National Tide 1980.

In this era, if people who want to make a lot of money in the business world in Beijing want to do business, there are usually only three ways.

The first is to rely on connections and background to get the most sought-after materials in the market, and while chatting, laughing, eating and drinking, you can get the wholesale documents and make the money.

The second is to rely on good vision, a sharp mind, and the ability to strategize, inquire and analyze policies.

You can always get in touch with the policies in advance, take a step ahead in the fields that are about to become popular, and then get a piece of the pie when the policies are in place.

The third is to rely on the ability to endure hardships, be bold, and be full of passion to venture into the world, risking personal safety and even legal risks, to get popular goods and contraband from distant places, and then bring them back to make a profit from the difference.

Basically, this is the current state of survival of Beijing businessmen, most of whom are engaged in speculative business of buying and selling, and their main goal is to make quick profits in a short period of time.

After all, every place has its own characteristics, and every era has its own characteristics.

In today's Beijing, there are very few people who are able to look far ahead and are willing to take steady steps to engage in industry.

This is because since ancient times, people in the capital, living under the feet of the emperor, have generally been superstitious about power, and like to take advantage of the public and take shortcuts.

This is also because most people doing business today have not had time to complete their initial accumulation and have not even reached the stage of considering long-term development directions.

You know, a real big business requires huge capital.

Making friends, gaining a foothold, accumulating inventory, and expanding scale all require capital.

If you don’t have enough money, how can you have a long-term career?

We can only focus on the present and pursue short-term benefits with this model.

There is no way around it, we can only take it one step at a time.

However, for Ning Weimin, an outlier who has so much money that he can hardly hide it, these limitations do not exist at all.

In fact, what he needs is just a signal of opening up to private capital.

Now the policy has been given, and domestic private enterprises are finally allowed to debut.

Ning Weimin, who had accumulated a lot of experience, naturally couldn't wait to instruct his subordinates to start grabbing land and making moves on the industries he had long been optimistic about.

On April 1988, 4, Gu Minghai, who was formerly affiliated with the planning department of Pierre Caton Company, drove his Santana with two followers and drove to the HD area, the busiest Zhongguancun Street.

This road, less than one kilometer long in the northwest suburbs of Beijing, is not only the "starting point" of Zhongguancun.

At this time, Zhongguancun had already become a nationally famous electronics street.

Here, the lush green branches and leaves on the roadside exude a strong sense of spring, and even the air is filled with the fresh scent of reform and technology.

With the emergence of dozens of technology companies such as Jinghai, Kehai, Sitong, and Xintong, "Two Tongs and Two Seas" has become the special symbol of this street in this era.

In particular, one month later, Zhongguancun will be officially designated as the "Beijing New Technology Industry Development Experimental Zone".

This further indicates that the scale of the capital's high-tech industries will expand rapidly, and this place will host more "bases" for high-tech industries.

However, most of the high-tech companies that have settled on this street mainly engage in reselling imported electronic components. Most of them appear in the form of middleman sales departments, and their scale is not large.

Especially because the products sold are expensive, although each company has many people inquiring about the products every day, the sales performance is only tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan per month.

Even though Lenovo had already started mass production of its own independently developed Chinese cards and opened a branch in Hong Kong, it still looked thin and shabby.

In general, this street still appears in the form of a large market for trading.

Since computer office work is far from being popularized, people's ideology is limited, and key guiding policies have not yet been issued.

At present, even many practitioners here are not very optimistic about the future of their industry and this street.

The high-tech enterprises here give people a sense of being tacky and like charlatans, no matter in terms of scale, brand image, or business premises.

Therefore, this provides Ning Weimin and his people with a valuable investment opportunity - the rent here is pitifully low, and they can grab land here and take the lead before everyone else.

After Ning Weimin registered a trade development company, his first plan was to open the first formal electronic market here, and Xiao Gu was the executive agent of this project.

Ning Weimin’s instructions to Xiao Gu were also very clear.

Let him first find a place on Zhongguancun Street that is suitable for setting up a large market and sign a long-term contract.

Then we started large-scale construction and set up a legal and compliant formal market.

Fire prevention, theft prevention, fraud prevention, quality assurance, quantity assurance and safety must all be done in place.

Ning Weimin's few requirements were that the contract period should be at least fifteen years, and it should be best if the property was located on the street and large enough.

