After the Jiangnan Group retreated, little had changed in their daily lives, except that many of their purchasing channels had shifted from physical stores to the internet.
For instance, to buy Genshin Impact cards, one could previously purchase them directly at a nearby Jiangnan blind box store.
But now, all Jiangnan blind box stores were closed, and local employees were all laid off. Their only channel to buy Genshin Impact cards had moved from reality to the internet, and they could only purchase them at online stores.
However, this also allowed many people with keen business senses to spot a commercial opportunity. They began to purchase cards in bulk from abroad and sell them directly in their own online stores.
Because they were purchased directly from China, many intermediate steps were omitted, and the selling price was actually lower than before, much to the delight of the players. The overall sales actually increased.
The same principle applied to other products. With no Jiangnan Group blind box stores, sales naturally shifted online. Although overall sales had certainly decreased compared to before, they no longer had to bear the costs of physical stores and employees. Furthermore, the Jiangnan Group in China directly opened manufacturer channels to overseas purchasing agents, saving a lot on intermediate costs. When all was calculated, the profit of Jiangnan blind boxes abroad not only did not decrease but actually increased, which was almost miraculous.
However, various regions found that they had lost a small portion of their tax revenue. This was because it was too difficult to collect taxes on transactions conducted through the internet. Moreover, the intermediaries involved in these transactions were almost all individuals. If pushed too hard, these intermediaries would start organizing protests, forcing the authorities to grudgingly accept the situation.
If companies like Jiangnan Group, which had physical product sales, could handle this so easily, then Jiangnan Group's main profit points abroad would naturally be unaffected.
This was because Jiangnan Group's core profit source was actually various end products and related technology licenses, which brought in over $300 billion in net income annually.
And these were precisely the things that were impossible to counter. After all, Jiangnan Group had long ago transferred all its transactions to domestic channels. Whether buying chips or technology, they could only be purchased within China, leaving other countries with no recourse.
Furthermore, since only Jiangnan Group sold these technologies and products, ten years ago, Xx people excitedly announced that they had also mastered the production technology of black gold. They indeed produced some black gold, but they were unable to master the industrial production method, and the cost of the products they produced was alarmingly high, making them commercially worthless.
And now, the entire personal terminal market had been completely dominated by the five-进制 system. Just as China could not do without binary chips in the future, the terminal market at this time could not do without five-进制 chips. There was simply no way to counter this.
The only area they could potentially exploit was perhaps oo network. However, oo network was listed on the US stock market. Jiangnan Group currently held 40% of its shares, with the remaining 60% circulating on Nasdaq. Stockholders worldwide were investors in this stock. If you were to target oo network, it would mean targeting all Xx stockholders and investment institutions, causing their assets to shrink. Who would dare to do that!
Therefore, once Jiangnan Group began its complete contraction, the regions of the world truly had no other options. Jiangnan Group continued to thrive.
However, they ultimately could not sit idly by and watch Jiangnan Group continue to act so unscrupulously. Some people were constantly coordinating and deliberating, devising ways to deal with Jiangnan Group. Moreover, they believed that Jiangnan Group could not be an egg without any cracks, and they were sure to find a way to deal with it.
And they soon found their first target: the Western Mustang Fund.
At first glance, this did not seem like a good target, because the Western Mustang Fund was too massive. The current scale of this fund had exceeded $4 trillion. Over 23% of the assets of all Xx people were managed by the Western Mustang Fund.
More importantly, Western Mustang Wallet, under the Western Mustang Fund, controlled almost all of Xx's online e-commerce transactions. Such a large company, with the slightest move, could potentially cause tremors throughout the stock market, and even lead to the collapse of the entire Xx economy.
Anyone who saw the immense scale of the Western Mustang Fund would be terrified. No one dared to make a move, so even among these people, the Western Mustang Fund was not the best choice initially.
But for another group of people, they were actually least afraid of stock market tremors.
After all, who were they? They were the behind-the-scenes kings of Xx, terrifying giants controlling over a hundred trillion US dollars in assets. Previously, the infighting between the four major financial groups had prevented both sides from controlling the entire stock market, even triggering economic crises.
But if the four major financial groups could truly join hands, the stock market would be nothing more than numbers on a blackboard, which the four major financial groups could arbitrarily fill in. The Western Mustang Fund, in front of them, was merely a slightly plump chicken, nothing to be afraid of.
