Chapter 341 Jiang Cheng’s success is all about luck

After Zhou Lingying lay down on the bed, Jiang Cheng followed suit soon after, but she lay on her side, facing the wall with her back facing outwards.

After Jiang Cheng got on the bed, he reached out to Zhou Lingying’s waist impatiently.

“Don’t touch me, I’m so dirty.”

“Lingying~.”

Jiang Cheng dared to touch Zhou Lingying’s body, but she slapped him away. Then she turned her back to Jiang Cheng and said that he was dirty, which made Jiang Cheng feel a little confused.

But~, but when she was washing up just now, Zhou Lingying didn’t avoid Jiang Cheng, she washed her butt right next to him.

After hesitating for a while, Jiang Cheng couldn’t care less and said, “Lingying, I miss you so much.”

After a man has made up his mind about a woman, the more resistance she puts on him, the more excited he will be. Besides, the strength of someone’s resistance is not strong, and the sentence “Don’t touch me” just now is just someone’s last reserve.

It was already noon, and the children were sensible enough not to disturb Jiang Cheng and Zhou Lingying in the morning.

Zhou Lingying and Jiang Cheng had woken up a long time ago, but they didn’t get out of bed. Zhou Lingying leaned on Jiang Cheng’s chest under the quilt and chatted about something.

The management rights and profits of Jiang Cheng’s companies in Hong Kong and China have been divided up, but even if Zhou Lingying is not involved in business, she understands that as long as Jiang Cheng comes forward to take them back, their method of dividing them up will be useless.

Jiang Cheng was actually very happy when he heard that the shares were divided up. Not to mention the management rights, if his woman and children could really reach an agreement, all the shares would be fine.

However, Jiangdonglai supermarket cannot divide up the shares for the time being.

People living in the world always have to pursue something. Jiang Cheng no longer needs to pursue wealth. He can enjoy the happiness of family life with peace of mind, but as a Chinese, he has a sense of responsibility.

Jiang Cheng cannot make much contribution to the country in terms of science and technology, but he really wants to do his part in improving people’s livelihood.

“Lingying, we are only in our forties now, and we have traveled enough in recent years. I now want to do something for the health of ordinary people.” Jiang Cheng said while caressing Zhou Lingying. As for which part to caress, it was naturally the part that felt good.

“What is this matter that concerns the health of the common people?” Zhou Lingying asked curiously. This topic gave her a high-end feeling.

“Open an ice bag factory and then a spicy snack factory. Children love to eat this.” Jiang Cheng said.

“Is this something for the health of the people?” Zhou Lingying was a little confused by Jiang Cheng’s words. The topic sounded high-sounding, but what he actually did was to sell things like this.

“What do you know~~.” Jiang Cheng patted Zhou Lingying’s butt, and then began to introduce her to the ice packs and spicy strips on the market.

Nowadays, there are not many food additives, and the harm is not that great. Moreover, children nowadays do not have much pocket money, so they cannot buy snacks casually, and they will not eat many additives.

People who are a little older will not spend money on snacks. Unlike later generations, adults and children all like to eat snacks. Even if men can restrain themselves, women in their forties in later generations call themselves girls. They are all girls, so it is normal for them to eat all kinds of snacks.

Nowadays, additives are mainly saccharin, pigments, flavors, etc. Flavors and saccharin are not harmful to the body if eaten on a regular basis, which is why the food department allows them to be used.

However, the amount of these things needs to be controlled. In order to achieve a certain effect, many food companies did not put them in according to the standards in the 1990s. Many workshop-style factories might not even have a trademark, let alone put additives in according to regulations.

Saccharin and flavors are the kind that do not provide much energy, but need to be excreted by the human body’s metabolic system, which brings a metabolic burden to some organs of the body.

In the 1980s and 1990s, people didn’t eat as many snacks, and children walked to school by themselves and ran around outside to play, so their metabolism was fast. So even if some food factories put excessive amounts of snacks in their diets, it wasn’t a problem.

