Having finished my short vacation and returned, I heard the story of how Taek-gyu had cleared the Dungeon of MLM.
Listening to the story, I was reminded of the relatives who had come to my Dongtan house in the past, clinging to me and begging for anything.
After that, they were quiet, and I thought they were living ordinary lives, but who would have thought they would be running an MLM scam.
But there was something I was more curious about than this incident. “So, what happened with that girl?”
“Min Ha-young?”
“Yeah. You liked her in high school, didn’t you?”
Taek-gyu said with his arms crossed, “That was in the past. Now she’s just a classmate.”
“……”
Is he really not interested, or is he pretending not to be interested?
The media continued to report on this fraud case. The prosecution immediately requested arrest warrants, and Ham Seok-hoon and Choi Nam-woo were naturally arrested.
Ham Seok-hoon did his best to shift all responsibility to Choi Nam-woo, and only then, having learned the whole truth, did he claim that he too had been deceived, but it was not accepted.
It seemed that this fraud case, which had caused a stir in Korea, was coming to an end, but another problem remained for me.
That was that relatives, including my cousin Kang Mi-young, started visiting my mother again, asking for help.
Naturally, we refused to even meet them, but they kept coming regardless. They were so annoying that even the affection I had for them was starting to wear off.
Above all, what am I supposed to do about Choi Nam-woo being arrested?
I wasn’t the one who filed the complaint, and I’m not the one conducting the trial. Surely they’re not expecting me to dip into my own pocket and compensate the victims?
It wasn’t just the relatives that were the problem. It was already known everywhere that my mother lived in the Dongtan house. There were neighborhood residents who had known her from before, and the Parents’ Union had been active in front of the house for a while.
People who needed money and various charities came in droves. My mother made it clear that it was her son’s property and that she had no authority, but most of them were unreasonable.
Like the saying “Underdogma,” just because someone is doing good deeds or is weak doesn’t necessarily mean they are good.
Some people stalked her, demanding donations, and some lay down in front of the house, saying they wouldn’t leave until they got money.
When they continued to demand money and were refused, they lashed out, criticizing her for turning a blind eye even though people were dying and the environment was being destroyed.
Anyone listening would think that children starving in Africa and whales dying in the sea were all my mother’s fault.
Taek-gyu asked, sounding puzzled, “Warren Buffett also continues to live in a small house he bought a long time ago, right? They don’t have those kinds of problems there?”
“I know.”
Still, Warren Buffett lives in a small city. If he lived in a big city like LA or New York, wouldn’t it be impossible?
In fact, where people live is all similar, and as soon as you become successful, relatives and friends you didn’t even know existed spring up like mushrooms everywhere.
In the United States, depending on state law, the faces and real names of lottery winners are disclosed (although the purpose is said to be to show fairness and transparency by disclosing the actual winners, it is more like a ploy to increase sales). As soon as their faces are known, all sorts of people flock to them.
Taek-gyu and I went down to Dongtan and persuaded my mother. “Even though you have many memories in this house, wouldn’t it be better to move now?”
We can just block people from entering the building, and my Samseong-dong house is also heavily secured.
However, this house was built as a regular house, so it is not suitable for security and defense. So we bought the houses next to and behind it and used them as security buildings, but even that has its limits.
If there were no bodyguards, problems would have arisen long ago.
“Or, stay somewhere else for the time being, at least. Leave this house to the caretaker.”
My mother, after pondering for a long time, nodded. “Alright. I was already uncomfortable because so many people were visiting and even going to the nearby mart was inconvenient. It really would be better to do that.”
“You’ve made a good decision.”
We decided to look for a house slowly, and for now, she moved her residence to the Ceylon Hotel Namsan, like last time.
When I asked CEO Im Soo-mi to take good care of my mother, she was happy, saying she had someone to have meals with and someone to exercise with.
***
The electric vehicle industrial complex plan was proceeding smoothly.
Seosung Electronics is the world’s largest IT hardware manufacturer. And Eunsung Motors is an automobile company with a production capacity of over 9 million units per year.
If OTK Company’s capital and technology are combined here, they can truly lead the future car industry.
The locations of the industrial complex were decided to be Gunsan in Korea and Vietnam overseas. The Vietnamese government even set up a dedicated department to ensure all administrative procedures could be processed quickly.
Rather, the situation in Korea was sluggish. Even when Korea GM closed the Gunsan plant, citing worsening profitability, they announced that they would sell it as soon as possible, but when we said we would buy it, they subtly changed their words, saying they might resume production again later.
With the operating rate of existing factories not even reaching 70%, there’s no way that would be possible. They are bluffing to get even a penny more.
However, we also had nothing to lose, so we said that if they did not proceed with the sale process within the set period, we would move the industrial complex elsewhere. Then Gunsan City and the Korea Development Bank actively intervened in mediation.
Chairman Im Jin-yong said, “According to our economic research institute’s judgment, we can raise the sales forecast to twice the current level.”
The US electric vehicle factory and TS Company’s battery factory were also almost completed and about to start production, and Seosung SB began mass production of OTK batteries by changing its production line.
Eunsung Motors also hastily converted domestic and overseas factories with reduced production volume into electric vehicle factories, in addition to investing in the industrial complex.
Now that the production facilities are sufficiently equipped, all that’s left is to make them and sell them.
Taek-gyu said with a smile, “All that’s left is to make money.”
***
Beijing, China.
President Zhang Pinghua, having returned from a summit with African leaders, received a report from Vice Minister Li Xuewei of the Ministry of Commerce.
