Chapter 349 Birth, Old Age, Sickness and Death

People are born, old, sick and die, and the moon waxes and wanes.

When Jiang Cheng was young, he was very open-minded. When he was still able to move and do things, he enjoyed everything. Now that he is old and has difficulty walking, eating and going to the toilet, he would rather die at the age of 60.

But when I was 55, my mindset had changed. Sometimes I understand those old people who are afraid of death. When they get seriously ill, they hope for a glimmer of hope, even if it means dragging down the whole family.

No one wants to face birth, aging, illness and death, even if it’s not themselves, their family and friends don’t want them to die. But Jiang Chengdu is 55 years old, not to mention the age of his parents.

Jiang Cheng is not the eldest in the family. Even though his parents had children early, they were already 20 years old when he was born. Now his parents are over 75 years old, which is considered a long life in the countryside.

He escaped the SARS epidemic from 2002 to 2003, but he couldn’t escape the coming of his death. First, at the beginning of 2004, Jiang Cheng’s father Jiang Changhe fell ill and went to the hospital. After staying in the hospital for a few days without any improvement, Jiang Zhaozhao specially arranged a special car to take him directly to a large hospital in the old city.

But he was only kept alive for a few more days in the big hospital before he died. It was due to the failure of a certain part of his body. At his age, the medical level in China is limited, and it is too late to replace his organs at such an old age.

The main reason is that people usually lack the awareness of prevention. If they go to a big hospital for a check-up and find that a certain part of their body is failing, they can find a matching organ in advance, which may give them a chance to live a few more years.

In the same year, Zhou Lingying’s father also passed away. Although Zhou Lingying is four years younger than Jiang Cheng, she has two older brothers, and people don’t always get married and start a family at a young age. So her parents are actually two or three years older than Jiang Cheng’s parents.

However, Zhou Lingying’s father passed away peacefully. At noon one day, he had a good appetite and could eat and drink. After eating, he walked around outside for no apparent reason, chatted with some friends, came back and lay down on the bed to rest, and never got up again.

After Jiang Changhe left, Jiang Cheng took Zhao Yuxia to a large hospital for a checkup. She was also often sick now. The results of the test were not optimistic, and she had many minor health problems.

The doctor at the hospital suggested that she should be hospitalized for recuperation, but Zhao Yuxia could not stand staying in the city hospital for a while, saying it was like being in prison, and she insisted on returning to the countryside.

But Zhou Lingying’s mother also passed away in 2005. Jiang Cheng’s mother, Zhao Yuxia, lived until 2006, but actually died in the cold winter before the Lunar New Year.

As their elders passed away one after another, Jiang Cheng, Zhou Lingying, Shen Li and Zheng Ke all began to pay attention to health preservation and have a physical examination every year.

In recent years, most of the children have married and had children. The family is growing, and the struggle for assets has become fierce.

Jiang Cheng had two sons, Jiang Ping and Jiang An. According to the traditional family model, when a daughter gets married, she has to give up the shares of the family business, but she can get dividends from the shares.

After all, the Jiang Group is a company with a surname. If people with other surnames own more shares than the Jiang family, the Jiang Group will be a joke.

To be honest, when Jiang Cheng’s daughters were young, they also believed that at least most of the Jiang family’s assets should be left to their younger brother Jiang Ping.

It’s not that Jiang Zhaozhao, Jiang Panpan and others can’t have shares in the Jiang Group, but the majority will definitely belong to Jiang Ping. And after Jiang Ping joined the group, everyone tacitly agreed to train him.

Jiang Cheng’s sons-in-law actually thought the same way at the beginning. As a son-in-law, they benefited from their father-in-law’s family, so they would have to work 10 to 20 years less. Even for Jiang Niannian’s husband, if he had reached the peak directly, he would not have such wealth in his lifetime if he had worked hard.

But a big family becomes many small families, and parents have to consider their children if not themselves. If the group cannot give a good explanation to the descendants of other families, some people will selfishly use the group’s resources to work outside privately.

Although the Jiang Group seems to be thriving, there is actually discord within it.

Jiang Ping himself is not outstanding. If it were not for the support of Jiang Zhaozhao, Jiang Panpan and others, he would never have been able to sit on the position of vice president of Jiang Group.

Speaking of excellence, Jiang An actually has some abilities. After graduating from a well-known private university in Hong Kong, although he did not go on to further studies, he traveled abroad for a few years, gained some knowledge, and made some friends.

In addition, he grew up in a wealthy family. In Hong Kong, a capitalist country, he was influenced by the environment and saw that he was better than Jiang Ping.

