Reborn in 1950: Shorting the Federal Reserve at the Start

Moscow, the Kremlin.

The Red Square outside the window was covered by heavy snow, and the onion domes gleamed coldly under the searchlights of the night.

Inside the office, the heating was on full blast, but the air felt oppressive, as if it were about to freeze.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Nikita Khrushchev's signature pipe, like a small hammer, slammed heavily against the mahogany desk, producing a series of chillingly sharp sounds.

He did not smoke.

His broad, ruddy face was now etched with disbelief, absurdity, and shock. His shrewd little eyes were fixed on the top-secret telegram that had just been sent from Beijing, as if he were staring at a polar bear that had suddenly started talking.

"Can someone explain to me what's going on?"

Khrushchev suddenly raised his head, his gaze sweeping over the row of high-ranking Soviet officials standing before him—the KGB chairman, the defense minister, and several leading figures from the Academy of Sciences.

He grabbed the telegram and flicked the paper roughly with his fingers:

"Has Ivanov gone mad? Or has he drunk too much Erguotou (a type of Chinese liquor) and damaged his brain?"

"In his telegram, he said that the Chinese CNC machine tools had reached a precision of 0.001 millimeters! He said their turbojet engines were a whole generation ahead of ours! He also said that the place called Shenzhou Bureau was like..."

Khrushchev paused, his tone becoming extremely strange, as if he were telling a bad joke:

"It's like a futuristic factory from a science fiction novel!"

"Comrades, that's China! An agricultural country that imports even iron nails and still uses wooden plows to till the land!"

He waved his arms angrily, spitting as he spoke:

"Just six months ago, they were begging and pleading for a few MiG-15s, and now you're telling me their technology is twenty years ahead of the Soviets? Is that reasonable? Is that scientific?"

"Could it be that these Chinese people... dug up an alien spaceship in their own backyard?!"

The office was deathly silent.

No one dared to laugh.

This report is not merely Ivanov's personal speculation, but was jointly signed by dozens of top scientists from the entire expert team assisting China.

"Comrade General Secretary."

An elderly academician of the Academy of Sciences, with white hair, stepped forward shakily. He was one of the founders of Soviet aerodynamics, and at that moment his face was even whiter than the snow outside.

"Although this sounds crazy, based on the data sample analysis attached to the telegram..."

The old academician swallowed hard, his voice hoarse:

"What Comrade Ivanov said is very likely true."

"Those alloy formulas and those unheard-of processing techniques are absolutely beyond what the Americans or British could develop today. We know very well the American technological approach; they can't achieve such perfection either."

"In other words..."

The old academician took a deep breath and came to a conclusion that sent chills down everyone's spine:

"The Chinese have indeed mastered a technological source that we cannot understand and that even surpasses the current level of human civilization."

Khrushchev fell silent.

He sat back down in his chair, picked up his pipe, but didn't light it; he just unconsciously rubbed it in his hand.

If that's true, then the nature of the problem changes.

This is no longer a simple relationship of aid and being aided.

This is a huge variable that could change the course of the Cold War.

"Do the Americans know?" Khrushchev suddenly asked.

"They probably don't know," the KGB chairman replied in a low voice. "According to intelligence, the Americans were completely disoriented on the Korean battlefield. Although they suspected that China had new weapons, they thought it was either because we had given them secret aid or because of their own intelligence failure."

"very good."

Khrushchev's eyes narrowed, revealing the cunning and calculation typical of a politician.

"Comrades, this is both an opportunity and a crisis."

He stood up, walked to the huge world map, and his gaze fell on the red neighbor to the east:

"If we don't give them what they want, will they side with the West? Or will they close themselves off and become an even more formidable adversary than the United States?"

"We cannot let them leave the socialist camp! Absolutely not!" the Defense Minister said urgently.

"so……"

Khrushchev turned around, a resolute expression on his face.

"Increase aid efforts!"

"They wanted 156 projects, right? Give them to them! Give them all to them! Not only give them, but give them the best and the most comprehensive!"

"Steel mills, oil refineries, tractor factories, machine tool factories... send them all over!"

He suddenly waved his hand, as if making a high-stakes gamble:

"We will use these massive basic industrial projects to completely bind China's industrial system to the Soviet Union's war machine! We will make them inseparable from our standards and our equipment!"

