However, to resolutely implement the requirement of divesting equity proposed by the Supreme Court, and also fearing that large-scale share trading might trigger market fluctuations, these shares have a non-tradable period of about three years. The citizens who signed for shares could only receive annual dividends but were not allowed to trade their shares until the three-year period expired.
After Swift Jr., surrounded by thousands of Black brethren, read out this statement to the cameras of reporters from all over the world, the citizens of the entire M Nation rejoiced. After all, who wouldn't be happy to receive $2,000 worth of stocks for free?
Consequently, the online signing portal for the Western Mustang Fund was overwhelmed by the surging public, almost crashing. Fortunately, the Jiangnan Group was well-prepared and specially allocated a large amount of data resources to the Western Mustang Fund. Therefore, even though 4 million citizens signed up simultaneously, the servers still managed to hold steady, successfully ensuring that almost all citizens completed their online signing in the first instance, directly becoming shareholders of the Western Mustang Fund.
The four major consortiums were also flabbergasted by this move from the Jiangnan Group. They had never imagined that the Jiangnan Group would employ such a scorched-earth strategy, directly giving away all their stocks to the citizens of the United States. How were they supposed to respond?
Originally, according to the previously agreed-upon countermeasures, if the Jiangnan Group dared to disobey, they would directly have the Supreme Court freeze all the shares. But now, who would dare to freeze them?
Whoever froze the shares would be seen as infringing upon the collective interests of the 332 million citizens of the United States, and the M Nation's Supreme Court would likely be stormed. Moreover, the entire process was lawful, with the online signing legal clauses designed to be extremely precise, completely circumventing all legal aspects. The Supreme Court couldn't find any law or regulation that gave them the authority to freeze the shares.
"Then stop the online signing for now!" Morgan Consortium, which had previously claimed to have everything under control, was the first to erupt in anger. However, he also proposed a relatively feasible solution: to stop the online signing first.
After all, only a few million citizens had successfully signed up online so far. As long as the online signing could be stopped, it would be equivalent to freezing these shares.
This suggestion was immediately endorsed by the four major consortiums. They promptly contacted the relevant network management departments and demanded that they directly suspend the online signing portal for the Western Mustang Fund.
As a result, after a full day, the portal was still not shut down. The four major consortiums angrily sent people to question them, only to be politely told by a low-level technician from the network department that these matters were going through the proper procedures and would likely be approved in about ten days to half a month.
This answer almost made the four major consortiums vomit blood. However, they were still very efficient and directly brought in the minister to take personal charge, completing all the procedures within ten minutes.
The result was another day passing with no action.
Angered, the four major consortiums once again went to question them, and the minister, with a helpless expression, stated, "Although I have approved the relevant procedures, such matters still require specialized technical personnel. However, the technician responsible for this matter in the network department is currently on vacation in Hawaii. It will take at least 2-3 days for him to fly back."
"Can't he remotely operate to shut it down?" a representative from Morgan Consortium roared.
"That's truly not possible. Our department's computers have very strict security protections. The person must personally return to the administration bureau and use an authorized computer within the bureau to shut it down. Therefore, until this programmer, who was hastily called back from his vacation, returns, it is impossible to shut down this online signing network interface."
So, the four major consortiums directly dispatched a private jet to bring back this damned programmer. After the programmer fumbled through a series of operations, he discovered that it had no effect. The Western Mustang Fund's online signing interface was still working. In the past two days, over 22 million people had completed their online signing and received a share certificate from the Western Mustang Fund.
"What are you good for? Why can't you handle such a simple task!" the director of the administration bureau and the representatives of the Morgan Consortium present angrily questioned the administrator.
"I don't know how, I really don't know how to shut down the network gateway!" The programmer, who had rushed back from Hawaii, was completely distraught. He knelt on the ground and cried, "How would I know how to shut down the network gateway? I paid $100,000 to get into university, and I never learned anything about network gateways in school. My uncle is a senior representative at Goldman Sachs Bank, and he arranged for me to work here."
"When I started, my supervisor told me that I would basically have no work to do on a daily basis and that I could just pawn off all the work to that old bull in the office."
"But this old bull had a fight with the supervisor a few days ago and was fired in anger by the supervisor. Now that a new old bull hasn't arrived, how am I supposed to know how to operate these damn network gateways!" he said with a mournful face, leaving everyone speechless with his answer.
At the same time, many people present began to mentally calculate how many relatives and friends they had arranged to work in various companies, and the resulting numbers were quite touching.
"Fortunately, I didn't push anyone into working as a programmer!" these people also lamented in their hearts.
"Then tell me now, how exactly can we shut down the Western Mustang Fund's online signing gateway!" a representative asked helplessly.
"So I found that old bull who has already resigned. Only he understands these things. He used to do it, and I know nothing."
Well, next, these people could only continue to rack their brains to find that old bull.
Fortunately, the four major consortiums had truly astonishing influence in the M Nation. It only took them three days to find the former programmer, who had gone to a farm to raise cattle in a fit of pique.
After promising substantial benefits, the programmer returned to the department, operated the computer with a few rapid keystrokes, and then declared that he had successfully shut down the Western Mustang Fund's network gateway.
The representatives tried it and found that the online signing page had indeed lost its network connection, and they nodded with satisfaction.
However, by this time, a full 5 days had passed since the Western Mustang Fund publicly offered free shares. More than 68 million M Nation citizens had successfully completed their online signing and obtained a share.
But before everyone could celebrate their great victory, the online signing page, which had lost its network connection, surprisingly resumed normal operation just three minutes later, allowing online signing to continue.
Sensing the murderous gazes from the scoundrels behind him, the former programmer quickly resumed his work and, after a frantic flurry of typing on the computer, shook his head and said, "It's useless. They have enabled a new gateway address. We can no longer shut down this gateway!"
"This is possible!" the director of the administration bureau exclaimed first. "All network gateway permissions in the M Nation are in our hands. How could there be a gateway that we cannot shut down?"
"Because this gateway is not in the country, but abroad!" the programmer said with a wry smile. "This gateway is a Chinese domestic gateway address, merely being used by our domestic users. Didn't you notice that when using this new gateway for signing, the network response speed is slower by several seconds? This is because communication has to travel tens of thousands of kilometers away and then come back."
"..." Everyone was rendered speechless. Indeed, China's networks were not under their jurisdiction, and they could not control them.
"Then can we directly cut off the network connection with China?" the director proposed a constructive opinion.
"Then you can expect one-third of the nation's netizens to be paralyzed!" the technician shrugged. "We cannot cut off these network connections."
"Forget it, stop being so indecisive. Let's just cut it physically!" a Morgan representative could no longer stand it. "You send people to pull out all the network cables near the Western Mustang Fund headquarters. Then let's see how they get online!"
"Good idea!" So the director immediately arranged for local network maintenance workers to pull the network cables. However, it happened to be a Saturday, and the relevant staff were on rest. They directly shut down their work terminals.
Therefore, the entire team had to wait another two days for the maintenance workers to return to work and pull the network cables for the Western Mustang Fund. By then, over 100 million M Nation citizens had successfully signed up online.
But the problem was that even after pulling the network cables, the online signing page remained active and in normal operation, driving the person in charge to the brink of collapse.
Later, they learned that the Western Mustang Fund had long anticipated such a outcome. They had also prepared a high-power space signal receiver, and the Zhou Tian Xing Chen Plan had specifically dispatched 10 satellites to hover over the Kiby Mustang Fund. They were directly using satellite internet for network communication, rendering pulling network cables useless; they would have to pull the power cords instead.
Of course, the Western Mustang Fund also had its own power generators.