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

Because of the time difference, it is already September 8th in Hong Kong Island, far away on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Just yesterday, the Hong Kong Island government promulgated a series of new financial policies, which greatly increased the restrictions on international speculators' speculation. Many international speculators who lost a lot of money on the settlement date of August 28th had been thinking of making a comeback this week, but after this series of policies were promulgated, their way was immediately blocked.

Therefore, these international speculators represented by major investment banks can only watch with tears and hatred as the money that originally belonged to them is firmly trapped in the Hong Kong stock market, stock index futures and foreign exchange market.

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

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

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

At this time, in a huge and luxurious office on the top floor of the Goldman Sachs Building, several old men in suits were sitting together, frowning and looking at each other.

"Mr. Collins, this time Hong Kong Island's action to block the Hong Kong dollar has caused us a loss of more than 700 million US dollars. How do you want me to explain this to our partners? 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 major event for us at Goldman Sachs, but the action you presided over has suffered a Waterloo. How do you want me to explain this to my partners?"

The speaker was a white man in his fifties. He was Henry Paulson, who had just become the CEO and COO of Goldman Sachs last year. The person he was talking to was Rod Collins, the chief investment officer of Goldman Sachs, a man in his sixties.

After a pause, Paulson continued, "Don't forget, Goldman Sachs is preparing for a public offering recently. But if the losses from our operation are exposed, it will be a fatal blow to the public offering. Our partners will make everyone here get out!"

Collins, who was sitting opposite Paulson, shrugged his shoulders. "What can I do? Everything was fine before. Even on that day, the situation was very good at the beginning. Although the Hong Kong and Chinese governments have invested huge sums of money to support the market, we also have a lot of funds. If it weren't for the huge amount of long funds that suddenly entered the market in the afternoon, even if we couldn't win this battle, we would definitely not suffer such a huge loss. 700 million US dollars, do you think I am willing to leave this money on the other side of the Pacific? This is an accident, or a premeditated blocking action, but it is us who are blocked, not the Hong Kong government!"

Paulson's face gradually turned red, and he was obviously very angry at this shirking of responsibility. "Then why didn't you monitor the entry of this amount of funds? Where is your monitoring network? Where are your traders? This amount of funds is as high as more than 20 billion Hong Kong dollars, not just a few hundred million Hong Kong dollars. Such a huge amount of funds is like an aircraft carrier entering the New York Harbor. You can't help but see it. But why didn't your people see it?"

"What can I do? The flow of that money is extremely strange. We spent ten days investigating it, but we could only find out that the money came from Europe that day, not Japan or our Federation. It came from Europe. We don't have the ability to monitor the whole of Europe..."

A fat old man sitting on the other side knocked on the table with his hand, interrupting Collins. This old man was Goldman Sachs' current CEO, Michael Cox.

"Henry, Rod, stop arguing. We are here today to discuss how to resolve this matter, not to blame each other." Since the CEO of Goldman Sachs was not present today, Cosai was the highest-ranking executive on the scene.

Although Henry Paulson is talented, he will not become the new president of Goldman Sachs until next year, and will not serve as the Treasury Secretary of the Bush administration until 2006. But at this time, facing Koss's words, Paulson could only swallow his dissatisfaction.

Kesai continued to knock on the table. "First, we must find out the source of the funds, otherwise we will not be able to explain to our partners. Rod, you said that the funds came from Europe, so is there any specific situation?"

Rod Collins shook his head and said, "I'm sorry. So far we have only found out that the funds came from Europe, but we are temporarily unable to find out who they belong to. Our power in Europe is still relatively weak, especially since some banks are not very friendly to us."

Paulson interrupted, "Cosai, was it Soros who did this? I heard that his funds only went around in the morning and then he quickly withdrew. I think he must have received some information and was forced to sell his shares reluctantly. Moreover, given his character, it's not impossible for him to come back and sell us again to 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 congressmen and senior officials in Washington behind him. It was his initiative to target Hong Kong Island. If he dared to turn against them on that day, those people behind him would not let him go. And I checked that Soros's Quantum Fund also lost more than 800 million US dollars on the morning of that day. He just saw the opportunity and fled at a loss, otherwise he would have lost more!"

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