novelThe Oil War Begins
| ← Ch.930 | Ch.932 → |
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
'I clearly ended up taking the initiative afterwards, but why am I getting the feeling like I'm the one who's being overpowered?'
After having a breakthrough in his relationship with Tang Jing, Su Yang no longer hesitated.
Tang Jing could have been said to have made Su Yang take the initiative to make his choice.
Before leaving Tang Jing's house, Su Yang hugged Tang Jing and kissed the woman who had been trying her best to please him last night.
Tang Jing seemed to have sensed Su Yang's feelings. The smile on her face was very gentle, but she didn't say anything. They were both adults after all, so there were some things that didn't need to be said clearly, and some that didn't need to be fussed over...
...
After leaving Tang Jing's house, Su Yang sat in the car and closed his eyes to think about what he should do next.
His first reaction was to tell Chu Xia. 'I should admit my mistake...'
However, as soon as he had the thought, Little Deeny's voice rang in his ears."Master, I really don't suggest you talk to Miss Chu Xia about this.
"Everyone is selfish, so are women. She might allow you to do certain things, but that doesn't mean she's willing to face them. That's why she used Xiaomi to relay the message.
"So, I think the most suitable thing for you to do now is to act dumb.
"Just pretend like nothing happened and spend time with them separately.
"Also, don't think about letting them get familiar with each other so that they can coexist peacefully. Think about those palace dramas. The emperor never gets a good ending."
Su Yang was speechless.
Although her description was not that appropriate, Su Yang felt that it made sense.
Therefore, after a few indirect conversations with Chu Xia, he decided to follow Little Deeny's instructions.
Therefore, he would spend the rest of his time between the two women separately.
Even though the two women seemed to have sensed each other's presence, they never talked about it when they were together. It was as if they were Su Yang's only woman.
Su Yang felt touched and very guilty at the same time.
After his relationship with Tang Jing stabilized, Su Yang brought Tang Jing into the virtual world to experience his real life and his world.
In fact, that was the first time Tang Jing witnessed all of that, so she was stunned by what she saw.
Having been taught materialism since she was young, she had never expected such a magical place to exist in the world. There were so many magical monsters and magical items there.
However, other than making her more dependent on Su Yang, there were no other changes. She was as gentle and understanding as ever in her relationship with him.
Thus, in the blink of an eye, a year had passed.
Many things have happened over the past year.
Su Yang and Jiadian Group waited patiently. Many people thought that they were intimidated by Draenor and were holding off from showing off. Therefore, Draenor started to rise on the world stage.
In early April, he announced that America had withdrawn from UNESCO.
In May, he withdrew from the Central Asian Nuclear Agreement.
In June, he withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
In July, he announced his withdrawal from the Myriad State Postal Union.
In August, he announced that he would revoke the signature on the World Weapons Trade Agreement.
At the end of August, he unilaterally announced his withdrawal from the America-Russia Transit and Short-Time Conduct Agreement.
In September, he abolished the Open Sky Treaty, signed by several countries around the world.
In October, he terminated his relationship with the World Health Organization.
However, even after retreating from around the world, Draenor did not give up on his power struggle within America.
First, he abolished the universal health insurance promoted by his predecessor, and then revised the Endangered Species Act, reducing the regulations governing endangered animals. Economic factors can be taken into account when weighing which safeguards should be provided to endangered species.
After that, he started building blocks and built tall walls around the country's border. He implemented a zero-tolerance policy on people trying to climb over the walls and enter his country. Adults were detained in temporary detention centers, and children were taken over by government agencies and sent to relatives, foster homes, or shelters.
After a while, his gaze finally returned to Su Yang, and the country that he represented behind him... China.
In order to target China, Draenor began to impose large tariffs on their products in November, limiting investments and acquisitions of America by Chinese companies led by Jiadian Group.
This stone caused a thousand ripples.
The sudden collision between two world-class superpowers caught the world by surprise.
None of them had expected things to suddenly escalate.
Even many big shots in the country were caught off guard. They did not know what kind of madness Draenor was being driven by.
Throughout all that, Su Yang was the only person who remained calm.
Having already seen Draenor's destiny line, he knew every step Draenor was going to make.
Even though the destiny line did not reveal everything, Su Yang knew which path to take in the future.
Therefore, even though he found out that Draenor's actions were much earlier than what he had witnessed on the destiny line, Su Yang still remained calm when he went there. He even had the time to inquire about his country's response.
That night, Jiang Yan called Su Yang and told him about the country's counterattack strategy. She also said that the country did not want to continue fighting with Draenor and only wanted peace.
After all, time was on China's side. With every day China managed to stall from having an open battle, they would grow stronger.
However... Su Yang doubted the validity of this strategy.
'After all, Draenor has always been mentally challenged. '
At noon the next day, China announced a countermeasure to America, with tariffs ranging from 15% to 25% on imports of fresh fruit, wine, seamless steel pipes, and aluminum recycling.
In mid-December, the two countries held talks on this matter and had a preliminary friendly agreement.
Everything seemed like they were progressing well at that point.
Even Jiang Yan called Su Yang several times to reassure him that everything was settled.
However, the truth was that things did not go according to Jiang Yan's plan.
In late December, Draenor tore up the deal without hesitation, arguing that the agreement did not reflect China's sincerity and that he intended to impose another 25% tariff on nearly 50 billion USD worth of China goods.
Draenor shocked the entire world the moment he went back against his word.
After all, before Draenor, no country had ever treated their promise like a piece of trash.
