Resources Company.

Soon he received a reply and learned that Zuo Changsheng and the others had returned directly to Baiyun City. He was immediately relieved.

The next day, Alex brought some news that was neither good nor bad. Rutile was to be transported to Oceania, and was not the person that Sam's Intelligence Agency wanted to capture.

As a result, the Middle Eastern businessman was quickly acquitted.

After hearing the news, Zhao Mancang was stunned for a moment, and immediately asked for the contact information of the Middle Eastern businessman.

Upon hearing this, Alex couldn't help but ask curiously:

"Do you want to do the mineral business too? This is not a good business. It wastes too much manpower and is very dangerous."

After hearing what Alex said, Zhao Mancang disagreed and just said that he wanted to learn more and would not make a decision immediately.

Others don’t know what rutile is, but Zhao Mancang knows it very well.

The reason why Sam Intelligence Agency in Hong Kong and Kowloon notified Alex to release the person so quickly was purely because this Middle Eastern businessman was one of their own.

To be precise, this Middle Eastern businessman is an informant for the Intelligence Bureau.

Rutile is an ore exported from Moscow. It cannot be shipped directly from Moscow to North America where Sam's family lives, nor can it be shipped directly to the Cactus Country or the Maple Leaf Country.

These rutile stones have to go through many countries and multiple rounds of transportation before they can be transported back to Sam's home.

Otherwise, with the sensitivity of KGB agents, they would definitely discover Sam's Intelligence Agency's little tricks.

Once the KGB knew that the SAM Intelligence Agency was in urgent need of rutile minerals, Moscow might ban the export of this stuff.

It just so happened that Sam was in urgent need of rutile because the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft they manufactured required the metal sponge titanium.

The metal sponge titanium can only be extracted from rutile ores, and it just so happens that only Moscow has large stocks of this stuff.

Other countries may also have it, but either the production is not large or it has not yet been discovered.

Later generations knew that there were large amounts of titanium metal ores distributed in places such as Sam, Moscow, Kimura, Todai, Australia, India, Southern Africa, and the South American Coffee Kingdom.

But at this time, Sam already knew that there were some in Moscow, and in large quantities.

Therefore, Sam can only rely on Moscow now, and it is naturally impossible to cut off this route.

Since Zhao Mancang knew about this matter and happened to meet a Middle Eastern businessman, he had to find a way to investigate it thoroughly.

He hated Moscow and didn't like Sam, but in this case, he still wanted to do something.

After obtaining the contact information of the Middle Eastern businessman, Zhao Mancang took action.

After two days of investigation, Zhao Mancang only knew that the Middle Eastern businessmen were going to Oceania to transport the rutile to a company called Brisbane Mining Company in Australia.

Zhao Mancang couldn't be sure whether this was the case or not.

He could only find time to go to Tuao, but before going to Tuao, he had to earn some more experience points first.

Anyway, Middle Eastern merchants are likely to stay in Hong Kong and Kowloon for a long time, and Sam needs a large amount of rutile, so they are unlikely to give up this transportation route.

Zhao Mancang disguised himself as a white British man and hired a private detective to help him keep an eye on the Middle Eastern businessman.

Once there is any movement, Zhao Mancang will receive the news immediately.

After arranging all this, Zhao Mancang focused on his career.

In the chairman's office of Sing Tao Building, No. 1 Wang Guang Road, Kowloon Peninsula, Hu Wenxian received Orly Fax and his party.

At the beginning, the atmosphere of the conversation between the two sides was still very pleasant, until Orly Fax proposed to acquire Sing Tao Newspaper Limited, Hu Wenxian's face changed instantly.

Acquisition?

Of course it’s impossible!

Orlyfax was not surprised after being sternly rejected by Hu Wenxian.

Because Sing Tao Newspaper Company is the property of Hu Wenxian's father, it can be said to be the property of their Hu family.

Even with a 20% premium, Hu Wenxian still refused.

Before Orlyfax and the others left, Hu Wenxian couldn't help but say:

"O'Leary, aren't you worried that after I sell Sing Tao Newspapers to you, I'll start over and compete with you?"

"Haha, really? Then are you willing to sell it?"

When Orley heard this, his eyes lit up and he asked hurriedly.

Whenever Hu Wenxian wants to sell it, Orley will definitely buy it for his boss.

Hu Wenxian froze for a moment, shook his head awkwardly, and rejected Orley again.

Watching Orley and the others leave, Hu Wenxian suddenly looked worried: What should I do?

