What the hell is a private enterprise?

Chapter 453 When in doubt, turn to technology
Aveiro's men were all young officers who had studied abroad and were familiar with Morse code.

The group quickly found paper and pens and recorded 0 and 1 on the paper according to the frequency of the ship's swaying, which was not known to be at any speed.

Aveiro himself, however, was squatting by the windowsill, staring intently at the Bismarck battleship model under the moonlight.

The stern rudder of this model ship is operated by a cable, so it is quite certain that there is a mechanism operating inside.

It might be some kind of gimmicky radio station.

Just as he was thinking this, his subordinate managed to cobble together a translation of the sentence and looked up to shout:

"They want us to identify ourselves!"

"no!"

Ah Wei immediately refused. He and the "Brothers of Justice" were not ready yet, so how could they reveal their hand directly?

“We need the First Brother’s orders to do this, now… disconnect.”

Aveiro solemnly drew the curtains, but feeling it wasn't safe enough, he put a piece of cardboard in to better block out the moonlight.

……

"Disconnected?"

One of the FM (Pan-American) ship captains understood the Portuguese spoken by Aveiro and offered Tang Wen his conjecture:

"Judging from their accent and habits, they are very likely from Baxi."

This makes sense. The country was once puzzled by the fact that Pakistan offered no resistance and allowed the empire to enter. Now it seems that there was a huge internal dispute, to the point that some people were willing to seek Hans's help.

As for severing ties, that was to be expected. The situation of "Lord Ye professing love for dragons" is very common, and Tang Wen, who had read too many bizarre tales of small countries, was not surprised at all.

Although he didn't think much of this seemingly amateurish "Brothers of Justice," Tang Wen still kept them in mind.

Sometimes, a seemingly insignificant move can have an unexpected impact.

After a tense but brief second exchange with Avila, it was morning back home, and Tang Wen began to read current events:
Negan Lance, the current president of Greenpeace, has been approved for detention and investigation for possessing prohibited plants.

Hong Kong Police Department: The possibility that Greenpeace provided cover for the perpetrator cannot be ruled out.

123 Web Search has also started integrating news terms, crawling the headlines of several major news websites every day, which saves you the cost of a newspaper.

Although Tang Wen didn't hate the Green Organization that much, leaving them a little trouble would prevent many problems later on.

Without their interference, the progress in the Spratly Islands could have been accelerated:
After using containers and shipwrecks for cofferdam-style reclamation, the progress has accelerated dramatically, even with the daily obstruction of typhoons. The oil base on Gongzhen Reef has reached its production capacity limit of 10000 tons per day, while the fleet's progress and the base's construction progress are lagging behind.

The plan to rebuild Pearl Harbor has been officially put on the agenda.

However, after he had only exchanged opinions with a few key personnel in a chat room, Hu Li rushed into the office and started complaining:

"From an investment perspective, the Spratly Islands are simply too far away. It would take a long time to recoup the costs from tourism revenue alone, and a large number of warships would also consume human resources and incur maintenance expenses."

The group's largest source of revenue is oil. Its fledgling automotive industry, shipbuilding, aircraft, internet, and Nansha infrastructure projects have consistently incurred losses. Our business operations are actually quite unhealthy.

Hu Li was the first to submit the first quarter's financial report. She discovered that if the unexplained huge income was excluded, the group's losses were simply outrageous.

While the automotive, aviation, and internet industries can be considered as requiring investment before generating profits, the rest of the industries are utterly disheartening. Shipyards rarely accept civilian ship orders, yet they are constantly crammed with resources to build useless antique warships for tourist attractions and airplanes. Furthermore, infrastructure projects in the Spratly Islands require spending 500% more money to generate only 10% of revenue; cutting these projects could save billions.

To carve out an island thousands of kilometers away just for some tourism resources, it would probably cost at least several billion.
Judging solely from available cash, the entire group relies entirely on a continuous stream of loans and illicit funds, making Tang Wen the most indebted person rather than the richest.

Tang Wen's attitude toward this was...

"Just don't use the official accounts; put it in the shipyard's private accounts."

"..."

"You can make the plan, and we'll follow it."

Hu Li immediately lowered her head and didn't say another word.

The shipyard system's private accounts are indeed impressive; they don't even need to create fake accounts themselves. If they were included, she wouldn't need to worry about it.

But as she walked out of the office, she couldn't help but think that if she were ever investigated, such a terrifyingly huge shortfall might make her an eternal legend of Tilanqiao, an accounting fraud master that she could never avoid in accounting textbooks.

However, before she left, she left a small notebook. Tang Wen opened it and saw that it contained negative information about several of her subordinate companies:

Most of them were just simple numerical reports, along with examples of typical problems:
For example, a supplier of office supplies has made a lot of purchases, but many of the items on the receipts never actually appeared in the office;
The cafeteria's standards were almost luxurious, but recently many employees have complained that the beef has been replaced with pork, and the quality of the food has declined sharply.

The R&D center of the car factory scraps far more materials and products than normal every month. What should have been just a few samples has turned into bulk purchases.

These problems become exaggerated when they are presented in numbers. The number of clerks at the Gaijin headquarters is small, but the expenses are considerable. A quick visit to the expense details submitted by several subsidiaries reveals numerous questions, and the whereabouts of a large amount of funds are unknown.

The entire Gaijin was merely a tool for Tang Wen to achieve the shipyard's goals. As long as it didn't cause trouble, these minor flaws were deliberately ignored, but now they seem to be a bit serious.
In reality, this kind of problem is far too common in this era; ignoring it might worsen, but effective management is also very difficult...

After thinking for a long time, Tang Wen logged into the chat room and opened Song Nan's chat window:
[Young Master Tang: Let's find some time to discuss electronic financial systems and online office automation (OA) systems.]

When in doubt, technology can pave the way.

……

Goose City
Gao Yuliang led a group of people to welcome a very important guest:
"Hello, Mr. Li!"

"Hello to you as well. I hope Goose City can give Cheung Kong Holdings a chance."

Despite being 69 years old, Li Ka-shing is still very energetic and looks much younger than his actual age.

He seemed to possess an invisible, special aura that put considerable pressure on even the local leadership.

Compared to Tang Wen, a nouveau riche, Li Ka-shing is a traditional industrial tycoon with staggering assets, making him a Hong Kong entrepreneur that the whole country takes seriously.

In 1997, countless places were most looking forward to foreign investment, followed by Hong Kong businessmen, but Li Ka-shing was an exception.

Wherever he goes, the local authorities are eager to provide him with convenience and preferential treatment in order to encourage him to invest and develop businesses.

Even though Goose City was almost too full to eat anymore, they still treated Li Ka-shing with the highest courtesy.

There was no other reason than that the other party had revealed the information before they arrived:
The company plans to invest $10 billion to build a comprehensive commercial plaza and residential area in Goose City, targeting the middle and high-income groups in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and capitalizing on the consumption dividends brought about by the downgrading of the financial sector.

He believes that after Hong Kong is hit by the financial crisis, a large number of people will inevitably move to the mainland to invest and live. As a prelude to Shenzhen, Hong Kong can build plazas, manors, golf courses, etc., and improve the local economy through consumption and infrastructure.

(End of this chapter)