Not two days after the project team's sign was put up, Liu Li led a small, capable team on a train heading south. The team included Zhao Qiang, the quick-thinking deputy head of the sales department who was always on the go; Sun Mei, the production department accountant who was extremely sensitive to material and process costs; and Xiao Zhou, a young technician from the technical department who had recently graduated but was full of curiosity about new things. Their purpose was clear—to delve into the coastal areas, truly feel the pulse of the market, and find the most precise direction for the transformation of the Hongxing Factory.

The train roared away from the familiar northern industrial city. The scenery outside the window gradually changed from gray factories and chimneys to fields dotted with scattered towns, then to large areas of carefully cultivated farmland, and more and more newly built low-rise factories.

A few days later, when they stepped into a small town in Guangdong Province that was famous for its commerce, the scene that greeted them gave everyone a huge visual and conceptual shock.

Unlike the orderly yet somewhat somber factory area of ​​the Red Star Factory, this place is densely packed with shops and workshops of all sizes along the streets. The air is thick with the smells of raw materials, food, and sweat, and the cacophony of shouts, machine noises, and haggling fills the air. The streets are teeming with people, dressed in various styles, hurrying along, their faces displaying a rare combination of desire for wealth and busyness rarely seen on the faces of those working at the Red Star Factory.

Zhao Qiang knew the area well and led them through the bustling market and industrial product stalls.

"Team Leader Liu, look," Zhao Qiang pointed to a crowd gathered in front of a stall where a small, hand-cranked corn thresher was being demonstrated, "This thing is very simple in structure: a cast iron casing, a roller with protruding nails, and a few gears for transmission. Any apprentice in our factory could make it! But look at all the people buying it!"

Liu Li leaned closer to examine it closely. The threshing machine was crudely made, with burrs even on the surface of the cast iron parts. It was very noisy when it was running, but it was indeed much faster than manual labor and cheaper. Farmers kept coming around to ask about the price.

They then entered a shop specializing in small hardware. It was filled with wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers, hinges, and bolts of various sizes. Sun Mei picked up an adjustable wrench, weighed it in her hand, examined its workmanship, and whispered to Liu Li, "Team leader, the materials and heat treatment here can't compare to the products in our factory's tool workshop. The precision is also inferior, yet the price... is less than a third of our similar products."

The shop owner, a lean middle-aged man, saw that they looked like cadres from a large factory in the north and greeted them warmly: "Comrades, what are you looking for? Bulk discounts available! All of this is produced in our own workshop, so the cost is low!"

They also saw small feed grinders, simple noodle presses, and even tabletop electric fans with plastic shells made to imitate foreign styles... The variety was dazzling. Although most of them were crudely made and not technologically advanced, they all met the needs of farmers and ordinary citizens at the time to improve production and increase the efficiency of their lives.

Liu Li watched and listened in silence, deeply moved. The vitality here stood in stark contrast to the dusty, "high-quality" industrial products in the Hongxing Factory warehouse. She clearly saw a burgeoning, enormous market for consumer goods, a market that didn't care whether you were a "state-owned enterprise" or how sophisticated your technology was; it only cared about two things: whether you could meet actual needs and whether the price was affordable.

That evening, in the dim light of the town's guesthouse, the project team held a lively discussion.

Zhao Qiang said excitedly, "Team Leader Liu, see? The market is right here! It's huge! Our factory can easily outperform them in quality with anything we make! The key is to lower costs and drive down prices!"

Sun Mei held a small notebook filled with estimated material costs and approximate selling prices for various products: "Cost control is key. We can optimize the design and reduce unnecessary materials; for some non-critical parts, we can consider outsourcing to local small factories, as their costs are lower."

Young technician Xiao Zhou was very interested in a simple water pump he saw: "Engineer Liu, that water pump works on a very simple principle, but it doesn't seal well and is prone to leaking. If we use better sealing materials and technology, we can increase the cost slightly, but the durability will be much better, and it will definitely be competitive!"

As Liu Li listened to everyone's remarks, the massive machine tools and skilled workers of the Hongxing Factory kept overlapping and colliding in her mind with the rough but best-selling small commodities in front of her. A clear idea became increasingly clear—the Hongxing Factory could not cling to its "high-tech" pedestal; it had to humble itself and use its own technological and quality management advantages to produce the civilian products that this era needed most: reliable quality and affordable prices.

“We don’t make shoddy products,” Liu Li concluded with a firm gaze, “but we want to learn from their keen grasp of market demand and their extreme cost control. Our goal is to use the technical expertise of the Hongxing Factory to make ‘conscientious products’ that are of better quality, more durable, and competitively priced than existing products on the market.”

She paused, looked out the window at the dimly lit yet vibrant night view of the southern town, and said, word by word:

"The focus will be on small household agricultural machinery and everyday hardware tools. We'll start by working on a small hand-cranked corn thresher and an improved household hand pump! Let's get started as soon as we get back!"

The market research trip was like a spiritual cleansing, completely dispelling the last vestiges of confusion in the project team's minds. They embarked on their journey home, laden with notes, several purchased samples, and a heart ignited by the market, eager to make a big impact. In the humid and vibrant air of the south, the blueprint for the transformation of the Red Star Factory became incredibly clear and concrete.