Chapter 389 For Whom the Bell Tolls
Zhang Yunqi was taken away.

No one knew who took him away.

Which unit and what level did the person who took him away belong to?

After all, different units and levels mean different levels of the people to be investigated. Those in the city mostly target people in the district; those in the province mostly target people in the city. But these seem to be unimportant. What’s important is that Zhang Yunqi was taken away. Li Jilin and Wang Guibing were also taken away.

The words "taken away" are absolutely true, enough to make people imagine. These three people led the acquisition of Longjingyuan Canning Factory to Liansheng Group for 0 yuan, and they have a close relationship with Huo Jianzhong who has been in trouble.

After the news of Huo Jianzhong's accident came out, it seemed that someone had realized that the crisis was about to come. On the eve of Liansheng Group's general manager Li Jilin and deputy general manager Wang Guibing being taken away, a personnel appointment signed by Zhang Yunqi himself had reached the ears of all employees of Liansheng Group.

Yu Lin, the general manager of Lianzhong Company and an old comrade-in-arms who has worked with Zhang Yunqi from the grassroots for many years, has been appointed as the senior vice president of Liansheng Group, in charge of all the personnel, financial and administrative power of the group.

In the first two days after Zhang Yunqi and a group of core executives were taken away, Yu Lin did not take any action. Apart from taking care of the company's internal operations, he stayed in the brand new and large office of the vice president, looking out the window at the rain that had been falling for who knows how many days.

No one knew what he was thinking at the moment until he received a call from Gao Xin, assistant president of the Agricultural Bank of China's Xiangnan Branch.

The next day, Liansheng Group published an announcement in the newspaper, saying: "On March 1995, 3, the company noticed media reports that the company's chairman Zhang Yunqi, general manager Li Jilin, and deputy general manager Wang Guibing were under investigation. As of the date of disclosure of this announcement, the company has not received any investigation notice or cooperation investigation documents issued by any competent authority. After the relevant media reports, the company immediately conducted multiple verifications and contacted their families by phone. It was learned that Zhang Yunqi, Li Jilin, Wang Guibing and others are cooperating with the relevant departments' investigation due to personal reasons. This matter will not have a significant impact on the company's governance structure, the daily operations of the management, and daily production and operations. The company's current operations are stable and normal."

On the third day, Liansheng Group issued another statement, stating: "Recently, Liansheng Group has initiated a third-party investigation and verification procedure for the same batch of products in response to consumers' feedback on multiple quality and safety issues in its Longjingyuan series of products, and no products that do not meet the standards have been found. Among them, the cockroach incident in Longjingyuan canned food was verified by staff and tested by a third-party agency. The cockroach was very intact. During the production process of canned products, they need to be stirred and chopped by machines before being injected into the bottle. It is impossible for such large intact foreign objects to appear. Such incidents are obviously deliberately planned by competitors, taking advantage of the public's panic about food safety and environmental pollution to achieve the purpose of attacking Liansheng Group. This practice is regrettable. After years of development, Liansheng Group has a leading level of production equipment, manufacturing capabilities, strong supply chain management capabilities and a strict quality assurance system. In order to clarify the truth, Liansheng Group intends to invite television, newspaper media and consumers to Longjingyuan Agricultural Industrial Park to conduct a comprehensive on-site visit and supervision of Longjingyuan's raw materials, production process and product quality. The number of invited people will not be less than 5000."

On the fourth day, the legal team of Liansheng Group came on stage and filed a lawsuit against Chunjiang Morning News in the Jiangchuan Intermediate People's Court! They accused Chunjiang Morning News of false reporting: "Between March 1995 and April 3, 23, Chunjiang Morning News premeditatedly and organizedly published 4 pages and 4 negative reports for several consecutive days, including 67 front-page articles, 76 second-page articles, and 12 third-page articles; 11 full-page or double-full-page reports. Such a large-scale critical report on a company is unprecedented in the history of Chinese journalism!"

