George luo's personal site

I participated in a text-based grand strategy game where I role-played as the leader of the German Empire and designed and led a comprehensive national economic reform in 1910.

My engagement in the text-based grand strategy game was the crucible where my abstract interests in economics, politics, and history were forged into a concrete passion for philosophy. It was the first time I moved from merely studying these subjects to actively applying their principles. By stepping into the role of a policymaker, I gained the macro-level perspective necessary to see past surface-level events and begin to understand the essence of society: that it is a complex, dynamic structure governed by incentives, power, and shared belief.

Here is the fourteen strategies I developed to lead the reform:

1. Monetary Reform: A new paper currency, the Deutsche Mark, will be issued, backed by both gold and silver as collateral. The Deutsche Mark can be exchanged for government-issued Gold Commodity Securities and Silver Commodity Securities. Its exchange rate with gold is fixed at 1 Deutsche Mark to 0.358 grams of gold. The exchange rate with silver will be based on the prevailing gold-silver price ratio. The subsidiary currency of the Deutsche Mark will be the paper Pfennig, at an exchange rate of 1 Mark to 100 Pfennig.
2. Currency Replacement: The initial issuance volume of the new Deutsche Mark will be determined based on the total amount of un-recalled Goldmarks and the exchange rate between the Deutsche Mark and the Goldmark. (This is to ensure that after the complete replacement, the government will have an additional 200 million Deutsche Marks in reserve for future monetary policy). The central bank will first recall all old currency from commercial banks through a mandatory exchange for the new currency. All banks will then be required to offer exchange services for the public to convert old Marks to new Marks. (All old Marks collected from the public by banks must be handed over to the central government for exchange into new Marks). Subsequently, the government will issue a decree requiring all citizens to exchange their Goldmarks for the new Deutsche Marks within three months. After this period, all Goldmarks will be declared void, unrecognized by the government, and unusable for payment. After the currency replacement is complete, it will be announced that due to the Goldmark’s significant international influence, the German government will recognize both the Goldmark and the Deutsche Mark for use in international trade. However, all Goldmarks entering Germany will be mandatorily exchanged for Deutsche Marks to achieve final replacement.
3. Silver Acquisition Act: The government will begin a large-scale acquisition of silver on the world market (using the previously recalled paper Goldmarks) to ensure that the value of silver in the national treasury reaches one-half the value of gold. On one hand, silver itself is a crucial collateral to ensure currency credibility and must be stored in large quantities. On the other hand, a rise in silver prices could cause deflation in silver-standard countries (such as China), increasing their purchasing power and potentially opening up the Far East market for Germany.
4. Housing Purchase Restriction Act: Henceforth, every adult German citizen (excluding real estate developers and hotels, limited to individuals) may hold a maximum of one residential property (those already owning multiple homes are barred from purchasing new ones) and an unlimited number of commercial properties. Concurrently, the German Real Estate Regulatory Bureau will be established to grant government approval for all new real estate construction (ensuring it serves a practical purpose and is not for speculative or fraudulent schemes), thereby ensuring the quality, quantity, and price of new housing on the market remain healthy.
5. Debt Management Administration: The German Debt Management Administration will be established to specifically manage national and private debt issues. For now, based on national expenditures, a restructuring of the national debt can be considered, doubling the repayment period of German government bonds while simultaneously cutting the interest rate by one-third. Although bondholders will take longer to receive their principal, their total interest earnings will be increased.
6. Foreign Investment General Administration: The German Foreign Investment General Administration will be established, headquartered in Berlin and operated entirely by the government. This administration will, on one hand, assist domestic enterprises in listing on foreign stock exchanges through negotiations with other governments. On the other hand, it will regulate foreign investment entering Germany. For instance, it will act as a witness for foreign investors and domestic recipients of investment, ensuring the legality and authenticity of the investment funds (most importantly, by spot-checking samples of the investment funds, melting them down to confirm their gold or silver content, or conducting anti-counterfeiting checks on recognized foreign banknotes to verify the investment’s value). It will also provide legal legitimacy to their contracts and assist foreign investors with the necessary step of converting their metal currency investments into Deutsche Marks at banks. Additionally, the administration can restrict or expand foreign investment in different sectors through various directives.
7. Expansion of State-Owned Banking: The state-owned banking system will be further expanded with the successive establishment of the Four Great State-Owned Banks of Germany: the German Commercial Bank (specializing in financial services), the German Industrial Bank (specializing in industrial services), the German Agricultural Bank (specializing in agricultural services), and the German Construction Bank (specializing in infrastructure services). These state-owned banks will be highly integrated with the central bank and the government (the central bank will provide the majority of the initial capital to achieve controlling stakes, but the banks will be administratively responsible to the government). On the basis of fiscal independence (private investment is welcome, but management can only be appointed by the state), they will support the policies of the central bank and the government, such as providing investment and loans to various industries and even participating in securities trading.
