HCB Chapter 701, No. 18 Jianguo Road, Yangon Stock Exchange Hall
Chapter 701, No. 18 Jianguo Road, Yangon Stock Exchange Hall
Jianguo Road is the most bustling street in Yangon's East New District.
The road is wide and flat, paved with cement produced in Southeast Asia, and lined with neat palm trees and blooming phoenix trees.
In the middle of the road, a tram clanged past, its body painted with the "Nanhua Transportation" logo.
Cars, tricycles, and bicycles were mixed together, showing a vibrant scene.
The cars are mainly Ford and Chevrolet, but there are also quite a few "Xinghai" brand light vehicles that have recently been produced locally in Southeast Asia.
No. 18 Jianguo Road is a four-story modernist building, all white with simple lines and huge glass windows that reflect sunlight.
On the left is No. 16 Jianguo Road, a quaint theater with a neon sign that reads "Victory Grand Theater".
On the right is No. 20 Jianguo Road, which is a seven-story reinforced concrete building with a constant flow of people. It is called "Nanhua Department Store".
This is the most bustling landmark in Yangon's East New District.
Before even stepping through the gates of No. 18, a wave of sound, a mixture of sweat, smoke, cheap perfume, and something even more intense and fiery, crashed over him like a real tsunami, almost knocking the unsettled Chen Hai off his feet.
He composed himself and squeezed in.
The trading hall appears larger inside than it does from the outside.
The ceiling is at least two stories high, and countless huge ceiling fans rotate slowly overhead, but they cannot dispel the heat generated by the gathering of nearly a thousand people.
People, people everywhere.
Most of the men wore suits or white shirts, with the sleeves rolled up to their elbows and their ties askew.
The women also wore fashionable dresses or suits, and their makeup was exquisite.
Everyone's face was turned in the same direction, towards the giant blackboards that almost covered the entire wall.
The blackboard was covered with densely packed company abbreviations and constantly changing numbers in white, yellow, and green chalk.
Several traders wearing wired headsets and red vests, constantly in contact with the back-end telegraph room, were like the most tense communications soldiers on the battlefield. They shouted something into the microphone while, based on the real-time market data from the Sin Chew Daily Exchange transmitted through their headsets, they erased the old numbers at an almost illegible speed and wrote the new ones.
Chalk dust danced in the light.
"It's gone up! 'Guanghua Shipbuilding' has broken through 22 yuan! My goodness, it was only 18 yuan yesterday!"
"Look at 'Golden Palm Oil Industry'! The big players are making a move. The buy orders are as thick as a city wall. It's at 14.5...15 yuan now. Anyone who sells is a fool."
According to the latest telegram from Sin Chew Daily, "United Rubber" has signed a five-year contract with the White Eagle Automotive Association. Is all the good news already out?
No! The good news is just beginning; people are snapping up items at 16 yuan, no, 17 yuan.
"Penang Milk, the initial order price of 4.8 ringgit was all bought up, now it's 5 ringgit, 5.2 ringgit, it's insane, is this market manipulator a money printing machine?!"
The frenzied shouts, excited screams, and yells urging companions or traders to place orders quickly, mixed with the background noise of the telegraph machine, all converged into a thrilling symphony of wealth.
Every face glowed with excitement, their eyes shining brightly, as if the numbers on the blackboard weren't chalk writing, but a magic spell to turn lead into gold.
The European war has ended, but the global need for reconstruction is in full swing.
As a major producer of rubber, tin, palm oil, and tropical timber, as well as an emerging exporter of light industrial products, Southeast Asia is experiencing a dizzying economic expansion.
Factories operate day and night, and ships come and go in the port. It seems that as long as a company is associated with "production" or "export", its stock price can soar as soon as it goes public.
Chen Hai watched all this numbly, but his heart involuntarily pounded along with the jumping numbers.
It was here that he, with the funds for defection in his pocket, dreamed of making a quick buck and leaving, to fill some of his personal savings, or even... multiply the money several times over.
At first, everything went smoothly. He tried his hand at it and earned a few months' salary.
Then, my appetite increased...
"Woooooooo..."
A suppressed, desperate cry came from the pillar diagonally opposite.
Chen Hai looked over and saw a middle-aged man wearing a wrinkled gray suit and with messy hair, staring at the number that kept shrinking after "Wrigley's Coffee" on the blackboard.
