The Red Era: Living in Seclusion in a Siheyuan as a Boss

Chapter 617 The famous battle of "Liu's Overseas"!!!

Through the practice in the past period of time, Liu Shudong and his team have accumulated some escort experience.

You must buy anything that is for sale, and having enough dry food and drinking water is the top priority.

Be prepared!
Train drivers are also required to get as close to the water intake as possible when stopping at stations to facilitate fetching water for cattle and ensure the safety of both people and animals.

The train was traveling in Nanhu. The southern sun was scorching hot in October, and the entire carriage was baked hot.

Liu Shudong was being steamed and baked like a piece of bread, and was facing the threat of lack of water and food. The water in his body was evaporating, his physical strength was being consumed, and he was sweating all over.

You have to know that after leaving the three towns of Jiangcheng, the train ran for another twelve hours like crazy, and they didn't have a drop of water to eat or drink.

Although there is still some water left in the water tank, it is reserved for the cows to drink.

Liu Shudong and his colleagues must be very responsible and "supply them equally to all ages", otherwise the consequences will be disastrous...

This mentality of putting the "superiors" before themselves is deeply rooted in their minds, melted into their blood, and implemented in their actions.

At about 2 o'clock in the afternoon of that day, the train finally stopped at a small station in Chenzhou, Hunan, panting heavily.

It is still unknown how long it will stop to make way for express trains.

Liu Shudong and his colleagues were so hungry and thirsty that they had no time to figure out whether they had enough time. They quickly divided the work and assigned tasks such as fetching water and feeding the cows.

Liu Shudong was still in charge of "begging for food", carrying two iron buckets and running to the railway staff canteen which was 700 meters away from the locomotive...

The door of the cafeteria was half-open, obviously it was past mealtime.

There was only one cafeteria chef here, fanning himself and taking a nap under the electric fan.

Liu Shudong hurriedly and sweatily pushed him awake, said sorry, and begged him to "give" him some rice, vegetables and soup to solve the urgent need for food for the six of us.

Perhaps he had received countless "escorts" like Liu Shudong and knew their hardships well, so the master immediately stood up and filled two buckets of hot meals and soup for him without complaint.

Liu Shudong hurriedly paid the food coupons and money, said thank you, picked up the bucket and ran out.

...something unexpected happened again!
Before Liu Shudong stepped out of the cafeteria door, he saw the stationmaster next to the front of the train waving a green signal flag, ordering the train to depart.

At the same time, the train driver was blowing his whistle, the steam engine was spewing out thick clouds of fog, and the wheels were already turning...

Liu Shudong immediately felt the blood boiling in his body, his nerves tensed, and his heart seemed to rush out of his throat. He saw the tragedy of falling behind happening before his eyes again.

At this time, Liu Shudong was parallel to the front of the train, but his carriage was at the rear of the train, section 54.

The train was moving towards Liu Shudong and would go faster and faster, but he was still holding two baskets of food and soup in his hands, but he could not throw them away.

Liu Shudong thought about this while mechanically running towards the rear of the car with the bucket in his hand.

The train was going faster and faster, with carriages passing by him one after another. The speed was several times faster than before, and it was impossible for him to jump onto his own carriage.

At this critical moment, Liu Shudong was quick-witted: showing the skills of the railway guerrillas back then, he quickly moved the bucket in his right hand to his left hand, freed his right hand to aim at an oncoming tank car, grabbed the guardrail on the car, flew in the opposite direction, and climbed up.

Liu Shudong held the guardrail tightly with his right hand, and carefully put down one of the two buckets in his left hand.

I was afraid that it would fly away, so I had to sit on it to hold it in place, while my left hand had to hold another bucket of hot soup. I really used all my tricks.

At this moment, with the scorching sun above, hot food steaming below, and a hot soup bucket beside him, Liu Shudong was still wearing a cotton-padded jacket, cotton pants, and big-toed shoes from the Northeast.
With the sound of hot wind whirring in my ears, I felt like I was being steamed and roasted in a furnace. The burning sensation from the fire was suffocating. It was like wearing a cotton-padded jacket in summer - it makes you sweat (Wuhan).

A few minutes later, Liu Shudong found that his whole body was soaked like a sauna. His head was steaming and his whole body felt like it was about to fall apart...

But Liu Shudong clearly knew that he couldn't relax at all, otherwise I would be in danger of being thrown out at any time...

Liu Shudong just had to control himself and persevere. He firmly believed that after getting through this ordeal, victory would belong to him again.

This hard-earned food and soup will definitely be delivered to the mouths of the comrades. They will definitely gobble it up and continue to complete the task of delivering cattle to Hong Kong with themselves.