8. Banking Sector Reform: All banks will be required during a period of consolidation to establish a credit scoring agency. This agency will score all clients based on their past financial behaviors, such as borrowing and repayment history, to assess their ability to fulfill financial agreements. This will allow banks to avoid lending to low-credit individuals and thus prevent bad debts.
9. New Banking Act: Furthermore, a new Banking Act will be promulgated, setting the minimum initial capital requirement for registering a bank in Germany at 1 million Deutsche Marks. (Small and micro private banks that do not meet this standard must either merge with larger banks or be acquired by the government, thereby streamlining the banking industry and reducing financial risk). At the same time, banks will be permitted to conduct most financial activities, such as real estate mortgages, bond trading, lending, and corporate investment. To ensure banks can recover on their own after a cash flow crisis, all banks will be required to deposit cash equivalent to 10% of their total assets with the central bank as a mandatory reserve, to be withdrawn in the event of a cash flow collapse. This 10% reserve requirement will be calculated based on monthly financial reports submitted by all banks to the central bank. Finally, the government will levy a 5% tax on the net profits of all banks. To determine this 5% tax, both the government and the central bank will require all banks to submit quarterly financial reports. If a bank falsifies financial reports to evade reserve requirements and taxes, all individuals involved in the forgery who directly profited will be sentenced to a minimum of 5 years in prison, with a maximum of life imprisonment. The bank will also undergo continuous rectification until the stolen funds are recovered and the remaining, non-implicated management finds suitable replacements for the key positions.
10. Deposit Insurance System: A deposit insurance system will be established for the banking sector with the creation of the German Deposit Insurance Corporation (a state-owned enterprise open to private investment). It will provide mandatory, baseline deposit insurance services for all private banks nationwide. (This means banks can choose private insurance, but will be required to subscribe to the national insurance if they have none). In the event of economic problems preventing a bank from honoring customer withdrawals, the corporation will directly pay the deposits on behalf of the bank to help it weather the crisis. In return, banks will be required to pay regular insurance premiums (the premium will be calculated to be self-sustaining based on bank failure rates and the average size of assets at the time of failure).
11. Expansion of Mandatory Insurance: The mandatory, baseline insurance system will be fully promoted. Private insurance companies will be allowed to operate within Germany’s original four major insurance areas (health, pension, accident, and maternity). As long as a customer voluntarily chooses, they can switch from state insurance to private insurance, or back again, at any time. In addition, an Investment Pension Insurance will be introduced, allowing each pensioner to voluntarily invest up to 20% of their pension funds in low-risk state-managed investments (such as government bonds and funds) to earn returns.
12. Market Transparency and the Ludwig Index: To make the market more open and transparent, the Ludwig Index (a German version of the Dow Jones Index) will be established. It will be divided into multiple sectors and broadcast daily on all major national stock exchanges. For example, the Industrial Ludwig Index will be calculated by the government based on the average stock price of the top 30 industrial enterprises in the country. The Transportation Ludwig Index will be based on the average stock price of the top 30 transportation enterprises (primarily railway and automotive industries), and the Services Ludwig Index will be based on the average stock price of the top 30 service enterprises (such as catering and apparel). By tracking the average stock prices across various industries, everyone in our market can gain a general understanding of the development of each sector and thus make better investment decisions.
13. Securities Market Regulation: The securities market will be consolidated. The Securities Data Transparency Act will be enacted, establishing the German Securities Administration Bureau and dispatching long-term supervisory teams to all national stock and futures exchanges. These teams will hand over files to their successors each month, then be stationed at an exchange for a one-month investigation (with the authority to request all data from the exchange upon approval from their superiors), before moving to a previously unvisited exchange. If, during an investigation, a supervisory team discovers collusion between traders and corporations—for example, publishing tampered securities data to give certain companies an advantage—they can, in conjunction with local police forces, arrest the individuals involved in the data forgery who directly profited. These criminals will be sentenced to a minimum of 5 years in prison, with a maximum of life imprisonment, and all money obtained from their illegal transactions will be fully refunded. If an exchange is found to be in direct collusion with a corporation, it will be shut down, trading will be halted, and it will undergo continuous rectification until the remaining, non-implicated management, with government assistance, quickly finds suitable replacements for the vacant positions.
14. Standardization and Expansion of Securities Trading: The German Securities Administration Bureau will establish the German Securities Trading Association in Berlin. This association will convene financial professionals from all major national stock and futures exchanges annually to jointly establish or amend standard trading agreements and other regulations for all financial products (stocks, bonds, insurance, futures, options, etc.), thereby unifying all securities trading standards and eliminating regional differences. The association can also begin to explore advanced securities calculation formulas, such as option pricing formulas. In addition, the government will fund the establishment of the German Securities Liaison Group to mandatorily build telegraph stations and telephone booths at all exchanges and lay underground telegraph and telephone cables. Subsequently, all exchanges and traders must use the telegraph and telephone services from the Group at cost and are forbidden from using other private services. All exchanges will also be required to share all public securities data with each other to make it possible to quickly obtain national data via telegraph and build a national securities market.

