Chapter 48: Confiscation of Japanese Assets

  Thanks to book friend "Fifth Ji's Enemy" (can't type out the arrow symbol ^_^) for his generous reward.

  Moreover, Hangzhou also had a Japanese concession, and there were not a few Japanese residents in the city. In total, there were several thousand people. Hu Weidong, who would later become a collaborator with the invading Japanese army, naturally wouldn't let them off. The special operations regiment of the 15th Red Army quickly entered the Japanese concession, easily annihilating the hundreds of Japanese soldiers and some temporarily organized armed Japanese residents. They then took control of the entire concession. No matter how well-trained the Japanese military was, in street fighting against the special operations regiment of the 15th Red Army, which was equipped with a large number of automatic weapons and had extensive experience in street fighting, they were really at a disadvantage...

  Then, Hu Weidong immediately ordered the identification of Japanese nationals in the city. Those who were reported (including anonymous reports) by Hangzhou citizens and found guilty were executed, while those who were not reported had all their property confiscated, leaving only a month's worth of food for each family as an act of humanity. The most outrageous thing was that Hu Weidong actually "sold" back to the owners the immovable properties that the Red Army could not take away (he originally wanted to sell them off on the spot, but the Hangzhou citizens were afraid of offending the Japanese and refused to buy them even at a low price). He also forced each of them to write an IOU. The Japanese were furious and secretly ridiculed the Chinese for their greed and foolishness, thinking "These Chinese bandits are crazy about money, do they think we will honor these debts in the future? Or can they come to Japan to collect debts from us?" But what they never expected was that a few years later, Hu Weidong really brought his troops to the Japanese island to collect debts...

  As for the technical talents among the Japanese immigrants, Hu Weidong continued his usual practice and took them all away. However, for those who tried to resist or use non-violent non-cooperation, Hu Weidong was not as polite as he was to his compatriots. On the first day alone, he executed more than twenty of them, and in order to "save bullets", they were all beheaded, a method that the Japanese feared the most. As a result, the Japanese immigrants were immediately subdued, after all, although they were also deeply poisoned by militarism, they were just ordinary civilians, and without any chance of winning on their side, they did not have the courage to confront Hu Weidong's army of 100,000.

  Meanwhile, a small episode occurred. The Japanese consul in Hangzhou found Hu Weidong's command and condemned the Red Army for launching an undeclared war, violating international law. Hu Weidong couldn't help but burst out laughing upon hearing this, and calmly told him a fact that few people knew in the Nationalist-controlled areas: "Our Soviet government declared war on Japan as early as 1932, shortly after Japan invaded our northeastern provinces, so you and I are now in a state of war..."

  The Japanese consul was stunned, and from Hu Weidong's expression, it didn't seem like he was deceiving him. So, apparently the Nanjing government had blocked the news. However, although the Japanese consul cursed Old Chiang countless times in his heart, for a moment, he couldn't think of any way to maintain Japan's interests in Hangzhou...

  Logically, when overseas Chinese are robbed and murdered, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs should protest to the Chinese government and demand compensation. However, this time the other party is an opponent of the Nanjing government. If Japan really did that, it would have damaged the prestige of the Nanjing government to some extent, wouldn't that be helping the Red Army instead?

  "Perhaps the Japanese said that after their defeat, they lost assets worth $2 billion in China (meaning that these assets were enough to compensate for war reparations, but this is obviously unreasonable, how can reparations be mixed with looted goods?), and it's not all an exaggeration...", Hu Weidong muttered to himself as he looked at the list of confiscated Japanese assets, the total value of just the hard currency and easily liquidated goods exceeded $5 million, while the number of antiques, paintings and other such items was countless. Additionally, Hu Weidong also held IOUs representing the value of those immovable properties, totaling no less than $30 million...

  Originally, Hu Weidong still hoped to dig out some Han traitors through the Japanese confessions and increase the results of the confiscation, but there were not many Han traitors in Hangzhou (even if they wanted to rely on foreign powers, Jiangnan would generally rely on England and America, and the influence of the little Japan was limited). Moreover, most of them had already been eliminated unintentionally during Hu Weidong's purge of the wealthy, so the gains from confiscating the private property of Han traitors were relatively limited, adding up to only a few hundred thousand taels. Now Hu Weidong's appetite has also grown, and he no longer looks down on this small amount of money...

  Apart from the Japanese, there were also other foreigners in Hangzhou, especially those financial institutions that were still very profitable. Their attitude towards the Red Army was generally quite hostile. Hu Weidong, who had become accustomed to plundering, unconsciously thought of "taking them down as well". However, considering the impending war, it was not possible to make too many enemies, and what the Red Army truly lacked was industrial production capacity, not money. If they were to offend the Western powers now, it would be even more difficult to obtain machinery and equipment in the future. In the end, Hu Weidong swallowed his anger, but he wouldn't be polite to those who dared to use force or "harbor fugitives". As a result, those Westerners, who had been proudly holding their heads high like roosters, were all subdued. Hu Weidong couldn't help but think of the incident where they bombarded the "Purple Stone English" during the later period of the Liberation War and sighed, "These foreigners are indeed bullies who take advantage of the weak and fear the strong!"

  Although the harvest was not small, a large part of it was something that the Red Fifteenth Army could not take away. The real estate and other immovable properties were already gone, and the large number of ancient artifacts confiscated were like chicken ribs to the Red Fifteenth Army, which often had to march for a long time. If they took them on the road, not only would they be useless, but most of them would also be destroyed in the war. At that time, Hu Weidong would have been scolded by the cultural circles at home. Therefore, Hu Weidong could only choose to dispose of them locally as much as possible. Fortunately, these things were not like real estate and could be bought anonymously and hidden away. There were still many merchants who were willing to buy them, but because the number of goods sold at one time was too large, Hu Weidong only wanted gold, silver, and other hard currencies, and foreign exchange only accepted pounds and dollars with strong purchasing power. The price was simply pitiful. In the end, together with the Red Fifteenth Army's other goods and the hard currency they had obtained, the total value was approximately 30 million yuan. During this time, Hu Weidong suddenly remembered the "Silver Crisis" in history and realized that this year was a peak in the world silver price for a relatively long period of time. In addition, silver was heavier, so Hu Weidong exchanged most of it for gold and pounds through Western banks in Hangzhou. Although he had to give up some of the difference to those greedy foreigners, after all, the main force of the Red Army was still in the city, and those vampires did not dare to be too black. At the end of 1935, the silver price plummeted, and Hu Weidong made a profit of nearly twice the amount of silver. Unfortunately, he had saved this money to purchase equipment abroad, so its only effect was to avoid losses.