Chapter 375: Spring in the Garden (Subscribe for monthly tickets)

"Zhang Yunqi?"

The taxi driver was surprised: "It can't be Zhang Yunqi, the big boss of Liansheng Group. Oh! That's not just famous, that's very famous."

The young man withdrew his gaze from the window: "What do you mean?"

The taxi driver said with a smile: "I heard that Zhang Yunqi is still a senior high school student. He is so young, but he has set up such a big enterprise. The city will inevitably promote it vigorously. Now the whole country is advocating market economy, and they want to gild their reputation and set up a model. He has been published many times and in newspapers. How can he not be famous? Now he and Gao Shan of the Phoenix Group are the two most famous private enterprise bosses in our city. But to be honest, compared with Gao Shan who made his fortune by opening an entertainment club, what Zhang Yunqi did has brought a lot of benefits to the people of Jiangchuan."

The young man asked again: "For example?"

The taxi driver said, "It's very simple. Zhang Yunqi made his fortune in agriculture, so the common people are naturally close to him. The crops grown by the farmers in our city are harvested by Liansheng, so they don't have to worry about selling them. This is a real benefit. In addition, his Liansheng Group has set up an agricultural industrial park with a name like what? It has attracted many laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises. My cousin's wife transferred from the former canning factory there. She is quite satisfied with her job and says there is hope for her. In recent years, you should also know that many state-owned enterprises in our inland areas have not been very profitable. They go bankrupt at any time, so the employees naturally have no place to go. A lot of them can't survive. Life is so difficult nowadays."

The young man nodded: "Yes, it's difficult."

The driver laughed: "Brother, you are in trouble. You have established a relationship with a big boss like Zhang Yunqi. In Jiangchuan, if he spreads a hair on his leg, his future is limitless. But brother, your blind date is a joke, right? Are you here to discuss a big deal?"

The young man said nothing, but the driver was quite talkative and kept asking, "What's your name, buddy? Who knows, I might be able to brag about this one day."

"Hu Zhibiao."

The young man said these three words in his heart.

He looked at the hazy night scene receding outside the window, and couldn't help thinking that maybe one day, the taxi drivers on the streets and alleys of this city would talk about the three words "Hu Zhibiao" just like they talked about the legendary young entrepreneur Zhang Yunqi.

All the way through Jiangchuan City under the night.

The taxi soon arrived at the destination.

Songlin Tower.

This is the top restaurant club in Jiangchuan City. The 90s style is still very strong. The decoration is magnificent, as if a layer of gold was painted on the bricks. Under the dazzling lights, the waitresses are all tall and short of clothes and materials, and they also lack the warm embrace made of RMB by the big bosses.

Hu Zhibiao saw Zhang Yunqi and Wang Guibing, the big bosses of Jiangchuan, standing at the entrance of the lobby from a distance. After not seeing him for a long time, the boy looked less and less like Aokiji, and his face was calmer than his age.

Hu Zhibiao paid the fare, ran up to Zhang Yunqi and shook his hand: "Long time no see, Mr. Zhang."

Zhang Yunqi smiled and said, "Boss Wang sent a car over there and said he didn't pick you up. You won't be offended, will you?"

Hu Zhibiao smiled and said, "Mr. Zhang is joking. The train was late, so I changed trains. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't get in touch with him on the train. Mr. Wang told me the location before I got on the train, so it's just as convenient to take a taxi."

"No matter what, Mr. Wang will have to drink three glasses of wine as punishment."

Chatting and laughing, the three of them walked into Songlin Tower.

When he walked into the gate, Hu Zhibiao glanced back and found that the taxi driver was still looking at him curiously.

He smiled.

Following Zhang Yunqi, amid the sweet voices of "Hello, boss", they strode into the magnificent lobby of Songlin Building.

The founder of Aido VCD, who broke out from southern China in Zhang Yunqi's previous life, gathered heroes along the way and became known to the world, is not yet 26 years old. He has not had many moments of being in the spotlight, but after a year and a half of accumulation, he seemed to feel more and more that the moment was not far away when he entered Jiangchuan at night with the VCD prototype.

