Reborn in the red age

"Teacher Li, our company's research and development has entered a critical period. The chip design of the CNC switch will be completed in half a year at most, and we will unify the domestic telephone communication services within this half year."

"But, the company is currently facing financial difficulties. If we can get some funds at this time, we can speed up the progress again. Within three months, at most, we can produce a prototype."

After a lot of empty promises, Old Ren finally showed his true colors. He looked at Li Qingfeng expectantly, waiting for his answer.

Li Qingfeng tapped the table twice with his fingers. He did not directly answer Lao Ren's question, but invited him to eat: "There is no rush for investment. Let's eat first. The food is almost cold."

Faced with the possibility of a large investment, Lao Ren, who has invested all his fortune in the project, has no mood to eat at this time.

The company's funds had been in trouble some time ago. Lao Ren went to the bank alone to apply for a loan but was rejected by the bank. He didn't get a penny from the bank. Now the employees' salaries for next month are still not settled. Warwick has reached the end of its rope at this time, and Lao Ren is going crazy for money.

You should know that when the project was just starting to be developed, Ren said something cruel in front of all the employees: "If this development fails, I will have to jump off the building, and you can find another way out."

It can be said that Nintendo is making a huge gamble. If it wins, it can take over most of the domestic communications market share and make Huawei bigger and stronger.

If you lose the bet, you will lose everything and even your life.

Because it was Li Qingfeng's suggestion as a potential investor, even though he was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, he couldn't show it on his face. He could only nod and agree: "Yes, yes, let's eat first. You can talk about business anytime. Filling your stomach is the most important thing."

At the dinner table, Qingfeng Li chatted about all sorts of things while observing Lao Ren's facial expression.

Looking at Old Ren, who was chatting and laughing without showing any anxiety on his face, Li Qingfeng nodded secretly in his heart.

The reason why great people are great is that they must have qualities that ordinary people do not possess.

Lao Ren's ability to cultivate his qi alone is something that not many people can compare to.

After finishing his meal, Qingfeng Li put down his chopsticks and turned to look at Lao Ren: "Tell me, how much does it cost?"

"Ten million. Ten million is enough for our company's subsequent capital investment." After hearing Li Qingfeng's words, Lao Ren was stunned for a moment, then he reacted and spoke quickly.

"Dollars?"

“No, no, no, RMB is fine.”

"So what do I get?"

"Twenty percent of the shares"

After he finished speaking, Old Ren looked at Qingfeng Li anxiously, fearing that he would just get up and leave.

Li Qingfeng recalled the information he had obtained and found that Warwick's sales of analog switches last year were over 100 million.

However, as the technology of digital switches has matured and analog switches have become obsolete, sales this year have been very bleak, with sales so far not even reaching 10 million.

Currently, the only valuable thing Warwick has is the digital switch that is under development. They have invested several million in this project, and there is still a funding gap of several million in the future.

Normally speaking, exchanging 10 million for 20% of Warwick's shares is a losing deal. After all, no one has the ability to predict the future, and there is no guarantee whether the digital switch can be successfully developed.

As Lao Ren waited anxiously, Qingfeng Li smiled and said, "Okay, give me a company account number, and the money will be transferred to your company's account tomorrow."

Old Ren's eyes widened, his face full of disbelief. Don't be fooled by the fact that Old Ren's pie is very big, he just said that the sales volume will be 50 billion in ten years.

In fact, Ren Zhengfei is well aware of the value of his company. A business that may go bankrupt at any time is not worth 50 million at all.

Old Ren's mental expectation was to give 35% of the 10 million, and he had already prepared a plan for the ensuing verbal battle. However, what Old Ren did not expect was that Li Qingfeng would agree so readily, without any intention of bargaining.

After he realized what was happening, he was so excited that he couldn't suppress it. His voice trembled slightly. "I'll have someone prepare the contract right away."

"No need. After the funds arrive tomorrow, I will send someone to your company to sign the contract," Li Qingfeng waved his hand and said nonchalantly.

"Teacher Li, today is the first day we meet. That's a 10 million investment. Do you trust me so much?"

"It's only 10 million, not a lot of money. Our company's rest room spends more than this amount on tea and snacks every year."