On the fifth day, Liansheng Group issued another announcement: "After many days of negotiations with suppliers on issues such as raw material prices and payment methods, the Group has not been able to reach a satisfactory result for both parties and a sustainable win-win solution. Unfortunately, the two parties have terminated their cooperation from today. We would like to thank Liansheng Group's suppliers for their strong support for Longjingyuan series of foods over the past decade. Liansheng Group will rely on its Yunxi Village Cooperative, Longjingyuan Agricultural Industrial Park and Huafeng Agricultural Company to continue to deepen its own raw material supply chain, control prices and quality, enhance competitiveness, and bring more healthy, green, affordable and delicious products to consumers across the country."

The words were very nice, but the actions were extremely tough. On the same day, the public relations team of Liansheng Group reported the case to the police on charges of embezzlement of company property, and a group of internal personnel of the group, led by Wu Xinghua, the former general manager of the raw material supply department of Liansheng Group, and several raw material suppliers who colluded with them were sent to the police station!

On the sixth day, Yu Lin rushed to the provincial capital, Lijin City.

Early in the morning, after he convened a brainstorming meeting at the group headquarters and was about to leave, Zhang Yunfeng, the general manager of Zhangji Catering, came over.

Zhang Yunfeng came to him to discuss the issues of Zhangji Catering.

Now, no matter whether there is someone instigating behind the scenes or they really think that the Zhang family, which is in a precarious situation, is going to collapse, a large number of vendors and merchants who rent storefronts blocked the office of Zhangji Catering to demand the return of their deposits. If they fail to do so, they will move out the office furniture.

Zhang Yunfeng was extremely troubled.

Yu Lin listened to the haggard Zhang Yunfeng's speech, made him a cup of strong tea, and said four words: "Return the money."

Zhang Yunfeng sighed, "How can I get a refund? Most of the money has been used as construction fees for the Yuxianli Night Market. It's turned into bricks. What can I get back? Moreover, according to the contract, the Yuxianli Night Market is still under construction. Zhangji Catering has not breached the contract. They have no right to ask for a refund of the deposit!"

Yu Lin replied: "If you don't have money, then borrow some money to pay it back!"

Zhang Yunfeng was stunned.

Yu Lin sat back in his chair and asked Zhang Yunfeng: "Mr. Zhang, do you believe that the chairman can get away with it this time?"

This question stumped Zhang Yunfeng, and then he lit a cigarette with a worried look on his face.

Yu Lin continued, "I can analyze it for you. Regardless of whether someone instigated it or not, the situation of your Zhang family has caused those merchants who have paid deposits to panic, fearing that the Zhang family will really go bankrupt this time and they won't even be able to get their deposits back. But for you, if the chairman can't get out of this unscathed, then the Yuxianli Tourist Night Market will not exist. Even if it does exist, the operating rights will not belong to your Zhang family. So you refund the merchants' deposits now, avoiding paying several times the compensation for breach of contract. Isn't that great?" Yu Lin took a sip of tea and said, "But then again, if the chairman can get out of this unscathed, then the Yuxianli Tourist Night Market will definitely rise again, and it will definitely be the industry of your Zhang family! Mr. Zhang, believe me, those merchants will beg you to accept their money, or even double it!"

Zhang Yunfeng felt as if he had suddenly realized something.

Yu Lin raised his hand to check the time, and said to Zhang Yunfeng as he walked out of the office, "I'm going to the provincial capital, Mr. Zhang, call me if you have anything later."

After leaving Liansheng, Ma Lin rushed to the provincial capital Lijin without stopping.

The next day, Liansheng Group reached a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with Agricultural Bank of China Lijin Branch.

The cooperation agreement was signed in the Agricultural Bank of China office building in a grand ceremony, with national and local media invited.

Yu Lin was the first to speak on stage.

