1988: Back to the human world for a few years

Chapter 391: Either a Virtuous Person or a Treacherous Person (2)

In the 1990s, there was a group of extremely legendary figures whose success stories and life trajectories were even more exaggerated than the protagonists in YY novels.

Among these people, the most well-known to the public, besides Shi Giant, is probably Boss Mou who once exchanged canned food for airplanes...and this classic case also greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of domestic traders. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, the number of traders rushing to the northeastern border with the dream of getting rich was even more spectacular than in the 1980s.

But in fact, if you carefully study the whole process of Mr. Mou exchanging canned food for airplanes, you will find that this classic case itself has many interesting points:

1. Mr. Mou is from Wanxian, Sichuan. He was a boiler worker and loved reading Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong's Selected Works. He was passionate and loved current affairs and speeches. As early as the 70s, he had enjoyed considerable reputation among local youths. He even collaborated with others to write a passionate article of ten thousand words titled "Where is China Going?" and then went to work (although the co-author later said that the article was basically written by him and Mr. Mou was just named on it, but the matter remains questionable).

2. In 1984, after Mr. Mou had just been imprisoned for the second time, he still wanted to start a business, so with the coordination of his superiors, Wanxian Agricultural Bank gave him a loan amount of RMB 1000 million - you have to know that it was the mid-1000s. Although banks were eager for you to take out a loan, wasn’t the amount of RMB million a bit too exaggerated in terms of the purchasing power at the time?
3. It is said that he got to know a Henan native on a train from Wanxian to the capital at the end of 1989, and learned from him that the Russian Bear Country was preparing to sell a batch of Tu-154 aircraft, which gave him the idea.

Ok……

This is worth recalling. Although the Russian Bear Country encountered huge economic difficulties in 1989, the overall situation in the country was still quite different from that in 1991. If you are an ordinary trader, it may not be surprising to come across sales information such as light equipment, but for heavy equipment and the like, people have special channels. Even if you want to expand the channels, there is definitely a threshold.

In other words, given the security environment at the time, whether the people who were qualified to know the sale information would choose to sit in a hard seat on the train is not discussed for the time being.

Even if he chose to sit in a hard seat for some reasons, how reasonable do you think it was for him to speak so bluntly about such things to a strange small businessman selling bamboo and rattan products in front of a carriage full of people?
4. Boss Mou approached the newly established Sichuan Airlines and used the four Tu-4s as an excuse to discuss cooperation, and eventually signed a memorandum of understanding. For this cooperation, Sichuan Airlines also reported it to its superiors and obtained approval from the superior unit.

Those who have done business know that for an organization like Sichuan Airlines, even if it has just been established, you cannot just make up any excuse to meet with their leaders to discuss cooperation... Besides, as mentioned earlier, there are many scammers in the country at this time, and sending letters to state-owned enterprises in the name of farmers to defraud equipment is just child's play. When the other party knows nothing about you, will it really be so easy for them to reach a cooperation with you and start the formal process?
Of course, if there is an influential "matchmaker" involved, then everything would make sense.

5. Boss Mou took advantage of a week's time difference to exchange more than 800 railway cars of light industrial products including canned goods and food for the four aircraft from the Soviet Union.

Although the number of manufacturers involved is unknown, what does it mean to have more than 800 carriages of goods?

More importantly, the goods on these more than 800 railway cars came not only from Wanxian, nor only from Bashu, but from several provinces!

Even if Boss Mou accepted a batch of goods for every delivery of an aircraft, each batch of goods that needed to be shipped would amount to more than 200 wagons.

Anyone who has been involved in foreign trade should know that with so many cross-regional goods, the various docking and declarations involved, and the scheduling work required to send out more than 200 carloads of goods within a week, is enough to make all the employees of a small or medium-sized freight forwarding company collapse.

If a professional freight forwarding company is like this, are Boss Mou, who has never done this kind of work before, and the few small people under him really that capable?

Moreover, if nothing unexpected happened, most of these goods should come from local state-owned enterprises. After all, 70% to 80% of the canneries are state-owned enterprises. In the context of the times, a small private enterprise could perfectly integrate the resources of so many state-owned enterprises and make them obey its orders by simply making money out of nothing...

Well, I have to say, this is indeed magical.

