The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 324

In 1990, the post-90s generation was born.

The post-90s generation was considered a generation that was looked down upon by the post-80s generation at a certain period of time, because the future non-mainstream generation was synonymous with the post-90s generation at a certain period of time.

By the 1990s, Jiang Cheng became even more low-key, and as Hong Kong got closer to its handover, things became increasingly unsettled.

In the 1980s and 1990s, we often heard about bank robberies, because a box of money was a lot of money for people of that era.

But in later generations, as long as everyone works hard, they can still earn a box of money. A million dollars is not worth committing a robbery, especially a bank robbery that requires the organization of many people to succeed.

In Hong Kong, as early as 83, there was actually a wealthy man named Wang who was kidnapped by kidnappers. He spent million US dollars to obtain the kidnappers' release.

But this year, Wang Fuhao was kidnapped again, and this time he was not so lucky.

The key point is that Wang Fuhao also lives in a mountaintop villa, but not in Kowloon area, but in a mountaintop villa near the seaside in the southern district of Hong Kong Island. It is no less luxurious than where Jiang Cheng lives.

This place is too close to the sea and it is not good to be on the top of a mountain. The scenery is of course better than Kowloon. But it is a little off the beaten track and it is easy to be targeted by kidnappers.

This happened, and Jiang Cheng knew that Lao Li's son would be kidnapped in the 1990s, so he paid a ransom of more than 1 billion to get his son back safely.

Even though people in China did not know about the kidnapping of Lao Li’s son at first, a TV series called “Escape from the Wings” later let everyone know some of the details.

Unfortunately, even though Jiang Cheng knew that such a thing would happen, he did not check the specific year it happened. He only knew that it happened in the 1990s.

Becoming a wealthy person attracts a lot of attention, and fame certainly has its benefits, but there is also a high possibility of being targeted by some bad people.

In Hong Kong, everyone knows Lao Li and another wealthy man, Liu, who bought golf for Miss Guan. But apart from some upper-class people, almost no one knows Jiang Cheng.

A good meatball business is just one of the insignificant consumer products. With so many brands of consumer products like Xiangjiang, how many people would pay attention to the boss?

The reason is very simple. Even in the future, there are so many brands that everyone knows. Except for some high-profile people who are wealthy enough, how many people know who the owners of many other brands are?

For example, everyone knows "Miss Dong" in the air conditioner business. But the industrial value of other brands is not high. If Jiang Cheng had not set up a "Jiangdonglai" shopping mall supermarket, just by selling meatballs, even if he took over the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets, he would not be able to compete with a brand manufacturer with a good home appliance business.

Anyway, Jiang Cheng has been more low-key since 1990. In China, he travels with his wife, and in Hong Kong, he enjoys his time on the sea by cruise ship in the coastal area.

Jiang Cheng has become more mature now that he is forty, because his eldest daughter is already eighteen, and her bottom line in terms of men and women is also very firm.

The older ones don't like it, and the younger ones feel guilty when they think about their daughters being that old. Of course, there are some bad thoughts, but they won't break through them. The more exciting ones are to let Zheng Ke and Shen Li play together.

In 1990, the economic bubble in the island country began to burst. In fact, since May 1989, the island country's banks have been cutting interest rates continuously, trying to save the market.

But in 1989, even with many measures in place, they couldn’t stop everyone’s madness.

Money comes too easily to the island countries, which has dealt a heavy blow to the real manufacturing industry. Many manufacturing industries in the island countries are moving abroad because the workers' wages are too high.

The financial industry has also developed a lot of non-performing assets due to excessive lending.

Therefore, once the island nation's economic bubble begins to burst, it will be like an avalanche, because there is no industry in the country that can withstand the bursting of this economic bubble.

The banks have a lot of bad accounts, and the manufacturing industry has long moved abroad because the operating costs in the island country are too high. Many of our assets are inflated. Once the bubble bursts, it means that the island country's small movies will begin to rise.

This is no joke. In the 1970s and 1980s, the island nation's economy had been developing very well. Especially from 1985 to 1989, the island nation's per capita GDP reached more than 25,000 US dollars.

It is GDP per capita, which includes all people. Let's put it this way, except for a few big cities, even in the 1990s, the wages in many inland cities did not exceed 200.

This is just talking about the wages in urban areas. In counties and towns, even if people want to earn this salary of less than 200 yuan, there is nowhere to earn it.

In the island country, the average wage per person is now 10,000, and Hong Kong is not even half of that.

However, after the economic collapse, the standard of living will decline, especially the competition for jobs. When everyone can easily earn tens of thousands of yuan, how many women will choose to work in the gray industry, let alone in the small film industry?

