"Young Master Young Master Yuan, you're too kind. It's rare to find such a kind young boss like you. We laborers are lucky if we get scolded a few times while working, but working for you, Young Master Yuan, is truly... truly beyond words." The foreman wiped the sweat from his face, reluctant to light his State Express 555 cigarettes, and tucked it behind his ear as he gratefully spoke to Tang Jingyuan.
Tang Jingyuan was also puzzled by his recent changes. In the past, Tang Jingyuan wouldn't have offered these workers a cigarette or spoken to them politely. He wouldn't even glance at them if they stood right in front of him, and he would curse at them if they displeased him.
"Get to work. I'll scold you just the same if you don't do a good job." Tang Jingyuan smiled and waved to the foreman, signaling him to take the men back to work.
The foreman turned and shouted at the workers who were sitting on the ground, catching their breath, "Get up! Get up! Young Master Yuan has prepared a midnight snack for us all! Which employer has ever been as generous as Young Master Yuan! Put your strength into the work! If I catch anyone slacking off, don't blame me for being disloyal; they won't be working tomorrow!"
The workers got up one after another, and with their remaining strength, urged on by the foreman, they tore down the wall. Not long after, Tang Jingyuan's driver A Guan, along with two maids from the Tang family, brought more than a dozen late-night snacks. After distributing them to the workers, Tang Jingyuan took one for himself, and after thinking for a moment, he took another one and walked towards a spare office nearby. He stood outside the door and knocked twice. "Brother Qi, time for a late-night snack."
Tang Jingyuan was very satisfied with his recent performance, but his only dissatisfaction came from his cousin, Tang Boqi, who had come from afar and was said to be a graduate of a prestigious United States university.
Originally, the two families agreed to do business together, but Tang Boqi was indecisive and hesitated to speak up until Song Tianyao's factory won orders from three department stores, which spurred him and his father, Tang Wenbao, on. Only then did Tang Boqi ask to meet Song Tianyao. After the meeting, he only said that Song Tianyao had helped order the machines. After that, he was too lazy to get involved in the Tang family's renting of land to build a factory, and spent his days holed up in his room reading newspapers and magazines.
Tang Jingyuan Tang Boqi that Tang Boqi would just go back to the United States and never see him again, as he seemed even more useless than before.
Tang Boqi opened the door, and the smell of smoke inside made Tang Jingyuan, who was standing at the door, lean back and almost fall.
Tang Boqi's handsome face looked somewhat haggard, but his eyes shone brightly. After opening the door, he returned to his seat and continued to review his organized notes by the light that was already on.
On the desk, five or six empty cigarette packs had piled up, and cigarette butts had fallen out of the ashtray. Except for the area in front of Tang Boqi that was piled with magazines and newspapers, most of the desk was covered with cigarette ash and debris.
"Brother Qi, what are you up to?" Tang Jingyuan put his late-night snack on the table and looked at Tang Boqi, asking, "Doing business isn't like taking a college entrance exam. Can you read wigs out of books?"
Tang Boqi took the late-night snack, eagerly took a bite of the fried dough stick, and without saying a word, pulled a notebook from the table and threw it in front of Tang Boqi, gesturing for him to pick it up and take a look.
Tang Jingyuan picked up the notebook and opened it. Most of the text was in Chinese, and it was written very neatly and fluently. Occasionally, some sentences contained English words, but this did not prevent Tang Jingyuan from reading it.
Across from him, Tang Boqi was wolfing down his late-night snack, while Tang Jingyuan stared blankly at his notebook.
Tang Jingyuan's business acumen stemmed from following trends. He saw Song Tianyao open a factory and wanted to open one too, but he had no concept of future plans for the factory. He simply copied whatever the other person did. However, the notes in Tang Boqi's notebook seemed to open a window for him. He realized that his previous idea of making money by following trends was ridiculously low-level, while the kind of business Tang Boqi recorded in the notebook was what real business was all about.
Tang Boqi's notebook entries are quite straightforward: United States manufacturing is now technology-intensive, while Hong Kong manufacturing is labor-intensive. Hong Kong has enough workers to take food from United States's high-tech machines. When Hong Kong's labor becomes cheaper than United States machines, you'll see scenes of United States preferring to leave their machines idle rather than not ordering from Hong Kong.
It even included data comparing the monthly salaries of United States and Hong Kong workers, making the comparisons clear at a glance.
Of course, none of these things were what attracted Tang Jingyuan the most. What attracted him the most was Tang Boqi 'Tang Jingyuan development plan. After the wig factory's products came out, Tang Boqi would go to the United States to open up distribution channels, then register a United States company, and then open a branch in Hong Kong under the name of the United States company to act as an agent for various wig factories in Hong Kong. Taking advantage of the inconvenience for other wig factories to open up sales channels in the United States on their own, he would buy out all the factories' wigs at reasonable prices, saving each factory the trouble of finding sales channels in the United States. The branch would ship the wigs to the United States, and then the United States company would supply them to the distributors. He would even require all factory products to be marked with the United States company's logo, with unified labels and prices.
This is what doing business is all about.
When Tang Jingyuan saw this, he couldn't help but exclaim in admiration. Then, looking at his cousin, whose eyes were already bloodshot from lack of sleep, the previous disdain in his eyes vanished completely, replaced only by admiration.
He only knew that making wigs was profitable, but he didn't know how to scale up. However, Tang Boqi knew that as the second wig factory, after the first factory, Song Tianyao's, products were all ordered by Britain department stores, they would seize the opportunity to quickly capture the United States market and even dominate the Hong Kong wig industry. Each factory's goods would be distributed through their company, meaning that the Tang family's company would be in charge of the industry. As long as they established a solid foundation in the early stages, even if a factory tried to cause trouble on its own, they could easily eliminate any challengers by leveraging the power of the industry. Two years later, even if Song Tianyao wanted to shift his focus to the United States market, he would have to follow the Tang family's rules!
"Brother Qi... this... can we make it like this in the future?" Tang Jingyuan asked Tang Boqi, who was swallowing pig's blood porridge, with some excitement while holding his notebook.
Tang Boqi swallowed the food in his mouth, rudely wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said without looking up, "Normally, yes."