The Tyrant Billionaire

The unmarked areas are reserved for public projects, but all green marked areas are for sale. Prices are listed for each parcel, and you can buy as much as you want."

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The green marked areas were mostly uninhabited deserts, wastelands, hills, barren land, and swamps.

These areas couldn’t be used for farming or grazing, so nobody really wanted them.

As for the price?

Depending on the area, the cost ranged from 3 to 6 Australian dollars per hectare.

Cheap, right? Not really.

In later years, an Australian ranch owner sold 11 million hectares of land for 325 million Australian dollars.

At that rate, it’s 30 Australian dollars per hectare.

And that was in 2015, and the land was pasture suitable for cattle grazing.

Now it’s 1948, and at 3 to 6 Australian dollars per hectare, it shows that land appreciation in Australia is incredibly slow, making it a poor investment.

Moreover, most of Western Australia’s land is extremely barren, unsuitable for grazing. So, unless there are mineral resources, the land isn’t worth anything.

Even if you find minerals on your own land, you still have to pay the government the same mining taxes. Therefore, many people don’t see the point in buying this land.

The only advantage of private ownership is that others can’t mine on your land.

Jason asked his assistant to calculate it. The green marked land totaled 100 million hectares. Western Australia is Australia’s largest state, covering one third of the country’s total area about 2.64 million square kilometers or 264 million hectares.

After reserving public land, the government could sell about 1 million square kilometers (100 million hectares), priced at 4.5 billion Australian dollars, which is about 450 millions US dollars.

The investment was enormous, something Jason couldn’t decide on his own.

He immediately sent a telegram to Hardy, reporting the situation.

Upon receiving the telegram, Hardy was stunned. He knew there was a lot of land in Australia, but he hadn’t expected the Western Australian government to offer so much at once. His initial thought was that if they could offer a few parcels, acquiring a million hectares would be amazing, but he hadn’t anticipated they’d offer this much.

To be honest, Hardy was very tempted.

Even barren land gave him a sense of security, and he was very sure the mineral deposits in West Australia were worth a lot more than the cost price. However, 450 millions dollars was a heavy burden for him.

Although Hardy had control over Wells Fargo, its assets were in the tens of billions, but that money wasn’t Hardy’s it belonged to depositors.

When Hardy acquired Wells Fargo, he borrowed 160 millions from Bank of America.

Later, when he bought shares of Bank of America, he borrowed another 380 millions.

Although Hardy’s businesses were highly profitable, his rapid expansion had led to significant debt. He wasn’t worried about a few hundred thousand or even millions, and he could scrape together tens of millions, but spending 450 millions in one go? Even Bank of America would have to carefully consider whether such an investment was worth it.

Investing in land, which appreciates slowly, didn’t align with capitalist interests.

The land in Western Australia had no potential for real estate development. If there were no minerals, the land would be worthless, making this a highly risky investment.

For the Western Australian government, it was a win-win situation.

By selling land, they could earn extra revenue. And whether you bought the land or not, mining taxes remained the same.

For Hardy, this purchase would only secure exclusive mining rights, preventing others from mining on the land.

Hardy rubbed his chin.

"Damn it, I originally planned to play small, but now this has turned into something big," Hardy muttered.

In truth, if he only wanted to mine the gold, he could do that now without such a large investment. But seeing so much available land, Hardy found it hard to resist.

And he knew.

These lands would definitely have mineral resources.

Later statistics showed that 98% of Australia’s iron ore came from Western Australia, along with more than half of the country’s gold, copper, aluminum, and coal. The region also held significant oil and natural gas reserves.

If he bought the land now.

The land would belong to him, and no one else could mine there. All the underground resources would be Hardy’s.

In the future, if the Australian government dared to sell land like this, GLNCY alone would buy it all, But this was the 1940s, and a few hundered milliones was an astronomical sum.

Hardy thought for a long time, then made a resolute decision.

"Buy!"

"I came into this world to stir things up, and since I have the opportunity, I’ll make the most of it."

Hardy called his secretary.

"Where is Andy’s team now?"

Andy’s team sent regular telegrams informing Hardy of their progress and whereabouts.

"They’re in Denmark. Next, they’ll head to Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland," the secretary replied.

"Send a telegram to Andy, tell him to come back, and have the president of Wells Fargo take over the survey team," Hardy ordered.

He wasn’t particularly interested in investing in the five Nordic countries; they were non essential to his business empire.

"Also, send a telegram to Jason, instruct him to buy 20 square kilometers of land around the gold mine first, then continue negotiating with the Western Australian government to see if they can lower the price. There’s no rush, I’ll go over with Andy later."

"And inform Columbus to find a more professional team to assess the gold mine’s reserves and quality." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

He suddenly remembered something.

"Tell Andrew to quietly start acquiring shares of Wash Mining. Buy as much as you can, but be discreet—don’t drive the stock price up."

The secretary wrote everything down in her notebook and went to notify the relevant parties.

Hardy lit a cigar from the box on his desk, continuing to plan. He’d pulled off several big moves with minimal resources in the past, and he will do it again now.