But later, children are picked up and dropped off at school, and they don’t run around after school. Many of them play with their mobile phones at home. There is not much exercise, and many children are a little obese when they are young. If such people eat snacks containing saccharin and flavors, even if they do not exceed the standard, it will increase the metabolic burden.

However, if you don’t use saccharin and flavoring to achieve the sweetness and fragrance of some foods, the cost will be high. The smaller the scale of the enterprise, the greater the cost.

Because no flavors are used, a large amount of spices must be used for processing. If the production quantity is small, the average cost will be high.

The same is true for pigments, which are just for the sake of appearance and have no use at all. But if you don’t use pigments, you may have to use juice or something to process it.

Ice packs that cost a dime are filled with pigment and saccharin. Even the water in the ice packs may be directly from tap water, without boiling it.

Fortunately, the water source is still good now, and it is not a big problem to drink tap water directly. In later generations, many tap waters are not filtered twice, and there are a lot of residues. Drinking it directly can easily cause diarrhea.

How much does it cost to buy a pack of ice packs that cost one cent? At most, it costs a larger machine. Then the packaging bags and other miscellaneous items together cost at most two cents.

After all, something that costs one cent has to go through two hands before it reaches the buyer. One hand is from the manufacturer to the wholesaler, and then the wholesaler sells it to convenience stores and vendors at wholesale prices.

The same is true for spicy strips. This dime-worth of food has gone through many hands. If additives were not used to replace sugar and spices, it would not be so cheap.

Jiang Cheng did not intend to replace those bad products in the market, because China is a country with a large population and an underdeveloped economy. In many markets, bad money drives out good money. Children and many people only seek cheapness and do not distinguish between good and bad.

All Jiang Cheng can do is to give everyone more choices, and his production cost will not be low.

If you want to sell nationwide or in local markets, the price may be low if the products go through two hands. It is basic for some things to go through three or four hands before they reach the hands of customers.

First, it goes to regional sales, then dealers, then distributors, which are wholesale merchants, and finally to small shops.

The soy sauce produced and sold by “Mou Donglai” in later generations is not actually cheaper than those branded goods. But the profit is not high, mainly because its production is not large and the soy sauce production cycle is too long. Even so, there are no middlemen to make a profit from the price difference.

If Jiang Cheng wanted to sell healthy snacks, he had only two options: high prices, and because he had no intention of building a nationwide sales network, he could only sell them through middlemen.

The second is like the later “Mou Donglai”, without middlemen, self-production and self-sales. In this way, the output will not be too high, after all, in this era, no one will go from other cities or even counties and towns to buy things from places with “Jiang Donglai”.

Low output means that the cost is high given the expenses of fixed personnel, venues and equipment.

Therefore, if Jiang Cheng’s products were not sold at high prices, even without middlemen, his profits might not be as high as others.

In addition, even if Jiang Cheng produces ice packs and spicy strips for children, he does not plan to promote them. There is no need, especially in this era when most food additives are not much.

If you deliberately promote and advertise that your products do not contain additives and advertise the cost of materials used, you are actually challenging certain departments in disguise.

“Okay, go ahead and do it if you want to. You are a hands-off boss anyway. Once this factory is set up, Zhaozhao and the others will definitely be the ones to take care of it.” Zhou Lingying said supportively.

“Then get up. This time I won’t be a hands-off boss. Instead, I’ll let Zhao Zhao take care of these things from the beginning.” Jiang Cheng said with a smile.

Jiang Cheng believes that his children have grown up and should be ordered around. He only provides business ideas and goals, and leaves other matters to his children.

Jiang Cheng now has no energy to engage in factory construction and staff recruitment. He has traveled almost all over the country in recent years and wants to live a peaceful life at home.

Jiang Zhaozhao was in a meeting at the company at this time. As the eldest sister of the Jiang family, she had a great responsibility. Many times she was forced to take on the burden, such as taking over the domestic “Jiangdonglai”.

If it was just a soy sauce factory and a bottled water factory, as a Changcheng local, she would build a company building in Changcheng and set up a head office. But with the incorporation of Jiangdonglai and the clothing and food processing factories in Shenzhen, it is no longer appropriate to build a building in Changcheng as a head office.

