Zhong Xiaotong was a little surprised, and Zhong Xiaotong's secretary Jin Chengguo couldn't help but look at Song Yi again.

No matter which South Korean government is in office, developing the economy is the top priority. The total annual revenue of the top ten Korean chaebols accounts for about 60% of South Korea's GDP. No matter who is elected president, economic development cannot be achieved without the support of the top ten chaebols.

In order to consolidate their power, South Korean presidents usually adopt the strategy of winning over one group, dividing another group, and suppressing another group towards the top ten conglomerates.

After the financial crisis in 1997, Daewoo Group, Hanbo Steel Group and Hantai Group went bankrupt one after another.

Not only that, 16 of the top 30 conglomerates are facing bankruptcy liquidation, 15 of the 33 large banks have declared bankruptcy, and one-third of more than 2,000 financial institutions have gone bankrupt and closed down.

The then President Chung Hyo-tong called on the people of the country to unite to save the country from bankruptcy. At that time, three million Koreans lined up at major banks to exchange their rings, earrings, necklaces and US dollars for the wildly depreciating won to help the government repay foreign exchange loans.

The irony is that the creators of this financial crisis, the Korean chaebol families, turned a blind eye to the crisis and instead took advantage of the people's patriotism and used the worthless won to defraud gold from the people.

Since the Zheng Puxi era, in order to enhance the competitiveness of Korean companies overseas, the Korean government has consciously supported large conglomerates such as Samsung, Hyundai, LG and Daewoo to undertake overseas construction projects. From Southeast Asia to the Middle East, you can see the presence of major Korean companies.

South Korea's large conglomerates and banking institutions cooperate with each other to concentrate funds and resources from across South Korea for investment in order to achieve monopolistic growth.

Since the 1990s, South Korea has been carrying out financial reforms, with the Korean won and the US dollar freely convertible. South Korean large companies have been borrowing crazily to expand their market share.

In fact, large Korean conglomerates can enjoy the lowest interest rate loans from Korean financial institutions. Even if they lend the borrowed funds to other companies, they can still make a profit. Therefore, large Korean conglomerates are all greedy for size and perfection.

Due to the particularity of the Korean system, a considerable portion of bank loans are US dollar loans borrowed in the name of the Korean government.

The government then lends this money to large conglomerates operating overseas. Once the company's operations are poor, such as Hanbo Steel Group, which declares bankruptcy, the US dollar loan will need to be repaid by the South Korean government.

In order to develop the economy, Zhong Xiaotong, based on the advice of economic experts, proposed a cultural nation-building policy and the Sunshine Policy.

The former is to vigorously develop the entertainment industry in South Korea. Due to the financial crisis, the absolute poverty population in South Korea has soared to 14.9%, and 1.3 million South Koreans have lost their jobs.

In order to comfort these "abandoned" groups in society and reduce the dissatisfaction of ordinary Korean people towards the government and large conglomerates, the Korean government encourages companies to invest in the entertainment industry, and the rise of boy bands and girl bands came into being. This is actually a variation of the "nipple music theory".

In order to repay the IMF loan, the South Korean government signed a series of market agreements, allowing foreign capital to acquire domestic companies in any form and for any reason. The South Korean government officially lost control over its domestic companies.

South Korea's economic sovereignty has been completely handed over to the capital giants of Wall Street in the United States. Foreign capital owns more than two-thirds of the shares of the eight major banks in South Korea. Most of the shares of Samsung Group, which Koreans are most proud of, are in the hands of Wall Street giants.

In order to alleviate the sense of humiliation among the South Korean people, Zhong Xiaotong hopes to make a difference in diplomacy, so he wants to take the lead in achieving reconciliation between North and South Korea.

Zhou Zhengyong, the founder of Hyundai Group, grasped Zhong Xiaotong's idea and drove 500 cattle across the border, and cattle diplomacy became a legend.

After Zhou Zhengyong's son Zhou Mengzhun heard that FIFA intended to hold the World Cup in an Asian country, he took great pains to turn the Japan World Cup into the Korea-Japan World Cup.

To Zhong Xiaotong, tonight's World Cup opening ceremony is extremely important. Zhong Xiaotong wants to announce to the world that South Korea has completely gotten rid of the financial crisis, achieved industrial transformation and upgrading, and once again become a first-class country.

Among the top ten chaebols in South Korea, Zhou Zhengyong's Hyundai Group has the lowest proportion of foreign shareholders. Zhong Xiaotong needs Zhou Zhengyong to realize his political intentions, and Zhou Zhengyong also needs Zhong Xiaotong to provide help at all levels. This is a mutually beneficial cooperation.