………………

In short, there are still many interesting details in the case of exchanging canned food for airplanes. Even if you are willing to study the various propositions and actions of Boss Mou later, it is easy to deduce some things that are inconvenient to write down (by the way, some movies often use Boss Mou’s "drilling a hole in the Himalayas" as a joke, which is actually very inappropriate; many of Boss Mou’s big plans that sounded shocking at the time were actually very forward-looking, and were not at all like the perspective of an ordinary businessman, so some things, looking back, are even more meaningful.).

But overall, Yang Mo is more inclined to believe that this was a semi-official action organized to break the deadlock.

Just as he emphasized to Song Youlong just now, the essence of economics is circulation, and the essence of commerce is nothing more than exchange; as long as the liquidity of goods and the circulation of value can be ensured while both sides get what they need, it doesn’t really matter whether the process is settled in currency.

Therefore, he proposed this 5 billion-dollar "light and heavy industrial products exchange plan".

The Bear Country was in short supply of various daily necessities, mainly light industrial products, while China at that time lacked some relatively advanced heavy industrial equipment and technology. Therefore, exchanging demands when the economic conditions of both sides were not very ideal was definitely a mutually beneficial approach, and China was definitely the one that benefited. Everyone on earth knew the reason for this.

As for why Yang Mo was so bored that he suddenly came up with such a plan, and even went so far as to increase the scale of commodity exchange to such an exaggerated level of 50 billion per year?

The reason is simple. This plan does not actually cost him much, but if this plan is implemented, he will be the one who benefits the most:
1. Cotton textiles, mainly ready-made clothes, quilts, gloves, hats, socks, etc., are in urgent need for the Bear Country. Moreover, due to climatic reasons, the cotton textiles exported there are thicker, consume more raw cotton, and are more expensive.

The large amount of raw cotton consumption can effectively promote the implementation of the Isolated Island No. 2 project. Once the Isolated Island No. 2 project is actually implemented in Texas, Mu Siyuan's voice in the Dongying Command will immediately rise to a level, and Yang Mo will be able to obtain more resources and support through the Dahua Company as a transit station.

2. Texas is an old industrial area with industrial inertia. If such an old industrial area wants to get out of the quagmire completely, it will inevitably need to vigorously promote the upgrading of industrial technology and equipment.

In this area, the Russian Bear Country currently has relative technological advantages, especially in metallurgy, engines, electronic equipment, chips, software, and system engineering, which are good things that the Chinese side is extremely coveting.

You heard it right, these things from the Bear Country are really good stuff.

A piece of knowledge that is not unpopular is that before the fall of the Soviet Union, not only could it export semiconductors in large quantities, it had also developed the 32-bit EI-55 superscalar chip with more than 90 transistors. The technological level of its electronic industry was only one Moore's Law cycle, or 18 months, behind that of America. In fact, its software level was even higher than that of America (you can feel it by comparing Tetris, which was launched in 84, with European and American games in the early 90s).
Simply put, at this time, the industrial technology of the Bear Country had already begun to surpass that of America, and its industrial integration capabilities were even better than the rest of the world, especially in terms of system engineering, which was recognized as the best in the world.

The reason why China's industrial level was able to improve so quickly later on was definitely one of the biggest contributors to the systems engineering technology learned and absorbed from there.

Everyone is now clear about the situation in the Bear Country. As long as we can successfully introduce some equipment and technologies that are helpful for the industrial upgrading of DZ City in this light and heavy industrial products exchange plan, the benefits will be obvious to even a fool.

Therefore, if the Dongying Command took the lead in the name of Dahua Company and privately mobilized the competent authorities in Dezhou to participate in this plan, the competent authorities in Dezhou would definitely not be reluctant to act as the second transit platform and rely on the court's transfer payments to swallow up these imported equipment and technologies (the 5 billion exchange plan is obviously not something that can be fully absorbed by the original transit platform of the northern trade line alone. This is beyond the other party's financial settlement capabilities, so finding a second transit platform is inevitable).

Not only that, they owed Yang Mo such a big favor that they didn't even need Yang Mo to reveal his intentions. They would definitely return the favor and invite Dahua Company to invest in it with funds or other forms during industrial upgrading, and intervene in the restructuring process of some high-tech or important enterprises.

Once this happens, the weights of these shares of Dahua Company will be completely different. With multiple causes and consequences involved, even if Mr. Wang wants to transfer Yang Mo, who has built a double-layer firewall, away from Dahua Company, it will not be so easy.

3. Like the current Bear Country, DZ City is an old industrial city dominated by heavy industry. Except for textiles, the production capacity of other light industrial products, including food, is far from meeting the exchange scale of 50 billion per year. Therefore, it must rely on collective enterprises in various towns and villages to make up for this production capacity.

