Development of productivity started in 1981

Chapter 23: Lighter Sales and Returning Home to Start a Factory

1981年8月7日，农历7月8日
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Wang Jiankun rode his bike to the station early in the morning, carrying 200 lighters with him.

After buying the ticket, tie the car and lighter to the roof of the bus.

Two hundred lighters weighed about 40 kilograms after being filled with kerosene. Wang Jiankun packed them in two metal boxes made with superpowers. They only had handles but no openings, so it was quite safe to put them on the roof of the car.

When he arrived at Raozhou Station, Wang Jiankun rode his bicycle and brought two boxes of lighters to the guesthouse to check in.

After writing a note and leaving a message for Master Quan at the guesthouse, Wang Jiankun went to the train station with 50 copper and iron lighters each.

Because I was worried that it would be difficult to park my bicycle at the station and it might be stolen, I walked for a while and took a rickshaw when I saw one.

Arriving at the train station, Wang Jiankun saw some vendors selling snacks and some cheap products.

Seeing this, Wang Jiankun found a place to put out the lighters and even got a piece of paper and wrote in large letters: "Hong Kong imported lighters available for sale."

Soon, a crowd of people gathered in front of Wang Jiankun's stall.

Everyone is still very curious about the products imported from Hong Kong.

Although I don't know what a lighter is, it doesn't stop me from joining in the fun.

Seeing so many people coming, Wang Jiankun brought out a set of rhetoric he had prepared in advance.

He just said, "My dear friends, a relative of mine in Hong Kong came to visit him a while ago and brought some lighters with him. He stayed for a few days and is going back to Hong Kong. Before he left, he left some lighters for my family, saying that he was sending us wealth."

"He brought these lighters back from Japan and the United States. They are very popular in his country. Every smoker has one. They are very convenient for lighting cigarettes. In the summer, you don't have to worry about the matches getting soaked by sweat, and in the winter, you don't have to shiver when striking a match."

"Look, just press the switch and the fire will start, and release it and it will go out. And when the kerosene inside is used up, you can just add it yourself and continue to use it, which is more economical than using matches. It is a great item for home and travel, and it can also be used as a gift."

After listening to what he said, everyone knew that this was used for lighting and burned kerosene.

So the smokers in the crowd started asking, "How much are you selling your lighter for?"

"My relative in Hong Kong told me that if we sell them retail, the golden yellow ones should be sold for at least 60 yuan each, and the silvery white ones should be sold for at least 40 yuan each, otherwise we will lose money."

After he quoted the price, more than half of the crowd left, but a few people still stayed. Judging from their attire, they must be dealers. Each of them carried a large suitcase that was bulging with stuff.

Someone said, "Since you said you want so much for retail, can you also sell it wholesale?"

"Yes, if I sell wholesale, I can sell it cheaper and faster, so I can go back earlier."

"Then how do you sell this wholesale?"

"If it's wholesale, the minimum order is 20 pieces, 10 pieces of each type, and the price can be 6% off."

"You all travel a lot, right? Why don't you try a batch? If it sells well, I'll ask my relatives in Hong Kong to bring more goods over."

After some thought, several traders decided to buy a batch to test sell.

Because they have seen similar lighters in the Friendship Stores in several major coastal cities, but the price was one or two hundred yuan, and some were four or five hundred yuan.

The wholesale price here is only around 20 or 30 yuan now, and I should be able to sell it at one or two times the price.

Then four traders said they would wholesale 4 each.

After collecting the money, Wang Jiankun handed the goods to the four people and said that they were all filled with kerosene and could be ignited by pressing the switch.

At this time, there was still one person who had not left the scene. After the others had gone far away, he asked Wang Jiankun: "Little brother, do you have any extra lighters? I want to get more."

"There are still some left. How much do you want?"

"Do you have 200? If you do, sell them to me."

"There aren't that many left. Including what's left here, there are only 120."

"I see. Where is the rest of your goods? I'll go with you to get it."

"Do you have that much money? 120 pieces will cost a lot of money."

The young man rummaged in his pocket, revealing a stack of big unity notes.

