I'm in the county town, and you say I'm a big shot?

Chapter 693 Confrontation
This was the task Fang Qingye assigned to Smith after receiving an invitation from Zhiyun Technology to attend the Hong Kong Fintech Summit.

Upon seeing the topics to be discussed at the summit, Fang Qingye guessed that R3 would most likely participate. After hearing from Xin Tiejun in Shanghai that Zhiyun Technology had also developed its own cloud ledger, he immediately concluded that the two companies would have a fierce battle over the distributed ledger platform.

Know yourself and the enemy, a hundred battles will never end.

On the other end of the phone, Smith said, "Boss, the person attending the Hong Kong summit this time is David, the president of R3. His team includes not only engineers but also public relations personnel. Based on the available public information, their goal is to lobby Chinese banks in Hong Kong so that Corda can smoothly enter the Chinese banking industry."

Chinese banks
Fang Qingye pondered for a moment and then asked, "What special methods will they use?"

"I have no way of knowing that; I can't find this information in the publicly available data. Boss, if you need it, I can use special means."

Fang Qingye knew that his so-called special methods were just some illegal investigations. He pondered for a moment and replied, "Not for now, but you should make R3 Company a key target for future investigations."

"OK!"

After hanging up with Smith, Fang Qingye sent Xia He a WeChat video call, and the two chatted for a while.

"Xia He, when are you taking Qingqing back to China? Qingqing is Chinese, she can't forget her roots," Fang Qingye joked.

"This..." Xia He hesitated.

"What are you worried about? Bai Ou knows she won't say anything," Fang Qingye said.

“I’m mainly worried about the impact on you. You’re a celebrity in China now, and it wouldn’t be good for your image if a daughter suddenly appeared,” Xia He said.

"It's okay, I'll pay attention."

"Alright then, I'll arrange the time. To be honest, I also want to go back to China to see my parents," Xia He said softly.

"Don't you want to see me?"

"Yes, I do. How about I come to Nanxin to find you?" Xia He's eyes sparkled.

"Okay."

"That really caused a sensation throughout the city." Xia He laughed. "Okay, that's enough. I'm at work. You can talk to Qingqing when I get home tonight. She misses you a lot."

"OK!"

The next morning, after getting up and having breakfast, Fang Qingye, accompanied by Ouyang Shaoqiang, inspected the Tuofang Hedge Fund, located in the Central Building. The fund had a small number of employees, about sixty, and Fang Qingye noticed that there were quite a few blond-haired, blue-eyed foreigners.

Hong Kong is an international metropolis, and it is perfectly normal to employ foreign staff, especially in the financial industry, as long as you keep a firm grip on the management team.

In the afternoon, Fang Qingye received a call from Xin Tiejun, saying that the four of them had arrived in Hong Kong and checked into the Shangri-La Hotel arranged by the organizing committee.

"I'm staying at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel near you. Get some rest, recharge your batteries, and do your best tomorrow!"

The following morning at 8:30, the 2015 Financial Times & EY Fintech Summit was held as scheduled. Leaders from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, heads of the Asia-Pacific region of the five major international investment banks, heads of Chinese banks and local financial institutions in Hong Kong, as well as senior officials from financial institutions in Japan, South Korea and Singapore, including Ant Financial under Alibaba and the head of Tencent's Fintech (FiT) business group, and hundreds of renowned experts and scholars from Hong Kong gathered under the dome of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, where the power and wisdom of Asian finance converged.

The arrival of David, CEO of R3, was particularly eye-catching. Dressed in a suit and tie, he was immediately surrounded by a group of reporters who rushed to interview him as soon as he entered the venue.

"Mr. David, could you give us a brief introduction to Corda's latest technology?" "Mr. David, how many banks and financial institutions have announced their membership in the Corda Alliance so far?"

"Mr. David, is the Corda consortium willing to accept Chinese banks?"