Just as Old Wang always worried, Yang Mo's biggest trump card lies in his good mass base in those hundreds of villages, so he doesn't mind making this foundation more solid.

Think about it, as long as the list of goods for exchange is planned reasonably, it will not only help the light industrial units in DZ City to destock in large quantities, but also bring no less than 20 billion foreign trade orders to the grassroots in rural areas every year... Many projects derived from the commercial demonstration zone will be able to enter the profit period immediately, and those villages assigned to production tasks will be able to completely revitalize their economy at once.

In addition, he can also reach another cooperation agreement with the competent authorities in Texas. While the DZ urban area is introducing new equipment and upgrading its industry, it can transfer a large number of suitable second-hand equipment and related industries to the vast rural areas in the form of replacement settlement.

In this way, the resistance to industrial upgrading in DZ City has been reduced to a certain extent, and the rural areas that have acquired equipment and industrial manufacturing capabilities can also carry out technological iteration and have the potential for business expansion; after the expansion and gains, the villagers' centripetal force towards Yang Mo's faction will naturally rise to a higher level, which can be said to kill three birds with one stone.

4. Quantitative change leads to qualitative change. If it is a plan to exchange light and heavy industrial products with a scale of less than billion or even billion, then for the economy of a region, although it is extremely important, it is limited to this;

But when it reaches a scale of 50 billion per year, in the current economic environment, it can already become a pillar industry for a region. The chain reaction and driving effect it produces will be several times or even ten times greater than itself, and it may even form a new business ecology. The influence between the two is incomparable.

Once a new business ecosystem is formed, and one of this scale, the upgrading of DZ City will be a sure thing, and it won't even take another four years to achieve. Who knows? With a burst of luck, it might even become a high-end prefecture-level city ahead of schedule... Don't think it's impossible. No one knows the direction of the international situation in the next few years better than Yang Mo. In fact, there was a reason why Boss Mou later announced that he would invest 4 billion to develop Manzhouli.

But regardless of whether it will be highly upgraded or not, once Dezhou can be upgraded to a prefecture-level city ahead of schedule, Yang Mo can basically rest assured even if he does not play the last trump card of mobilizing the masses... The reasons for this have been mentioned in the previous article, so I will not repeat them here.

………………

Of course, Yang Mo was not stupid enough to tell Lin Kaiquan and the others his real thoughts directly. He just adjusted Boss Mou's practice into a normal credit sale-exchange-settlement process and then told them, and analyzed the benefits obtained by the command center.

Glancing at the three old comrades who were stunned by Yang Mo's daring plan, Lin Kaiquan slowly shook his head: "Xiao Mo, although the Solitary Island II project is very important, if it is just to promote the implementation of this project, it may be difficult for the command center to reach a unified opinion on this plan."

In fact, in addition to the mass base, the Dongying Command can also obtain corresponding benefits in other aspects.

But the problem is that, for the command center, apart from allowing the Isolated Island II project to be implemented according to its original trajectory, they don't care about other benefits.

What does the industrial upgrading of DZ City have to do with them?

What does Dezhou’s upgrade from a county-level city to a prefecture-level city have to do with them?

Dezhou and Dongying are located in the west and east respectively. Even if they can win the favor of the competent authorities of DZ City, what is the use? The army may change but the camp may not change. Don't you understand such a simple truth?

Even the exchange of heavy industrial products with the Bear Country itself does not make much sense to them. Yes, it is true that the country is still lacking some relatively advanced heavy industrial equipment, and for some tacit understanding, they can indeed use this exchange plan to obtain some relatively valuable technology and even experts.

But so what?
The semi-official northern trade route that the command had originally opened was more of an obligation than a responsibility;
They are in the oil system, and even if they do well in something that has nothing to do with their main business, they will only be praised in private, and they will get nothing else. In fact, if it weren't for his brother-in-law, Lin Kaiquan would not have taken this matter seriously at all.

As for the money earned from the Northern Trade Route...

Come on, as the commander of the second largest oil field in the country, do you think the headquarters really cares about those trivial matters?
But correspondingly, if we really want to promote this 5 billion light and heavy industrial products exchange plan, then the command center will need to go to various regions, units, and departments to coordinate relationships and resources... Not to mention the limited shipping capacity of Dongying Port, the port on the Bear Country's side also has a freezing period of up to half a year. By then, you can't ask people to carry so many goods over there like on the Long March, right?
Coordinating work with local authorities is troublesome, but dealing with units like Tie Lao Da is also a headache for them.