Seeing that he could come up with the money, Wang Jiankun said, "I left it at the guesthouse. Come with me to get it."

So the two of them each took a rickshaw, and the young man got on the car behind with a big bag on his back.

When they arrived at the guesthouse, the young man asked the waiter to help look after his bag and then went upstairs with Wang Jiankun.

When they arrived at the room, Wang Jiankun handed 120 lighters to the young man.

After checking a few, the young man found that the quality and appearance were consistent, so he paid 3600 yuan to Wang Jiankun.

During the transaction, the two men introduced themselves to each other. The young man was called Cheng Yong. He worked as an educated youth for several years after graduating from high school. After returning to the city, he worked as a temporary worker in a steel factory, but felt tired and had no future. By chance, he became a trader and now mainly sells shoes.

After hearing what he said, Wang Jiankun hurriedly asked him if he had a cousin named Cheng Xing who opened a shoe store on Wusan Avenue.

Cheng Yong didn't expect that he actually knew his cousin, so he asked Wang Jiankun to explain the situation.

Wang Jiankun talked about his last trip to Raozhou to buy shoes, and said that he was going to the store to buy a few more pairs of shoes for his family later.

Cheng Yong said, what are you waiting for? Why not go to the store now? He also brought some from other places this time and will go to the store to see if there is anything suitable.

Wang Jiankun thought about it and agreed, so he locked the door, got on his bike, and asked Cheng Yong to put the luggage on the back seat.

The two came to Cheng Xing's shop. Cheng Xing was surprised to see that his cousin came with Wang Jiankun.

Cheng Yong didn't explain much and asked Cheng Xing to come out and help take the shoes in and sort them out.

Let Wang Jiankun choose the shoes first and have dinner together later. He said that meeting was fate. Then he took the lighter and went into the inner room.

Wang Jiankun thought it was great to make friends with such a broad mind, and agreed to have dinner together later.

When Wang Jiankun was choosing shoes, Cheng Yong came out and told Cheng Xing what had happened.

When he heard his cousin say that the lighter Wang Jiankun knocked over was brought by relatives from Hong Kong, his eyes looked a little strange.

But Wang Jiankun couldn't say anything because he felt that the lighter might not have been brought by a relative from Hong Kong, but might have been brought from Zhejiang Province.

Soon Wang Jiankun picked out a pair of shoes for his grandparents and his father and mother. After paying the money, he went to a nearby restaurant with the Cheng brothers to have dinner.

During the dinner, the three of them talked about everything under the sun, including national policies, the countryside and interesting stories about the educated youth.

Cheng Yong is a eloquent man with broad knowledge. He has traveled to coastal provinces and several major cities in the north.

He was the one who talked most of the time afterwards, while Wang Jiankun and Cheng Xing listened.

Although Wang Jiankun also reads newspapers and knows some things about the outside world, from the perspective of a trader, he still feels that he has learned a lot from the differences in openness and development of various places.

From Cheng Yong's description, Wang Jiankun knew that the farther away from BJ, the closer to the seaside the place was, the more open it was, and the faster and bigger the steps were.

For example, a few years ago, Shekou in Guangdong Province sold land to Hong Kong businessmen to build factories and houses.

Zhejiang Province, Fujian Province and Guangdong Province have almost become public.

Anyone who had a ship, big or small, helped transport freight and made a fortune.

Some people also opened small workshops, employing dozens or even hundreds of workers.

Places where there are Chinese and overseas Chinese try to contact those who left home in the early years, hoping that they will return to their hometown to invest. Various preferential policies make people jealous.

In several northern cities, people with connections enjoy the best of life, and those who can get approval are considered the rich and powerful, and have to wait in line to be treated to dinner.

Based on this story, Wang Jiankun gradually formed a future development plan in his mind.

In the future, production factories will still be located in the southern coastal areas, where management is lax and resources can be purchased as long as one has money. In the north, however, it doesn't matter if one has money.

If you want to do research, you still have to go to the north, especially Beijing, Tianjin, Xi'an and Northeast China.

Most of the country's scientific research talents are concentrated there, and most research institutions are in those cities.

