Chapter 352: The Power of Rumours

On the morning of the third day, Wood walked out of the gates of Etruria Court very contentedly, followed by the family solicitor of the Great Wood family. They had just submitted a complaint to the Itely District Court, accusing Mayor Martin of orchestrating demonstrations by the black community during his time as mayor of Itely to achieve his own political ends. He demanded that Martin apologise publicly in the media and compensate for all losses incurred during that period.

Wood couldn't contain his smile as he looked at the court receipt in his hands: 'Dear Mr. Lawyer, I will definitely give you extra compensation because you have given me so much joy! Just having this lawsuit now will have a huge negative impact on that guy Martin, and he will have no choice but to resign!'

The lawyer next to him also smiled and said to him, 'Thank you very much, Mr. Wood. I think I have just done my duty, and Mr. Wood, the press conference that follows is also very important.'

Wood nodded in satisfaction and said, 'Of course it's very important. After all, litigation takes a long time, and we need to let the media know as soon as possible. I can't wait to see the desperate look on Zhou Ming's face when he becomes a lonely orphan!'

Wood said with a very vicious smile, because originally, according to his plan, he was going to teach Martin a lesson and use this incident to tell the entire Etruscan that if anyone dares to join forces with Zhou Ming, Martin will be the end result, even if he is the mayor, he will not be spared; it is also a ⊙long ⊙winded ⊙literature, w♂ww.cfw≮x.ne∽t to tell future mayors of Etly that they should never offend him.

'Zhou Mingma? A Chinese and a black man. I want to tell everyone that my Daewood family is the royal family of Itely. We have 10,000 ways to get you killed in Itely, but you can't do anything about it!'

Wood seemed to already see the despair in Zhou Ming's eyes as he could find no forces to join forces with in Itely, and even a hotel was afraid to accept him, and in the end, he was unable to even leave in disgrace.

'I really hope that day will come sooner!'

Wood said meaningfully, and he also thought that when he reached that desperate situation, that guy Zhou Ming would probably have to come to Wood Manor to beg for mercy in person. At that time, he would have to humiliate him severely, and then not let him leave Etruria so easily!

While thinking about these things, Wood and his lawyer arrived at a hotel not far from the courthouse, where they had originally scheduled a press conference. However, when when they arrived, they found that things had deviated greatly from what they had expected, because there was no press conference here, only two large Wood family servants waiting.

'Young master, I'm sorry, this press conference has been cancelled, and the head of the family would like you to go back immediately,' The two servants said as soon as they saw Wood approaching.

This came as a great surprise to Wood, who could hardly believe his ears. He didn't understand why there had been such a sudden change. He then immediately called back to his father, but only received a simple reply of one sentence: 'Something big has happened!'

Wood's first reaction was that there was another commotion on Zhou Ming's side, but the Great Wood family was so big and wealthy that a small demonstration could not be considered a problem. Even if George Square were to be abolished, it would be a huge loss, but it would not be completely unacceptable. He didn't believe that the blacks really had that kind of power, so apart from this, Wood couldn't think of any other way they could threaten the family.

With a lot of questions in his head, Wood hurried back, but when he got back, he realised that Zhou Ming's wild imagination was far beyond what he could have imagined.

Let's go back to 7 o'clock in the morning, when Ming Chow and Mayor Martin arrived at the paging station in the Taylor district. The Taylor district is the name of the administrative district southeast of Etley, where George Square is located. Here, Ming Zhou and Martin met directly with the manager of the paging station, Tom.

As Tom was still on his way, Ming Zhou and Martin took a moment to relax in the lounge, drinking coffee brewed by the secretary. Martin asked uncertainly, 'Mr. Ming Zhou, before you asked me to contact the black community to demonstrate in George Square. I can understand that, and it can also have a very visual effect, but now we're here looking for a paging station...'

Although Martin only said half of what he meant, his meaning was more than clear. Zhou Ming assured him, 'Demonstrations can create public interest, but it is difficult to really influence the Wood family. But what we are doing now is different.'

'I understand that if we can really influence the financial order of the banks, it will certainly deal a heavy blow to the Greatwood family. But the question now is...can what we are doing really have an impact?' Martin asked.

In response to Martin's question, Zhou Ming asked him in return, 'Mr. Mayor, I'm curious about the reason why you think it can't have an impact.'

'It's simple. If it were that simple to influence people's decisions by sending them a message, it would be pretty stupid. Especially since we're targeting the Greatwood Bank, the most influential bank in our state. How could it be defeated by a message? I don't think I would believe it either if it happened to me,' Martin said to Ming, clearly unable to understand Ming's approach.