Dressed in a suit and tie, he said to dozens of media reporters: "Liansheng Group and Agricultural Bank of China will rely on the powerful agricultural supply chain system of production, processing, warehousing and sales of agricultural products and agricultural materials built by Liansheng's Longjingyuan Agricultural Industrial Park, Yunxi Village Joint-Stock Cooperative, Huafeng Agriculture, Zhangji Catering, and tens of thousands of farmers who have reached unified purchase and marketing cooperation, and jointly promote the construction of the Southern Hunan Province Rural Finance Alliance with the Provincial Credit Union and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China! Comprehensively improve the coverage rate of rural financial outlets, provide village collectives, farmers, and large-scale business entities with innovative scenario-based rural finance services such as land management loans, rental loans, margin loans, business rights mortgages, forest rights mortgages, supply chain finance, insurance, and non-performing asset disposal, etc., to irrigate agriculture and rural areas with financial running water, and help the modernization of agriculture and rural areas! Comprehensively serve rural revitalization!"

In the 1990s, industrial finance was still in its wild stage, and the field of agricultural finance was still in its infancy. The mortgage of farmland management rights, crop management loans, and disposal of non-performing land assets mentioned by Yu Lin were the only new agricultural financial service products in China at that time. They helped to cultivate large agricultural operators and solve land fragmentation, which was extremely fatal in later generations. The new strategic summary terms for financial services for agriculture and rural areas, such as "introducing financial resources to irrigate agriculture and rural areas and serve rural revitalization", also elevated the signing ceremony to a certain level.

This meeting should be reported in all major media tomorrow, but Yu Lin doesn’t know whether he will be able to appear on the provincial television station.

These positive publicity reports are very important to Zhang Yunqi and Liansheng Group at the moment.

Of course, what Yu Lin said at the meeting was all about harmony at the macro level. As for privately, all the disturbances in this world are caused by money.

In the specific contract with the Agricultural Bank of China, Zhang Yunqi sold all the basic accounts of Yunxi Village Cooperative, the trading deposit account, the trading settlement account, the farmer's dividend account, all the village collective accounts that cooperated with Yunxi Village Cooperative and Huafeng Agriculture, and tens of thousands of farmers' salary, dividend, sales account and dozens of other accounts to the Agricultural Bank of China! The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China got the core accounts of Liansheng, Lianzhong and Zhangji Catering.

In short, Zhang Yunqi has divided up all the accounts under the two major systems of Liansheng and Lianzhong. In addition, all the massive financial service scenarios relying on the supply chain of Liansheng Group have been connected.

This will generate a huge cash flow of more than one billion or even tens of billions of yuan! And the huge profits involved cannot be explained clearly.

In the 90s, this was definitely not an offer that any senior executive of a provincial or municipal financial institution could refuse!

And just the day after the signing ceremony, the Agricultural Bank of China did something that caused a sensation in Jiangchuan.

With absolutely legitimate reasons, the Jiangchuan Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China filed an application with the Jiangchuan Intermediate People's Court to freeze the bank deposits of the respondent Jiangchuan Huangcheng Group Co., Ltd. worth 12 million yuan, or to seal up and seize other properties of equal value!
At that time, Yu Lin was already on the bus returning to Jiangchuan City.

During the past ten days, especially after Zhang Yunqi was taken away, he was in charge of everything in Liansheng Group. He was so busy that he hardly slept a wink. He looked haggard and fell asleep on the bumpy road.

Yu Lin woke up when he passed Panlong Mountain.

He looked out of the car window. The rain, which had been drizzling for many days, stopped at some point. In the distance, a ray of sunlight suddenly floated up, piercing through the sky covered with dark clouds and sprinkling on the land of Hunan in late spring.

There is an ancient temple on Panlong Mountain. At this time, bursts of melodious bell sounds were coming, floating in the clear sky.

For some reason, Yu Lin, looking out the window, suddenly remembered the last two lines of a sermon written by the English poet John Donne: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

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(End of this chapter)