The Famous Millionaire

After parting with Cholgyu, Hyunwoo headed straight to the Blue House, the presidential office. He already made an appointment with President Ha inside his personal helicopter. The President gladly agreed to meet him.

“Thanks for canceling other appointments to meet me, Mr. President.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Jang. By the way, why did you so emphasize the security of our meeting?”

Only then did Hyunwoo lower his voice and said, “Some higher-ups in North Korea are now planning a coup. If that revolution succeeds, they want me to support them financially.”

Mr. Ha was stunned to hear that.

There were always rumors about coups in North Korea. In particular, such rumors got around wildly since the Kim Jungun regime took office. And that’s why its leader Kim Jongun carried out merciless executions.

But there had been no specific coup movements exposed like this.

The fact that they had informed Hyunwoo about their plan meant that their action was around the corner.

Hyunwoo continued, “They said if the revolution succeeded, they would be willing to accept the unification formula presented by South Korea. If that’s true, isn’t it a golden chance to bring about the unification?”

The President opened his eyes wider at that.

“Let me increase our spies inside North Korea. Just in case they start the coup, we should be ready to help them.”

Hyunwoo nodded his head and said, “Above all, we should keep it secret, Mr. President. We should not make them get caught even before they start the coup if we act recklessly.”

“Of course. This is something only you and a few others in the government including me should know.”

***

Jahwa Solar Cell became a hot seller as the research head of STM Research Center predicted.

Before Jahwa Solar Cell was developed, the solar energy market was estimated at 50 GW. In today’s Korean currency, it was 40 trillion won.

As the return on the investment was low because of the low electricity from solar energy, there were few investors.

Everybody felt solar energy cell was something that the government had to take care of.

But Jahwa Solar Cell changed the people’s fixed idea on this.

Hyunwoo kept building solar cell factories. In three years after Jahwa solar cells were developed, Hyunwoo’s solar business exceeded the existing world solar energy market of 50GW.

Hyunwoo planned to increase the annual solar energy production for next year to 100GW, but the demands for solar energy was so high that even the projected increase would not be enough.

Thanks to the spectacular growth of the solar energy market, the construction of nuclear power plants around the world stopped immediately. They had no reason to continue the construction when there was an alternative energy source like solar cells that boasted of high safety and pollution-free electricity.

Hyunwoo applied the use of Jahwa solar cells to cars, ships and airplanes. He directed the research staff on a secret project called the M Project the moment they succeeded in developing Jahwa Solar Cell.

And two years ago they completed the M project in the car sector. They produced a new concept car whose body was covered with Jahwa Solar cells so that such cars could indefinitely run during the day without charging.

He also pulled off a great success in the area of model airplanes. Jahwa solar cells were used not only in the delivery system equipped with an automatic piloting system but also in monitoring road conditions and scanning the terrain.

Samryong Motors and STM continued to generate huge profits by producing innovative products. Ani & Funny emerged as the most popular animation leader in the world.

KOVE DREAM rolled on, with its rival competitors beginning to drop from the race when they couldn’t retrieve the return on their huge investments.

In particular, his overseas business in Bangladesh also made a smash hit.

It was already six years since the Biotech Engineering Center succeeded in developing coconut mangroves.

As a result, Hyunwoo heavily invested in creating a massive coconut mangrove forest along the coasts of Bangladesh, and they reaped the first harvest recently at last.

Upon hearing the good news, Hyunwoo flew to Bangladesh right away.

Mr. Arief, the local head of his mangrove business, presented the coconut and said,

“This is the first coconut that we harvested from the mangrove forest. As this is a monumental harvest, we have reserved it for you.”

“Really? Let me taste it.”

Hyunwoo tasted the coconut water.

Of course, he tasted soft drinks called coconut water before. Was it because it was kept in a cool refrigerator? The coconut water from the mangrove forest tasted thicker and genuine.

“Wow, it quenches my thirst instantly.”

“You bet. These products are very popular in the market. The American and European buyers all tried this and gave a very favorable review.”

