Brilliant Years 1991

Chapter 207 A Strong Wind is Coming
This time when he came back, Cao Yukun really planned to stay for ten days or half a month.

Firstly, Fuping is his hometown, and secondly, he has accumulated a lot of things here that need to be dealt with.

Leader, wife, lover.

Old father-in-law, old father-in-law, old father-in-law.

Beverage factory, socks factory, instant noodle factory.

Recently, a drinking water plant was added. On October 10, Cao Yukun came forward, and the Xizhou City Prefect Tang Xueming attended. Huang Jiaying, on behalf of Hongkong Yiren Kangyin Company, formally signed an agreement with the Fuping County government represented by Zhao Xiaolan. Next, Yiren Kangyin will invest up to 24 million yuan to build a large-scale drinking water bottling base in Fuping County. Once completed, it will have an annual production capacity of 60 tons of bottled drinking water.

The new Yirenkangyin (Xizhou) Drinking Water Company was naturally established.

Seriously speaking, both Cao Yukun himself and Huang Jiaying have actually checked the accounts carefully. At least in this era, selling drinking water is far less profitable than selling beverages.

This is mainly because the real market share of Yiren Kangyin is in Hongkong.

A ton of sour plum juice, or the future orange juice, including various tea drinks such as iced black tea that are already in trial production online, costs about 12000 yuan. Including packaging and shipping to Shanghai, it’s only a few hundred yuan. Adding various taxes, shipping costs, etc., the price of one ton of goods when they arrive at Hong Kong Airlines is Hong Kong dollars!
Huge profits! Absolute huge profits!

But drinking water is not the same. It is true that the production cost of this stuff is lower than that of beverages such as sour plum juice, but after going through all the processes, one ton costs nearly two hundred yuan. Add the subsequent packaging, transportation, etc., it costs no less than a beverage. By the time it is delivered to Hongkong’s warehouse, one ton is close to one thousand yuan!
But when it gets to Hongkong, it can’t be sold at a high price!

A 500ml bottle of water from Hongkong only costs two dollars!

Just a third of the price of a drink.

What's even more helpless is that the profit margin you leave for distributors and retailers cannot be much smaller than that of beverages. For something that sells at 4000 yuan per ton in the market, you have to take 1200 to 1500 yuan from that end alone. After cutting both ends, the gross profit in the middle is only about Hong Kong dollars per ton.

For example, for sour plum juice, the beverage factory at the production end can get a gross profit of 5000 to Hong Kong dollars per ton, while Cao Yukun can still intercept a gross profit of about Hong Kong dollars per ton from the sales in Hongkong. The difference is really huge.

Selling domestically is even worse.

In most places in China, the price of a bottle of beverage is only one yuan. If it is more expensive, it will not sell at all. Even at one yuan a bottle, it is not easy to sell. What about drinking water? Drinking water at one yuan a bottle can only be sold in megacities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, and a few hundred tons can be sold a year.

The domestic wage system and price system have not yet reached the point where they can support making money from drinking water.

The 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China had just ended a few days ago. Cao Yukun read the newspaper and studied the spirit of the conference very seriously. He even discussed the matter with Zhao Xiaolan while sleeping in bed. He had a hunch that at least the salaries of civil servants would be adjusted.

It was windy, and strong wind.

Regardless of whether others agree or not, in Cao Yukun's opinion, in China, civil servants' salaries are the anchor of the entire social wage system, and even the entire social price system and value system!
As long as civil servants' salaries go up, it means that currency will start to be over-issued, or as the saying goes among the people, money will start to depreciate. When the next boss takes over and starts tax reform and completely returns financial power to the central government, the various regulatory systems of the government will start to wind up. According to some vague memories gained from watching videos in his previous life, Cao Yukun roughly knows that in the next ten years, the basic salary in the country will rapidly increase from around 100 yuan a month to 800,000 yuan, or even more than 1,000 yuan.

In fact, it doesn't have to be that high. When the monthly salary of ordinary grassroots government workers can reach more than 500 yuan, beverages will start to sell well, because at that time, even if you do other jobs, your monthly salary will be up to 200 to 300 yuan, or even 300 to 500 yuan - a bottle of beverage costs three yuan, which is still expensive, but wealthy people can definitely afford it.

