Siheyuan: I eat melons while doing scientific research

Chapter 1262 Everyone Gains (4k)

It's obvious that this hastily formed company came specifically for these exhibits.

This is a good thing. At least it shows that these things are compelling enough for people to take this step. Any change is good news.

"This is a good thing. They don't have diplomatic relations with us, but it's a good thing to be able to open up more opportunities with them through trade and economic exchanges," the comrade from the foreign affairs department said with a smile.

If you want to develop, you will inevitably need to establish connections with more countries.

If the political deadlock cannot be broken for the time being, then it would be a good thing to make a breakthrough in other directions. Gao Zhendong is well aware of this. For example, ping-pong diplomacy was a proud achievement that our foreign affairs workers talked about with great pride in his previous life.

And in terms of breaking the deadlock in trade and economics, it is no less impressive than sports diplomacy.

"Hmm, it seems they have big ambitions. If they form a consortium, their goal must be the entire product line. Otherwise, they could probably handle just one or two products."

The comrades from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seemed to have a pretty good idea of ​​why the Bullfighting Kingdom wanted to form a joint-stock company before discussing the matter further.

"What do you think?"

"That's a good thing. Actually, from a management and communication perspective, we're not too keen on breaking things down too finely, especially with countries like the 'Bullfighting Country,' where the total amount is limited. Breaking it down too finely would greatly increase our management and communication costs. Although their unity might cause us trouble in negotiations, overall, I prefer to deal with them in this way," the colleague from the foreign business department said with a smile.

To put it bluntly, the problem is that for these companies with relatively small overall trade volumes, breaking them up is too cumbersome. Moreover, from a management perspective, if there's any trouble, regardless of the product, you only need to contact one supplier, which is much more convenient than trying to do things haphazardly.

As for the lack of competition caused by a monopoly, it's not a major problem at the current scale. We can address this issue once we reach a larger scale.

Moreover, once the scale increases and the profits are large enough, they will naturally have the power within their own countries to foster a competitive environment without us even having to mention it.

“Sign only for 2-3 years at a time!” Gao Zhendong suddenly interjected.

"2-3 years?"

"Yes, theoretically the shorter the better, but one year is too short, which makes the fixed costs of reaching a cooperation too high and not attractive to them. On the other hand, more than three years is too long and not in our favor. Two to three years is more suitable and is a better balance."

With such petty thoughts, our comrades often fall into a state of "a gentleman can be deceived by reason." Otherwise, in Gao Zhendong's previous life, when we first opened our country to the world, we wouldn't have been forced to sign so many deceptive agreements with the Japanese and Americans on commercial details. This was partly due to a lack of experience and partly due to too much trust in others.

However, after Gao Zhendong's reminder, the colleagues from the Ministry of Foreign Trade thought the suggestion was good.

"Yes, Comrade Zhendong is right. Nothing is ever done once and for all. Two to three years is a good time to ensure the interests of all parties and allow the terms of cooperation to be adjusted in a timely manner according to the development of the environment. Write this down; it is a principle in negotiations."

The comrade from the foreign affairs department laughed and said, "This time, you might have to take the lead for us. You pry open the door so that we can follow up and do our work."

As a representative of a rather unique country in Europe, the United States is large enough and has a glorious history. After all, the earliest "Invincible Armada" had nothing to do with John Bull.

Together with the Cork Kingdom, it can play a role in our exchanges with other emerging countries, which we attach great importance to.

High emotional intelligence: Emerging countries.

Low emotional intelligence: Colonies liberated from these countries.

The colleague from the Ministry of Foreign Trade clicked his tongue: "That makes sense, but something just doesn't sound right to me."

Everyone laughed.
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Meanwhile, the exhibition was still bustling with activity, and people from the Bullfighting Kingdom strolled through the various exhibition halls, deeply grateful for their decision the day before.

If we had gone a little further in yesterday, this joint-stock company might not even exist anymore.