1910年德意志帝国金融改革
1.开始发行一种黄金和白银共同成为担保物的德意志马克，德意志马克为纸币，可以兑换国家发行的黄金商品证券和白银商品证券。其与黄金的汇率为1德意志马克等于0.358克黄金与白银的汇率则基于金银价格比。最后，德意志马克的辅币为纸币芬尼，汇率是1比100。
2.依据先前发行且未被回收的金马克总量和德意志马克与金马克的汇率，第一版德意志马克的发行量将被确定（确保在完成全部替换后政府在额外多印2亿德意志马克储备为未来的货币政策进行准备）。中央银行会先通过强制与全国所有银行进行新版货币兑换从而回收银行内的全部旧货币，并要求所有银行在接下来为民众开通旧版与新版马克兑换服务（银行在未来从民众换过来的旧版马克也都必须交由中央政府兑换成新版马克）。随后政府将发布法令要求全国民众在三个月内将手中的金马克兑换成新的德意志马克，否则三个月后所有的金马克都将成为不被政府承认的废纸和不能用于支付的黄金。在新旧货币替换完成后，宣布因为金马克依然存在着极大的国际影响力，德国政府将共同承认金马克与德意志马克在国际贸易上的使用，但所有进入德国国内的金马克都会被强制兑换为德意志马克来实现最终替换。
3.通过白银收购法，开始在全世界大规模收购白银（可以使用先前回收的纸币金马克）从而使得国库内的白银价值达到黄金价值的二分之一。一方面白银本身就是确保货币信用的担保物需要多多储存，另一方面银价上升可以使银本位国家（如中国）通缩并增强其购买力，或许可以为德国打开远东市场。
4.通过购房限制法，从今往后每个成年的德意志公民（不包含房地产开发商与酒店，仅限个人）最多持有一套居住住房（已拥有多套住房的则不得购置新房）与不受限制的商业用房，同时再建立德意志房地产调控局，从而对所有新建地产进行政府审批（不能拿来炒房或造假来布置骗局，得存在实际作用），来确保每年市场上的新房质量，数量和价格健康。
5.建立德意志债务管理局来专门管理德国国债与民间债务问题，目前根据国家开支可以看情况进行国债重组，将德国国债的偿还期限翻倍并同时将利息削减三分之一。虽然国债持有者需要更长的时间才能得到本金，但总利息也得到了提升。
6.建立德意志外来投资总署，总部位于柏林，完全由政府运行。外来投资署一方面通过与其他国家的政府交涉从而帮助国内的企业在其他国家的证券交易所进行上市。另一方面外来投资署也负责监管来自外国进入德意志的投资，比如在确保外来投资款项的来源是合法且真实的情况下（最重要的就是对投资款项中抽查几个样本进行熔炼，确认其含金量或含银量，或者如果是被德国承认的纸币也需要进行防伪检验，来确保投资款价值正确），充当外来投资者与被投资者的见证人，为他们间的契约提供合法性，并最后帮助外来投资者在银行办理金属通货投资转德意志马克的这一必要措施。除此之外，外来投资署也可以通过不同的指令限制或扩大不同行业的外来投资。
7.进一步扩大国有银行体系，陆续建立德意志四大国有银行，分别为德意志商业银行（专门为金融行业服务的国有银行），德意志工业银行（专门为工业服务），德意志农业银行（专门为农业服务）以及德意志建设银行（专门为基建行业服务）。这些国有银行与中央银行与政府高度关联（央行在银行建立时提供了绝大部分资金从而实现控股，但这些银行在行政架构上对政府负责），在财政独立的基础上（欢迎私人投资但银行管理层只能由国家任命）辅助央行与政府的政策，比如为各行各业提供投资与贷款，甚至是参与证券交易。
8.进行银行业改革，要求所有银行在整顿期间建立一个信用评分机构，对所有客户之前的借款还款等各种金融行为进行打分，从而评估他们是否有能力履行所有金融协议，这样银行就可以避免将贷款借给低信用的人从而避免坏账。
