Chapter 108: Kuwait

Kuwait is located in a corner of the Middle East, surrounded by Iraq and Saudi Arabia like a little brother, but Kuwait is known as the pearl of the Gulf, all because of the huge wealth of Kuwait's territory: oil.

As a typical part of the Middle East, Kuwait's climate is somewhere between a desert climate and a Mediterranean climate. There are no oases like Iraq, but desert plains, interspersed with hills. There are no rivers or lakes, just an endless desert. The climate is unusually hot and dry, with temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius very common, very little rainfall, and an extreme lack of fresh water. In this climate, it was impossible for Kuwait to grow food, and the Kuwaitis mainly relied on coastal activities such as fishing and pearl gathering to support themselves until oil was discovered.

Kuwait's land is simply floating on oil, the proven oil reserves, accounting for 10% of the entire country's oil reserves, and the oil layer is very shallow, the shallowest is only 1,500 meters, the oil pressure is very large, no need for oil pumps, as long as a hole is punched, the oil itself will be sprayed up, that is, the so-called high-yield self-spraying crude oil, therefore, after Kuwait entered the oil age, the economy began to develop rapidly.

However, in the beginning, Kuwait had been a colony and its sovereignty was not complete, so at the beginning, oil exploitation agreements with foreign oil companies stipulated that only 90 cents of tax would be paid to the Kuwaiti government for every tonne of crude oil extracted. Foreign oil companies actually went there to exploit and invest. From the end of World War II until 1972, the Anglo-American Kuwait Oil Company monopolized all of Kuwait's crude oil production. Large profits are grabbed by these companies.

Since 1962, Kuwait has finally emerged from colonial rule and become a monarchy, with the emir as the head of state. The office of head of state can only be inherited by the descendants of Mubarak al-Sabah. The current head of state, Jaber Ahmad Al-Sabah, is the thirteenth emir of Kuwait.

The Al-Sabah family, on the other hand, began to rule Kuwait in 1756. The historic family of the Sabah, together with the House of Saud who rules Saudi Arabia and the House of the Caliphate who rule Bahrain, can all be traced back to the former Anzai family, which is the most powerful tribe in Arabia. At the beginning of the 18th century, due to the severe drought in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, the Sabah family, who lived in the local Bedouins, made a detour to Qatar, Bahrain and other places to flee the famine and came to Kuwait. They were accompanied by other small families. Since then, the Sabah family has ruled Kuwait.

After freeing itself from colonial rule, Kuwait has been fighting against foreign oil companies and nationalizing its oil. Until 1975, it took over all the shares of the "Kuwait Oil Company". All the oil has been nationalized.

And in the late 70s, due to the mastery of all the oil resources, coupled with several increases in the price of oil, Kuwait's oil revenues soared, and the economy developed quite rapidly, making it the country with the highest per capita national income in the world. In 1981, the per capita income was as high as 20,000 US dollars, the highest in the world.

After economic development, Kuwait began to vigorously develop the desalination industry, the original fresh water, almost all of which relied on Iraq's import, and now, has been gradually getting rid of this restriction, so the original construction of the border between the two countries huge fresh water input pipelines, some have been in a state of abandonment.

Although Kuwait's petrochemical industry has been gradually developing, it still cannot meet its needs, so many of them are directly transported in the form of crude oil, and the profits of petroleum refining are lost in vain.

Therefore, on this basis, Zhang Feng put forward the proposal of using the Abadan refinery to refine Kuwait's excess oil, which was fully supported by President Saddam, in order to avoid diplomatic and political problems, Iraq will use the abandoned fresh water pipeline to transport Kuwaiti oil to Basra, so that Kuwait's problems can be avoided, because it needs to be carried out secretly, so Saddam Hussein handed over this matter to Zhang Feng to deal with, and the Abadan oil refinery was also handed over to Zhang Feng to manage. He just needs to be directly accountable to the president.

Out of Saddam's office, looking at the white clouds in the sky, Zhang Feng felt very comfortable, in this struggle with Uday, although he seemed to have suffered a loss on the surface, the place he laid was given to Uday for him to govern, but the key departments were firmly grasped by himself. The army, which did not listen to Uday's command at all, where the greatest interest, the Abadan oil refinery, was also persuaded by him that the president handed it over to him, and this Uday, at great risk, ran to this newly established province as a governor, and as a result, he did not get any benefits.

The next step is a trip to Kuwait.

In the political and economic fields, Zhang Feng is not good at it, so he went to the negotiation with Tariq Aziz and Hekmat Mizban Ibrahim.

Although the two of them are still only small characters in the Freedom Palace, Zhang Feng is very familiar with their names, Tariq will be appreciated by Saddam Hussein in the next few years and become a famous diplomat, and Hekmat will become the finance minister in charge of the economy, so, while these characters have not been reused, Zhang Feng first dug them into his own power.

Although they are about 40 years old, they are both grateful to His Excellency Qusayi for being appreciated and visiting Kuwait.

They know that His Excellency Qusay, who is now able to follow His Excellency Qusay, will also occupy an important position in the center of power in Iraq in the future, and in particular, they learned from His Excellency Qusay that his visit to Kuwait has a secret mission.

People who have access to the core secrets are nothing more than two endings, one is to become the core character and be reused, and the other is to be discarded and killed when they run out, and they firmly believe that the choice of His Excellency Qusay is the first.

And Zhang Feng, when he gave the two of them this task, they began to make full preparations, and in China, they began to gather a large number of skilled people to prepare to work at the Abadan refinery, and the salary was twice as high as in China, after all, it was just laid down there, and it was very dangerous to work there.

In addition to this, they have also done enough preliminary preparation for His Excellency Qusay's visit to Kuwait, this time it is a secret operation, so it will not be as hyped as usual, which requires a sound arrangement to get in touch directly with the Kuwaiti upper echelons.

Half a month later, Zhang Feng took two people, as well as a squad of the Rattlesnake special forces, as bodyguards, and did not take a plane, but chose to enter Kuwait by road.

PS: Many readers have a strong desire to see political and economic construction, so after the previous military struggle is over, these contents are also officially staged, and contacts with neighboring countries, starting with Kuwait, of course, Saudi Arabia is also an important friend, and the grievances between Palestine and Israel will be unfolded one by one.

Thank you readers for your great support and encouragement, there should be a more in the evening, if you can code it out.

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