………The train continued to move, and Liu Shudong looked around intently. The surrounding cliffs, steep cliffs, abysses, undercurrents, tunnels, mountains, bridges, culverts, electric poles, etc. flashed before his eyes like a series of thrilling pictures, making him dizzy.

He was also troubled by the scorching sun, high temperature, sweat, wind, sand, and mud, which made his life even more difficult...

More than an hour later, the train finally stopped and Liu Shudong's tense nerves finally relaxed.

Liu Shudong jumped off the tanker truck with which he had shared life and death, holding a bait in each hand, and strode towards the 54th carriage.

The scene of meeting with comrades again can be imagined. Everyone was filled with mixed emotions of excitement, surprise, worry, joy and admiration.

Everyone shared the joy of reunion with Liu Shudong, and at the same time ate with relish the bucket of food that he had once sat on. It smelled so good!
"Afterwards, when I thought about this unforgettable experience of hijacking a car, I was really scared!
I don’t know what force made me take the risk at that time.
Maybe it’s the ambition, responsibility and commitment;
Maybe it’s youth, competitiveness, enthusiasm, and persistence;

Maybe it is to demonstrate one’s own abilities and value;
Perhaps they are afraid of repeating the mistake of “falling behind” and having difficulty explaining to their leaders;

Maybe it was so that everyone could eat the food I bought in time, so that I could live up to my fathers and fellow villagers;
Maybe it is Hong Kong that attracts me... Maybe...

There may be more perhapss, but no matter what, this experience will be forever, forever engraved in the depths of my memory, and will never be erased, really!" When Liu Shudong told this story, his face was filled with emotion.

Liu Yong also sincerely admired him and said, "Uncle Fifteen, those who have accomplished great things in ancient and modern times must have done things differently from ordinary people. It is because of your tenacity, fearlessness and courage to take risks that you have helped our Liu family create such a great foundation in Hong Kong!"

"Yes, Uncle Fifteen, my third brother is right. You have made great contributions to the current scale of Liu's Overseas Investment!" Liu Bencheng also flattered.

"Haha, you two shouldn't flatter me. I know my own weight very well.

Yes, I admit that I have contributed to the Liu family's success in Hong Kong.

In fact, the person who made the greatest contribution is your uncle.

It was your uncle, the captain, who had the general direction in mind, and we were just following his lead!"

"Uncle Fifteen, we've only told half of the story. What happened to you later?" Liu Bencheng listened with great interest. What he wanted most was to hear the story of Liu Shudong's later arrival in Hong Kong.

"On the way to the south for escort, there were more hilarious stories in the carriage next to us..." Liu Shudong continued.

What's going on!

It turned out that a cow gave birth to a calf on the way.

Liu Shudong thought to himself at the time: "They didn't even detect a pregnant cow? This is really poor professionalism!"

Fortunately, the train was in Nanhu, and local farmers regarded cattle as their lifeline, so there was no problem in dealing with the calf.

These careless people treated the calf as a "burden" and gave it to a local farmer.

"A calf fell from the sky" was such a joyous occasion that the farmer was flattered and immediately bowed to express his gratitude.

But it’s a pity for this calf that it was separated from its mother as soon as it was born and has no milk to drink. I wonder how it will live in the future?

The cow that lost her calf also mooed loudly because of her engorged milk.

At the Shaoguan marshaling yard, the train underwent its final marshaling before heading to Hong Kong. This time, Liu Shudong and his team were marshaled at the front, becoming the "leader" and sitting right next to the locomotive.

At about 10 o'clock in the morning on October 29 of that year, after a long journey of nine days and eight nights, Liu Shudong and his team arrived at the Sanyuanli Station in Guangdong Province, near the Anti-Y Memorial.

As they got closer and closer to the Hong Kong River, Liu Shudong and the others were all extremely excited...!
But what they didn't expect was that the railway suddenly informed them that Liu Shudong and his companions had completed the escort mission. Because the next stop was Bao County, which was a border area, they were not allowed to go there without a special pass, let alone to Hong Kong.

This was a real blow to Liu Shudong and his team. They felt very sorry, or even a little angry. What kind of thing was this? !

Liu Shudong and his entourage carried their luggage, wore sheepskin coats, and walked to the nearby Guangdong Foreign Trade Guesthouse under the guidance of the staff of the Guangdong Railway Station, under the scorching sun and covered in the smell of dry cows. They dragged their tired bodies and looked haggard.

"My goodness, as soon as we walked in, we were met with cold stares from the waitresses. They looked down on us, a bunch of stinky, dirty "country bumpkins".