Zhou Ming nodded and said, 'I believe it. If it were you, Mr. Mayor, you definitely wouldn't believe it. But the problem is that there are more than 100,000 people in Taylor County, and not everyone is called Martin, right? As long as one or two of these people believe it, that's enough.'

Zhou Ming continued, 'I think you, Mr Mayor, must have heard of the story of the leader sheep. Normally a herd is a rather disorganised group of individuals, but if just one sheep starts moving in one direction, the others will follow without thinking. So the same applies to information: if just one person believes it, I can trigger a mass run on the Bigwood Bank.

Martin wanted to say something more, but then the door to the break room suddenly opened and Mr Tom walked in, apologising and greeting Zhou Ming and Martin.

This was the person in charge of the Tyler District paging station that Ming and Martin had been waiting for. After some pleasantries, Martin spoke of his purpose at Ming's prompting.

'Hello Mr. Tom, we have come to borrow your paging station to help us broadcast a message. We hope that everyone in Taylor will receive the message on their pagers,' said Martin.

Risking death to expose the shocking secret of the Greatwood Bank! The Greatwood Bank has lost hundreds of billions of dollars in investment losses, and there is currently no money left in the vault. It is on the verge of bankruptcy, and you have to get your money out of the bank before it goes bankrupt!

This is the message that Zhou Ming is preparing to send via pager today. The method is very skilled, because this is what Zhou Ming has come up with based on the omnipresent and extremely offensive junk rumours. The aim was to create rumours that Daewood Bank was about to collapse, causing panic among all depositors and an ensuing run on Daewood Bank.

A run on the bank is something that no bank can handle without preparation, let alone the Daewood Bank.

You should know that the Wood family was just swindled of nearly 100 billion dollars because of the Bank of Tang Dynasty incident. Originally, the Great Wood family was not a family with strong financial strength. Therefore, if a run on his bank occurs, even if it is only in one bank run, it will have a very negative impact on his capital flow. And once there is a problem with the funding of the Wood family, it will be easy to deal with him later.

It's just in this era, even in the United States, mobile phones are not only not yet widespread, but also have very limited capabilities. Therefore, Zhou Ming chose the more widespread pager.

Looking at the message that Ming asked to be sent, Tom immediately frowned. Seeing him like this, Ming hurriedly said to him, 'I know that pagers have a no-reply protocol, but we're not really making a profit here, it's just a simple message. You can understand that I sent it to the wrong person and it went to the pagers of a lot of other people.'

At the end of the day Zhou Ming said confidently, 'Mr. Tom, I can tell you responsibly that this kind of message will never lead to any complaints.'

After hearing Zhou Ming words, Tom shook his head: 'I think you, sir, are taking the problem a little too lightly. Sending these messages, I may not get complaints from other users, but I will definitely get a lawsuit for revenge from the Greatwood family. I wonder if you have considered this?'

'I'm sorry, I have not considered this, because what I have considered is that by that time, the Greatwood family may already be falling apart, so how could he care about this?' Zhou Ming said.

'Your goal is to deal with the Greatwood family? Do you really think that's possible?' Tom asked disdainfully.

Zhou Ming nodded vigorously and Martin took Tom aside to give him a thorough talking-to. Tom let out a sigh of relief: 'I see. I think I've been convinced. But generally speaking, we charge a special fee for special assignments.'

'Of course, . Mr. Tom just name your price,'

Zhou Ming said to Tom with a smile, knowing that with Tom's words, the purpose of their visit had been properly fulfilled.

Subsequently, Zhou Ming and Tom signed a confidentiality agreement. After paying the relevant fees, Ming and Martin followed Tom to their distribution centre, and watched as the paging technicians sent their messages out to every pager band in the Taylor area.

'Mayor Martin and Mr. Zhou Ming your messages have all been sent, but because of the radio network and the signals from other personal pagers are different, and we also use the technical means of sending in segments to avoid message blocking, so it is normal for all citizens to receive the message at different times.' Tom explained to Ming Zhou and Martin.

'As the only paging station in Taylor District under the Northern Communications Company, I of course have the utmost confidence in your technical means,' Ming Zhou said to Tom. the only paging station in Taylor, I of course have the utmost confidence in your technical means.' Zhou Ming told Tom, and left the paging station building with Martin. It was only half past eight in the morning, just the time most people started work.

So under Ming Zhou's planning under Zhou Ming's planning, the pagers of everyone in the Taylor area, whether they were on public transport, the subway or in their own cars, all went off at almost the same time, and when they opened them, they all received exactly the same message.

Zhou Ming and Martin stood by the roadside . They watched it all, and Zhou Ming said to Martin, 'Next I'm going to show you the power of rumour.'