"."

At the entrance of the small restaurant, Lao Ren and his ace engineer Xu Wenwei stayed where they were, watching Li Qingfeng's car go away.
Seeing the taillights of the car disappear around the corner, Xu Wenwei, who did not enter the restaurant, anxiously asked Lao Ren: "Boss, what do you think, is Mr. Li willing to invest in our company?"

"Oh, what a pity." Lao Ren did not answer Xu Wenwei's question. Instead, he pretended to be depressed and turned back to the hotel.

Looking at the boss's lonely back, Xu Wenwei's heart sank instantly. He stood at the door of the restaurant, his mind in chaos.

Didn't the investment go through? What about the company's digital switch project? Is the company really coming to an end?
Just as Xu Wenwei was standing at the door with some random thoughts, Lao Ren came out of the restaurant carrying the packed food.

Seeing Xu Wenwei standing at the door, Lao Ren showed a mysterious smile. He walked up and gently patted Xu Wenwei on the shoulder: "Wenwei, what are you daydreaming about? Let's go, don't stay here anymore."

"Boss, how's the investment going? Is there still hope for our company?" Xu Wenwei came back to his senses and looked at Lao Ren with a puzzled look on his face.

Lao Ren deliberately kept Xu Wenwei in suspense and did not directly answer his question. Instead, he continued walking forward with the food in his hand: "We've been tired all day. Let's find a guesthouse to sleep in for the night. We'll talk about it when we get there."

Xu Wenwei was even more worried, but he could only follow Lao Ren to the company. Along the way, he kept guessing about the results of the investment, and his mood became heavier.

Old Ren was used to being frugal, so even if he took Li Qingfeng's 10 million investment, he would not use it to enjoy a luxurious life.

The two of them spent ten yuan to book a double room in a small, shabby hotel nearby. After returning to the room, Lao Ren put the food on the table, then looked at Xu Wenwei with a bright smile on his face.

"Wenwei, I have good news for you. The investment has been negotiated. Mr. Li is willing to invest 10 million in our company. The money will be in the account tomorrow."

"Ah?" Xu Wenwei's eyes widened. He couldn't believe his ears. He looked at his boss in disbelief: "Did it work? Didn't you just say it was a pity?"

"Yeah, I mean the food is a waste. I ordered a whole table of food, but I didn't eat much and just left it there. Isn't that a waste?"

"Boss, you are so naughty"

The two of them booked an early morning flight back to Pengcheng the next day. After returning to the company, they immediately asked the finance department to go to the bank to check the accounts.

The finance department returned from the bank soon and reported the news of the investment arrival to Mr. Ren with a happy face.

That afternoon, after receiving a notification from Li Qingfeng, the Lemon Company's Hong Kong headquarters sent someone to contact Lao Ren first. Then the employees of the investment department crossed the border and came to Warwick to formally sign a share transfer agreement with Lao Ren.

The company received a huge investment, and it came from the giant enterprise Lemon Company. After the news spread, the company instantly boiled over, the employees cheered and called Nintendo awesome.

Many employees who had given up hope on the company and had already written their resignation letters quietly put away the resignation letters they had prepared in advance in their drawers.

As soon as the funds arrived, the R&D department immediately plunged into intensive work, and the company's engineers worked day and night to optimize the design plan.

Lao Ren started recruiting on a large scale again. The recruitment car that had been out of service for a long time was restarted, and he sent a car to the talent center every day to bring people back for interviews.

When recruiting people in the past, Ren had little money in his pocket and no confidence, so he had to rely on making big promises to retain talent.

With the investment from Lemon Company this time, Ren Zhengfei is more confident when recruiting. He no longer needs to make big promises. As long as he tells the company's investors who they are, these usually arrogant technical talents will rush to express their desire to stay.

Just as Warwick was booming, Li Qingfeng, who had stayed in Gusu for a while and wanted to go home to see his parents, received news from Sijiu City and had to give up the idea and fly back to Sijiu City.

"Why did you call me back so urgently? What happened? Please tell me in detail."

After getting off the plane, Li Qingfeng got into the special car sent by Huaxin and asked Xie Wanmin, the secretary of Huaxin's internal party group, who was sitting in the co-pilot seat.

