1988: Back to the human world for a few years

Chapter 504: All Industries. Sparks (1)

February 4th is the beginning of spring.

Although there are still eleven days away from this year's Spring Festival, it is only three days away from the Little New Year in the north.

The wheel of history still rolls forward unswervingly, but in some insignificant corners, some insignificant changes have quietly taken place.

………………

Xiajin County, Tianzhuang Township, Peiguantun.

On a cement rural road that was obviously newly built, an old minibus with the four big characters "Xia Liu Tong Xiao" printed on it slowly stopped.

Classmate Tugou rubbed his aching butt with a grin, then stretched his waist a little, followed a few members of the club, carrying two bags of light fire cakes, and jumped out of the car.

After getting off the car, he angrily kicked the tire of this paint-chipped, broken car that he had bought from Boss She and had passed through so many hands. The car was older than his father's.

This broken car has no shock-absorbing measures at all, and the seats are just a few bare wooden boards. It is such a torture to drive on those dirt roads that have been frozen into hard blocks!
The same goes for Old Yan. Xialiu Sales Agency has earned so much commission from projects this year, and the products it sells as an agent are selling so well. Even if most of the money is used for other purposes, and even the car they use for business trips is a scrapped car they bought from Boss She, you should at least stuff some discarded sponges on the seats and nail two layers of cloth on them!
Thinking of this, Lu Yingying looked at a guy who was slowly approaching her side with some depression, and said in a muffled voice: "Hey, Minister Zhuo, haven't you finished your work? The New Year is coming soon, it would be great if you could go back to Texas to enjoy your life, why do you have to come here and suffer like this!"

That’s right, the person who came was Zhuo Mali.

Ok……

I have to say that this peach has a very wide network of contacts. I don’t know how she, who comes from the oil industry, got to know so many friends from different systems.

Although according to her own statement, these were basically some unsuccessful friends who were working at the middle and grassroots levels, they were completely sufficient for things like increasing the number of outlets for Momo Baishou.

Therefore, with the unremitting coordination of an older sister, even though Tugou's requirements and conditions in this matter were quite harsh, it took only a month from start to finish, and the 50 new outlets and a corresponding series of things including the cooperation of the local supply and marketing system were all accomplished.

But the weird thing is...

Obviously, after completing the task, Zhuo Mali should be eager to return to Dezhou to show her achievements to Yang Mo. After all, this is directly related to whether such an important position as the assistant to the general manager of Dezhou Urban Property Fund Company will be awarded to her.
But this peach didn't go back.

Not only did he not go back, but he became very attached to Tugou. He went wherever Tugou went, as if the two of them had become a full-time, all-round working partner.

You have to know that Tugou now holds quite a few positions. In addition to his main position as manager of the Qingfeng Food Brand Department, the most prominent one is the title of honorary vice president of Xialiu Distribution Agency.

So not surprisingly, as soon as the preliminary negotiations for the expansion of new outlets of Momobaishou were completed, Lu Yingying immediately and non-stop participated in the year-end survey work of Xialiu Distribution Agency.

So, our comrade Peach naturally witnessed the power of the classic car running wildly in the boundless frozen soil, and then experienced the hard life of "getting up at four in the morning, returning home at ten in the evening, and working around the clock all day long."

Hearing that Tugou looked a little unhappy about her following him, Zhuo Mali looked at her with a smile and said, "Sister Yingying, didn't I tell you that unless your childhood friend breaks his promise and gets fat, I should be the assistant general manager of the Urban Property Fund Company in the spring."

As she spoke, Zhuo Mali showed a look of great pressure and bitterness on her face: "The assistant to the Urban Property Fund is a position that looks glamorous on the surface, but is actually a position that is put on the fire rack... Countless people are eager to pull you down, and General Manager Yang has ridiculously high requirements for his subordinates at work;"

"If I don't go to the grassroots level before I take office, and carefully understand all the arrangements made by General Manager Yang, and then rack my brains to understand General Manager Yang's good intentions, I will probably be kicked out by General Manager Yang within a month of taking office."

At this point, Zhuo Mali showed a pitiful expression on her face: "Sister Yingying, at least we have fought side by side for several times, and I have cooperated with you in the previous work... You can't just watch me being laughed at by others, right?"

Faced with Zhuo Mali's humble attitude as an elder sister, Tugou suddenly felt overwhelmed.