The Hong Kong newspaper industry is already highly competitive and struggling to survive, but this situation has become even more pronounced in recent months.

For example, the addition of the two newspapers, "Hong Kong Daily News" and "Ming Pao", has directly made the competition in Hong Kong's newspaper industry more intense.

Now, unexpectedly, a wealthy company has come and wants to acquire several newspapers, which has suddenly made the entire newspaper industry in Hong Kong Island feel "insecure".

Li Yuen Building, 20 Li Yuen Street East, Hong Kong Island, the headquarters of Sing Pao.

Faced with the request for acquisition, Mou Yanfang also refused.

Many privately-owned newspapers almost universally rejected Orlyfax's acquisition requests, and many even rejected them without even listening to the offer.

In the office of Hongyuan Holdings headquarters in Wanbang Building, Sheung Wan, Zhao Mancang smiled after listening to Orlyfax's work report.

As he expected, neither Sing Tao Daily nor Sing Pao accepted to be acquired.

In that case, don't blame him for entering this industry and completely disrupting it.

Although the newspaper industry in Hong Kong is not very profitable, its influence is indeed extraordinary.

Despite owning two companies, the Hong Kong Daily and Ming Pao, Zhao Mancang still felt that experience was coming too slowly, so it would be most appropriate for him to acquire a few more newspaper companies.

Unfortunately, they are not willing to sell it.

Let’s do this, referring to the starting model of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Daily, acquire several tabloids, and then set up a new newspaper company as soon as possible by poaching people with high salaries.

They specifically targeted Sing Tao Daily and Sing Pao because they were the only two newspapers still in the top ten of the sales rankings.

The other six newspapers are either Ta Kung Pao, Hong Kong Times, or Commercial Daily. In short, these newspapers are not easy to deal with, and Zhao Mancang dare not provoke them for the time being.

Not to mention Ta Kung Pao, the Hong Kong Times is a newspaper that leans towards the Taiwan Island and the Stone Island, while the Commercial Daily is a newspaper controlled by the Hedong family.

The Hedong family was the most prominent family in Hong Kong Island during the British colonial period. This reputation alone is enough to show the status of the Hedong family.

Zhao Mancang is asking for trouble by trying to acquire the Industrial and Commercial Daily at this time. It is a completely brainless act.

But the situation is different for Sing Tao Daily and Sing Pao. Their backgrounds are relatively weaker, so it is no problem for Zhao Mancang to provoke them.

Besides, it's just normal business competition. If they can't stand it and want to cause trouble for Zhao Mancang, he is certainly not afraid.

Orley didn't expect Zhao Mancang to be so bad, but this is also good.

After finishing the things here, Zhao Mancang had to take care of the real estate company's affairs.

He had previously contacted Steve from Heidrick & Struggles, who recommended several real estate company executives. After the interviews, Zhao Mancang hired three of them.

With a vice president and two financial directors as the framework, Zhao Mancang established a small real estate company with only ten people.

Why are there so few people?

Because at this stage, Zhao Mancang only wants to acquire land and is not considering anything else for the time being.

Overall, the current housing prices in Hong Kong and Kowloon are too low. This is the most suitable time to acquire land for building houses, rather than anything else.

Secondly, Zhao Mancang currently does not have much funds, so we should build the framework first, and then we can provide him with more help.

Even so, Zhao Mancang spent one million Hong Kong dollars and borrowed two million Hong Kong dollars to purchase a Hengfa Building in Sheung Wan as the headquarters of the real estate company Changda Real Estate.

This is what Zhao Mancang is doing at the moment. One is to continue to delve into the newspaper industry, and the other is to enter the real estate industry.

In fact, Zhao Mancang could have developed manufacturing or other industries through the system, but unfortunately, he currently did not have enough experience points, did not have a strong backer, and had not yet settled down.

So even if he wants to earn experience points, he needs to consider doing it step by step.

Garment manufacturing companies in the textile industry are actually something you can consider. After all, such companies are labor-intensive, but the competition in this industry is far more intense than in the newspaper industry.

There is even a serious internal conflict and overcapacity.

Entering the garment industry at this time is purely asking for trouble, and you may even end up being taken advantage of. Not only will you not make any money, you won't gain any experience points either, and you will definitely suffer losses.

There is no other way. This industry has almost no technical barriers and no entry requirements. If Zhao Mancang enters it, he will only suffer heavy losses.

The threshold for the newspaper industry is much higher, but Zhao Mancang is not afraid of it.

In the real estate industry, Zhao Mancang only acquired land and was not involved in construction, so it was not a big problem.

