55: Chapter 55 What is the state trying to do?

That night.

Ever since the old man finished saying those words, Su Mingyuan had been feeling restless.

Lying on his bed in the dormitory, he tossed and turned, finding it hard to fall asleep.

Everything that happened today kept playing over and over in his mind.

After a long time.

Su Mingyuan sighed. Since he couldn't sleep anyway, he might as well scroll through his phone to relax.

He picked up his phone, habitually opened the TikTok app, and started browsing today's trending searches.

On the homepage, there were all sorts of relatively fresh occurrences.

"The first one: 'A certain region held an economic and trade negotiation meeting, with the contracted amount exceeding 1 billion.'"

Su Mingyuan swiped past it casually; it was nothing interesting.

"The second one: 'A certain tech company released a new model of phone priced at 1999. Netizens: Finally waited for something we can afford.'"

"The third one: 'Aunts' square dance was too noisy, so a young man used a reverse speaker to fight back, only to end up surrounded by the aunts being taught a lesson on how to behave.'"

Su Mingyuan couldn't help laughing. The news these days was getting more and more outrageous.

He continued scrolling down.

"The fourth one: 'A certain well-known novel announced a hiatus. Readers: Once the updates are finished, have my grandson burn it down for me.'"

"The fifth one: 'A man brought 29 relatives to a blind date to freeload a meal. The woman immediately blocked him and called the police. The man: This is our whole family's test for you!'"

The more Su Mingyuan read, the funnier it got. These silly news stories actually relaxed his tense mood quite a bit.

He continued scrolling down while laughing.

"The sixth one: 'An internet celebrity live-streamed a challenge to stay awake for 24 hours, but fell asleep after 2 hours. Fans: This is the most authentic live stream I have ever seen.'"

...

But just as he was about to turn off his phone and go to sleep—

A piece of news suddenly popped up, pinned directly to the very top of the homepage.

"The national football team lost a game again, narrowly defeated by San Marino, and the head coach claimed after the match, 'We have already done our best'."

Looking at this news piece,

Su Mingyuan's smile instantly froze, and he felt like his whole world was falling apart.

San Marino?!

Wasn't that the bottom-feeder team ranked 210th in FIFA?

A pocket-sized country with a population of only over thirty thousand!

An area of only 61 square kilometers!

All the people in the entire country who could play football combined probably couldn't even make up two complete teams!

The national football team... actually lost to this kind of team?!

And it was still a "narrow defeat"?

How shameless must one be to publicly call it a "narrow defeat"?!

Su Mingyuan opened the comment section, and sure enough, it had already exploded:

"Brothers, the national football team has created history again!"

"I announce that the national football team has successfully unlocked the achievement: losing to the entire world."

"Lost to San Marino? Are they going to lose to Vatican City next time?"

"They all say the national football team is the national luck regulator. It seems our country has had too much good luck lately, so we need the national football team to balance it out."

"Wake up, the person upstairs, Eagle Sauce is going to sanction us again."

Su Mingyuan shook his head and prepared to turn off his phone, forcing himself to sleep.

Suddenly—

Hum!

The phone vibrated once.

A push notification popped up, directly covering the entire screen:

[Blockbuster! At 10 AM tomorrow, the State Advisory Council will hold a special press conference!]

Su Mingyuan suddenly sat up straight!

His heart beat violently.

Special press conference of the State Advisory Council?

This...

This must be what that old man mentioned!

With trembling fingers, he tapped on the notification, wanting to see more details.

But there was only a short sentence on the page:

"At 10 AM tomorrow, the State Advisory Council will hold a press conference regarding major national strategic adjustments. Please stay tuned."

Just this one sentence.

There was no other information.

But it was precisely this conciseness that gave people a sense of incomparable solemnity.

Major national strategic adjustments...

These eight words carried far too much weight.

...

The next day, at 9:50 AM.

Su Mingyuan had long been waiting in front of the television.

To be exact, ever since he got up at seven in the morning, he had been sitting here, motionless.

In the base conference room, Tao Zhe, Commander Zhao Jianguo, and several Advanced military officers had also gathered together, quietly waiting.

