Yes, Madam Prime Minister

Page 238

In his eyes, the flowers themselves had no meaning; what mattered was the contract with its constantly changing price.

"Dad, why did you sell the house?"

The one asking the question was Slater's eldest daughter, Velma, who is ten years old.

That's right, ten years old.

Slater married at the age of thirty and gave birth to her eldest daughter the following year.

His eldest daughter is the second thing he is proud of in his life. She is beautiful, smart, and a magician. His greatest pride is that he has discovered the secret to success.

“You don’t know, there’s some big fool out there I’m going to make a killing off, so I need the funds,” Slater said to his eldest daughter.

"Big idiot?" Velma asked curiously.

Slater explained, "He was selling a lot of futures contracts."

"Why would he do that?" Velma certainly knew about the purple cross, because even the school gatekeeper was talking about it.

"Of course, I think the market price of purple cross flowers is about to drop. In fact, I also think that this thing will become worthless sooner or later. I heard from a very reliable person that the Kingdom of Fas is researching methods for large-scale cultivation. Perhaps next year, this thing will no longer be so precious."

"But this thing will still be valuable for a few months."

"This fool's sudden massive sell-off will drive down the price of futures contracts and put many people on the sidelines. Then I buy, and the price will rise again. Once the price rises a little more, I'll sell everything I have now, plus what I bought from this fool, and make a huge profit."

As she spoke, Slater not only raised her head and looked at the windmills in the distance, but also began to imagine that bright future.

Chapter 540 It was over, then it's okay again, let's create a wealth legend first.

A few days later, Velma returned from school and found that her father, Slater, was completely different from how he had been a few days before. He was like a demon possessed, sitting there repeatedly muttering, "Impossible, impossible, absolutely impossible."

What's impossible?

The answer is that the number of futures contracts held by that fool far exceeded Slater's expectations.

He invested all the money from selling real estate at low prices into buying more. This fool also had a large number of futures contracts and continued to sell them. Although he bought a lot, he did not raise the price at all.

outrageous.

It's important to understand that for a futures contract to be valid, someone must first promise to deliver the goods upon expiration.

Where did the goods come from?

Could it be that the people of the Kingdom of Phos have already developed a more efficient artificial breeding technology?

"No, I can't just stand by and watch him continue to sell off."

Slater muttered to himself.

If this fool keeps selling, the futures contracts will continue to fall in price. Since he holds a large number of futures contracts, if the price falls further, even if he sells all of them, he won't be able to break even and will instead lose a considerable amount of money.

He might even try to sell what he has, because if the price is low, no one will be willing to buy it, and if no one is willing to buy it, then he will be the one left holding the bag.

"I've got it. I'll buy more, keep buying, raise the price back up, then slowly sell, and finally make a small profit."

Slater slapped his thigh, feeling proud of himself for coming up with a solution so quickly.

He also owns real estate, which he can sell to raise money and then use to buy futures contracts.

Velma, who had been watching her father from the sidelines, immediately lost her composure upon hearing this and rushed over, "Dad, are you crazy?"

“I’m perfectly normal and rational,” Slater told her daughter.

“What if he still has some futures contracts?” Velma questioned.

She didn't know much about purple cross flowers, futures trading, or the futures contract market.

But she understood her father.

Although she was young, her father always said one thing: make money off gamblers who didn't have much capital but hoped to make money through real estate promotions.

In her view, her father, who always made money off gamblers, had now become a gambler himself.

“Impossible, Via,” Slater said to his daughter, his tone tinged with impatience. Although he was very proud of his daughter, what did a ten-year-old know?

Verma was furious and shouted, "Gamblers always say 'impossible'!"

"Get out!" Slater roared furiously.

Wilma, who had never been yelled at by her father before, was stunned for a moment. Just as she felt tears welling up in her eyes, she immediately turned around, raised her hand and vigorously wiped her eyes with her sleeve, then quickly ran back to her room. With a bang, the daughter slammed the door shut, rushed out of the villa's gate, and disappeared from sight.

Slater was stunned when his daughter stormed off in a huff. His remaining rationality told him that he shouldn't have acted that way.

But soon, this rationality was replaced by another: he wanted to make a fortune, he absolutely had to! Then he used facts to educate his daughter, making her understand how right he, as her father, was, and that she herself was still far from being right.