The next question caught David's attention. He smiled at the reporter's camera and said, "The Corda Alliance is open to all banks and financial institutions. As long as they meet the requirements of the Corda Alliance and abide by its agreements, I would very much welcome Chinese banks, and even state-owned banks in mainland China, to join the Corda Alliance!"

In a corner of the backstage area sat two unassuming young men, Xin Tiejun and Lin Tao from Zhiyun Technology. When they saw this scene, they exchanged glances and saw the seriousness in each other's eyes.

It will be no easy task for cloud accounts to defeat Corda's dominant position.
Fang Qingye appeared quite relaxed. At that moment, she was in her hotel room, drinking tea and watching the entire summit opening ceremony on her laptop.

This summit adopted a live streaming format, with all topics, sub-forums, and roundtable discussions made available online for anyone interested in watching.

The conference began with a brief opening ceremony, followed by breakout sessions. Fang Qingye's gaze naturally fell upon meeting room number 3, where the topic of discussion was "The Future of Distributed Financial Infrastructure." More than forty guests and media reporters attended the meeting, with several cameras pointed at the podium.

Amidst enthusiastic applause, R3 CEO David Rattle walked to the stage with a smile and began his speech. His voice, delivered through a simultaneous interpretation system, carried an undeniable sense of authority.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the financial world is at a 'Tower of Babel' moment. We have countless chains, countless coins, countless protocols, but we lack a common language."

As he spoke, he tapped his laptop, and the large screen behind him displayed an elegant schematic diagram of the Corda architecture.

"Corda's revolutionary aspect lies in its complete elimination of redundant global consensus and inefficient data broadcasting. We achieve the privacy and scalability required for financial applications through 'notary' clusters and peer-to-peer communication. This is currently the only distributed ledger architecture that can be used for production-grade financial transactions."

His tone left no room for doubt, as if he were stating a physical law.

Privacy and interoperability.
Uniqueness and validity.
Programmability and Legal Prose
David Rattle spent nearly an hour explaining the technical features of Corda in detail, and finally gave a concluding speech:

"Ladies and gentlemen, in short, Corda is a protocol on top of protocols. It defines the syntax for how value moves securely and privately within a global network. Joining the Corda ecosystem means accepting and following this top-level rule design for the financial world for the next century. That concludes my remarks. Thank you."

David Rattle bowed as he stepped down from the stage, and the audience erupted in enthusiastic applause.

Below the stage, executives from Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and Standard Chartered nodded slightly, because this aligned with their understanding of the world—rules defined by Western financial centers and followed globally.

Following David's speech was a presentation by the young CEO of NexTech Group, a company located in Hong Kong Cyberport. He spoke about TradeLink software, an ecosystem application based on the Corda protocol, primarily used for supply chain finance and trade settlement. The delegates listened attentively. David Larter concluded by offering his comments and high praise.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we at R3 are very much looking forward to the emergence of more software like TradeLink to enrich our Corda ecosystem!"

After the applause subsided, the host announced, "Next, please welcome Mr. Xin Tiejun, CEO of Zhiyun Technology, to the stage to speak!"

Sparse applause rang out in the meeting room.

Xin Tiejun, dressed in a suit and still wearing his black-rimmed glasses, walked onto the stage. The host began his introduction: "Mr. Xin's Zhiyun Technology has developed the SCP payment system based on blockchain technology, which has already begun commercial use. Although it is not part of the Corda protocol ecosystem, it is still very powerful. Now, let's invite Mr. Xin to share his views on the construction of distributed financial infrastructure."

The microphone was handed to Xin Tiejun, and everyone looked at this seemingly simple and honest young man with curious eyes.

"Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm going to talk about today isn't our commercially available SCP payment system, nor is it application technology based on the Corda protocol ecosystem, or even Corda itself. It's a brand-new distributed ledger system developed by our company, which we call Distributed Cloud Ledger, or Cloud Ledger for short."

Xin Tiejun's words caused an uproar in the audience.

(End of this chapter)