And don’t forget, if it comes to land transportation, you can’t avoid the Northeast... What is there in the Northeast? Daqing!
Not only do they have to go to so much trouble to make such a big fuss about this matter, but they also have to lower their posture and seek support from Daqing... What are they thinking!

…………

Yang Mo was not surprised by Lin Kaiquan's refusal. He just spread his hands nonchalantly and said, "Uncles, let me be frank. If I were not from Qilu and had a good relationship with Xiaoya, I would not have bothered to invite you all to discuss this plan."

"For a cross-border commodity exchange project of this scale, the cash-out process is much more complicated than ordinary foreign trade business, and the profits are much lower than ordinary foreign trade business. Even the work I need to do is not much less than that of the uncles and aunts... Just the coordination and communication work of thousands of production units is enough to make me feel overwhelmed."

At this point, Yang Mo smiled and said, "Actually, from the perspective of a drilling company employee, I shouldn't have given this idea to you uncles and aunts... After all, the drilling company belongs to the Southwest Petroleum Bureau, and I am just temporarily seconded to Dahua Company to take charge of the work!"

Mu Siyuan frowned: "Xiao Mo, your Uncle Lin and I have been comrades for more than ten years... If you have something to say, please talk to me nicely, don't be sarcastic!"

Yang Mo cooperated very well and apologized to Lin Kaiquan, then sighed softly: "Okay, since Uncle Mu has spoken, I will speak frankly."

"Uncle Lin, Uncle Song, Uncle Zhuo, have you ever thought about a question?"

"I'm not someone who doesn't know the importance of things. If it's just to promote the implementation of the Solitary Island II project, even if there are many uncertainties in the future of domestic textile exports to Europe and the United States, I can just change the direction... Anyway, petrochemicals are not limited to artificial fibers. If we can create enough demand gaps in Texas, we don't have to hang ourselves on this crooked tree."

Everyone nodded in unison. When Yang Mo was talking about the commodity exchange plan just now, they wanted to remind him of this.

Seeing this, Yang Mo leaned forward slightly, crossed his arms, and looked at them seriously: "Since I clearly know that there are other ways to promote the Solitary Island II project, why did I still propose such a large-scale but seemingly thankless plan?"

Without waiting for anyone to answer, Yang Mo gave his own answer: "Because I also have my own job, and I also have things I want to do!"

"I don't want to be like a firefighter, saving the day at the headquarters after I marry Xiaoya!"

"And to be frustrating, if it's just a small fire, I think I can put it out, but if the fire is already big, even if I have supernatural powers, I won't be able to do anything."

“So, instead of waiting for the fire to gradually spread and eventually become out of control, it is better to work hard from the beginning and dig a fire barrier to solve the problem once and for all!”

At this point, Yang Mo smiled calmly: "Digging a firebreak before the fire gets bigger may seem like a thankless and stupid thing to do in the eyes of many people; but only when the fire burns near you, will you know how far-sighted this decision is!"

Hearing Yang Mo's subtext, Lin Kaiye frowned: "Xiao Mo, I know you must know something, but the question is... Why do you think our Qilu Oilfield will eventually be allocated to the petrochemical system instead of staying on the oil side?"

The location of Qi and Lu determines that once they are classified as the southern petrochemical system, they will be in a very embarrassing position. The reasons are very complicated. There are locational reasons, historical reasons, reasons for the focus on advantageous industries, reasons for the cost-effectiveness of oil refining, and many other reasons beyond objective factors.

They had also heard about what Mr. Wang had done recently towards the local small-scale refineries, and they had a rough guess as to what the other party was trying to do, but they didn't really take it to heart.

There is no other reason. Using the Yangtze River as the dividing line between north and south has become a tacit rule in everyone's mind.

Even if the Qinling Mountains and the Huai River are used as the boundary, they still belong to the north, and still belong to the oil system that focuses on exploration and production;
Even if the worst case scenario happens, with the Yellow River as the dividing line, it will certainly make them feel a little uncomfortable, but it will not hurt their roots... You only need to check the area where the Yellow River passes, and you will find that most of the oil fields in Qi and Lu are concentrated on the north side of the Yellow River.

Yang Mo laughed when he heard this: "Why? I have already hinted very clearly just now... Because the South has already started cross-system linkage! And you are still clinging to the old ways!"