'He's completely inhumane!'
China did not hesitate to condemn Draenor for violating the WTO.
But Draenor has made it clear that WTO rules were the biggest hoax and one of the most failed policies, and he intended to... Exit the WTO.
Under such a sensitive atmosphere, some tycoons from the country, led by Mr. Ma, called Su Yang several times to ask for his opinion on the matter.
Su Yang reassured them and asked them to be patient.
Even though everyone was anxious, Su Yang's words carried weight, so they could only wait.
Just like that, another year passed.
In the past year, China and America had been fighting more and more intensely.
Draenor has made more than one public statement that China was an enemy of America.
The two sides had many negotiations over trade issues.
But everything ran in the cycle as it had in the beginning.
Every time there was a negotiation achieved, that very negotiation would be torn apart, and repeated.
It was like they were playing house.
However, this was not a useless process.
At the very least, it was not useless to Su Yang and China.
During this process, China gradually abandoned their original idea of "as long as we endure, we can continue to develop". The people also gradually saw clearly what the so-called America-based democracy and America's credibility meant.
Through these events, the entire world was able to see that America was strong on the outside, but weak on the inside.
When the sixth consultation failed, Draenor announced that the tariff-tax rate on the 200 billion USD worth list of items imported by China would increase from 10% to 25%, and the world fell silent.
While the world was silent, America was celebrating.
This was because Draenor had been selling his ego for money over the past few years. His shameless act of asking for money had indeed allowed America to prosper in a short period of time.
Accordingly, American stocks were rising nonstop, almost 40% higher than they had been since Draenor took office.
Draenor held a press conference to announce that he was the greatest president in the history of America, a president comparable to Washington and Lincolni.
He also claimed that America would be reinvigorated by him and the stock market would continue to rise.
When asked about his views on the stock market crash in America during the economic crisis 10 years ago, he smiled and said that if a CEO caused the America stock to fall by more than 6%, he should be launched up to the sky in a rocket.
Meanwhile, Su Yang finally took action after waiting for two years.
In fact, Su Yang had been keeping busy for the entire time.
With the help of the Clown Sea Serpent, he used various special items and his own special abilities to gradually control most of the big shots in Central Asia.
On the surface, Central Asia was still the most chaotic region. However, every half a month, these big shots would secretly visit the virtual space through the glass phone to fish and drink tea.
This was truly a case of openly cultivating while secretly having different plans.
Sensing that the time was right, Su Yang asked Salabar to call for an emergency meeting with OPEC.
Because of Su Yang's arrangements, the atmosphere at the meeting was very weird.
After all, there had never been a meeting that went as smoothly as the proposal.
In less than half an hour, the meeting was over.
This OPEC meeting attracted the attention of the entire world.
Because of this meeting, every country around the world did not receive any relevant questions beforehand, which was a very strange thing.
Especially now that the global economy is in turmoil, no one knows what role Central Asia is prepared to play.
Soon, the meeting ended. Opec held a press conference and announced the decision of this emergency meeting.
Due to global economic volatility, oil sales have fallen and prices have weakened in response to rising shale production in America. The OPEC alliance has decided to respond by reducing production and raising prices.
They plan to reduce production by two million barrels a day, at about 1. 5% of global demand.
And they were prepared to call on the entire oil industry.
To set an example, they decided that OPEC would reduce production by 1 million barrels a day, rather than members of OPEC.
They want oil powers other than OPEC: America and Russia can respond to this call to make the oil industry more mature.
In terms of specific allocations, they recommend that Russia bear 700, 000 barrels of reduction and America country 300, 000 barrels of reduction.
This plan did not seem to have any problems.
Every time there is an economic crisis, or something special, OPEC talks with other oil powers to control oil production and prices.
Generally speaking, OPEC, an oil organization that controlled more than 70% of the world, would agree to the proposal.
However, the plan this time was obviously too intense.
And very unequal...
They were one of the top three oil nations in the world. Russia wanted to reduce production by 700, 000 barrels, while America only needed to reduce production by 300, 000 barrels. This was clearly preferential treatment.
Moreover, it seemed like he was intentionally giving the market to America.
Would Russia agree to this though?
So that night, Russia publicly rejected the proposal. They also publicly said they would not raise the price and would maintain instead.
Until that point, the whole world did not notice any problems. They thought it was just an ordinary trade negotiation.
Even the countries that paid attention to the OPEC conference started to shift their attention.
However, three days later, a piece of news exploded around the world.
Because Russia rejected OPEC's proposal, OPEC decided to launch a price war for its own benefit, which would significantly reduce its price.
And the reduction was at its highest level in nearly 20 years!
OPEC's goal was simple: Since you won't raise the price, then let's compete on whose price is lower.
And that was not all.
OPEC acted as if they were really angered by Russia. After making a statement about lowering the price, it did not take long for him to decide to increase the production of 1 million barrels of oil every day from next month onwards. He would rely on small profits and multi-market sales to seize the market.
This time, Russia was enraged as well.
Half an hour later, Russia held a press conference and decided to cut oil prices and increase production by 800, 000 barrels a day.
The sudden conflict between the two oil powers made the world even more unstable. Everyone felt that the world was becoming more unpredictable.
It was at this time that a sky-high number of American stocks suddenly appeared in various international markets.
After all, American stocks were the biggest stock market in the world.
And now, there were suddenly so many empty funds.... 'What's going on?!'
| ← Ch. 930 | Ch. 932 → |