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Chapter 1182: Chapter 1040: Antitrust Investigation (Please Subscribe!)
December 8th.
Friday.
As soon as school let out in the afternoon.
Tang Qing and Lin Jiaxue hurried to the airport.
Tomorrow was the day of the "2006 Huaxia Enterprise Leaders Annual Meeting", and Tang Qing had been invited as a guest. He planned to head over tonight, as he would definitely not make it to the opening ceremony the next day due to Beijing’s morning congestion.
Traveling with him.
Were Lin Jiaxue’s three roommates.
The next two days were the weekend.
Tang Qing had originally planned to let Lin Jiaxue stay in Shanghai, to have her three friends accompany her shopping, but after a discussion among the girls, they decided to explore Beijing while Tang Qing attended the meeting.
After all, the fixed cost of flying an airplane was set in stone.
Adding a few more people wouldn’t increase the cost.
Nor would having fewer people decrease it.
At six-thirty.
They arrived at the airport.
The Gulfstream had already arrived in Shanghai and was parked in a special area.
After passing security.
They took the special passageway.
And soon.
Tang Qing saw the Gulfstream G550 which he had almost smacked onto the ground a few days ago — the blue and white undercoat looked a bit like a commercial passenger plane, without any offbeat full body paint job.
Tang Qing thought simplicity was better.
Moreover, changing the airplane’s paint required going back to the original company, which was quite a hassle.
"Wow, so beautiful!"
Ning Jing ran over, touching the smooth fuselage, exclaiming in admiration.
"Of course, in RMB, it’s at least two hundred million, right?" Zeng Rou turned her head to look at Tang Qing.
"About that."
After admiring its appearance.
They boarded the plane.
The clean, luxurious interior once again amazed the girls; they touched this and looked at that.
"Everyone sit down and fasten your seatbelts, we’re about to take off," Tang Qing said, checking his watch and speaking to the girls.
The Shanghai airport was very busy. Although they could delay their parking a bit longer, arranging for takeoff needed to follow a sequence. Missing this round meant waiting at least half an hour for the next opportunity. 𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙥𝒖𝒃.𝙘𝙤𝒎
Tang Qing pulled Lin Jiaxue to sit down with him.
The airplane started to move.
"...So slow."
Tang Qing grimaced.
He liked to accelerate quickly when flying planes, even treating it like drag racing on the ground, playing with sharp turns just as he did driving on expressways, even flying sideways inside urban areas of the training area.
This kind of ’standard flight.’
And looking at the various planes taking off and landing around them, Tang Qing even wanted to replace the pilot and show off his skills. But if he did that, the pilot would probably lose his job.
The plane moved onto the runway.
The jet engine roared as it expelled high-speed airflow, pushing the plane to accelerate, and in just over three hundred meters, the nose was pointed toward the blue sky. Such high-end models didn’t require long runways.
Both takeoff and landing could be completed over relatively short distances.
It was mainly because the plane was relatively light.
Those large passenger planes needed much longer runways to take off.
"We’ve taken off, this is my first time on this kind of plane. When I went to Europe, I only rode in their sightseeing helicopter, which wasn’t too great," Zeng Rou said as she took continuous pictures with her camera, following the rule not to photograph Tang Qing and Lin Jiaxue.
Once the plane was flying smoothly.
They unfastened their seatbelts.
And moved freely around the cabin.
"Tang Qing, what are you thinking about?" Zeng Rou asked when she saw Tang Qing gazing out the window as if lost in thought.
"Thinking about flying the plane," Tang Qing said offhandedly.
Zeng Rou snorted with a smirk. "Right, if you were flying the plane, we’d all have to parachute out."
"...Let’s pretend I didn’t say anything."
This skill, it’s better not to show off and scare others.
...
Approaching Beijing Airport.
"Ladies and gentlemen, due to the busy air traffic at Beijing Airport, the airplane cannot land for now, and we need to circle above while waiting for the terminal to arrange for our landing," the captain announced over the intercom.
"Can’t land?"
"That’s normal. Beijing Airport is so busy, it’s a hub for domestic and international flights, and since our flight is ’unscheduled,’ of course we’ll encounter this," Zeng Rou said indifferently.
"What if there’s not enough fuel?" Gu Man worriedly asked.
After she had asked,
several women turned to look at Tang Qing.
Tang Qing had no choice but to explain, "Don’t worry, this airplane’s range can go directly from Shanghai to Washington. The fuel capacity is large, and there’s absolutely no problem flying for another seven or eight hours."
If one considers the improved efficiency of the engines,
this airplane could easily fly until tomorrow morning.
"Look how beautiful Beijing looks at night, full of bright lights," Gu Man turned her gaze towards the window. The airplane couldn’t enter the city’s airspace, but they could see the glistening urban area of Beijing in the distance.
Sitting on the other side, Ning Jing leaned over, "Let me see, oh wow, really pretty, Sister Zeng, take a photo, quick!"
Zeng Rou immediately took a few shots.
"I remember just a couple of years ago in Beijing, during winter you wouldn’t be able to see this sight at all, it was always hazy. Seems like the filters are effective now, even the gases from the boilers have been filtered."
Winter in the North and the South.
The biggest difference lies in the heating.
Throughout the winter, the North relies on burning coal for warmth. Once coal is burned, the sky becomes filled with haze. Coupled with the emissions from cars, it results in most cities in the North having ’polluted’ air quality in the winter,
with many experiencing ’severe pollution.’
At the beginning of last month, Beijing began its heating season, but now there is no hint of the smog that heating causes.
Ning Jing said, "These filters are amazing. I wonder how much money that company made."
"At least several billion, right?"
"I’m not sure. Tang Qing, do you know?" Zeng Rou asked, turning to Tang Qing, thinking he, being the tycoon with extensive connections, might know more and might be privy to such secrets.
"What?"
"That filter company, how much money did they make?"
Tang Qing rolled his eyes, "I don’t belong to that company, how would I know."
"That makes sense."
The women continued to enjoy the night sky over Beijing.
Speaking of how much the filter company made,
Tang Qing couldn’t provide an exact number, because their sales were still growing. Currently, developed Western countries have all introduced zero-emission policies, mandating gas-emitting factories to install filters.
Afterwards,
proposals to fit vehicles with filters were being passed in various countries as well.
There’s no way around it.
Public opinion cannot be ignored.
But the power of capital is also tremendous. In the end, those countries and the major car manufacturers reached an agreement, just like in Huaxia, to set a date by which all new cars going to market must be fitted with filters.
This finally made the environmentalists back down.
Is everything wonderful then?
Clearly not.
Because the filters have triggered ’antitrust laws’ in Western countries, and with the surge in filter sales, many countries have launched antitrust investigations into them.
The United States.
The European Union.
Even some smaller countries are joining in the fray. The situation has become quite noisy, and the instigator, Tang Qing, is aware that the major car companies are behind these manipulations, with the goal, of course, of causing trouble for the Myanmar Environmental Technology Company.
Because they are compelled to purchase filters.
Of course, they are not pleased.
However,
Tang Qing is not worried.
There are no precedents where a monopoly has definitively resulted in a legal defeat.
Otherwise,
Microsoft would have been split up by the United States Government long ago.
