The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 325 Classmates are the resources
Jiang Cheng would not have any impression of 1992, as he was not from that era. It was good enough for him to know that 1997 was the year when Hong Kong returned to China.

Therefore, many wealth opportunities can only be obtained when they come and can be remembered by future generations.

It has been more than ten years since the reform began. In fact, Jiang Cheng has seen and not seen many business opportunities, but making small money is meaningless to him.

For example, in the catering industry, snacks, fried snails and crayfish, especially crayfish, are just becoming popular in several cities. Night markets are very popular, which is a business opportunity for ordinary people.

But for Jiang Cheng, it was just another delicious midnight snack. And Jiang Cheng only ate it occasionally, because lobsters and snails had to be stir-fried, and most of the cooking methods were basically heavy.

This is in no way comparable to the night market in Hong Kong, where you can eat all kinds of shellfish, shrimps and mantis shrimps, and even all kinds of barbecued seafood, with both light and heavy flavors.

There are many ways to eat it, which is no worse than stir-fried snails and crayfish. The reason why stir-fried snails and crayfish are so popular is that they are economical and cost-effective.

When it was hot, Jiang Cheng and Zhou Lingying would cook a big pot of lobster and some snails at home after traveling, and then have a plate of stir-fried eel slices, accompanied by iced beer and fruit, and sit in the yard for a long time.

At the beginning of this year, Jiang Cheng and Zhou Lingying planned to go to Shanghai first, then to her mother's home in Nanjing, and finally to Beijing.

The eldest daughter Jiang Zhaozhao is studying in Beijing and will do an internship this year. Jiang Zhaozhao's grades are very good. If she does not do an internship and enters the society, if her family is well-off, she can actually consider studying abroad, or continue to study in China and take the postgraduate entrance examination.

But the family has a large soy sauce factory with an annual income of several million waiting for Jiang Zhaozhao to manage. Although the factory director Liu Guoqiang has not yet reached retirement age, he plans to retire early.

Liu Guoqiang is actually a reformist, and as the director of the soy sauce factory, he always has some ideas of his own. Unfortunately, the actual controller did not have the idea of ​​making the factory bigger and stronger. When he worked in the soy sauce factory, he made drastic adjustments to the employees' work arrangements at the beginning.

But in terms of production, Liu Guoqiang felt that it was a planned economy. Jiangcheng did not wholesale to small shops and some stores, but only supplied goods to Jiangdonglai shopping malls and supermarkets.

If the number of shopping malls and supermarkets does not increase, the production of the soy sauce factory will not expand. There will be a task target for how much soy sauce is needed every month.

The factory does not need to be responsible for sales, and naturally does not need any salesmen. It is no different from the factory producing soy sauce according to plan before the reform. For people with ambitions and ideals, this will lose motivation as time goes by.

According to Liu Guoqiang's idea, the best development is to build a branch factory, give it a new brand name, advertise on TV stations, and sell to cities across the country, and even sell abroad in the future.

But Liu Guoqiang's idea did not win the support of Jiang Cheng. He was a hands-off boss who did not listen to the ideas of the management and only knew how to follow the Jiangdonglai shopping mall and maintain its status quo. This was not advisable.

It's not that there's anything wrong with this approach, the key is that the lifeblood of the soy sauce factory is in the hands of Jiang Donglai. If the relationship is severed one day, the soy sauce factory will face a catastrophe.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Liu Guoqiang told Jiang Cheng this many times, but he kept repeating it. So Liu Guoqiang planned to retire early.

The key is that Liu Guoqiang also knows that Jiang Cheng's daughter is already a college student at a prestigious university, and it is only a matter of time before she takes over. Liu Guoqiang will also stand his last shift and help Jiang's daughter take over the soy sauce factory smoothly, which can be regarded as repaying Jiang Cheng's kindness.

If it was for his own ideals and ambitions, Liu Guoqiang might have left the soy sauce factory long ago. But he is also a human being, with family and relatives, and many people rely on him to live a rich life.

