Zhong Yifu had little interest in the death of an American female writer, but since He Rui mentioned it, Zhong Yifu was forced to consider He Rui's perspective. Initially, Zhong Yifu thought the US government was eliminating a famous writer with separatist tendencies. However, the US federal government was already semi-openly persecuting Communists and leftists, while state governments were doing so openly. So, Zhong Yifu negated his own line of thought.

After pondering for a moment, Zhong Yifu suddenly had a new idea. Just then, He Rui's secretary entered and said, "Chairman, the Premier and the Minister have arrived."

Zhong Yifu felt he had vaguely grasped the key point, but since it concerned the division of the United States, he couldn't immediately formulate a complete logic. Just as Zhong Yifu hesitated between leaving or thinking a bit more, He Rui said, "Yifu, stay and listen."

Relieved, Zhong Yifu stood up along with He Rui. Soon, Premier Wu Youping and Minister of Resources Li Chongxi walked in quickly. Before even sitting down, Wu Youping said, "Chairman, the plan to mine Australian iron ore is simply too massive!"

He Rui could well understand Wu Youping's shock. Transporting over a billion tons of iron ore a year was indeed an unimaginable shipping volume in this era. Motioning for the three to sit, He Rui didn't answer immediately. Instead, he lit a cigarette and smiled at Li Chongxi, "Minister Li, is it possible that Australian iron ore doesn't catch the eye of the Ministry of Resources?"

Li Chongxi shook his head hurriedly. Like most leadership members with a background in science and engineering, he had long become accustomed to He Rui's "occasionally proposed" decisions. For instance, regarding the super-large iron mine in Western Australia, although exploration confirmed it fit the deductions of the "Great Oxidation Event" in He Rui's "History of Earth's Evolution," when they discovered they couldn't currently measure the reserves of this super iron mine, Li Chongxi and the experts sent for on-site surveying were all dumbfounded.

At this moment, Li Chongxi shook his head and replied, "Chairman, I just don't understand why we must develop such iron mines *now*. These open-pit mines are indeed very... simply a dream come true in terms of high quality and ease of mining. But the environment in that area poses some difficulties."

"I've seen the photos. Is it harder to develop than those mining pits we've dug?" He Rui said, offering cigarettes to everyone.

Everyone waved their hands in refusal. Premier Wu Youping's health was deteriorating; not only had he quit smoking, but he was also prepared to resign after the war ended no matter what. Zhong Yifu had also quit smoking, and Li Chongxi didn't smoke at all.

He Rui lit his own cigarette before hearing Li Chongxi reply, "Chairman, the cost of transporting these iron ores back to China is too high!"

"From my perspective, the massive scale of domestic infrastructure construction, the 100,000-ton transport ships, and efficient large-scale metallurgical enterprises can all improve our country's technical level. Besides, I read the Premier's report. Our current demand for steel is very high. Producing 300 million tons of steel a year can be fully absorbed. With technological progress, perhaps within 20 years, we can produce 1 billion tons of steel products annually." At this point, He Rui raised a finger, "Please note, I said steel products, not just steel!"

Steel products refer to processed items like steel pipes, rebar, and steel beams, not simply molten steel fresh from the furnace. Hearing this, Li Chongxi suddenly lost the desire to express further objections. Because the figure of 1 billion tons indeed exceeded the limits of Li Chongxi's imagination.

By 1941, China's steel output had already reached 55 million tons, yet this amount could no longer satisfy the demands of the China-led economic community. To produce more steel, more iron ore was needed. Currently, various iron mines within the Asian Community had been developed. If they wanted to obtain more iron ore from these mining areas, extraction costs would rise rapidly.

The conference room fell into a temporary silence. Seeing that Li Chongxi no longer wanted to raise any objections, Wu Youping had to ask, "Chairman, can we guarantee the safety of the shipping routes?"

He Rui turned to Zhong Yifu and smiled, "Well, Yifu, can we guarantee it?"

