The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 292 Mineral Water and the Film Industry

Hong Kong's manufacturing industry is moving inland, industries are transforming, and the service, financial and entertainment industries are developing rapidly.

Jiang Ben originally planned to start another important project in a few years. He only needed to do the project he wanted. Even if he didn't get involved in the real estate industry, he could still become a wealthy man in the future.

Sometimes people often fall into blind spots. Jiang Cheng is still thinking of waiting until there are many resources in the country that can be contracted by individuals before entering that industry.

But Jiang Cheng suddenly realized that he was actually an idiot, because even at that time, he still planned to use the space.

In the future, what makes the most money? Apart from the financial industry, the real industry is actually water. In the future, a pound of grain is not as expensive as a bottle of mineral water, and mineral water is a renewable resource.

In Hong Kong, the per capita DGP has become the highest among the "Four Asian Tigers". Housing prices are still being pushed up, with small and medium-sized houses rising to 10,000 Hong Kong dollars per square meter.

So in Hong Kong, many people can accept a bottle of mineral water costing one or two dollars, and the price is even higher in high-end places.

But in China, mineral water may not have a market yet, because a bottle of soda only costs one or two cents in China, and no one should buy mineral water of the same price.

However, the meatball food processing factory in Hong Kong is going to transform, and the processing factory in Shenzhen is already sufficient to produce the meatballs. However, many workers do not have any special skills, and if they are laid off, they will not be able to find good jobs.

Jiang Cheng planned to convert the food processing factory in Xiangjiang into a mineral water and purified water processing factory, and then slowly produce it and sell it as his own brand in the "Jiangdonglai" supermarket.

Others advertise that they do not produce water, but are just water carriers. But at least their processing plants are built next to water sources. Now that Jiang Cheng wants to produce mineral water, he has really become a water carrier and has to use space to steal water.

But water is really a low-cost, high-profit industry, and the more profitable an industry is, the more low-key it is. If it weren't for industry competition in later generations, which exposed the worth of several bottled water business owners, no one would have thought that selling water is the most profitable industry of all.

The health of future generations is food and water. In terms of food, there is not much technology and activity in China. In a few years, Jiang Cheng will gradually start to get started.

As for water, Jiang Cheng could start stockpiling high-quality mineral water now. As a wealthy man, even if he didn't sell it, his family could use mineral water for drinking in the future.

But if you want to produce mineral water, you don't need many workers in Hong Kong. The wages in China are so low. If there is no market for mineral water in China, a pragmatic person like Jiang Cheng would not produce mineral water in Hong Kong.

Many Hong Kong businessmen, as long as they open factories in China, will basically transfer Hong Kong's manufacturing industry to China due to the domestic labor costs.

Fortunately, the hotel in Kowloon District of Hong Kong with an investment of 200 million is about to be completed, and a lot of security and cleaning staff will be needed. At that time, Jiangdonglai will transfer employees to other positions, and those who do not accept will have to be laid off.

The cost of developing and building a house by yourself is low. With the current housing prices in Hong Kong, buying a hotel of the same size would cost at least double that.

The main reason is that the land price in Hong Kong changes every year, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain land. Many places restrict development, and sooner or later, land in Hong Kong will become very expensive.

Jiang Cheng thought that since Hong Kong was transforming into a service industry, the tourism industry would be indispensable in the future. Many people would go to Hong Kong for tourism, so he might as well open a hotel in the most valuable areas of Central and Tsim Sha Tsui.

Money placed in the bank is really just a piece of data, but the interest earned in one year on the deposits of wealthy people in this era is something that most people in later generations will never be able to earn in their entire lives.

Many rich people will have endless money to spend as long as they don't commit suicide and their descendants don't invest recklessly.

With Jiang Cheng's current wealth growth, he can build up the water industry and then buy some villas and courtyard houses in various cities in China. He doesn't need to buy too many. Just to have his own house in each city, Jiang Cheng doesn't plan to make any trouble in this life.

Hong Kong, Kowloon Peak villa area, this villa has increased in value by tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars in the past two years. Ordinary people really can't keep up with the wealth.

At this time, in the courtyard of the villa area, many actors and crew members were eating boxed lunches.

There are crews that want to film. These days, many crews are very poor. After all, the highest box office of a movie last year was less than 8 million. In Hong Kong, except for Jackie Chan who can get a few million for his international film, this is already a sky-high salary in Hong Kong.

Others who can earn hundreds of thousands of yuan for a film are already considered the top stars in the Hong Kong entertainment industry. You should know that Lao Zhou only earned more than 200,000 yuan in 1987.

