Chapter 1528: The National Railway Divides the Cake

Each of the 22 members of the Southeast Asian consortium is a powerful figure in their own country, and their strategic thinking is beyond doubt.

Therefore, when it comes to the development of the Southeast Asian consortium, Xia Yu carefully listened to their opinions and suggestions.

Indeed, some of their ideas gave him inspiration.

Of course, there were also the difficulties and constraints mentioned by a few people, which also triggered Xia Yu's deep thoughts.

However, these problems cannot be solved overnight, and they cannot be solved entirely by the Southeast Asian consortium.

Therefore, Xia Yu jotted down these problems, prepared to go back and mobilise forces to investigate and analyse them clearly, and then solve them permanently.

...

The next day.

Xia Yu entrusted Bao Yugang to accompany the members who remained in Hong Kong, while he had important matters to attend to.

'Chairman, Jun He Ping is at the door.'

'Bring him in.'

Xia Yugang put down the fountain pen in his hand, got up and walked towards the tea table.

Before he had sat down for long, Fok Kin-ning came in with Junpei Hirata.

The president of Nomura Securities, who was a powerful figure on the island, was very humble at the moment, walking quickly over and bowing directly to Xia Yugang, respectfully saying hello, 'Good morning, Chairman!'

'Well, sit down.'

'Thank you, Chairman.'

After thanking him again, Junpei Hinata sat on the sofa with only half his bottom on it, his upper body straight and his eyes fixed on Xia Yu.

'You arrived yesterday morning, right? Did you explore the city?'

Xia Yu smiled and started a casual conversation.

'To answer your question, Chairman, I walked around Hong Kong Island and Kowloon yesterday, but I spent most of the time at Nomura Securities' branch in Central.'

'You don't come here often, so what's your impression of Hong Kong?'

'Very prosperous, not at all inferior to Tokyo. The financial industry is booming, and the growth rate is also very fast.'

'...'

The small talk was all in the form of questions and answers. Jun Heijiang faced Xia Yu's inquiries very carefully and seriously.

Of course, from another perspective, it was very boring.

After a while of small talk, Xia Yu directly asked Jun Heijiang to report on his work.

It was mainly about the political situation on the island country and the work of reforming the island country's national railway.

Although Junpei Hiyokata is officially a member of the Sanwa Consortium, he is actually Xia Yu's man, and is also responsible for liaising with Noboru Takeshita.

Backed by the Sanwa Consortium and Xia Yu's Zenitsu Consortium, Nomura Securities has developed extremely rapidly.

In particular, Xia Yu is very clear about the future development of the island country, and with the clear cards, Nomura Securities' investments have become extremely aggressive.

With huge banking resources behind it, there is no shortage of funds, so Nomura Securities' development has entered a virtuous cycle.

So much so that in terms of scale, Nomura Securities has firmly occupied the throne of the island's number one investment bank.

'Chairman, regarding the reform of the national railway, the island's political arena is currently in turmoil. Although Yasuhiro Nakasone convinced the transport sector boss within the Liberal Democratic Party, Kato Rikugetsu, and Takekami Noboru also joined forces to promote it, the Socialist Party's counterattack has plunged Yasuhiro Nakasone into a political scandal and a whirlpool of sex news...'

In a clear and logical manner, Junpei Hyuga describes the current state of affairs in the island nation's political arena and the fierce struggle surrounding the reform of the national railway.

Under the political system of conglomerate politics in the island nation, every political struggle and capital struggle are bound together.

In fact, the reform of the national railway was promoted not long after Yasuhiro Nakasone and Noboru Takeshita joined forces to form a cabinet, which was several years ago.

There were both behind-the-scenes demands for profit and political necessities.

His main objective was to cripple the enemy by dismembering JNR and defeat the mainstay of the left-wing, the island nation's largest opposition party, the Socialist Party.

If JNR was split up and privatised, under the island nation's principle of 'one enterprise, one trade union', the country's integrated trade unions would also be cut up into small pieces. The JNR labour union, which had long supported the SDP and the Socialist Party and pursued the doctrine of struggle above all else, would be in a desperate situation of disintegration.

The JNR labour union was the biggest hardcore supporter of the Socialist Party!

However, dismembering JNR was extremely difficult.

For this reason, Yasuhiro Nakasone also compared JNR to 'highland 203', because the classic battle of 'highland 203' in the Russo-Japanese War had once made the Japanese army fearful at the mere mention of it, and it was a battle of 'human waves against machine guns'.

