Agricultural giant since 1983

Chapter 9

"Sleeping for a hundred years, the people of the country are gradually waking up, open your eyes, and watch carefully! Who would like to admit it."

Outside a restaurant, there is a TV set. On the screen, Guangdong TV Station is playing the TV series "Heroes Huo Yuanjia" produced by ATV the year before last.

The shed built by the hotel itself was full of people, and everyone watched the TV without blinking, for fear of missing any shots.

This is the first Xiangjiang TV series imported from the mainland. For the mainlanders who are used to old-fashioned shows, everything in "Heroes Huo Yuanjia" is so novel that they will think about it every time the TV series is broadcast. Find a way to find a family with a TV to watch.

As a result, there are clever businesses trying to get TV sets to attract customers, and this restaurant is one of them.

This method really worked, diners from the whole street were attracted to his restaurant, and the bosses of nearby restaurants could only stand at the door and envy them, as there were no customers in their restaurant at all.

Seeing three people coming in front, these bosses didn't bother to recruit them. They must be watching TV.

"Hey, what is this for? Why is it so lively?" Liu Yonghao asked curiously when he saw it.

"Watching TV! Ever since the Hong Kong martial arts movie "Heroes Huo Yuanjia" started broadcasting, no one was seen on the street, and everyone went to watch TV! Come, come, we don't care about him, the seafood porridge here is good, I invite you to try it." Wang Shi dragged them into the restaurant next door.

He was the one who talked to Li Lei and Liu Yonghao at the gate of Zhengda Kangdi Company earlier. After learning that those big iron jars contained corn, Wang Shi keenly grasped something.

It's a pity that Zhengdakang's company was off work at that time, and he had no choice but to go in and ask, so he dragged the two of them over for dinner, wanting to get more information.

After Ma Liu ordered a few dishes, Wang Shi couldn't wait to ask, "You just said that these corns were shipped from Thailand and the United States via Xiangjiang? How expensive is that?"

"We have also asked about this. People from Chia Tai Company said that buying corn from the United States and Thailand, plus shipping costs, costs [-] cents a catty, which is much more expensive than where we are!" Li Lei said while wiping his chopsticks.

In the 80s, my country’s grain prices were facing major adjustments. Before the 80s, a catty of wheat was 0.12 yuan, processed into flour, 0.18 yuan per catty, corn price was 0.09 yuan, and processed into flour was about 0.13 yuan per catty, and a catty of rice was 0.14 yuan. The price of rice is 0.18 yuan.

These prices are for urban residents with non-agricultural household registration. As the saying goes, they eat commodity grain, and urban residents use this price to buy grain.

In addition, due to the low rice production in the north, most farmers cannot eat rice, and urban residents also have a limited supply of rice, each with only five catties a month.

With the reform and opening up of land distribution to households, the national grain price has also begun to adjust. Wheat has been adjusted from the original 0.12 yuan per catty to 0 yuan, 3 yuan, 0.4 yuan, and 0 yuan. Then, it has been rising to The current price is about 5 yuan; corn has risen from 0.6 yuan to the current 1.5 yuan, and rice has risen from 0.09 yuan to the current 1.4 yuan.

In other words, from the early 80s to 2022, food prices have increased by about 40 times in 10 years, which sounds like a lot, but compared with the income of residents, it is nothing at all.

"Then why don't they use the corn from the Northeast? I remember reading a newspaper some time ago that the corn in the Northeast only costs [-] cents a catty, and many of them can't be sold if they want to sell, so they can only be put to rot in the warehouse!" Wang Shi asked eagerly. .

After more than 30 years of reclamation and consolidation after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Northeast has become one of the main grain producing areas in the country. However, due to the backward infrastructure and inconvenient transportation, many grains in the Northeast cannot be sold outside.

"The manager said that they also want to use corn from the Northeast. Do they want to do business? Who doesn't want cheaper raw materials? But they just don't know where to get the transportation quota, or where to get the wagons." Li Lei spread his hands.

Nowadays, train freight is still in the period of planned economy. What to transport and how much to transport are subject to quotas. If you can’t get the quotas, it’s useless to be in a hurry.

"Indicator?" Wang Shi turned his eyes and asked tentatively, "If our unit can solve the problem of transportation indicators, and transport the northeast corn to Shenzhen, will Zhengda Company accept it?"

Wang Shi joined the army at the age of 17 and worked as a transport soldier in Xuzhou and TLF for five years. After retiring from the army, he burned boilers in Zhengzhou Railway Bureau for a period of time, and then was admitted to Lanzhou Railway College. The economic committee has just been assigned to Shenzhen not long ago.

This work experience, coupled with his wife's background, gave him the ability to obtain enough railway transportation indicators to bring corn from the northeast to Shenzhen.

In the past two years, those who started to make money first became richer and richer. Wang Shi, who was unwilling to be lonely, also had some thoughts, always wanted to find a way to get rich, Li Lei's words made him feel that he had found an opportunity.

However, he kept an eye out and didn't say that he planned to do it himself, but pushed it to the unit, lest others would find out and act first.

Li Lei naturally knew what he was thinking, but he had neither working experience in the railway industry nor a solid family background, so Wang Shi could earn this money, but he and Liu Yonghao could not.

"It's still the same sentence. Zhengda Company opened the factory to make money. Why not use cheaper raw materials? If you don't believe it, why don't you talk to them when you go to work tomorrow!"

"Well, I'll report to the leader when I get to work! Come on, let's eat!" Wang Shi already had some concerns in his mind, so he stopped talking about corn and invited them to taste delicious food.

The three of them ate and chatted, and they naturally talked about doing business. Liu Yonghao had experience, Wang Shi had ideas, and Li Lei had a broad vision, and the conversation became more speculative.

". It has been several years since the reform and opening up. The problem of not having enough food in the countryside has been solved, but the supply of other commodities is still insufficient. Except for Hong Kong businessmen, other foreign capitals are still not interested in our investment! So there will definitely be more in the future. The policy will be further relaxed.”

"How did the old man criticize the fool Nian Guangjiu? 'Leave it for two years', what does that mean? Just don't argue, move forward and see the effect!"

Chatting until the restaurant closed was still not satisfying, so Wang Shi simply took the two of them to the guest house of his unit, arranged a room, brought beer and continued chatting, and finally fell asleep without knowing when.

When he woke up, the working hours had already passed, so Wang Shi simply borrowed the phone number from the hostel to ask for a vacation with the unit, invited them to have breakfast, and then asked about their arrangements for the day.

"I have to go back, the train in the afternoon." Liu Yonghao still wants to see more, but his own breeding farm is still waiting for fish meal.

"I'm going to go to Zhengda Company again." Li Lei was going to Zhengda to make money.

(End of this chapter)