The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 309 Dinner Partner

In Hong Kong, many people were using pagers in the late 1970s.

In China, paging stations were actually started in 1982. To use the pager, one had to rely on paging stations to send messages.

However, the paging station in 1982 was only used by some people inside the city of Shanghai. The information transmission range was within a radius of 25 kilometers of the paging station.

This machine is basically only used within the urban area of ​​Shanghai. Outside Shanghai, this pager is useless.

The first ones to be sold to the public were at the end of 1984. Still, they were only sold in Shanghai, and 1,600 BB machines were made, which were quickly sold out.

However, the paging range is still limited to Shanghai. Even if Jiang Cheng brings the pager from Hong Kong and activates users in Shanghai, it will be of no use.

If he was in Changcheng, Jiang Cheng would definitely go and open an account. At least when he was in Changcheng, his family could contact him if they had any problems.

However, after a paging station in Shanghai launched the paging service in 1984, some wealthy people were willing to buy it, even if it was just a simple paging function.

In 1985, the city of Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen also started to have paging stations. Changcheng is an inland city, and basically everything is relatively backward.

Urban development, investment attraction, information development. These were all started by some coastal cities. Shenzhen's special economic zone has been doing this for several years. In Changcheng, apart from a few small vendors, restaurants and canteens, there are basically no private enterprises or factories.

At the end of 1985, Jiang Cheng invested 80% of his wealth in the stock market of the island country. Later, he did not need to go to the island country all the time. He could hold some stocks with good momentum for a long time and withdraw before the economic bubble of the island country came.

As for this BB machine, Jiang Cheng also found a production factory in Hong Kong and placed a large order directly.

Then they bring it to China to sell. Selling it in China is like picking up money. The factories in Hong Kong only earn a processing fee for mass production.

Things worth a few hundred Hong Kong dollars can be brought back to China and sold. Even if it is a pager with no functions at the beginning, it will cost at least a few hundred thousand.

This thing was not valuable later on. Buying a pager was nothing, but maintaining one was quite expensive.

After buying a pager, you need to go to the paging station to activate the paging service, which is just like paying a phone bill, and you have to pay a certain amount of money every month. Later, when pagers were rampant, there was a service that offered to give away pagers directly if you activated the paging service.

This is the same as when you sign up for a package at a telephone business hall and get a mobile phone for free; the pager is just a tool; the long-term communication costs are what make up the bulk of the bill.

Now, the main source of income is from BB machines. The simplest BB machine can sell for thousands of yuan. With some functions, such a machine can sell for two or three thousand yuan. I even heard that Motorola later launched a high-end BB machine, which can sell for five or six thousand yuan.

If some brands of mobile phones in later generations cost tens of thousands of yuan, they are asking people to pay an IQ tax. But the BB machines of this era simply don't treat you as an intelligent person.

Jiang Cheng added a BB machine counter in every Jiangdonglai supermarket, and then started the money-making mode. However, not many people are using it now. Some cities sell well and can earn millions a month, while some cities can't sell much, only tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.

However, this is only the early stage of the development of pagers. As more and more businesses are opened in China, wages in some cities will also increase. By then, a city can easily earn tens or even millions of yuan by selling pagers.

Now Jiang Cheng can earn tens of millions or even hundreds of millions a year, but the pager market will be worth tens of billions in a few years. It's a simple truth. In the late 1980s, a well-known pager manufacturer produced millions of pagers a year.

The cheapest BB machine costs thousands of yuan, which means that a company's annual output value is several billion. There are many brands of BB machines in China, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the BB machine market is worth tens of billions of yuan a year.

Jiang Cheng just wanted to take the opportunity to make a little money by selling some unknown brand BB machines. His main target now was still the island country, where people could make money without doing anything.

In this year, my nephew Jiang Lin from my hometown. Because the chicken farm was supported by his mother and grandparents, he still ate and drank at home before he started to make money. The scale of the chicken farm was that many chicks were hatched in the first half of the year, and in the second half of the year, it became large-scale and built several chicken sheds.

In order to support Jiang Lin's chicken farming, Jiang Changhe also exchanged one mu of land for a larger piece of ordinary wasteland. There was no place to raise one or two hundred chickens.

The chickens raised in the first half of the year can lay eggs in the second half. Jiang Lin has tasted the sweetness of laying dozens or even hundreds of eggs a day.

But Jiang Lin is still not satisfied. The price of eggs has increased from 8 cents per pound to 10 yuan per pound. Just eggs can bring in to yuan a day.

But the eggs also depend on the season. They lay less eggs in hot weather and no eggs in winter. During the peak period, I earn more than 200 yuan a month. During the Chinese New Year, I sell some chickens to supplement the low egg-laying period, so the average monthly income is just over 100 yuan.

