The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 305: Individual Contracting Enterprises Emerge
With the reform and opening up, social and economic activities have become more active, and population mobility has increased. Crime has also begun to rise in many places.
Moreover, many of them are in other places, and their names are either nicknames or nicknames. If someone commits a crime, it is difficult to track him down unless he is caught on the spot.

Therefore, the implementation of ID cards in China was imminent. In April 1984, the authorities discussed this issue. On the evening of August 30, the first ID card issuance ceremony was held in the dormitory compound of the Ministry of Culture on Chaoyangmennei Street in the old city.

The first batch of people with ID cards consisted of only 380 people, but the implementation of ID cards officially began.

However, in 1984, the population of China had exceeded 1 billion. In those days, there were no computers or advanced printing technology, and it took at least two months to produce a batch of ID cards.

You also need to register your information. I met some illiterate people who couldn't even write their own names. They spoke with a heavy accent, so it was normal for them to write their names with polyphones when registering.

Anyway, it will take at least one or two years to get an ID card.

After Jiang Cheng came back from Shanghai, he learned about his nephew Jiang Lin's situation. He didn't care about the 150 yuan. The key was whether Jiang Lin had the ability to raise chickens independently.

In this era, even a pig can take off if it is in the right place. As long as you are capable of breeding and planting, you will not have to worry about sales.

Just like raising pigs in the countryside now, if you raise a lot of them, you can just find a way to get them to the city and sell them quickly. If Jiang Lin could raise chickens, even if his mother was in the countryside to help take care of them, it would be fine.

So he didn't say anything after knowing this. If he could really raise them, Jiang Cheng could buy them all for him, and the price would not be lower than the market price.

After Jiang Lin got the money from Zhou Lingying, he told his mother about it as soon as he got home. He dared not hide such a thing.

After Li Xianglan learned the news, she told Zhao Yuxia and Jiang Changhe. They didn't expect Jiang Lin to go to the city alone to ask Jiang Cheng for money and breeding.

But considering that Jiang Lin had just graduated from junior high school, was still young, and his family didn't have much land to farm, since Jiang Lin was able to borrow money, it meant that Jiang Cheng also supported him.

But it's almost October now, and the chickens won't lay eggs for long. In two or three months, the weather gets cold and the chickens stop laying eggs. Plus, with autumn coming, there's less food to feed the chickens.

Fortunately, now the production quota is assigned to each household, and each family can harvest their own food. At least some rice bran can be used to feed the chickens, but it cannot be fed with rice bran alone. In winter, it must be supplemented with feed.

Anyway, Jiang Lin got the money from Zhou Lingying, and when he got home, he didn't know anything, and it was still other people who were busy. And Jiang Lin still felt good about himself, thinking that he was in charge of everything.

For the first batch of chickens this month, it is impossible to buy chicks to raise. You can only buy chickens that can lay eggs, which are also sold in the county town. But they are more expensive than simply buying broilers, and you can't sell the eggs directly if you buy them for laying eggs.

You can find someone to cut bamboo in the mountains to build a chicken coop, but you still have to hire someone to do it. Family members can only help, and it costs some money.

Bamboo is still collectively owned by the commune. It is true that the production quota is assigned to each household, but it does not mean that everything has been divided. Many things still belong to the village and town and belong to everyone.

If you just buy ordinary chickens, you can buy about 40 for one hundred yuan these days, but if you want to buy egg-laying hens and breeding chickens, you can buy about 30 for one hundred yuan.

If you want to make money, you have to wait until next year when the eggs are laid and hatched before expanding the scale. The eggs laid this year can be sold or eaten by yourself. If it is not a formal chicken farm this month, it is difficult for the chickens to survive if they are artificially hatched and kept in a hatchery for a while.

Jiang Cheng has no time to take care of his nephew's chicken raising business. Apart from Laoshan Mineral Water, there are no other companies operating bottled water in the country.