By this time, Slater was completely obsessed, even more so than before his daughter had advised him.

He used to be thinking about cutting his losses, but now he's thinking about making money.

half a month later.

Slater stood out because of his gaunt appearance, his bloodshot eyes fixed intently on the stacks of futures contracts in front of him.

He was over 1.8 meters tall but had lost a lot of weight, and now he looked like a skeleton covered with a layer of flesh.

It's over, it's over.

The first two weeks went smoothly because he wasn't alone.

Throughout the entire port area of ​​the Netherlands, aside from the tens of thousands of small-time traders and hundreds of small-time speculators, there are also dozens of large-scale speculators like him, holding many futures contracts.

These major resellers share the same goal as Slater: to drive up prices.

They did succeed; the price of the futures contract rose, but soon it fell again.

At this point, many people, including Slater, realized that the demand for this purple cross flower was extremely low. Wealthy nobles and nouveau riche who had made their fortunes in maritime trade were willing to pay high prices to buy some rare varieties to keep at home. Even some people with a little wealth would follow the trend and buy a few plants. Slater himself also had several precious varieties in his yard.

But the number of nobles and nouveau riche who actually have the need is ultimately too small.

When people begin to realize that this kind of flower can sell for a high price but the demand is not high, the supply futures market, which is much larger than the demand market, becomes a joke.

Those who hold a large number of futures contracts are the laughing stock of the joke.

“It’s over,” Slater said, looking at the pile of scrap paper in front of him.

The family business that three generations had worked hard to build was destroyed in his hands in less than two months, and he will not even have a chance to turn things around.

Just then, the eldest daughter, Velma, suddenly rushed in.

Looking at his daughter, Slater sighed deeply, "I'm sorry, Vivi, it was Dad's fault."

"Dad, what are you saying? Our family is going to be rich!" Velma said, with even a hint of apology on her face.

In an instant, Slater burst into tears. He was truly despicable; he had driven his daughter insane.

Making a fortune? All that's left in the family is this villa.

Slater sniffed hard and wiped away her tears. "Wei, Daddy will sell the house and take you to see a doctor. You can work as a stable boy or even carry manure, but Daddy will make sure you get better."

“You’re the one who needs to see a doctor,” Wilma said angrily, kicking her father. “We’re really going to be rich! Just today, a huge group of French people came to the downtown market to buy flowers. One variety, called ‘Golden Eagle,’ is so expensive it could buy our whole villa. If we just sell our futures contracts now, we’ll make a fortune.”

Slater was stunned for a full ten seconds before finally becoming certain that her daughter wasn't lying.

"Hahahahahaha." Slater laughed loudly, excitedly picking up his daughter. "I really am a person blessed by God. I knew it. God would definitely make me rich for someone as devout as me."

The negative emotions of the past few days vanished, replaced by pure elation.

Meanwhile, inside a small villa.

"Director, why don't we just harvest these fat leeks directly? Instead, we should use the money we've worked so hard to earn to buy flowers from these Dutch people. We even passed on the cultivation technology of purple cross flowers to those Dutch people, so they can control the supply themselves."

One of the men accompanying Ashley asked her a question.

"That's because the market isn't booming enough yet. We need to create a wealth myth to make the people of the Netherlands envious of these newly rich individuals. Our King is still busy promoting these flowers. In a few months, wealthy people from the Western Continent will be buying them to show off their status. The people of the Netherlands will go crazy, eagerly joining this buying and selling frenzy. That's when we, the real big players, will reap the rewards."

Chapter 541 The Bubble Continues, Girls' School, The Troubled Daughter

The first Sunday of January, 1601.

The craze for trading purple crosses in the Netherlands continues and is getting hotter.

At this time, wealthy nobles and nouveau riche from various countries in the Western Continent no longer regarded this flower as a luxury item to decorate their homes, but began to enter the game of money that had never been seen before.

Ronan predicts that it will be about another year before the bubble bursts.

After all, information transmission and logistics are still too slow in this era, and there are still too many people at the bottom who have no savings and cannot be exploited. If it were in his original time when people used mobile phones to trade stocks, a drama of "watching him build a tall building, watching him entertain guests, and watching his building collapse" could be staged every one or two months, wiping out the savings of tens of thousands of people.

In short, Ronan no longer needs to worry about this personally; Ashley can handle the rest.

