Chapter 156
Xia Juhua asked the secretary to rest assured that Qi Weidong and Liuxi could solve the problem of eating by themselves, and Director Yang could discuss it with her anytime he wanted. The secretary nodded and briefly introduced the nearby markets where Qi Weidong and Liuxi could buy things and the locations of state-owned hotels where they could eat before leaving.
Qi Weidong closed the door carefully, and then asked in a low voice: "Auntie, if you go with Director Yang to receive foreign guests, I'm afraid you won't be able to leave. Can we still do what we want to do to find the source of goods?"
Liu Xi looked at Xia Juhua suddenly. He thought he had heard everything Qi Weidong said just now, but he didn't understand a word.
Xia Juhua thought for a moment, then told Qi Wei where the Dongyangcheng Supply and Marketing Cooperative was located and said, "Go there first and ask about the prices. After I finish receiving the foreign guests, we can work together to find a way."
Qi Weidong had no objection to this. He planned to take Liu Xi around Guangzhou after dinner. He believed that even without Xia Juhua's help, with his many years of experience in the black market, he could find out the black market in Guangzhou if he had enough time.
As for not hiding it from Liu Xi and taking him to the black market, it was Qi Weidong's cleverness: Xia Juhua must have trusted him very much since she took Liu Xi with her - just now, when Qi Weidong proposed the source of goods in front of Liu Xi, Xia Juhua did not stop him, which was a good proof.
Qi Weidong should not only trust the people Xia Juhua trusts, but also take good care of Liu Xi when Xia Juhua cannot take care of him, explain the situation to him clearly, and explain the ins and outs to Liu Xi. In this way, when Xia Juhua has time, the three of them can act directly without wasting time on Liu Xi's misunderstanding.
Before Qi Weidong and the other person left the room, Xia Juhua had already been invited to the restaurant by the secretary. Director Yang had not arrived yet, so Xia Juhua took a look and sat down in a seat near the entrance.
The hurriedly asked Xia Juhua to sit up, but Xia Juhua refused, saying that she would have time to make adjustments after Director Yang arrived. Director Yang did not come in alone, but followed him with three other people. Seeing that Xia Juhua had arrived, Director Yang smiled and extended his hand to her: "Captain Xia, long time no see. Ping'an Village is so busy, and I asked you to come here. Thank you for your hard work."
"This is what I should do." Xia Juhua shook Director Yang's hand, indicating that she would obey the leader's call at any time.
The people following Director Yang gathered around the two people, waiting for Director Yang to introduce them. Director Yang briefly introduced the identities of several people. It turned out that in addition to his ministry, there were comrades from another ministry.
"Captain Xia, come, let's sit down and talk." Director Yang's attitude was always so friendly. Xia Juhua glanced at those people, and Director Yang smiled and said, "They are younger than you, it doesn't matter where they sit."
Only a comrade from another ministry sat on the other side of Director Yang. The remaining two people, following Director Yang's instructions, sat below Xia Juhua and below the comrades from the ministry respectively.
The dishes were served quickly. There were no delicacies from land or sea. A sticky rice chicken was the main dish, and the rest were stir-fried seasonal vegetables. Director Yang pointed at the dishes in front of him and said to Xia Juhua, "Although we are hosting a welcome party for you today, we are all family, so we won't do anything fancy. Let's wait for the people from Country A to arrive and bring the goods, and then we can have a feast."
Xia Juhua naturally understood this. The trend of eating and drinking extravagantly was not yet popular. Even leaders of Director Yang's level had to pay for their meals when they traveled. He was not treating just one person today, so it was okay for the meal to be simple.
She didn't come to Guangzhou just to eat.
There was still business to discuss, so Director Yang naturally did not allow the wine to be served. After asking Xia Juhua to help herself, he took the lead in taking a bite of food. When he saw that had also started to eat, he asked Xia Juhua: "I heard that you have developed something everyone called instant noodles. Can it be mass-produced?"
Xia Juhua was prepared for the fact that Director Yang knew everything about her situation. She was not surprised and did not think she could keep it a secret from him. She said honestly:
"Not yet. Technician Xue, the one who helped us improve the vermicelli factory's machinery, Director Yang, you know, he is helping me research the machinery. Besides, the instant noodle factory cannot be mixed with the vermicelli factory, and we have to build another factory building."
Xia Juhua had a headache when she talked about this: "Everything else about the factory is easy, except cement."
Director Yang smiled at another comrade from another ministry. He had just introduced him to Xia Juhua. That comrade should be called Director Tang. Seeing Director Yang smiling at him, Director Tang also smiled: "The technician Xue you mentioned is now Engineer Xue from the research institute under our ministry. Some time ago, after he returned to Beijing from Ping'an Village, he brought a bunch of drawings and technical data and said he wanted to apply for a patent."
It turned out to be Technician Xue, not Engineer Xue's boss. Xia Juhua smiled at him, greeted him again, and said, "Engineer Xue has been helping Ping An Village with production for some time. I hope he didn't interfere with the work of the department."
Director Tang laughed even louder: "No delay, no delay. His going to Ping'anzhuang was specially approved by the department. It's all for the convenience of the troops. But we have studied the drawings that Engineer Xue brought back. They are indeed very practical and have a wide range of applications. However, applying for a patent..." No one in the country has ever proposed this.
At that time, people had no awareness of intellectual property rights at all and even believed more in the collective wisdom. After any research results came out, the researchers often did not even deserve to own their own names and were at most just XX research group.
So when Engineer Xue suddenly proposed to apply for a patent, the leaders of the institute and the ministry were really stumped. Director Tang happened to meet Xia Juhua today, and he thought he could ask her for her opinion:
"The machines that Engineer Xue improved were all completed with money paid by Ping An Zhuang. If he applies for a patent personally, isn't that an infringement of Ping An Zhuang's interests?"