Thinking of the selfless efforts made by this charming elder sister to cooperate with her work, even though she knew very well that she did this for the position of general assistant of the fund company, she still had to accept her favor. Without Zhuo Mali to smooth over various relationships and silently carry out those negotiations, it would not have been possible to complete them so smoothly.

Thinking of this, Tugou lowered his head and said in a muffled voice, "That's fine. I'm mainly worried that Minister Zhuo can't handle it... It's very hard here at the grassroots level."

Zhuo Mali thought of the various details that were more tiring than working as a nanny over the past two days. Her eyelids could not help but twitch twice, but she still smiled brightly: "Sister Yingying, what you said... is as if you have never suffered. I have been to Africa before, and the conditions there are much more difficult than in China!"

After saying that, he glared at her with a mixture of anger and joy: "Also, call me Sister Zhuo from now on, don't call me Minister Zhuo Minister Zhuo all day long...it's so distant!"

Tugou glanced at her but didn't answer. He looked at the entrance of the village, then at the sky, and said in a muffled voice: "It gets dark early in winter. Time is limited. Let's hurry!"

After saying that, he strode towards the village entrance carrying the two bags of biscuits.

………………

Whether it is Qingfeng Food or Xialiu Marketing Co., Ltd., the company’s cadres particularly like to go to the grassroots level in the countryside, especially those from Xialiu Marketing Co., Ltd., who can even hang out in the village five days a week;
Therefore, even though Xiajin had only been included in the business expansion scope for a little over half a year, even though Tianzhuang Township was just a small place with no sense of existence at that time, and Peiguantun was a poor village whose name might not even be heard of in the county, Tugou could actually call out a lot of names.

"Aunt Li, come on, come on, try the steamed buns I brought over... These are the steamed buns I brought from Songlou Town, they're so crispy... Don't hesitate, try them!"

"Hey~ Grandpa Chen, are you out for a walk and some sun? Hurry up and try this fire-baked bread from Songlou Town... What? Too hard to chew because you have bad teeth? Don't worry, just take it home and eat it with some porridge. It won't be hard anymore."

“Hey, hey, hey, whose kid is that? Is this persimmon tree yours? You’re climbing up so high, aren’t you afraid of getting thrown off? Hurry up and get down. You’re eating persimmons on an empty stomach and you’re not afraid of getting sent to the hospital!… Come here! Take it! Eat a steamed bun to cushion your greed… Don’t climb so high next time, okay?”

Seeing that Tugou greeted everyone he met without any respect for outsiders, and even called down a little brat who had been playing with other kids to give him a scolding, Zhuo Mali couldn't help but feel a little confused.

Hey, hey, hey, didn’t you say you’ve only been to Peiguantun once? Why are you so unceremonious?
Are you sure people will remember you?
If you grab someone's child, scold him, and then burn him, aren't you afraid that people will mistake you for a human trafficker and beat you up?
"Hey! Manager Lu, why didn't you tell me before you came? Look at what's going on. There's no preparation at all. There's not even enough time to prepare food... It's cold outside. Come to my room and sit for a while. Drink some hot water to warm yourself up first!"

A woman in her forties rushed out and dragged Tugou home.

No need to ask, this must be the director of women's affairs.

Tugou student waved his hands loudly, then smiled and stuffed a steamed bun into his mouth: "Director Qian, no need, you know the rules of our Xialiu Sales Agency... Come on, have a steamed bun first, it's from Songlou Town, it's delicious!"

Director Qian knew how these people behaved, so he didn't force them. He took the air-fried cake that looked like an enlarged version of shrimp crackers and laughed, "What's the matter, Manager Lu? Are you here today to help promote the air-fried cake in Songlou Town? That's too much. The crispy cakes we stocked are also pretty good. I asked you to help promote them several times, but you didn't even nod in agreement!"

Since it is targeting the lower-tier markets, Xialiu Sales Agency will naturally frequently visit various towns and villages to promote various new products. Similarly, if a village has something good that they think is good, they will also promote its commercialization and then help with sales and publicity.

Tugou looked aggrieved: "Director Qian, what you said is that it's almost the end of the year, and I can't come to visit the villagers in our village empty-handed, but I don't have any money in my pocket, so I thought of a trick and bought these two big bags of air-burning liquor with my own money. How can you say that I helped Songlou Town promote it? Let me make it clear first... I won't take the blame!"

The more underdeveloped the economy is, the stronger the local protectionism is. Although the air-fried dumplings in Songlou Town and the crispy cakes in Peiguantun are not the same thing at all in appearance, in the eyes of some local people at this time, there is not much difference between them. They are all competing products of other local delicacies.