Laoshan mineral water is a high-end beverage, supplied through special channels. In the early days, it was used for state banquets. That is, it is not sold to the public and is priced very high. In fact, it would not make much money if it were sold. Most people in China cannot accept the concept of having to pay for a bottle of water.

Just like the mineral water that Jiang Cheng sells in Hong Kong, he had no plan to sell it that way, but it became high-end water.

Jiang Cheng didn't plan to sell water now, but he had to occupy some water resources. Now another 14 cities have been opened up, and the tone of opening up across the country has been set. Some cities have not been designated as open cities, but that doesn't mean they are not allowed to attract investment or do business.

It's just that other cities don't have some tax-free policies. It's useless for your local government to only provide tax-free policies. Local tax-free policies can only attract domestic businesses. Import and export tariffs must be exempted. If foreign companies come here to open factories, they will import raw materials and sell them abroad.

Without policy support, the cost of importing and exporting goods would be very high. In addition, inland cities do not have sea transportation, which is also a big problem in terms of transportation.

Some high-quality water sources really require first come first served. After all, in later generations, no company engaged in beverage and water business has ever transferred the right to contract water resources.

Now Jiang Cheng has to do something very simple, that is, occupy the toilet without doing anything. Contract a water source, and then spend hundreds of thousands to build a processing plant.

The processing plants in Hong Kong can now be closed, and the wages of low-level workers have not increased in the past two years. Because Hong Kong's manufacturing industry has been largely transferred to China, the labor shortage is no longer severe, so naturally the wages cannot increase, and it has even made it difficult for everyone to find a job.

Many Hong Kong people have not noticed the relocation of manufacturing industries, and they blame the difficulty in finding jobs on the fact that too many people from the mainland have come. In the past, they were very friendly to their compatriots from China, but now many people dislike people from China.

However, Jiang Cheng had properly resettled the factory workers. The construction of the hotel was completed and security and cleaning staff were needed.

In the past two years, in order to accommodate tourists from China who come to Hong Kong, especially those who use shopping coupons, Jiang Cheng has also set up some homestays and hired some people to manage and maintain them.

Besides, the factory will only stop processing and production, and will keep a group of people to sort out the products. The main market for domestic processing plants is still in Hong Kong.

However, if Jiang Cheng wants to run more than a dozen water processing plants in China, he will have to put in a lot of capital. The profits earned from selling water in Hong Kong will basically be lost, and some markets must be developed.

Jiang Cheng planned to do the same as Laoshan mineral water in China, not selling it for the time being, but giving it away for free to some important departments. When Hong Kong first delivered water, there was a price, but Jiang Cheng planned not to charge for it in China.

It is just for people to drink, but the units to which it is given must be at least at the municipal level. In the county, it is only given to government departments. The industrial and commercial, cultural, and educational departments at the county level are not qualified. Only these departments in the urban area can give it.

It can't be sold anyway, the drink is only one or two cents. No matter how good it is, a bottle of water may be sold to rich people, but 99% of people will not recognize its use.

The free ones are the most expensive. Once you gain fame and market share, and the economic level of the people in China improves, it will be difficult for other brands to compete.

Moreover, if there is a disaster anywhere in the country, clean water is basically needed. At that time, donating a large amount of water was not costly for Jiang Cheng, but it had a greater impact than donating money.

Another thing worth mentioning in 1984 was the beginning of contracting in state-owned enterprises.

A sulfuric acid phosphate fertilizer factory in Fengcheng, Jiangxi Province, with more than 500 employees, had been losing money for years. The secretary of the workshop branch wrote a letter to the higher authorities, hoping to take over the contract personally to improve the loss situation.

In the previous year, that is, in 1983, the first state-owned enterprise in the country was contracted out to an individual. This contracting out to an individual did not please some cunning people.

Because everyone has a stable job, no matter how much work they do, they will get paid. But if it is contracted to one person, there is no such thing as a stable job. It also takes away the stable job of cadres. Anyway, many people are making a fuss.

