The Financial Real-Name System, Part 2
“You’ve all gone silent as if someone stuffed honey in your mouths.”
Kim A-ra leaned forward, interlacing her fingers.
“I suppose the situation still hasn’t sunk in, so I’ll explain it again. With the implementation of the Financial Real-Name System, every anonymous account and hidden shareholding held by Chairman Kim Yang-han has been frozen.
And that means opportunity.”
“Chairwoman, what exactly do you mean by that…?”
“Exactly what I said. Ignore the frozen hidden and anonymous holdings of the Kim family, and let’s convert JD Group into an independently managed corporation.”
Kim A-ra’s gaze swept over the presidents.
“Now that a large portion of the Kim family’s holdings have lost their voting rights, who do you think actually holds the real power in this hollowed-out share structure?”
Silence.
No one answered. More precisely, no one dared.
“It’s us. You and me.”
Without waiting for a response, Kim A-ra went on.
“The core of JD Group’s control is the corporate-owned stock each affiliate holds to dominate the others. And the voting rights attached to those shares are exercised by the people sitting in this room right now—by you, the chief executive officers of each company.”
The magic of circular cross-holdings, where less than two percent of actual ownership could control an entire conglomerate.
Under normal circumstances, that final controller would have been Kim Mun—Kim Yang-han—but with the sudden enforcement of the real-name system, everything had been turned upside down.
“So if everyone here agrees,” Kim A-ra’s clear voice rang through the conference room, “then from this moment on, we can run the group without any interference.”
“Chairwoman! What nonsense is this?”
The one who shot to his feet was the president of JD Materials.
Kim A-ra let out a small sigh as she looked at him.
But the man looked as though he had no intention of listening.
“Everything we have is due to the Kim family’s grace and the arrangements made by Jangdong! And now you’re telling us to stab them in the back? I can never agree to that! No, no one here can agree!”
He looked around, appealing for support. A few of the other presidents nodded faintly, reluctantly, or else averted their eyes.
“President of Materials.”
“Yes, Chairwoman?”
“I rushed over here in a hurry, so I seem to have forgotten one thing.”
Kim A-ra checked her watch with leisurely composure.
“It should be arriving by now.”
“What…?”
At that very moment—
Bang!
The conference room door flew open, and military police in combat uniforms along with men in black suits stormed inside.
They were from the Joint Investigation Headquarters.
This time, even JD Group didn’t try to stop them.
“Joint Investigation Headquarters.”
The lead investigator’s voice was ice.
The JD Materials president went pale.
“W-Why is the Joint Investigation Headquarters here? I’ve done nothing wrong! Maybe the executives who were taken in before were connected to Song Hak-su’s file, but why me? Why!”
The investigator answered without the slightest movement.
“We have matters to investigate regarding a gold export case handled by JD Materials. Come with us.”
“What?”
The president’s eyes shook as if an earthquake had struck them.
They had laundered the illicit gold gathered during the grand national gold-collection campaign, then secretly shipped out even the small bits they’d skimmed off under the name of overcoming the national crisis, making a handsome profit in the process.
For them, it was nothing unusual.
But—
“An arrest warrant has been issued on charges of market manipulation, illegal foreign exchange transactions, and concealment of criminal proceeds.”
“T-This is just ordinary corporate practice! And it’s an economic matter, isn’t it? Why is the Joint Investigation Headquarters, which is supposed to be handling sedition cases, digging through corporate export ledgers? Why the hell is the Joint Investigation Headquarters involved!”
“The Joint Investigation Headquarters has jurisdiction over major crimes that threaten national security and public order. Deliberately stirring foreign-exchange chaos in a time like this and draining the country’s wealth amounts, in effect, to subversion and the crippling of state functions.”
The Materials president was handcuffed in an instant. This was the same Joint Investigation Headquarters that had already fired live rounds.
There weren’t many people who could resist a situation like this.
Kim A-ra smiled faintly at the stiff-faced presidents.
“Well then, now that the nuisance is gone, shall we return to the main topic?”
Her voice was so sweet it was chilling.
“We’ll fill the Materials president’s vacancy soon enough. For now, let’s proceed with the JD Group independence I just mentioned, using the circular cross-holding structure.”
At Kim A-ra’s cue, her secretaries moved.
One by one, documents were placed before the presidents, who sat as though bound hand and foot and unable to move.
“Does anyone object?”
Silence.
Not one person opened his mouth. Had they not just seen the razor-edged blade of the Joint Investigation Headquarters in front of their eyes? If they opposed her here, it was obvious they would be next.
“...I agree.”
Swallowing hard, the president of JD Electronics was the first to answer in a voice so small it nearly disappeared.
“I-I agree too.”
“I’m in favor, Chairwoman.”
Like dominoes toppling, voices of surrender followed one after another.
“Good.”
Kim A-ra turned with a satisfied smile.
“As of today, our JD Group will break completely free of Jangdong’s shadow. Move as quickly as possible on the shareholders’ meeting and the board resolution. The legal procedures have already been prepared perfectly by the legal team, so all you need to do is sign.”
There was no other choice.
The presidents picked up their pens with trembling hands and began signing their names one by one.
“You’ve all done well.”
Once the work was done, Kim A-ra clapped her hands cheerfully.
“You may all leave now. You’ve made a wise choice.”
Only then did the presidents, finally able to breathe again, hurry out of the conference room. Their foreheads were slick with cold sweat.
When the room had emptied out, Kim A-ra sank back into the plush leather chair alone.
“Haah…”
A long sigh slipped from her lips. The scene from the meeting still flickered through her mind.
“Pathetic creatures.”
Kim A-ra muttered coldly.
