"What do you an the parade is going to start in Guangzhou? How hard do you want to bankrupt the economy?"
Yuqi stood up at the dining table in front of everyone, her face full of anger as she couldn't believe what Xiaoyun had just ntioned.
"It shouldn't cost that much that much. It's just still happening in a single day——"
"It's not as simple as adding a location. Do you know how much disruption this causes to businesses?
Hell, we will have to pay for police to work overti to maintain security when resources in Guangzhou are already stretched thin."
The dining room fell into silence as Xiaoyun didn't really have a way to argue back.
He knew Yuqi was right, as he had seen the docunt himself regarding the financial side of the governnt.
It was on the edge of bankruptcy, with constant borrowed spending and a raised looting tax to compensate for all his military campaigns.
"Unless you co up with so way of funding it, I'm not spending any more resources on this."
After a short delay, Xiaoyun accepted the challenge.
"Fine, I'll get the money to show up in the office by the end of tomorrow... I'm going to continue with this no matter what."
As the awkward atmosphere broke between the two, Leyan decided to chi in.
"Okay, okay, enough work talk. It's dinner ti..."
---
The next day.
As Xiaoyun woke up early in the morning, he imdiately freshened up and headed straight to the administrative building.
Next, he headed inside the financial departnt and began evaluating the exact number he was dealing with.
From the police budget having to call the entire police force to be active to the Departnt of Internal Security in Guangzhou needing to work extra, the cost was rapidly plying up.
"I need at least 500,000 food stamps for this..." Xiaoyun murmured as he finally finished calculating the cost of adding Guangzhou to the parade.
With the exact number captured, Xiaoyun headed over to the biggest newspaper outlet in Luoping.
It was the Luoping's Daily, which had consolidated many of the newspaper businesses by flat-out buying their competitors.
He even rembers hearing Yueyue discuss it in one of her stories about potential monopoly changes that were recently implented.
However, it never ended up being enforced, as almost every single newspaper company was running at a massive loss.
Located in the middle of the comrcial zone, it was already open for business, as stacks of paper had already been printed and delivered to people's houses and businesses.
"Hello, can I talk to your boss for a second?" Xiaoyun asked one of the workers.
"Who are you——M-Mr.Mayor!"
The worker imdiately dropped his stack of newspapers onto the table before running up to Xiaoyun with a note card and a pen.
"Please, can you give a signature? I'm your biggest fan," the worker pleaded as he handed the docunt over to Xiaoyun.
"Um, sure."
After signing the blank card, Xiaoyun handed it back to the worker.
"Thank you! I'll go call the main editor down right now."
As the worker ran back inside the building, Xiaoyun sat down at one of the seats and picked up one of the newspapers to read.
"Upcoming military parade in Luoping... Military reform and faction within the governnt..."
Xiaoyun was a little surprised, as the newspaper headline contained a lot of information that shouldn't have been known to the public yet.
But he concluded that there was no way to hide sothing as big as this, as the governnt had beco too big to keep secrets.
Besides, he didn't really mind any of the information, as they weren't too important, nor did they have any actual details inside.
So were just speculation, with dates that are way from the actual policy being implented.
As he flipped to the second page, he was surprised to see an entire page full of ads for job listings.
Next, the third page was filled with sudoku, funny comic strips, and another advertisent page with product sales.
Before he could flip to the last page, the worker finally returned with a person wearing a professional suit and holding a notebook and pen.
"Mr.Mayor, nice to et you. I'm the owner of Luoping's Daily, Shen Wen."
"Nice to et you, Shen Wen. You can just call Xiaoyun."
As the two shook hands, they entered the building and then entered one of the empty office rooms.
"Mr.Xiaoyun, what do you want us to report?" Shen Wen asked straightforwardly.
"I want you to help start a war bond."
"A war bond? How can we help with that?"
"I just need you guys to advertise it in your newspaper. I want the entire city to know about it by the end of today."
Hearing Xiaoyun's tone sounding more and more serious, Shen Wen didn't dare to make a demand.
"Yes, sir!"
Just as Xiaoyun was about to leave, he suddenly turned back around to face Shen Wen again.
"Oh, and advertise the war bond with a 5% return after three months, and they can buy it at any of the banks."
Shen Wen quickly nodded in agreent as he noted it in his notebook, already making a rough draft of the paper.
"You want anything from this? I can't just let you do this for free."
Xiaoyun suddenly asked as he felt a little guilty about making a private business doing sothing like this.
"No, no, sir. You keeping the town safe is already a luxury for all of us." Shen Wen imdiately replied.
"I'll rember this. Thank you."
---
After leaving the newspaper area, Xiaoyun imdiately headed to several smaller newspaper businesses and told them the sa thing.
All of them accepted it without making any demands as if they were more than happy to advertise it in their newspaper.
But Xiaoyun didn't have any ti to talk to them as he imdiately rushed over to the central bank.
"Oh hey, Mr.Mayor."
The head of the central bank, Liuqian, was just coincidently about to enter the building for work.
"Liuqian, I need your help."
"What is it?" Liuqian curiously asked as the two entered the bank before going inside his office.
Xiaoyun started explaining his idea of a war bond, which didn't surprise Liuqian a single bit.
"I understand, sir. I'll have it running within an hour... But are you sure of a 5% return after three months?
Isn't that a little too high for that short of a ti? I think 3.5% after six months might be more reasonable." Liuqian suggested after listening.
"No, keep it at 5% for three months. Any longer, people are starting to worry that they might not get their investnt back."
Liuqian nodded in agreent as he began typing a letter to be sent to all bank branches.
"Mr.Mayor, do you want a limit on how much people can buy and a total cap for the war bond?"
Xiaoyun shook his head, as he wanted to raise as much money as possible to be used for his future campaign in Guangdong.
"Okay, it's done, sir. People will be able to buy war bonds at all the bank tellers now."
"Thank you."
Just as Xiaoyun was about to leave, Liuqian suddenly suggested sothing.
"Mr. Mayor, you might want to co out with a new currency at so point."
"Why? Is there sothing wrong with the food stamps?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"No, there's nothing wrong with it. But it's kind of weird to call money food stamps, don't you think?"
Xiaoyun fell into silence as Liuqian was right about his point. Luoping was way past the point of using food stamps as currency.
Even though several interventions were already in place to prevent fraud on food stamps, the label of food stamps has always been the most important.
"I'll think about it."
Just as he stepped foot outside Liuqian's office, a few people were already there with stacks of briefcases.
"I want to buy as many war bonds with this as possible," one of the custors said as he opened the briefcase.
The bank teller imdiately began putting the food stamp into the money counter as she manually selected several of the stamps to check for fraud.
As Xiaoyun continued walking towards the exit, he could see more and more people going inside the bank, all buying bonds.
"Geez, how are people this fast already?" Xiaoyun murmured as he finally walked past the crowds.
"You didn't know? People had been lining up since the news dropped." One of the strangers overheard Xiaoyun's murmuring.
"Really? That fast?"
"Hell yeah, it's free money. If I never get it back, then Luoping will probably be gone at that point.
There would be no point in holding onto the money anyway. I might as well invest all my spare money."
Xiaoyun nodded in agreent as he put himself into the stranger's perspective.
"Thank you for buying war bonds," Xiaoyun stated before heading back to the administrative office.
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