Chapter 382 - 181: Flash Crash

Chapter 382: Chapter 181: Flash Crash

Startled, Huang Changqing asked with some annoyance, "Liangcai, what are you yelling about?"

"General Manager Huang, look at this! Come here, quick!" The man had no time for etiquette.

Although Huang Changqing was still a little angry, he didn’t lash out immediately. Instead, he walked over.

But after one glance at the report on the laptop, he froze completely, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

"Huang, what’s wrong?" Cade McCarthy had also noticed something was off with Huang Changqing.

On the verge of collapse, Huang Changqing quickly sat down, gasping for breath. He wiped his drenched face and said, "A disaster has struck..."

He continued to read, and Cade McCarthy came up behind him, also seeing the contents of the news report.

The more they read, the more horrified the two men became.

Cade McCarthy immediately picked up his phone and dialed an international number.

"BEEP... BEEP... Hello, Cade? It’s so late. Is something wrong?"

"Mr. Chairman, a disaster has struck."

"What is it?"

"Cyrus has developed a type of soybean that can be planted on a massive scale in the desert with extremely high yields. They’ve already planted 350,000 mu."

"What? Didn’t you say before that this news wasn’t a threat?"

Apparently, the ABCD branches in Cyrus weren’t completely incompetent. They had at least gathered intelligence on Hailufeng Company’s plan to develop the desert in Monan.

However, at the time, after reading the relevant report, Cade McCarthy felt the project was most likely a scheme to scam subsidies or a white elephant with exorbitant costs. Thus, he made a casual mention of it in his report and didn’t have his investigators look into it further.

After the soybeans were planted in June, it still didn’t attract much attention.

It wasn’t until Hailufeng Company’s Monan Branch began selling off large quantities of soybean vine fodder that ABCD’s commercial investigators took notice and began preparing to reinvestigate Hailufeng Company’s project in Monan.

However, before they could launch their investigation, two consecutive high-profile events made the executives in the Greater China Region cast the matter aside, scrambling to attend them instead.

Now, the initiative was no longer in ABCD’s hands.

After hearing Cade McCarthy’s explanation, the chairman of Company B on the other end of the line roared with uncontrollable fury, "Cade! Is this how you manage the branch office? How could you ignore such crucial intelligence? Do you have any idea how much money the company is going to lose now? You’re a dead man!"

"Mr. Chairman, I..." Cade McCarthy was at a loss for words, unable to defend himself.

On the other side, Huang Changqing also made an international call to the chairman of Company A. After explaining the situation, he was also chewed out viciously.

However, the situation had already spiraled out of control.

As the deliberately disseminated press releases spread rapidly across the globe, quick-acting financial institutions stopped going long and immediately began shorting the market.

International agricultural commodity futures prices plummeted like a waterfall. In less than an hour, the situation took a nosedive.

Soybean futures plummeted by 27%.

Corn futures plummeted by 22%.

Soybean meal futures plummeted by 33%.

Alfalfa futures plummeted by 17%.

Wheat, cassava, rice, sugar, palm oil, and cotton futures all plummeted in turn.

Clearly, the entire agricultural commodities market had been devastated by the impact of the Immortal Soybeans.

Because the official report had already stated that no less than 200 million mu of sandy and desert land in the Northeast, Monan, and Northwest regions of Cyrus would be developed as soybean cultivation bases.

If this news had been published by some sensationalist tabloid chasing rumors, it naturally wouldn’t have caused such severe consequences. But this was an authoritative, official report.

The mysterious power that had reaped over seventy billion US dollars quickly withdrew its funds. Although there would certainly be more opportunities to short later, going too far was as bad as not going far enough.

Having come to their senses, ABCD also quickly joined the short-selling frenzy.

But it was useless.

With the market in a full-blown stampede, not a single financial institution dared to buy in. Whoever bought now was committing suicide.

Without financial institutions and major speculators to buy in, retail investors couldn’t possibly absorb such a blow.

ABCD watched as their high-priced contracts became worthless, with no buyers even at bargain-basement prices. In just one hour, they had lost tens of billions of US dollars. The other financial institutions and major speculators who had been lured in before also lost tens of billions of US dollars.

Although the sudden turmoil in the futures market had not yet spilled over into the physical market in the short term, the future of the physical market was certainly not looking bright.

Unless a certain massive market with over a billion people was willing to step in and bail out the grain-exporting countries, there was no way they could recover from this blow.

At this point, all that was left to do was sit at home and wait for the other party to come knocking.

Meanwhile, in the business suite, the faces of Huang Changqing and Cade McCarthy were ashen. They finally understood why Hailufeng Company had dared to humiliate them like that. Their opponent had long been sharpening its knives, preparing to slaughter ABCD.

"What do we do now?" Cade McCarthy’s previous air of superiority was gone, replaced only by terror and dejection.

"Hah... What do we do? Let’s wait for our boards of directors to make a decision. The worst that can happen is we get fired." Huang Changqing suddenly came to a realization. ’I’m just an employee, after all. Why should I worry myself sick over the company?’

Cade McCarthy opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say. ’Even though I own a lot of company stock,’ he thought, ’it won’t affect me much if the company goes under. I have a personal fortune of several million US dollars to fall back on. As long as I’m not reckless from now on, I’ll be set for life.’

Both men chose to give up and wait for their respective companies to make a decision.

Meanwhile, their head offices were already holding emergency video conferences overnight, discussing how to deal with the impending crisis.

However, Jiang Miao wasn’t too concerned about this. He simply recorded their video conference and then concealed his secret overseas account, which had ballooned to nearly 1.5 billion US dollars.

He planned to use this money as a reserve fund.

As for how to launder the money and bring it into the country, it was actually very simple: set up a few shell companies, purchase eel fry and White Truffles from Hailufeng Company at exorbitant prices, and then sell them on the international market at their original market price.

But for now, there was no need.

Jiang Miao was still busy with his research, while back home, the internet had already exploded.

Topics about Hailufeng Company, Immortal Soybeans, and the 200 million mu of sandy land shot to the top of headlines on all major web portals.