Finally, Cheng Xing couldn't help but asked Wang Jiankun whether the lighter was obtained from Zhejiang Province.

Wang Jiankun was stunned for a moment after hearing this, and after thinking about it, he understood why Cheng Xing asked that.

Because Cheng Xing felt that his words were full of loopholes. They had just met a few days ago and he had no idea what a lighter looked like, but he brought back so many lighters in one trip.

It must have been obtained through Zhejiang Province, because Cheng Xing said at the time that there were imitations in Zhejiang Province.

So Wang Jiankun had no choice but to follow his words and said, "Haha, I didn't expect you to find out."

"After seeing the lighter from you that day and knowing that there was a factory producing it in Zhejiang Province, I went home and asked my family to ask my relatives in Zhejiang Province if they could get me a lighter. I didn't expect that my relative actually worked in a lighter factory, so I went to Zhejiang Province to get 200 lighters to test the sales."

Cheng Xing said nothing after hearing this and felt embarrassed for revealing the secret.

Cheng Yong said, "Jiankun, can you get some cheaper lighters of slightly lower quality? You can only sell these two types to those profiteers and those who got rich in coastal areas. The market is still too small. If you can get one with a wholesale price of around 10 yuan, then anyone who smokes will bite the bullet and buy one."

"I'll go back and ask my relatives in Zhejiang Province if they have any. If they don't, there's nothing I can do."

"I worked in a steel mill for a while, so I know a little bit about steel. The silver one is probably galvanized. You can use gray cast iron, which is used to make cans, for the shell, and you can also paint it."

"I'll ask my relatives to pass on your suggestion and see if they can get the factory over there to make a batch. If they can, I'll buy some."

"Okay, can you leave me a contact number that can receive telegrams or phone calls? I'll leave you the phone number of the guesthouse and the telegram address here. I'll tell the waiter, and I'll ask her to notify us when you call me."

"I'll leave you the telegraphic address of our commune. It's close to the border with Zhejiang Province, but we don't have a telephone connection there yet."

"That's fine. If you find a cheap one, please send me a telegram and we'll communicate by telegram." "Okay, then do you want these two kinds of brass and galvanized ones?"

"Yes, but not in large quantities. I'll try selling them in a few days and then telegraph you how much you want."

"That's fine. You can also wholesale it here. If you need a large quantity at a time, such as goods worth 1 yuan, I will give you a discount and sell it to you at % of the retail price."

"Really? If you say so, I'll go and do some wholesale of lighters. The day after tomorrow I'll telegraph to you to decide how much you want for the next batch."

Cheng Yong is also a daring, hardworking and smart person. Although the profit margin of retail is higher than that of wholesale, wholesale has a faster turnover, so in the end, wholesale makes money faster.

After dinner, Wang Jiankun rode his bike back to the guesthouse and found that Master Quan had not arrived yet, so he took a rest and then rode his bike to the scrap recycling station.

He needed to build a small stamping machine and a mold, so he had to go to a scrap yard to buy some iron and copper.

When they arrived at the scrap yard, the person in charge saw Wang Jiankun again and asked him what he wanted to buy.

Wang Jiankun said he wanted to buy some scrap copper and scrap iron and go home to make farm tools and some copperware.

The person in charge asked Wang Jiankun to go to the metal yard by himself, and leave the bicycle at the door of the office first so it would not be lost.

Wang Jiankun parked his bicycle and went to the metal yard to search.

I used my super powers to check if there were any precious or rare metals and found that several rails contained manganese.

Wang Jiankun did not hesitate and concentrated the manganese into a shorter and thicker steel rod, marked it and would transport it away later.

Then some elements with smaller content but which can improve the metal properties, such as tungsten, nickel, molybdenum, chromium, etc., are collected in another steel rod.

I found a pile of copper wire and copper materials in the copper material area, and also found a scrapped electric motor.

After Wang Jiankun made his selection, he asked the person in charge to weigh them and found some wooden boards to make a rack and put it on the bicycle.

Wang Jiankun made three trips back and forth to transport the things to the guesthouse.