As early as August 1993, Zhang Yunqi personally went to Xiangshan City, invested a huge amount of money, and found him, who was an electrical appliance repairman at the time, and started the VCD project together in a rented house. By March 8, more than a year and a half had passed.

The initial prototype was developed by Hu Zhibiao and Liu Qiang and Yang Jianxin, two key figures in the development of VCD in the previous Aido, in half a year. They used Philips movement, servo board and corresponding servo system control software and C-Cube decoding chip, and developed the decoding board system control software by themselves. But Zhang Yunqi's ideas seemed to be changing all the time. In the spring of 94, he proposed to develop all the system software control software by himself, which took more than half a year. As for when to open the factory and put the first batch of samples on the production line, Zhang Yunqi set it for the middle of this year.

Zhang Yunqi also has some considerations of his own on this matter.

Because he found that the first person to try out the VCD industry would not have a good ending.

The reason is very simple. In the past two years, the VCD market was extremely immature and everyone was just burning money and losing money to gain publicity.

You should know that Wanyan Company was established in 93. In April last year, the world's first commercial VCD player developed by Wanyan Company rolled off the production line. At that time, the home appliance giants Philips, Sony, Panasonic, JVC and he all asked people to go to the capital to buy Wanyan's VCDs and the only 4 discs that were released at that time.

Zhang Yunqi read the relevant reports. When JVC, which was the first to hear the news, bought Wanyan VCD, he told the reporter: "We knew that the Chinese were making VCDs, but we didn't expect that they had already been made. We are very ashamed!"

Zhang Yunqi didn't know whether this group of foreigners were ashamed or not. He only knew that Wan Yan, as the founder of this industry, had embarked on a tragic wrong path. All of Wan Yan's research and development and huge advertising fees had paved a bright road for the success of later comers for free.

In 1994, the acceptable price of VCD in the market determined by a market research company for Wanyan was 3995 yuan, and the disc was 60 yuan. However, the world's first commercial VCD player launched by Wanyan was priced at 4995 yuan, and the most expensive Yansha sold it for 5300 yuan.

The reason why it is so expensive is very simple: the cost is too high.

As the pioneer of VCD, Wanyan invested a huge amount of money in research and development. The first generation of VCD invested 300 million US dollars, and the material cost of each unit reached 2780 yuan. In addition, as early as the end of 1993, Wanyan's VCD commercial machine had not yet been launched, but it began to advertise vigorously in the People's Daily and Youth Daily, and talked about what VCD players are on CCTV, advertising 8 times a day.

At that time, Wanyan spent 2000 million yuan on advertising for the VCD! However, in people's memory at that time, only one sentence from little Guan Ling was left: "Wanyan came into my home, and I loved my home more."

The advertisements were loud and clear, but the market response was cold. At the end of 1994, according to an authoritative survey, less than 0.1% of people knew about VCD! There were only 50 kinds of VCD karaoke discs in the country, and no feature film discs. The annual sales of VCDs were less than 2 units. Among them, foreign brands had a market share of 99.6%, and there was only one domestic manufacturer, Wanyan, so the market prospects were bleak.

The market was so miserable. The core of this was not only the development and high price of VCD, but also the matching discs. In 94, the discs were ridiculously expensive. At that time, the cost price of VCD discs was 15 yuan per disc, and they were sold for 90 yuan per pair in Guangzhou, and as high as 160-180 yuan in the capital, which was equivalent to an average person's monthly salary.

It was for this reason that Zhang Yunqi slowed down the pace of this project. In business, it is important to follow the trend. If a pig wants to fly, it must stand on the wind. When the market has no momentum at all, he doesn't want to be the first cannon fodder like Wan Yan and spend a huge amount of money to give free advertising to latecomers. You should know that in the previous life, Hu Zhibiao's Aido was not established until the end of July 95 to start making VCDs.

