Brilliant Years 1991

Chapter 109 This is really a small matter
"Boss Kun, you chose a good office address!"

After depositing the check, the rest of the time was spent on chatting. Today, Sun Shangbin seemed to be in more interest and more willing to have a casual chat like good friends.

Walking to the fairly wide French window of Cao Yukun's general manager's office, he looked out into the distance, "Look, the Star Ferry. You can basically see the entire Bay Area. Isn't it expensive?"

Cao Yukun smiled, "It's okay. The area is not that big."

He nodded, and he didn't know what he was thinking about, but he suddenly looked a little emotional, "Wharf, Ocean Terminal..." He suddenly turned around, "What does Mr. Kun think of Mr. Pao Yue-kong?"

"Uh... I'm not very familiar with this person. Who is this person?"

He laughed, "You just came to Hongkong, it's normal that you are not familiar with it. In the whole 1980s, the most sensational thing in Hongkong was the Chinese advance and the British retreat. I think the symbol in the strict sense was actually Mr. Bao's plan to reduce holdings and land in 80. Back then, Mr. Bao owned the largest fleet in the world. He was worthy of the title of shipping king! At that time, the global shipping industry was still at its peak, but Mr. Bao was wise and had already seen the potential crisis. So at that time, he decided to reduce holdings and land, and sold his ships in large amounts to raise funds. In 85, he spent a huge amount of money to swallow up the British-owned Kowloon Wharf. In , he acquired Wheelock, one of the four major British foreign companies, in one fell swoop. It was really a feat!"

After he said that, Cao Yukun understood all at once - when choosing a location before, he had visited the Ocean Terminal owned by Hutchison Whampoa. The location there was obviously better, but it was expensive, so he ultimately couldn't bear to spend the money.

It was at that time that he heard Ah Hao mention the shipping king, but Cao Yukun didn't care at that time. And to be honest, although he had watched a lot of in-depth economic analysis videos on the Internet in his previous life, he really didn't know much about many things in the 1990s, especially the unfamiliar Hongkong business world.

However, he was quite interested in the so-called reduction in holdings and landing.

Sun Shangbin has been in Hong Kong for ten years and has been working in the business world. He obviously knows a lot about the details of the Hongkong business district. At this time, he is also willing to chat with Cao Yukun about these legendary stories.

After listening to him, I learned that this ship charter king was actually a native of Ningbo and a fellow villager of Cao Yukun. Before liberation, he was already the general manager of a bank in Shanghai. He came to Hong Kong in 49 and started to engage in import and export trade. During the critical period, he transported a lot of strategic materials to the mainland, and later began to buy ships.

With the rise of Japan after the war, a large number of ships were needed to transport coal. Later, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, and the Middle East war and oil crisis led to a surge in freight rates. In short, the whole world was in the midst of post-war construction, and the demand for shipping capacity increased year by year. Against this backdrop, he built his own maritime kingdom step by step.

By the end of the 1970s, he had already firmly established himself as the world's number one shipping tycoon.

It is said that at his peak, he owned more than 2100 ships of various types, with a total tonnage of million tons!

However, just in the twilight of his life, he resolutely made such an amazing business decision to reduce holdings and land, and he personally took charge of the plan and successfully completed the grand plan of landing on land before the low tide of world shipping came. But unfortunately, he passed away last fall.

"It's a pity that the hero has no descendants! Most of the people in the huge Bao's business group are now surnamed Wu!"

Sun Shangbin must have great respect for this ship chartering tycoon. In fact, not only him, but after listening to him talk about the ups and downs of this ship chartering tycoon's life, even Cao Yukun felt a sense of respect for him.

However, yes, the shipping tycoon had no children, only four daughters and no sons.

After his death, the person who now manages his main assets is his eldest son-in-law, Mr. Wu.

"The older generation of Jiangsu and Zhejiang merchants are gradually passing away. The current Hongkong business community is dominated by Chaoshan merchants. There will be fewer and fewer patriotic merchants like Mr. Bao who can command the support of hundreds of people and no one dares to disrespect them. It is hard to say whether people nowadays love their country or not, and which country they love!"

At this point, Sun Shangbin looked up with emotion and said, "So, Mr. Kun, we are about to return home. People like you and me who come from the north not only have the time to struggle, but also have the responsibility to struggle!"

This topic is awesome.

As expected of someone who comes from a family of university professors, he was able to start from scratch in the past ten years in Hongkong!
Cao Yukun had nothing to say. Although he understood what he meant, he just raised his teacup and greeted him. He smiled and also raised his teacup. They both drank it all in one gulp.

The penalty for breach of contract in his distribution agency contract was originally set at only one million.

Recently, many calls have been made to the legal secretary hired by Yiren Kangyin at its registered place, asking about issues related to agency and distribution rights.

But it's really a small matter.

A righteous cause, a well-told story, and a past friendship that may not have been that deep were enough to allow Sun Shangbin to sell smoothly for a year.

It doesn't even need to be stated explicitly.

But he seemed to appreciate it, "Let's have lunch together? It's my treat."

"Hahaha, okay!"

…………

"Husband, I have to practice singing until late today, so I'll have to eat lunch tonight. What do you plan to eat?"

"As for me, I haven't thought about it yet. Someone treated me to lunch. Wow, I ate four steaks by myself, and I'm not hungry!"

