At the Jiang family’s ancestral home, Li Yi followed his father-in-law to the old man’s side and addressed him directly: “Grandfather, I’ve come to see you!”
Hearing the voice, Old Master Jiang immediately opened his eyes.
He had been listening to the opera with his eyes closed and hadn’t seen Li Yi come in.
Upon seeing Li Yi, he immediately smiled and said, “It’s Little Yi! Have a seat!”
Li Yi didn’t hesitate and immediately sat down on a small stool nearby.
Seeing this, Jiang Shiying sat down on the low wall of the flower bed nearby and handed the document Li Yi had written to the old man.
“Father, this was written by Yi. I think it’s very well written and quite forward-thinking!”
The old man’s eyesight wasn’t very good, so he didn’t take the document Jiang Shiying was offering; instead, he asked directly, “Tell me, what’s so good about it?”
Jiang Shiying gathered her thoughts and said, “According to Xiao Yi’s analysis, China’s economy will experience a wave of rapid growth following the reform and opening-up, with growth rates of at least 10%—and possibly as high as 15%. This aligns perfectly with the data I obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics!”
“Secondly, Xiao Yi has also analyzed the reasons behind this rapid economic growth. He believes the current pace is driven by the household contract responsibility system, which has spurred economic reform in rural areas and unleashed the vitality of the rural economy.”
“Coupled with the continuous rise in urban residents’ income and consumption levels, the ongoing reform of state-owned enterprises, increased labor productivity, and the constant release of urban residents’ consumption demand, the economy is developing rapidly… and this is almost entirely consistent with the analysis above!”
The old man nodded without comment, but then asked, “What do you mean by ‘forward-looking’?”
“Xiao Yi also mentioned potential problems our economy might face at this stage. I find this particularly meaningful—especially his view that our current obsession with massive investments and large-scale projects is highly inappropriate and could very well lead to a severe economic disaster. We must remain vigilant…”
As Jiang Shiying finished recounting Li Yi’s “predictions” in one breath, the old man’s face remained impassive, but inside, a storm of emotions had already begun to rage.
Just a few days earlier, when he had met with his old superior and friend, the other man had raised these very concerns and expressed similar deep anxiety.
More importantly, his old friend’s explanation had been far less clear than that of his own grandson-in-law. No wonder Old Chen had insisted on hearing this young man’s perspective.
After a long moment, the old man finally looked at Li Yi and said, “I never expected that besides being good at making money, you also have such keen economic insight. It’s a shame you’re not taking a position in local government!”
“Please spare me, sir. I really don’t have what it takes to be a government official!”
Li Yi continued, “Besides, this is just me daydreaming—it’s just my personal opinion. You and my father shouldn’t take it too seriously!”
Although Li Yi hadn’t officially entered the system, in his previous life he had held quite a few positions within the establishment—such as a CPPCC delegate, chamber of commerce president, and charity ambassador.
Even without being an official, there were still a ton of hassles—enough to drive anyone crazy.
Moreover, the bureaucratic world is all about social graces and playing the game—saying one thing to one person and another to another, being strict with subordinates and fawning over superiors!
Although he was smooth and worldly-wise, he had strong principles and simply wasn’t cut out for work within the system, so becoming an official was out of the question!
The old man glared at him and said, “It’s good for a young person to be humble, but being too humble and losing your youthful vigor is no good.”
“You’re just a kid in your twenties—even if you were to tear the sky apart, no one would say a word. Why are you walking around all timid and shrinking like some old geezer? It’s no fun!”
“I’m just trying to avoid trouble,” Li Yi said with a smile.
As he spoke, however, Li Yi was inwardly ranting: You have no idea how terrifying that campaign next year will be—millions arrested, tens of thousands dragged out to be shot, and even the underworld will have a line of people waiting to check in.
Among those who were “eliminated,” there were plenty of children of high-ranking officials, and even more young people in their teens and twenties—they were the “kids” you keep talking about. But when that time actually comes, who’s going to care about that!
At that moment, Jiang Shiying looked at Li Yi and asked, “Xiao Yi, will the economic disaster you mentioned in the document really happen?”
Li Yi paused briefly, then said, “It will!”
Actually, given his personality, he didn’t really want to answer so definitively and decisively. After all, saying that would be like cutting off all his own escape routes, which didn’t quite align with his usual principle of moderation—never committing fully to anything.
