Era: Starting from divorce from female college student

Chapter 311, the scheme of framing others, killing the chicken to scare the monkey (asking for monthly votes)
December 1970, the month approaching Christmas.

In the White House Office in Washington, Richard Milhouse and his colleagues were still discussing who had taken out the base in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At this moment, Alessandro Reeves, the fifth man, suddenly pointed to the piece of land on the map and said:

"Maybe we can frame him for this incident."

Why frame him?

The current situation is actually very simple, which is the problem that Richard Millhouse and others are worried about: the gold in the Federal Reserve vault is gradually decreasing, and everyone needs to find a way to solve this problem.

Someone has already proposed a solution, which is to quit the group!
It’s better not to have the Bretton Woods system.

From the 1940s to the present 1970s, the US dollar has occupied a dominant position in global economic transactions.

Although if Sam leaves the group, it is very likely to lead to the crisis of the collapse of the US dollar, but before that, it is better to provide another insurance for the US dollar.

That's the oil bundling deal.

Modern society is an industrial economy society and cannot do without raw materials such as oil.

As long as it is ensured that every oil transaction must be conducted in US dollars, the dollar's hegemonic position will not be affected.

Currently, the world's largest oil producing area is the Middle East. These local emperors in the Middle East are not very willing and always want to make some small moves.

Even with the seven sisters, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, Shell, Chevron, British Persian Oil Company, and Gulf Oil Company, suppressing the situation, the local emperors in the Middle East kept making small moves.

Therefore, as long as we ensure that all oil transactions in the Middle East are conducted in US dollars, there will be no problem.

At the same time, the incident of the base in the Democratic Republic of the Congo can be framed on the local tyrants in the Middle East, so that they will bear the consequences. This can also help them get some resources to make up for the emptiness in the national treasury, and it can also serve as a warning to these local tyrants so that they will change their minds.

It can be said to kill several birds with one stone!

"Great! This is a brilliant plan, so great!"

Number three, Marcel Heck, was the first to react when he heard this, laughing and clapping.

Others also echoed and expressed their agreement.

I have to say, this strategy is very good.

The original crisis has now completely turned into an opportunity, which is really great.

Withdrawal is necessary. If it does not, the gold in the Federal Reserve's vault will continue to decrease. In the era of the gold standard, this is definitely not a good thing.

In short, more gold must remain in Sam's homeland and cannot be taken away by European minions.

Therefore, it is imperative to withdraw from the group!
But on the other hand, people like Richard Millhouse don't want the dollar's hegemony to decline, so they have to find a way to prevent this from happening.

Then tie the US dollar and oil together, and at the same time make a warning to the local tyrants in the Middle East.

Well, just like that, the plan was passed.

A week later, Zhao Mancang, who had just arrived in the small town of Iskushuban, received a piece of news: something happened in the Middle East again.

"Don't worry about the Middle East for now. We need to send people to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Such a big thing has happened there. We, the Black Cross, can't just sit there and watch."

Zhao Mancang gathered a group of people from the Black Cross and gave them orders.

Go wherever there is money, this is Zhao Mancang’s idea about Black Cross.

It's very simple. He doesn't want to spend extra money to support Lake Butler and his group. The basic salary of 50,000 Hong Kong dollars per person per month is not a small amount of money.

Therefore, Black Cross's ability to make money must be improved.

In this case, allowing them to occupy a mine, especially one containing metals such as copper and gold, would be equivalent to sitting on a gold mine.

At the same time, occupying such a good position, there will inevitably be many indigenous warlords or other capitalists who want to challenge the Black Cross.

In this way, the purpose of training troops can also be achieved.

When O'Connor, Adrian and others heard that they were going to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to carry out a mission, they didn't feel anything at first. Until they learned that they were going to occupy a gold mine, they were all excited.

Wow, this is definitely good news.

"Recruit soldiers and buy horses!"

Zhao Mancang announced the second order and said to everyone:

"From now on, Xiong Licheng, Lake Butler, and Xie Zhouping, you return to Hong Kong Island and recruit people for me!"

"We at New World Security Company only have 300 people right now. Although they are the elite among the elite, this is definitely not enough to guard a gold mine."

The entire Democratic Republic of the Congo is in such a mess. There are no less than thirty warlords like Lubumbashi who have tens of thousands of guns in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Warlords like those in Lubumbashi are not comparable to those in the area near the small town of Iskushuban, because the warlords in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are filled with desperate criminals from all over the world.

