My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 102: Just Ask If You Are Crazy
But although the petty bourgeoisie in Shanghai may be pretentious, they will really do something when something happens.

Wei Dong seized the limited time and quickly scanned the surrounding booths. Even if it was just one of the booths in a few halls, it was only a small corner.

He can also quickly find the one he is interested in from a large number of imported industrial machinery.

This may be due to the fact that I was discussing with a group of mainland technicians and engineers at the machinery factory last week how to design a vacuum packaging machine.

A complete layman is just messing around with a bunch of uninformed industrial workers.

Suddenly I saw a bunch of incredibly ingenious machines, especially a few rolls of paper placed next to them.

Wei Dong was instantly nailed there and couldn't move his feet.

It’s been a whole year since he came back, and the thing Weidong is most uncomfortable with is the lack of paper to wipe his butt!

In the countryside, you can just pick some leaves or grass, or even use tree branches.

The county seized exercise books, newspapers, and letterheads. Anyway, any paper that could be crumpled could be used, but these were so easy to pierce and slip on your fingers!

Crepe paper is only available in the city, but its comfort and skin-friendliness are far different from the paper towels Weidong is used to.

In short, Pi Yanzi suffered a lot this year.

So when Wei Dong walked past here, he was involuntarily attracted by the sight. He looked at the machines and equipment intently, touched the softness and comfort of the roll paper, and then looked at the printed introduction materials next to it.

The dark-skinned merchant came over and started chattering, which made Weidong look confused. It seemed to be English, but he couldn't understand it at all.

At this moment, I actually thought of Old Mrs. Shi.

Unexpectedly, the man in green uniform took it with a stutter, and then he could hear Zhang Lanzhi's English communication becoming more and more fluent: "He asked if you are interested in this machine. They hope to build a factory in China to produce this..."

Weidong was delighted and pointed at the machine next to him: "How much is this?" There was a roll of white raw material hanging on it, stretched in the machine, which looked pleasing to the eye.

The secretary excitedly translated, "He said they're here to seek domestic cooperation to build a factory. They're not here to sell machines; they're ink dealers."

That’s right, at present, the industrial technology of Southeast Asia is more advanced than ours.

Jiang Weidong had only a newly bought train timetable with him. He reluctantly flipped it open and pointed to Jiangzhou. "Ask him if it's okay to build a factory this far inland..."

As expected, even he understood what the other party was saying, and he even marked the area as close to the sea as possible in East China and East Guangdong on the map.

The secretary explained, "Because they ship the raw materials here, the cost alone is too high to ship them in."

Let Weidong try again holding the roll of paper and gesture: "Then buy the machine alone, and we will figure out the raw materials ourselves."

It's just the ignorance and boldness of the ignorant. Isn't there a machinery factory in Shangzhou? We can tear it down and study it, and then use the traditional methods to start the operation.

Even Isuzu cars are bought in this way, and this is how they are done at this stage, from rebuilding the entire vehicle to piecing together a bunch of parts.

The key is to find the right horse to ride.

Compared with spending huge amounts of money to introduce automobile production and SLR camera production, Weidong felt that it was more important to produce toilet paper first.

Not to mention the market issues, the amount of food used for wiping mouths will be even greater.

The man kept shaking his head, and the secretary explained, "He said he wanted hundreds of thousands of dollars..."

Weidong could only sigh and lament that there was really no way he could seize this business opportunity to make money.

But he still didn't give up. Looking at the display machine next to him, which was about the size of an office desk and showed obvious signs of wear and tear, he asked, "How much is this old sample? You guys still have to ship it back. How much do you want to sell it for?"

If it weren't for the communication at the machinery factory last week, Weidong would never have asked this question.

As a former large provincial machinery factory that was transferred to a prefecture-level city, the factory is actually quite strong. The technical personnel in it are all college students and engineers assigned there every year from the provincial level and above.

For the past two or three decades, I have been doing whatever my superiors asked me to do, and tinkering with some equipment from scratch.