The filming locations had to be rented or borrowed. Even hotels had to be rented, rather than just renting a floor. In the 1980s, when urban comedy movies were just emerging, they liked to make some funny movies about picking up girls.

There are so many luxurious villas in Xiangjiang, and no one knows who got in touch with Mrs. Jiang, Shen Li, through the parents of Jiang Fei Kindergarten. But Shen Li likes to hear people call her Mrs. Jiang or Madam Jiang. The more she can't get something, the more she desires it.

Shen Li was just having fun, and heard that someone wanted to rent a villa for a few days to film a movie. Because they were staying in a top luxury villa, they paid 3,000 yuan a day for rent, and it was not too much of a problem for Mrs. Jiang to use the villa.

Jiang Cheng had never thought that he could still see filming at home, even some popular stars from the 1980s and 1990s. However, the filming crew outside was eating boxed lunches, while Jiang Cheng and Shen Li were eating lobster in the room.

"Jiang Cheng, it sounds like these people have fun making movies, and I heard they can make a lot of money. How about we invest some money and make a movie for fun?" Shen Li asked.

"It's fine if you want to invest in filming, but you can't go and make a movie yourself." Jiang Cheng said indifferently. As long as Shen Li is interested, it's okay to let her do something.

Being a wife and mother, it's actually OK in China. Because if I don't work, I really don't know what to do. Zhou Lingying likes to gossip about all kinds of things. The environment is also very important. There is no place for entertainment at all.

Especially in ancient times, women were not allowed to show their faces in public, so they could only stay at home to take care of their husbands and children.

In Hong Kong today, except for the lack of Internet, food, drink and entertainment are all available. There are already game halls in Hong Kong, but there are not many types of arcade games in the game halls, and most of them are shooting games.

There are almost no fighting games at present, but there are many gambling games, which make the arcades very profitable, such as fruit machines, horse racing machines, and machines with traffic lights and other gameplay.

Anyway, there are places to eat, drink and have fun in Hong Kong, and women have high human rights in Hong Kong. It is normal for Shen Li to want to start a career, and there are only three major industries in Hong Kong: service, finance and entertainment.

Jiang Cheng just warned Shen Li that if she wanted to invest in movies, she just had to avoid those ancient martial arts movies that were about to become outdated. The 1980s and 1990s were also the golden age of Hong Kong movies. Art, comedy, ghost movies, etc. were very popular in the market and basically did not lose money. Jiang Cheng and Shen Li had dinner and watched the crew filming the movie out of boredom. To be honest, in the era when the highest box office in Hong Kong is only tens of millions, many movies must control the cost to around one million.

Actors without fame really don't have a good life in Hong Kong. Some actors who are familiar to everyone on TV may only get tens of thousands of yuan for filming a movie. Many minor roles may not even earn 100 Hong Kong dollars a day.

In recent years, many filming scenes do not even use wires, but directly jump from the second floor of the villa to the first floor. As long as there is an action movie, the crew will basically invite martial arts people.

Jiang Cheng saw how hardworking filmmakers of this era were. The second floor of his villa was much higher than the second floor of a residential building. When shooting a scene, the actors had to fall from the second floor. However, because the handrails in Jiang Cheng's villa were expensive, the actors were directly required not to use the handrails for leverage when jumping down. If they were damaged, they would have to pay a lot of money.

Many things in the villas were replaced with props, and the film crews dared not mess around in the villa area. After filming, the crew had to pay for cleaning staff to clean up.

Jiang Cheng and Shen Li actually didn't know that generally wealthy people were unwilling to rent villas to film crews. Once they rented out, it wouldn't take long for the entire Hong Kong film industry to know about it. There was a top-notch mountaintop villa in Kowloon that could be rented, and Shen Li would have a lot of troubles then.

But this is also a bargain for Jiang Cheng. You know, female stars in later generations all look the same, but in this era, each one has its own characteristics. When Jiang Cheng's children grow up in the mainland, if they chase stars and the stars they chase appear next to Jiang Cheng, I really don't know what the scene will be like.

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The 1980s passed quickly, and Jiang Cheng's "Jiangdonglai" mineral water was launched and sold in supermarkets in Hong Kong. However, there was no deliberate expansion of sales channels, because the price was not low, only five yuan at that time.

In this era, bottled water was sold in Xiangjiang for about one dollar. The price of five dollars was indeed a bit expensive, but Jiang Cheng had someone design a good package and then gave it directly to some departments in Xiangjiang for free use.

A lot of it was also given to the cooperating Hang Seng Bank, and the person in charge of Hang Seng Bank was also very good at handling things. He directly designated the mineral water of Jiangdonglai as the designated water for commercial reception. Only high-end customers of the bank could not drink this water.

