Chapter 319 - 319: The Crisis Erupts

September 25th.

Homo Sapiens Company was busy investing in and building up its various subsidiaries.

Meanwhile, a global crisis had reached a critical juncture, becoming nearly impossible to contain.

Following the major rout in Southeast Asia back in April, the Federal Reserve System and its backer, the City of the Council, had been constantly rolling out various economic measures to try and stabilize the North American economy.

However, the City of the Council made a foolish move in June.

To be precise, it wasn't so much a foolish move as a miscalculation. The City of the Summit had underestimated Homo Sapiens Company's strength and technological reserves, leading them to erroneously launch an economic blockade.

A particularly critical part of this was engineering a comprehensive price hike on semiconductors for Homo Sapiens Company, along with the withdrawal of foreign-owned semiconductor firms from Xing Island.

According to the plan, Homo Sapiens Company was supposed to suffer heavy losses from losing Xing Island's semiconductor industry and facing comprehensive price hikes.

But events took the exact opposite turn.

Homo Sapiens Company quickly launched its own optoelectronic semiconductor products, not only meeting its own needs but also turning the tables on them.

Their plan having backfired, America and a host of semiconductor companies not only failed to take a slice out of Homo Sapiens Company, but they also lost the Southeast Asian market and now faced intense pressure from Homo Sapiens Company's dominance in the semiconductor sector.

The semiconductor industry, one of North America's core pillar industries, collapsed in an instant.

Although America immediately used various financial tactics to temporarily stabilize the North American stock market, it was only a temporary fix. The root problem was far from solved.

For example, from June to September this year, year-over-year sales of American semiconductor products in Asia, Africa, and Latin America dropped by 71.2%.

Sales plummeted by 95.7% in Southeast Asia, 63.1% in the South Asia Region, 26.5% in the West Asia Region, 72.3% in Central Asia and Lucia, 74.2% in the Africa Region, and 41.5% in Latin America.

Consumption of semiconductor products in Europe and America and East Asia had already been trending downward in recent years, so they were counting on growth from emerging markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

And now, those emerging markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America were completely wiped out.

Southeast Asia was Homo Sapiens Company's home turf, so American semiconductors could only be sold in three places: An Nan, Canglan, and Kampuchea.

South Asia was originally a large market, but its economy had been hit hard by the effects of the Assam War. On top of that, Homo Sapiens Company had squeezed the market by importing large quantities of cheap, refurbished devices through Dongba and local compradors in Tianzhu.

Thanks to their oil and natural gas reserves, West Asian countries were able to acquire substantial amounts of Jin, which they used to purchase significant quantities of Homo Sapiens Company's optoelectronic semiconductor products.

Persia, acting as a middleman, imported various products from Homo Sapiens Company into the Central Asia Region and the Caucasus Region.

And that's to say nothing of the Africa Region, where Homo Sapiens Company's trade representative, Wu Wei, had personally paid a visit not long ago and opened up the entire African market.

In Latin America, Homo Sapiens Company was simultaneously using Three-leaf Oak's underground channels and propping up various gangs to flood the market with large quantities of cheap products.

Previously unable to import electronics due to the blockade from Europe and America, Lucia's leader, Caesar, simply decided to procure all its electronic products from Homo Sapiens Company, filling the gap left by American-made semiconductor products.

Looking at the big picture, there wasn't a single corner of Asia, Africa, or Latin America that remained untouched.

As soon as the third-quarter financial reports from major semiconductor companies like Apple, Dell, HP, Samsung, Intel, Texas Instruments, TSMC, Infineon, and Archer Daniels Midland were released, the US stock market—already on life support—instantly began to hemorrhage.

A chain reaction immediately rippled through the market. Many European and American Enterprises had already taken a significant hit after losing the entire Southeast Asian market. Now, the collapse of the semiconductor industry had finally toppled the first domino.