This amount of money is considered a lot in the countryside, but it is nothing in the city. Moreover, Jiang Cheng took his sister and brother-in-law to Shenzhen to work, and both of them earned thousands of yuan a month.

Jiang Lin was now arrogant and ambitious. At the end of the year, he went to the city to borrow money from his uncle Jiang Cheng, planning to turn the chicken coop into a chicken farm.

We plan to raise thousands of chickens starting next year. Thousands of chickens are actually nothing. The poultry farms in the urban area supply poultry to the entire city, and there are tens of thousands of chickens of each species.

A chicken farm with thousands of chickens can only be considered a small chicken farm. If it is well raised at the end of the year, it can only make a few thousand yuan a year. However, if it is a few thousand yuan, it is better than most people in Changcheng.

This time when he came to borrow money from Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng was really at home. Jiang Cheng also knew about Jiang Lin's chicken farming. He earned so little money with the help of his whole family.

But after being able to make money, Jiang Lin was also concerned. It was just that the chicken farm was expanded, and although he said it was opened by him, Jiang Cheng might as well invest the money in his parents, or invest in his sister-in-law Li Xianglan, who was better than Jiang Lin.

But relatives are like this, investing in others, others may still help Jiang Lin. At that time, Jiang Cheng may even offend this nephew. He is not afraid of offending anyone, but there is no need.

Jiang Cheng didn't worry about not being able to sell the chickens, as he had a lot of them. As long as Jiang Lin worked hard, although he didn't have a good impression of him before, the relationship was there, and Jiang Lin was still talking about lending money, so it was hard to say no.

Although the last time I lent out 150 yuan, I still haven't seen any sign of it. Now I need to build a factory building to run a chicken farm. When borrowing money, Jiang Ben originally wanted to ask Jiang Lin's mother to come over.

But after thinking about it, I decided to forget it. Jiang Lin had already made a trip to the city, and if he asked his mother to make another trip, it might not be appreciated even if he helped his nephew. But building a chicken farm in the countryside would cost at least two thousand yuan.

Still without writing an IOU, Jiang Cheng gave him two thousand yuan and told him to go back quickly.

Jiang Lin is still doing small business at the moment, but Jiang Cheng's sister and brother-in-law are now well-off.

Jiang Yan and Chen Changgen's monthly salary is now over a thousand plus a thousand, and their annual income is over ten thousand. Then they opened a canteen at the dormitory management office, which was still led by Jiang Cheng and directly sourced goods from Jiangdonglai.

When the store was first opened, two branches were opened: one was located below the dormitory building of the food processing factory, and the other was located below the dormitory building of the garment factory.

The business of the small shop was surprisingly good. The monthly income of one shop was equal to the monthly salary of the two of them. Then during the Qingming Festival, my brother-in-law Chen Changgen went back to his hometown alone.

He made money by opening a convenience store in Shenzhen. Now that Chen Changgen is back, he called his relatives there to join him and opened another convenience store at the entrance of the village.

Anyway, now Jiang Cheng's sister and brother-in-law can earn tens of thousands of yuan a year, and they are considered the richest in the village.

The key point is that brother-in-law Chen Changgen has also become a little arrogant. Instead, he thinks Jiang Cheng is too honest and doesn't know how to make money. So what if he has been driving for more than ten years? Now even if he drives for foreign company leaders and earns thousands of dollars a month, so what? In the past, Chen Changgen was submissive in front of Jiang Cheng. Now, if he didn't think that their work and the store venue were all obtained by relying on Jiang Cheng's relationship in the beginning, Chen Changgen might still want to talk about this uncle.

But even if he didn't get angry in front of Jiang Cheng, Chen Changgen still said a lot about Jiang Cheng in front of Jiang Yan. He said that Jiang Cheng drove for other people's bosses, but he didn't have any vision and didn't know how to make money on his own.

Now Chen Changgen wears a gold ring and a gold necklace, jeans, casual shoes, and a leather jacket. He carries a big leather bag when he goes out, just like a boss.

In the past, he would listen to whatever Jiang Yan said to him. Now he started to talk back, saying that she was an old woman with long hair and short knowledge. Anyway, now that they have money, their life is not as harmonious as before.

The most important thing is that Chen Changgen has developed a habit of playing cards in Shenzhen. He is now the security captain of the food factory, and no one supervises him. Sometimes he is so excited about playing cards that he simply skips his shift at the company.

In 1986, Jiang Cheng just fiddled with pagers and was relatively relaxed for the whole year.

Jiang Juan did enter the university internship period, and after telling her uncle Jiang Cheng about the school's arrangements, she listened to her uncle and directly rejected the school's work arrangements. She could have stayed in Shanghai to work, and she also had the opportunity to work in the city of Beijing.