However, thanks to Nakasone Yasuhiro's unrelenting campaigning and efforts, the Socialist Party suffered a crushing defeat in the general election for the House of Representatives and House of Councillors on 6 July 1986, following the announcement of the new manifesto.

As a result, the 'Eight Bills for the Reform of the National Railway', which focused on the separation and privatisation of the national railway, was finally passed in the Diet after about half a year.

Thanks to the efforts of Nakasone Yasuhiro, a 'bourgeois politician', there was chaos within the Socialist Party.

But the Social Democratic Party is, after all, the largest opposition party, and it is not idle.

In July 1986, Yasuhiro Nakasone plotted against it, resulting in a reduction of 27 seats in the House of Representatives, a new low since the party was founded.

So in this spring's local elections, even though the Social Democratic Party was in turmoil, it joined forces with other opponents and hysterically launched a negative public opinion attack.

The 'Lockheed incident' was brought up again.

The 'Rikurot bribery incident' directly implicated a number of senior members and key figures of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Various scandals were also revealed.

There was also the policy of fooling the voters and raising the consumption tax without changing the substance.

All of this undermined the public's support for the Liberal Democratic Party.

So Nakasone Yasuhiro knew that it would be difficult for him to be re-elected this time, so he once again thought about retiring, and Takekami Noboru, who was like a clear stream and had nothing to do with the above incidents, was naturally his candidate.

Furthermore, the Sōsei-kai, which Noboru Takeshima founded, was developing rapidly. After Tanaka Kakuei fell ill in early 1985, he merged the Tanaka faction's power into the Sōsei-kai in one fell swoop.

Subsequently, in the general election for the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors in July of the previous year, it gained 13 more seats. As a result, the Sōsei-kai's power in the House of Representatives reached as high as 152 seats, which was more than half of the LDP's!

Therefore, in this situation, if Takeuchi is not elected as the successor, then Takeuchi will naturally fight for it himself, and the LDP will split again, which will only benefit the enemy.

In fact, in the 'Liquor bribery incident,' Deputy Secretary-General Katsumasa Eto also gave Takeuchi the unlisted stock of 'Liquor Cosmos,' but Takeuchi refused.

The reason for the rejection was not only because of a reminder from Hitoshi Hyuga, but also because Noboru Takeuchi did not think much of the money.

The money he earned from his own 'proper investment' entrusted to Nomura Securities was even greater, and he was not afraid of being investigated at all.

Of course, working closely with Nomura Securities and having all the members of his own Sosei Association strongly supported by the consortium, Noboru Takeuchi naturally went all out for the matter of dividing up the JNR cake.

With the 'Eight Proposals for National Railway Reform' as the platform, and after a series of studies, it was clearly decided that the national railway would be split into six private passenger companies: East Japan, Tokai, West Japan, Hokkaido, Shikoku and Kyushu.

As well as five companies and institutions: the National Freight Company, the Railway Communications Company, the Railway Information Systems Company, the Comprehensive Railway Technology Research Institute and the Shinkansen Passenger Railway Holding Agency, which is responsible for handling 37.5 trillion in debt.

Of the six passenger companies,

The three island companies in Hokkaido, Shikoku and Kyushu are all money-losers, and will continue to lose money for decades to come. Naturally, Xia Yu doesn't want them.

The three freight companies, Tokai, Tokyu, and Nishi-Nippon, are known as the Honshu Sansha.

And the Sansha, which covers the Tokyo metropolitan area, the Osaka metropolitan area, and the Nagoya metropolitan area, and radiates outward from these three metropolitan areas, Xia Yu knows that the prospects are quite good, so these three are the target of competition.

Thanks to Takeshita Noboru's efforts, the Tokai Kisen and Tokyu Kisen were taken over by Nomura Securities and Chiba Bank, and the three won two, a big win!

And the five institutions did not miss out.

However, because the passenger transport companies were exerting a lot of effort, they had to give up more interests in the distribution of these five institutions.

But the most important Comprehensive Railway Technology Research Institute was taken over by the Chongzhenghui faction, which will arrange for their own people to take over the position of person in charge.

Now that the cake has been divided, if there are no unexpected circumstances, the 'National Railway Reform Plan' will be submitted to the National Assembly no later than next week. As long as it is successfully passed by the National Assembly, then the dust will settle.