Recently, we have a good rapeseed harvest, so we are making oil presses. If we want to engage in construction, we are producing mixers and crushers.

We have also produced grinders, hot presses, hydraulic presses, winches, small and medium-sized cranes, and even tractors.

No matter what their superiors asked them to do, those guys would piece together something useful based on the existing information, or even the photos brought by their superiors and pictures in magazines.

It is definitely difficult to mass produce, and the quality is very passable, but it can be used. If you really want to use it for a long time, you can repair and improve it while using it.

Basically all of them are put together by hand.

Let Weidong just think that I should bring back a second-hand machine and let them study it to see if they can piece it together.

It's still the mentality that if you earn 20,000 or 30,000 yuan a week, you can spend money recklessly. Many entrepreneurs who have just started doing business and making money go through this arrogant stage.

With overflowing confidence, there is no business in the world that you dare not do.

The only thing is that Weidong should not increase leverage, do as much business as he can with the cash he has, and if he makes a mistake, it's just a mistake, just consider it as the money he lost in the past few weeks.

Zhang Lanzhi could see that his request was unreliable.

After all, she grew up in an optical instrument factory. She gestured softly, "This machine he's talking about is huge. It's an assembly line production equipment... Our factory still can't make it."

In 1984, almost all factories in China were labor-intensive, with a high level of manual labor and some machine production.

The fully automated production process from input of materials to output is almost non-existent.

Rang Weidong's attitude was, "I still need to learn. Instead of spending huge sums of money to send factory leaders on an overseas study tour and buy a bunch of scrap metal, it might be more reliable for me to buy one of these to pay for my tuition. So I asked him if he would sell it. Since it's here, it must be one of the more important ones."

Zhang Lanzhi translated anyway. She was so immersed in this new skill that she didn't think too deeply about details like whether it was right to buy the machine. She was just interested in the usage of words and the language habits of foreign customers, and she was excited.

The other party called out 2.3 US dollars, which made Weidong ready to leave in disappointment. The translator practiced another spoken sentence: "How much in RMB should I exchange it for?" The other party said that based on the current exchange rate of around , it would be close to yuan.

Let Weidong, huh?

During this year, he never had the opportunity to come into contact with foreign currency, and the very few foreign trade departments in the southwest region had no intersection with ordinary people.

Some people in Jiangzhou exchanged food coupons for food stamps, but almost no one exchanged them for US dollars.

He had always taken it for granted that the exchange rate was around 6, 7 or 8, but in fact it was only two or three yuan. Of course, ordinary people could not exchange at this price.

He quickly signed a contract to buy this "soft towel" production machine for 70,000 yuan.

To understand Zhang Lanzhi's vocabulary, she had never heard of the combination of "soft" and "towel", but she roughly knew it was the thing produced by gestures.

When Weidong was asked to explain it to her, it was difficult to say that it was a skin wipe, so he took the roll of paper and said it was for wiping mouth and face. So she thought that the product, which was a combination of the two words "soft" and "towel", was really for wiping mouth and face, and she even touched it, imagining that if she used it to wash her face temporarily in the train bathroom, it seemed really nice.

I didn't delve into the bunch of technical terms behind it.

The funniest thing is that people wanted to operate the buttons to let Weidong demonstrate, but as soon as the power was turned on, the staff came over and informed them to cut off the power and clear the area immediately.

Weidong had no choice but to ask them to write down the operating steps and pack up the equipment. He then asked the staff how to transport it back to Jiangzhou.

Institutions that do not have foreign trade qualifications are not allowed to sign contracts with foreign companies at will, especially foreign sales, which can only be done by the foreign trade department. Otherwise, domestic price-cutting will only benefit foreigners.

This is the characteristic of a planned economy, which eliminates competition and almost suppresses the enthusiasm of all enterprises.

But here you are not selling, but buying, and you are buying an old machine that is on display, and you also have a military factory work permit that has been converted from military to civilian use.