As for how to make a profit as quickly as possible, don’t consider this issue for now.

Because as long as the rent is low enough, it can be used as a warehouse at worst, and Ning Weimin’s own related companies can absorb it.

In short, it will never be idle in vain.

It was precisely because of Ning Weimin's guarantee that Xiao Gu followed Ning Weimin's requirements completely and found a location that met his requirements a little further away from the Electronic Street. He came to see the scene today.

In fact, after they drove out of the electronics street, they drove north for a full 700 meters before finally stopping in front of an electronic switch factory that was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Although it is only 700 meters away from the Electronic Street, the scene here is quite different and extremely desolate.

Although this switch factory is located on a main road, there are very few pedestrians and vehicles here, except for the dust and howling wind.

There was almost nothing on the roadside except for two lonely bus stop signs. It was just a long row of brick walls within the factory area. There was not even a bicycle parked against the wall. Even the people selling eggs and millet and the people collecting scrap didn't come here.

Xiao Gu wanted to enter the tightly locked iron gate, so he honked the horn outside the gate for several minutes before someone creaked and opened the door to let their car in.

"Boss Gu, this place is not suitable. It is too desolate..."

Before getting off the car, one of the followers started to curl his lips, as if he was disgusted.

I am not optimistic about the business prospects here at all.

"Stop talking nonsense. Are you the boss? Am I the boss? Shut up and stop talking nonsense."

Gu Minghai was not going to tolerate his bad habits. He scolded him, took out the car keys, picked up his mobile phone, got out of the car decisively, and greeted the people who came to greet him.

To be honest, this thing called a mobile phone is effective.

Although they had always been in contact by phone and today was only the first time they met, the director of the switch factory who came out to greet the guests was able to confirm Gu Minghai's identity at a glance through this thing.

"Mr. Gu, huh? Hello, hello. You are really young and promising."

"Okay, okay. You are Director Liu, right? Then please take me around our factory first..."

Gu Minghai was not polite either. From then on, he followed Director Liu around and listened to him introduce the situation in the factory.

Because of Ning Weimin's instructions, Gu Minghai was also one of the participants in the construction project of the Pierre Catton Building.

So naturally, what he sees is different from what others see.

Yes, this place is quite remote, and there are only one or two buses near the door.

He couldn't help but want to sing the song that has become popular recently, "I am a wolf from the north, walking in the endless wilderness, the howling north wind blows, the endless yellow sand passes by..." But precisely because of this, the factory will not offer a high price.

Especially since Ning Weimin had told him before that a fortune of ten thousand was not as good as ten acres of rotten land.

A huge fortune will eventually be spent, but rotten land produces something every year.

Since this place is so close to the Electronic Street, if it is true as Ning Weimin said, this place has become an important science and technology industry support base designated by the government. Within a year or two, it will surely usher in explosive development and expansion.

If it is really converted into a market, it will definitely benefit from it.

By then, even if you rent out the property like herding sheep and collect rent without any brains, you can still make ends meet.

What's more, the scale of this factory is not small. The office is located in a three-story building covering an area of ​​more than 2,000 square meters, which can be used after a slight renovation.

I guess it wouldn't be a big problem to reinforce the structure and add one or two more floors.

The factory and warehouse are also ready, and there is a large open yard where additional buildings can be built.

By adjusting the factory windows and reinstalling the electrical wires and lights, one workshop can accommodate more than 40 large counters.

The total area of ​​this place is about 8,000 square meters. If we really tear it down and build a shopping mall, it can at least catch up with half of the Tianqiao Department Store.

Apart from the fact that the area in front of the door is too deserted, there is really nothing wrong with it. It is indeed a good place.

As for the lack of popularity, isn’t that difficult to deal with?

After the shopping mall was renovated, Zhao Daqing's advertising company was asked to help advertise in various media.

What's more, the roof can be used to place iron frames, just like the outdoor advertisements that Zhao Daqing has been busy with recently.

He could also make an iron frame on the roof as big as four door panels, stick four pieces of tin sheets on it, paint it white, and have someone write two rows of table-sized calligraphy on it with red paint, which would read "Zhongguancun Electronic Market."

I believe that even if it is 700 meters away, people on the electronics street can still see it by looking up.

So, if anyone wants to rent a place to do business, why don’t you come over and take a look?