9.除此之外，通过新的银行法，宣布在德国内注册银行的起始资金底线是100万德意志马克（没到达资金标准的小型微型私人银行要不与更大的银行合并，要不被政府收购，这样就可以可以实现银行业精简化，降低金融风险），同时允许银行执行绝大部分金融业务，如地产抵押，债券交易，借贷款业务，投资企业等。其次，为了保证银行在现金流失控后仍然可以自行重回正轨，所有银行都需要将价值自身总资产的10%的现金强制交由中央银行管理，作为准备金以备在银行现金流崩塌时取出。10%的准备金底线是需要通过所有银行每月递交给中央银行的财务报告来计算的。最后，政府将针对所有银行的净利润征收5%作为税收，为了确定5%的税收，政府和中央银行一样需要所有银行每季度递交财务报告。如果银行伪造财务报告从而不给予准备金和税收的话，所有参与伪造且直接获利的人员会被处以5年起步，上限至无期的监禁，同时银行会被持续整改，直到找回赃款和银行其余未涉嫌犯罪的管理层找到关键职位的替代者。
10.再为银行业制定存款保险制度，成立德意志存款保险公司（国企但欢迎私人投资），为全国的私人银行提供保底强制性存款保险服务（这意味着银行可以选择私人保险，但在没有保险的情况下就会强制缴纳国家保险），即在银行面临经济问题导致无法为客户取出存款时直接替银行支付存款从而帮助其渡过危机，作为回报，银行需要在平时缴纳保险费用（根据银行破产率与平均破产时规模来制定收支平衡的保险费）。
11.完全推广保底强制性保险，允许私人保险公司在德国原本的四大保险（医疗保险，养老保险，工伤保险和生育保险）进行运作，只要客户自愿，随时都能将国家保险切换为私人保险，或再次切换回来。同时再提出投资性养老保险，即每位养老金领取者可以自愿将最多20%的养老金交由国家进行低风险投资（如国债与基金）并获取收益。
12.为了使市场更加公开化透明化，设立路德维希指数（就是德版道琼斯指数），分多个板块，每日在全国各大证券交易所投送，比如工业路德维希指数就是由政府统计全国前30家工业企业的股票价格平均值，运输业路德维希指数就是由政府统计全国前30家运输业（铁路与汽车行业为主）企业的股票价格平均值，以及服务业路德维希指数就是由政府统计全国前30家服务业（餐饮业，服装业等）企业的股票价格平均值。通过统计各行各业的股票价格平均值，我国市场里的每一个人就都可以大致了解各行各业的发展情况，从而更好地进行投资。
13.整顿证券市场，颁布证券数据透明法，即通过建立德意志证券管理局并向全国的证券交易所和期货交易所派遣长期驻扎的监管团队，然后这些监管团队在每个月都会与前任团队交接档案，随后驻扎在一个交易所并进行为期一个月的调查（监管团队在经过上级批准后有权力索要证券交易所的全部数据），再换到下一个此前未去过的交易所，如果在调查中途监管团队发现了交易人员在与企业进行勾结，比如通过向公众公布被篡改过的证券数据来帮助一些企业获得优势，那么就可以联合地方警察力量逮捕参与数据伪造且直接获益的人员，这些罪犯会被处以5年起步，上限至无期的监禁并且他们所有非法交易获得的钱也都会被全部进行退还。如果产生了交易所直接与企业勾结的情况，那么该交易所会被封锁，停止交易并持续整改，直到交易所的其余未犯罪管理层在政府的协助下快速找到空缺职位的合理替代者为止。
14.全面推动证券交易标准化与扩大化，通过德意志证券管理局成立位于柏林的德国证券交易协会并每年召集全国各大证券与期货交易所的金融人员在共同商议的情况下为所有金融产品（股票，债券，保险，期货期权等）制定或修改标准交易协议和其他各种规定来统一所有证券交易标准从而消除不同地区间的差异，同时协会也可以开始探索各种前沿的证券计算公式，如期权价定价公式。除此之外，政府将出资成立德意志证券联络集团以强制在所有交易所搭建电报站和电话亭并铺设地下电报与电话线缆，随后这些交易所和买卖方必须以成本价从集团使用电报与电话服务而不得使用其他私人服务，也要求所有交易所之间相互共享全部公开的证券数据来实现通过电报快速获取全国数据以搭建全国证券市场的可能。