"Uncles, do you really think that some conventional things are really that safe?"

"If it were really that safe, then the country wouldn't have been pushing for reforms in all aspects over the years... Even something as important as taxation is beginning to be reformed. Do you think that when our entire oil system is reorganized and split again, it will be just as you imagined?"

At this point, Yang Mo sighed heavily: "If you don't think about the future, you will have immediate worries. I know you may not take these groundless speculations of a young boy like me to heart;"

"But since you all saw that our old boss Wang's sudden return this time was a bit unusual, and you also saw that he had other intentions in mind when he attacked the local small oil refinery;"

"Then have you ever thought about why the founder of Southwest Drilling Company would brazenly get involved in the oil refining business right under your noses if he didn't have a certain degree of certainty?"

He snorted twice: "Uncles, please stop being ostriches...Now the situation of the south wind gradually spreading northward in the country is becoming more and more obvious. You don't think this is still ten years ago, right?"

"With the tax-sharing reform imminent, and in an era where economic development is increasingly the primary goal, the drilling company has a great potential advantage due to the good foundation it has laid over the past year and its growing social and economic influence;"

"To put it bluntly, if I were still in the drilling company, it would be fine. Most of the achievements made by the drilling company over the past year or so were led by me. As long as I don't express my opinion, it will be difficult for Lao Wang to use these connections for his own benefit... or even if he does, he won't be able to fully realize their value;"

"But what if one day I am transferred to another province and cannot come back for three to five years?"

"By then, even if Mr. Wang blatantly relies on these resources and social influence to contact the local competent authorities and use the shell of a local third-party company to fully intervene in the production and sales of petrochemicals, what can you do to him?"

"When the time comes, they will use those high-quality tertiary industry projects as bait, cooperate with competent authorities or enterprises in other regions, and continue to expand the radiation range of petrochemical terminal products. What can you do to them?"

"Not giving drilling companies drilling quotas? As long as they can maintain their current business level, do you think you can really make the decision on this matter?"

"It doesn't need to be much. Wait until the drilling company's petrochemical terminal products and service stations are laid out in one-third of Qilu's territory, and maintain a suitable density and annual turnover, and have sufficient surface data... Then, whether Qilu Oilfield should be classified as a chemical or petroleum field will be up to you to decide."

At the end, Yang Mo sneered: "Uncles and aunts, now you know why I proposed this 50 billion light and heavy industrial products exchange plan to you... If the headquarters does not follow the same plan as the South and work together with local authorities and local enterprises, you will be powerless to fight back, and you will not even have the capital to negotiate terms when the reorganization and splitting takes place!"

The four of them broke out in sweat when they heard this. They originally thought that the various actions taken by Mr. Wang when he came back this time were nothing more than an attempt to make the drilling company regain the oil processing rights that they should have had more than ten years ago. Although the command center had various opinions on this matter, they didn't have too many ideas overall... They were just taking back what originally belonged to them, and it was not too much.

But after Yang Mo's "fantasy", it turned out that they were actually aiming directly for the future reorganization and splitting of the north and the south, and they also aimed at the entire Qi and Lu as the division range of the northern line. This is two completely different things... The reorganization must be accompanied by the redistribution of power. If Mr. Wang really makes the data, he may become the direct leader of himself and others by then.

Although what Yang Mo said was just a "guess", in a small meeting of this level, almost no one would think that what he said was groundless... Although Yang Mo always had some conflicts with Old Wang in the drilling company, as the current rising star of the drilling company, there was almost no one in charge of each department who did not want to be close to him.

In addition, after Mr. Wang returned, everyone saw the behavior of the heads of various departments to sideline them. Therefore, it was normal for the heads of various departments to inadvertently obtain all kinds of fragmented information, and then for Yang Mo to deduce a rough outline.

They are all people who have plans for their own future. Naturally, they know that if they fall behind in the process of restructuring and splitting, it will be almost impossible to turn things around, and all the plans in their minds will come to nothing.

They are unwilling to accept this result.

and so……

Are you following suit and linking systems across systems to take active defense into your own hands?
seem……

Maybe it is necessary!
The four of them began to bow their heads and ponder...

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PS: I have entered the previous chapter, deleted and revised thousands of words but still couldn't get it out, so some data and content in this chapter cannot be written, and the logical chain is broken in several places. You may find it difficult to read, and it was also very uncomfortable for me to write.

But there's no way, so let it be, sorry!

(End of this chapter)