It was about the electric vehicle industrial complex being promoted by OTK Company.
“How much of a threat do you think this will be?”
“In terms of autonomous driving and battery technology, they are far ahead of our companies. If we don’t respond quickly, it will be a big threat.”
Automobiles are both labor-intensive and technology-intensive at the same time. And they are essential goods, no different from necessities, both industrially and militarily.
Currently, the automobile market is led by the United States, Germany, Japan, and South Korea.
China has also spared no investment in automobiles since the reform and opening up, but they only sell a lot in the domestic market, and have hardly stood out overseas.
China has poured massive subsidies at the government level to foster autonomous driving electric vehicles and the battery industry.
But they are about to fall behind the United States again. The biggest reason for this is OTK Company.
OTK Company acquired CarOS and released OTK batteries, thereby securing two core technologies for future cars: autonomous driving and batteries.
Scholars from Peking University and Tsinghua University acquired OTK batteries and were astonished after experimenting with them. From the point of view of securing stability while more than doubling capacity, the game was as good as over.
Due to this, existing batteries, whether LFP or NCM, became meaningless. All their efforts so far had become completely futile.
President Zhang Pinghua muttered as if to himself, “Even if we are behind in the existing automobile industry, China must take the lead in the future car sector. Don’t you know what happened when China fell behind?”
“Of course.”
Until the Qing Dynasty, China was a vast empire and the most powerful country in the world. However, while Western powers grew rapidly after the Industrial Revolution, China fell behind the world’s trend. After that, it was a series of collapses.
Opium Wars, Japanese invasion, Chinese Civil War, etc.
Eventually, they drove out Japan and the Communist Party won the Chinese Civil War, establishing the People’s Republic of China, but the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution failed afterwards, and they were in crisis again.
It was in the late 20th century that China re-emerged fully onto the world stage. Since Deng Xiaoping promoted reform and opening up, China has absorbed world capital and technology at an incredible speed.
In the midst of this, the US-led financial crisis erupted in 2008. Real estate prices plummeted in almost every country, and financial institutions went bankrupt one after another.
At this time when the whole world was in chaos, China stepped in as a relief pitcher. While the United States was faltering, China continued to achieve high growth and led the world economy. And before they knew it, they surpassed even Japan and Russia and stood tall as G2.
But that was it. World hegemony was still in the hands of the United States.
At one time, many experts predicted that China would overtake the United States within 10 years. Even immediately after the financial crisis, there were quite a few economists who made such claims.
However, while the United States recovered from the shock of the financial crisis and once again wielded hegemony, China’s growth rate was gradually slowing down.
The Baoba (policy to maintain 8% economic growth rate), which was representative of China’s economic policy, had long been abandoned, and now it is difficult to guarantee even 7% growth. (Even that is barely being met by manipulating various indicators).
In the meantime, China has spared no investment in domestic companies and technology development to catch up with the United States. Thanks to this, they succeeded in catching up with most of the manufacturing industry, but in reality, the technology gap in IT and high-tech industries widened even further.
It was difficult to reverse this gap unless some extraordinary event like a natural disaster occurred.
But surprisingly, that natural disaster really did occur.
It was the Big One!
Finance and industry are the two pillars of the economy. If New York’s Wall Street is the center of US finance, Silicon Valley is the cradle of US high-tech industry.
The Big One completely devastated Silicon Valley. However, most of the people who worked there survived, and the companies that were there were also fine, except for losing their buildings. And they were moving places and creating another Silicon Valley elsewhere.
President Zhang Pinghua clicked his tongue inwardly. ‘It would have been better if they had all died back then.’
If that had happened, the US’s industrial competitiveness would have regressed by 10 years. And the US would have been plunged into extreme chaos internally.
In that gap, there was every possibility that China would once again emerge as a global leader. However, the Big One only reaffirmed why the United States is the strongest country in the world.
‘If it weren’t for Kang Jin-hoo…’
Come to think of it, from China’s perspective, they had lost more than one or two things because of Kang Jin-hoo.
OTK Company purchased a huge amount of steel, copper, cement, etc. from Chinese companies at fixed prices before the Big One occurred.
But after the Big One, raw material prices soared. Especially steel and copper prices jumped more than double.
Iron ore and mineral prices also soared, and Chinese companies suffered huge losses instead of making profits.
However, they could not break the contract either. This was because Kang Jin-hoo had passed all that volume to the United States.
It’s one thing if the other party is just a company, but they can’t break a contract with the US government.
They pleaded that they might go bankrupt if this continued, and barely managed to adjust the price to a level that barely avoided losses, but from the companies’ perspective, they had missed a golden opportunity to make huge profits.
President Zhang Pinghua looked out the window.
As always, Beijing’s sky was gray. Due to fine dust, even the building across the street was not clearly visible.
“Can’t we bring OTK Company to the Chinese side?”
Vice Minister Li Xuewei said, “Zhou Auto is planning to contact them.”
The country that produces and sells the most electric vehicles in the world is not the United States, but China. The country where nPhone sells the most is also not the United States, but China.
No company will be able to give up the huge market that is China.
***
I welcomed an unexpected guest at the company.
He was a middle-aged man in his early 50s. The characteristic was that he was very short. Even wearing heeled shoes, he didn’t look over 160 centimeters.
Although he was small in stature, the wrinkles on his face conveyed a seasoned veteran who had experienced all sorts of hardships.
He grabbed my hand and said in stiff English, “Nice to meet you, CEO Kang Jin-hoo. I am Wang Yichang, Vice Chairman of Zhou Auto.”