This project chronicles a multi-month experiment in a simulated world that required me to evolve from a solo actor into a political organizer, a software developer, a financial strategist, and ultimately, a leader accountable to a community. The entire arc can be understood through the synthesis of three key domains: Code, Capital, and Integrity.

1. Code: Engineering the Engine of Growth (Technical & Systems-Thinking Skills)

The foundational challenge was a classic problem of productivity and resource limitation. The game’s manual, time-gated production mechanic created an inefficiency that I recognized could be solved through automation. This led to the first stage of the project, which demonstrated skills in:

• Rapid Skill Acquisition & Application: With a clear goal in mind, I took the initiative to independently research and learn a new technical skill: scripting with Python. I sourced existing code, but more importantly, I adapted and modified it to fit the specific parameters of the game’s environment, demonstrating an ability to not just copy but to comprehend and customize solutions.
• Systems Architecture & Automation: I engineered a 24/7 automated production system that fundamentally broke the game’s existing labor model. This wasn’t just about convenience; it was a strategic disruption that created a significant competitive advantage and formed the technological backbone of the entire enterprise.
• Data Management & Scalability: As the business grew from a personal script to a multi-client operation, I foresaw the need for a robust data management solution. I proactively learned and implemented an SQL database (sqlite3) to manage client information, lease agreements, and dividend payments. This demonstrates an understanding of scalable systems and the foresight to build infrastructure capable of handling increasing complexity. The database was the key to transitioning from a personal hack to a manageable, automated business.

2. Capital: Architecting a Virtual Economy (Strategic & Financial Acumen)

With the technical engine in place, the project evolved from a simple script into a complex economic entity. This phase showcases a deep, practical understanding of political and economic principles, echoing my philosophical interest in how structures and systems function. Key skills demonstrated include:

• Market Analysis & Business Model Development: I identified a clear market opportunity: players with underutilized assets (workers) and a desire for passive income. I developed a “win-win” business model—leasing these assets—that created value for both my clients and my company, demonstrating classic entrepreneurial insight.
• Financial Innovation & Capital Formation: Facing a capital shortage, I moved beyond simple barter and into sophisticated financial instruments. I designed and launched a stock system by performing a valuation of my company’s assets (total worker value), creating a prospectus for potential investors, and structuring both short-term (dividends) and long-term (share appreciation) returns. This required skills in corporate finance, asset valuation, and investor relations.
• Political Leadership & Governance: My return to the game began with a political challenge: reunifying a fractured alliance. I designed and implemented a formal political structure (the committee) based on representation and voting rights, demonstrating an understanding of governance and the ability to build consensus. This political stability was the necessary precondition for my later economic success. It was a practical application of the social contract theories I had studied.

3. Integrity: Grappling with the Burden of Trust (Ethical Reflection & Leadership)

The final and most important phase of this narrative is not about success, but about the profound lessons learned from its collapse. The project was not a sterile simulation; it involved the trust and resources of over 50 real people. Its conclusion demonstrates a level of maturity and self-awareness that transcends technical or business skill:

• Crisis Management & Resilience: Faced with external shocks (the war) and internal pressures (operational complexity, parental opposition), I attempted to innovate under duress by developing defensive scripts and engaging in public diplomacy (the newspaper). While ultimately unsuccessful, this shows an ability to problem-solve and lead during a crisis.
• Accountability & Self-Awareness: The most significant outcome was not the loss of virtual assets, but the deeply felt experience of failing a community that had placed its trust in me. My final reflection focuses on the weight of that responsibility. This demonstrates a strong moral compass and the ability to learn from failure on a human level.
• Bridging Theory and Practice: This entire experience served as a real-world laboratory for the philosophical concepts I explore in my writings. I witnessed firsthand how social structures form and fracture, how “subjects” operate within a system, and how the abstract concept of a “shared narrative” becomes the tangible foundation of a community. The ultimate lesson in “integrity” connects directly to my philosophical belief in the importance of the individual’s responsibility within a larger structure.

In conclusion, this case study is a demonstration of a unique synthesis: the ability to write code that builds systems, the acumen to leverage those systems to create capital and economic structures, and the integrity to understand that the ultimate measure of any system is its impact on the human beings who place their trust in it.

Background:

QQ accounts can be programmed to run as bots. Based on this concept, creating cross-group chat games using QQ bots became a reality. One such QQ bot game achieved a preliminary simulation of a market by allowing players to build factories and engage in a free-trade mechanism between players. Armies and alliances were also a major element of the game, encouraging cooperation and mergers among players.