Zhang Yunqi now knows the news and some memories from the past. In early 95, due to Wanyan's advertising offensive, manufacturers of STAMPER equipment began to appear in large areas in China. Because the production process of VCD programs is exactly the same as that of CD-DA discs, many audio-visual publishing units have also begun to launch VCD programs on a large scale. It is estimated that starting from May this year, a large number of VCD software will appear in Guangdong and the capital, including karaoke, movie entertainment programs, etc. In particular, in September 5, VCD software developed more rapidly. By October, at least 1995 software were popular in the market nationwide.

At the same time, in 95, domestic LD black lines began to turn to the field of pirated VCD discs with the same technology. Half a year ago, VCD discs cost hundreds of yuan, but in May 95, the price was cut in half. At that time, pirated discs were said to buy Santana in three months. However, three months later, the price was cut to the bottom, 5 yuan per disc in Guangzhou, and 15-30 yuan per disc in the capital!
With the rise of pirated discs, the price of VCDs was constantly driven down, and VCDs began to be widely used by the public. From less than 1994% of people knew about VCDs in 0.1, the number increased to 95% in July 7. The VCD industry has since entered its golden age of "the beauty of the garden cannot be concealed" in 5.

It is the beginning of spring in 95, which is just the right time.

While thinking about this, the three of them had already entered the luxurious private room.

At that time, it was quite dangerous to drive from Xiangshan to Jiangchuan by yourself, so you could only take the train which was so slow that it made your balls break. Hu Zhibiao had been on the train for more than ten hours and was already exhausted.

The three of them drank and ate at the table and didn't talk much about work. They planned to let Hu Zhibiao have a good rest and go to the newly acquired Ziyun Factory in the next few days to observe and discuss the next steps.

After eating and drinking, Wang Guibing took Hu Zhibiao upstairs to relax.

The service here is excellent. As for whether to do some irresistible projects, it depends on Hu Zhibiao himself.

Zhang Yunqi went straight home.

It was already 11 o'clock in the evening, and Zhang's father and mother had already gone to bed. The elderly went to bed early, a habit developed from farming, and usually went to bed after nine o'clock.

Usually at this time Zhang Yunqi and Chunlan have not returned home yet.

Sometimes, the brother and sister would not see their family for several days. Chunlan was better, she would be at home on weekends, but she was also elusive during the school hours. She would get up when her family was still asleep, greet Zhang's mother who had gotten up earlier to buy groceries, and then go to school. At night, when everyone was asleep, she would study until very late.

When Zhang Yunqi was getting clean clothes, he saw that Chunlan's bedroom door was open. He took a look and saw that no one was there. He didn't take it too seriously and went to take a shower. When he returned to his room and just lay down, he saw that the screen of his mobile phone was lit up.

He clicked on it and saw that it was a message from Chu Jian.

The girl had just learned how to use a cell phone, and wrote very few words: "I'm going to sleep, my heart is full."

Zhang Yunqi typed three words: "Why?"

Less than 5 seconds after the message was sent, Chu Jian’s reply came: “It’s all your shadow.”

Zhang Yunqi smiled and was about to reply.

At this time, the cell phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number.

Zhang Yunqi answered: "Hello."

"Is this Zhang Yunqi?" The voice on the other end of the phone was unfriendly.

"Yes. You are?"

"You don't need to know who I am. You just need to know that your sister is in our hands now."

Zhang Yunqi was a little slow to react: "What?"

The voice on the other end of the phone was icy: "We have kidnapped your sister Zhang Chunlan! Do you understand?!"

Zhang Yunqi not only understood.

At that moment, he felt like being bitten by a poisonous snake and his blood solidified instantly!
"What are you going to do?"

"Don't call the police, don't make a fuss, just wait for the call!"

"Are you here for the money or for the people?"

There was a "pop" sound!
The phone hangs up.

In the dead silent night, the only sound was the "beep, beep..." sound of the cell phone constantly ringing back.

It was unknown how much time had passed before Zhang Yunqi stretched out his stiff hand and took a cigarette from the table.

He walked to the window, and in the gray smoke, he looked out at the dark night outside the window. He didn't dial another number until the cigarette butt became too hot. "Come over here."

******
(End of this chapter)