A middle-aged man with a bruised and swollen face, covered in blood, his mouth stuffed with a rag, his hands tied behind his back, shivering from the cold, was dragged over from a boat moored nearby by Gao Lao Cheng.
"This is lawyer Pan Yunming. Talk to him slowly, and then decide whether to send Zhang Yujie back to Hong Kong to clean up the mess." Song Tianyao lowered his head, shielding his eyes from the wind, and lit a cigarette. He said to Zhang Yulin, "I think you should thank me after we're done talking."
Chapter 140 Night Talk
"That bruised and battered lawyer, Pan Yunming, said that Yuliang secretly registered four or five companies behind the Zhang Family's back, intending to swindle over ten million Hong Kong dollars from the Zhang Family's partners. Doesn't that sound incredibly foolish? My fourth brother studied abroad, not like someone like me who only had a few years of private schooling. Does he not know that this whole thing could be easily investigated?" Zhang Yulin walked back to Song Tianyao's side with a sullen face. "However, were those things he did with the Shanghai people for stock speculation?"
Song Tianyao let out a heavy sigh, "Do you even know what the Ellis Index is?"
Zhang Yulin shook his head seriously. "I don't know. I don't understand securities and stocks, and the Zhang Family never engages in such speculative businesses."
"Zhang Yuliang is taking advantage of you naive Zhang Family who don't know anything about the world, so when he finally drove you all away, you were still in the dark." Song Tianyao handed Zhang Yulin a cigarette, his eyes complex, his tone unreadable between admiration and disgust. "Of the four young masters of the Zhang Family, three are tigers and one is a leopard. Zhang Yuliang should be the leopard that surpasses its master. The three of you are not as good as him."
Although Pan Yunming, whom Taihe and Heizai Jie brought, wasn't entirely clear about what Zhang Yuliang was doing at the Tsim Sha Tsui Club, nor did he understand the purpose of the Ellis stock price index and stock market charts that Zhang Yuliang had compiled, he simply told them what he knew. If it were anyone else, they might be completely confused, but Song Tianyao, who had been reborn, gasped in shock after hearing it.
In 1951, Hong Kong did not have the Hang Seng Index. Although the stock market can be seen as a barometer of Hong Kong's Hong Kong, and whether the economy is prosperous or not can be seen from the stock market, for nearly 60 years from the establishment of the Hong Kong Stockbrokers Association in 1891 to 1947, there was no stock index to show the stock market trend and the overall level of Hong Kong's stock market over the years.
The Ellis Index was not established in Hong Kong until the end of 1946.
Ellis was a member broker of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. He had previously worked in stock trading on Wall Street in the United States and in London in the United Britain. Since Hong Kong did not have stock indices like those on Wall Street and in London for clients to reference, he began to handle stock trading for clients during the day and, at night, modeled after the Dow Jones Industrial Average United States Wall Street, he selected stocks of large-cap, asset-rich, well-managed, and dividend-paying listed companies in Hong Kong as constituent stocks. On the first day of the stock market opening in 1947, he calculated the stock index daily and issued it to members of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which became known as the Ellis Stock Index.
However, the Wall Street Dow Jones Index and the London Financial Times Index, two major popular indices, are compiled and published by financial companies and authoritative media related to the securities industry. Ellis, on the other hand, is just an ordinary brokerage firm. Therefore, when it was founded, it had a smaller presence and fewer followers. However, Ellis did not stop compiling the Hong Kong Ellis Stock Index and began to publish the Ellis Index in the corner of Hong Kong financial newspapers.
With the liberation of mainland China in 1949, wealthy businessmen from the Mainland flocked to Hong Kong. Many rich people who were used to speculating in the stock market in Shanghai turned to the Hong Kong stock market. The Ellis Index became the best guide for these people, allowing them to clearly check the rise and fall of the stock market.
Unfortunately, the Ellis Index only existed for three years. In 1950, Ellis was involved in a car accident on his way home from work, and the Ellis Index, along with Ellis, came to an end.
The reason Song Tianyao gasped after hearing Pan Yunming's words was because Zhang Yuliang's plan was clearly to take over the Ellis Index and create a new Hong Kong stock index based on it. Unlike Ellis, which developed its index independently, Zhang Yuliang was collaborating with Shanghai people. If the new stock index was successfully created and attracted attention, coupled with the wealth supported by Shanghai's speculative tycoons, it could be said that the Hong Kong stock market would be entirely dominated by Zhang Yuliang and his soon-to-be-released Zhang Yuliang Stock Index!
Once this stock index is officially published and attracts attention, as a barometer of stock market sentiment that stock market investors care about, it will be more than enough for Zhang Yuliang and those speculative tycoons in Shanghai to easily plunder a large amount of wealth from the stock market.
Zhang Yuliang's willingness to tarnish the Zhang Family's reputation and siphon off large sums of cash was likely intended to invest in the stock market and profit alongside the Shanghai people behind it. If the Zhang Yuliang were launched, coupled with the wealth of Shanghai people, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say it rivaled the Japan Tokyo Stock Price Index, even if it couldn't compare to the Dow Jones Index or Financial Daily indices. The other side of his success would be a devastating blow to the Zhang Family's reputation. At that time, Zhang Yuliang would be able to calmly withdraw funds, push his three unsuspecting brothers out as scapegoats, and clean up the mess for the Zhang Family himself.
Zhang Yuliang's scheming, vision, and methods sent a chill down Song Tianyao's spine.
Zhang Yuliang had calculated that his three brothers, who had never been abroad and only knew about spot trading and cash settlement, would not understand the business he was running. A month later, when the Zhang Family was confronted by a group of people demanding an explanation, they all pointed the finger at Zhang Yujie's son, Zhang Weilin, Zhang Yuqi's wife, and other shell company registrants as the culprits. Even if the three brothers wanted to find out by then, Zhang Yuliang would not give them another chance.
Who can guarantee that those three won't suddenly be involved in a car accident like Ellis did?
After telling the stunned Zhang Yulin about Zhang Yuliang's plan to compile the Ellis Index and, together with Shanghai speculators, to take over the Hong Kong stock market, Song Tianyao casually asked:
"Now, do you still feel like you're in control?"
Zhang Yulin didn't understand stocks, but he knew how ruthless those speculators in Shanghai were. The gold rush of 1949 made Hong Kong tremble at the mention of gold. If his fourth brother really stirred up such a huge wave in the stock market, then even if his eldest and second brothers wanted to support the Zhang Family, they probably wouldn't have the strength. Thinking about how Zhang Yuliang had secretly obtained cash without his knowledge, risking the family's reputation, Zhang Yulin's face turned pale.