Xie Wanmin did not speak, but took out a thick stack of documents and handed them to Li Qingfeng: "Teacher Li, please take a look at the details first. I will explain them to you while I read them."

Taking the document from Xie Wanmin, Li Qingfeng began to read it carefully.

"The University of International Business and Economics, the United Nations Center on Transnational Corporations and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation jointly launched a conference on the development of foreign-invested enterprises in China"

"The conference is called "Capital 1993 Multinational Corporations and China". The conference will be held from September 9 to 9 at the International Trade Center. The purpose of this conference is to promote foreign investment and business expansion in China and promote the integration of the domestic and world economies."

"At present, more than 30 multinational companies with investments in China, such as Motorola and Siemens, have confirmed that they will attend this conference. In addition, the conference organizers have also sent invitations to companies that have not invested in China, but have not received a response yet."

While looking through the documents and listening to Xie Wanmin's story, Li Qingfeng finally understood what was going on.

There are two important stages in the country's economic development history, one is in 2008 and the other is this year.

Li Qingfeng knew something about this meeting. With the conclusion of last year's Southern Tour, the pace of domestic reform and opening up has accelerated. In order to attract foreign investment and give reassurance to foreign companies that have already invested in the country, such a meeting was held in the country.

Thanks to the extremely preferential policies given to foreign-funded enterprises, this conference achieved good results. After the conference, foreign capital began to enter the country on a large scale, and joint ventures emerged like mushrooms after a rain.

As foreign capital came in, old domestic products began to gradually decline, and many well-known brands at this time slowly disappeared from the people's sight.

In general, there are pros and cons. Although we lost a lot after opening up to foreign investment, the domestic economy has indeed ushered in rapid growth, and people's lives have become much better.

After roughly reviewing the documents, Li Qingfeng frowned and asked in confusion: "What does this have to do with us? If the country sends an invitation letter to our company, we will send representatives to participate. Why did they call me back?"

"According to the information I received, the organizers sent out a lot of invitations, but not many received clear responses."

"So you called me here to use the name of Lemon Company to invite international companies and attract as many companies as possible?"

"Yes"

Li Qingfeng nodded in understanding. He understood what Xie Wanmin meant. The higher-ups wanted Li Qingfeng to come and support this meeting.

After all, the higher-ups attached so much importance to this meeting, but in the end not many companies attended. In such a large conference hall, there were only a few dozen people sitting sparsely, which was more or less a bit embarrassing.

Li Qingfeng thought for a while and asked Xie Wanmin to reply that he would do his best to invite as many foreign-funded enterprises as possible to this meeting.

When Hu Jiabao returned home with the two children, he had not yet finished work. He asked Cai Genhua, who came to clean the house, to take the two children out to play, while he took the list of international companies provided by the organizer and began to study them one by one.

"IBM is Lemon Company's old rival, and we have a big grudge against each other, but it's not a big problem. We can try inviting them."

"Compaq, Dell, Apple, HP, Intel, AMD are American computer companies. It's not a big deal. Just give them a heads up."

"Toshiba, Panasonic, NEC, Samsung. Japanese and Korean companies are not a big problem. They all have computer businesses. They should give me a favor and send people to participate."

After ticking off all the well-known companies in the world involved in computer product business, Li Qingfeng checked the list of companies that had done business with Lemon Company and began to check them off one by one.

After selecting seventy or eighty companies, Li Qingfeng felt that it was enough, so he sent the list to the headquarters and asked Fang Wanzhen to arrange for someone to contact the companies on the list and invite them to attend a domestic meeting in September.

In addition, Li Qingfeng also sent piles of invitations to Lemon Company's branches and offices around the world.

Local leaders were asked to mobilize their personal connections and invite well-known local companies to attend the meeting.

In a word, just give it a try. If you can come, that's the best. If not, forget it. Invitation letters are cheap anyway, so just print as many as you want.

Even if we don’t succeed at all, it doesn’t matter. There are still more than 30 companies in the world involved in computer business at the bottom, and they will definitely come.

Don't ask why Qingfeng Li is so confident. The answer is that his status in the martial arts world is there, so it's hard not to be confident. (End of this chapter)