2024 was a crucial year for Chinese football as the national team began its campaign for the 2026 World Cup.
It was also the year Chinese fans first started paying serious attention to the five youth training teams playing abroad.
The news had already spread throughout the football community. After all, a team with an average age of less than 14 would hardly make any difference to the national team.
Furthermore, their youth league matches were not broadcast live, so interest remained low, and few paid attention to their games. It wasn't until a video of the goalkeeper went viral that domestic fans became curious about this young team.
However, since the youth league had no live broadcasts even within France, let alone transmitting signals abroad, there was a lack of channels for watching live games.
But after the French youth training team advanced to the C-league, official live broadcasts became available.
These matches were only shown by some local French television stations. Chinese netizens wanting to watch the games could only do so through international online television, and with significant network delays, the viewing experience was terrible.
Fortunately, Jiangnan Group immediately recognized the demand from domestic netizens. After negotiating with the French Football Federation, they acquired the domestic broadcast rights for the French Youth League and the French top league, making them available on their own video platform.
The broadcast rights for youth leagues in four other European countries were also acquired, as Jiangnan Group could not favor one of its own youth training teams over another.
Meanwhile, as the national team predictably suffered repeated defeats in the World Cup qualifiers, many domestic fans lost interest in watching local league or national team matches. Instead, they increasingly turned to watching these youth players online, observing their fierce battles against older opponents.
As time moved into 2023, the average age of all the players reached 15, which is generally the average age for youth leagues. They were no longer at a significant disadvantage in terms of physical strength.
Consequently, the teams from the other four countries also began to achieve more wins than losses. Three of the four countries even occupied the top positions in their leagues, much to the delight of Chinese fans.
The narrative of the national team dominating foreign leagues and topping foreign league tables was something even most wish-fulfillment novels couldn't offer, proving incredibly exhilarating.
However, as the four brother teams rose, the French Chinese youth training team, which had advanced to the C-league earlier, once again found itself in a tough battle.
This was because the average age of the players in this league was around 26, more than ten years older than the average age of their players. Such a significant advantage in physical strength and experience was too much for the young players to handle, and the Chinese youth training team once again experienced the pain of consecutive defeats.
This losing streak lasted for two years, continuing until the start of the new World Cup in 2026.
Naturally, China had no part in this year's World Cup, having been eliminated early in the qualifiers as expected.
However, in 2026, several other major events occurred, diverting the attention of the Chinese public away from this World Cup that had no bearing on them.
The first major event was the successful lunar landing, with astronauts setting foot on the moon's surface, a moment celebrated with immense joy and dancing by countless citizens.
By the end of 2026, China announced a world-shattering achievement: the successful realization of mechanized, inorganic synthesis of starch.
This technology might sound unremarkable at first. Isn't the mechanized production of chemical raw materials a common practice?
But the key issue is that starch is not an ordinary chemical raw material. Starch is an organic compound, yet this technology completely synthesized it using inorganic matter.
This signified that humanity had finally mastered the technology to convert inorganic substances into organic ones.
More importantly, starch is a widely accepted energy source for humans. Under extreme circumstances, humans could sustain themselves by consuming only starch.
In other words, with this technology, even if agriculture were completely destroyed and humanity lost its ability to produce food through farming, people could still obtain vast amounts of food directly through the inorganic starch synthesis technology.
This would free humanity from the predicament of food crises. Any barren region could obtain abundant, cheap starch through this technology, representing a decisive breakthrough in the fundamental structure of the world and a subversive consolidation of the nation's political foundation.
A review of Chinese history over the past two to three thousand years reveals that, apart from instances of foreign invasion, the downfall of Chinese dynasties was largely due to domestic agricultural collapse and the inability of grain production to meet the needs of the entire population. This necessitated large-scale warfare to eliminate a significant portion of the population, thereby initiating a new dynastic cycle.
However, with this technology, there would be no more fear of people starving, and consequently, no more fear of large-scale peasant uprisings. This was truly a world-changing discovery.
In another world, China had already achieved this technological breakthrough back in 2020. However, this technology was only accomplished in laboratories, making large-scale production impossible and the costs prohibitively high.
But the technology introduced in this world in 2026 had solved the problem of mass manufacturing. The production cost was comparable to that of growing potatoes, successfully elevating China's technological future to an entirely new level.
Also, by the end of 2026, as various countries released their GDP data, the United States' GDP for 2026 was 25 trillion US dollars, while China's was 24 trillion US dollars.
The announcement of these figures sent the world into a frenzy.
If one discounts potential data fabrication, China's GDP was virtually on par with that of the US. Based on current economic growth rates, by the end of 2027, China's GDP would at least match the US, with a significant chance of surpassing it.
This implied that the position of the world's largest economy was about to change hands.
After releasing its economic data, China remained quiet, continuing to act with humility. However, confrontations in many areas were now unavoidable. The crisis that Mr. Huang had worked hard to postpone for nearly a decade was now inevitably beginning.
However, due to the influence of certain mythical beasts, the details of this plot cannot be elaborated here. Those who understand will understand.
Consequently, throughout 2027, Jiangnan Group experienced a rare decline in revenue. Most alarmingly, Jiangnan Group began layoffs.
This company had never laid off employees, nor had it ever reduced salaries, for nearly 26 years since Mr. Huang's turnaround. Yet now, Jiangnan Group was implementing layoffs.
But there was no alternative. Unlike the previous situation, which involved only legal disputes, in this instance, certain individuals and financial consortia were openly planning to prey on others.
Furthermore, in the same year, the lawsuit involving Western Wild Horse Fund reached a conclusion. Western Wild Horse Fund and Western Wild Horse Wallet were successfully divided into two separate companies.
Simultaneously, relevant authorities demanded that Jiangnan Group divest over 80% of its shares, retaining only 20% of the related holdings.
At this moment, all the financial consortia revealed their fangs. Since the sale was mandatory, the price was bound to be suppressed to an extremely low level.
They intended to offer only tens of billions of dollars for shares in Western Wild Horse Fund, which were originally valued in the hundreds of billions, aiming to swallow twenty years of Jiangnan Group's operations in one go.