New Territories in Our Hands

Time drifted by amid the changes, and before long, more than two months had passed.

During that time, Wang Yan sought out many masters of traditional Chinese martial arts and studied various styles. Many martial artists had come to Hong Kong during the war years, and they all had legitimate lineages.

Wang Yan paid them handsomely to teach him. The question wasn't whether they dared to cheat him, but whether they could get away with it. Wang Yan was already a Level 3 fighter, and his eye for detail was keen. He had learned a bit of real skill in Baji, Wing Chun, Southern Fist, Northern Leg, and other styles. Those old men still held fast to their principles. Whether that was right or wrong, they had truly engraved their rules into their bones. Wang Yan wasn't going to become their son or grandson, so there were many secrets of their true lineages he would never learn.

In his spare time, Wang Yan read books on traditional Chinese studies to broaden his perspective and address his own problems.

One day, Wang Yan was practicing martial arts at a school he had opened when the head of Dragon Ascending Technology hurried in.

The moment he saw the man, Wang Yan knew what was up.

Sure enough, the man excitedly reported their results: they had finally developed the VCD.

Wang Yan didn't waste time with pleasantries. He simply waved a hand and ordered them to hand out bonuses.

After giving the researchers a large sum of money, Wang Yan assigned them a new round of improvements and outlined a direction for developing the DVD.

Then he took the technicians straight to Shenzhen to get them to fine-tune the production line.

Wang Yan had opened factories in many places, not just Shenzhen. He had also set up VCD factories in many other cities, and their monthly output was staggering. He didn't intend to give anyone else a chance to enter the market. Monopoly was where the money was.

Wang Yan took some samples and sent them to his good brothers around the world, planning to make them rich alongside him. If he relied on himself alone, who knew how long it would take him to sell them worldwide?

The factories back home began working overtime to build up stock, while advertisements were filmed and promotional campaigns got underway at full speed.

When his good brothers saw the finished product, every one of them was ecstatic. None of them were fools. They knew this was a groundbreaking product, much easier to sell than all the goods they had been hawking, with profits at least as good.

After some negotiations, the wholesale price was set at two thousand US dollars, while the ex-factory price was less than five hundred in red bills. That was the advantage of a monopoly. Anyone trying to make bootlegs would likely need at least half a year. By then, Wang Yan figured he would have sold the product around the world.

His big brothers all did their part, advertising around the world. The VCD became a global sensation before it even hit the market.

For the domestic market, Wang Yan set up a separate Import and Export Company, settling payments in US dollars and charging one thousand per unit. This helped the country earn more foreign currency. Besides, he had little use for so many US dollars.

Wang Yan handled domestic sales himself. There were plenty of rich people in China at the time, but most people were still poor. The average income was only two or three hundred, and Wang Yan had priced the VCD at ten thousand red bills. There was no way he could sell many.

A month passed, and the first batch of over a million VCDs was snapped up by his big brothers. Just as expected, once they hit the market, every last one sold out in less than a day. Wang Yan had made a net profit of billions of US dollars.

With so much money in hand, Wang Yan had no intention of letting it sit idle in a bank.

He bought several plots of land in the New Territories and brought in construction teams from the mainland to build residential developments, along with supporting commercial facilities and schools. The building materials were all shipped over from the mainland.

He planned to sell the apartments to his underlings at seventy percent of market price. Most of the gangsters came from low-income families, with several people crammed into tiny homes. Now that their whole families were working for Longteng, it was only right to look after them. It would also strengthen the organization's cohesion and make the underlings willing to give their lives for Longteng.

When word got out that Longteng was buying land, building housing, and selling it to its underlings at a discount, they were all fired up, clamoring to take on Tung Sing. Wang Yan was happy to see it. He had piles of money with nowhere to spend it, and money attracted people. He simply opened the door to recruitment and steadily expanded, devouring the surrounding territories bit by bit.

They would take their time, securing one area before bringing Longteng's rules into it. They could simply follow the same approach they had used in Tuen Mun. Wang Yan didn't have to worry about any of it. Li Yun could handle it all just fine.

He also had Dragon Ascending Technology establish a mobile-phone research team, poaching staff from Motorola and Nokia. Wang Yan had more money than he knew what to do with. He was going to pour it into this world with everything he had, unlike the things he couldn't get moving in the God of Medicine world.

One high-tech factory after another was established across the mainland, and his good brothers helped transport all kinds of cutting-edge machinery into the country.

Wang Yan also established a Charity Company back home, staffed entirely by his own people. He wanted to avoid embezzlement. He wasn't afraid of corruption; he was afraid of the hassle.

Wang Yan invested huge sums and kept bringing in key technologies and doing charity work. From the country's perspective, his tens of billions of US dollars might not amount to much, but he was making a real contribution.