But after they took over the contract, they turned losses into profits and even realized millions of dollars in profits. This was reported in the newspapers this year, and Jiang Chengcai knew about it.

This is the first contractor who was commended. Later, many loss-making enterprises may adopt individual contractors.

But Jiang Cheng had to admire it. This sulfuric acid phosphate fertilizer factory was actually a fertilizer factory. Fertilizer was a good thing these days, but it had been losing money for years. To make a fertilizer factory lose money these days, it really took a lot of skill.

However, Jiang Cheng has lived in this era for many years, and he can easily figure out the reasons for the loss. A factory with 500 people is not too big or too small. But if it is a state-owned enterprise, there will be no missing departments. There are several deputy section chiefs in a department, and the employees below are also redundant. Obviously, there is no need for so many positions, but due to many relationships, many units basically have at least 30% more employees than the standard.

Zhou Lingying's uncle is a very obvious example. He works in the Cultural Bureau and has one section chief and eight deputy section chiefs.

In addition, the factory was still operating at a planned rate, and was already losing money, so everyone acted like a big shot. If an individual or a village representative wanted to buy fertilizer, they would not sell it to you unless you showed some appreciation.

There was not a single salesperson in the factory with 500 employees, because there was no need for salespeople in the era of planned production.

In addition, in the past, rural areas were collectively owned, and some communes had side businesses and would purchase fertilizers on a regular basis. But in the past two years, everyone has contracted production to each household, and with so little land in a household, how many people would be willing to use fertilizers?

What you want to buy is not available, and some of the township purchasing units in the past are no longer necessary. It is obvious that in the era of tight supply of fertilizers, losses will occur.

Of course, it is not ruled out that some people may enrich themselves and sell at a loss by giving some benefits. Such things are too common in this era.

Jiang Cheng thought that contracting a fertilizer plant and turning it from loss to profit was nothing. But the contracting incident meant that some coal bosses would appear soon.

When everyone was still envying the people with a net worth of 10,000 yuan, the first batch of coal bosses were all very wealthy, with some worth millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions.

However, Jiang Cheng would not be jealous of these people, because wealth can make people crazy, especially when they become rich in a short period of time. When everyone sees how much money is made from coal mining and contracting coal mines, it is inevitable that they will fight for land, fight overtly and secretly, and do some shameful things.

The key is that he has to deal with local leaders, and what Jiang Cheng hates most is socializing.

But if the coal boss appears, there is one advantage, that is, the nouveau riche are stupid and rich. Once they have money, they will enjoy themselves. If they leave their own territory, they will not offend people at will, at most they just like to show off.

Coal bosses were the favorites of the film and television industry at a certain time. They were not afraid of being obviously expensive when they were asked to invest in movies. They were happy and did not care whether they lost money or not, they just wanted to have fun.

The investment of tens of millions, half of which is from the star's salary, and the salary has to be divided between the company and the agent. In the end, even if the box office does not sell a penny, the company will earn the share from the artist after deducting expenses. If the box office is good, everyone is happy.

Jiang Cheng now knows that Shen Li has set up a shell film company in Hong Kong. At first, he really thought that Shen Li wanted to set up a formal film company to sign actors and singers.

Who knew that Shen Li set up the company just to save investment, and appeared in front of others as a movie company boss. When the actors saw her, they all respected her.

In two years, when coal bosses appear in China, Jiang Cheng can bring Shen Li to fool them. He can attract investment here and invite people to act at a friendly price there, and make money before the filming even starts.

~~
Shanghai, near the School of Finance and Economics.

The current allowance for college students, also known as scholarships, is not very high. In fact, it was higher two years ago. Fortunately, the scholarship was lowered at the beginning of this year, and is only 60% of the previous level.

But as an alternative measure, the state has established scholarships as a means of funding. In this way, the difference between good and bad grades in college is huge. If you don't have good grades, you can't get a scholarship. If you rely on group scholarships, in some underdeveloped cities, you may have to pay for food after going to college.