After dealing with these two matters, Zhao Mancang left Hong Kong Island first because he had to track down the clue of the Middle Eastern businessman.

As for the mission of the Lone Wolf Department, Zhao Mancang put it aside.

Thousands of kilometers away from Brisbane in Oceania, Zhao Mancang flew here and found the Brisbane Mining Company as soon as possible.

"Hey, it's quite hidden and looks quite decent."

After Zhao Mancang arrived in Australia, he immediately launched an investigation into the Brisbane Mining Company. It took him two days to thoroughly investigate the company.

This company is obviously Sam's white glove enterprise, specializing in transporting ore such as rutile.

Rutile is an ore that is completely unimportant in Moscow. They don't even know that it can be used to refine sponge titanium. In other words, Moscow doesn't know the refining technology, let alone what sponge titanium can be used for.

That is why it is exported in large quantities to third world countries.

Since it is a third world country that purchases this rutile, there is no need for Moscow to take precautions.

But in fact, all of this is just a trick of SAM Intelligence Agency. The real goal is to "clean" these rutile stones several times in third world countries so that the KGB cannot investigate clearly. That's enough.

All rutile transported to the Brisbane Ore Company will be stored and will have to wait at least a year before it can be "sold" again.

Australia is a powerful country. The Brisbane Ore Company makes a profit from the price difference through the trading of this kind of ore, which is a very normal business behavior.

How could the KGB have the patience to continue waiting?

It is even possible that while the Brisbane Ore Company was stockpiling rutile in its own warehouse, it mixed some rutile into the iron ore, copper ore and other ores when it sold them and shipped them directly to South America or Latin America.

You can even go straight to the Cactus Kingdom in one step.

As long as we reach the Cactus Kingdom, we can transport it back to Sam's own land. Isn't that a simple task?

Zhao Mancang was very familiar with the entire process, so when he learned how Brisbane Minerals Company handled this batch of rutile, he had already come up with a solution.

Who is more suitable than him to transport rutile?

Zhao Mancang needed to make this money. He had to transport the rutile from Moscow in advance and then to North America, so that he could make money.

If this is done, North America will be able to develop the Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft more quickly.

Once the Skunk Works of Lockheed Martin Corporation in North America develops the Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft, Zhao Mancang will definitely take action and let the KGB cause trouble for the Skunk Works.

In short, Zhao Mancang’s purpose is very simple, which is to make Moscow and Washington fight each other.

"But my current experience points are too low, the system space is limited, and the amount of rutile I can transport at one time is limited. Even if I were to make a profit from the price difference, it wouldn't be much."

Zhao Mancang lowered his eyes and pondered how to solve the difficulties at hand.

"Forget it, let's explore the route first, then go to North America and purchase some food. When we come back, we'll bring more food. Then we'll go back to the capital to see if Yuan Yushan and Ma Jiugong are just tools." "But then, the Lone Wolf mission will have to be put to good use. It can't be resolved so quickly. Well, we still have so much gold. Let's use it to fill the gap first."

Right now, Zhao Mancang still needs the lone wolf mission of the 108 departments as his "pass" to enter and leave the capital. Otherwise, it would be a bit troublesome for him to return to or leave the capital quickly.

You can't go back to the capital secretly, right?
It's okay if it happens once or twice, but if it happens too often, it's likely to cause trouble.

He doesn't treat others as fools or air that can allow him to come and go so freely.

After finishing his investigation trip in Oceania, Zhao Mancang returned to Hong Kong and Kowloon.

After returning to Hong Kong and Kowloon, it was already April 27th. He went to see Xu Wenluo first, and then went to No. 66 Deep Water Bay.

You know what, I finally got to meet Zhuang Xiaoting this time.

When the latter saw him, he immediately gained 159 experience points, which surprised Zhao Mancang.

Wow, this is a really good tool.

Before this, Zhao Mancang had not met Zhuang Xiaoting when he returned to Hong Kong and Kowloon from Mindanao.

According to her cousin Feng Yue, she went to visit Sam's place with her parents.

It can also be seen from here that Zhuang Xiaoting's family is indeed quite wealthy. How could an ordinary family go out to play often at this time?

"Brother Zhao, you're finally back. That's great."

When Zhuang Xiaoting saw Zhao Mancang, her face was full of surprise. She even forgot about working and stayed beside Zhao Mancang.

After gaining experience points, Zhao Mancang ran away without caring about the other party's resentment.

This talented lady from the University of Hong Kong obviously has a crush on him.

