Chapter 133: The Story of Trading Canned Food for an Airplane

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Chai Jin left Master Long’s place with Jiyuan.

Now that Boss Mo had fled, the rest would be much easier to handle.

They returned to the office they had rented in Huanggang and brought in a team of decorators to put the place in order.

Everyone pitched in, and the atmosphere of building a business was excellent.

Jiyuan was somewhat unaccustomed to it at first, but after spending time together, he became familiar with Old Huang and the others.

The trouble was that Old Huang was far too slick, while the two descendants of Imperial Uncle Liu were shamelessly lecherous.

Whenever the three of them got together, women were never far from their conversation.

Jiyuan could do nothing but chant his Buddhist invocation over and over.

“Amitabha. Buddha, please forgive them.”

…

On August 15, the aftershocks of the subscription certificates were still spreading like wildfire through Shenzhen.

But another piece of news immediately shook the entire country, and no one had any interest in discussing subscription certificates anymore.

An unbelievable, almost legendary business story had actually become reality.

That day, a Soviet Tupolev Tu-154 passenger aircraft that had failed to find buyers landed at Shuangliu Airport in Shu City.

For three whole years, Mu Qizhong, the man at the center of the story, had been ridiculed by everyone.

Yet after several years of hard work by the Zhongde Group team, he had truly pulled it off.

The domestic media reported the story everywhere.

Mu Qizhong, a patriotic businessman who had endured countless hardships during the Cultural Revolution, had finally used his own abilities to deliver a resounding slap across the faces of everyone who had once mocked him.

He had become the favored son of the age.

Only Chai Jin remained remarkably calm.

To him, this had always been inevitable.

It also strengthened his determination to trade in aircraft.

When Fang Yi stood before him holding the newspaper, Chai Jin merely smiled faintly.

“He has opened a path for us. We need to assemble a team as quickly as possible, because this isn’t something a handful of people can accomplish.”

Fang Yi nodded, and the two of them began discussing the company’s name.

Thanks to Cai Weiqiang’s arrangements, the company registration had proceeded smoothly. All that remained was for them to settle on a name.

Chai Jin chose one: Zhonghao Group.

There was no particular reason behind it. He simply liked the way it sounded.

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After that, Fang Yi began recruiting a team.

As for personnel, Chai Jin intended to put Old Huang forward.

Fang Yi’s future role would be head of Chai Jin’s financial division.

The two descendants of Imperial Uncle Liu were too carefree to be suitable for the job.

As for Su Wenbin, there was even less to say. With his guileless, honest nature, he would be cheated out of his trousers in the treacherous world of commerce.

That left only Old Huang, an old hand capable of commanding a room and playing dirty when necessary.

Old Huang was especially excited about the prospect.

He could finally become a leader again. To celebrate his return to the heights of success, the old ticket broker immediately bought himself a VIP membership at a foot-washing parlor in Huanggang.

Once everything had been arranged, Chai Jin left the compound with the monk.

A little over half an hour later, he appeared at a construction site in Nanshan District.

The enormous site was shrouded in clouds of dust. Dump trucks roared past one after another, while the long arms of towering cranes swung ceaselessly overhead.

Covering his nose, Chai Jin followed someone’s directions and finally arrived at a project office, where he found Feng Haodong.

Several people were discussing something inside Feng Haodong’s office.

Chai Jin was about to leave, but Feng Haodong called out, “Xiaojin, come in and wait. It’s fine.”

His words caused the five or six people present to pause in surprise.

They all turned to look curiously at the young man, wondering who he was.

But none of them recognized him.

Chai Jin smiled and sat down awkwardly to one side.

Feng Haodong and the others then continued their discussion.

From their conversation, Chai Jin gradually understood what they were trying to do.

The news of Mu Qizhong trading canned goods for aircraft had greatly excited them.

Many of them had spent the night studying the shortages in the Soviet Union.

The more they looked into it, the more they became convinced that it represented a tremendous business opportunity.

Feng Haodong had made his fortune trading daily necessities. Although he had since shifted into real estate and chemical products, he still held a string of titles here, including chairman of one small-goods association or another.

Everyone understood that if they wanted to send goods to Russia, transportation was the first problem.

At present, there were only a little over forty dedicated routes between China and Russia.

Beijing’s Xiushui Street had become a gathering place for Russian traders, and those routes had all been monopolized by the well-connected dealers there.

These men were all major southern entrepreneurs in the small-goods industry. They had come to ask Feng Haodong to take the lead and help them secure a dedicated route to transport their goods north.

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Chai Jin did not interrupt them. He thought to himself, “Brother Dong has connections in the north too?”

“This is another path.”

He planned to bring it up with Feng Haodong once their conversation was over.

He then began studying the entrepreneurs one by one.

After passing over several of them, he suddenly froze when he saw a thin man with a square face and a somewhat elongated forehead.

The man was none other than the future Vanke chairman, Wang Shi, whose name would later become the subject of endless controversy.

From the way Wang Shi conversed with the others, it was clear that he held Feng Haodong in great respect.

This once again transformed Chai Jin’s understanding of Feng Haodong.

He said nothing.

As the discussion drew to a close, Feng Haodong laughed heartily.

“I understand how you feel.”

“But Old Mu’s miracle cannot be repeated. General Manager Wang, didn’t you also give Old Mu an entire railway car of canned goods? You should know that better than anyone.”

Wang Shi gave a bitter smile.

“He’s a consummate swindler. That mouth of his really does have a talent for making impossible things sound plausible. But right now, many of our factories can’t sell their products, and their inventories are piling up.”

“We have no choice but to seek markets overseas. General Manager Feng, we can only count on you to take this matter seriously.”

Another man spoke up as well.

“When Mu Qizhong brought those Russians to our factory, we thought they would want our products.”

“So I invested more than ten million yuan in stockpiling goods. Who could have imagined that the Russians would change their minds? That was everything I owned. I can’t sleep at night anymore.”

“That madman Mu has ruined us!”

Mu Qizhong’s canned-goods-for-aircraft deal had indeed saved many factories, but it had also driven many others into trouble because they had acted too impulsively, believing the deal was guaranteed to succeed.

They had stocked up on vast quantities of goods and ended up trapped in a crisis.

Feng Haodong rubbed his aching head.

Finally, he said, “Transportation capacity in the north is limited. I can’t promise you anything.”

“However, I met Old Mu in the north a few days ago. He now wants to launch a major development project in Manzhouli, mainly to solve the transportation problem. You can also contact him. That might turn out to be another way forward.”

“All right, gentlemen. We can continue this discussion another time. I have a few other matters to attend to.”

Once everyone realized that Feng Haodong was seeing them out, they could hardly insist on staying.

They left one after another, sighing in frustration.

But after reaching the doorway, Wang Shi turned around and walked back to Chai Jin.

With a broad smile, he extended his hand.

“Wang Shi of Vanke.”