“Wonderful. Have you completed the processing facilities?”

“Yes, they have already started to produce coconut soft drinks, cookies and oil.”

Hyunwoo nodded with great satisfaction.

What was more encouraging was that there were big fishing grounds in the works near the mangrove forests.

“Do you like fishing? It’s very cool near the mangrove forest and you can expect a good catch, too.”

Arief recommended Hyunwoo go fishing. He already arranged for a fishing boat for Hyujnwoo to enjoy fishing.

“Okay, let me try it then.”

Hyunwoo got on a boat and went into the mangrove forest with Arief.

The boat stopped at a proper spot, where Hyunwoo dropped a fishing rod.

As Arief said, there were lots of fish in the water. Though he hardly went fishing before, Hyunwoo caught fish every five minutes. Sometimes, he caught a fish as thick as his forearm.

There was an abundance of crabs and shellfish, let alone fish, in the sea around the mangrove forests. He felt the fisheries resources could generate more profits than the coconut mangrove harvests.

Arief felt the same way.

“Actually, we’re now hiring fishermen. If we pay them well, we can harvest coconuts and enjoy a good catch, too.”

Hyunwoo hit upon a good idea at that moment. If a beginner angler like him can enjoy fishing, lots of people can come to the mangrove forest and go fishing.

“Why don’t you develop this area as a tourist attraction? Fishing and coconuts combined as a tour package produce. How about that?”

That was a great idea, Arief thought. The only thing that bothered him was mosquitoes.

But he could find a nice way to drive away mosquitoes.

“Let me work on that package program.”

Hyunwoo spent five days in Bangladesh and returned to Korea.

When he returned, he heard some good news from his old friends.

Yonggu, his high school friend and now the CEO of Space Design, called him to say he was building the 19th hotel in Las Vegas in the USA. Space Design, originally a furniture design company, now grew as a global hotel builder.

Actually, Space Designed owed all its success to Hyunwoo. He gave Space Design the priority right to use the animation characters of Ani & Funny, which enabled the company to start a hotel business with great success.

Reporter Jaeyol Song with Korean Broadcasting became its president.

Members of Songjukhoe also made a fantastic success in their careers. Some of the young National Assemblymen who were elected thanks to Hyunwoo’s clean politics campaign took important positions in the standing committees, and many others in the fields of the press, prosecutors’ office and judiciary establishment also played important roles.

What pleased Hyunwoo most was the happiness of his family.

His parents, who underwent the terrible kidnapping some time ago, were now completely recovered.

Yu Zuung was happy these days with their three-year-old daughter Yonju and their newborn son Gyonghak, who was born 100 days ago.

Come to think of it, the source of his happiness was Yonju’s birth. Since she was born, Hyunwoo’s family has experienced lots of good things in a row.

Of course, there was not always good news.

As his business grew and more people were hired, there was inevitably some bad news. In fact, there were three big incidents involving his employees outside their workplaces.

Some female workers were robbed on their way home.

Strange enough, they were robbed inside a taxi. The taxi driver turned into a felon at some point, attacked them and took their money and goods at night. And one of them was even killed by a bad taxi driver.

‘Never should these kinds of tragic incidents happen. Can I devise a good way to avoid this?’

Suddenly, an idea flashed into his mind.

STM Research Center developed an automatic driving system long time ago. Though it was difficult to navigate complicated traffic downtown, it could be used effectively on country roads with little traffic.

During the test run, they could find some defects in the system, and with some corrections and improvements, the automated driving system could be commercially used downtown in the near future.

‘Yea, let me make unmanned taxis equipped with an automatic driving system. That way our female customers can safely use them.’

Hyunwoo established the department of unmanned taxi business at STM and immediately launched the business. He chose Taean County as the site for test driving and established checkpoints in many parts of the county.

At the same time, he sent out a press release to the media.

He expected the people would react enthusiastically to his idea. In particular, those women who had to catch a taxi late at night would be thrilled to see the unmanned taxi, he thought.

But he met a very unwelcome and unexpected response.