Chapter 385 - 182: A Breakthrough Blow (3)

Chapter 385: Chapter 182: A Breakthrough Blow (3)

"What did Cargill Company say?" George Du Pont sneered, puffing on his cigar.

Little Robert relayed Cargill Company’s terms to the group: "They said they are willing to accept an equity investment and can cede 49% of their shares."

"Heh. That’s too little."

"Exactly. This isn’t just about the futures market anymore. It’s about whether Cargill Company can even survive."

The other conglomerates, those that hadn’t suffered such severe losses, weren’t about to pass up an opportunity to kick them while they were down.

"I’ll relay the message." Little Robert didn’t agree immediately. After all, the matter still required the Jiaji Clan’s approval.

John Morgan, the leader of the Morgan Group, wasn’t focused on the matter of carving up Cargill Company’s shares. Instead, he began to discuss something more important: "Let’s talk about how to deal with Cyrus."

"ABCD has already lost the initiative. We have no way to stop Cyrus from promoting that soybean variety." Little Robert was deeply troubled.

George Du Pont didn’t speak, merely exhaling a thick cloud of smoke.

"Can we pressure Cyrus in other sectors?"

The leader of the California Consortium sneered. "Hah. Have we not spent the last few years trying exactly that? They can already mass-produce chips. Even if it’s only 7-nanometer, that’s good enough for their needs."

"Damn it!" Ryan Mellon growled, gnashing his teeth.

Rogers Hunter of the Texas Consortium looked utterly helpless. "There’s nothing we can do. We used to be able to restrict them with grain and iron ore. Now the grain card is off the table, and we can’t just play the iron ore card lightly."

Everyone in the room was intelligent.

With the chip card proving ineffective and the tables turned on the grain card, their one remaining trump card—iron ore—could not be played rashly.

If they played the iron ore card, the other side would certainly retaliate with their own grain card.

After all, if Immortal Soybeans were adopted on a massive scale, it wasn’t just that Cyrus would no longer need to import grain. They could become an exporter themselves. For the world’s three major grain-exporting regions—Australia, North America, and South America—this would be an absolute catastrophe.

Not unless they could open up a new market even larger than Cyrus’s to absorb the resulting surplus of over two hundred million tons of grain.

There was, in fact, another country in the world with a population of 1.4 billion.

The problem was, that godforsaken place didn’t import grain; it was a grain *exporter*. Every year, despite people starving within its own borders, it still exported tens of millions of tons of rice. Expecting it to absorb two hundred million tons of grain was less realistic than just forcing the world’s main producing regions to cut production.

As for other regions, while there were many regional powers with populations in the hundreds of millions, their purchasing power was too low. It would be impossible to offload such a massive surplus unless it was practically given away for free.

Faced with this situation, the America Conglomerate Alliance, which had previously been so confident in its advantage, had lost all its composure. All that remained was a profound sense of dread.

Starting an all-out war was an option, but they would most likely lose.

But without doing so, they had no leverage over their opponent.

Both sides now held economic cards capable of crippling the other’s core industries. Unless they were aiming for mutually assured destruction, their only option was to maintain a fragile balance born of mutual fear.

As for the matter of finding an opportunity to kill Jiang Miao, the man responsible for all this, the conglomerate leaders didn’t bring it up. They desperately wanted to eliminate the menace, but what was done was done. Even killing Jiang Miao now wouldn’t reverse the shift in the global landscape.

Of course, a "trivial" matter like an assassination didn’t need to be discussed at a meeting of this level. They would surely make arrangements for it later.

The immediate priority was to find a way to save ABCD and prevent a total collapse of the grain industry in Europe and America.

John Morgan opened his eyes. Though they burned with anger and resentment, he stated his conclusion: "Have ABCD abandon a portion of their grain operations in South America. Invite Cyrus’s grain companies to enter. They won’t pass up an opportunity like that."

"But that will massively increase their influence in South America," George Du Pont said, his brow deeply furrowed.

John Morgan shook his head. "No. South America is much closer to us, and our other assets there are still in place. They won’t be able to control the continent. Furthermore, to protect South America’s agricultural industry, they will be forced to import grain from there. Otherwise, South America will become their enemy."

"It’s a strategy, I suppose. I just can’t stomach it!" Little Robert McCormick said, his voice full of bitterness.

But John Morgan, ever the old fox, saw the situation clearly. "We have to sacrifice part of our grain industry in South America. If we don’t, we won’t be able to protect our own domestic industry, let alone Australia’s."

"I suppose it’s the only way."

"We can’t abandon it completely. We must at least retain a small foothold, or it will be impossible to check their expansion in South America later on."

William Mather of the Cleveland Consortium then proposed, "What about iron ore? Should we activate our covert assets and cripple their mining investments in Africa?"

"It’s no use," Ryan Mellon reminded him. "Have you forgotten? They recently brought a one-million-ton-capacity ’Flash Smelting’ steel plant online."

At this, William Mather fell silent once more.

While this so-called "Flash Smelting" technology didn’t have the rumored 3,600-times efficiency, it did solve a major pain point for Cyrus’s steel industry: the high cost of processing low-grade iron ore.

In other words, even without high-grade iron ore from Australia, Brazil, and Africa, Cyrus’s steel industry could now use its own domestic low-grade ore. What’s more, the cost was even slightly lower than using their current oxygen converters with high-grade ore.

With Cyrus’s roughly twenty billion tons of iron ore reserves, coupled with vast civilian stores of scrap steel, they could become self-sufficient in steel production at any moment.

Therefore, the iron ore card could only temporarily drive up costs for Cyrus’s steel industry; in a few years, that card would be completely useless.

In this clash of the grain war, Europe and America were forced to retreat from South America. Unless they could somehow absorb the continent’s immense production capacity themselves, their only choice was to cut their losses to save what was most important.

Noah A. Locke, who had remained silent throughout the entire meeting, wore a pensive expression after the video conference ended.

He looked down at the file in his hands. It was an investigation report on one man: Jiang Miao.

’There’s something off about this person,’ he thought. ’Every power that has opposed him has suffered some kind of blow...’

’At first, he hadn’t suspected Jiang Miao. After all, his father’s death was hardly something a small-time entrepreneur could orchestrate.’

’But in light of everything that had happened since, he was forced to re-examine the man.’