Now I have returned directly to Changcheng and am working as an intern store manager at Jiangdonglai in Changcheng, learning the school's supermarket management model.

At this point, Jiang Cheng finally had someone who could appoint people based on personal connections and had some ability.

But Jiang Juan is already a grown-up girl. After several years of college, her temperament has changed a bit. When she was studying in Shanghai, a classmate pursued her.

But Jiang Juan is still relatively conservative in matters of men and women. Her parents do not allow her to date during her studies. Although many college students get married and have children by the end of the year, the school does not prevent them from dating.

The parents that Jiang Juan refers to are not her mother, but her uncle and aunt.

This really made Jiang Cheng and Zhou Lingying a little worried. In the blink of an eye, Jiang Juan was already 20 years old. If it was in the old rural areas, the kids would have been able to help with cooking.

This was the first time for Jiang Cheng and Zhou Lingying to find a partner for their juniors, and they were both very serious about it.

Liu Li returned to Shenzhen from Hong Kong to work, and found a good partner there, a well-mannered young teacher.

There is no rush for Jiang Juan to find a partner, as she is just old enough to get married. After she starts working, she can keep an eye out for good men around her.

In the past two years, Zhou Lingying also asked matchmakers to find a good partner for her.

~~
It was early spring, 1987.

"Mom, I want to eat pork with preserved vegetables."

"I want to eat braised pork."

"Okay, you guys won't get tired of eating this kind of meat after so many years."

Zhou Lingying said with a smile that it was Jiang Zhaozhao who wanted to eat pork with preserved vegetables, and it was Jiang Panpan who wanted to eat braised pork.

This half-grown boy can eat me to death, and this half-grown girl can eat me to death too.

This year Jiang Zhaozhao will take the high school entrance exam, and with her grades, there will be no problem getting into a good high school. And Jiang Panpan is also a first-year student, and her period has come.

Both girls are still growing up and are big eaters. Everyone feels that their meals are delicious when they see them eating.

If they don't eat meat, especially meat with some fat, they will sometimes get up at night to look for snacks.

In the past two years, Jiang Zhaozhao's height has soared, and she is about half a head shorter than Zhou Lingying. Judging from this trend, it is certain that she will be taller than Zhou Lingying, but I heard that girls only grow rapidly in the past few years, and it is possible that they will suddenly stop growing.

"Dad, I'll give you half of my meat for lunch." Jiang Zhaozhao leaned directly on Jiang Cheng who was watching TV.

"Okay, a good daughter is good to her father." Jiang Cheng touched Jiang Zhaozhao's head and said.

"Dad, I'll give you half of mine." Jiang Panpan also said to Jiang Cheng in a coquettish manner.

Jiang Cheng smiled awkwardly. He couldn't eat too much meat. The so-called half-and-half meant that Jiang Cheng ate the lean meat and they ate the fat.

His growing daughter is the perfect dining partner for Jiang Cheng now that he doesn't eat much fatty meat. After he stopped driving a truck, Jiang Cheng's abdominal muscles began to disappear gradually.

If you are unwilling to stick to exercising, you have to control yourself through diet.

During those years of driving a truck, Jiang Cheng could eat whatever he wanted because of the high energy consumption. After leaving the army, he had abdominal muscles, but he didn't exercise deliberately and he still maintained them.

But now Jiang Chengdu is approaching 40. Although he looks young, his physical fitness is not as good as before.

Jiang Cheng also exercises now, but he only exercises when he thinks of it, and does not exercise when he is not in the mood.

As for fatty meat, Jiang Cheng has to plan how much he eats, for example, how often he can eat it.

Now that he has a companion for meals, things are different. Jiang Cheng is not afraid of being accused of spitting out the fat after eating meat. He gives all the fat to his precious daughter. The same is true when eating chicken. He even lets his daughter help him chew the chicken skin.

"Sister Zhou, Sister Zhou is at home."

When Jiang Cheng was worrying about having too many friends to eat with, he heard someone calling Zhou Lingying from outside the house. Now Zhou Lingying was already in her thirties, and when someone called her "girl", she had to add a big "."

Actually, Zhou Lingying is better at calling him that. Jiang Cheng is now called Lao Jiang by his acquaintances. He doesn't look old, but people who know him know his actual age. He is 37 years old, so it is normal for him to be called Lao Jiang.

In the countryside, some old people in their forties look like they are in their fifties or sixties.

"It sounds like Sister Liu's voice. Could she be here to propose marriage to Jiang Juan?"

When Zhou Lingying heard the shouting, she knew who it was without even going out. When she went out, she saw that it was indeed Sister Liu, accompanied by a young man.

But why did this young man blush when he saw Zhou Lingying coming out?

(End of this chapter)