Each of these desperate criminals has his or her own strengths; otherwise, it would be impossible for them to gain a foothold in the local area.

Upon hearing this, Xiong Licheng and the others roared with excitement, as if they had already seen mountains of gold and silver waving at them.

"Don't be too happy too soon. If any of you die, haha, the money you get will be less, so try to reduce casualties as much as possible and protect your colleagues."

Hearing Zhao Mancang's words, Lake Butler and the others nodded seriously.

There is no doubt about this.

Since the establishment of the New World Security Company and everyone joined the Black Cross Force, this has been the principle and bottom line that has been implemented.

Zhao Mancang didn't want to suffer heavy losses and didn't want to recruit people every time, so he thought of many ways to reduce casualties.

Just retire when you can’t work anymore, don’t force yourself!
Never do anything that will drag others down!

Of course, if this is done, it does not mean that people like Lake Butler will not dare to move forward, or even bully the weak and fear the strong.

Haha, Zhao Mancang still has many strategies, and he will never let them become old-fashioned people who just eat and wait for death.

Zhao Mancang led a team to the Mbandaka mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This time, he would personally carry out the mission.

Ever since he brought Yu Qingchao and his men to clear the Mbandaka mine last time, many people have come here.

This is a mine. Many people come here to use dump trucks to transport the mineral soil and then refine it.

After Zhao Mancang arrived here, he took out guns and ammunition and drove away all those who wanted to get something for free.

So, the Mbandaka mine fell into Zhao Mancang's hands again.

Immediately afterwards, Zhao Mancang began to arrange people to stand guard, then built a wall and started training in various aspects.

This time, he wanted to build this place into another base camp for the Black Cross Force, and it would be an impregnable one.

Xie Pingzhou and his team also returned from Hong Kong Island quickly, bringing back about 500 people.

With so many elite soldiers stationed here, the next things will be much easier.

Just when Zhao Mancang was busy reorganizing the Black Cross troops, Elton had already learned about this.

"You mean the Black Cross? The team that's been entrenched near the Gulf of Aden in the Middle East for years? Why are they here?"

Elton was puzzled, but it didn't matter. Since the Black Cross troops were here, he might as well investigate them thoroughly.

Although the White House Office has clearly stated that it wants to frame the incident at the Congolese base on the local tyrant in the Middle East, Elton and his team still need to investigate who the real mastermind is behind the incident and cannot just gloss over it.

Now that the Black Cross troops are here, we have to conduct a thorough investigation.

In a highly profitable area like the Mbandaka mine, accidents will definitely happen again.

Although Commander Elton wanted to investigate the matter, Zhao Mancang didn't know and didn't care about it. He only wanted to return to the capital as soon as the Mbandaka mine was built, and then keep an eye on Xiao Baozi and the other children.

Da da da!
A group of people came to the vicinity of the Mbandaka mine, armed with guns and ammunition, and started shooting at the mine.

Xiong Licheng and others reacted quickly and fought back immediately.

For a moment, the entire area around the mine was filled with loud gunshots.

Elton and his men quickly received the news and took advantage of the chaos to provide support.

The Sams are particularly good at taking advantage of the situation, and this is what they love to do.

The entire Mbandaka mine was in chaos again.

Zhao Mancang was so annoyed by the noise that he really wanted to farm and develop quietly, but these people were still unwilling to give up.

That's counterattack!
But before fighting back, we have to buy a large number of guns and ammunition because there are not enough.

However, just when Zhao Mancang was planning to go to Sam to buy a gun, he discovered Sam's soldiers sent by Elton through the insect drone.

Sam's soldiers are completely different from the local natives, both in terms of equipment and soldier quality.

"Okay, since you guys came to my door, don't blame me!"

After seeing it clearly, Zhao Mancang was overjoyed. He left the Mbandaka mine and drove to the vicinity of the original base. Sure enough, he found the newly moved SAM soldiers' base camp. These SAM soldiers were still living in temporary tents. Zhao Mancang saw how miserable they were and did not disturb them.

He took advantage of the chaos to sneak into the base camp, found the armory, took everything out, set it on fire, and quickly evacuated.

After he left, Elton already knew about this matter and was so angry that he started cursing, but it was of no avail.

