126: Chapter 126 The President's Secret Night Visit to the Estate

After a few rounds of drinks...

While cutting the tender and juicy deep-sea trout steak on his plate, Lin Tian spoke in a casual, conversational tone, saying in a low voice:

"Mr. President. I recently had some free time and flipped through the book *The Ordeal of Richard Fran*. There is a very interesting viewpoint in it: it says that when people are struck by extreme suffering, they often expose three completely different instinctive reactions."

Hearing this topic, Benjamin Harrison stopped his knife and fork. His eyes flickered slightly, and he followed up with a hint of curiosity:

"Oh? I wonder what those three reactions are? Could Mr. Bruce enlighten me?"

"The first is active, the second is passive, and the last is numbness."

Lin Tian swallowed the fish in his mouth and explained unhurriedly:

"Some people are born fighters. Even if the sky falls, the more hopeless the difficulties they face, the more fierce and ruthless their counterattacks will be."

"While others are cowards to the bone. At the slightest setback, they fall into endless pessimism, despair, and pain. In the end, they might even choose a foolish way like jumping off a building to end their lives. What a pity. God won't even forgive such escapist suicides after they die."

"Indeed... Lately, there have been far too many people jumping off buildings in New York." President Harrison sighed with deep feeling, his face filled with worry.

"As for the last kind, the numb ones. They are the most tragic."

Lin Tian put down his knife and fork, picked up a pristine white napkin to wipe the corners of his mouth, and his gaze became incredibly sharp:

"They are like beggars on the street, wagging their tails and begging for pity. Once they encounter trouble they can't solve, their first reaction is to stretch out their hands to strangers who give alms, begging for sympathy and help."

"But they are foolish enough to forget that in this cruel world, the underlying logic is always equal exchange. When someone hands you a piece of moldy bread with a smile, they often carve ten times, or even a hundred times, the flesh and blood from your body!"

Hearing this highly aggressive metaphor, Benjamin Harrison raised an eyebrow and nodded thoughtfully, faintly guessing the deeper meaning Lin Tian wanted to convey.

At this moment, Rockefeller, who had been silently cutting his steak, chimed in at just the right moment:

"So, just as Bruce said. As the helmsman of the USA, the more we are at such a critical moment of life and death, the more we need to show an iron wrist to actively respond! We absolutely cannot, like a beggar, bow and scrape to stretch out begging hands to that gang of bandits outside!"

"The words of you two gentlemen are like a sudden enlightenment! Begging from those foreign capitalists who eat people without spitting out the bones is no different from drinking poison to quench thirst. It will ultimately bring a devastating catastrophe to the entire country!"

Benjamin Harrison slammed down his wine glass and echoed excitedly.

In fact, recently, an extremely dangerous voice had been surging as an undercurrent in the high-level political circles of Washington.

Some desperate politicians had actually suggested that the President bow his noble head and take the initiative to seek help from those old-money European consortia.

They naively believed that as long as the Federal Government issued sovereign bonds in Europe on a large scale, they could use the borrowed money to plug the domestic economic hole.

President Harrison had always been resolutely opposed to such a humiliating proposal.

Although his abilities were limited, his mind was not broken yet.

He knew better than anyone that once this step was taken, the entire USA's economic lifeline would be choked tightly by those greedy foreign bankers!

Unless it truly reached the point of absolute desperation and national destruction, he would never sign this treasonous contract.

However, the course of history is often full of irony.

The devastating power and long duration of this great crisis, which erupted in 1893, far exceeded the imagination of all politicians.

Like gangrene on the bone, it tormented the USA relentlessly, and it was not until 1895 that a faint glimmer of hope for its end finally appeared.

And at the end of this crisis, Harrison's successor—the next President, Cleveland.

In a state of absolute desperation where the country was nearly bankrupt, he ultimately failed to withstand the pressure, chose to bend his knees in surrender, and sent a distress signal to the European consortia.

The final outcome was extremely tragic: the Wall Street compradors led by J.P. Morgan, together with their European capitalist masters behind them, completely usurped the USA's supreme right of currency issuance in the name of rescuing the market, without spending a single soldier or pawn!

Of course, that is a story for another time.

For now, the dinner was drawing to a close.

Benjamin Harrison could no longer contain the anxiety in his heart and tentatively threw out the core question of this trip:

"Since we cannot seek external help, I wonder if Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Bruce, in inviting me here today... have already thought of some game-changing strategy to turn the tide?"

Hearing that the President had finally taken the bait, Lin Tian took a hot towel from the main's tray, wiped his hands unhurriedly, and then covertly exchanged a glance with Rockefeller opposite him.