Jiang Cheng actually didn't want to make money from the bottled water business right now, but he had some experience in branding. When rich people invest in businesses now, they don't just look at short-term returns, they will build a brand.

The meatballs of Jiangdonglai have gained a good reputation in Hong Kong. As long as there are no problems in the production process, it is basically difficult to collapse. What they sell is not only meatballs, but also the ingredients are real and the production is clean and hygienic.

Moreover, in Maru’s direct-operated store, the promotional pictures on the wall are pictures of the ingredients and sanitary environment during the production process.

Jiang Cheng has no intention of making money from mineral water now, let alone selling it at a low price. He just wants to build a brand, and by not raising the price for a few years, when the price of goods in Hong Kong goes up, it will be equivalent to a disguised price reduction.

However, it can create the feeling that "Jiangdonglai" mineral water is a high-end bottled water. When the prices of other mineral waters increase, many people feel that buying "Jiangdonglai" is not much more expensive, so they will choose this one.

Jiang Cheng didn't expect that he would rather not lower the price, even if it was to give it to some partners, than to expand sales channels. He didn't even do advertising, and Jiangdonglai's products didn't sell well in supermarkets.

But because Jiang Cheng thought it was a waste to store the water in the warehouse, he used it as a favor to give to some cooperative units. But he sent it out through the channel. The bottle of this "Jiangdonglai" mineral water is really exquisite. It looks high-end, but except for the bottle, the other costs are basically nothing for Jiang Cheng.

The water was "stolen" by Jiang Cheng from Mount Lu. According to later generations, Jiang Cheng was illegally mining. In later generations, digging wells privately might be considered illegal mining.

The underground mineral water is actually a mineral resource, so Jiang Cheng stealing water in Lushan is actually stealing minerals.

When it comes to the water resources in Lushan, not everyone knows it. But when it comes to the later Baisuishan mineral water, basically everyone knows that it uses the water resources there.

It only took Jiang Cheng two hours to drive from Changcheng to Lushan, so he naturally chose the water there.

The water is free, just a fancy bottle. It doesn't cost much, but it's priced at five dollars, and it's very face-saving to give it to someone as a gift.

It does seem quite impressive that the cooperative units serve customers with this water. It is also mineral water produced by the cooperative units, so it is not bad to take care of the business. I asked about the wholesale price, and it was 3.5 yuan per bottle.

This person may not be able to afford such expensive water, even if it is wholesale. But those who run companies and some financial institutions want high-end products. Jiang Cheng did not expect that he would be able to open up sales channels in this inexplicable way.

But his behavior cannot be replicated by ordinary people. It does not mean that just anyone producing some water and giving it to others can promote it. If you do not have the strength and powerful industry, people will want to get close to you and be willing to buy your water at a high price. Only when there are more companies and units buying it can the brand reputation be established.

If it were an ordinary person, they would really think that the water is worth five dollars. There are so many people doing business in Hong Kong, and they are not fools.

Even if Jiang Cheng sells it for 10 yuan a bottle, because he has a large amount of deposits in Hang Seng Bank and is a big shot, even if the person in charge of the bank is asked to buy a million bottles of water at 10 yuan a bottle, people may still buy it.

Moreover, the "Jiangdonglai" brand has a certain reputation in Hong Kong. Even though it has just entered the bottled water industry, it cannot be said to be a hybrid brand.

This is just like Xiaomi suddenly selling cars. Can you say Xiaomi's cars are a cheap brand? They are really cheap brands, but the sales volume is so high.

The mineral water of Jiangdonglai is priced high, but it has become a high-end product. In just a few months, Jiang Cheng did not expect that the market would automatically set a reputation for it.

Some companies with strong brands have purchased Jiangdonglai mineral water. If they don't use this water to entertain high-end customers, they will feel a little bit strong.

Those elite white-collar workers who drive high-end cars would seem to have no taste if they don't have a bottle of Jiangdonglai mineral water in their car.

Especially celebrities, there are news reports that they use this water to rinse their mouths.

If there weren't so few "high-end" people, Jiang Cheng felt that his mineral water sales would surpass Wanzi's business in a few months. But after all, it only serves a small number of people, so it's good to have a stable sales group.

Jiang Cheng's initial goal was to make himself known to the public. In fact, many products, as long as they are of good quality, can become a brand. He was prepared to lose millions every year, but he didn't expect to start making a profit in just a few months.

Even if the market is limited, if you earn a few million a month, you can buy a high-end villa in a year.

(End of this chapter)