After Zhou Zhengyong passed away and Zhou Mengxian was exposed for political donations, the good relationship between Zhong Xiaotong and the modern family began to break down. In order to avoid suspicion, Zhong Xiaotong even deliberately kept a distance from the modern family members.

So when Song Yi asked him for a special loan of 200 million US dollars through Jin Chengguo, although Zhong Xiaotong was very annoyed, he still agreed to Song Yi's request for the sake of the overall situation.

Song Woo-seok won the New Millennium Democratic Party's internal election in April and was nominated as the presidential candidate. Zhong Xiaotong felt that he would not be liquidated by the next president, so he agreed to Lee Sang-dae's release of Zhou Mengxian and showed goodwill to the entire Hyundai family.

Zhou Mengzhun immediately seized this opportunity and used the opening ceremony of the World Cup to let Zhong Xiaotong meet the core members of the Modern Family. Zhou Mengzhun actually wanted to show his responsibility as the head of the Modern Family.

Although Hyundai Motor Group is the leading enterprise of the entire Hyundai family, Zhou Mengjiu and his son have a general relationship with Eshan Group and Xinya Group. Zhou Mengzhun, who is good at dancing with his sleeves, aimed at this point, so that he could appear in front of Zhong Xiaotong as the head of the Hyundai family.

Zhong Xiaotong knew that inschool played a key role in helping Song Yuxi win the party election. He was worried that Song Yi would become arrogant in front of Song Yuxi and cause Song Yuxi to lose the presidential election in December this year.

He had already made a plan before coming here. If Song Yi was still so arrogant in front of the elders like Zhou Mengjiu, Zhou Mengzhun, and Zheng Enxuan, he would severely punish the New Asia Group. During the World Cup, officials from the National Tax Service of South Korea would enter the various branches of the New Asia Group in South Korea to conduct tax inspections. Even if they could not find anything, they would be able to make Song Yi surrender.

Zhong Xiaotong was going to make Song Yi understand that the reason why he agreed to the $200 million special loan from New Asia Media was not because Song Yi had found a weakness in him, but because he considered the good personal relationship between him and Zhou Zhengyong and Zhou Mengxian, and wanted to compensate Zhou Mengxian's family who were imprisoned.

Now that Song Yi was so humble, Zhong Xiaotong naturally couldn't find a suitable reason to attack. In order to show his support for emerging Korean Internet companies like Xinya Network, Zhong Xiaotong also took a photo with Song Yi alone. In the photo, Zhong Xiaotong was smiling.

Song Yi was also very good at handling things. He asked Zhong Xiaotong for his opinion and asked him if he could post this photo with the president on inschool's personal homepage. In order to maintain his friendly image, Zhong Xiaotong readily agreed.

Jin Chengguo and Song Yi looked at each other. When Jin Chengguo took Song Yi to the bank to apply for a loan, the two of them had to avoid appearing together in public as much as possible to avoid being noticed by someone.

Zhong Xiaotong came to the stadium in advance to meet the core members of the modern family, just to send a signal to the outside world that he had reconciled with the modern family. Even if he wanted to discuss serious matters with Zhou Mengjiu or Zhou Mengzhun, he would change the time and place.

The atmosphere of today's meeting was quite pleasant, only Zhou Xiangyong was unhappy. As Zhou Zhengyong's younger brother, it was fine that Zhong Xiaotong met Zhou Mengjiu and Zhou Mengzhun first, but why did Zheng Enxuan and Song Yi also put him first?

Zhou Xiangyong is Zhou Zhengyong's youngest brother. He was raised by Zhou Zhengyong since he was a child, and even his wife was married with Zhou Zhengyong's help. He and Zhou Zhengyong share the same view that women should not participate in the family business and should stay at home to take care of their husbands and children.

In the Three-point Modern Times, Zhou Xiangyong did not support Zheng Enxuan as the chairman of Eshan Group. He kindly advised Zhou Mengxian at that time that he could help manage Eshan Group and return the company to him after Zhou Mengxian was released from prison.

Zhou Xiangyong meant that you cannot write two Zhou characters with one stroke. As Zhou Mengxian's uncle, he is more reliable than Zheng Enxuan.

After Zheng Enxuan took office as the chairman of Esan Group, Zhou Xiangyong secretly absorbed Esan Group's stocks through KCC Group, hoping to turn Esan Group into a subsidiary of KCC Group.

Unexpectedly, Song Yi intervened and Zheng Enxuan actually raised enough funds to become the largest individual shareholder of Eshan Group, making Zhou Xiangyong's careful planning a joke.

Zhou Xiangyong felt that Zhou Mengxian was stupid and actually handed over the Eshan Group to two outsiders, Zheng Enxuan and Song Yi. Now Zheng Enxuan and Song Yi are as close as wearing the same pair of pants. Even if you, Zhou Mengxian, have been released from prison, where is the suitable position for you, Zhou Mengxian, in the Eshan Group?