Ashley will be traveling back and forth between the two countries for the next year.

Also in January, another very important thing was just completed.

The Sacred Heart Girls' School, which recruits students to the Inner Court Secretariat, has just completed its first entrance examination.

One hundred people will be selected based on their rankings, and considering ties, there will likely be over one hundred.

Three years later, out of these more than one hundred people, only ten were able to enter the Inner Court Secretariat.

After that, there will be two more rounds, and we'll find about thirty young secretaries in total.

Although there will be almost no more large-scale recruitment of people into the inner court secretariat in the future, at most one or two will be added every few years, the school will continue to operate.

After all, the kingdom still faces a significant shortage of highly qualified female talent.

In the palace.

Wearing a floral headscarf, a gray cloth shirt, a coarse wool sweater, and a loose, thick cloth skirt, Ambrina, dressed like a "German dragoon" village girl, led her youngest son Louis to her eldest son, Lucien.

Upon seeing his mother's appearance, young Lucien knew she had just been weeding and turning over the soil in the garden.

Tending to flowers and plants is also one of Ambrina's great hobbies.

"I'm leaving Louis to you. By the way, don't wait for me, I won't be back today. Also, remember to remind your sister to finish her homework. I don't want to hear about her not handing in her homework again."

"Ambriina said to Lucien."

Little Lucien was a little disappointed. He thought his mother had come to check on him, since Ronan had taken him for a walk around yesterday during the exam.

What are you looking at? Girls, of course!

"So, did you find anything you like?" Ambrina asked her son with a smile.

Little Lü Xi'an had been hoping his mother would ask this, but when she actually did, he looked rather unhappy. "So what if you like someone? In the end, you'll still be the ones choosing."

“As long as there’s not too much of a problem, we won’t interfere with your decision,” Ambrina said.

Xiao Lü's eyes brightened slightly, but he was still not very interested. "I'm only thirteen, and they're just kids around ten years old. What's there to like or dislike? Besides, I only glanced at them. There are so many people, and I haven't even met any of them. How can I make up my mind after just one look?"

"No rush, there are still three years. By then, they will have started to grow up. As for getting to know each other, there is no need for much contact. Sometimes you can tell at first glance. When I first saw your father, I knew he was the one. At that time, your father was just a small municipal secretary, but his temperament was something that even princes could not compare to."

As Ambrina spoke, she became lost in memories, and as she recalled them, happiness naturally spread across her face.

Xiao Lü Xixian looked disdainful and thought to himself, "What kind of temperament is he? He's just handsome. So what if he's handsome?"

"I'm not talking to you anymore, I'm in a hurry."

With that, Ambrina handed Louis to Lucien and turned to head towards the cloakroom.

She has already made arrangements with Alice, Golan, and Isabel.

We'll explore and eat our way through the afternoon, and then go see a musical in the evening.

"You go out to play, and I'm taking care of the little brat?" Little Lucien was unhappy, but he couldn't stop his queen mother, so he tattled on Ina, "Actually, you don't need to worry about Ina, she ran away early this morning."

Ambrina shook her head, pinched her son's cheek, and sighed, "Never mind, go tell the people in the inner court to take care of your brother. Go out and play by yourself."

After saying that, Ambrina left.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Ronan accompanied Elena and Agustina.

Elena and Agustina are both rather unusual women. They don't like shopping, and even when high-end clothing, jewelry, and cosmetics merchants who regularly come to their door present them with the latest styles, they just randomly pick a couple of items.

He has little artistic taste and prefers simple, direct, and exciting entertainment to musicals—I'm not talking about musicals, I'm talking about playing cards.

So, Ronan and his two companions were on their way to a suburban entertainment complex.

The entertainment complex even has a children's playground, but it's most famous for its large casino.

The capital city is not a small place like Wright City where Ronan lived back then. It is the city with the most mages in the entire Western Continent. Only high-ranking mages, and those who have recruited a group of mages to oversee the casino, can run a casino.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to catch the cheaters or quell the troublemakers, and the casino would have to close down in no time.

In the capital, there are only twenty or thirty people capable of running casinos, which is not a small number, but there are only nine large casinos because there are only nine gambling licenses.

Two years ago, the central government introduced a new law that completely banned illegal gambling. There are a total of nine licenses in the capital region, which will be re-auctioned every three years.