"You need to bring a lot of supplies over?" Chang Gui didn't immediately answer Yuan Wai's question, but instead asked his own.
"It's alright, I just wanted to try and see if this path would work." Yuan Wai didn't reveal his true intentions.
During the phone call, Wang Shouren said that this person was trustworthy, but how trustworthy he was was up to them to judge.
With a normal smile, she wasn't surprised: "So, which route do you plan to take? The official route, or the non-official route?"
"What's the difference between these two?" Yuan Li didn't ask too many questions.
“Going through the non-official channels is much less troublesome. When trading with them, it’s just a matter of exchanging money for goods. Going through the official channels is much more complicated. If you don’t do anything, you have to give them two big yellow croakers first before you can even meet them.”
"Good heavens, we have to meet with big yellow croaker?" Yuan Wai couldn't help but want to swear.
"What else do you think? Those who take the unofficial route can't consume much. If they have too much of your supplies, they might consider consuming you directly or selling you to the government. If you take the official route directly, there's no such concern."
"What do the two sides use to trade?" Yuan Li asked calmly.
"It's up to you. Rubles, gold, guns, anything is fine. If you have enough stuff, they'll send someone over to pick it up, saving you the trouble."
"Let's go through the official channels, it'll be more reassuring. However, we might not have that much stuff. I estimate it'll only fill a train car."
"Hey, you don't need to tell me these things." Chang Gui waved his hand: "I only take money once. Once you've made contact with them, it's none of my business anymore. At most, I'll point you to a place later so that the people here won't find out."
"So, brother, how much did you charge for this trip?"
"Look at you guys. Here." Chang Gui pulled out a small notebook from his pocket and handed it over: "You're going through the official channels, right? This is a record of the official channels. Let's make this clear first, you can only contact the lowest level of that line. Take your time with the transactions. I don't know if the people behind them will even see you. Don't come looking for trouble later when you can't find them."
"It's not that bad, it's not that bad." Yuan Wai took it and handed it to Yuan Li.
Yuan Li opened the notebook and his pupils contracted.
Good heavens, it's filled with countless names, and even details about each person's position in the city and who's behind them are all meticulously researched.
Could this guy be a spy...?
Seeing Yuan Li's demeanor, Chang Gui couldn't help but smugly say, "Shouren taught me this. He told me that every smuggler wants to do something different. Some want money, some want connections. He told me to deal with different approaches and provide different solutions. In the end, I shouldn't ask too many questions. Once I've introduced the smuggler, I should just leave and not talk too much. Taking the money once is enough."
Yuan Li: ...
This is what professionalism is all about.
Finally, after both parties agreed on the price, Chang Gui left, leaving them to wait there.
"This guy is really..." Yuan Wai hesitated for a long time, not knowing how to describe Chang Gui.
"It looks pretty reliable, but I didn't expect it to be this wild." Yuan Li also took a deep breath.
Anyone with a modicum of sense would know that the contents of that list were extraordinary; God knows how this former hunter managed to obtain it. However, this is none of their business.
"Our ultimate goal is to poach talent, isn't it?"
“Yes, poaching people, and some data on advanced weapons.” Yuan Li nodded. “However, it’s probably not possible at this stage. Brother Shouren said to establish trade first. Fortunately, Sister Qin also has supplies that can be sold. In a few years, when the area develops, there will be more supplies, and the sales volume should be quite large. In addition, we also need to get some things from other channels.”
"Why……"
"Why are you sighing? Haven't you always wanted to make a deal with these people?"
"I do want to, but I want to go to Hong Kong to make money. You have no idea how prosperous Hong Kong is, and how voluptuous the girls are..."
"I'll tell my sister-in-law when I get back..."
"Hey, hey, hey, Xiao Li, I was just kidding, I was just kidding, don't you dare..."
————
Wang Shouren was concerned about the border situation, but didn't dwell on it much. The collapse of that behemoth was still some time away. In fact, it would be several years before they could sell off their assets. In the present-day Soviet Union, selling light industrial products in was easy, but taking things out was not so easy.
That behemoth hasn't reached that point yet.
What troubles him now is the old man in front of him.
It wasn't the one from Wuhan who came, but the old professor from Wudaokou.
They rushed to find Wang Shouren.
"You little brat, if you want to work on chips, why don't you come to this old man? Why go to that institute in Wuhan? Are you trying to drive this old man crazy?! Don't you know that we've already developed a fourth-generation distributed projection lithography machine? The precision can even reach 3 micrometers. Even on the international stage, this old man dares to say it's top-notch!"
At this point, ASML, the lithography machine giant, had not yet been born.
Wang Shouren wasn't really familiar with the history of lithography machines; he only learned about current research through some older professors. He subconsciously overlooked Wudaokou, since he'd never heard of it when he was in Beijing.
"You didn't tell me about this either."
Actually, during this period, China was gradually catching up in many areas. However, later, capital entered the market, promoting the idea that "it's better to buy than to build, and better to rent than to buy." Coupled with our genuine need for funds at the time, we didn't have enough capital to invest. Gradually, we fell behind international standards, just as this professor described.
Even if there is a gap, it is only a matter of a few years and has not reached such a huge extent.
"If I didn't tell you, wouldn't you have asked? Tell me, what do you want to do? If my apprentice hadn't come and asked me about you, I wouldn't have known you were up to this!"
Good heavens, he's your apprentice!
"I just rejected you and came here by myself. So tell me, what are you trying to do?"
"A lithography machine, what else could it be? It's a chip, of course."
"Chips," the old professor said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Chips are certainly possible, but the question is, can you find the people who design them?"
Wang Shouren: ...
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