That’s not all. Even the factory manager is a down-to-earth person and basically has no ulterior motives.

He had even contracted out his factory twice, and each time the performance was worse than the last. The losses became more and more serious, the goods were piling up and could not be sold, and he owed more than 700,000 yuan in foreign debt.

The workers have not received full wages for two months, and all of this has been reported.

It is obvious that they now regard Gu Minghai as a life-saving straw. Director Liu admitted that their factory could no longer afford the losses, so they wanted to rent out the factory.

I was thinking of using a sum of money to first pay off the money owed to the workers and the foreign debts, and then hope that the person who rented the factory would help relocate half of the more than 200 workers in the factory, with wages no lower than the workers' original wages, and then pay the rent according to the contract.

He can ask his superiors for help in relocating other workers.

Just because the factory director was so honest, Gu Minghai also regarded this switch factory as meat in his bowl.

After inspecting the site and gaining sufficient knowledge of the situation, we entered the negotiation phase.

As the saying goes, "Birds of a feather flock together." Having been hanging out with Manager Sha and his friends for years, Gu Minghai's methods are not comparable to those of the honest factory director.

He is very strategic and can see that the factory manager is a bit stubborn.

I didn't argue with the factory manager at first, and almost agreed to all his requests, including renting the property for 20 years, paying off the factory's debts, and relocating the workers.

Of course the factory manager was very happy and felt that he was a capable and efficient boss.

Not only did they treat Gu Minghai and his friends to a meal with fine wine and food, but they also immediately signed a contract.

But Gu Minghai stretched it out.

The factory manager was told to wait, as he needed to find someone to do the math again and would sign the contract once enough funds were raised.

Then he went back and asked for help.

Manager Sha, Zhao Daqing and Qi Yanjun were all helpers he invited.

The trick Gu Minghai came up with was actually very simple.

That is, let these people also go to the factory and say that they want to rent a factory building, and spread the word to the factory director that Gu Minghai does not have so much money.

Then they started to find faults with the factory building one by one, saying that the feng shui was bad, the location was bad, and there were not many people around. In short, they said that the factory building was not good for anything and offered Director Liu of the switch factory a very low price.

As long as the opponent is confused, the factory director will take the initiative to contact Gu Minghai but fail to get through, so he will leave it alone for a few days.

Then when Gu Minghai goes to contact the other party himself, the factory director will probably not be able to withstand it.

I am sure you have lowered your conditions.

In this regard, Manager Sha, Zhao Daqing, and Qi Yanjun all agreed to help.

Praise Xiao Gu for his promising future and said this was a brilliant idea.

Sure enough, a month later, Director Liu of the switch factory was fooled.

When Gu Minghai, who had disappeared for nearly a month, contacted him again, he was almost in despair and almost cried for joy.

And when Gu Minghai cried poor to him during the dinner, he really took it seriously.

Gu Minghai told me that he really didn't have that much money, and business was not easy to do now. If he didn't handle it well enough, he would lose money.

He begged and pleaded with everyone, and finally managed to come up with 2.8 million.

If they are willing, the contract term can be extended to 30 years and they can sign the contract.

If you don't want to, then forget it. Even if the deal doesn't go through, the friendship remains.

So after the factory manager went back, he considered it seriously for a few days, and after the final bargaining, he finally nodded.

The two parties signed a 25-year contract for a sum of 2.85 million yuan.

The additional conditions had also changed to a certain extent. Gu Minghai no longer had to repay the debts of the switch factory, but he needed to hire two-thirds of the factory's workers, at least 150 people.

As for how Gu Minghai thanked several old colleagues for helping him get out of the situation, it was actually very simple.

In addition to treating the guests, he only agreed to buy two boxes of wine from Manager Sha to use as gifts, and after the shopping mall is renovated, the advertising business will also be handed over to Zhao Daqing's company.

So, these are all the conditions behind this big deal.

However, even Gu Minghai himself would not know that the location he chose would actually become one of the corners of the future "Golden Triangle" in the southern part of Zhongguancun.

The Zhongguancun electronics store he founded also has special significance for the future young people of Beijing.

More than a decade later, at least millions of people bought their first computer or mobile phone in the shopping mall he founded.

The 2.85 million he paid today would only be the rent for the mall for four or five days. (End of this chapter)