The game was launched around March 2022, and I joined within the first month of its early development. I slowly expanded my factory through daily check-ins and the recruitment of a limited number of workers each day. Every hour, I could send a message called “Produce” to obtain living materials. The problem was that logging on every hour just to send “Produce” was rather troublesome, and moreover, I couldn’t carry out production while sleeping at night. At the time, I wasn’t particularly concerned about this issue because everyone else was in the same boat, but I never would have imagined that everything would undergo a qualitative change just a few months later. In any case, I maintained this state for a while and, together with the two founders of our alliance and other core members, we achieved the alliance’s first golden age. On April 12, 2022, our alliance even ranked 12th in the daily GDP leaderboard, which tallied all alliances.

But the good times didn’t last. Three days later, the alliance fell into disputes among its members and quickly fractured. I became the leader of one of the breakaway factions and subsequently went AFK, on the verge of quitting the game. From this major schism, I learned a lesson I had previously only vaguely understood: a successful group isn’t just about allowing everyone to express their opinions. If you stop there, it only leads to people venting their emotions without forming true cooperation. The crucial next step is whether each person’s opinion can actually be adopted or integrated into a solution that satisfies everyone. What ensures this is the power each member holds, such as voting rights.

Four months later—perhaps out of unwillingness to accept the previous failure, a sense of responsibility to the alliance, or simply in preparation for an experiment—I returned to the game. I took the lead in bringing together the original two founders and other members I could find. We established a committee, limited to former and current key personnel, to jointly discuss and vote on alliance affairs. Through this, we unified the various splintered factions and ended the era of division. Just like that, a formal political system capable of uniting the leadership was finally constructed, and the class division between ordinary members and committee members was born.

After the alliance was reunified, I began to research how to increase my own productivity to catch up with players who hadn’t lost four months of progress. The solution I found was to learn by searching online for Python code related to QQ auto-messaging. I then copied and pasted the code into a local runtime environment and modified it, which allowed me to program my account to run production 24 hours a day.

The productivity and convenience brought by running a script far surpassed what a typical player could achieve by manually sending “Produce” messages, and from this, I discovered a “business opportunity.” First, the game had a mechanism called production technology. Players could use living materials to upgrade their production technology, thereby increasing the productivity of their workers, which in turn boosted the output of living materials. With two players having the same level of production technology, my program could run production for 24 hours, while a typical player could manage at most 12 hours. This meant that under my account, a worker could achieve double, or even triple, the productivity of one under a typical player.

Therefore, I could persuade players who had the same or lower production technology level as me, and who couldn’t run their own scripts, to lease their workers to me. In return, I would give them a daily payment of living materials that was greater than what they would normally produce themselves. Meanwhile, I could still ensure that after paying the lease fees, I would have surplus living materials, thus making a profit. Clearly, this was a win-win deal. As long as I established credibility among the player base with my initial business, future operations would only expand faster due to the trust of more and more people (I also paid for advertisements in a news agency with several hundred members to gain more authority and publicity).

As time went on, my client base grew, eventually reaching 50 people. At the same time, I faced a shortage of living materials due to various needs, such as supporting the alliance, expanding the army to protect my factories, and upgrading production technology. So, I made two innovations: one was to use an SQL database to create data tables for better storage and retrieval of client information, and the other was to issue stock to better raise capital to meet my needs.

First, the stock. I calculated the total number of workers I had acquired through leasing—a huge number—and multiplied it by the market price of a worker (in the game, workers were more like fully automated production machines than humans) to get my total asset value. I then found potential investors in various QQ group chats who had large amounts of living materials and persuaded them to buy company stock. The stock was calculated as a percentage, with the total value naturally being the company’s current total asset value. Investors could spend living materials to purchase a corresponding percentage of stock. There were two main reasons investors were willing to buy the company’s stock. One was that changes in the company’s total asset value would only affect the stock price, not the fixed percentage of shares already purchased. This meant that if the company’s asset value increased in the future, the same percentage of stock would become more expensive, meaning the shares of existing holders had appreciated. The other reason was stock dividends, which gave shareholders a daily income corresponding to their percentage of ownership in the company. By promising investors both long-term (share appreciation) and short-term (dividends) benefits, I obtained a huge amount of living materials to cover various expenses and upgrade my production technology to the highest level. Correspondingly, because of the extremely high market price of workers (there were no other means to generate more workers besides daily check-ins and fixed daily recruitment, and you couldn’t plunder other players’ workers, only trade them), even with their significant investment of living materials, all the investors combined couldn’t achieve a high percentage of ownership. So, I didn’t lose much income and firmly maintained control of the company and my voice among the shareholders.

