Yes, Prime Minister of Japan

Personification.

"Resembling a human being."

Li Xinghe, however, did not take it to heart.

What a load of rubbish! That was just a compromise I was forced to make.

Because he lacks legitimacy, he must simultaneously improve office efficiency and wield a large cleaver, employing a combination of carrot and stick tactics.

If it weren't for Misato's mother still being immersed in the wonderful life of staying at home taking care of her child, the third season of "The Story of a Female Civil Servant" would have started filming soon. In this season, Lee Sung-ha and Haru play a couple who will start running for prime minister and propose political reform goals.

At this critical juncture, a vulgar advertisement by Toyota and BYD suddenly became a trending topic.

Negative information about BYD quickly surfaced online, leading to conspiracy theories that joint venture cars are inferior to domestic cars and that they are simply downgraded versions.

Li Xinghe, clearly displeased, summoned the marketing directors of Toyota and BYD, a Chinese man surnamed Sun, to his office and slammed his fist on the table to express his dissatisfaction.

"What kind of advertising is this? Using trolleys to prevent derailment? Do you know what you're saying? This kind of advertising wouldn't be allowed in China."

"Yes."

The manager was quite frank, but he felt everything was reasonable because sales had surged:

"Although the advertisement received many complaints, it was very effective. Our target audience was ordinary working men who were very worried about their wives' daytime behavior while they were at work. After all, as you know, there is a suggestive scene in Japanese movies and TV shows where a woman gets into a car but turns off the dashcam."

Why turn off the dashcam?

Need I say more?

Of course, it's to prevent her husband from seeing her secret chats and itinerary with her boyfriend. This scene is quite meaningful and frequently appears in various movies, even adult films. Mei, are you free? No, you're not available. Lin, are you free?

So, the claim that BYD vehicles' driving records can be checked online at any time to prevent derailment is self-explanatory.

Ayako Aso, standing nearby, asked curiously:

"What about the female customer?"

Manager Sun chuckled and smiled:

"Don't be fooled by the complaints from female customers. When they're buying cars for their husbands, they actually prioritize electric vehicles that can connect to the internet and track the vehicle's route. This is to prevent their husbands from cheating."

They really understand everything now.

The restrictions imposed on them by domestic advertising laws are completely lifted in Japan.

While it certainly captured the core conflict between couples in Japanese society, and the advertising was incredibly effective, with couples ordering trains that could be tracked online to pledge their marital fidelity, it was just too cliché…

Lu Yuchi Huayingmei then raised another issue:

"What if he doesn't want us to track his movements?"

Although she said she didn't care, Hua Yingmei actually did care.

Li Xinghe was speechless.

When did I ever go out to find women behind your back? Who are my lovers? Don't you guys have several large groups where you're counting heads every day?

Manager Sun straightened his sleeves slightly and began to speak eloquently:

"Um... ride-hailing services are already quite cheap. Sally has now introduced an account switching function, where you can use one account to share with family, friends, and your boss, and another account for your private time. Of course, since there is still a shortage of vehicles in many places, I still recommend that you buy an electric car... cough cough, sorry, I'm used to it."

So ultimately, whether it's infidelity or cheating, or opposing infidelity or cheating, we all need to buy electric cars.

Li Xinghe was quite dissatisfied with this:

"This kind of thing can be called a 'social disturbance'? That's outrageous, isn't it?"

Even being summoned to the Cabinet Office and verbally abused has become a marketing tactic for Toyota and BYD, serving as irrefutable proof that Toyota and BYD's products are of superior quality and that even the Prime Minister cannot interfere.

So ultimately it's all about selling cars, isn't it?

……

Regardless, Li Xinghe viewed the Kogane plane incident and the BYD vulgar advertisement incident as social disturbances in some sense.

It still didn't hurt.

The unruly people in the colonies still felt they had bargaining power.

But now that it's the 21st century, Li Xinghe still has to leave them with some illusions.

For the Japanese, this reaction is a normal rejection response to a viral invasion.

Li Xinghe is that big virus.

Japanese society instinctively rejected him, stopped him, and resisted him.

That's why Li Xinghe kept trying to fish and kill another batch of sacrificial animals, but the Japanese were slippery and wouldn't take the bait.

Just when Li Xinghe was worrying, Wu Jianzhong, who had always been the all-purpose Band-Aid, contacted him to meet at the Shinzo Abe Memorial Hall to discuss something very important.

Li Xinghe set off immediately.

It's still the memorial hall where Abe opened his heart, and it's still that table that makes people unable to hold their breath.

Li Xinghe and Wu Jianzhong sat facing each other, secretly discussing matters.