Zhou Xiangyong knew that Song Yi was a man of great means. He first used the listing plan of New Korea Media to win over Zhou Mengzhun, and then used the real estate project The One Apartment to develop Zhou Mengkui into an ally. Recently, he got together with Zhou Zhixuan of HugeDream Cinemas and Hyundai Department Store.

Zhou Xiangyong plans to meet Zhou Mengxian in two days. Zhou Mengxian is now living in seclusion at home and his thoughts may have changed. He can find a way to help Zhou Mengxian regain control of the Eshan Group.

Zhou Xiangyong felt that even if he and Zhou Mengxian joined forces, they would not be able to defeat Song Yi and Zheng Enxuan, and he needed more helpers, such as Zhou Mengjiu, who had an average relationship with Song Yi, and Zhou Mengri, who had a bad relationship with Song Yi.

Song Yi didn't know that a simple meeting between him and Zhong Xiaotong would make Zhou Xiangyong so hostile to him. Zhou Xiangyong, the old man, actually wanted to connect with other members of the Modern Family and force Zheng Enxuan to give up his position to Zhou Mengxian.

Perhaps in the minds of people like Zhou Xiangyong, it is more in line with the interests of the Hyundai family for Zhou Mengxian, who has weak financial strength, to control the Eshan Group. They also covet high-quality real estate projects like The One Apartment and try to get a piece of the pie.

However, Song Yi, Zheng Enxuan and Zhou Mengkui were of one mind and did not agree to the participation of modern family members. If Zhou Xiangyong helped Zhou Mengxian to become the chairman of Eshan Group, then KCC Group could participate in the development of the land in Yongsandong.

Zhong Xiaotong was preparing a speech for the opening ceremony, and Song Yi and Zheng Enxuan left the lounge together. Zheng Enxuan and Song Yi's seats were staggered, and Zheng Enxuan wanted to sit with her daughter Zhou Zhiyi and future son-in-law Ju Guangmo.

Next to Jung Eun-sun are LG Group Chairman Gu Bon-sung and his wife. Gu Guangmo and Zhou Zhiyi are planning to live together in Puhai City, and Jung Eun-sun wants to discuss the marriage of their children with Gu Bon-sung and his wife.

Ju Guangmo and Zhou Zhiyi can get engaged in the second half of this year or early next year. As for the wedding date, they can put it off for now and there is no need to rush.

Zheng Enxuan and Song Yi walked side by side. She reminded Song Yi in a low voice, "Sixth Uncle is narrow-minded and very concerned about his reputation. You stood in front of him to shake hands with the president. He must have begun to resent you in his heart. This person has great ambitions but little talent. You must be careful that he may play dirty tricks on you. You must be on guard."

Song Yi was speechless when he heard Zheng Enxuan's words. He couldn't have imagined that Zhou Xiangyong would become his enemy because of a ranking issue.

In the previous life, Zhou Mengxian committed suicide by jumping off a building, and his widow Zheng Enxuan took over the position of chairman of Hyundai Group. Zhou Xiangyong of KCC Group launched a takeover of Hyundai Group and bullied Zheng Enxuan, an orphan and a widow. The Hyundai family fell into the second internal struggle, but Zhou Xiangyong's actions also made outsiders quite disgusted.

"It's okay, he can't cause any trouble. If he doesn't know how to live or die and insists on attacking me, I will make sure that his KCC Group will not be able to be saved." Song Yi did not regard Zhou Xiangyong as an opponent of the same level.

Song Yi and Zheng Enxuan were on the left and right, and Song Yi found the box where he was. The sharp-eyed Jin Hengzhu saw Song Yi at a glance, and he pointed to the empty seat, "Brother-in-law, everyone is waiting for you."

Song Yi walked over and sat between Liao Yu and Kim Tae Hee. Song Yi first asked his girlfriend, "Tae Hee, do you feel bored?"

Kim Tae Hee shook her head. "The rehearsal for the opening ceremony's cultural performance was quite interesting. Did you meet the president just now?"

"Yes, we took a photo together, and I will post it on the inschool homepage later."

The theme of this World Cup performance is "From the East", which is mainly to show the oriental charm. It is based on the traditional Korean culture, but also shows the modern technology of Korea. The performance started at 7:30 and lasted for half an hour. There were 2,300 players participating in the performance.

Regarding the 2002 World Cup, Song Yi only remembers the performances of four teams: Brazil, Germany, South Korea and China.

The Brazilian team in 2002 had the 3R combination of Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho. Kaka could only sit on the bench in the Brazilian team full of strong players.