"at the same time……"

Khrushchev's tone turned somber and greedy:

"Tell Ivanov to negotiate with that Shen Jinghong."

"We can provide all the infrastructure, and even the basic technology for the nuclear industry. But in exchange..."

"They must open up Shenzhou Bureau's technology to us! They must share the blueprints for those CNC machine tools and engines!"

"Isn't this mutual support between 'brothers'?"

……

Beijing, China Central Bureau.

The snow outside the window has stopped, and the sunlight is shining on the desk.

Shen Jinghong held a newly delivered diplomatic memorandum in his hand, a knowing smile playing on his lips.

"The fish has taken the bait."

He waved the documents in his hand at Lin Qinghan, who was sitting opposite him, and said, "Moscow reacted very quickly. All 156 key projects were approved. They even proactively added thirty sets of oil drilling equipment and two large-scale oil refining units."

"They're trying to trade these bulky machines for your core technology."

Lin Qinghan, who was peeling an orange, didn't even look up when she heard this and said, "I heard all about this scheme in the next office. Are you really going to give it to me?"

"Sure, why won't you give it to me?"

Shen Jinghong stood up, walked to the window, and looked at the construction site outside where infrastructure work was in full swing.

"Qinghan, you need to understand one thing."

"While future technologies may be advanced, they are like castles in the air. Without a foundation, a castle cannot be built."

He pointed to the ground beneath his feet:

"What we lack now isn't sophisticated blueprints—I have plenty of those. What we lack are the most basic industrial machine tools, millions of tons of steel production capacity, a nationwide power grid, and drilling platforms capable of extracting oil from the ground!"

"These things are bulky and relatively low in technology, but they are the skeleton of industrialization."

Shen Jinghong turned around, a wise glint in her eyes:

"The Soviets thought they were exchanging 'scrap metal' for our 'cutting-edge technology,' and that they were getting a good deal."

"But they don't know that I'm using their chickens to lay our eggs."

"Once these 156 projects take root and flourish, once our basic industrial system is established, coupled with the future technologies I possess..."

Shen Jinghong clenched his fist tightly:

"China's industrial dragon has finally grown bones and fangs!"

"As for giving them the technology?"

He chuckled mischievously and picked up a pre-prepared drawing from the table—a "monkey version" of the CNC machine tool drawing that he had deliberately omitted from the key control algorithms.

"Give it to them. But without our core chips and algorithms, all they'll get back is a slightly more advanced automatic lathe."

"Trying to get something for free? No way."

Lin Qinghan popped a segment of orange into his mouth, then shook her head with a smile:

"You're a real swindler; you even schemed against the eldest brother."

"This is called putting national interests above all else."

Shen Jinghong chewed on an orange and mumbled something indistinctly.

Suddenly, his gaze fell on the last line of the list—**【Heavy-duty deep well oil drilling rigs (30 sets)】**.

The sweet taste in his mouth hadn't faded yet, but his brows furrowed slightly.

"What's wrong?" Lin Qinghan keenly noticed his change in mood.

"We have the machines and the equipment."

Shen Jinghong walked to the huge map of China hanging on the wall.

His finger started from Beijing, traveled north, crossed the Shanhaiguan Pass, and finally stopped deep in the Northeast Plain, in a desolate place covered in white snow.

Songliao Plain.

"The current Shenzhou Bureau is like a newly assembled supercar."

Shen Jinghong's voice became low and solemn:

"The engine is powerful, and the chassis is sturdy. But... the fuel tank is empty."

"As the Korean War has progressed, our oil reserves are almost depleted. Tanks on the front lines and trucks in the rear are consuming massive amounts of fuel every day."

"Western countries have begun a comprehensive oil embargo, and oil in the Soviet Union is ridiculously expensive and could cut off our supply at any time."

He turned around and looked at Lin Qinghan, his eyes revealing a sense of urgency that time was of the essence.

"Machines alone are not enough; you need blood."

"Oil is the lifeblood of industry. Without it, even giants would be paralyzed."

"Qinghan, pack your things."

Shen Jinghong grabbed the dog-skin hat hanging on the coat rack and put it on his head, as if he were about to embark on another long journey:

"We need to go to Northeast China."

"Go to that place called Daqing and extract the 'blood' buried underground!"