Zhuo Mali had been observing Tugou's behavior, and gradually understood why this girl brought the air of Songlou Town to give it to her when they met;

She knew that the two bags of steamed buns were indeed bought by Tugou with her own money, but when she heard her say that she had no money in her pocket, she almost laughed out loud.

This childhood friend of Yang Mo was very active in various projects and held so many positions that she had never seen such a large number of them in her life. Correspondingly, the subsidies and bonuses this girl could get every month were so generous that they definitely far exceeded those of herself, a minister who was several levels higher than her.

What does it mean that he earns more than a senior cadre of a second-level unit of a central enterprise, and moreover, a minister of a unit like Dahua Company?
It probably means a little more than an annual salary of one million in later generations.

If this is considered as having little money in the pocket, then what does it mean to have money in the pocket?
But what surprised her was that Director Qian, who had obviously dealt with Xialiu Sales Agency and Lv Yingying before, nodded with emotion after hearing what she said. He did not have any doubts or teasing intentions. He just muttered a little disappointedly: "It's good that you don't think highly of the air in Songlou Town. It's good that you don't think highly of the air in Songlou Town."

Tugou was a little surprised to see Zhuomali. He first introduced the two parties and then explained in a low voice: "Xia Liu Marketing Co., Ltd. pursues a multi-level market flow pool + limited regional market protection strategy in the grassroots market... That is, according to the different characteristics of different commodities, a large area is artificially divided into several small markets based on the township;"

"In each small market, we adopt a method similar to raising insects. In each small sub-category, we select a rural brand with potential and worth supporting to act as an agent for sales and promotion. After it has cultivated its own small base, we will select the best ones based on comprehensive evaluation and put the best performing ones into a larger market area."

After hearing this, Zhuo Mali finally understood why Director Qian was so excited that he lost his composure when he heard that Xialiu Sales Agency did not choose the air heater in Songlou Town.

Today, the consumption power of the grassroots rural market is very limited. No matter what the product is, once it is selected by an influential unit like Xialiu Marketing Agency to enter the commercialization stage, it means that other similar products have lost hope of gaining a large market share.

Huh?
I didn't realize that Director Qian, who is just the director of the women's department, actually cares so much about the village.

Zhuo Mali was somewhat surprised at Director Qian's sense of responsibility. She originally thought that these village cadres would just sit on the kang and drink all day, and then worry about the half-row of wasteland in the village and the half-line of ridge between their own fields.

Tugou naturally had no idea what Zhuomali was thinking about. He just glanced at Director Tian's sweaty forehead, then looked at the dirty cuffs on his sleeves, and joked, "Director Qian, you are pasting paper on the windows at home. It's the end of the year now, and pasting paper on the windows is the most important thing. Go and do it quickly. Don't bother with me. You know our Xialiu Sales Society. I'll just wander around by myself!" Perhaps because of the poverty, many places in Xiajin County have always retained the architectural habits of "earthen walls, wooden buildings, and rough-edged windows"; the "rough-edged windows" here refer to windows pasted with rough-edged paper. Therefore, every one or two years, farmers who have the conditions will re-paste the windows with new rough-edged paper before the New Year... Don't mention glass. In this era, glass windows are a luxury for Peiguantun, and even for a large part of the rural areas in Xiajin County.

Unexpectedly, Director Qian was not happy when she heard this: "Manager Lu, we shouldn't say such things that make people stab us in the back. I, Qian Cuiyu, am the director of women's affairs after all. Nowadays, every cadre in the village is busy... Let alone cadres, even those who can walk in the village are busy... How can I have the time to go home and paste window paper?"

Zhuomali was completely confused.

Although she seldom had contact with the countryside, she knew that it was the Spring Festival, the slack season for farmers, and the time when people had nothing to do and could curl up on the kang to drink, brag and hug their wives. Why was the whole village so busy?
This is unscientific!
Upon hearing this, Tugou was also stunned, and then pointed innocently at Director Qian's dirty cuffs.

Director Qian looked down and finally understood the reason. He immediately rolled his eyes and said, "Hey, that's what you're talking about!"

At that moment, she looked at Lu Yingying with a face full of resentment: "Manager Lu, it was your Xialiu Sales Agency that coordinated the task of organizing the skillful wives and old men and women in the village to learn how to draw ash New Year paintings. It's only been more than half a month. You wouldn't have forgotten everything, right?"

Eh, eh?