Even now it is not appropriate to call it a construction company, because it operates in so many industries that the name “company” is no longer appropriate.

Now when people hear the name “Jiangdonglai”, they will naturally think of supermarkets. When they hear “Jiangniangfang”, they will think of soy sauce. When they hear “Jiangxixi”, they will think of bottled water.

But if they are managed under a unified system and set up as one head office, there will be confusion in the name.

Therefore, the Jiang family should be grouped above the company. Only a group can have various industries, and it is no longer appropriate to call it a company.

Jiang Zhaozhao will be going to Shenzhen soon, not to take over Jiangdonglai immediately. In the head office there, she only served as general manager to familiarize herself with the company’s internal affairs.

The main purpose of going to Shenzhen is to build a building and establish the “Jiang Group”.

There are many groups in China, but the difference between groups can be distinguished from their names.

If you see a group named after a surname, try not to provoke them. This is because such names are usually family-owned and have very few shares outside. It is generally ineffective to use shares and stocks to attack such a group.

If Jiang Group is established, no company will be listed. It is not that companies cannot be listed, but Jiang Cheng does not need financing or a partner to jointly operate the business.

If the company is not listed, no matter how powerful the boss is, it is impossible for him to tell you in a very arrogant manner like in the skits, saying that he will buy your company within ten minutes and make you bankrupt.

Jiang Cheng actually found it difficult to understand the plot in the skit, not to mention whether the company would be acquired. Even if it was acquired, they could acquire it without spending any money.

Under normal circumstances, a company being acquired does not mean bankruptcy. For many operators of listed companies, this is a good thing as they can successfully cash out and be relieved.

In some skits, the plots would say, “I will buy your company in a minute and bankrupt you.” Jiang Cheng was puzzled. Could it be that the acquisitions in the skits were free?

Another way is to short a company’s stock and suppress the stock price to make the company bankrupt. Jiang Cheng also doesn’t understand the thinking of the skit editor. Even if you want to suppress the stock price, you usually have to release real negative news.

A phone call came in saying that a company was being suppressed, and the company’s stock price instantly plummeted to the bottom. Jiang Cheng really wanted to know how this suppression was carried out.

Just like the brainless boss, he always wants others to appear in front of him in three or ten minutes, otherwise he will stop working. Damn, in a tall building, the time spent taking the elevator may be more than that. And the people in the plot may still be in the north and south of the world, but they appear in front of the boss in three minutes.

After breakfast, Jiang Cheng and Zhou Lingying went to the company to find Jiang Zhaozhao. Jiang Cheng had planned to have breakfast outside with Zhou Lingying in the morning, but he didn’t just praise the good of this era and didn’t say anything bad about it.

The fried dough sticks and pancakes in the 1970s and 1980s were delicious, but that was because people didn’t have enough oil in their stomachs. But anyone who lived in that era knows that the oil used to fry the dough sticks and pancakes was reused and the color was black.

It’s just that in this era, people don’t think that oil that has been used for frying food several times is unusable. People who eat and use it don’t realize there is a problem, so they think it is healthy.

Jiang Cheng never eats fried dough sticks outside when he is in Hong Kong. He has a professional pastry chef at home. The oil used for fried dough sticks and other things is used once and then not used again. The used oil is taken away by the servants, and Jiang Cheng and his family don’t care how it is disposed of.

This person cherishes his life when he is rich. He is not afraid of getting sick, but he is afraid of cancer and the like. Now if the Jiang family gets shrimps, crabs, shellfish and the like, they will send them to neighbors if they can’t finish them on the same day, and they won’t eat them overnight.

I made noodles at home in the morning, using fresh shrimps.

After Jiang Cheng and Zhou Lingying reconciled this time, their feelings for each other deepened. On the way to the company, Jiang Cheng always held Zhou Lingying’s waist.

By the mid-1990s, the country had been open for fifteen or sixteen years, and holding hands and hugging each other in broad daylight was no longer a big deal.