Following close behind, the stock markets of major economies such as East Japan, South Korea, Britain, and France all plummeted.

The international financial markets were a scene of utter devastation.

And the number of investors taking a final leap from the rooftops was simply too high to count.

...

Li Qingye, who had just had the Longevity Symbiotic Insect implanted, was recuperating in a secret sanatorium near Dongzhi.

Suddenly, a briefing on major international events popped up on his special internal tablet. He glanced at it, and the corners of his mouth immediately turned up.

'So they finally couldn't hold on any longer?'

He looked up and ordered, "Arrange a video call."

Sangjibada Laiyal performed a curtsy. "Yes, sir."

A few minutes later, she wheeled over a custom-built video communication unit with a large screen.

Li Qingye casually typed in Wang Xin Ya's name.

In a moment, Wang Xin Ya, the head of the finance department, appeared on the screen.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman."

"Xinyi, what's the current situation in the international financial markets?"

Wang Xin Ya quickly organized the intelligence in her mind before replying, "Currently, Europe, East Japan, South Korea, Taiwan Island, and Latin America have all been hit by the financial shock. Wall Street is in the process of harvesting all kinds of high-quality assets in these regions."

"Our finance department has run an assessment. We project that within the next six months, over 150,000 businesses in Europe and the Far East will go bankrupt, with direct job losses potentially exceeding 200 million."

Li Qingye's eyes narrowed slightly. "It looks like the Far East Region is about to see a huge wave of unemployment. In all likelihood, they'll be coming to us for work."

Wang Xin Ya readily agreed. "That's highly likely. However, some places might try to forcibly stabilize their domestic economies by stimulating the real estate market and pushing infrastructure development."

"Heh. And how is the real estate situation in An Nan?" Li Qingye's gaze seemed to pierce through mountains, seeing all the way to An Nan's frenzied property market.

Wang Xin Ya was in charge of Homo Sapiens Company's economic research division, so she naturally knew about An Nan's current economic problems.

"The bubble is enormous. Although it recently received an injection of hot money that fled from our territories, that's only enough to give An Nan's economy a dead cat bounce."

"How much trade Jin do we have right now?"

Wang Xin Ya checked the internal database. "Currently, we have 325.7 billion. These Jin are being held by various countries as foreign exchange reserves."

She then shared the data with Li Qingye.

Li Qingye took a look.

The region with the most Jin in foreign exchange reserves was West Asia, with a total of 142.2 billion.

Next was Lucia with 37.2 billion, while the Far East combined held 92.5 billion.

The rest—Central Asia, South Asia, the Pacific Island Countries, Latin America, and Africa—only added up to just over 50 billion.

"What's the situation in West Asia?"

Wang Xin Ya replied with a smile, "Because they've built up large reserves of our Jin and trade directly with us, many countries in West Asia haven't been severely affected, especially Persia."

"One side's loss is another's gain. It looks like they'll be strengthening their partnership with us after this economic crisis."

Li Qingye and Wang Xin Ya spoke for half an hour, laying out several strategies.

Homo Sapiens Company wasn't particularly interested in the companies in Europe and America and the Far East Region, as there were significant differences between their industrial systems.

If they used Jin to acquire companies in those regions, they would most likely only be able to buy unimportant, second-rate enterprises. After all, the local capital powers were extremely wary of Homo Sapiens Company.

Therefore, Li Qingye had no intention of competing with America to acquire these companies. Instead, Homo Sapiens Company would focus on acquiring skilled personnel.

America could fight for the industries; Homo Sapiens Company would fight for the talent.

'As for bailing out the market?'

'What a joke. Why should Homo Sapiens Company save them?'

'Homo Sapiens Company couldn't wait for those companies to just spontaneously combust, freeing up their market share and labor. That way, Homo Sapiens Company could pick their corpses clean.'

Just as Li Qingye and Wang Xin Ya finished discussing financial matters, another message popped up on his communicator.