There is such a large population in the country that we don’t need too many people. Even if only 10 million people can afford a bottle of three-yuan drink, the overall size of this market will begin to surpass Hongkong.

Cao Yukun judged that this time point would not be far away, probably around 1994.

It was probably around that time that bottled drinking water at one yuan a bottle would begin to find a market in big cities - it saved the messy expenses of export and import, and set up more branches across the country to reduce freight costs. Drinking water sold at one yuan a bottle in China, and the gross profit per ton could reach around one thousand yuan.

In other words, there will be a lot of fun by that time.

Because a company like Hong Kong has almost no production capacity, it is rare that a bottle of drink is sold for 4 or 6 Hong Kong dollars, yet it is extremely prosperous!
The domestic market is large enough, and as long as the wage system is established, it will definitely be a top-notch market!
However, it is almost impossible to sell in the domestic market now, and the profit is much lower than that of beverages. However, Cao Yukun still has to open his drinking water plant, and open it early - he plans to take advantage of the price and time difference.

In Hongkong, he decided to take a risk and start selling Sangang Paper in one bottle!
It’s one dollar more expensive than all the brands on the market!

In China, he plans to completely ignore the current domestic price system and directly sell the bottle for three yuan. There are almost no systematic and branded drinking water companies in China. Yiren Kangyin has started to work hard. Even if it is the first in the market, there will not be much market share if it sells for one yuan, so it might as well sell it for three yuan!

Only sell to rich people!
When the overall income system of residents is up, three yuan can also be sold! What's more, by that time, a new low-priced brand can be launched.

Just like the Aijia rice cooker and Joyoung rice cooker in Cao Yukun’s plan.

…………

Langsha Socks held a meeting to hear about the factory’s current production and sales situation.

The instant noodle factory looked at the construction progress and asked my brother-in-law Song Yuhuai to organize manpower from now on to start debugging the recipe of "Braised Beef Noodles". They should try and adjust it over and over again, and not be stingy with money. They should organize workers from the beverage factory and the Song family's winery to taste the noodles. They can first take other people's noodles and match them with our own seasoning packets. In short, this matter should be started before the factory building is completely built and the machines are delivered.

Next time he comes back, Cao Yukun will try it himself.

Sign the contract for the drinking water plant and personally hold a groundbreaking ceremony.

He walked around the beverage factory, held meetings, and did some one-man talk shows to make himself more approachable. After all, Huang Jiaying had already played the role of the bad guy, the bad deeds, and the evil face before. She was the one who did all the cleaning and rectification. So it was Cao Yukun's turn to play the good guy.

Then, after finishing all this, he would take his two wives and go back to his hometown to spend time with his parents, grandparents, have a meal together, have a lively day, and by the way, give Comrade Lao Cao a box of Marlboro.

When he returned to his garden in the city, it was the agreed time, and Cao Yukun finally received a call from Song Yuhua - well, the girl's voice was very calm. It was estimated that during these five days, no matter how excited and flustered she was at the beginning, she gradually calmed down.

But she seemed to be more gentle.

In the first five days of sales, Song Yuhua said that 46000 units were sold.

Cao Yukun clearly remembers that when he took over Aijia Electric Appliances, he counted the inventory and found that there were less than 98000 rice cookers piled up in the warehouse of Aijia Electric Appliances. After he took over, he quickly called all the workers to resume work, and produced about more rice cookers until they were shipped. In short, a total of rice cookers were shipped to Shanghai. Song Yuhua said that she had just counted the inventory, and according to the sales progress, there was no sign of a decline in everyone's rush to buy, and the inventory was enough to sell for about four and a half days.

"Well, let's limit the purchase! We only sell 5,000 units a day, no more!"

"Ah? You want to limit it further? If you only sell 5,000 units, they will be sold out in half a day!"

"What should I do? I'm out of stuff. The factory over there only has about 5,000 or 6,000 units in stock. What can I do with them? Let's just sell them! The more restrictions there are on purchases, the better stuff!"