On the large screen in the conference room, the news channel was playing.

At this moment, the anchor's standard broadcast voice sounded from the screen:

"Hello, audience friends. It is now 9:50 AM Beijing time. In 10 minutes, the State Advisory Council will hold a special press conference..."

Time ticked away second by second.

9:50 AM.

9:58 AM.

9:59 AM.

Finally—

Exactly 10:00 AM!

The image on the screen shifted.

A solemn press conference hall appeared before everyone's eyes.

Hundreds of Chinese and foreign reporters gathered together, with countless cameras and microphones aimed at the podium.

A spokesperson in a dark suit, around fifty years old, walked onto the stage and sat right in the center of the podium under the glare of countless flashes.

"Media friends and audience members, good morning."

The spokesperson's voice was steady and powerful:

"I am Director Li Wenbo, spokesperson for the State Advisory Council. Today, on behalf of the State Advisory Council, I am announcing a major decision to the people of the country and the whole world."

He paused for a moment, his gaze sweeping across all the reporters present:

"As everyone knows, the international energy situation has undergone major changes recently. Certain countries, led by Eagle Country, have implemented a series of unjust energy sanctions against our country."

"International crude oil prices have skyrocketed from 80 US dollars per barrel to 145 US dollars per barrel."

"Under external pressure, multiple oil-producing countries have implemented an oil embargo against our country."

"These actions have severely damaged our country's energy security and economic development."

His voice became sonorous and forceful:

"However! Daxia has never been intimidated by difficulties!"

"Through the unremitting efforts of our country's scientific research workers, we have achieved a major Breakthrough in the new energy technology Domain!"

"This Breakthrough will completely change our country's energy landscape!"

"Therefore—"

Director Li Wenbo picked up the document in front of him and solemnly read aloud:

"The State Advisory Council has decided to implement the following policies starting today:"

"Article 1: New energy vehicles, including pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, shall be permanently exempt from purchase tax, consumption tax, and vehicle and vessel tax!"

Boom!

The TV screen immediately switched to the danmu area of the online live-streaming platform.

The danmu instantly exploded:

"？？？？？"

"Holy shit! Permanently tax-exempt?!"

"Did I hear that right? Is this real or fake?"

"Permanent? Not exempt for three or five years, but permanent?"

"I was still hesitating whether to buy an electric car just now, but I'll place an order right away!"

"Wait, let me digest this. The amount of information is too huge."

"For a 200,000-yuan car, the purchase tax is 17,000, consumption tax is 10,000, and vehicle and vessel tax is a few hundred. Adding it up, you save 30,000!"

"The key is that it's permanent! In the future, buying electric cars won't require paying these taxes at all!"

"The country is really going to vigorously promote new energy vehicles."

But soon, the style of the danmu shifted:

"Wait, has the country gone mad? How much tax revenue will be lost because of this?"

"Is there any brother who understands economics that can calculate how much money this policy will make the country lose in tax revenue a year?"

"Let me calculate: last year's sales of new energy vehicles were 9.5 million units, saving an average of 30,000 per vehicle. That's 285 billion a year!"

"And sales will definitely skyrocket in the future. A conservative estimate is 20 million units, which is 600 billion in tax revenue a year!"

"600 billion, brothers! What kind of concept is this?"

"It's equivalent to your province's total tax revenue for the whole year of 2023!"

"It's equivalent to the annual fiscal revenue of more than a dozen Earth-Grade cities!"

"Such a huge amount of money, and they're just giving it up like that?"

"More importantly, where does the electricity come from?"

"That's right! The whole country is short of electricity right now. The more new energy vehicles there are, the more electricity is used. How is this gap going to be filled?"

"Last year, the charging volume for new energy vehicles exceeded 50 billion kilowatt-hours. If sales double, the electricity consumption will also double."

"Now with the oil embargo and skyrocketing coal prices, thermal power is already not enough. Where is the electricity supposed to come from?"

"This is simply adding frost to snow! With international oil prices at 145 US dollars a barrel and such a huge domestic electricity gap, they're still encouraging electricity consumption at a time like this?"

"I'm getting a bit confused. What on earth is the country trying to do?"