Wu Jianzhong got straight to the point:

"I've heard that you're not having an easy time lately. There have been waves of opposition, big and small, throughout Japan, and recently an old man from the Showa era even flew a plane and tried to take you down with him."

To put it simply, he didn't have a powerful backer to support him.

The Japanese discovered that Li Xinghe was arguing fiercely with the United States. Even though they knew that Li Xinghe could smash their skulls with a military baton at any time, other American departments that wanted to use Li Xinghe to boost their performance would still continuously release inflammatory information to cause trouble for him.

Japan has everything else, but it has an abundance of large-sized sabis.

Old Wu kept everyone in suspense:

"Speaking of which, the 15th Five-Year Plan is basically coming to an end. Next year is 2030, and we will begin the journey of the 16th Five-Year Plan. Not only will new high-speed railways, airports, and subways be built, but the large-scale warship manufacturing plan has also been put on the agenda."

Li Xinghe, somewhat annoyed, told Lao Wu to spit it out:

"Spit it out, don't act like I don't know what you're saying."

Old Wu raised his eyebrows, a hint of seduction in his expression:

"You know, right? Actually, from the Shandong to the Fujian, the technical demonstration phase took a lot of time. The technical reserves left over from that time were enough to leap from the original 003 steam catapult plan to the 006 electromagnetic catapult plan. It can be said that the essence of the three-stage aircraft carrier plan was condensed into one ship. So there are a lot of technical reserves and experimental segments left over from the repeated revisions. Didn't you boast to Jiangnan Shipyard that you would spend 100 billion US dollars to customize an aircraft carrier? They now have a new plan."

This was the grand plan that Li Xinghe boasted about when he staged the coup last year.

They purchase aircraft carriers built in China and aircraft manufactured in the United States, paying protection money to both sides.

However, this plan was largely unsuccessful because Li Xinghe has already tricked the Nimitz into returning home. Currently, engineers from China, Japan, and South Korea are frantically learning from the US, busy absorbing knowledge and resources; who has time to build anything new?

The fact that Lao Wu came to persuade them means that Jiangnan Shipyard still really wants to take on Li Xinghe's 500 billion RMB super aircraft carrier order. If that money were used to build the Shandong aircraft carrier, they could build two and a half at once.

Therefore, they wanted to discuss a quicker solution with Li Xinghe, so that he could transfer 500 billion RMB to them as soon as possible.

Li Xinghe didn't quite approve of the plan, and he asked in return:

"You mean, our friends at Jiangnan Shipyard still want my $100 billion? What about the Nimitz data I shared before? Their engineers are still loading the Japanese at the port."

Old Wu smiled mysteriously, as if to say, "You've found a bargain."

"Oh, don't rush, let's talk in detail."

"Then tell me more specifically, what's the plan?"

After some beating around the bush, Wu Jianzhong finally gave a formal introduction:

"You know, during the technical demonstration of an aircraft carrier, many experimental sections were used for technical demonstration and were not ultimately used for construction. Whether it's Jiangnan Shipyard or Dalian Shipyard, their factories have a large number of experimental sections from the 003 and 004 carriers that were undergoing technical verification. Recently, everyone has been digging through the warehouses and thinks, cough cough... you know what I mean."

At this point, Li Xinghe understood.

What else could it be for? To use the various experimental aircraft carrier sections left over from the construction of the 003 and 004, and even the Shandong, to assemble a junk ship for Li Xinghe.

But isn't it a bit too expensive to ask for 500 billion RMB for this thing?

Li Xinghe frowned:

"This is outrageous! They just dug through the trash in the warehouse and sold it to me for 500 billion RMB?"

Based on cost calculations, the final quote for the Shinano, which is currently under construction, is only about $30 billion. The quotes from the prisons are enough for Li Xinghe to build the Yamato, Musashi, and even the No. 111 ship, launching the entire Yamato family at once.

Old Wu was also starting to lose his composure.

This price is indeed a bit too high, but compared to the US's attitude of taking money and not delivering the goods, and considering Australia's unfortunate situation of spending $2500 billion but not getting the Okus nuclear submarine, the Chinese shipbuilders are actually quite good.

After all, he was still thinking of giving Li Xinghe a real ship after he got the money.

He began to smooth things over, then elaborated on the underlying significance of the shipbuilding program:

"The evaluation of the 16th Five-Year Plan is about to begin. You should know that next year is a crucial period for assessing the next five-year shipbuilding plan. Both Jiangnan Shipyard and Dalian Shipyard want to expand their dry docks. Dalian Shipyard wants to acquire the dry dock of a nearby South Korean-invested civilian shipyard and expand it into a large dry dock; Jiangnan Shipyard, on the other hand, hopes to acquire land and expand its dry docks, making sure to demonstrate our positive and progressive spirit to the central government during the evaluation of the 16th Five-Year Plan and secure major domestic orders..."

