Chapter 41 Chapter 41 Military Industry to Japan

"Oh wow, it really works! The mildew stains on this piece of fabric have all been washed off!" Aunt Liu took a few pieces of fabric from the bamboo clothesline, took off her reading glasses, put them back on, and examined them for a long time. She was convinced, "Yes, there's no mildew on these pieces at all, but there's still some on these two pieces."

Liu Mianmian took the pieces of cloth. The ones with the least mold spots had basically been washed away, and the ones with the most mold spots were almost the same as the ones they had picked out to sell at the market.

"Comrade Shen Weizhuo, you are amazing!" Liu Mianmian gave Shen Weizhuo a thumbs up. The boss is worthy of being a boss. The half-finished research results left by his previous life can make Shen Weihong easily become a big shot in the industry. Not to mention the research results of this life, it seems that he didn't spend much effort at all to study the mold removal agent. It was a piece of cake.

The key is that the thing he researched has a very low cost, which means that they can turn defective cloth into ordinary cloth, or especially defective cloth into ordinary defective cloth without spending much money.

Conservatively speaking, I should be able to earn several thousand more.

By the way, you can also sell this thing.

They don't have to think of a solution. Shen Weizhuo and his team can just study all the companies they usually contact and ask them to help produce a batch.

After the leadership instituted a policy of major military reductions, military equipment procurement was virtually frozen starting at the end of last year. Consequently, orders from military-industrial enterprises were drastically reduced. Some sensitive military factories, sensing the potential for tough times ahead, began seeking transformation.

Shen Weizhou contacted this company to produce the mold remover, and naturally, he paid for it. The person at the company was also very smart and thought there should be a market for this product. So, after discussing it with Shen Weizhou, they spent 1,000 yuan to buy the formula. They not only produced the amount Liu Mianmian and her team needed, but also planned to produce some to sell to textile mills, garment factories, and supply and marketing cooperatives.

After hearing about this, Liu Mianmian had a dorm room talk with Shen Weizhuo and seriously discussed the possibility of making laundry powder and laundry liquid.

Then the next day, Shen Weizhuo came back with two lead buckets filled with laundry powder and laundry liquid.

Before dinner, Liu Mianmian soaked the dirty clothes, with laundry detergent in one enamel basin and laundry liquid in another. After dinner, the whole family gathered by the well and watched Liu Mianmian and Aunt Liu wash the clothes.

Liu Mianmian's basin was filled with laundry detergent. Just rubbing the clothes would make them clean, and the soap foam could be easily rinsed off. The only drawback was that the smell was very ordinary, unlike the laundry detergents and liquid detergents of later generations, which came in a variety of scents.

It's not a bad smell, but it's just average, very straight.

There are laundry detergents available on the market, but the overall production process is at a basic level, not to mention the fragrance and packaging. Shen Weizhou's laundry detergent has a finer powder texture and better rinsing performance than those sold outside. If they could improve the fragrance and packaging, they should be able to surpass most similar products on the market.

As for laundry detergent, this thing is not available on the market yet, and it may not even be popular abroad. If it can be made well, it may be possible to export it and earn foreign exchange.

Of course, the prerequisite is that the fragrance and packaging must be improved.

Aunt Liu also finished washing the clothes quickly and said that this stuff was much better than the laundry detergent she bought at the supply and marketing cooperative. However, she was puzzled: "It is better, but why do you need laundry detergent when you already have laundry detergent? It's the same thing."

Liu Mianmian explained, "When we use a washing machine to wash clothes, sometimes some of the detergent sticks to the clothes and doesn't get them clean. When we take them out to dry, we find a clot stuck somewhere, right? Laundry detergent doesn't have this problem; it dissolves quickly when poured into water."

Yu Wan nodded: "Yes, I have encountered it a few times when I was washing clothes."

Liu Mianmian: "So I think laundry detergent is suitable for hand washing, laundry liquid is suitable for machine washing, and soap is suitable for washing small items."

Pointing to the soap, washing powder, and laundry liquid placed aside, he said, "These three things each have their own function, which will make washing clothes more convenient. However, now, these three things have a small flaw."

He put his thumb and index finger together and made a heart shape to Shen Weizhuo.

Shen Weizhou didn't understand, raised an eyebrow, and asked, "What's the flaw?" There were already ready-made laundry detergents on the market. He bought some and analyzed them briefly, figuring out the ingredients and ratios. He also optimized them, confident that they were definitely better than other similar products on the market. The same was true for laundry liquid; all indicators were already optimized.

"Of course it's the fragrance!" Liu Mianmian picked up a washed shirt and sniffed it. "Now these washed clothes all smell like detergent. If they could smell like soap after washing, wouldn't it be better?"

"Also, the laundry detergent on the market is currently packed in a thin plastic bag with crude printing. If we can get a more refined packaging, wouldn't it look more upscale?"