The island country's pornographic films correspond to the bursting of the economic bubble, and this is also related to the status of women. The economic bubble burst, the stock market and the real estate market collapsed, and a large number of companies laid off employees. At this time, what rights do women still advocate? It's bullshit.

Shen Li has been in Hong Kong for so many years and set up a shell company. I don’t know if the butterfly effect will correct itself or if she has never been serious about the film and television industry.

We have invested in a lot of films, but most of them are bad. We have also invested with some companies, but because we know that the actors' salaries are too high, some film and television companies will take a cut from the actors.

Shen Li's co-investment in a movie was purely because she was optimistic about a certain actor and invested a little for fun. She didn't have her own actors, so the probability of losing money in pure investment was too high.

Jiang Cheng wanted to persuade Shen Li to enter the small film circle of the island country this year, but after thinking about it, he decided not to. The creativity of the small film circle of the island country is too strong, and Jiang Cheng was afraid that when he went to visit the set, he would not be able to help but experience the role.

Anyway, seeing the island nation's economic collapse, Jiang Cheng had no worries. If he left a year earlier, he would earn at least 100 billion US dollars less.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t care much about money now, mainly because he doesn’t care about money that is too hard to earn. He is still somewhat interested in the money that can be earned easily.

The island nation’s economy is broken, and the current situation in the country is not very good.

In the past two years, many state-owned enterprises and units have begun to have triangular debts. This situation must have been caused by some enterprises being unable to pay for their goods.

Many factories cannot sell their products. The more they produce, the more goods pile up. The more they produce, the more they lose. The workers rely on the local finance to ensure their wages and lives.

In 1990, layoffs began to come. The first industry to be cut was the textile industry. The textile industry is the pillar industry of almost every city, with the largest number of employees.

Just one large garment factory in Wuhan has about 200,000 garment workers. You have to know that some small counties have only about the same population.

If one worker can support and represent a family, then a garment factory can support one million people, based on a family of five. According to statistics, in 10, textile workers accounted for 15% to % of the total number of workers in the country. In any case, one out of ten workers is a textile worker.

Therefore, if textile workers were the first to be laid off, the number would not be small. Tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people in a city would be laid off.

The placement of laid-off workers has become a problem in various cities, and a wave of layoffs is about to come.

Jiang Cheng's 'Jiangdonglai' shopping mall and supermarket, under the leadership of General Manager Jiang Juan, selected more than 30 cities that they thought were suitable and began to expand again.

The wave of layoffs has affected many people, but in fact, the social shock is not big. This is just the impact of private and foreign enterprises on domestic enterprises. Many people are making trouble because they can't let go of their face and their iron rice bowl.

In addition, many state-owned enterprises laid off workers who had no skills and felt that the wages in private enterprises were low and they could not cheat. But those who could put aside their pride could set up a stall or work hard in private enterprises for a lower salary, and they could live the same life.

The wages in private enterprises are low, which is different from some foreign companies in coastal cities. That is because the farmers in the rural areas go to the city to work during the busy farming season. On one hand, there is a wave of layoffs, and on the other hand, farmers go to the city.

Private enterprises prefer to employ farmers. In this era, farmers are brothers. In the early 1960s, during the famine, farmers were uncles and the common people were everyone's parents.

In a few years, farmers will no longer be our brothers, but migrant workers, mud-legged peasants from the countryside.

What farmer uncle, farmer brother, who do you think you are?

The wave of layoffs was coming, but it had no impact on Jiang Cheng's family. What was meaningful to Jiang Cheng's family was that Jiang Zhaozhao took the college entrance examination in July and was admitted to Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Jiang Cheng has to complain about Tsinghua University again. As a loser in the later generations, he certainly doesn't know much about Tsinghua University, but there is a lot of negative information he has seen while watching videos. The main reason is that many students who graduated from Tsinghua University went abroad and never came back, making it a university that specializes in training talents for foreign countries.

Jiang Zhaozhao had excellent grades and had many schools to choose from. But she was so worried about the whole family that her parents suddenly went into menopause, their temperaments changed drastically, and they went out to play instead of doing their jobs.

Jiang Zhaozhao has four younger sisters and one younger brother. As the eldest sister, she has a sense of mission. She thinks that her family has a considerable business and she is also interested in economic management.

In terms of some schools' majors, Jiang Zhaozhao thinks Tsinghua University is suitable for her. If she wants to do scientific research, she might choose Peking University. If she likes aviation or transportation, there is also Fudan University. There are even good universities in Shanxi.

So which school to apply to depends on what industry you want to enter, and it’s not that Jiang Zhaozhao went to Tsinghua University just because it’s famous.