They repeatedly warned us to pay attention to hygiene and not to dirty the sofa and bed sheets. We worked so hard but this is how we were treated!

You know, without us being such "bears", where would the fellow Hong Kong people get beef to eat! Strangely enough, since then I have had a connection with Hong Kong, and I have made up my mind to go to Hong Kong in this life.

After I came back, I started to pay attention to the developments in Hong Kong, analyze its trends, understand its history, and master knowledge about Hong Kong, which became an integral part of my life.

It was not until a few years later that our Liu family grew stronger and stronger and needed to expand overseas.

Your uncle proposed at an internal family meeting to select some family members to go to Hong Kong for development first.

I had just graduated from university with a degree in economics, and I had a relatively good understanding of Hong Kong, so I became the person in charge..."

"The first battle that helped our 'Liu's Overseas Investment' gain a foothold in Hong Kong was the 'Wharf Holdings' proposed by your uncle. This alone made our 'Liu' famous in Hong Kong." Liu Shudong proudly spoke of the 'Wharf Holdings' that had made him famous.

"Hutchison Whampoa? Isn't the Bao family the final winner? Does this have anything to do with us?" Liu Bencheng makes a living in the financial field, so of course he has heard of such a classic business war.

At that time, Wharf Holdings belonged to the Jardine Matheson Group, a Y-capital consortium.

Its old site later became the land king of Kowloon, but the situation at that time was that Hutchison Whampoa’s stocks were seriously undervalued.

If it is developed reasonably, the prospects will definitely be bright.

precisely because of this.

At that time, Bao Yugang was optimistic about this, and Li Ka Shing was also optimistic;

Bao wanted to seize it, and Li wanted to buy it.

As a result, Li Ka Shing finally became the shipping king, which triggered the sensational Wharf Warehouse Battle.

Hutchison Whampoa is not a warehouse in the strict sense, but the largest cargo port in Hong Kong, with deep-water docks, open-air cargo yards and freight warehouses.

In 1886, Paul Chater took the lead in setting up a dock warehouse in Kowloon, and Jardine Matheson was one of its major shareholders.

As a listed company of the Jardine Matheson Group, it is known as the "two wings" of Jardine Matheson together with Hong Kong Land Development.

The Kowloon Godown Company's assets include most of the docks and warehouses in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, the New Territories and Hong Kong Island, as well as hotels, buildings, trams and the Star Ferry.

With a long history and strong assets, it can be said that whoever owned Hutchison Whampoa at that time controlled most of the cargo loading and unloading, storage and transportation, and cross-sea ferries in Hong Kong.

At that time, Jardine Matheson, the parent company of Hutchison Whampoa, was known as one of the four major trading companies in Hong Kong, along with Hutchison Whampoa, Swire Group and Wheelock.

Jardine Matheson was the most powerful of the four major trading companies, and the boss of Jardine Matheson was also the chairman of Wharf Holdings, which shows that Wharf Holdings played a very important role in Jardine Matheson.

At that time, Hong Kong was dominated by the Y Capital Group.

Families like the Bao, Li, Huo, and Guo are nothing compared to the Y-capital consortium.

It's like comparing a small shrimp with a fish. Because of this, almost no one would have thought that Chinese capital would dare to take action against "Wharf Holdings".

Bao Yugang's strategy at the beginning was to "enter the village quietly without firing a shot" and to erode the shares of "Hutchison Whampoa" bit by bit.

What Bao Yugang had never expected was that there was someone who shared his heroic views!
While he was secretly acquiring shares of "Hutchison Whampoa", two other mysterious forces were also quietly making their plans. This undercurrent battle for equity has already begun.

"How could there be such a coincidence?" Bao Yugang frowned, even suspecting that there was a traitor in his team.

After careful investigation, he finally uncovered the mystery of the two forces: one was the Chinese capital tycoon Li Jiacheng, with whom he had always had dealings, and the other was a stranger to him.

Who exactly is this financial investment company called "Liu Overseas"?
Bao Yugang looked at the investigation report and fell into deep thought.

Why did this little-known financial upstart suddenly appear in this business game?
Similar to Bao Yugang’s idea, Li Jiacheng’s decision to take over “Hutchison Whampoa” was the result of his own long-term planning.

At that time, Li Jiacheng always regarded Hutchison Whampoa as his competitor, and Wharf Holdings caught his attention, which was a "relocation" of Wharf Holdings.

Tsim Sha Tsui, which faces the Central District of Hong Kong Island across the sea, is increasingly becoming a tourist and commercial district in Hong Kong.

After the railway station moved east, Wharf moved its freight business to Kwai Chung and the west of the peninsula, and the vacated land was used to develop commercial buildings.