Thus, relevant authorities deemed that the Western Mustang Fund was suspected of factual monopoly and demanded that the entire Western Mustang Fund be broken up into over a hundred different smaller funds. At the same time, Western Mustang Wallet was to be listed as an independent enterprise.
As soon as this news was announced, everyone exclaimed that a major upheaval was coming. Many people immediately withdrew their money from the Western Mustang Fund, expecting the stock market to collapse.
But miraculously, the stock market remained quite stable. All the indices were as steady as rocks. After a long time, people had to admit that this news seemed to have no real impact on the stock market, and thus the Western Mustang Fund officially began its monopoly lawsuit.
Jiangnan Group reacted very strongly to this. Boss Huang even personally slammed the table and declared that they would fight to the end, and thus all sorts of legal lawsuits began.
Because the legal provisions and evidence involved were so extensive that even a hotel could not accommodate all the relevant documents, the most optimistic estimate was that it would take at least 3-4 years to completely resolve this lawsuit.
However, the four major financial groups were relieved by this. They were not afraid of delaying the time; rather, they were afraid of Huang He acting silently, as this often meant Huang He was brewing up some major move.
And now that Huang He was reacting so fiercely by resisting and filing lawsuits, it instead indicated that Huang He had no better options beyond these means.
Furthermore, they were very happy to resolve issues through legal means, as this would continue to showcase the greatness of freedom and democracy.
As a result, the delay stretched for four years, from 2020 to 2024. Both sides were engaged in numerous lawsuits surrounding the Western Mustang Fund, and the Western Mustang Fund welcomed its first-ever loss since its inception. This was the first loss in the history of the Western Mustang Fund.
However, this outcome was understandable. After all, when the entire company faced such a huge crisis, it was impossible to expect it to operate normally.
Yet, during this lawsuit that was bound to attract global attention, Jiangnan Group continued its development and achieved remarkable accomplishments.
In 2022, Jiangnan Group announced a piece of news that shook the entire field of high-energy physics: after a long period of experimentation, scientists from Jiangnan Group had finally discovered the legendary God Particle.
Not only had they found it, but they had also captured the God Particle in a stable state. Although Jiangnan Group never revealed how the God Particle was found and captured, they displayed a video and related evidence, all of which proved that Jiangnan Group had indeed achieved this unprecedented feat.
Upon hearing this, many foreign institutions and experts immediately stated that finding and capturing the God Particle was indeed highly commendable. However, they also pointed out that it would not have much direct help for the development of actual technology, as the discovery of the God Particle essentially only helped humanity perfect and understand the composition of the microscopic world. Humans would not be able to directly build controlled fusion reactors or possess the ability to travel through time and space after obtaining the God Particle.
The God Particle was merely a fundamental particle used to form matter. It was similar to when humans first observed atoms. Although it was of great significance and provided a fundamental basis for future technological development, it would not bring any immediate impact or change.
At the same time, these experts also stated that Jiangnan Group alone could not fully develop and utilize the God Particle. Therefore, Jiangnan Group should publish the data related to the God Particle and authorize its research by various scientific research institutions worldwide. This way, by pooling wisdom and combining the strength of all top scientific researchers globally, it could truly contribute to the progress of human civilization.
In any case, Jiangnan Group treated all this as nonsense.
In addition to these theoretical achievements, Jiangnan Group's Zhou Tian Xing Chen Plan also successfully sent a total of 40,000 satellites into space. Zhou Tian Xing Chen was already capable of providing services to the ground.
All terminal devices with corresponding receiving functions could directly use Zhou Tian Xing Chen to access the internet.
The impact of this news was even greater. Within a single year, the user base of the Zhou Tian Xing Chen Plan grew from zero to a staggering 45 million people, and this number was expected to continue increasing. This was because there were still too many regions and individuals globally that could not access the internet. It required a large amount of capital for infrastructure development, which many impoverished regions could not afford.
Now, as long as one purchased a personal terminal, they could use the internet even if they were in the most remote and impoverished areas of Africa. This led to a surge in users of the Zhou Tian Xing Chen Plan.
And most crucially, unless one used a behemoth costing $100 million, it was impossible to destroy such a small satellite.
The cost of a Zhou Tian Xing Chen Plan satellite had currently been compressed to less than $200,000. If you used $100 million to destroy a $200,000 satellite, Jiangnan Group said they didn't mind. As long as you were happy!