The presidents of conglomerates competing for the number one and two spots in the business world were a pathetic sight indeed.
Ordinary people praised them as successful businessmen and looked up to them, but what Kim A-ra saw when she looked at them was…
“All of them made it to the top of one company or another,”
she said irritably, rustling through the documents the secretaries had compiled.
“And they still act like they’re some scholarship boy begging for scraps at Kim Mun’s guest quarters.”
They had come this far, and still they were trembling like aspen leaves in the shadow of Kim Yang-han.
No matter how expensive the suit or how flashy the imported car, they still couldn’t shed the slave mentality carved into their bones.
“With nerves that weak, tsk.”
She clicked her tongue and shook her head.
For those fools who still wanted to cling to Kim Yang-han’s trouser leg until the very end, shock therapy was necessary to wash out their fear of Jangdong.
They were such pathetic creatures that only a blade pressed to the throat would force them to understand the situation and let go of Kim Mun.
By now they should know who their real backer was.
“As expected… there’s no man like His Majesty.”
The moment she said it—
“...?!“
Kim A-ra’s face twisted, and she raised both hands.
Smack!
Then she slapped her own cheek hard.
I’ve lost my mind.
She’d barely secured the thing she’d been chasing all this time, and already she was spouting nonsense. Who knew what kind of sly old serpent he was underneath that face?
Forcibly calming her pounding heart, she snapped the document folder shut. They’d only joined forces for a moment because their interests happened to align.
Just as he had used me as a pawn, I used him to take JD Group into my hands.
Yes. This is merely respect for a capable business partner.
Once she had neatly sorted that out, her face returned to the blank expression so much like Kim Yang-han’s.
But…
“What an unbearable man.”
Kim A-ra said, suppressing the smile threatening to rise to her lips.
Dangerous.
Of course, the feeling of taking JD Group for herself was beyond words—exhilarating, almost unreal.
But the job wasn’t finished yet, and already she was loosening up and letting stray thoughts creep in. That was no use at all.
To keep her head straight, she needed work. She needed to keep fighting her opponent.
“Chairwoman, where would you like to go after work today?”
At Secretary Cheon’s question, Kim A-ra answered in a cold voice.
“Jangdong.”
* * *
“The collateral ratio is far too low! At this rate, we’ll be liquidated!”
“Save every account we can save, by any means necessary!”
“Verification documents? Hey, how many accounts do you think we’re managing right now? You want us to submit all of that?”
While the underlings rushed around in a frenzy, Kim Yang-han sat in the inner residence, sipping tea with outward calm.
But anyone with a sharp eye would have noticed the faint tremor at his fingertips around the teacup.
Then the secretary general, who had been scrambling about, along with the household retainers, entered the inner quarters.
“Chairman, our capabilities have reached their limit.”
At that painfully honest answer, Kim Yang-han was left speechless.
Prepared to be rebuked, the secretary general cautiously spoke again.
“You’ll have to… speak to them directly. If it’s your words, they’ll listen, won’t they?”
With a hardened expression, he picked up the telephone himself.
The recipients were the bureaucrats and bank presidents Kim Mun had fattened up on money.
He normally wouldn’t involve himself in matters like this, but there was no choice now.
This was a bomb too heavy for the underlings to carry alone.
“This is Kim Yang-han speaking.”
[...]
But the people who would normally have bowed and fawned the moment they heard his name had nothing to say.
Then again, Kim Yang-han had no time to waste either.
“There’s some money that needs to move quickly. Can you open a detour?”
[C-Chairman... I’m sorry.]
[We truly can’t do anything about it.]
[It’s not somewhere else—it's the Imperial Household and the military overseeing it. They say it’s an imperial order, but there’s no arguing with them at all.]
[beep— beep—]
Click.
Every person he called fumbled and stammered, only to say there was nothing they could do.
Before the emperor’s razor-sharp blade, even the Kim family’s authority had lost its shine.
Kim Yang-han clenched his teeth and slammed the receiver down.
When in his life had he ever suffered such humiliation?
Everyone had listened to him.
“And the governor of the Financial Supervisory Service?”
“Contact has been cut off. There are rumors the Joint Investigation Headquarters has begun an internal inquiry…”
The emperor had, in one stroke, frozen the Gyeonghwa Noble Families’ arteries of money, even at the cost of relinquishing the Imperial Household’s enormous funds.
There was no way an ordinary man could have pulled off a move like this… It would be more accurate to call it madness.
Kim Yang-han’s eyes wavered.
“Broadcasting.”
His voice dropped into a growl.
He had already decided the campaign of fear around the Financial Real-Name System could no longer be stopped, so he’d tried to divert the flood by maximizing public panic among ordinary people and buying at least a little time.
But the very JD Broadcast that should have been airing the special report—
The subordinate delivering the report began sweating profusely and hesitated.
“That… is…”
“Why are you dragging this out?”
“The tone is… praising the emperor’s decision instead.”
[Wiping out corrupt capital! Thanks to His Majesty’s decisive action, the market is regaining stability. Along with the Korea-U.S. currency swap agreement, optimism continues to build in the markets, and stocks and exchange rates are undergoing a dramatic reversal…]
“Hah.”
A breath of disbelief slipped from Kim Yang-han’s lips.
JD Group had slipped entirely out of his control. The directive issued by Kim Mun had been ignored.
“And that’s not all. President Yun of Materials has also been taken in by the Joint Investigation Headquarters. And… at the presidents’ meeting…”
Kim Yang-han narrowed his eyes.
There was only one person who could have done this.
His daughter.
“Chairman, Miss Kim has arrived to pay her respects.”
Kim A-ra.