"Especially laundry detergent, its target customers are families who own washing machines. These families are relatively well-off and are naturally willing to spend more money on laundry detergent that looks high-end, smells good, and doesn't leave a mess of powder on clothes when washing."

After a brief pause, Liu Mianmian continued, "I believe this product will have a larger market not only in the mainland, but also in Hong Kong and even overseas, in places with better economic conditions."

Shen Bokang, Uncle Wang, and Wang Zhiyuan, these rough old men, all wanted to say at first, it’s just washing clothes, why is it so troublesome? It has to be as fragrant as soap and have beautiful and high-end packaging.

After listening to Liu Mianmian's analysis, the three people's eyes suddenly lit up.

Nowadays, all Chinese people know how difficult it is for a country to earn foreign exchange. It would be great if this thing could be sold to Hong Kong or even abroad.

Shen Bokang pondered, "I've met some foreign experts, and they really pay attention to details in life. Many of them even have the habit of wearing perfume. You can smell it when you sit next to them in a meeting."

Liu Mianmian nodded. "We can refer to the scents of their perfumes and produce some classic scents, such as citrus, woody, floral, and fruity. Oh, and since we've already made laundry detergent, we can also consider making body wash and shampoo. Just think about it, after taking a shower and washing your hair, you'll smell delicious. I'm sure lesbians of all ages will like that, right?"

Aunt Liu blushed: "Oh, the soap smells pretty good after washing."

Liu Mianmian winked at her and said, "It can be more fragrant." Then she turned to Shen Bokang and Yu Wan and said, "Mom and Dad, don't you agree?"

"You mischievous ghost!" Yu Wan laughed. "But I think you're right. If I could use this kind of emulsion-like, easy-to-wash body wash and shampoo, and with the various scents you mentioned, I'd be happy to pick some up."

As the supervisory authority over the major military factories, the National Defense Industry Office has been facing a recent headache. With military equipment procurement frozen, many military factories have seen their production targets shrunk exponentially. The remaining production capacity can't remain idle, so they must find another way to grow it.

Several military factory leaders have come to them to complain that converting military industry to civilian use is easy to say but very difficult to do.

"You originally asked Factory 102 to produce the mildew remover, right? Are you planning to ask them to produce the laundry detergent and liquid laundry detergent as well?" Yu Wan asked.

Liu Mianmian looked at Shen Weizhuo: "I'm just providing an idea." Meaning that she doesn't care about anything else.

Shen Weizhou thought for a moment and asked, "Mom, what do you think?"

Yu Wan: "102 originally dealt in raw materials, and they've already made mold removers, so it's a good fit to continue making laundry detergent and liquid laundry detergent. As for body wash and shampoo, Wei Zhou, please contact Factory 107. Engineer Liao from their factory previously worked in a shampoo factory."

Shen Weizhou nodded.

Liu Mianmian looked at Yu Wan with bright eyes. As expected, although her cheap mother-in-law was usually so gentle and easy to talk to, when it came to work, she exuded a kind of shining confidence and determination.

Yu Wan looked at Liu Mianmian, curved her lips into a smile, and returned to her friendly and gentle demeanor: "Mianmian, what's wrong?"

Liu Mianmian hugged her arms and said, "I feel that you are so great, Mom."

Yu Wan was so pleased with the compliment that she beamed: "Mianmian is amazing. She can come up with so many ideas."

"I'm good too, you're good too, and Shen Weizhou is good too." Liu Mianmian said shamelessly, "But I'm only good at talking. I can use my mouth and my brain, but I can't do it if you really ask me to do it." In fact, she is just an idle fish in her bones, and she just flips through it automatically occasionally.

Yu Wan laughed. In fact, she also noticed that her daughter-in-law had a very active mind and many clever ideas, but she was a bit lazy and only wanted to use her brain but not do anything herself.

Of course, Yu Wan thinks that it is good to be able to use one's brain. She has seen many people who are just sitting there doing nothing. People with active brains like Liu Mianmian can sometimes bring unexpected progress to the work.

Just like this time, Factory 102 and Factory 107 might be revitalized because of her ideas.

This is the greatest contribution, thought Yu Wan, who was protective of her.

The mold-killing agent was produced very quickly. A few days later, when Jiang Hongmei and her colleagues went to the market again, they brought not only fabric but also a box of mold-killing agent in small glass bottles. This product was mainly based on small profits but quick turnover, so there was no fancy packaging.

Following Liu Mianmian's suggestion, Jiang Hongmei got a bucket of water in front of the stall and demonstrated it to everyone.

This caused a huge problem. The fabrics that had been picked out with fewer mold spots were no longer popular, and the aunts and grandmas started to grab the fabrics with the most mold spots.

It is a great deal to buy this kind of fabric. The price is much lower. You can also buy a bottle of mildew remover that can be used for a long time. It won’t take long to remove most of the mildew stains.

