"What do you mean the parade is going to start in Guangzhou? How hard do you want to bankrupt the economy?"

Yuqi stood up at the dining table in front of everyone, her face full of anger as she couldn''t believe what Xiaoyun had just mentioned.

"It shouldn''t cost that much that much. It''s just still happening in a single day——"

"It''s not as simple as adding a location. Do you know how much disruption this causes to businesses?

Hell, we will have to pay for police to work overtime to maintain security when resources in Guangzhou are already stretched thin."

The dining room fell into silence as Xiaoyun didn''t really have a way to argue back.

He knew Yuqi was right, as he had seen the document himself regarding the financial side of the government.

It was on the edge of bankruptcy, with constant borrowed spending and a raised looting tax to compensate for all his military campaigns.

"Unless you come up with some way of funding it, I''m not spending any more resources on this."

After a short delay, Xiaoyun accepted the challenge.

"Fine, I''ll get the money to show up in the office by the end of tomorrow... I''m going to continue with this no matter what."

As the awkward atmosphere broke between the two, Leyan decided to chime in.

"Okay, okay, enough work talk. It''s dinner time..."

---

The next day.

As Xiaoyun woke up early in the morning, he immediately freshened up and headed straight to the administrative building.

Next, he headed inside the financial department and began evaluating the exact number he was dealing with.

From the police budget having to call the entire police force to be active to the Department of Internal Security in Guangzhou needing to work extra, the cost was rapidly plying up.

"I need at least 500,000 food stamps for this..." Xiaoyun murmured as he finally finished calculating the cost of adding Guangzhou to the parade.

With the exact number captured, Xiaoyun headed over to the biggest newspaper outlet in Luoping.

It was the Luoping''s Daily, which had consolidated many of the newspaper businesses by flat-out buying their competitors.

He even remembers hearing Yueyue discuss it in one of her stories about potential monopoly changes that were recently implemented.

However, it never ended up being enforced, as almost every single newspaper company was running at a massive loss.

Located in the middle of the commercial zone, it was already open for business, as stacks of paper had already been printed and delivered to people''s houses and businesses.

"Hello, can I talk to your boss for a second?" Xiaoyun asked one of the workers.

"Who are you——M-Mr.Mayor!"

The worker immediately dropped his stack of newspapers onto the table before running up to Xiaoyun with a note card and a pen.

"Please, can you give me a signature? I''m your biggest fan," the worker pleaded as he handed the document over to Xiaoyun.

"Um, sure."

"Oh hey, Mr.Mayor."

The head of the central bank, Liuqian, was just coincidently about to enter the building for work.

"Liuqian, I need your help."

"What is it?" Liuqian curiously asked as the two entered the bank before going inside his office.

Xiaoyun started explaining his idea of a war bond, which didn''t surprise Liuqian a single bit.

"I understand, sir. I''ll have it running within an hour... But are you sure of a 5% return after three months?

Isn''t that a little too high for that short of a time? I think 3.5% after six months might be more reasonable." Liuqian suggested after listening.

"No, keep it at 5% for three months. Any longer, people are starting to worry that they might not get their investment back."

Liuqian nodded in agreement as he began typing a letter to be sent to all bank branches.

"Mr.Mayor, do you want a limit on how much people can buy and a total cap for the war bond?"

Xiaoyun shook his head, as he wanted to raise as much money as possible to be used for his future campaign in Guangdong.

"Okay, it''s done, sir. People will be able to buy war bonds at all the bank tellers now."

"Thank you."

Just as Xiaoyun was about to leave, Liuqian suddenly suggested something.

"Mr. Mayor, you might want to come out with a new currency at some point."

"Why? Is there something wrong with the food stamps?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"No, there''s nothing wrong with it. But it''s kind of weird to call money food stamps, don''t you think?"

Xiaoyun fell into silence as Liuqian was right about his point. Luoping was way past the point of using food stamps as currency.

Even though several interventions were already in place to prevent fraud on food stamps, the label of food stamps has always been the most important.

"I''ll think about it."

Just as he stepped foot outside Liuqian''s office, a few people were already there with stacks of briefcases.

"I want to buy as many war bonds with this as possible," one of the customers said as he opened the briefcase.

The bank teller immediately began putting the food stamp into the money counter as she manually selected several of the stamps to check for fraud.

As Xiaoyun continued walking towards the exit, he could see more and more people going inside the bank, all buying bonds.

"Geez, how are people this fast already?" Xiaoyun murmured as he finally walked past the crowds.

"You didn''t know? People had been lining up since the news dropped." One of the strangers overheard Xiaoyun''s murmuring.

"Really? That fast?"

"Hell yeah, it''s free money. If I never get it back, then Luoping will probably be gone at that point.

There would be no point in holding onto the money anyway. I might as well invest all my spare money."

Xiaoyun nodded in agreement as he put himself into the stranger''s perspective.

"Thank you for buying war bonds," Xiaoyun stated before heading back to the administrative office.