Tugou finally realized what was going on and scratched his head in a naive manner: "After all this fuss, Director Qian, you are organizing everyone to learn ash New Year paintings... I thought your village was not interested in this. Hehe, sorry, sorry, I misunderstood you!"

Director Qian curled his lips, revealing an expression of pride and distress on his face: "After all, it's a job that pays three yuan a ticket, who would be willing to turn it down? Look, the village party secretary and his men only did ideological work for three days, and they immediately rushed over to sign up, didn't they?"

Director Qian was a little depressed when he said this: "But that said, this ash New Year painting is too difficult to learn, isn't it? Teacher Deng and his team have been teaching for half a month, but everyone still finds it difficult to paint. Even if there are templates to follow, it often takes three or five paintings to pass one... It's too hard to make money from this!"

Tugou laughed with schadenfreude: "Of course not. This is a three-yuan hand-painted package. If it was really that easy to draw, why would we need to mobilize dozens of villages to set up drawing classes at the same time?"

After saying that, he waved his hand fiercely like a mountain king: "Come on, Director Qian, since we are talking about this, let's go over and take a look, and cheer up the villagers... I heard from the teacher in Xiazhuang that the ash-covered New Year paintings require understanding and practice to become proficient;"

"Anyway, we have teachers from Xiazhuang and Jiangzhuang to help us design the templates. For the time being, we don't need to pursue comprehension or not. The rest depends on practice makes perfect... Let's go and encourage the villagers in our village and grit our teeth and persevere. The teacher in Xiazhuang said that even if someone has no basic skills, as long as they can persist for two months, they can at least draw two New Year pictures a day with a drawing sample... That's 6 yuan, or 180 yuan a month. This is a lot of money, even much higher than the salary of workers in the city!"

Upon hearing this, Director Qian couldn't help but show a smile of joy and hope on his face, and nodded heavily, "That's right, since the establishment of Peiguan Village, we have never encountered such a high-paying job! Let's go... Manager Lu, let's go over and cheer up the villagers. We have been poor all our lives, and now we finally have such a good opportunity, we can't give it up no matter what."

Seeing the two talking excitedly, Zhuo Mali was confused. Seeing the two walking forward at a fast pace, she quickly trotted to catch up with Tugou and asked in a low voice, "Sister Yingying, what's going on?"

Tugou blinked his eyes and looked at her in disbelief: "Didn't I say that I would go and encourage those villagers, so that they can study the ash New Year paintings well and earn more money to supplement their families?"

Zhuo Mali was speechless: "This is so confusing, how can I know what's going on? And...what is a ash-covered New Year picture? How can this thing be sold for only 3 yuan a piece? It's so expensive, who would buy it!"

Classmate Tugou couldn't help but open his mouth wide, as if he didn't expect that someone as knowledgeable as Zhuomali didn't even know what ash-covered New Year pictures were.

However, thinking of the other party's background and previous social circles, he looked down on her and was not interested in knowing that there were such folk cultural works that were mostly spread among the villages.

He sighed with mixed feelings and then gave a brief account of the whole story.

………………

In later generations, Qi and Lu should be regarded as provinces with rich intangible cultural heritage. There are 186 national-level intangible cultural heritage projects alone, accounting for 5% of the total number of intangible cultural heritage in the country; as for provincial-level intangible cultural heritage projects, there are even more, as many as 1073 items.

Students who work in the cultural and tourism industry all know that before the economy develops, intangible cultural heritage is just a weed, and may even be thrown away as an antique that is not presentable; but once the economy develops, or if it is moved directly to economically developed areas, as long as your publicity is in place and you know how to integrate and adapt, it will become a treasure like a gold nugget.

The ash-covered New Year paintings are one of the most distinctive national intangible cultural heritage projects in Shandong.

The so-called ash-pushing is to use willow branches to burn into ashes, draw lines as the base, and then copy multiple copies at a time; the artist then powders the face and hands, applies colors, draws gold, and outlines on the printed manuscript, and finally applies bright oil on the key parts.

This is an ancient painting genre that grew up on the basis of freehand Chinese painting. It first appeared during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty and became popular in the Qing Dynasty. It is also called "folk freehand painting". It is a kind of New Year painting that was formed on the basis of literati paintings and temple murals. It is a kind of New Year painting that is half printed and half painted by hand, so it is called the dust-sprinkled New Year painting.

The technique of puffing ash New Year pictures is unique, using color instead of ink. Their shapes are simple and clumsy, their lines are bold and smooth, their writing is meaningful, and their style is bright. They mostly take ladies, fat babies, opera characters, mythological stories, landscapes and flowers as their themes, and are therefore deeply loved by the grassroots people.