But considering the gravity of the matter, and since he’d already put it in writing, giving a definitive answer didn’t seem like such a big deal.
“Will the consequences really be as severe as you say?” Jiang Shiying asked again.
“They might be even more severe than I’ve described!”
Li Yi knew full well just how reckless the higher-ups had been acting over the past two years.
With foreign exchange reserves of just over 900 million dollars, the State Planning Commission had proposed a plan to spend 6.5 billion dollars over the next eight years to import technology and equipment from abroad.
And when this plan was discussed at a high-level meeting, the figure was increased to $10 billion, with the justification that importing equipment would boost China’s oil, coal, and light industrial output to earn more foreign exchange.
Later still, the import portion of this plan was raised to $15 billion.
And that wasn’t the end of it. During the implementation of the plan, the higher-ups decided that if they were going to do business and trade with foreign countries, they might as well go big—forget $15 billion, let’s aim for $50 billion.
Subsequently, the State Planning Commission preliminarily compiled and finalized a plan totaling $85 billion. Yet at present, our country’s fiscal revenue stands at just over 120 billion yuan, and the Baosteel project alone requires an investment of 30 billion yuan—this is simply beyond our national capacity to bear!
How is this any different from the Great Leap Forward of over a decade ago? It’s no wonder some have dubbed the economic activities of this period the “Foreign Leap Forward”—it’s nothing short of blind recklessness!
It is precisely because he is aware of these facts that he mentioned them in the document.
Jiang Shiying understood Li Yi’s character well enough to know that the young man was always low-key and cautious. Since he was so certain now, it meant that this terrifying scenario was indeed highly likely to occur.
With that in mind, he glanced at the old man and said, “Father, I’d like to pay a visit to Uncle Chen in a little while. Would you like to come along?”
The old man shook his head and said, “I won’t be going. I’m getting on in years and don’t feel like moving around. You, however, should take this young man with you!”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Li Yi immediately shook his head and said, “Grandpa, I have something else to do later…”
“Don’t you want to know who your ‘Grandpa Chen’ really is? Besides, you’re just a slacker—what could possibly be so urgent?” the old man said, glaring at him.
“Grandpa, you might not know this, but we’re splitting the profits for our project today. My third older brother and Jianhua have already gone over—they’re just waiting for me!” Li Yi said, half-jokingly.
Although he could guess that the identity of the “Uncle Chen” his father-in-law mentioned was certainly no ordinary person, Li Yi had no intention of meeting him.
The reason was simple: he didn’t want the hassle.
He could imagine that after meeting him, he’d inevitably be saddled with a whole bunch of tasks—and he wouldn’t be able to refuse.
After all, the man was both a big shot and an elder—it would be genuinely hard to bring himself to say no.
Dealing with the State Administration of Foreign Exchange was already a headache enough; he really didn’t want to invite more trouble onto himself.
“What money are you talking about?”
“Third Brother, Jianhua, and I worked on a project together. Now that we’ve made a profit, we’re ready to split the money!” Li Yi said.
“It’s just one project—how much could it possibly be? With a net worth of hundreds of billions, do you really care about such a small amount?”
“One hundred million…”
The old man’s expression visibly froze, and he asked, puzzled, “What one hundred million?”
“What I mean is, each of us gets to split one hundred million this time!” Li Yi explained.
After a long pause, the old man asked, his face filled with shock, “Are you saying Longcheng and that kid Jianhua each get 100 million too?”
“Yep!”
The old man immediately turned to Jiang Shiying and said, “Third Brother, don’t go to Old Chen’s place just yet. Go with this kid instead!”
“Why?”
“That good-for-nothing Longcheng can’t handle a hundred million. Leave him a million, and have him turn the rest over to the family!” the Old Master ordered.
“Yes, sir!”
“While you’re at it, give Old Ye a call. As for whether the Ye family should make that kid Jianhua hand over his share, that’s entirely up to Old Ye!”
“Alright, I’ll call him right now!”
Li Yi, standing nearby, was instantly stunned by this!
It’s like the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind—it’s too cruel, too brutal. He couldn’t help but silently mourn for Jiang Longcheng and Ye Jianhua for three whole minutes…
……….