Because the situation is just that simple: someone has wiped out their arsenal, but they don't know who did it.

"Fuck, find it for me!" Elton roared at the soldiers like a lion.

Even if we have to dig three feet underground, we must find the culprit.

After obtaining arms from a base, Zhao Mancang did not return to the Mbandaka mine immediately, but flew directly to Sam.

He had to buy another batch of arms, otherwise people like Xiong Licheng would definitely be suspicious.

Anyway, Zhao Mancang would not do that, so they cannot be directly suspected.

In Sam's Los Angeles, Zhao Mancang contacted several arms dealers and began to wait for them to deliver the goods to his door. At the same time, he also learned about the current business conditions of several Hollywood giants such as Paramount.

The competition in the SAM movie market in December is more intense than in previous summer seasons.

Because "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" has already appeared in the summer season, the box office of this movie has become the first in film history, surpassing the 1.1 billion box office of "Jurassic Park", and has attracted strong attention from many investors.

Capital pursues profit, this is undeniable.

The booming film market makes it even more attractive.

With so much capital invested, the entire Christmas season saw more than ten films with investments exceeding tens of millions of US dollars.

The first two movies to be released are "Noah" produced by Warner Bros. Pictures on December 3rd. This movie was produced by Warner Bros. Entertainment more than 40 years ago.

The box office was very popular back then, so we are remaking it now, hoping that the box office will be even better.

Also released on the same day was Paramount's "Man of the Century". The investment in this movie was not high, only three million US dollars. The main reason was that the actors' salaries were a bit high, but everything else was fine.

"Noah's Ark" was invested with 30 million US dollars, so it got 57% of the theater screenings. "Man of the Century" was invested too little, but still got 29% of the screenings because of Paramount.

Almost everyone thought that Paramount was going to fail this time.

But when the box office figures for the 3rd were released, everyone was stunned.

Because the top of the single-day box office rankings was "Man of the Century", and Thursday was a weekday, but the box office results were actually 27.8 million US dollars.

Warner Bros.' "Noah," despite its huge investment, only grossed $17.9 million at the box office.

Although such box office results are actually very impressive, as the saying goes, there is no harm without comparison, the investment in the film is ten times that of others, but the box office is a full 10 million US dollars less than that of the other party.

"Fuck, fuck, God, how did they do that?"

In the luxurious office, Jack, as a major shareholder of Warner Bros., was exhausted and extremely angry.

A few years ago, Wall Street had already started to take action against Warner Brothers. If Jack had not been more vigilant, Warner Brothers would have really changed hands.

The current Sam's movie market is really hard to describe.

Jack finally made another desperate attempt, but the box office was still disappointing.

Although according to the box office on the first day of its release, there is a high probability that the movie "Noah's Ark" can recover its costs, and even if it tries hard, it may even exceed 100 million US dollars at the box office.

But who knows if it will work?
"Man of the Century" is so awesome. It only cost 3 million U.S. dollars to produce, but it grossed over 27.8 million U.S. dollars on the first day.

All the professionals in the entire Hollywood film market looked at this scene in astonishment, and everyone exclaimed that it was unbelievable.

The next day, Friday, the number of screenings of "Men 100%" in theaters soared a lot, almost reaching 40%.

So on this day, the box office of "100% Man" exceeded 30 million US dollars, reaching directly 36.92 million US dollars.

The reason why it is so great is that the novelty of this movie is indeed unprecedented and it is also very exciting.

The plot of this movie is that because of an electric shock, the protagonist accidentally gained the special ability of mind reading, and then embarked on a strange journey.

A typical cool script, still very novel at that time in the 1970s. If there was a Rotten Tomatoes rating index, then this score would be at least 9.8 points.

In short, the movie "100% Man" is very much to the taste of most people. It is of course very cool to accidentally gain superpowers and successfully reach the peak of life.

"Noah" only grossed $10.5 million on Friday.

The contrast is too great. Others have an upward curve, while "Noah's Ark" has a downward curve, which is completely reversed.

If this continues, the number of screenings in cinemas will definitely continue to decline.

There is no way. The cinema giants are a group of people chasing after profits. It is useless to talk about all this nonsense. They will increase the screening schedule of whichever movie makes money.

If it doesn't make money, the cinema giants will be eager to pull the movie off the screen as soon as possible.