The leaders back home saw Wang Yan's resolve and were pleased with his efforts, so he got the green light wherever he went.

Nearly half a year passed, and it was already April 1993.

Wang Yan's VCDs were no longer selling well, mainly because his big brothers had such extensive distribution channels. Anyone who could afford one had already bought it. Those who couldn't were saving up or waiting for the price to drop.

He had also heard rumors of knockoffs. It probably wouldn't be long before they hit the market.

Longteng had been expanding like mad during this time, and its underlings now numbered in the tens of thousands. A large organization was difficult to manage, especially when Wang Yan had been directing things remotely from the mainland. Inevitably, some things slipped through the cracks.

Things had gone well at first, with them gradually eating into the surrounding territories as Wang Yan had intended. But as their numbers grew, the underlings all wanted to prove themselves and rise through the ranks. They stopped caring about anything else and went straight to war with Tung Sing and a string of other gangs. Tung Sing had been beaten down to a second-rate gang, and Longteng's influence now covered almost the entire New Territories. At least a hundred thousand people in Hong Kong Island depended on Wang Yan for their livelihood.

Longteng's massive expansion had earned it the enmity of practically every gang in Hong Kong. Those gangs had now formed an alliance, determined to keep Longteng from becoming the sole power. Together, they were too strong for Wang Yan to handle, making further expansion extremely difficult.

To be honest, once Wang Yan learned those gangs had allied, he hadn't set foot in Hong Kong. He had stayed on the mainland the whole time, afraid they would kill him the moment he returned.

Now that things had settled down somewhat, Wang Yan finally headed back to Hong Kong.

After returning and carefully reviewing the situation, Wang Yan had a clear picture of things.

Longteng had expanded too quickly over the past half year. It couldn't keep up and wasn't capable of controlling such a vast territory.

The priority was to develop quietly, consolidate the areas they had already taken, and make sure everyone understood Longteng's rules. Only then could they expand again. With more territory and more people to manage, it was no easy task. This process would likely take some time.

Wang Yan also needed time to settle down, because his abilities had fallen behind Longteng's growth. He could clearly feel the strain of controlling so many people and such a large territory.

To develop in peace, he also needed the other gangs to agree. There was no other way; their alliance was too powerful, and Wang Yan couldn't afford to provoke them. He could only pacify them for now and deal with them gradually later. Wang Yan gave up some of his interests—in this case, the VCD sales rights for several countries. That would keep them busy for a while, and since every gang wanted the biggest share, they were bound to fight among themselves.

His good brothers had all made plenty of money and understood the situation Wang Yan was facing. They were grateful that he had helped them get rich. They were all gangsters, but even they knew better than to be unreasonable.

So when Wang Yan brought it up, they agreed at once, giving up some of the less profitable countries and regions.

Even if Longteng's VCDs weren't selling well anymore, they were still the only ones on the market, and people would keep buying them.

No matter how capable Wang Yan was, he couldn't possibly sell them all. Even after ramping up production like crazy for half a year, he could only manage a few tens of millions of units at most.

So there was still plenty of market left. A good product never went out of demand, and what Wang Yan had given them was a meaty bone to chew on.

However the allied gangs divided up the sales rights, some would get more and some less. Any unfairness would sow the seeds of trouble.

By giving up those sales rights, Wang Yan had successfully diverted their attention. They were no longer united against him, and their internal conflicts grew more intense.

With the outside situation calm and the fighting over, what else was there to do but develop steadily?

Longteng had only recently taken control of much of its territory, yet it was already pushing into new areas. As a result, many places were still lawless and disorderly. If they wanted lasting stability, they had to take the slow, painstaking approach. Wang Yan issued orders to clear things up one street at a time, while opening offices on every street, one by one.

The New Territories improved visibly, at a pace anyone could see.

Aside from setting aside time each day to manage the company, Wang Yan spent the rest of his time reading and studying in the large villa he had just bought.

He was now reading mostly books on traditional Chinese studies and philosophy to cultivate himself and elevate his understanding. The material was abstruse, and Wang Yan wasn't up to the task. So he paid a fortune to hire professors and scholars in those fields from the University of Hong Kong to teach him.

Though all this seemed rather mystical, it really was working. His progress was encouraging. Wang Yan could clearly feel himself recovering bit by bit, becoming more normal by the day.

Wang Yan kept at it until early 1994, when he finally managed to resolve his own problems, at least for the time being.

Traditional Chinese studies and philosophy represented two vast bodies of thought from East and West, both profound and difficult to understand. After more than half a year of study, Wang Yan had only just reached Level 1.