If Jiang An was Zhou Lingying’s son, Jiang Ping would have no role in the Jiang Group. Even the female CEO Jiang Zhaozhao would have to step down early and let Jiang An take over.

But Jiang An was lucky. Not only was he the only son born to his wife Zhou Lingying, he also had five sisters to help him in the group. It was already very good for Jiang An to have more than 10% of the shares in the group.

Jiang Ping’s shares are only five percentage points higher than Jiang An’s, and the others all have a certain share.

These shares were given out by Jiang Cheng gradually over the years. You should know that in the beginning, all assets were 100% owned by Jiang Cheng. If Jiang Cheng didn’t agree, no matter how big the group became, they would just be working for Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng actually wanted to give away all his shares from the beginning, and he didn’t want the so-called Jiang Group. It was just that his children thought it was fairer to keep the shares with Jiang Cheng.

In fact, how much shares to give to each person over the years was decided by Jiang Zhaozhao and others within the group, based on everyone’s abilities.

But after all, it was Jiang Cheng who originally conquered this empire, so everyone will reserve 20% of the shares for Jiang Cheng.

Eighty percent of the group’s shares have been divided up. If everyone’s business is doing well, they will be taken care of in terms of dividends.

If everyone wants to get more shares in the group, they have to set their sights on the 20% in Jiang Cheng’s hands.

Therefore, the younger generations will try their best to please their grandfather by having Jiang Cheng’s grandchildren and grandsons. The second generation has almost competed with each other, and everyone knows who has what ability.

By the third generation, everyone began to pay attention to education, and only those who are excellent can gain power in the group.

Jiang’s Group will no longer be like when Jiang Cheng’s children were first assigned important positions and departments. After SARS, Jiang’s Group also began to focus on high-end talents. A family-style group is fine, but family-style management is not.

It is no longer acceptable to be nepotistic like Jiang Cheng and to arrange things for his relatives at will. When the company was small and its business was simple, it was acceptable for Jiang Cheng to do it that way.

But when it becomes a big company or a big group, everyone’s lack of ability becomes apparent.

For example, Liu Li, a classmate of Jiang Cheng’s niece Jiang Juan, who only graduated from a technical secondary school, used to work as the financial director at the Shenzhen head office of “Jiangdonglai”.

Even though Liu Li had received a year of intensive training in Hong Kong before, what era is it now? In the past, accounts were kept in account books, but now it is the 21st century, the computer age, and everything is documents and reports.

If Liu Li had not gone to Hong Kong for a year of training, many accounting firms in China would still be using abacus. At that time, elementary school mathematics taught people how to use abacus. Now, even elementary school textbooks do not teach people how to use abacus.

When Liu Li first returned to China, she followed Hong Kong and used computers instead of abacus. But now she doesn’t know how to use computers or make various computer reports, and it’s not easy to be an accountant in the finance department. So Liu Li is now just a financial supervisor in a company below, not a financial staff of the group.

Therefore, starting from the third generation of the Jiang family, even grandchildren with different surnames would have a hard time getting into the group headquarters if they were not excellent. The only shortcut was to please this grandfather or grandfather here in Jiang Cheng, and get shares, which was better than anything else.

Jiang Cheng understood the so-called inter-generational affection. He has always been close to his own children. It does not mean that he will be closer to the third generation than he was to Jiang Zhaozhao and her friends when they were children.

It’s just that I’m old and can’t do many things anymore. People of my age prefer to enjoy family happiness. I’d be happier if I had grandchildren around.

When we are young, we are busy with our careers and dreams, and we have pursuits, so we cannot focus all our energy on our children. When we are older, we spend all our energy on our children and grandchildren, so the generations become closer.

Jiang Cheng rarely goes to Hong Kong now, and he has set up several private zoos in China. It is not easy to set up a zoo. Although it can be set up with money, it is not simply set up with money.

First of all, just like opening a pharmacy, you need to have a certified doctor. The same is true for a zoo. Before you open it, you have to recruit certified technicians to keep animals.

Then you have to prepare the venue first, rather than applying for the zoo license first and then preparing the venue. In this way, it is easy to invest a lot of money and then go to waste if it fails the review.

You also need proof of funds. You can’t open a zoo without any income and money to buy feed, and the animals starve to death. You also need a dedicated veterinarian and a professional breeding team.

That is to say, when you apply for a private zoo, you must first have a zoo, a staff team, and breeding equipment.

This has not been reviewed, and the cost is very high. The initial investment is too much, and it is not a highly profitable industry, so few people are involved in this industry.

However, Jiang Cheng doesn’t care about these investments, and he doesn’t expect the zoo to make money from ticket sales.