In the blink of an eye, the box office figures of the two movies on Saturday and Sunday were released. The total box office of "100% Man" exceeded 100 million US dollars in three days, and the total box office in four days was 139 million US dollars.

The total box office of the movie "Noah" in four days was only 50 million US dollars, barely recovering the cost.

But it's almost the workday, and there are three very scary movies coming out this week. What should I do?
On Thursday, December 10th, Universal Pictures released Mr. Vampire, as well as Lolita, a $20 million film from United Artists, and Revenge, a $30 million film from Columbia.

Three movies were released on the same day, and none of them was willing to give up their spot because there were only so many days left during the Christmas period, and no one was willing to give up their spot to anyone else.

Then when the films are released on the same day, it becomes very difficult for cinemas to schedule screenings. To be fair, each cinema allocates screenings according to its publicity funds.

Even so, "One Hundred Percent Men" still had a 29% screening schedule, which was definitely preferential treatment.

Soon, the box office figures came out. On December 10th, the top spot was not "Mr. Vampire", "Lolita" or "Revenge", but "Man of the Century", with a box office of 28.99 million US dollars.

Ranked second is "Mr. Vampire", with a box office of 20.72 million US dollars.

"Lolita" and "Revenge" took in $16.6 million and $15 million respectively.

After the box office rankings come out, it becomes obvious how to schedule the films next.

The movie theater giants are the happiest. It's not even Christmas yet, but the single-day box office has already exceeded 80 million US dollars, and it's at a time like Thursday. On Friday and Saturday, the number will probably be even higher.

The success of the movie "Mr. Vampire" made many people realize that horror movies are not just horror movies, they can also be horror comedies, which can make people scared and laugh, and its appeal to many audiences is maximized.

Therefore, many film companies have begun to reflect that perhaps blindly working hard is really useless. The most important thing is to look at the core of the film itself and how to tell a good story. This is the most important key point.

In the next few days, the box office results were announced one after another, and the rankings had new changes.

Warner Bros. Pictures' "Noah" is about to be withdrawn from theaters because its single-day box office has fallen below $3 million. Its total box office has exceeded $70 million, barely recovering its costs.

"100% Man", which was released on the same day, has already grossed over 200 million US dollars. Paramount Pictures has made a fortune.

Universal Pictures' "Mr. Vampire" also broke the 100 million yuan mark in three days, and the total box office for the first four days of the weekend directly reached 147 billion US dollars.

Just because of this Saturday, "Mr. Vampire" earned 49 million US dollars at the box office because of its novelty and high hilarious index.

So hot!
In the blink of an eye, it was December 17th. There were more movies released on this day. Several movies invested by Wall Street giants were released on this day. The company competing with these giants was 20th Century Fox.

20th Century Fox directly came up with a movie called "The King", starring Bruce Lee.

The two elements of the boxing champion and Bruce Lee are enough. No matter how powerful other film companies are, they have to give in to Bruce Lee.

Movies starring Bruce Lee are of course very powerful, and since they are kung fu movies, there is no doubt about that.

Therefore, on the 17th, the box office champion of the day was "The King", which directly won 32 million US dollars, which was considered to be average and there was no big surprise.

But for other film companies, it would be a disaster.

This is really upsetting because the second and third places are "Mr. Vampire" and "Man of the Century" respectively.

Especially "100% Man", this movie has been released for half a month, and the single-day box office has not fallen below 10 million US dollars, which is outrageous.

But this is the fact, everyone can only stare blankly, what can they do?

When Zhao Mancang arrived in Los Angeles, it was the day before Christmas, December 23rd.

On the 23rd, "The Shawshank Redemption", which was mainly invested by MGM, was released. The box office of this movie was just acceptable. It was not a big hit, but it is worth savoring, and it is very likely to compete for next year's Oscars.

So far, the four film studios, Paramount, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and MGM, have all released their respective films, with varying results, but all are big winners.

Who made Zhao Mancang the manipulator behind this?

These movies are either going to be huge hits or make the film companies a ton of money.

Giants like Warner Bros., Sony Columbia, and United Artists were all very dissatisfied, but they often confronted each other face to face, and they all lost.

And he lost miserably.

Perhaps Warner Bros. has won by recovering its costs, but was the price paid by the company low?
Zhao Mancang has already turned his attention to the arms trade.

(End of this chapter)