The night on September 7, 1998, Eastern Time was destined to be a sleepless night.

Due to the time difference, it was September 8, which was far away from the Pacific Ocean. Just yesterday, the Hong Kong Island government issued a series of new financial policies, greatly increasing the restrictions on speculation by international speculators. Many international speculators who lost a lot of money on the settlement day on August 28 were originally thinking of making a comeback this week, but after the promulgation of these series of policies, they immediately blocked their path.

Therefore, these international speculators represented by major investment behaviors can only look at their own money with tears and hatred, and are firmly trapped by the Hong Kong stock market, stock index futures and foreign exchange markets.

On the west side of West Street, New York, there is a building with the house number 200, so this building is the 200 West Street, New York.

This building also has a famous name, Goldman Sachs Building. This 228-meter-high and 44-story building is the global headquarters of Goldman Sachs Group.

Just one street southeast of Goldman Sachs Building are two tallest buildings in New York, the Twin Towers in New York World Trade Center. The North Tower is less than 250 meters away from Goldman Sachs Building.

At this time, in a huge and luxurious office on the top floor of Goldman Sachs, several old men in suits were sitting together with frowns.

"Mr. Collins, we lost more than 700 million US dollars in Hong Kong to block the Hong Kong dollar this time. How do you tell me to our partners about this? Don't forget that on the 19th of next month, our 189 partners of Goldman Sachs will gather together to hold the biennial Goldman Sachs Partner Award Ceremony. This is a big event for us Goldman Sachs, but this action you presided over was Waterloo. How do you ask me to explain to our partners?"

The person who spoke was a white man in his fifties. Henry Paulson, who was the executive president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs last year, talked to him, Rhode Collins, the chief investment officer of Goldman Sachs, a man in his sixties.

After a pause, Paulson continued: "Don't forget that Goldman Sachs is planning to issue publicly recently, but if the losses in this operation are exposed, it will be a fatal blow to the publicly. Our partners will make everyone here get out of here!"

Collins, sitting opposite Paulson, shrugged, "What can I do? Everything was fine before, even on that day, the situation was excellent at the beginning. Although the Hong Kong Island Government and the Chinese Government had put in huge funds to support the market, we had a lot of funds. If we didn't have the huge amount of long funds that suddenly entered the market in the afternoon, even if we couldn't win the battle, we would never have lost such a big loss. 700 million US dollars, do you think I'm willing to give this money to the other side of the Pacific? This is an accident, or a premeditated blocking operation, but it was us who were blocked, not the Hong Kong Island Government!"

Paulson's face began to turn red, obviously he was very angry by the words of shirking responsibility, "Then why didn't you monitor the entry of this fund? What about your surveillance network? What about your traders? This fund is as high as more than 20 billion Hong Kong dollars, not hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars. Such a huge amount of funds is like an aircraft carrier coming from New York Port. It's impossible to see it. But why didn't your people see it?"

"What can I do? The flow of that fund is extremely strange. We spent ten days to check it, and we could only find out that the fund that day came from Europe, not Japan or our federal government, that was Europe, and we don't have the ability to monitor the entire Europe..."

A chubby old man sitting on the other side tapped the table with his hand and interrupted Collins. The old man was Goldman Sachs' current CEO Ke Sai.

"Henry, Rhodes, don't argue anymore. We are here to discuss how to solve this matter today, rather than criticizing each other." When Goldman Sachs CEO was not present today, Ke Sai was the highest administrative level on the spot.

Although Henry Paulson is talented, he will not become the new president of Goldman Sachs until next year, and will not be the Treasury Secretary of the George W. Bush administration until 2006. But at this time, Paulson could only endure his dissatisfaction when facing Ke Sai's words.

Ke Sai continued to knock on the table, "First of all, we must figure out the origin of the fund, otherwise we will not be able to explain to our partners. Rhodes, you said that the fund comes from Europe, so is there any specific situation?"

Rhode Collins shook his head and said, "Sorry, we have only found out that the funds come from Europe, but we are powerless to do what exactly it belongs to. Our strength in Europe is still relatively weak, especially some banks are not very friendly to us."

Paulson interrupted, "Kesai, is that guy Soros doing it? I heard that his funds only changed a circle in the morning and quickly retreated. I think he clearly got some news, so he endured the pain and cut his flesh. Moreover, with this guy's personality, it was not impossible for him to turn around and cut us and then make up for his losses in the morning."