The number dropped from 9.7 yuan to 8.1 yuan and is still declining.
He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders heaving violently, and tears seeped through his fingers.
The people around him subconsciously moved away from him, creating a brief vacuum.
The gazes cast by people were complex: some were gloating, some were saddened by the death of a rabbit, but most were indifferent—on this battlefield, tears were the least valuable thing.
"Ugh……"
An old sigh sounded from the side.
Chen Hai turned his head and saw an old man wearing a dark blue silk mandarin jacket, with his hair neatly combed and a thin face, sitting on a small bamboo chair he had brought with him, slowly sipping tea from a thermos.
The old man shook his head. His voice wasn't loud, but it strangely pierced through the surrounding noise and clearly reached Chen Hai's ears:
"I start work at eight o'clock every day, earning a fixed salary of a hundred or so yuan a month. I save every penny I can to try my hand at this 'ticket' game."
They fantasized about turning their lives around overnight and changing their fate. Little did they know how deep the water in this pool was.
Who are the ones who truly sit back and watch the storms unfold, enjoying the fruits of their labor?
The old man's words were like a needle, piercing Chen Hai's nerves with precision.
"Is this old coffin stuff referring to me?" Chen Hai's face flushed red instantly, then turned deathly pale.
He was that fool who fantasized about turning his life around, and he lost even more miserably, losing funds that couldn't be made public.
Fifty thousand Nanyang dollars…fifty thousand…
The number exploded in his mind again.
At the current exchange rate, that's roughly ten thousand dollars.
What did ten thousand dollars mean at the end of 1945?
You could buy a full 10 Ford sedans, or 5 Cadillac L luxury sedans.
Across the river in Tennessee, near the White Eagle, one could buy a hundred acres (over 400,000 square meters) of fertile farm, live a peaceful life as a landowner, and spend the rest of one's life there.
In Siam or the Malay Peninsula, one can own dozens of acres of rubber plantations and live off the rubber harvest, ensuring a comfortable life for the rest of their days.
Even in Yangon or Singapore, that's enough to invest in three or four decent trading companies or service firms, and live a comfortable life as a wealthy man.
But now, it's all gone.
There's no way he could come up with that much money.
As he stared at the numbers on the blackboard soaring like rockets, a frantic voice screamed in his heart.
Maybe...maybe there's still a chance?
As long as there is another sum of capital, not much, even if it's 50,000... no, 10,000.
Find a good stock, buy and sell quickly. The economy in Southeast Asia is so good that stocks are doubling every day.
With a bit of luck, you could earn back 50,000 in just one go, or even... more?
Ultimately, the despair of having nowhere to turn and the gambler's inherent illusion that he could win the next round overwhelmed his reason.
His gaze fell on an inconspicuous corner on the far right of the hall.
There, in the shadow of the stairs, stood a man dressed in a black suit and wearing a black top hat.
The man leaned against the wall, his hat brim pulled low, obscuring his face. He simply stared quietly at the bustling hall, seemingly out of place with his surroundings.
But Chen Hai knew, or rather had heard, that it was one of the gathering places for shadow banks and lenders, providing "lifesaving money" specifically for stock investors who had lost everything and wanted to make a comeback. Of course, the interest rates were frighteningly high and the conditions were harsh.
Chen Hai swallowed hard, straightened his collar, and walked toward the man in black as if walking toward a cliff.
He didn't notice that next to him, beside a marble pillar, a young man wearing glasses, who looked like an ordinary office worker, was pretending to look at the price quote, but his eyes were actually following him subtly.
As Chen Hai approached the man in black, the young man slightly turned his head, pointed to a button-sized device hidden in his upturned collar, and whispered almost inaudibly:
"Peacock No. 2 has taken the bait. Moving towards the 'shadow' area. Repeat, Peacock No. 2 has taken the bait."
The trading hall remained noisy, the enormous sound waves drowning out any subtle sounds.
The numbers on the blackboard were still changing; some people were overjoyed, while others were devastated.
Beneath this boiling ocean of capital and desire, another silent hunt has just begun.
From the moment 'Fisherman' Lin Hai first became obsessed and reached for that special operational fund, he was no longer just an unlucky spy in financial crisis.
The Central Intelligence Agency of Southeast Asia had long ago laid a trap, and Lin Hai himself, along with the Military Intelligence Bureau's Yangon station behind him, were the prey.