The scholarships are also based on different schools and places. Jiang Juan currently receives more than 20 yuan in scholarships a month. To get a scholarship, one must not only have good grades, but also actively participate in some school activities.

The scholarships are divided into several levels. Students who have just come to the school are very enthusiastic, and Jiang Juan is not sure if she can get one.

Students can buy books used by seniors and bookshelves of graduates when they go to college. This can save some money, but if you take into account accommodation fees, it will be difficult for Jiang Juan not to use the fifty yuan left by her uncle.

But in addition to scholarships, the school also takes care of some students whose grades are really not up to par and whose families are in financial difficulties. After all, even if they are poor students, they are considered to be favored by heaven if they can be admitted to university.

The school will also arrange some part-time jobs to help with tuition, and even those with poor conditions can apply for tuition fee reductions.

You can't have a poor family background and unsatisfactory academic performance in college and still expect to eat and drink well.

Jiang Juan lived in the school for a month, and then planned to apply to give up the dormitory and live in the house her uncle bought in Shanghai.

Jiang Juan took some time to look at the house, and it turned out to be a small two-story building, which was not cost-effective for her to live alone. Moreover, it would be troublesome to cook for herself during the holidays, so it would be better to eat in the school cafeteria.

But if there are several people living here and they want to buy some food during the holidays, then it would be a good deal.

So after living in the school for only one month, Jiang Juan applied to live off campus. The school's accommodation fee was refundable. She also posted a roommate information at the door of the school dormitory, only requiring female students. A room cost 15 yuan, which was 9 yuan cheaper than the school dormitory.

The key is to be able to cook, have furniture and a desk. Some families with good conditions can rent a room for one person. Of course, not every room is 15, there are small rooms and utility rooms, which can only put one bed, but can sleep two people.

Because there were no windows and no furniture, Jiang Juan rented it for three yuan. There were several rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs. There was also a kitchen and living room downstairs, and even a place to take a shower and go to the toilet.

You should know that living in the school, you use the public bathhouse, which has no hot water. But students can use a thermos to get some hot water, and go to the bathhouse for a simple scrub when it's cold. If you are not afraid of the cold, you can also take a cold shower when it's cold.

As for the toilet, they also used the public toilet next to the dormitory. Jiang Juan was used to this because no matter whether she was in her hometown or her uncle's house, she had to go to the public toilet outside.

It was only after Jiang Cheng built a house in his hometown that he was able to use the toilet at home.

Now in the buildings in Shanghai, you can use the toilet at home, which is very convenient at night. In autumn, there are many mosquitoes when you use the public toilet. If you pay attention at home, there will not be many mosquitoes.

Anyway, Jiang Juan became a landlady in Shanghai. I don't know if it was because others knew she was rich or because she was pretty. Not long after she came to school, a male classmate took the initiative to approach her.

"Jiang Juan, this house belongs to the uncle who sent you to school last time."

"Well, my uncle said he happened to see someone selling a house here, so he bought it. The driver told you about my uncle. He used to come to Shanghai often and would privately buy some things here and sell them back home. He has some friends here, so he bought a house here."

"Your uncle looks really young and handsome. Last time he came to see you, we all thought he was your brother."

"My uncle looks young, but he is already in his thirties. I told you that when I was in high school, I heard some classmates say they liked my uncle."

Jiang Juan said with a smile, she was not joking. Her uncle was fair and handsome, and he drove a car. Many people could not tell her uncle's real age and thought he was only in his twenties.

Although she is in her twenties, she is a bit old for high school students, but she is good-looking and drives a car. If she doesn't have a partner, it is normal to pay for her.

Jiang Juan's classmates said "Oh", this is buying a house in Shanghai and driving a car. Her classmates thought in their hearts, it would be better if he was not Jiang Juan's uncle. Or even if he was an uncle, if he didn't have a wife and children, she wouldn't mind being Jiang Juan's aunt.

(End of this chapter)