Brazil's offensive strength was outstanding, and Ronaldo was at his peak, scoring 8 goals in 7 games. In the final, he faced German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, who had not conceded a goal before, and still scored two goals. In the end, Ronaldo won the Golden Boot Award and Kahn won the Golden Ball Award.

The German team made it to the final thanks to their solid defense. No one had ever broken through Kahn's goal before.

The Korean team defeated Italy and Spain in the quarter-finals and quarter-finals respectively, and finally made it to the semi-finals. At that time, except for the champion Brazil, the other teams felt the fear of being dominated by the Korean team.

As for the Chinese men's football team, which was participating in the World Cup for the first time, they came here to pay the tuition fee. They did not get a single point in three games. If it were not for Germany's 8-0 victory over Saudi Arabia, the Chinese team would have been at the bottom of the tournament.

In the third and fourth place finals, South Korea lost to Turkey 2 to 3. Song Yi thought that the reason why South Korea did not beat Turkey was because the third place in the World Cup could not stand on the podium, and the difference between the third and fourth place in honor was not big, so Zhou Mengzhun was too lazy to bother.

If the World Cup awards gold, silver and bronze medals like the Olympics, then South Korea will definitely think of using tricks to blackmail Türkiye in order to get the bronze medal.

However, South Korea's move was not without cost. As soon as the World Cup ended, the Italian Football Association ordered all Serie A and Serie B teams to expel South Korean players represented by Ahn Jung-hwan. South Korean players have not appeared in Serie A for more than ten years.

Kim Tae-hee introduced the various parts of the cultural performance next to Song Yi. The first part was "Welcome". After President Zhong Xiaotong announced the opening of the World Cup, more than 400 dancers and wind and percussion orchestras would perform congratulatory dances.

The second part is "communication", the world is eager to communicate and achieve peace. Various drums from all over the world will be used as one of the forms of expression.

Song Yi smiled in his heart. Zhong Xiaotong won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for promoting reconciliation between the North and the South. The director of the opening ceremony was a talent, and Zhong Xiaotong was very comfortable with the flattery.

The third part is "Harmony". From the audience seats at the four corners of the football field, the audience will pull a colored cloth symbolizing harmony to the center of the field. A "Peace Bell" will rise in the center of the cloth, symbolizing peace.

The fourth part is "Sharing", where child representatives from all over the world and performers will gather together to sing "Sangam Arirang", a song adapted from the traditional Korean folk song "Arirang" as the main melody.

Finally, singers from South Korea and Japan will perform, colorful fireworks will be set off around the stadium, and a 202-meter fountain will spray high into the sky. The fireworks and fountains will interweave to create the most brilliant colors in the night sky of Seoul.

After hearing Song Yi's introduction, Liao Yu said to him, "Miao Miao had a chance to be selected for the children's performance at the opening ceremony of the World Cup. I asked Miao Miao if she wanted to participate, but she refused after hearing that she would have to take time off to come to Korea for rehearsal and performance, which might affect her studies."

Song Yi had never heard of this, and the school would definitely not find Song Miao for no reason. Principal Wen and the others had obviously heard of the New Asia Department, so they wanted to do a favor, but Song Miao didn't think much of this performance opportunity.

"It's okay. The 2008 Olympics is Miaomiao's home court. If she is interested in performing arts, she can just participate in the opening ceremony of the Olympics." Song Yi was unwilling to let Song Miao sing the traditional Korean folk song "Arirang".

By 7:30, the opening ceremony had officially begun. The flags of South Korea and Japan were already flying side by side in the stadium, with the South Korean Taegeukgi on the left and the Japanese flag on the right.

The arrangement of the national flag alone has already highlighted the Koreans' careful thinking. In the Confucian cultural circle of East Asia, the left has always been respected.

The official FIFA documentary said that Japan and South Korea jointly hosted the World Cup because Japan applied first and South Korea applied later. So the 2002 World Cup should have been the Japan-Korea World Cup, but South Korea forcibly changed this World Cup into the Korea-Japan World Cup.

The passionate performances of 2,300 actors and actresses presented the oriental charm to the world. The world focused on the yellow and blue traditional Korean costumes, and the Japanese were probably vomiting blood at home.

Because this World Cup was clearly a Japan-Korea World Cup, but the opening ceremony only presented Korean culture. When Korean and Japanese singers performed on stage, the audience couldn't hear their songs clearly.

In Song Yi's opinion, the opening ceremony performance of the Korean team was lackluster. Compared with the magnificent opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games, it was like a firefly competing with the sun and the moon. In the 2008 Olympic Games, China proved to the world who was qualified to represent Eastern culture. 　The World Cup content was basically just a passing mention, and no specific matches were written. Thank you for your monthly tickets 　　 　 (End of this chapter)