Besides the stock, the other innovation was the database. The principle was to import the sqlite3 library in Python, which then allowed me to write SQL statements through a Python program to store or retrieve information from the database. When the database was combined with QQ message sending, everything from automatically sending daily lease payments to all clients to distributing dividends to shareholders was automated. The company even formed a partnership with its largest client and shareholder, the leader of another alliance, achieving the feat of leasing an entire alliance’s worth of workers. The company also set up a dedicated oil department to seek business expansion and collaborated with a trade city that could provide various supplies and munitions…

However, just as the business was booming, our alliance, as the defending party, suffered a defeat in a confrontation with the enemy. The alliance army was breached late at night, resulting in the loss of a large amount of military supplies. In response, I developed a rudimentary automatic defense program and began investing heavily in materials and troops to counter-attack the enemy. I even created the first and last edition of the alliance newspaper to seek help from the international community, but the war was ultimately lost. The enemy bombed my factories, causing the company to lose more than half of its workers (over a hundred thousand).

In addition to this, another problem was that even with fully automated data retrieval and semi-automated data storage programs, running the company in its later stages still required me to deal with daily changes in client and shareholder data, which led to changes in the stored data (and I still had to manually input these changes for the program to store them in the database). Coupled with my decreasing energy after the school semester started, which made the complex research for further full automation of data collection feel increasingly tedious and difficult, and my parents’ opposition to me focusing so much on this game, the company’s operations were becoming increasingly difficult, even without the losses from the war.

Ultimately, after successfully trying to log into other people’s accounts to run their production automatically for them, after exhausting the trust of clients and shareholders over several days and even weeks as I stopped paying rent and dividends, and after I started going AFK again and was on the verge of quitting, the alliance’s second golden age came to an end. My two-to-three-month experiment in automation and business finally came to a close.

From this series of experiences, I can summarize so much, but the most important thing is that I truly experienced the feeling of letting down the accumulated efforts and trust of more than 50 people. This made me realize that the word “integrity” is one of the most important virtues I need to practice consistently in the future, both online and in reality.