Jiang Cheng directly opened four zoos, with the smallest investment being tens of millions. In Shanghai and Shenzhen, because of the good locations chosen, he directly invested over 100 million.

The tickets to the four zoos are very cheap. In Changcheng, you can go to see all kinds of animals for only ten yuan.

In Shanghai and Shenzhen, it’s only 15 yuan on weekdays, and it goes up to 20 yuan on weekends and holidays. Anyway, a family of several people can visit the zoo for 100 yuan.

Moreover, each zoo has introduced animals such as tigers and leopards. Then they have organized feeding activities, where a fresh chicken can be bought for only eight yuan to feed the animals.

Even if the ticket revenue is very popular, plus the money earned from feeding activities, even if some places in the zoo sell retail beverages to earn money from tourists, it is really difficult to recover the investment costs. In other words, as long as private zoos raise animals well and breed more precious animals, they will receive subsidies from the government.

But even so, the investment and return of opening a zoo are really not suitable for investment.

Jiang Cheng had opened the zoo for only half a year when the internal animal management staff reported to Jiang Cheng that the practice of feeding the animals was a bit excessive and could not continue like this.

The zoo run by Jiang Cheng has many kinds of animals, a good environment, and low ticket prices, which attracts many tourists and locals. With a large flow of people, it is not a big deal for the zoo to sell food that is originally intended for feeding animals to tourists to make money. This kind of IQ tax is obvious, and tourists like to experience the feeling of feeding.

But the flow of people is too large. Even if only one out of ten people buys food to feed the animals, the animals in the zoo will be fat.

This animal is just like a human being. If it is too fat, it will also suffer from various diseases. If a tiger is older and too fat, it will also have three highs, and its life span will be shortened.

This is what Jiang Cheng wanted. The tiger bone wine he wanted was just waiting for the tiger bones to go into the wine jar. As for some things, Jiang Cheng didn’t want to talk about them. Even if the zoo was opened by Jiang Cheng, the animals were all registered. Even if some animals were gone, some parts might not be Jiang Cheng’s turn.

Just like what netizens said online, if there really is a drug for immortality, even if there are a hundred pills, it may not be Lao Ma’s turn to buy them.

Only Jiang Cheng was honest and invested hundreds of millions to open a zoo. In fact, some people have ways to get these banned things.

For example, in a certain place in Anhui Province, a zoo was built, but financial disputes arose from the beginning. Then some animals were left unattended and kept in a small space.

More than twenty tigers, two African lions, three giraffes and so on died.

Why did the business go wrong right from the start? The key is that they had so many tigers at the beginning. And why did the tigers die the most, while the others were just buried with them?

Is it true that in a private zoo, wild protected animals can die however they want?

Without money and power, many things cannot be seen by others.

Anyway, with the medicinal herbs Jiang Cheng collected in his early years and some of the things he has now, he has no shortage of supplements. He is now just playing with his grandchildren and feeding the animals in China.

Jiang Cheng only pays casual attention to the food issues related to people’s livelihood. If the whole nation does not wake up and wages cannot be increased, even if he stands up, he will not be able to change anything.

It’s not that people don’t want to eat healthy food. Rice at more than ten yuan a pound, free-range pork that can be ordered privately, and various pollution-free vegetables have always been available.

But even in 2006, the average salary in many places was only two to three thousand, so what was there to be particular about?

Fish are raised in large numbers for the sake of yield, and all kinds of antibiotics are used. Rice needs fertilizers and pesticides, and in many places there are no frogs in the fields anymore, only some slightly stronger toads.

What can Jiang Cheng do in the face of all this? Many rural people grow and raise some of their own pollution-free products, but a bunch of leeks only costs a few cents and no one wants them.

If Jiang Cheng stood up now, he would only be hostile to many people. Jiang Cheng could only protect his own family, so he contracted some land and hired people to grow crops and vegetables, all of which were pollution-free.

For the sake of his grandchildren, Jiang Cheng also cooperated with others in the Inner Mongolia grasslands to develop a milk powder industry to ensure the safety of his grandchildren’s milk powder.

Jiang Cheng knew that the milk powder of those deer was unsafe, but he didn’t remember which year it was exposed. But Jiang Cheng had someone test the milk powder and found that there was no problem at present.

Now that they haven’t gone bankrupt, Jiang Cheng has no way to report them. But in 2006, Jiang Cheng noticed something: the Deer Group was included in the list of national inspection-free enterprises this year.

That is to say, before that, the group’s products had to be inspected, but they were exempted from inspection after 2006.

(End of this chapter)