Weidong also played the sympathy card with confidence, saying that the factory couldn't afford to feed itself, but the foreign manufacturer's machine looked pretty good, and perhaps it could be used to produce something to help solve the problem of military-to-civilian conversion in the third-line factories.

He also took the letter of introduction and transfer order from the Shangzhou Municipal Party Committee to prove himself.

People don’t know that there are two or three hundred kilometers between Xishan Factory and Shangzhou.

Fortunately, it was the last day of the exhibition, and all the leading cadres of the trade fair came to inspect the site. A deputy director who had transferred from the military to civilian was very moved and expressed his support.

Only then was he given a pass to allow the transaction, and was instructed to bring the machine back to Shangzhou through official transportation companies from various places, and was also told to work hard to complete the task.

Weidong resisted the urge to take out the Sunshine Daily and say that he was an expert in reform and opening up, so as not to make things worse. Thank you very much.

This operation lasted until after eight o'clock in the evening. Zhang Lanzhi sat outside by the flower bed, struggling to write down the operating steps told by the foreign businessman step by step. It was not difficult. She just had to turn on the button, and then the key was to adjust a bunch of manual handles and bolts.

I haven't been able to try it out on the machine, so I can only imagine how a large roll of white raw material like a tire is pressed, stretched and cut. I guess there is a paper rolling machine as the next step?

Otherwise, you wouldn’t see it turning into a small toilet paper roll here.

Weidong understood it in this way. He looked through the glass of the exhibition hall and saw that the machine had been packaged and nailed in wooden boxes. He agreed to pay by wire transfer tomorrow.

The two of them went out exhausted to find a place to live.

How can there be.

During the Guangdong Trade Fair, the whole city was packed.

In previous sessions, there were even situations where foreign businessmen had to squeeze into the hotel lobby, with 20 to 30 people sleeping in one room.

The two of them went to several large hotels nearby, but they were all fully booked with foreign guests and couldn't even get in. They all said that they could definitely come back tomorrow.

Then the guesthouses, small hotels, etc. are all full of exhibitors from all over the country. They will definitely be available tomorrow, but you will definitely not find them today.

After eating at a roadside stall, the two people who had just spent 70,000 yuan ended up on the streets.

Weidong didn't care, and even felt a bit gloating: "You see, this is the norm for us salesmen when we're on business trips. There's no place to stay, no place to eat... but we can still manage. That's why I drove a truck when I traveled north so that I could sleep in the truck."

The advantage they had at the moment was that they had no luggage, so they felt relaxed and empty-handed without buying any clothes.

Zhang Lanzhi still said stubbornly: "I just ate, it's okay to take a walk."

Then just walk towards the Swan Hotel.

Let Weidong hold the map of Yuezhou and choose the direction, and the two walked side by side on the streets of Guangzhou late at night.

It will inevitably create the romantic feeling that girls in military uniforms love most.

It is true that at this moment, Yuezhou is the most open and dynamic city in the country.

Pingjing has never been opened, the burden of Shanghai has not been put down, and Pengzhen has not been rapidly developed.

Only Yuezhou has both the southern charm of historical buildings and the grandeur of modern construction.

In order to welcome foreign businessmen from all over the world to the Guangdong Trade Fair, the streets are lit up at night.

The streets are lined with beautifully trimmed trees and filled with flower pots. During the day, sprinkler trucks spray water over and over again to reduce dust and temperature.

At night, all the lights are on, and there are countless landscape lightings, which illuminate the most beautiful building exteriors and make them look particularly beautiful.

This is a luxurious scene that the country bumpkin from the mainland has never seen before.

Lian Rang Weidong had only seen it in a short video and had never experienced it in person. He and his secretary looked around in amazement all the way.

Finally, when they reached the riverside near the Swan Hotel, Zhang Lanzhi was already intoxicated.

This may be the most beautiful and romantic place in the country right now.

(End of this chapter)