Wang Yan had considered using attribute points to increase his Spirit after returning to the real world and solve the problem that way. But the deeper he got into traditional Chinese studies and similar subjects, the more he realized that a high Spirit stat alone couldn't solve it. Adding points to Spirit increased its quantity, while constantly studying and improving himself increased its quality. They were two different paths.

Spirit was such a mysterious thing that Wang Yan didn't know whether quantity could ever become quality. Even if that were possible, who knew how many attribute points it would take, or how long it would be before it happened? All he could do was keep improving himself and tempering his Spirit.

It wasn't as if he had spent all this time studying. If he left such a huge company alone, wouldn't it have gone under?

By taking part in company management, decision-making, and all sorts of other business matters for an extended period, Wang Yan's abilities had improved rapidly. His Management skill had reached professional Level 3.

His Sales skill, which he used to make a living, had also broken through to professional Level 3. That confirmed his suspicion that the skill was based on sales volume. The experience and insight gained from negotiating major deals were different from those gained through ordinary transactions.

Longteng's growth had been astonishing. It now had firm control over the entire New Territories.

After Longteng had cleared out the New Territories, gangsters, petty thieves, drug dealers, and even some terrorists and other criminals had lost their foothold there. They all fled to Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

As these people poured in, crime rates in both areas soared. There were constant reports of brawls, public disturbances, robberies, thefts, and drug dealing. The police force was run ragged, overwhelmed and exhausted.

Compared with the police in those two areas, the officers working in the New Territories were in a completely different situation.

Longteng banned drugs in the New Territories and even offered rewards for reporting dealers. They didn't interfere with loan sharks or gambling, but they wouldn't let anyone go too far. If victims went to Longteng, and their claims checked out, the gang would take the offender out without a word. The ringleader would be sent to the bottom of the sea. Of course, Longteng wasn't a do-gooder. Everything came at a price. Anyone with problems of their own who came to make a false report, stir up trouble, or cause a scene would get a taste of what it meant to deal with the underworld.

Rules mattered. Longteng's rules set the limits.

As long as people didn't go too far, Longteng had no time to meddle in their affairs.

Whenever a major crime happened, the police didn't even need to get involved. Longteng would simply break the culprit's legs and deliver him to the station. The officers spent their workdays chatting in groups, or else killing time playing with cats and dogs. As for the Serious Crime Unit, if not for the occasional murder or high-IQ criminal case that required their attention, it might as well have been disbanded.

Being a police officer in the New Territories was, in two words, comfortable—aside from the low pay and almost nonexistent promotion prospects. Compared with Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, where the police were in deep water every day, there was no comparison.

As his ranks grew, Wang Yan had no choice but to expand into labor-intensive industries like services and manufacturing. There was no alternative. Previously, the families of his underlings had all been placed in industries such as logistics, clothing, and shoe factories. Things were different now. Longteng Security had twenty or thirty thousand men, and their families numbered at least three or four times as many—somewhere between eighty and ninety thousand people.

That didn't even include all the upstream and downstream industries. Count them all, and the number would be enormous.

The Hong Kong market was only so large. How many people could be employed by logistics, clothing factories, and the like? So Wang Yan had to keep expanding into industries that required large workforces, in order to find jobs for his underlings' families.

Wang Yan had no idea how many companies he had opened. In any case, he was doing everything. Management was becoming increasingly difficult, so he formed an advisory group and hired all kinds of elite professionals to manage and oversee the industries under Longteng.

How could an organization as large as Longteng lack talent? Wang Yan had promoted quite a few people during this time. Li Yun was still nominally his top lieutenant, but Wang Yan had also promoted several others to keep one another in check. With a force this large, it would be foolish to leave everything in one person's hands.

Wang Yan could have chosen not to do this. He had built Longteng up step by step, and the underlings and their families remembered only him. Longteng was built entirely on Wang Yan's personal authority. Without him, it would fall apart in an instant. It was a matter of personal prestige.

He did it because he wanted to sharpen his leadership skills, hone his ability to manage subordinates, and study the art of balancing competing interests. In other words, the art of statecraft—a skill every person in power needed.

When Longteng first took over the New Territories, a bunch of old bastards had joined forces to suppress them. The loudest of them all was Jiang Tiansheng of Hung Hing. Wang Yan wasn't a saint and didn't have that kind of magnanimity. Those bastards had blocked his path, and none of them were good people. Any one of them had done enough to merit half an hour of gunfire.

Wang Yan had held back for a long time. The New Territories were now fully consolidated, and the underlings and various talents within the organization had been trained. Wang Yan had never lacked the money needed to fight. Everything was ready. It was time to get revenge.

He immediately issued an order for all Longteng Security personnel at Level 10 and above to attend a meeting at Longteng's newly acquired headquarters building.