"Uh……"

On the other end of the phone, Song Yuhua was stunned.

After hanging up the phone, she pondered for a long time, muttering to herself countless times, repeating Cao Yukun's words, "The more restrictions there are on purchases, the better the product is?"

…………

At the end of October, Cao Yukun left Fuping and returned to Shanghai.

But this time, he brought a lot of people - Huang Jiapeng, Li Xuegen, and Hu Chengqun, good brothers from high school, and the three bodyguards who were basically useless when Shanghai started out with subscription certificates. He brought them all with him this time, plus the big guy Xue Chengliang who had been stationed in Shanghai before and was responsible for driving the Mercedes-Benz, so this time the car was full.

There is a reason. Cao Yukun went back this time, and everything went smoothly. However, when he went to Huang's father-in-law's house, he encountered a little problem. The old man didn't ask for anything else, just one thing, Huang Jiapeng, that bastard, you should get rid of him! Find him a job, let him go out and fight, and don't stay in the county.

Without further ado, Cao Yukun agreed immediately.

In fact, he had heard a lot about Huang Jiapeng and the other guys in the county - they were Cao Yukun's people, and their direct and legitimate descendants. To put it bluntly, with Cao Yukun's rise, now in the whole county, there was only Huang Jiaying, who was Huang Jiapeng's sister and had to be called sister-in-law by Cao Yukun. Those guys dared not disobey her when she said anything, and they basically ignored other people.

But even if it was Huang Jiaying, it would be fine if she could use them and assign them some tasks, but it would still be difficult for her to go past Cao Yukun and put them together. And to be honest, she couldn't really control those guys now.

Before, they were each assigned to take charge of a task, mainly responsible for decorating the garden and the house built in their hometown. They were serious about supervising the work, but after work, these people really engaged in cockfighting, running errands, drinking and fighting in the county.

Anyway, they are Cao Yukun's brothers, and if something happens, not only the police station, but even the county government will turn a blind eye. The matter is pushed onto the head of the deputy county magistrate Zhao Xiaolan, who is also overwhelmed. It is definitely not worth it for her to call Cao Yukun to complain about this, but people in Cao Yukun's faction all tacitly agree that she is in charge, and she has to clean up the mess if something happens. She is also annoyed, so she finds an excuse to have dinner with Huang Jiaying and Xie Xiaoyu to talk about this matter.

Xie Xiaoyu didn't care about anything. The girl now ate, drank and slept every day, went to the county government office to sit in the office and chatted with people about gossip. She was very happy as a pregnant woman - when she came back this time, she really weighed over 100 kilograms.

Huang Jiaying gave them a scolding and they behaved themselves for three days.

Three days later, the old habits returned.

Drinking, fighting, and speeding in the county town!

There's nothing we can do about it; this is definitely Cao Yukun's fault.

When he took them to Shanghai, he gave each of them 10,000 yuan in cash and a promise of 90,000 yuan when they came back - this was really a huge sum of money in Fuping County at that time. After they came back, they were unwilling to work anywhere and just helped Cao Yukun with some chores.

As a result, after a few months of hard work, it has been completed to this point.

Cao Yukun's original intention was to keep them in Fuping. No matter what happened, as long as they were honest and had wives and children, they would be able to become his own followers in the local area. However, these guys were still too young.

So on the night he came back from Comrade Huang's place, Cao Yukun said directly, "Take a day off, go back to your homes, come back the day after tomorrow, and follow me to Shanghai."

The silly boys immediately got excited and said they didn’t even need to go home, they could just go right away.

Then bring it out!

After being brought out, they can no longer be so free.

Qinyuan brand plum juice is currently sold in Shanghai, but not much is sold. But we are indeed doing the distribution ourselves, and that is absolutely hard work. So, Huang Jiapeng, you go and be a delivery worker. You are not allowed to resign or be lazy, otherwise you will never be able to return to Fuping in your life, I say!
Hu Chengqun, the smartest and the one Cao Yukun most favors, stayed in Shanghai to drive, replacing Xue Chengliang. He was also Tao Mingqi's deputy, and Tao Mingqi was responsible for leading him, mainly to distinguish between his own personal affairs and the official business of the beverage factory.