Zhong Yifu hadn't yet decided whether to accept the post of Commander of the Australian Theater. Hearing this, he smiled somewhat awkwardly and didn't answer.

Wu Youping knew it was useless to ask anyone else about this. He Rui was very arbitrary in many decisions, so he rarely gave such clear instructions. But when He Rui did give instructions, he insisted on results. So Wu Youping said, "If the Chairman aims to drive the economy, I have nothing more to say."

"Not only to drive the economy but also to drive the research and development of various large and super-large mining equipment. For this kind of mineral deposit, equipment weighing a few tons is still too small," He Rui laughed.

Seeing He Rui had made up his mind, Wu Youping actually calmed down. So far, China had issued 480 billion Chinese Yuan in bonds. At the pre-war exchange rate of 6:1 between the Chinese Yuan and the US Dollar, this was equivalent to 80 billion US dollars. According to some judgments within the economic department, assuming the bottom line that the economy wouldn't collapse due to bonds, China could issue between 1.2 to 1.6 trillion Chinese Yuan in national bonds.

This national debt, averaged across every Chinese citizen, would be about 2,000 Chinese Yuan. If China could win the war and establish a world economic order led by China, this money could actually be paid off.

The method to pay off this money wasn't really through looting the world, but because China's total industrial and agricultural output value reached 1 trillion Chinese Yuan in the full year of 1941. At the current rate of economic development, in four years, China's total industrial and agricultural output value could potentially reach 2 trillion Chinese Yuan.

Based on a 35% tax rate, the Chinese government could obtain 700 billion Chinese Yuan. The Chinese government's current normal annual fiscal expenditure was around 580 billion. With an annual tax surplus of 120 billion, the 1.2 trillion in bonds could be repaid in 10 years.

He Rui had long planned that newly liberated countries must use the Chinese Yuan as their trading currency and hold the Chinese Yuan as foreign exchange reserves. This plan was being executed smoothly at this stage, with foreign governments already holding 60 billion Chinese Yuan daily. If He Rui's plan were completed, foreign governments would hold 400 billion Chinese Yuan.

China's industrial capacity was advancing by leaps and bounds now, with no worry about lacking capacity to sell industrial goods. Moreover, China's import volume was huge. In the next 20 years, the money flowing abroad could exactly offset China's over-issued currency. 1.2 trillion + 0.4 trillion; this was the basic logic for the Ministry of Finance setting the bond issuance at 1.6 trillion. If the war was won, China would soar to the skies. If the war was lost, then everything would cease to matter.

"Chairman, what is the appropriate maturity period for these bonds?" Wu Youping asked.

He Rui thought for a moment, "Issue 25-year bonds first."

Hearing "25-year term," Minister of Resources Li Chongxi took a slight breath of cold air, while Wu Youping felt indifferent. Since they were issuing 25-year bonds, there was nothing more to say. Although a rough calculation showed it would take over a decade and at least 100 billion Chinese Yuan in investment to make the Australian iron ore development profitable, as long as China won the war, what would 50-year bonds matter, let alone 25 years?

Moreover, an investment of 100 billion compared to 1.6 trillion in national debt wasn't a particularly outrageous figure. China currently didn't lack labor; what it lacked were massive resources and a vast market. As long as these two were obtained, and with enough time, no amount of money would be a problem.

Finally, after He Rui and Wu Youping reached a consensus, Minister of Resources Li Chongxi also let go of all his worries, trying hard to build up a "just do it if you don't agree" ambition in his heart. But Li Chongxi was a science and engineering man and really couldn't generate such ambition out of thin air. In the end, Li Chongxi could only say, "I will arrange it immediately."

After seeing off Wu Youping and Li Chongxi, He Rui looked at Zhong Yifu. Zhong Yifu thought He Rui would ask if he wanted to go to Australia, but unexpectedly, He Rui asked, "Regarding the American matter, you seemed to have some thoughts just now."