But he had no intention of developing any relationship with the other party, he just wanted to gain experience points.

If you push it to the limit like this, I guess the experience points will be higher, right?

On the morning of April 28th, in the headquarters office of Hongyuan Holdings in Wanbang Building, Sheung Wan, Zhao Mancang gathered everyone and asked about the preparations for the two newspapers, "Xingxing Daily" and "Guanghui Daily".

These two newspapers are completely modeled after Sing Tao Daily and Sing Pao, and it is these two newspapers that will be targeted when the time comes.

Competition among peers is so fierce and cruel.

However, even though he imitated these two newspapers, Zhao Mancang still gave "Sing Sing Daily" and "Kwong Fai Daily" their own characteristics, and he wanted to crush all the current newspapers in Hong Kong and Kowloon from the very beginning.

Taking the "Xingxing Daily" as an example, Zhao Mancang directly arranged several killer weapons for this newspaper.

The first is the operating cost, for which they directly hired back twelve generals at high salaries. These generals are all well-known figures in the Hong Kong newspaper industry.

Although Zhao Mancang was not sure whether these people could bring him huge traffic, poaching them would be a serious blow to his competitors and would cause chaos for a while.

The second is to arrange a few best-selling novels to read, but the pen name is definitely not the same pen name used to write The Smiling, Proud Wanderer.

Because these best-selling novels are "A Step into the Past", "The Twin Dragons of the Tang Dynasty", "The Golden Sword and the Eagle Feather", "Kunlun", etc., especially "A Step into the Past", which can be said to be a certain kind of pornographic novel, and the bold and explicit descriptions in the text will definitely make many people curse.

Whether it is a bad reputation or a praised reputation, it is not important to Zhao Mancang. What is important is whether it can bring sales and allow him to earn experience points.

The two newspaper companies, Xingxing Daily and Guanghui Daily, currently have more than 80 employees, all of whom Zhao Mancang knows.

As long as Zhao Mancang knows someone, any matter related to him can help him earn experience points.

A meeting was resolved in just forty-five minutes. Zhao Mancang's high efficiency is something that many other companies should learn from.

Before ending the meeting, Zhao Mancang instructed several responsible persons to quickly follow up and implement the distribution of "Xingxing Daily" and "Guanghui Daily".

If these two newspapers could be published faster, Zhao Mancang would be able to earn more experience points.

Two days later, at Zhao Mancang's urging, the two newspapers were finally published.

On April 30th, the two newspapers, "Xingxing Daily" and "Guanghui Daily", were launched and distributed free of charge for a week to owners of small bookstores and newsstands.

In other words, they can earn 30 cents from a newspaper that costs 30 cents.

Under such profit trends, the two newspapers sold 62,000 and 66,000 copies respectively on the day of their launch, which can be said to have opened a new chapter in the Hong Kong and Kowloon newspaper industry.

terrible!

When Hu Wenxian and Mou Yanfang saw the "Xingxing Daily" and "Guanghui Daily", they were completely stunned.

Because these two newspapers were targeting their two newspapers respectively, which was a completely naked targeting behavior.

The layout is almost identical, although some of the words are different and the content is more concise and condensed, but it is undeniable that this is completely aimed at their behavior.

On the first day of the listing of these two newspapers, the top ten newspaper companies in Hong Kong in terms of sales volume all suffered varying degrees of impact.

The sales of the Hong Kong Daily and Ming Pao newspapers decreased by 500 and 800 copies respectively, which was a huge impact.

Newspapers such as the Industrial and Commercial Daily, Ta Kung Pao, Sing Tao Daily, Sing Pao, Hong Kong Commercial Daily, South China Morning Post, and Hong Kong Daily all saw a sharp drop in sales of hundreds to thousands of copies, a record-breaking drop.

The result was that the next day, all of the above newspapers launched large-scale criticism against the two troublemakers, the Xingxing Daily and the Guanghui Daily.

Especially the South China Morning Post, Commercial Daily, Sing Tao Daily and Sing Pao, their wording is extremely sharp, and the murderous aura that can be felt through the words can be felt.

There is no way. They are the ones with the worst sales drop. If they don’t complain, who will?
Especially Sing Tao Daily and Sing Pao, which dropped by more than 8,000 copies, which is definitely a serious blow.

Don’t underestimate the power of the owners of bookstores and newsstands across Hong Kong.

Of course these bosses were very happy that Zhao Mancang gave them so much money.