Of course, being loved by the grassroots people does not mean that it can catch the eyes of literati and poets. Therefore, from the moment it was born, it was not only classified as part of the secular culture and not even looked at by the upper class, but its main inheritance and circulation areas were also mainly concentrated in more than 30 villages in Jiangzhuang and Xiazhuang in Gaomi North Township.

Since they were never looked down upon by the upper class before, it is not surprising that second-generation people like Zhuo Mali have never seen or even heard of this thing.

Although this ancient painting genre is not favored by mainstream Chinese literati, as early as the preparation stage of the brand's overseas expansion plan, Miss Mu had considered countless alternative elements based on the idea of ​​cultural empowerment, and ash-puffing New Year paintings were one of them.

So when Miss Mu sent someone to conduct a survey in the island country with samples of this thing, it unexpectedly aroused the interest of many islanders, especially the middle class.

In their words, although China's ash-puff New Year paintings are very different from the Western oil paintings and Ukiyo-e paintings that are currently popular in the island country, they possess the charm and sense of freedom of both, and are truly rare works of art.

Miss Mu would naturally not turn a blind eye to the positive feedback, so she quickly contacted a dozen craftsmen in Gaomi. After the staff had a lot of talk, she finally convinced them to change the traditional patterns and draw a batch of ash-puffed New Year pictures based on the Three Kingdoms theme and related requirements designed by the brand overseas project team. After further processing, they became industrial packaging patterns printed on certain products.

Facts have proved that the original market survey sampling was not fraudulent, and those cultural and creative products with ash-puffing New Year paintings as the main artistic expression style performed very well during the exhibition and sales period of the China-Japan Cultural Festival.

Therefore, along with other intangible cultural heritage elements that also received good initial market feedback, ash-covered New Year paintings became one of the cultural empowerment elements screened out by the brand's overseas expansion team.

As everyone knows, Miss Mu is an extremely capable person.

After preliminarily verifying the market value of these cultural elements, in order to consolidate the achievements of the Sino-Japanese Cultural Festival and to further expand the effectiveness of cultural PUA, Miss Mu decided to launch limited editions based on the first batch of goods that had already settled in the island country...that is, the limited edition strategy mentioned above.

The so-called limited edition is actually just a hand-painted/made packaging box, but the price has doubled.

Miss Mu is very confident that with the current social atmosphere and consumption habits of the island country, these limited edition products will have no trouble selling.

Since it is a hand-painted packaging, it naturally requires a lot of manpower to draw it stroke by stroke according to the designed drawing.

So...

Nearly 4000 villages, including Peiguantun, urgently mobilized to set up packaging and drawing teams. At the request of Dahua Company and under the coordination of Xialiu Marketing Agency, more than elderly people, women, and disabled people who were unable to serve as the main agricultural labor force were engaged in the extremely painful process of learning intangible cultural heritage techniques.

Of course, corresponding to this is the current dizzyingly generous remuneration for these hand-packaging orders.

180 yuan a month return...

These people probably never thought they could make so much money in their entire lives!

Of course, the premise of all this is that these people are willing to study hard and can withstand the frustration period in the first one or two months.

A fact that is hard to admit is that
In many rural areas, these honest farmers may be willing to sell their labor in the sweat and rain, but asking them to learn new knowledge that they have never been exposed to is more painful than killing them.

This is also a kind of laziness and even a chronic disease.

Not only do they need generous material rewards to motivate them, but they also need spiritual encouragement from others.

………………

After briefly explaining the whole story, Tugou said with a tone of admiration mixed with frustration: "Sister Mu is really amazing. Before this, I was always thinking about what else each village had that could be used to make money, but I never thought that such an insignificant thing, after such a simple learning and promotion process, could bring such great benefits to everyone... and the beneficiaries are the most unpopular people in the village who don't have much labor force."

At this point, Lu Yingying lowered her head gently: "As expected, you are all people who can do great things. The big problems that we are worried about and our hair is almost graying, you can solve them with just a casual idea... Compared with you, I am just a stupid girl who can only do rough work."

Zhuomali looked at the girl's resigned and depressed expression, then glanced at the empty yet bustling village outside, and couldn't help laughing.

Sister, what do you mean we are all people who can do great things, and you are just a stupid girl who can only do rough work?

Do you know that you guys are actually the ones doing the real big things?
(End of this chapter)