Jason brought his assistant and legal team, and Hardy specially sent his own private plane for them to use. Columbus also came with them. They arrived in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, Australia in just one day and applied to the state government for a mining license and the purchase of land.

Why not contact the Australian government?

Although Australia is an independent continent, it is actually a federation, similar to the United States. Each state has a high degree of autonomy, and if you want to buy minerals, you must contact the state government.

Australia has always supported private mining, so it is not difficult to apply for a mining license because the government can make a lot of money from mining. According to the law, they have to collect 30% of the income tax.

Jason's team quickly obtained a mining license.

In fact, as long as you have a mining license, it doesn’t matter whether you buy the land or not. As long as you get the mining license, the local mining rights will belong to you when you apply for them, so you don’t need to buy land at all.

But Hardy was obsessed with the land and wanted more land, so before Jason came, Hardy specifically told him that as long as the government agreed, he planned to take over more land.

After obtaining the mining rights, Jason asked the director of the state mining department who received him, "We want to buy more land and continue our exploration. I wonder how much land we have left."

The head of the mining department smiled.

"Land. Plenty of it."

He took out a map of Western Australia with a smile, "The areas marked in red belong to private individuals, the areas marked in green belong to the government, and the blank areas without markings belong to the government's own public construction areas. The green areas are all for sale, and the price of each piece is marked. You can take as much as you want."

Those green areas are almost all uninhabited places, including Gobi, desert, hills, wilderness, and swamps.

These places are not suitable for farming or grazing, so no one wants them.

As for the price.

The price is between 3 and 6 Australian dollars per hectare, depending on the plot.

Is it cheap?

It’s not cheap at all.

Later, a large ranch owner in Australia sold a piece of land of 11 million hectares for 325 million Australian dollars.

What does 11 million hectares mean?

As big as Zhejiang Province.

This is equivalent to only 30 Australian dollars per hectare.

That acre of land only cost 2 Australian dollars.

This was in 2015, and it was a ranch where they could raise cattle.

Now in 1948, the price is 3-6 Australian dollars per hectare. From this we can see that the land appreciation rate in Australia is extremely slow and the investment significance is not great.

Moreover, most of the land in Western Australia is very poor and not suitable for grazing at all. So if there are no minerals, the land is worthless.

Even if it is your own land and you find minerals on it, you still need to pay mining taxes to the government if you want to mine, and not a penny less, so many people feel that there is little point in buying these lands.

It simply means that after the land is privately owned, others cannot mine on your land.

Jason asked his assistant to calculate that the land marked with green actually reached 100 million hectares. Western Australia is the largest state in Australia, accounting for one-third of Australia's total area, 264 square kilometers, 264 million hectares.

The government has reserved a portion of public land that can be sold, reaching 1 million square kilometers, which will cost 450 million Australian dollars, or about 390 million US dollars.

The investment is too big for Jason to decide.

He immediately telegraphed Hardy to report the situation.

Hardy was also stunned after receiving the telegram. He knew that Australia had a lot of land, but he did not expect that the Western Australian government would sell so much land at once. At that time, he thought that if the other party was willing to give up a few pieces of land, a million hectares would be a big deal, but he did not expect that they would sell so much.

To be honest,

Hardy was very tempted.

Perhaps this is the Chinese people's inherent desire for land.

Even if it is barren land, Hardy feels at ease owning a piece of land. However, the price of 390 million still makes Hardy feel very pressured.

Although he owns Wells Fargo and Wells Fargo has assets of billions, the money does not belong to Hardy but to the depositors.

When Hardy acquired Wells Fargo, he borrowed $160 million from Bank of America.

Later, it acquired shares of Bank of America and borrowed another 380 million.

Although Hardy's industries were all very profitable, he developed them too quickly and had a very high debt. He didn't mind hundreds of thousands or millions, and a few tens of millions would do, but to use 390 million all at once, not only him, but also Bank of America would have to carefully calculate whether the investment was worth it.

Investing in land increases value very slowly, which does not meet the requirements of capitalists at all.