Take Zhang Quangui, the father of Xuyan Bookstore near the Mong Kok Typhoon Shelter, as an example. He bought 500 copies of "Sing Sing Daily" and "Kwong Fai Daily" respectively. At the price of 30 cents, he was able to sell them all before 8 o'clock in the morning.

In other words, he can earn three hundred yuan.

Who wouldn’t like to earn HK$300 a day?

In contrast, other newspaper companies such as the South China Morning Post, Sing Tao Daily, and Sing Pao could only earn seven or eight cents at best for each newspaper sold. After working hard all day and selling three to five hundred copies, they only got HK$40.

So, do you need to ask whose newspaper you are selling?

Besides, newspapers like the South China Morning Post are old newspapers with a fixed readership, and generally speaking, there won’t be much change.

If you are not willing to buy it, you will definitely not buy it.

Who can be blamed for the plummeting sales?
In the office of Wanbang Building, Zhao Mancang reminded the management not to get excited and to maintain the quality and sales volume. After all, the moment of life and death would be decided in a week.

The traffic is coming, but if the quality is not stable and we cannot handle this huge wealth, it will be all in vain.

So, don’t be impatient, absolutely don’t be impatient.

It is impossible for Zhao Mancang to wait a week before leaving.

Because today is May 1st, he has to leave Hong Kong and Kowloon.

Xu Wenluo and Zhuang Xiaoting can't get any more wool from the sheep. If they can't provide emotional value, experience points will not appear out of thin air.

Therefore, we must evacuate first.

Starting from Hong Kong and Kowloon, Zhao Mancang headed straight to London, Great Britain. After arriving in London, he went to Moscow.

At present, this is the safest way to enter Moscow.

As for going from Kimura in Tokyo to Moscow, haha, that is even more difficult.

But this way of flying also made his butt hurt from flying.

After arriving in Moscow, Zhao Mancang made some brief inquiries and soon found out the origin of rutile.

In order not to alert the enemy, Zhao Mancang had to go to the rutile mine and find their mine warehouse.

As a result, no rutile was found, but a lot of iron ore was seen instead.

"Wow, Moscow really is a country with abundant resources. Isn't this too rich?"

Moscow is a resource-rich city with so many mineral resources that it makes people envious and drool.

Unfortunately, Zhao Mancang’s system space is not large, and he can only take away more than 40 million kilograms of ore.

More than 40 million jin is equivalent to 20,000 tons, that's all.

how?

Bullshit, not much at all.

"But where is this rutile hidden?"

Zhao Mancang wanted to find rutile because it was an expensive rare metal ore and was not cheap.

After searching for a long time and two people died, Zhao Mancang finally found the rutile in the warehouse. What surprised him was that there were several mountains of rutile here.

"Holy crap, Moscow is really impressive. They've actually mined so much rutile! There must be at least 40,000 to 50,000 tons of rutile here, right? Could it be that they've figured out how to extract titanium sponge?"

"Or have they already caught Sam's intelligence agency?"

However, Zhao Mancang did not think so much.

There was so much rutile, and his current idea was to move them all out.

He had to find some other place to hide the rutile, otherwise when he came next time, the rutile would have been hidden away and he would not be able to sell it to Sam again.

Just when Zhao Mancang was about to take the rutile away, he suddenly thought of something and couldn't help feeling annoyed.

"I'm stupid, wouldn't it be better if I could find someone to refine titanium sponge myself?"

Selling rutile directly and selling titanium sponge have two completely different prices.

But where to refine it, how to obtain the refining technology, and the skilled workers in the refinery, etc., are all big problems.

"Fuck, let's not think about this problem for now. Let's go to North America and test the waters and see if we can make some money first!"

The price of 20,000 tons of rutile is not small, and it is also a huge sum of money.

why?
Because in the history of the original time and space, Sam imported a large amount of rutile from Moscow and refined more than a thousand tons of titanium metal.

As an important mineral raw material for refining titanium metal, rutile itself is a relatively pure titanium dioxide.

If the titanium dioxide content of rutile is above 95%, then theoretically, 106 tons of rutile can be used to produce 100 tons of titanium metal.

The reason is that with a 100% refining efficiency, one ton of rutile containing 95% titanium dioxide can produce 0.95 tons of titanium metal.

However, in the actual refining process, it is impossible to have 100% refining efficiency, and there will be losses during the refining process.

Therefore, if North America needs to refine more than a thousand tons of titanium metal, at least hundreds of thousands of tons of rutile will be needed.

Although there are large reserves of rutile ore in Moscow, the grade is generally low, usually between 5% and 15%.