The soy sauce factory was a private enterprise, and Jiang Cheng gave the management rights of the canteen to Liu Guoqiang, and the factory implemented a food subsidy system, which directly distributed a certain number of free meal tickets every month, and these free meal tickets were collected by the canteen and became real money.

So when Liu Guoqiang retired, that little pension was nothing to him. For a soy sauce factory with thousands of employees, earning tens of thousands a year from the canteen was nothing. If a factory manager with no conscience came, he could easily earn more than 100,000.

Jiang Cheng and Zhou Lingying went to Sijiucheng to pick up their daughter Jiang Zhaozhao and take over the soy sauce factory first. But this was just the starting point. Now it was 1992, Yibao bottled water had been developed for two years, and two other companies engaged in pure water and mineral water business had emerged.

It was time to start the water business. Jiang became the one who monopolized the source of water. He built factories in many places with mineral water and hired some workers to produce water.

It is not possible to not produce. If you want to just contract without development, you will not bring tax revenue to the local area or solve the population employment problem. The water source in some places cannot be easily contracted.

But apart from selling some water in Hong Kong, the domestic market has always been sending it away, and the water from more than a dozen factories cannot be used up. Therefore, Jiang Cheng's space has long been filled with a large amount of bottled water, but they are all packaged in bare plastic bottles without production dates or packaging patterns.

In 1992, many ordinary people were reluctant to spend money just to buy a bottle of water. But in big cities, tourists, businessmen, and some people with good family conditions were considered consumption targets.

There is now a market for bottled water in China, but it is not very large at the moment.

That is to say, Jiang Cheng was traveling on the way to pick up Jiang Zhaozhao. When he arrived in Shanghai, he saw another business opportunity. For ordinary people, it might be a business opportunity to get rich quickly.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange was established and issued more than two million subscription certificates. Banks, post offices and some other units were tasked with promoting the technology.

But when it was first launched, it was not well received by everyone. The main reason was that there was a certain winning rate for the subscription certificate, and it did not mean that you would definitely get the stock if you bought it.

Later, for some reason, the winning rate of the subscription warrants, which everyone was not optimistic about at the beginning, rose to more than 80%. That’s when everyone went crazy.

A subscription certificate that cost thirty yuan was later speculated to several thousand yuan. Many people became millionaires overnight, and it was not impossible for those who bought a lot to become millionaires.

Jiang Cheng estimated it and calculated it based on a hundred times profit. In total, more than two million subscription certificates were issued, each worth thirty yuan, which is 60 million yuan, 100 times 60 million, and a market of 6 billion yuan.

It's okay to play around, the important thing is to participate in the historical wealth opportunity. But it's just for fun, and Jiang Cheng can't buy all the subscription certificates on the market.

"Jiang Cheng, this thing can make money, why do you buy so much?"

"It's just 10,000 tickets, and I think this is quite interesting. Besides, we can't spend all the money we earn, so buying this is like making a contribution to the country."

In a hotel in Shanghai, Jiang Cheng said to Zhou Lingying with a smile that these 30-yuan subscription certificates had just been launched not long ago and were being sold everywhere.

Jiang Cheng bought 10,000 subscription certificates from several sales outlets. The sales staff completed the sales task and were very grateful to Jiang Cheng.

"Do you also know about stocks?" Zhou Lingying asked puzzledly.

"I've been driving for the boss from Hong Kong for many years. Even if I haven't eaten pork, I've seen pigs run. Don't worry, even if I lose money, it's impossible for me to lose it all." Jiang Cheng said.

I spent 300,000 yuan to buy a box of subscription certificates. When Zhou Lingying heard Jiang Cheng say this, she stopped worrying about it.

Just as Jiang Cheng said, the soy sauce factory alone earns more than 2 million yuan a year, which is more than enough to spend in a lifetime.

In this era, a million-level fortune is a lifetime of money that ordinary people cannot earn and spend. I bought the 300,000 yuan subscription certificate, and my man is happy. If I lose, I lose.

At night, in the hotel, on the bed, Jiang Cheng hugged Zhou Lingying and said that he had seen many pigs run even though he had never eaten pork. He told her that it was actually OK for a woman to have another eye.