The land in Western Australia has no value for developing real estate. If there are no minerals under these lands, then these lands are worthless. This is a very failed investment.

For the Western Australian Government.

Selling land,

Even if you earn more money from selling land, you still have to pay the same tax if you mine.

You don't buy it.

It doesn't matter.

Mining is also taxed.

So they won’t suffer any loss.

The money Hardy used was nothing more than buying an exclusive mining right, which means that no one else can mine on your land.

Hardy stroked his chin.

"Damn, I was just planning on having a little fun, but I didn't expect things to get so big." Hardy murmured.

In fact, if he only wanted to mine the gold, he could do it now without such a huge investment. The main reason was that he felt a little unwilling to see such a large piece of land not being bought.

And he knew.

There must be minerals in these lands.

According to statistics from later generations, 98% of Australia's iron ore comes from Western Australia, and other minerals such as gold, copper, aluminum, coal, etc. also account for more than half of Australia. There are also oil and natural gas resources.

If you buy it now.

The land belongs to him, so no one else can mine on his land. All the resources underground belong to Hardy.

If it were in the future, the Australian government would dare to sell the land like this, and the Rabbit Country would dare to buy it all. But now is the 1940s, and hundreds of millions of dollars is an astronomical figure.

Hardy thought for a long time, and finally a look of determination flashed in his eyes.

"Sell~!"

I came to this world to struggle, and now that I have this opportunity, I will struggle to the fullest.

Hardy called the secretary.

"Which country is Andy's delegation in?"

Whenever Andy and his team arrived in a country, they would send a telegram to Hardy to report the situation and let Hardy know their movements and progress.

"After Denmark, the next stops will be Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland," said the secretary.

"Send a telegram to Andy and tell him that I asked him to come back and that the president of Wells Fargo will be in charge of the inspection team," Hardy ordered.

Hardy has little interest in investing in the five Nordic countries, which are dispensable in his business empire.

"Also, send a telegram to Jason and tell him to first buy 20 square kilometers of land around the gold mine, and then continue to negotiate with the Western Australian government to ask if it can be cheaper. There is no need to rush. Andy and I will go there together later."

"Also tell Columbus to find a more professional team to measure the reserves and grade of the gold ore."

Finally, what do you think of?

"Tell Andrew to secretly buy as many shares of Wash Mining as he can, but be careful not to push up the stock price too quickly."

The secretary wrote everything down in a notebook and turned back to notify everyone.

Hardy took out a cigar from the box on the table and lit it, continuing to plan in his mind. He had managed to get something for nothing several times before, so this time might be possible.

Two days later Andy returned to Los Angeles.

"Boss, what's the matter that requires you to call me back so urgently?" Andy asked.

"Columbus found a big gold mine in Australia. I asked Jason to handle the formalities. He said that the Western Australian government has a large tract of land for sale. I plan to buy more, so I asked you to come and do this together." Hardy said.

Andy knew that the boss asked him to come back, definitely not to make a purchase, because millions or even tens of millions of dollars would not be enough to ask him.

"I plan to acquire 1 million square kilometers of land for a total price of about 400 million US dollars," said Hardy.

Andy's eyes widened in shock.

What does 1 million square kilometers mean? It is equivalent to the area of ​​2 France and 4 Britain.

"The Western Australian government is willing to sell so much land at one time. Isn't this in line with the government's development rules?" Andy said in surprise.

"The places they sell are all next to wilderness and hills. There is no possibility of development except mining."

"I asked Jason to find out. It is said that the current Western Australian government is trying to separate from the Australian government. In fact, a referendum was held a few years ago, but it was unsuccessful. As for the large-scale sale of land, it seems that the opposition is organizing this matter. In short, it is their internal matter."

"Selling land is actually not a big deal, it's just that a lot of it was released at once this time."

Andy thought about asking for 400 million U.S. dollars, looked at Hardy and said, "Boss, what are you going to do?"

"I plan to speculate on the Wash Mining Industry and use the funds from the Wash Mining Industry to buy land." Then he told Andy the plan he had thought of in the past two days.

Andy nodded after hearing this, "I think your plan is feasible!"