Ke Sai shook his head and said, "It shouldn't be Soros. This guy has a deep background. He has several members of parliament and senior officials from Washington behind him. It is his initiative to take action against Hong Kong Island. If he dares to turn against the situation on that day, the people behind him will not let him go. Moreover, I have checked that Soros's quantum fund also lost more than 800 million US dollars that morning. He just saw the opportunity and fled early, otherwise he would lose more!"

"Is that Robertson? His Tiger Fund is deeply trapped in the quagmire of ruble depreciation. In this case, will he recover some of the profits in the Hong Kong Island market?" Paulson asked.

Collins, who had just had a flushing argument with Paulson, shook his head and said, "It's not Robertson. His Tiger Fund and Jaguar Fund did not make any big moves that day, and most of his funds are run through federal banks. If he had big moves, he would not have hidden them from us."

Ke Sai nodded and said, "Yes, Robertson has invested all his funds in Russia and Japan. He has no extra funds to attack Hong Kong Island, so he does not have the ability to provide 20 billion Hong Kong dollars in funds."

"Who else can it be? Our old friend Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch?"

The two investment banks Paulson asked about are both very famous large multinational investment banks in the United States. Needless to say, Morgan Stanley is backed by the Morgan family and **** Bank. Its strength is now the world's most well-deserved investment bank. At this time, Goldman Sachs cannot compare with Morgan Stanley.

Although Merrill Lynch is a newly emerging large investment bank, this investment bank is backed by the California consortium, and Bank of America is its biggest backer, so its strength cannot be underestimated.

The Solomon brothers who were awesome in investment banks are no longer able to do it now and are about to be finished, so Paulson did not mention this once the world's number one investment bank.

Kesai shook his head and said, "Henry, not Morgan Stanley, nor Merrill Lynch, nor those investment banks that were damaged with us. I have called Morgan Stanley's Ronald Morgan and Mr. Douglas Pullman of Merrill Lynch. They all denied the long behavior that day, and they were also looking for the source of the mysterious fund that day."

After hearing what Kesai said, even Paulson would not say anything else. The two people mentioned by Kesai are famous figures, one is a core member of the Morgan family, and the other is a core member of the California consortium. With their identities and status, they disdain to lie for a loss of just a few hundred million US dollars.

"Who else can it be? Could it be those old families in Europe? Or the Mitsui or Mitsubishi in Japan?" Paulson murmured to himself.

Kesai said: "Henry, from the current clues, the old European families are the most likely. Japanese people do not have the courage to do more on that day. However, we should not forget that there is a colleague in our federation who is capable of doing this."

After hearing what Kesai said, Paulson, Collins and several others looked at Kesai.

The people present were all core members of Goldman Sachs, but apart from Ke Sai, even Henry Paulson, who ranked second, only entered the top executives of Goldman Sachs in the 1990s. They did not know much about some of the previous situations. So, after hearing Ke Sai's words, they all wanted to know who Ke Sai was.

The United States is very large, but also very small. There are not many banks like this that can mobilize 3 billion US dollars of cash to operate across continents anytime and anywhere. However, after denied some of the peers who were able to do this, they really couldn't think of any other peer who could do this.

Although it is easy for super banks like Citi, ****, Chase Manhattan, and New York Mellon to do this, these banks will not easily participate in speculative actions such as financial crisis. But who else can do this besides these super banks?

Ke Sai took a deep breath, as if he was scruples, but finally sighed and said, "I don't know if you still remember that in the stock market crash ten years ago, an investment fund suddenly shone through the entire United States..."

After Ke Sai said this, the faces of several people changed. Paulson asked: "But didn't that fund disappear later? Some people occasionally mentioned that fund, but they all said that fund had long gone bankrupt."

"Closed?" Ke Sai snorted disdainfully, "How could it go bankrupt? That fund still exists, but they are very low-key in their work. At least as far as I know, the 27 companies held by this fund back then, oh, there were still twenty-five companies left, they still held it, just in a different name. And even at Goldman Sachs, at least there are more than seven partners, and they probably have a close relationship with this fund, and it is not even ruled out that they are the agents of that fund!"

Hearing this, everyone took a breath and their faces changed several times in a very short period of time, but in the end no one dared to speak again.

In the end, Paulson couldn't help but speak, "Ko Sai, if it was really that fund, what should we do? Should we continue to investigate?"

Ke Sai glared at Paulson, and quickly tapped his finger on the table for a long time before he slowly said: "First of all, we have no definite evidence that it was done by that fund. Secondly and most importantly, even if we have definite evidence that it was done by that fund, we should not continue to investigate, let alone publish the evidence! Because doing so will kill us. If I don't make the estimate wrong, in front of that fund, our Goldman Sachs is as fragile as a little BABY..."
Chapter completed!