The remaining mildew remover can be kept for further use. In the future, if your towels, clothes, and sheets at home are moldy or have spots, you can use this thing to remove the mildew spots. In short, you save money on fabrics and get a bottle of magical mildew remover for free.

Jiang Hongmei had no idea how the aunties and grandmas calculated the rounding. Anyway, the cloths that she was most worried about not being able to sell were now selling very well. They were so popular that she simply brought two or three pieces of the best ones for comparison during the next few market sessions.

This solved two more problems.

First, Liu Mianmian originally wanted to make the mold remover, thinking she would remove the mold stains herself and then sell the fabric at the market. But who would do this became a problem. After all, there was a lot of fabric, and since they all had to go to the market or work, Aunt Liu, the only one with time, couldn't do much.

Now customers buy their own mold removers and take them home, so the pressure in this regard is greatly reduced.

Another reason was that Liu Mianmian had originally planned to ask Aunt Liu to call a few people to help them at home to treat the batch of fabrics with the least mildew, so that they could sell them as normal fabrics later. However, Liu Mianmian estimated that Aunt Liu and her team's processing speed would not be able to keep up with the sales speed.

Now, everyone wants to sell the fabrics with the most mildew spots, and those with fewer mildew spots can be kept at home and dealt with slowly.

There are quite a lot of aunties in the alley who have nothing to do at home, especially those whose children and grandchildren have gone to work or school. Apart from washing clothes and cooking, they have nothing to do.

So Aunt Liu just called out and several aunts came to help. They didn't care about the few dollars Liu Mianmian gave them as wages. Everyone was very interested in turning the moldy cloth back into normal clean cloth with their own hands.

In the words of later generations, this very act made them feel very accomplished.

Of course, during this process, these aunts with good economic conditions also bought some fabrics to wash away the mildew stains by themselves, and some also bought mildew removers.

Through word of mouth, the aunties and grandmas in several nearby alleys soon learned that the Shen family in No. 9 Courtyard had cheap fabrics and magical mildew removers for sale, so they came to buy them.

Gradually, Aunt Liu opened a shop selling fabrics and mildew removers in Yard No. 9. Liu Mianmian calculated her commission, and before long, Aunt Liu received more than 100 yuan in labor fees plus commission.

It’s more than Uncle Wang’s monthly salary.

Aunt Liu has been walking with her back straight lately.

On Shen Weizhuo's side, referring to Liu Mianmian's suggestions, he worked with engineers from Factory 102 to optimize the formula of laundry detergent and laundry liquid, and finally came up with two scents: rose and citrus.

It was also Liu Mianmian's suggestion that Shen Weizhuo did not sell the formula directly to Factory 102 this time, but signed a profit-sharing contract with them.

In fact, when Shen Weizhou approached Factory 102 to produce the anti-mold cleaner, the factory had already been shut down for two weeks due to a lack of orders. The factory leaders racked their brains but couldn't figure out what kind of transformation they could do with a factory that produced raw materials for military applications.

Hearing that there was a huge demand for fertilizer, they were preparing to ask their superiors to switch to fertilizer production. Although other units were already vying for this project and even had a better advantage than them, there was really no other choice but to give it a try.

Then Shen Weizhuo came to the door.

Even though the quantity was small, the people at Factory 102 found that there was a certain market demand for this thing after evaluation, and that it was more suitable for their production than chemical fertilizers. That was why they simply purchased the formula from Shen Weizhuo.

After the products were produced, they were quickly sent to major supply and marketing cooperatives and department stores, and unexpectedly found that the sales were quite good.

Moreover, when their salesmen contacted textile and clothing factories, they were warmly welcomed. The people from the clothing factories were particularly excited, saying that if their product could be produced sooner, they might not have to sell off their batch of fabrics with mold spots at a low price.

What surprised Factory 102 even more was that after the mold remover, Shen Weizhuo actually gave them a formula for laundry detergent and laundry liquid.

Well, they have found a way to transform military industry into Japanese industry.

Regarding this fragrant and easy-to-wash laundry detergent and liquid, the people at Factory 102 expressed their absolute confidence that they could sell it not only in the south of the city, but also in the capital and Shanghai, and even abroad!

After coming up with the idea, Liu Mianmian naturally returned to her regular life of playing the piano in a western restaurant every day.

At noon that day, Liu Mianmian returned to Yard No. 9 after get off work and met Aunt Liu who was walking out in a hurry. Aunt Liu was absent-minded and almost bumped into her.

"Aunt Liu, what's wrong?"

Seeing Liu Mianmian, Aunt Liu breathed a sigh of relief: "I was just about to look for you. The school called and said Weiyun was in trouble. The teacher called the police and asked the parents to come over quickly. I called the research institute and the National Defense Industry Office, but no one answered."