When they arrived at Jiang Zhaozhao’s company, she had just finished a meeting. The company was built between the Jiang family and the soy sauce factory, not far away, so Jiang Cheng and Zhou Lingying walked here.

The company was also established after Jiang Zhaozhao took over the sales of bottled water. He had previously taken over the soy sauce factory, which had its own office building.

Jiang Zhaozhao’s parents came, so she naturally came to meet them. But it was working hours now, and she was very busy. She was not like her father, who would just sit back and do nothing.

Although Jiang Zhaozhao was shocked that her father was able to build such a large business from scratch, she still thought in her heart that her father was just lucky and had no real ability.

Because Jiang Zhaozhao and her classmates have specifically studied her father’s success. After all, his wealth can make him the richest man in Changcheng.

Jiang Zhaozhao believes that the current scale of the soy sauce factory is entirely due to her and her classmates. In her opinion, the soy sauce factory her father built was a bargain. The subsequent bottled water business was also started from scratch.

If it weren’t for the appearance of ‘Jiang Donglai’, Jiang Zhaozhao would have thought that her father had no talent for business at all.

Then this month, Jiang Zhaozhao and her team studied Jiangdonglai, which her father founded, and the food company in Hong Kong. Luck still played a big role.

Jiang Cheng has no management skills at all. He was able to expand his business in Hong Kong entirely by using low prices at the beginning. Jiang Donglai has been in China for more than ten years. If it weren’t for my cousin going to Shenzhen, the company wouldn’t even have a general manager.

Moreover, Jiang Cheng only looked at the financial statements all year round, and if there was a problem with the growth of the financial statements, he would send people to check. For so many years, Jiang Cheng was actually just a driver in Shenzhen, and he didn’t show up to attend a high-level meeting.

According to Jiang Zhaozhao and her team, even the student with the worst grades in their school’s economics and management major is better than Jiang Cheng.

Now Jiangdonglai is going to expand to a total of 100 stores, which is purely due to luck. There are no large supermarkets like Xiangjiang in China, only some department stores.

So even though Jiang Cheng has earned billions of dollars in assets, in Jiang Zhaozhao’s opinion, her father is just lucky.

So far, there has been no competitor to Jiangdonglai, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any in the future. Some may even start to appear now.

Carrefour is a French retail company. It has not opened yet, but it has been built for the most part in Sijicheng, and it is registered in the newspaper. It is a retail supermarket mall like Jiangdonglai.

In addition, Walmart will also move in to Shenzhen, the base of “Jiangdonglai” in China, and Sam’s Club will also appear in the future.

However, Walmart will not open this year. Shopping malls and supermarkets are not like factories. The construction and decoration period takes some time. At this point, it would be a bit old-fashioned if domestic shopping malls and supermarkets do not build elevators.

The ‘Jiangdonglai’ supermarkets built by Jiang Cheng before the 1990s all had stairs, and the exterior walls were painted with ordinary whitewash.

The quality issue is definitely okay, no corners were cut during construction, and there will be no problem using it for decades. But if a new shopping mall or supermarket of the same type appears, with beautiful decoration, grand appearance, and the same product prices, it may be difficult to compete.

Therefore, “Donglailai” has to be rebuilt in many cities instead of renovated. Some external structures are directly made of tempered glass curtain walls, elevators are installed inside, and smooth and flat tiles are laid on the ground.

The previous shopping malls and supermarkets can be rented out to other industries, but Jiang Cheng does not plan to sell them. The land prices in Shenzhen have risen, but they have not yet reached the sky-high prices in 10 or 20 years.

Even if the land is not sold in the future, it would be a good idea to demolish it and build an office building or something.

“Dad, you and mom came to the company to find me, just to open a factory to process ice packs and spicy strips?”

Jiang Zhaozhao felt a little overwhelmed when she heard the purpose of Jiang Cheng’s coming here. It’s not that this doesn’t make money, but the food for children is not nutritious. What’s the point of running such a factory? Even if it can make hundreds of thousands or millions, it’s useless for the Jiang family.

(End of this chapter)