Serving as clever foils, Elizabeth and Anna tactfully stood up to take their leave after finishing their meal, quietly exiting the dining room.

Subsequently, Lin Tian personally led the way, bringing Harrison and Rockefeller to an extremely private, small meeting room on the second floor of the manor's main building.

After they took their respective seats as host and guests,

each of the three lit an expensive Cuban Cohiba cigar, and the meeting room was quickly filled with the rich aroma of tobacco.

Lin Tian leaned back comfortably on the sofa, crossed his legs, blew out a puff of thick smoke, and was the first to break the silence:

"Mr. President, do you really know where the core lesion that triggered this unprecedented crisis lies?"

Benjamin Harrison took a deep drag on his cigar and replied with a deep frown:

"I've had experts analyze it. The two most fatal reasons: first, the exhaustion of the treasury's gold reserves; second, the vicious backlash from that damn Silver Purchase Act we have been pursuing!"

Lin Tian nodded in agreement and added:

"In addition, the Federal Government's long-term tight monetary policy has personally choked off the micro-circulation of the domestic economy. Of course, the straw that broke the camel's back was the European capital behind the scenes, sparing no effort in pushing the waves and maliciously shorting."

Benjamin Harrison nodded heavily. In fact, at the early stages when the national economy showed serious signs of collapse, he had secretly organized a think tank to repeatedly deduce these underlying causes.

"But Mr. Bruce, even if I now risk being impeached by Congress to forcibly repeal that damned Silver Purchase Act, the fatal knot of the severe shortage of gold reserves in the treasury still cannot be untied!"

President Harrison clutched his hair in pain, his face filled with dejection.

Looking at the President's desperate appearance, a devilish smile curled up at the corner of Lin Tian's mouth, and he casually tossed out a depth charge:

"Mr. President. If I told you that right now, I have exactly three hundred tons of high-purity physical gold in my hands... would you believe me?"

"What?!!!"

As if a gunpowder keg had been stuffed under his buttocks, Benjamin Harrison sprang up from the leather sofa with a "whoosh".

He widened his bloodshot eyes, staring dead at Lin Tian, his voice trembling completely out of tune:

"Mr. Bruce... you... you're not joking, are you?! Where did you get so much physical gold?!"

Before Harrison could recover from his shock, Rockefeller, sitting next to him, slowly blew a smoke ring and delivered another heavy blow:

"Mr. President, don't be in a hurry to be surprised. In addition to the three hundred tons in Bruce's hands, there are currently two hundred tons of physical gold sealed intact in the underground vaults of Citibank under my name."

Hearing this number, Benjamin Harrison, who was originally full of gloom and on the verge of collapse, instantly burst into a flush of ecstatic light.

Five hundred tons of physical gold!

This is simply a god-level wealth sufficient to save the entire USA's economic lifeline!

With this massive amount of gold as a base reserve, he was even confident that he could completely wipe out all domestic financial turmoil within three months!

"Then... then, you two gentlemen..." Harrison was so excited he was incoherent, just about to open his mouth to beg.

However, Lin Tian interrupted him mercilessly, his tone becoming incredibly cold:

"Mr. President, I know what you are calculating in your mind right now. No problem, these five hundred tons of gold, Uncle Rockefeller and I can lend to the Federal Government without hesitation to get through the difficulties!"

"But—!"

The long string of tearfully grateful flattery that had just surged to Benjamin Harrison's lips was choked right back into his throat.

As expected, how could this group of damn Wall Street vampires ever do a losing business!

Lin Tian leaned forward slightly, throwing out his long-planned ultimate ambition word by word:

"To absolutely guarantee the safety of this massive gold reserve, I demand that you, Mr. President, use the supreme executive power in your hands to immediately push Congress and the Federal Government to establish a brand-new agency with absolute independent power!"

"A brand-new agency?!" Benjamin Harrison was full of confusion.

Lin Tian and Rockefeller smiled at each other, revealing their final, poisoned trump card at the same time:

"The name of this agency is—the Federal Reserve Board of the USA!"

"The Federal Reserve Board... of the USA?!"

Benjamin Harrison murmured this tongue-twisting name, his brain falling into a brief freeze.

"Yes! Abbreviated as the Eagle Reserve!"

Lin Tian's eyes were terrifyingly burning.

"This will be an ultimate reserve system with absolute independent political immunity!"

"Its core responsibility is very simple: to comprehensively supervise all banking systems in the country... and to exclusively monopolize the currency issuance rights of the entire USA!"