After the shareholding agreement was reached, these people finally began to operate separately, and we proactively provided them with a certain number of translators. That's the good thing about us; no matter how hard we search, we can always find a sufficient number of translators. With such a large population, there's no other way.

In Gao Zhendong's past life, when we hosted the Olympics for the first time and raised the standard of the opening ceremony to a whole new level, we were able to gather volunteers who spoke almost every language, regardless of how obscure it was. We even had professionals in Esperanto, a language that many people had never even heard of and that very few people used.

What's even more interesting is that if Zang San wants to study Sanskrit texts, he has to come to us, because they don't know how, but we do.

The group of people from the Bullfighting Kingdom banded together yesterday. Besides being unfamiliar with the place, one reason was the lack of translators. But there was another, more important reason, which they all tacitly avoided mentioning, which was that they were wary of each other.

But now it's no longer necessary, as evidenced by the agreement to establish the Oriental Trade Joint-Stock Company!

They were watching everything with curiosity when a man from the Bullfighting Kingdom rushed over excitedly.

"Mr. Daniel, I've discovered something very interesting!"

"Ugo, what's making you so excited?"

"You'll understand when you come and see for yourself."

Ugo led Daniel and several of his companions to a booth.

The exhibits here don't look high-tech at all; they are all very simple and unadorned. The dark green paint, characteristic of this era, makes them look completely unrelated to high technology.

But the people from the Bullfighting Kingdom were immediately intrigued: "Ugo, your discovery is indeed very interesting."

In front of them was a pile of small agricultural machines, painted in green and only two other colors—black and the natural color of steel, which looked rather rustic.

But for the people of the Bullfighting Kingdom, this was a pretty good gain.

The Land of Bullfighting is one of the major agricultural countries in Europe, but their agricultural conditions are not very good. While they do have plains, they have even more mountains! It can be said that the Land of Bullfighting's ability to develop such a large-scale agriculture is inseparable from their hard work in the mountains.

These small agricultural machines are a very good choice for them.

"These small agricultural machines are great news for farmers in our mountainous area."

"Yes, the key is that they are cheap enough! I think even with our profit margin, they are still competitive with similar products in China."

"Gentlemen, they even have some agricultural machinery that we don't have, which is wonderful. You know, I also have a farm, and I can't wait to use some of it on my farm." After all, when it comes to the diverse terrain, Dou Niu is still a bit behind us. There are quite a few strange and unusual agricultural machines that we can think of but they can't. "Even if they don't have them, it doesn't matter. If everything goes smoothly, we can provide the blueprints and place an order with them. It's even possible that we can propose our conditions and have them design and produce some special machinery for us."

Compared to the high-tech products such as electronics, computers, software, and communications, these diverse small agricultural machines seem quite approachable to China, a major agricultural country. Of course, what's even more approachable to them is the price.

For those in the trade business, meeting demand and offering good quality at low prices is paramount.

They saw the low price, since everyone can understand numbers and currency symbols. As for the quality, they learned about it through translation.

When dealing with a new customer, the most important thing to prove your quality, besides the necessary reports and parameters, is your warranty policy.

After all, there are many ways to manipulate the report parameters, but the warranty policy is the real strength. A sufficiently long warranty period and a sufficiently generous policy are enough to dispel all doubts.

Battle reports may lie, but the front lines do not.

"My God, with this warranty, I can use it for a lifetime!" the farmer exclaimed excitedly.

The group of people from the Bullfighting Kingdom looked around and suddenly realized that this seemingly rustic booth blended perfectly with the high-tech atmosphere around it. It was a perfect combination of practical functionality, low price, and high quality – that's what high technology is all about.

Clearly, there were quite a few of these unsophisticated high-tech gadgets at this exhibition.

Lou Shouxing, who came here the next day, discovered some very interesting things.

He was currently in front of a booth, devouring a slice of watermelon!
This is the wonderful thing he discovered—a watermelon.

As we all know, early watermelons were bitter, and the flesh was not plentiful, somewhat like durian, which has many segments.