In the guesthouse, Wang Jiankun used his super powers to combine these materials into two stamping machines and corresponding molds and assembly tools.

According to the manufacturing scenario simulated by Zhizi, these two sets of machines can stamp out 500 sets of lighter parts every day.

Wang Jiankun packed the excess manganese and other metals into boxes, as well as the two machines and molds.

The box was made using the wooden frame and the planks bought at the scrap yard using super powers.

In the future, wooden boards will be used to cover the transportation. When the time comes, the raw materials will be loaded onto the truck, and the required products such as galvanized iron plates, brass plates, flints, springs and other things whose origins are difficult to explain will be synthesized on the way.

After finishing all these, Wang Jiankun made a phone call to Tsinghua Cement Factory from the guesthouse.

I told Hu Xiyang to set off for Raozhou early tomorrow morning and try to arrive before 10 am.

After loading the goods in Raozhou, we passed by Dexing Copper Mine on the way back to load some more goods and return to Wangjia Production Team.

Hu Xiyang agreed because Wang Jiankun was generous and quick with his money, so he gave him 500 yuan for this trip, which was enough for him to pick up customers sporadically for half a month.

After making the call and waiting in the guesthouse for a while, Master Quan finally arrived.

From the fact that he was only carrying a little luggage, I knew the clock had been sold.

After Master Quan arranged the accommodation, he started chatting with Wang Jiankun.

He said, "My dear nephew, I am so tired carrying 40 clocks this time. It is really troublesome to transport so many by bus. I am so old and I have to climb on the roof to fix them. Next time I will hire a truck to transport them."

Wang Jiankun asked: "Master Quan, have you found so many distributors?"

"After I delivered 20 units to each of the two companies, they said they wanted at least 200 units per month. Then I went to a few places where small vendors and profiteers gathered. They also wanted to sell them wholesale."

"So no matter what, I plan to rent a house here as a warehouse. I'll ask my youngest son to come here to watch over it. When the time comes, I'll ship three or four hundred units at a time and store them here and sell them wholesale slowly."

"Okay, then are you going home tomorrow? I've ordered a truck to arrive around 10 a.m. tomorrow. I'll load the goods and go home. If you want to go, go with the truck, right?"

"I may not be able to leave tomorrow. It's too late to go out and look for a house now. I plan to rent a house tomorrow and go home the day after tomorrow."

"Okay, I'll go back tomorrow. I've already bought everything I needed."

In the evening, Wang Jiankun and Master Quan had dinner together and then went back to their room to rest.

I had a busy day today and took stock to see if there was anything I missed that needed to be added. I found that I had forgotten the glass of the clock, so I made more of it this time and took it home with me.

The next morning, the two separated after breakfast. Master Quan went to find a house, while Wang Jiankun rode his bike to Xinjiang River.

Along the Xinjiang River, Wang Jiankun found a pile of sand and gravel and used his superpowers to synthesize glass, which he then transported back to his room in the guesthouse on a bicycle.

After more than ten trips back and forth, a total of more than 3,000 pieces of glass were brought back, all packed in wooden boxes. Of course, the wood was taken from the willow trees by the river.

A little after 10 o'clock, Wang Jiankun and Hu Xiyang arrived.

After the truck stopped in front of the guesthouse, Wang Jiankun called Hu Xiyang to go to the restaurant next door to have a bowl of noodles.

Then he helped him carry the wooden boxes into the car, and finally carried the bicycle and the shoes that Wang Jiankun brought with him into the car.

After Wang Jiankun checked out of the room, he and Hu Xiyang got into the car and left.

The road conditions from Raozhou to Dexing were relatively good. Wang Jiankun planned to take a nap and asked Hu Xiyang to wake him up after arriving at the Dexing Copper Mine Guesthouse.

The truck drove for three hours and arrived at the Dexing Copper Mine Guesthouse. Wang Jiankun was woken up, rubbed his eyes and got off the bus.

Ask Hu Xiyang to help go to the room and move the wooden boxes out.

After checking out, we went to a restaurant not far away to have a meal.

Then, under the command of Wang Jiankun, he went to the cable factory.

I took the note and went to pick up the purchased cables.