The grade of titanium dioxide in the Urbin titanium deposit in Quebec Province of the Maple Leaf Country reaches 35%, the grade of Sam's Lake Sanford titanium magnetite is 9.5%-30%, and the grade of the Trail Ridge seashore sand mine is 20%.

From this we can see that although the rutile ore reserves in Moscow are very considerable, the grade is too low, which means that more rutile is needed during the refining process.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of rutile are their target, because they need to build more Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft to achieve their own goals.

Zhao Mancang stored 40 million kilograms, or 20,000 tons of rutile ore, into the system space, and then quickly left the vicinity.

Driving a Banana helicopter, Zhao Mancang came directly to the primeval forest more than 100 kilometers away from the mining market, found the ravine, and hid all the 20,000 tons of rutile in the space.

The good thing about Moscow is that it has a vast area and a sparse population.

Looking around, there was no one there.

So Zhao Mancang could easily find a primeval forest far away from human survival and bury it casually. Hey, wanting to find these rutiles is nothing but a foolish dream.

What's more, Zhao Mancang hid them very well, so it would be even more impossible to find them.

Then he turned back again and took away the remaining 30,000 tons of rutile in two batches.

In other words, he stored more than 34,000 tons of rutile in the primeval forest, and more than 21,000 tons of rutile in the system space.

Carrying more than 21,000 tons of rutile, Zhao Mancang left Moscow and flew smoothly to London, Great Britain, and then went to New York.

Then we crossed the North American continent from New York and arrived in California on the east coast of the Pacific Ocean.

Sam's Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works is located in Burbank, California. Zhao Mancang is not familiar with this place, but he knows clearly that the Skunk Works is here.

The U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, which was also a notorious aircraft of Sam's family, was equipped to the entire army two years ago. It was developed by the Skunk Works.

After arriving in Burbank, California, Zhao Mancang spent a day and finally found a processing plant that refined rutile.

However, he did not find anyone who could make the decision to take over such a large amount of rutile business.

More than 21,000 tons of rutile is not a small amount. If Zhao Mancang cannot find a suitable buyer, he can only watch helplessly.

After another day, he finally found someone who was somewhat talkative and familiar with rutile.

In an ordinary coffee shop in Burbank, Zhao Mancang saw the other person drinking coffee and went up to say hello.

"Hi, Crook, long time no see, you're still as strong as ever."

Zhao Mancang pretended to be very familiar with the other party and tried to get close to him enthusiastically, but the other party was confused.

After exchanging a few words, Crook still didn't understand how this stranger, Zhao Mancang, knew his name, but at this time Zhao Mancang had already gotten straight to the point and took out a piece of rutile.

The appearance of rutile immediately changed Crook's expression.

Because rutile is a highly confidential mineral even in Burbank. How could it appear in the hands of a stranger in an ordinary cafe?
"Does it look familiar?" Zhao Mancang said with a smile, "Of course it does. I know you're transporting this rutile back to North America from Moscow."

Upon hearing this, Crook suddenly stood up and interrupted:

"I don't know what you're talking about. Come on, I think we should find a place where no one is around to talk about this."

"Okay, please lead the way." Zhao Mancang was suddenly very happy and didn't seem to be afraid of the other party at all.

The two men walked out of the cafe and came to a black car. As soon as they got in, Zhao Mancang was held at gunpoint against his waist.

"A smart person would know not to move now, otherwise, bullets don't have eyes."

The threatening words did calm Zhao Mancang down when he heard them.

"Okay, I promise not to move. Now please take me to a quiet place to discuss the business of these 20,000 tons of rutile."

Zhao Mancang's words made Crook and his colleagues twitch their lips and look serious.

However, this was obviously not the place to interrogate Zhao Mancang, so the two of them took Zhao Mancang directly back to their office.

Crook and the other man were both agents of the Intelligence Bureau responsible for rutile, so they knew very well about rutile.

In Burbank, there were also KGB agents or students studying in Moscow who inquired about rutile or other high-tech products.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Khrushchev visited Sam's home, and there were more exchanges between the people.

So this is not surprising.

Crook and his team are responsible for this work. They must ensure that anyone who wants to inquire about rutile pays the price, and at the same time, the use of rutile cannot be known to Moscow.

In the interrogation room, Zhao Mancang was pinned to a table and chair by Crook and his two companions. Silver bracelets were put on his hands and feet, depriving him of his freedom.

But at the moment the door of the interrogation room was closed, Zhao Mancang's counterattack followed.

(End of this chapter)