Zhou Lingying was so disgusted that she almost put on her clothes and slept in the same bed with Jiang Fen.

~~
March 6, 1992. It was drizzling in the city, and the temperature was much colder than in the south.

"Jiang Zhaozhao, you're treating everyone to shabu-shabu today. You're so generous. You must be asking for something."

"I'm usually very stingy, but this year you guys dragged me to Quanjude and I spent more than 60 yuan on the duck."

In a courtyard in the old city, Jiang Zhaozhao had dinner with a few classmates on weekends. He bought the charcoal hot pot himself, and he could buy vegetables and cook at home.

When Jiang Zhaozhao first came to Beijing to attend university two years ago, she lived on campus with her classmates. But she moved out after a year, as it was quieter and more peaceful.

In college, many people pursued Jiang Zhaozhao, mainly because she was pretty and fair-skinned, and she inherited Zhou Lingying's dimples when she smiled.

In terms of clothing, she didn't look like someone from a small town. When it was cold, other people wore cotton-padded jackets and sweaters, but Jiang Zhaozhao had fashionable coats and down jackets, long boots, warm clothes, and so on.

In her first year of school, many classmates asked Jiang Zhaozhao if her family was rich. Jiang Zhaozhao generously admitted that her family ran a factory.

Anyway, she is definitely a white, rich and beautiful woman, and many people who can go to Tsinghua University are self-proclaimed extraordinary people. As a child of destiny, she did not dare to pursue Jiang Zhaozhao just because of her excellent conditions.

After more than two years of college, Jiang Zhaozhao has received countless love letters. Some even gave gifts to people in person, but unfortunately, they were all rejected by Jiang Zhaozhao in a "cold" manner.

It's not that Jiang Zhaozhao is really aloof, but her family is well-off, and the gifts given by others can't make her feel bright. In this era, giving a piece of chocolate may please a girl, but chocolate has long been considered something that children will get cavities if they eat too much in the Jiang family.

Many things were given to her by her father as surprises every time he came back from business trips. Jiang Zhaozhao's father didn't know what gifts to bring back for his children. It was extremely difficult for others to impress Jiang Zhaozhao with gifts.

Of course, this is only in China. It is difficult to please Jiang Cheng's daughter by giving gifts. Because her immunity is very strong, but it is possible to be broken by some really rich people. If you meet a rich and romantic person who gives you expensive gifts from abroad, you may really be able to please her.

The ones who really want to win favor by giving gifts are Jiang Fei and Jiang Yue from Hong Kong. Because the necklaces and watches they are wearing are luxury goods, ordinary things are hard to catch their eye.

So at school, if someone wanted to pursue Jiang Zhaozhao and gave her a piece of chocolate that she was tired of eating, it would only earn her disgust.

Jiang Zhaozhao likes boys who are well-spoken, knowledgeable and insightful. The kind with elegant demeanor and extraordinary bearing. When she first came to university, Jiang Zhaozhao met a boy who made her feel good. But it was just his appearance, but he should be a senior. Later, she never met him again and had no intersection.

There are many conceited people in Tsinghua University. College students are considered the chosen ones, and students from famous universities are even more so. These conceited people are also thick-skinned. Jiang Zhaozhao had many suitors, so she moved out of the school.

Then Jiang Zhaozhao’s former roommate found out that her family actually owned two courtyard houses in Sijiucheng, and that courtyard houses in Sijiucheng are not cheap nowadays.

In the past two years, housing prices in Beijing have skyrocketed. In 1989, 350 houses were launched within the Second Ring Road, with each square meter costing about 2,000 yuan.

A siheyuan is a house with a large yard. Nowadays, any siheyuan costs millions.

The house that Jiang Cheng bought in Sijiu City a few years ago was not sold by square meter at that time. He estimated the price after roughly looking at the size and location.

Ten thousand, twenty thousand, or tens of thousands. It is not about how much per square meter, and it is not the kind of transfer of ownership when buying. It is about signing an agreement and handing over the deed.