QQ帐号是可以通过程序编写被运行成机器人的，基于这种理念，通过QQ机器人实现跨群聊游戏就成为了现实。其中一个QQ机器人游戏通过允许玩家建立工厂和玩家间自由贸易机制实现了对市场的初步模拟，军队和联盟也是游戏的一大要素，鼓励了玩家间的联合与兼并。
这个游戏是在2022年3月份左右诞生的，而我在游戏发展早期中的第一个月就加入了，并通过每日签到和每日限制数量的工人招募缓慢地扩张着工厂。每个小时我都可以发一次名为“生产”的消息从而获得生活资料，但问题是每小时就上线一次发“生产”是比较麻烦的，况且我晚上睡觉也是无法进行生产的。当时我并不特别在意这个问题因为其他人也是这样的，但我也绝对不会想到数月以后这一切都发生了质的改变。总之，当时我就一直维持着这种状态，并与两个联军创始人和其他骨干成员共同实现了联军的第一次黄金时代，以至于我们联军在2022年4月12日的统计了所有联军的当日GDP排行榜中登上了第12名。但好景不长，三天后联军就陷入了成员间的纠纷并迅速走向分裂，我成为了其中一个割据政权的领袖便从此挂机，处在了退游的边缘。在这次大分裂事件中，我学到了一个先前一直模糊理解的道理，那就是一个成功的团体并不仅仅在于允许每个人表达自己的意见，只停留在这一步的话只会让每个人发泄自己的情绪而无法真正形成合作，实际上关键的东西是更进一步的，那就是每个人的意见是否真的能被采纳或融合进一个所有人都满意的方案，而确保这一点的就是每个成员的权力，比如投票权。
四个月后，或许是出于对上次失败的不甘，对联军的责任感，又或者仅仅是对一场实验的筹备，我重新回到了游戏并牵头最初的两位创始人和其他还能找回的成员通过构建一个仅限曾经或现在重要人员才能加入的委员会来共同商讨并表决联军的各项事务实现了各个割据势力的联合并结束了分裂时代。就这样，一个可以团结领导层的正式的政治体制终于被构建了出来，而普通成员和委员会成员的阶级分化也最终诞生了。联军重归一统后，我开始钻研起了如何提高自身的生产力从而追赶上其他未丢失四个月时间的玩家。而我找到的解决方案就是通过在网上查询与QQ自动发消息相关的python代码进行学习，随后把代码复制粘贴进了本地的运行环境再加以修改，就实现了通过程序操纵我的账号24小时进行生产。
挂脚本带来的生产力和便捷性是远超一般玩家人力发“生产”消息的，我就从中发现了“商机”。首先，游戏有一个机制叫做生产技术，玩家可以用生活资料来改进生产技术从而提高工人的生产率并反过来加大生活资料的产出。在两个玩家拥有相同等级生产技术的情况下，我的程序可以进行24小时生产而一般玩家最多只能达到12小时的生产，这就意味着工人在我的帐号下可以发挥相较于一般玩家两倍，甚至是三倍的生产力。那么，我完全可以说服生产技术与我同级或者比我低的，且无法自己挂程序的玩家把他们的工人租借给我，作为回报，我会每天给他们一笔大于自己平时生产的生活资料，而我则依然可以通过24小时生产来确保交完租借费用之后还剩下多出来的生活资料从而实现盈利。显而易见，这是一场双赢的买卖，所以只要我通过最初的业务建立了在玩家群体中的信誉，那么未来的业务只会因为越来越多人的信任而加速扩大（我还通过支付生活资料向几百人的新闻社投放了广告来获得更多权威性和宣传）。
随着时间的推移，我的客户数量不断增长并在未来最终到达了50人，同时，因为支援联军，扩军保卫工厂和提高生产技术等各种需求，我也面临着生活资料紧缺的境地。于是我进行了两个创新，一个是使用SQL数据库创建数据表从而更好的存贮和调用客户信息，另一个是发行股票从而更好的募集资金来填补需求。首先是股票，我统计了自己账号下的通过租借取得的，巨大数量的工人总数并将其乘以工人的市场价格（游戏中的工人更像是全自动生产机器而非人类）从而得到了自己的资产总值，随后我便在各个QQ群聊中找到了一些有着大量生活资料的潜在投资者，接着便说服他们购买公司股票。公司股票是以百分比进行统计的，其总额自然是公司目前的资产总额，而投资者们就可以花费生活资料购入对应百分比的股票。投资者们之所以愿意购买公司的股票主要有两种原因，一个是公司资产总额的变动只会影响股票价格而非已经完成购买的，固定的股份占比，这就意味着如果未来公司资产总额上升，相同百分比的股票会变得更贵，也意味着已购入者的股份增值了。另一个是股份分红，让拥有对应占比股份的股东获得了公司每天对应占比的收入，就这样，通过对投资者许诺长期（股份增值）和短期（股份分红）利益，我获得了巨额生活资料来填补各项支出并将生产技术提升到了最高级，对应的因为工人极高的市场价格（除了每日签到和每日固定招募之外没有其他手段来产生更多的工人，也无法掠夺其他玩家的工人，只能交易），投资者们就算投入了极大的生活资料，全部加起来也无法达到对股份的高占比，所以我并未损失太多收入并且牢牢控制住了公司和在股东间的话语权。除了股票之外，另一个创新是数据库，原理是在python导入sqlite3库，最后就可以通过python程序编写SQL语句来向数据库中存入或调用信息。而当数据库和QQ消息发送结合在一起的时候，不管是每天自动向全体客户发送他们应得的租金，又或是向股东进行分红，就都被实现了。公司甚至还和最大客户及股东，一个其他联军的领导人达成了合伙人关系从而实现了租借一整个联军工人的壮举。公司还安排了专门的石油部门来寻求业务扩展并与可以提供各类物资和军火的贸易城展开合作……
然而，就在事业蒸蒸日上之时，我方联军作为被进攻方在与敌人的对峙中出现了失败，联军军队在深夜被敌军攻破，导致了大量军事物资的流失。于是我开发了初级的自动防御程序并开始投入大量物资和军队对敌方进行反击，我甚至还制作了联军历史上第一版也是最后一版报纸从而向国际社会寻求帮助，但战争最终依然失败了，敌军轰炸了我的工厂并导致公司损失了一半以上的工人（十几万人）。除此之外，另一个问题是公司发展到后期就算使用全自动数据调用和半自动数据存储的程序，在运营时依然需要每天面临客户和股东的数据变化所导致的存储数据变化（而我还是需要手动输入这些更改才能让程序帮我存入数据库）。外加我开学之后精力逐渐变少导致对进一步全自动化数据收集的繁杂研究感到逐渐枯燥与困难，以及父母对我过于关注这个游戏的反对，导致就算没有战争带来的损失，公司的运营也在变得愈发艰难。
最终，在进行了对其他人账号登陆并帮他们自动生产的成功尝试之后，在耗尽了数日乃至数星期因我不再发放租金和分红的客户与股东的信任之后，在我再次开始挂机并濒临退游之后，联军的第二次黄金时代也来到了尾声，而我长达两三个月的自动化和商业实验也终于落下了帷幕，
从这一系列经历中，我可以总结出太多东西，但其中最重要的是我着实体验到了辜负50多个人的积累和信任的感受，这让我意识到“诚信”这一词是我今后不管是在网络中还是现实中都需要一直实践的一个最重要的品德之一。