The most honest Li Xuegen also stayed and was responsible for driving for the beverage factory's branch in Shanghai.

As for Xue Chengliang, the person Cao Yukun trusted the most, he planned to take him away directly to Hongkong to serve as his bodyguard.

In no time, Cao Yukun had dealt with these three rascals.

Huang Jiapeng is definitely the closest one, old brother and brother-in-law.

But he is also the worst.

He was the only one who was assigned a real hard labor job. He was stunned as Cao Yukun was talking, obviously he didn't expect this to happen. But in the end, seeing Cao Yukun's cold face from beginning to end, he didn't dare to say anything and agreed silently - of course, there was a follow-up talk, Cao Yukun said, if you do a good job, you can come back to drive for me in a year. This made him stand up a little.

At least there are more thoughts and hopes.

…………

"Oh, it's better to go home!"

At the end of October, Cao Yukun returned to Hongkong without any sense of shame. He repeated to Li Qingxia what he had said in front of Huang Jiaying and Xie Xiaoyu about twelve or thirteen days ago.

The old aunt smiled brightly upon hearing this. She was gentle and caring by nature, and now, after a short separation, she was even more tender. However, she was pregnant, so she had to continue to speak sweet words and say sweet things at night.

[Insert a word: I can’t stand the constant blocking and deletion. Please forgive me for using idioms indiscriminately! ]

And the next day, he said the same thing to the eldest daughter, Pansy Kwok.

Then he told it to Zhou Aimin without any psychological barriers.

What does it matter to Cao Yukun's psychological quality and thick skin? He said it without blushing, and the three women smiled as they listened.

How good!

But in fact, these are all trivial matters.

There was no movement on the first day after he came back. On the second day, when Cao Yukun visited his two companies, especially went to Joyoung Electric to deal with the accumulated documents, and held a meeting, he suddenly became busy - mainly busy answering the phone!
"Ah Kun, you're awesome! I heard that you took all the nearly 100,000 rice cookers that Aijia Electric had in stock and sold them inland? Great, great, haha, you're worthy of being Ah Kun! Awesome!"

This is my cheap father-in-law Guo Hongying.

"Mr. Cao, have you returned to Hong Kong? When do you have time to come out for tea? No, no, don't think too much. Don't worry, as long as I am here, Wing Lung Bank will never ask you for debt repayment in advance! It's just afternoon tea... Hey, I heard that you sold the 100,000 unsaleable Joyoung Electric Appliances to a sales company in the mainland. Have you sold them all now?"

This is Lin Liangjun, the chairman of the board of directors of Wing Lung Bank, whom Cao Yukun looks down upon.

"Ah Kun, you're back? You're doing great, very good! Pu Weishi from HSBC told me before that you actually set up a sales company in the mainland and sold all the rice cookers of your electrical appliance company to the sales company. I was still wondering what you were going to do, and then Ah Qiang called and said that your rice cookers were snatched up in Shanghai. Hahahaha, great, Ah Kun, your old brother will set up a table for you to celebrate, how about it?"

This is good brother Jin Zhijian.

These are not uncommon.

First of all, Cao Yukun’s contact with them, whether active or passive, was close.

And for someone like Lin Liangjun, his Wing Lung Bank sent people to Joyoung Electric to serve as directors. Of course, it was easy for him to get the news of Joyoung Electric's every move at the first place.

Secondly, as the mainland carries out reform and opening up, Shanghai is one of the leaders of the reform and opening up, and Hong Kong is the core station where the mainland wants to take advantage of the situation and borrow capital. In fact, the economic ties and trade exchanges between the two places are becoming more and more frequent. Any news from Shanghai can be easily transmitted to Hong Kong.

However, Cao Yukun did not expect that just one day later, he actually received another call from Xu Youjia, "Ah Kun, this is your Uncle Xu. Do you have time? Come to my house for tea! You have never been to my house before, it's easy to find you. Shall I ask Ah Heng to pick you up?"

what……

When Cao Yukun thought about the blind date that he had arranged at Guo Hongying's house before leaving, he suddenly felt overwhelmed.

(End of this chapter)