Li Jiacheng praised the founder of Hutchison Whampoa for acquiring this Feng Shui treasure land at a very low price, and now his net worth has risen a hundredfold.

Hutchison Whampoa has built famous buildings such as Harbour City and Ocean Centre, but its management methods are not commendable.

They insisted on using their own assets to build buildings, only renting them out and not selling them, which caused a slowdown in capital return and plunged the group into a financial crisis.

In order to resolve the crisis, a large number of bonds were sold to raise cash, which in turn caused the group to be heavily in debt, its credibility declined, and its stocks depreciated.

In mid-December 1977, a sensitive financial commentator analyzed Wharf Holdings under the title "Wharf Holdings' Business Begins to Transform", pointing out that if the Wharf Holdings Group could make full use of its land resources, it could achieve a good momentum of annual growth of 12% in the next 10 years.

The commentator also predicted that Wharf Holdings shares, which were priced at HK$13.5 at the time, would be a hot stock in 1978.

This commentator and Li Jiacheng have similar views on the Wharf issue, but one is in the open and makes a lot of comments;
One is in the dark, not showing off, working hard and not making a fuss - Li Ka Shing has been acquiring shares of Wharf Holdings.

At the same time, "Liu's Overseas Investment", which had just been established in Hong Kong less than half a year ago, also began to enter the market secretly under the command of Liu Shudong.

A few years later, Li Jiacheng got together with bigwigs such as Liu Shudong and Bao Yugang.

He talked about how if he had not helped the two of them back then, Hutchison Whampoa would have wanted a piece of the pie no matter what.

Li Jiacheng said that he had imagined many times that if he were in charge of the real estate development of the former site of Hutchison Whampoa, it would never have fallen into such a predicament.

Since the listing of Changjiang, Li Jiacheng has been pursuing a cautious and flexible principle in the issue of "sale" and "rental" of built buildings.

If you have ample funds on hand, or if the property market is sluggish and property prices are low, it is best to keep it as a rental property; if you urgently need funds to return to speed up house construction, and if the property market is booming and property prices are rising, it is better to sell the property.

Li Jiacheng's real fortune came from the real estate and stock markets.

He was optimistic about Wharf Holdings' stock because the group's poor management had caused its share price to be low.

Li Jiacheng, who is an expert in real estate stocks, did a detailed calculation: at the end of 1977 and the beginning of 1978, the stock price of Wharf Holdings was between HK$13 and HK$14.

Hutchison Whampoa has issued less than 1 million shares, which means its total stock market value is less than HK$14 billion.

Wharf Holdings was located in the most prosperous prime location in Kowloon. Based on the auction price of government land in the same area at that time, calculated at HK$6000 to HK$7000 per square foot, the actual value of Wharf Holdings’ stock should be HK$50 per share.

If the old site of Wharf Holdings is properly developed, its value will be even higher. It would still be worthwhile to buy Wharf Holdings shares even at a price five times higher than the current price.

Based on this consideration, Li Jiacheng quietly bought about 2000 million shares of Wharf Holdings held by retail investors.

At this time, Bao Yugang had not officially entered the market, but "Liu's Overseas Investment" had huge funds.

However, in order not to alert the enemy, "Liu's Overseas Investment" only bought up stocks from retail investors bit by bit.

By the time Li Jiacheng discovered that someone had the same goal as him, "Liu Overseas" had already acquired about 2700 million shares of "Hutchison Whampoa", more than what Li Jiacheng had in his hands.

This number is a sensitive and critical boundary for both Li Jiacheng and Jardine Matheson.

Li Jiacheng is a man who never fights an unprepared battle. On the one hand, he is secretly investigating the suddenly appeared "Liu's Overseas Investment".

On the other hand, we also learned through the think tank that Wharf Holdings, which has always been known as the two wings of Jardine Matheson, does not have an equal relationship with its sister company, Hutchison Whampoa, in terms of holding structure.

Jardine Matheson controls Hutchison Whampoa, Hutchison Whampoa controls Wharf Holdings, and Hutchison Whampoa owns a 14.5% stake in Wharf Holdings.

The Wharf Holdings shares that Li Ka-shing has acquired now account for about 17% of the total number of Wharf Holdings shares.

Li Jiacheng still doesn't know how many shares of "Hutchison Whampoa" this "Liu Overseas" holds, but it is definitely not as much as he holds.

I thought that the largest shareholder of Hutchison Whampoa would not be the Keswick family of Jardine Matheson, but Li Ka-shing.

He wanted to deal with this company called "Liu Overseas" before the Keswick family could react.

(End of this chapter)