Now it is calculated by square meters. Jiang Cheng bought two-entry courtyard houses, that is, courtyards with front and back yards. He bought them for tens of thousands of yuan back then. In just a few years, the price has risen to millions.

But this is the normal increase, because otherwise, the increase is too slow, how can it increase to hundreds of millions or even hundreds of millions. Jiang Cheng bought a courtyard house very close to the Forbidden City.

After Jiang Zhaozhao moved into the courtyard, she felt it was too big, so she followed her cousin Jiang Juan's example and rented out the extra rooms. She only rented them to schoolmates, not outsiders.

He would rather rent it to students at a lower price than to people in society. Jiang Zhaozhao was also very careful about his life because he was afraid of safety problems.

Jiang Zhaozhao naturally had a purpose for inviting his classmates to have mutton hotpot this time.

Graduates from Tsinghua University have high salaries, but it also depends on the unit and the major. Graduates of ordinary majors who are engaged in scientific research and whose research projects are not popular will only earn a little more than other universities, about 200 yuan.

Those majoring in popular fields can earn four to five hundred yuan.

If top students can enter some well-known companies, their salary can be six or seven hundred.

These salaries are all paid by established units. If you work for a foreign company and your major is suitable, it is not difficult to earn thousands of dollars in the country.

Jiang Zhaozhao studied economics and management, a major with more male students in this era. Because of this, the relatively few female students in the same major would stick together.

The students invited by Jiang Zhaozhao this time were all female students majoring in economics who were going to do internships. Before the Chinese New Year, Jiang Zhaozhao listened to her father's teachings.

Students at Tsinghua University are rare. Although many of them are pretentious, there are indeed many talented people. If you can recruit one, you can recruit one. The power of a team is always stronger than that of an individual.

"Jiang Zhaozhao, although you are generous, it is rare for you to take the initiative to entertain everyone like this. There must be some conspiracy."

"Zhang Shuting, I plan to sell you all today and let you help me count the money."

The mutton hotpot was so rich this time, there were only eight girls including Jiang Zhaozhao, but they bought ten kilograms of mutton, and other side dishes.

Tofu, cabbage, mushrooms, bean curd sticks, beef tripe and the like.

With such a sumptuous meal prepared, Zhang Shuting, who was close to Jiang Zhaozhao, bluntly speculated that Jiang Zhaozhao had a conspiracy. The reason why Zhang Shuting had a good relationship with Jiang Zhaozhao was that they were both from Gan Province, but not in the same city.

Jiang Zhaozhao also generously admitted that this time was the Hongmen Banquet, and they were ready to catch them all in one fell swoop.

"My family owns a soy sauce factory. Everyone is going to do internships now. I hope you can help me and go to work in my soy sauce factory. If you are willing to go, the salary is 1,500 yuan, and food and accommodation are provided. How about it?"

Jiang Zhaozhao told everyone the purpose before they started eating, so that everyone could eat with peace of mind.

1500 yuan a month is definitely a high salary in this era. Nowadays, many inland cities and some units with poor performance may not even make 1500 yuan a year.

This 10 million is just the basic salary, bonuses and some benefits, it is about 20,000 yuan a year. In the early 1990s, a 10,000 yuan household was still very impressive.

Economics is a popular major now. But if you work in a regular company, your salary is only about 500-600. You can earn over 1,000 yuan in a foreign company, but you can't get such a high salary during the internship period. You need the foreign company's leaders to recognize your ability.

Even if they are not doing internships, students from Tsinghua University can be 100% hired as full-time employees. Well-known companies do not treat students from Tsinghua University as their ancestors. Small companies look down on them.

"Jiang Zhaozhao, can you tell me about your soy sauce factory?"

Hearing such a high salary, even a girl with a lot of luck would be tempted. But Changcheng is an inland city, and to be honest, people come from all over the world. Many people think of either returning to their hometown to develop or going to a big city.

But Jiang Zhaozhao gave so much, so it would be nice to ask her about the soy sauce factory. Besides, the factory was owned by her family, so we were all familiar with each other and knew each other's abilities.

Those who can have dinner here now are not all female classmates from the same major, which means that those who can be invited have also been screened.

(End of this chapter)