Watermelons have only truly become delicious in the last 100 years or so. Watermelons are one of the few fruits that won't disappoint food lovers; you might say they're not sweet, but you won't say they're unpalatable because they're not sour and don't have any other distinct flavors. Compared to sugar beets, which have a high but unassuming sugar content, watermelons contribute the purest form of sweetness with only about 5% sugar content.

Our watermelon industry made rapid progress thanks to an old lady. Interestingly, Grandma Watermelon and Grandpa Rice were classmates.

Although the most famous variety 8424 only appeared in the 80s, her work had already begun in the 60s and had already yielded fruitful results.

Lou Shouxing was devouring a high-quality watermelon that was exhibited under the guise of agricultural science. Who says agriculture isn't high-tech?
Compared to Lou Xiao'e, who ate politely, and He Wu, who ate normally, he was unrestrained, eating one piece after another, making the staff wonder if he hadn't eaten lunch.

Lou Shouxing stopped eating after eating many pieces. His way of eating was certainly not entirely because he was greedy.

Through his foodie behavior, he confirmed one thing.

These kinds of watermelons are very good!

He specifically chose to cut the melons from different varieties, and not a single one was bad. Although some were sandy and others weren't, due to the different varieties, they were all delicious.

"Brother, take it easy."

"It's okay, I'm just testing the flavors."

Hearing this, a nearby staff member smiled and suggested, "Sir, if you're interested, you can talk to our trade representative."

Lou Shouxing nodded: "I will, hahaha, but not today."

His interest stemmed from the fact that this was also a form of transaction. It's important to understand that Zhenxing Electric's economic ties with the mainland were extremely frequent and complex. Putting aside other matters, the amount of money involved in helping Citibank exploit the Bretton Woods system to exchange for gold was substantial.

Taking money directly from here isn't impossible, but taking too much isn't appropriate, as it involves complex foreign exchange management issues. Therefore, Lou Shouxing is looking for any physical goods that can be taken from here and sold, using Zhenxing Electric's profits here as a basis, to directly extract goods from here and sell them.

In this way, it did not cause major problems in terms of foreign exchange, but it also indirectly helped the export of goods from this region, and Zhenxing Electric Technology also gained actual benefits, resulting in a win-win situation.

Besides high-tech products like electronics, computers, and software, Lou Shouxing is also interested in other things; after all, money earned from agricultural products is money too.

This watermelon is quite good; I can add another variety to my inventory list. Importing watermelons from coastal provinces and selling them in Hong Kong is a lucrative business. Even small things matter, and Lou Shouxing understands the principle of making a fortune from small contributions.

However, if Lou Shouxing wanted to talk, he certainly wouldn't do it with the comrades here; he had a dedicated channel that was much more convenient.

Like Lou Shouxing, many others have also reaped significant benefits.

Several polar bear technicians were looking at a machine on a display stand, their eyes filled with surprise.

"The comrades from the South actually have such a good milling machine! This is beyond my expectations." An old Russian looked at the documents in his hand and talked to his colleague.

His colleague was clearly still caught up in the excitement of being an international trader and didn't realize that there was anything special about the milling machine: "Comrade, we also have milling machines, even three-axis or higher, but this is just a two-axis milling machine, which is a bit inferior to ours."

“No, no, no, you should put away your arrogance, my comrades. Look here…” he said to his colleague, pointing to a parameter in the data.

“Whatever it is, three axes are better than two axes, my God… This can’t be!” His expression changed faster than turning the pages of a book.

He picked up another brochure from the display stand, brought it close to his eyes, and checked it again.

That's a machining accuracy indicator.

"Impossible, impossible, this is almost an order of magnitude higher than us..." he muttered to himself, unable to believe his eyes.

"But that's reality, Comrade Comrade, you know, the Southern comrades are always honest." It seems our reputation is still quite good in their eyes.

"If that's the case, even with a two-axis system, we can significantly improve the machining accuracy of some of our parts by improving the production process and process design. However, this places very high demands on our operators..."

“No, Comrade, the requirements aren’t high,” one of our staff members laughed.

(End of this chapter)