"Hahaha, how can you be like this? You are not a gentleman at all! Who would eat four steaks at one time when eating Western food?"

"That's just me! I only love steak!"

"Hahaha, hubby, you're so cute! I have to practice until about ten tonight before I can leave. I have to disguise myself and change taxis. It will definitely be after eleven by the time I get there. You don't have to wait for me!"

"You have to wait! I just had four steaks today. I will definitely feed you till you are full tonight!"

"Oh, you're so annoying! I'm not going to talk to you anymore. I'm going to hang up now!"

"Hey, did he bother you again today?"

"It's okay, he came, but he can't do anything if I ignore him. You know I really hate him now, he is so rude, he says things that don't mean what he says, I don't want to hear a word! I love my husband the most!"

"Haha, I am honest, right? I never dare to say things like I will love you forever or that it will never change!"

"But you are so good to me! The unspoken promise hidden in the heart is the most precious! What you said makes a lot of sense! My dear, I love you so much and want to be with you forever!" "Yes! Let's work hard together!"

"Well, let's work together!...Oh, here I come...I'm hanging up, I have to get busy!"

"Then goodbye!"

"Bye... Yeah! Hehe..."

After hanging up the phone, Cao Yukun lit a cigarette, stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the Ocean Terminal not far away.

I couldn't help but think of what Sun Shangbin said in the morning.

Reducing positions and logging in, considering the background of the times, this step is really awesome.

This is the spirit and decisiveness of a big businessman - but I'm not bad either. I also cleared out my positions decisively before the peak was about to arrive.

The only difference is that Mr. Bao should have made such a business decision purely based on his intuition gained from many years of business experience and his keen insight into the world situation and development process.

And I just...

Well, okay, I'll have to eat by myself tonight.

The performing artists of Hongkong are indeed very busy once they become a little famous. The filming here is fast, a movie can be completed in twenty days at the fastest, or one or two months at the slowest, so the output is quite large!
However, compared with the production, the overall number of actors here is actually not enough. After all, it is a tiny country with a population base of 600 million to supply a market population of nearly billion in East Asia and Southeast Asia!
So once you get into the acting field, you often rush to shoot one movie after another, and the end result is that many characters in many movies are familiar faces.

Busy all day.

The same goes for singers. According to Zhou Aimin, as long as the singers here sell well, it is common for them to release two or three albums a year - an album generally has a little over ten songs. However, the initial song selection, trial recording, selection, rehearsal, and final recording production usually take only one or two months to complete. And they need to be busy with more than just the ten songs that are finally released. So as a popular singer, they also have to be busy all the time.

Zhou Aimin is both a singer and an actor, and occasionally she has to take notice to appear on a show or something.

Unless you deliberately make time for yourself to rest, you will be busy to death every day!
Of course, she is young now, and has only been famous for two years. She still enjoys this kind of busyness - being busy means making money, and of course there is motivation when there is money to be made!

She still owes more than 300 million in mortgage!

…………

In the end, I decided to go home and cook some noodles for myself.

Once again, I felt a little sick of the red flavor.

Ah Haolu... No, now he is Deputy General Manager Fang Zhihao, Mr. Fang, he said that he had an appointment with a producer from TVB to have dinner together today.

This is one of Cao Yukun’s propaganda plans, but now it is left to him to execute.

So before five o'clock, Cao Yukun simply left.

I took a taxi back, and after getting off the taxi, I bought a bunch of rapeseed, and walked back leisurely with it. However, when I just walked out of the vegetable market, I suddenly ran into Fang Lijing.

She probably came back from school to help sell the fish.

"What a coincidence, Jing."

She looked a little distant and timid, "Yes... Mr. Cao."

"Wow, you call me Cao Sheng? Why not A Kun?"

"You are my brother's boss!"

"Tsk! Whatever you say! It's fine to call me A-Kun, why do you have to be so distant on purpose!"

She was a little embarrassed and paused for a moment, but then she caught up with him again. It seemed that he was not going to the vegetable market again, but was going home instead. At this time, she walked side by side with Cao Yukun and asked him, "What are the vegetables you just bought?"

"Yeah! If you don't want to eat outside, go home and cook some vegetable noodles for yourself!"

Cao Yukun answered casually while walking, but after saying this, he suddenly stopped, turned his head to look at the girl beside him, and suddenly remembered what happened, "By the way, I remember I promised you before that I would treat you to a movie. I happen to be free today. Do you want to watch a movie together?"

Fang Lijing was a little surprised, "Watch... a movie?"

"Yes! Let me think... the movie 'Invincible in the East' seems to be quite popular recently. Let's go watch it together?"

Fang Lijing bit her lip and hesitated for two or three seconds before finally speaking, "Don't you... need to accompany Miss Zhou? I heard that you two are dating."

"She's very busy, preparing a new song. Do you want to go? If not, I'll go home and cook noodles."

This time, Fang Lijing hesitated for a while longer, but when she saw Cao Yukun shrugged his shoulders and continued to walk back home, she hurriedly called out, "Hey..."

Then, with a slightly red face, she made an excuse for herself, "Well, that's great! Many people in our school have been discussing that movie recently, so it's a good opportunity to go and watch it!"

(End of this chapter)