Courtyard Houses: From Bronze Compasses to Global Reach

December 1990, 7

Lin Yan received a telepathic message from Li Ming (Abdullah).

"Young master, negotiations in Ikojida have broken down, and Saddam has decided to annex it by force."

Lin Yan convened a spiritual meeting, and Alexander, Albert, and the others declared that everything was ready except for the final push!

On August 2, 1990, the tracks of Iraqi tanks rolled across the Kuwaiti border, shocking the world.

Meanwhile, in another dimension of Earth, Lin Yan and his team began their silent operation.

Alexander had already established a massive long position in oil futures before the Iraqi invasion.

After the outbreak of war, international oil prices soared from about $20 per barrel due to panic.

Lin Yi's control of the Southeast Asian shipping network, particularly the Straits of Malacca and Sunda, began to "selectively" create expectations of logistical strain, cleverly amplifying market fears.

Their control over 10% of global oil shipping has become the most powerful real leverage to influence prices.

By October 1990, oil prices had surged to a high of $40.

During this process, Alexander's team began the first round of orderly and discreet profit-taking in the key $35-$40 range.

On January 15, 1991, the UN deadline arrived, and war was imminent.

Alexander had already converted his remaining long positions into complex option combinations targeting the moment the war began on January 17.

On the eve of war, global markets held their breath.

At the moment the war began, oil prices jumped from $25 to $35 due to panic.

Alexander used the cutting-edge global information link established by the Singapore Star Harbour data hub to complete the final long position liquidation in the seconds between price surges.

Following this, as history has shown, the United States announced the release of a large amount of strategic oil reserves into the market.

Oil prices plummeted to $21.44 within half an hour. Alexander's pre-positioned short orders proved highly effective at this point.

Through this operation, Alexander completed a perfect financial loop of "panic buying - precise profit-shorting", with paper profits far exceeding tens of billions of dollars.

The multinational forces' Tomahawk missiles and stealth fighters ushered in Operation Desert Storm.

Lin Yan's battlefield unfolds in a deeper place.

Lin Yi is stationed at the "Star Harbor Data Hub" in Singapore, where fragmented information from around the world is received: public news, the real-time location of fleets, and localized battlefield electromagnetic signals obtained through special channels.

Lin Yi's team used this data to reverse-engineer the operational logic and efficiency of the U.S. military's integrated and automated C4ISR combat system.

A top-secret report titled "Preliminary Analysis of the Vulnerability of Logistics and Information Flow in 'Air-Land Battle'" was generated before the war ended, and its value is immeasurable.

The European media, controlled by Albert, began to praise the effectiveness of the coalition's high-tech weapons with restraint.

At the same time, keep asking questions:

"Where is Europe's own 'Galileo'?" This kind of rhetoric successfully sowed the seeds of "technology dependency anxiety" in the minds of allies.

Meanwhile, Alexander's team channeled the excess profits from financial arbitrage to Washington through a complex network of charitable foundations, under the guise of "supporting veterans' families" and "post-war trauma research."

This money acted as a lubricant, making his voice extremely persuasive to his "friends" in the U.S. Congress and the military-industrial complex.

Marcus tightened exports of strategic metals such as chromium and cobalt to South Africa and established a direct channel to the South Pacific reserves through Lin Yi's fleet, securing the lifeline for the group's future high-end manufacturing.

James, meanwhile, pushed for a long-term contract with Indonesia for a natural gas project in Australia, subtly shifting Australia's resource interests from the Anglo-American system to the Lin family's Southeast Asian empire.

The war ended in a crushing defeat for Iraq, but the shackles of sanctions have just been placed on it.

Lin Yan's team's strategy has thus entered a new phase of harvest and deepening.

Lin San sent the battlefield analysis report, which embodied the hard work of the "Star Harbor Data Hub," to Beijing through top-secret channels.

For China, which is already shocked by the high-tech warfare tactics employed by the U.S. military, this report, which goes beyond the surface of the battlefield and directly addresses the core of the system, is an invaluable gift.

This is an "apocalypse" of future military transformation.

While Europe was still reeling from the shock and reflection on the "military obsolescence," Albert pushed forward negotiations with Europe on a "strategic transport framework for energy security."

Lin's vast, global shipping network has been formally incorporated into Europe's energy security plan, elevating it from a commercial entity to a "strategic partner" for European security.

With the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Congress began to hotly debate the "Future Soldier" program and the NMD (National Missile Defense) system.

The "political insurance" that Alexander had laid out in the early stages began to pay off.

Several key defense contractors have adopted the architecture of Lin's "Galaxy" series chips in their design projects. The petrodollars profited from war have successfully been transformed into access to next-generation defense technologies.

Li Ming's channels in the Middle East began to play a role in the post-war chaos.

Through a network of proxies, "non-lethal" humanitarian supplies and engineering services are provided to the Iraqi civilian population and even certain fringe forces.

These tiny points of contact are like seeds buried in the sand, waiting for the moment when they may sprout in the future.

In the early autumn of 1991, while the world was still digesting the new order brought about by the Gulf War—the nascent multipolar world in which the United States held absolute military dominance—Lin Yan once again convened the core members in his study.

There was no celebratory champagne, only a calm debriefing.

"We delivered on our plan."

Lin Yan calmly concluded.

"Alexander's financial operations injected unprecedented liquidity into the group. But more importantly, we validated our core hypothesis: information is the oil of the new era, and the physical nodes of logistics and energy are the master valves controlling the influence of information."

He looked at the crowd.

"Through 10% of shipping and this war, we have proven that we have the ability to turn this valve. The next step is to transfer this ability from oil and cargo ships to the upcoming global digital neural network."

As the smoke of the Gulf War dissipated, the world witnessed the stealth capabilities of the F-117 and the precision of the Tomahawk.

What Lin Yan saw was a new, broader, and more covert battlefield comprised of satellite signals, fiber optic cables, and server clusters.

Their first "rehearsal" has come to a successful conclusion, while the real curtain is slowly rising.