"Haha, then I'll leave it to you." Hardy said with a smile.

The next day.

Andy first found a bank. In the past, Wash Mining had mortgaged its stocks to the City Bank of Los Angeles in order to obtain funds, and this time he got all of them back.

Continue to operate Wash Mining on the stock market and slowly absorb the limited number of outstanding shares.

People were surprised to find that the Wash Mine, which had been performing very averagely, had started to rise continuously in the past few days. Although nothing could be seen in one day, after a week people found that it had actually risen a lot and now the price has become about US$1.5.

Many people have analyzed the reasons for the surge in Wash Mining's stock price. Is it possible that someone is trying to manipulate this stock?

But people quickly gave up on this idea.

Those companies that manipulate stocks dare to play with small shares, but they definitely dare not attack the companies of the Hardy Group. The Hardy Group itself is very powerful and is still the core family of the California Consortium. Even people on Wall Street are not stupid enough to provoke a consortium.

Then there are two other reasons.

One is that the Hadi Group is raising the stock price in preparation for shipment, and the other is that there is some good news and the Hadi Group is absorbing it itself.

The shipment does not mean much to the Hardy Group, so the only reason is the good news. Considering that Wash Mining is a mining company, it has been two years and it should have exploded, so many people speculate that Wash Mining may have discovered some big mine.

Yes,

These smart investors guessed it right.

It wasn't long before some rumors spread that Wash Mining had discovered a large vein of minerals. Someone at the exchange whispered to others:

"I heard from a friend of a friend that the exploration team of Wash Mining has found a gold mine in Australia, and it's a big gold mine. I heard that the vice president of the group has been arranged to go to Australia to obtain the mining rights, so some people keep buying Wash Mining shares."

As the news spread, people paid more attention to the Wash mining industry.

Naturally, some people followed suit and started buying into Wash Mining shares, and saw that Wash Mining's share price had risen significantly.

The stock price reached $1.8 per share.

Many people asked whether this news was true, but they did not receive any news. Instead, they received a notice that Wash Mining had changed its name.

Official notification: Wash Mining was renamed Hardy Mining.

Many people thought that since Hardy Group had acquired Wash Mining for several years without changing its name, it must be a big move if it suddenly changed its name now.

A few more days passed.

Hardy Mining officially announced that the mining company has discovered a gold mine in Australia and has now obtained mining rights. The ore has a high grade and large reserves. The preliminary estimate is that the total reserves are about 500 tons of gold. Further exploration is now underway.

Columbus said 200 tons, and the data announced to the public was slightly increased. Is it an estimate? No one can say for sure.

As soon as the news came out, the market went crazy.

No wonder.

I knew something good was going on, otherwise there wouldn't be so much action.

500 tons of gold reserves, even if calculated based on the current fixed gold exchange rate of US$35 per ounce, is worth more than 600 million.

The original total market value of Wash Mining was only 10 million. Now it has acquired a gold mine worth 600 million. Everyone can imagine Wash Mining, no, now it is called Hardy Mining, and everyone can imagine that the stock price of Hardy Mining is going to soar.

Countless people began to frantically rush to buy Hardy Mining stocks. Hardy Mining's stock price was rapidly pulled up, from US$1.8 per share to US$11 per share in just a few days, an increase of more than 6 times, which slowed down the trend slightly.

Hardy Mining then issued a notice that in view of the stock situation, the company was preparing to split its stock into 4 shares.

Stock split is another good news.

The stock price surged again, from $2.75 after the split to $3.3.

A few more days passed.

Hardy Mining officially announced that it had conducted a second exploration of the gold mine. The results showed that the gold content of the ore reached about 10 grams per ton. The total reserves may exceed 800 tons of gold, making it a rich mine.

At the same time, Hardy Mining announced the establishment of the Australian branch, preparing to fully engage in gold mining business. Upon hearing this news, Hardy Mining's stock price soared again.

Hardy's idea was very simple, which was to push up the stock prices of mining companies, let the mining companies generate their own revenue, and use the money from the stocks to buy land.

Using the mining company's money to buy land for mining should be the most formal operation.

......