With Jiang Cheng's wealth, it didn't matter if his children didn't go to a prestigious university. But since they were admitted to Tsinghua University, he bought a few courtyard houses there a few years ago.

Jiang Cheng took his family there in advance to find someone to do some repairs, and then bought some furniture and other things. Jiang Zhaozhao could choose to live on campus or outside.

It is also worth mentioning that someone in China finally set their sights on the bottled water industry. Yibao bottled water was launched this year and became a high-priced water, priced at three yuan a bottle.

Jiang Cheng still did not follow up and continued to take the free route in the country, delivering free water to some important cooperative departments. The packaging was much more high-end than Yilibao.

Jiang Cheng felt that the domestic consumption level was still too low before he officially entered the market. It was pointless to bother with it. Since he wouldn't make much money even if he entered, he might as well wait and see.

In 1991, the wave of layoffs really arrived, with tens of millions of textile workers laid off across the country alone.

However, while textile workers were laid off, tailor shops were very popular in this era, and fashionable clothes were very popular in China. There were many private enterprises engaged in clothing, and in the final analysis, it was still the state-owned enterprises that were too bloated with staff.

One person's meal is shared by two or even several people. One person's work is done by several people. How can they compete with private enterprises? In addition, state-owned enterprises still stick to the iron rice bowl and the planned economy era thinking. They are inflexible, which is also the key to the layoffs.

But Jiang Cheng doesn't care about this, he just hopes that his children will grow up soon and take over all the businesses, so that he doesn't have to spend a lot of time looking at financial statements every year.

This year, a robbery occurred at the airport in Hong Kong. A batch of US dollars and Hong Kong dollars were stolen, with a total value of nearly 170 million Hong Kong dollars.

Jiang Cheng even asked Shen Li to keep a low profile in Hong Kong. She was famous for her luxury cars and was a rich lady in the entertainment industry. But fortunately, she was only famous in the circle, and she was an investor, so she was behind the scenes and had not been reported.

In the past two years, Zheng Ke has been completely obsessed with public welfare. Whenever he sees a disaster report, he will lead a team to rush there. The key is that this woman was actually begged for millions of dollars by a certain organization that came to her door.

For example, starting from late May this year, the plum rain season in Anhui Province lasted for two months, and serious flood disasters occurred. Zheng Ke led the team to perform for the flood fighting troops.

Jiang Cheng was relieved that Zheng Ke was doing charity work everywhere, mainly because Zheng Ke had her own plans. She would not rush to the front line, just like she did not foolishly run over when there was a drought in eastern Sichuan last year.

Because of the drought, sending some drinking water is just a drop in the bucket. But if people go there, they will also have to shed a layer of skin. Zheng Ke is also worried that if she goes there, she will get tanned and ugly, and Jiang Cheng will not like her.

The team organized by Zheng Ke was mainly to deliver supplies and perform shows to express condolences. They could have waited until the disaster was almost over and gone there. There was no need to go there when the disaster was still happening.

But even so, except when disaster strikes, Zheng Ke often goes to poor areas to care for children and donate some teaching supplies to schools, often disappearing for more than half a month.

Zheng Ke has built up a good reputation for Jiangdonglai in China, and as its shopping malls and supermarkets are expanding, it has received a lot of additional support.

In the blink of an eye, it was 1992, and it was time for Jiang Panpan to take the college entrance examination. Unfortunately, her grades were not good enough, but her grades were above average. If she performed well in the college entrance examination, she could get into college, but she didn't have to consider Tsinghua or Peking University.

Jiang Cheng was somewhat disappointed with his second child, Jiang Panpan. It was not because of her academic performance, but because she was not interested in business or management. He had lost a child who could help him share the financial burden.

This rebellious girl told Jiang Cheng in junior high school that she would not marry and would stay with her parents for the rest of her life. Jiang Cheng thought she was joking, but she didn't expect it to be a real joke. Not marrying was a joke, but staying with her parents to live off them seemed to be her real idea.

When asked what major she wanted to study or which university she wanted to apply to, Jiang Panpan had no idea at all. Instead, she wanted to go out and play and eat and drink with her parents.

There was no other way, and Jiang Cheng had to choose a subject for her to study. Jiang Panpan was good at math, physics and chemistry, but she was pretty good at liberal arts.

Jiang Cheng asked her to take the entrance exam for a foreign language school and learn foreign languages, which she could use when traveling abroad. After traveling in China, she could go abroad.

Then I’ll see if Jiang Panpan wants to work in the tourism industry. If not, it doesn’t matter if I keep her by my side.

(End of this chapter)