Basically, a few guys from the shipyard were short of money for the time being, but they wanted to expand and build quickly without borrowing too much money. So they wanted to sell their inventory of junk and ask Li Xinghe for some cash.

Everyone knows Tokyo's reputation as a major shipbuilder. Last year you were the one who kept saying you'd spend $100 billion to have your buddy build a ship; you can't go back on your word, can you?

Hey bro, I'm short on cash, give me some.

Li Xinghe complained, looking at the headshot of Shinzo Abe across from him:

"Supporting our brother unit is fine. But this is still too outrageous. A pieced-together garbage ship made from corpse parts costs me 500 billion RMB..."

The cost of those experimental aircraft carrier sections, plus the newer ones, is probably less than 25 billion RMB. But if you put them together, the cost is twenty times that, which Li Xinghe cannot accept.

Wu Jianzhong couldn't take a hard line.

The money obtained from Li Xinghe was almost 20 times the annual net profit of Jiangnan Shipbuilding Group, which was equivalent to giving Jiangnan Shipyard and Dalian Shipyard ten years' worth of net profit in one go, and also helping them clean up their warehouses.

That's definitely a bit excessive.

Therefore, he further explained:

"They assured me that assembling the experimental ship sections would not be difficult, and the construction blueprints and supply chain for the missing sections were readily available. They are currently in the final stages of the 15th Five-Year Plan for shipbuilding, and many downstream manufacturers are available. If you need it, they will deliver the assembled ship sections to you within a few months."

Li Xinghe almost spat water onto Wu Jianzhong's face:

"It means... there's no outfitting phase yet."

"Nonsense, then the outfitting would require Chinese-made radar and equipment, Chinese carrier-based aircraft command kits, and the purchase of Chinese early warning aircraft, radar, and PL-5 missiles. Do you think the higher-ups would approve that now?"

Even the outfitting had to be done in Japan, and Li Xinghe paid for it himself. What he bought was really just a half-new, half-old, pure hull.

Li Xinghe gritted his teeth and decided to break his bone:

"Stop talking. I'll give you a maximum of 250 billion RMB. Consider it my victory bonus for my brothers back home."

Li Xinghe wiped away his tears on the surface.

He was secretly calculating that the nearly 10 billion US dollars he had extracted from Google and other monopolistic internet companies might be enough to barely cover the hole.

The ship, painstakingly pieced together from the remains of Li Xinghe, was thus acquired through a secret scheme at an insanely high premium.

It can be said that Li Xinghe is essentially paying protection money to China's big brother in order to cope with the fluctuating public opinion caused by the new policies during this period, as well as the embarrassment of not having a big brother backing him up.

Wu Jianzhong readily agreed.

In fact, he originally expected to receive only 30%.

"I can help you with some outfitting, modify the elevators, and specially modify an angled flight deck and arresting gear for the forty-two F-35Bs that Japan owns. How about that? It's much better than the British Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier. Aren't you thrilled?"

The British Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers were specifically built for the F-35B. They lack angled flight decks and arresting gear, and only the F-35B can operate from them. Later, when they tried to sell them, no one was willing to take them on.

Jiangnan Shipyard was particularly willing to add arresting cables and angled decks to prepare for the deployment of small aircraft that Li Xinghe would build on the ship in the future.

He really made me cry my eyes out.

But Li Xinghe rolled his eyes.

Happiness my ass.

The thought of spending $50 billion to buy the experimental sections of the 3 Fujian aircraft carrier and the 004 aircraft carrier during their manufacturing process gave Li Xinghe a strange and unsettling feeling.

It felt like he had suddenly transformed into a garbage recycling station, spending a lot of money to buy scrap.

They took over the Nimitz, which could have caused nuclear contamination for the US, and the remaining experimental sections in the shipyard for their own country. Everyone gave Li Xinghe all their trash to eat.

The cost of converting the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier into a ski-jump carrier is currently estimated to be just over $10 billion, and the drive shaft and pressurized water reactor fuel rods will also cost a few hundred million dollars. The thought of spending five times the cost of converting the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered carrier into a ski-jump carrier is both painful and leaves Li Xinghe speechless.

After all, it also contributes to the domestic shipbuilding industry.

Ultimately, it's all about selling ships, isn't it?

……

However, that's not actually the case.