Zhong Yifu had been stimulated into a train of thought by the Australian iron ore development plan. Hearing He Rui ask about the earlier issue, Zhong Yifu recalled for a while before remembering his previous thoughts. The mood from that moment was gone, and as he answered, Zhong Yifu felt his idea was truly a bit too illusory, but he still said, "Chairman, does the United States really... really need to undergo division to obtain..."

Zhong Yifu stopped here. He realized it was hard to find suitable vocabulary to describe the feeling in his heart. After pondering again for a while, Zhong Yifu finally placed himself in the shoes of the American public before continuing to ask, "Would the United States choose division out of its own needs?"

He Rui gave a big thumbs-up to Zhong Yifu's internal logic in his heart. Truly excellent political analysts always analyzed a country's internal needs from that country's perspective. Although such analysis could be high or low in quality and inevitably involve some wishful thinking, placing oneself inside the true analyst's perspective was the correct direction. Achieving this point alone required considerable accomplishment. As for arriving at the correct answer, it required even stronger penetrating power. Zhong Yifu passed the test this time.

"Margaret Mitchell was a very interesting person personally. she held multiple identities. On one hand, she was the daughter of a female representative of the women's liberation movement; on the other hand, she was a true American Southerner. Lenin had a saying: politics is the continuation of economics. What does it prove that this person could write a book like *Gone with the Wind*, and that *Gone with the Wind* could receive a huge response in the United States?"

After listening to He Rui's question, Zhong Yifu really didn't know how to answer.

He Rui then introduced some necessary knowledge points. Although Mitchell never publicly supported slavery during her lifetime, her work contained dissatisfaction with the North and nostalgia for the past life of slave owners. Mitchell neither believed slavery was a bad thing nor agreed with the view of equality between blacks and whites.

*Gone with the Wind* flatly denied the fact of slave escapes. The following remarks by the heroine Scarlett are a unique piece of writing by the author to obliterate the historical fact of slave escapes: "Those Yankee women heard that Southern landlords kept fierce hounds to chase runaway black slaves, and they believed it all true... They also asked about branding irons for branding serfs' faces, and the nine-toothed iron caltrops used to beat serfs. In fact, Southern landlords didn't have these things; they were all just propaganda materials for Northerners."

In fact, for forty years before the American Civil War, Southern newspapers almost daily published full-page advertisements for capturing runaway slaves. The descriptions of runaway slaves in the advertisements almost invariably included marks like brands on the face, whip marks on the chest and back, and scars. There were even advertisements selling hounds specially trained to hunt runaway slaves!

The Ku Klux Klan was a representative organization of racism formed in the South after the Civil War ended, advocating white supremacy. But in *Gone with the Wind*, the Ku Klux Klan was depicted as a chivalrous group protecting white women. The entire Chapter 45 described the "heroic deeds" of the Ku Klux Klan with a legendary color. In the novel, all "true Southerners" joined the Ku Klux Klan: Melanie, Ashley, and even Scarlett's second husband—Frank Kennedy, who had "always been dispirited and accomplished nothing"—was also a Klansman, and he "died gloriously" to avenge his wife who had been attacked by a black man.

After explaining these points, He Rui continued, "So, looking through the phenomena to the essence, Yifu, how do you view the essence of these matters?"

Zhong Yifu felt his mind was a bit chaotic. To answer He Rui's question, Zhong Yifu tried desperately to exclude the specific details he had heard from his thinking. The remaining things were few but very scattered. However, these content points were combined from a very grounded perspective, allowing Zhong Yifu to suddenly find a key point from many materials he had read before.

"Chairman, the economic status of the American South now has a huge gap compared to its economic status during the Civil War. And this gap has not only failed to shrink but has widened!" This time, Zhong Yifu felt he had grasped the key point. Although he was still unconfident, he answered firmly: "The American South is extremely disappointed with the current situation and is unwilling to accept it!"