The installation of the cables did not require the help of two people, and after the installation, they drove to Wangjia Production Team in Wuyuan County.

On the way, Wang Jiankun told Hu Xiyang that the things they bought were for the team to build a hydropower station and some cables.

Hu Xiyang saw the wires and had no idea what was in the box, but he imagined it was equipment for generating and transmitting electricity.

On the way, Wang Jiankun asked if he could borrow the factory's phone to call Raozhou.

Hu Xiyang said it was possible, but not necessary.

To use the factory phone, you not only need the approval of your supervisor and favors, but you also have to pay a lot of money. It is better to go to the post office to make the call.

Now not only can you send telegrams there, but there are also public telephones that can be used to make calls for money.

Wang Jiankun was very happy to hear that he could call anytime for money. It would also be much more convenient for him to communicate with Cheng Yong in the future. However, he didn't know when the call would be connected to the team.

The two chatted as they arrived at the Wangjia Production Team.

Wang Jiankun first took the bicycle off and asked his grandfather to arrange someone to transport the goods. He asked Hu Xiyang to wait in the car and have dinner at home before going back.

When I got home by bike, my grandfather happened to be there. I quickly told him that I had bought the cables and some equipment and asked someone to deliver them back to the team.

Then I told my grandmother and mother that there would be a driver waiting for us at home for dinner, and asked them to prepare more food.

After saying that, he went back to the truck and waited.

After a while, grandpa came with his men pushing a chicken cart and a cart.

Wang Jiankun directed people to transport the cables to the team's warehouse and to transport the boxes to Wang Jiankun's yard.

After the transportation was completed, everyone was allowed to go home, and Wang Jiankun took Hu Xiyang home for dinner.

At the dinner table, Wang Jiankun briefly described his trip to Raozhou and Dexing Copper Mine, and took out four iron lighters, giving one to Grandpa and Father each, asking them to carry one with them, and one to Grandma, asking her to keep one at home to use for starting fires. He gave the remaining one to Hu Xiyang.

Everyone took their lighters and lit a cigarette under the guidance of Wang Jiankun. It was all very novel.

The lighter was very beautiful with its silvery shine. My father asked how much it cost and whether it was bought in Raozhou.

Wang Jiankun said that he bought them from a dealer and paid 20 yuan per piece at wholesale price.

Everyone thought it was too expensive, but they had no choice but to accept it since they had already bought it. Grandma also told them to be frugal with their money and not spend it recklessly.

Wang Jiankun said that he did not spend the money recklessly. He already knew how to make a lighter. There were machines for making lighters in the boxes in the yard.

Then Wang Jiankun made up a story, saying that he saw lighters in Raozhou, asked a dealer how they were made, then did some research on his own and found a machinery factory in Raozhou to make these machines.

Everyone in the family was shocked by his boldness, but Wang Jiankun's past achievements made his family feel that it would be a good idea to let him give it a try, as it might be another way to make money.

Hu Xiyang also thought that this little brother was incredibly courageous, daring to do such a big thing at such a young age. At the same time, he also wanted to keep a good relationship with him, so he said, "If you need to transport goods in the future, try to find me. I promise to deliver them to you safely."

"Okay, we will definitely have a lot of things for you to transport in the future. If the sales of lighters pick up, you might have to travel every day."

"I am willing to run every day, but I am afraid of being idle every day."

Because Hu Xiyang had to drive back and the road was difficult to travel on, he was not treated to any drinks, and the meal ended just as it was getting dark.

After sending Hu Xiyang off, Wang Jiankun returned home. His family members were waiting for him in the yard, obviously wanting to know more.

Wang Jiankun had to disassemble the two machines and gave a brief explanation of how to manufacture them. However, they could not be used now because there was no electricity. They would be fine once the power was restored. Wang Jiankun said that they would discuss more details at home tomorrow. Now he needed to wash up and rest as he was very tired after running around for several days.

When his family heard him say this, they let him go to rest, but they obviously couldn't sleep. His sister studied the bicycle in the moonlight, and the adults touched the machines. It was very late before they went back to their room to rest.

(End of this chapter)