I gave Engineer Xue the idea to apply for a patent so that he would have the confidence to continue researching machinery in the future economic wave. Xia Juhua naturally could not accept that Ping An Manor's interests were being encroached upon:
"Director Tang, you are wrongly accusing Engineer Xue. Even if we, Ping An Zhuang, paid for the machine parts, without Engineer Xue to come up with the machine design and improvement plan, even if we want to spend money, we don't know which parts to buy, or how to assemble the parts after buying them, right?"
Seeing that Director Tang and Director Yang both nodded, Xia Juhua simply put down her chopsticks and expressed her thoughts: "And I think that Engineer Xue's application for a patent is not only a good thing for Ping An Village, but also for our country."
"Oh, how is it good for the country?" Director Yang and Director Tang asked in unison.
Xia Juhua looked at the two people who asked the question and said, "Since Director Tang has seen Engineer Xue's drawings, he should have discovered the improvements he made. It's just that no one has realized it yet. No one has thought of combining machines for production and only knows how to use single machines."
"If Technician Xue doesn't apply for a patent, someone could buy the machine, disassemble it, and then copy it. If someone from our country buys it, it's fine, and they can copy it. But if a foreigner buys it and copies it, wouldn't Technician Xue's hard work be wasted?"
"If Technician Xue had a patent, he could sign a contract with people when selling the machine, requiring them not to dismantle the machine at will, let alone counterfeit it. Of course, this is only to protect against gentlemen, not villains, but it is better than nothing. In addition, even if counterfeits appear, the target of investigation can be smaller, and it is easier to trace where they came from."
Director Tang and Director Yang were both stunned after hearing Xia Juhua's theory. Their philosophy has always been collectivism, and they have never thought about the possible disadvantages. Now after listening to Xia Juhua's words, they felt that it made a lot of sense and began to ponder.
The table fell silent for a moment. Xia Juhua was fine, but the other two attendants and the secretary were all watching the two leaders with their peripheral vision. After a long while, Director Tang said to Director Yang, "Captain Xia has her reasons."
Of course it makes sense. This is what Xia Juhua learned from watching TV in her previous life. Although she didn't learn the essence and her words were not as insightful as those of professionals, it still had a great impact on people today. Especially the ministry where Director Tang worked, which managed several research institutes. Although it had experienced turmoil in recent years, some scientific researchers were still protected and achieved many results. There was indeed a hidden danger that it would be difficult to hold accountable after a leak.
So he asked Xia Juhua several questions, with the intention of digging deep into her mind. After listening for a while, Director Yang felt that Director Tang had asked almost all the questions he wanted to ask, so he said, "Captain Xia is someone I invited to help. If you have any questions, you can go back and talk to Engineer Xue."
At this point, Director Yang still felt that Xia Juhua was able to say what she just said because Engineer Xue might have revealed in Ping An Village that he wanted to apply for a patent and discussed it with Xia Juhua, so she could speak so clearly about such issues.
Director Tang did not think so, because many of the things Xia Juhua said were not explained clearly by Engineer Xue himself. He could see clearly who was influenced by whom.
But Director Yang was right. Today Director Yang and Xia Juhua were indeed discussing how to receive the rubber merchants from Country A. Director Yang explained the situation to Xia Juhua:
After the Expo, the rubber sold by Country A was only 280 yuan per ton, which was definitely not a happy thing for them. However, since the contract had been signed and the deposit had been paid, they had no reason not to ship the goods. The first batch of goods was indeed shipped to Guangzhou in June.
According to the contract, Xia Juhua should have participated in that pick-up, but Director Yang learned that Xia Juhua was working with Technician Xue on a hot and sour noodle production machine at the time, so he decided not to let Xia Juhua come to Guangzhou.
The reason given to Country A was that something happened at home and Xia Juhua had to leave early. Fortunately, due to the rough sea, Country A's cargo ship arrived a few days late, so it was understandable that Xia Juhua couldn't wait.
When the merchants from Country A were returning to their country to prepare for shipping the second batch of rubber, they received news that Province L had again purchased 30,000 tons of rubber from Robert, still at a price of RMB 245 per ton. They suddenly felt a sense of crisis and proposed to Director Yang that they must meet Xia Juhua this time at all costs.
According to the information they received, Xia Juhua was an important figure in facilitating the rubber trade between Roberts and Province L. The last time the rubber was sold to China, it was also Xia Juhua who negotiated. Therefore, the merchants in Country A believed that Xia Juhua had a great say in rubber purchases from China.
Director Yang was not in a position to mention this to Xia Juhua. He only asked Xia Juhua a question after explaining the situation: "...This time, the merchants from Country A may have suggested that we supply them again. Captain Xia, what do you think about this?"
When Director Yang was introducing the situation just now, Xia Juhua was also thinking that Country A and the country where Roberts was located were both in Africa. Although the rubber production there was very high, it was not so much that the two companies could purchase tens of thousands of tons at a time.
Businessmen are all profit-driven, and their purchase prices will not differ too much. Roberts can sell it to me for 245 yuan. After the businessman from Country A got the news, he should have asked to meet me. There is only one possibility.
They could sell rubber to China at 245 yuan or even lower, provided that Province L could no longer buy rubber from Roberts. In this way, Roberts, who had already returned to China to start purchasing rubber, would have a backlog of rubber in his hands, and even cause too much pressure on funds, resulting in a break in the capital chain and the company's survival.
In the short term, if the merchants in Country A can lower the price of rubber to below 245 yuan, it will definitely be profitable for China. But is it really so? When Roberts' company really goes bankrupt, it is unknown whether the merchants in Country A will raise the price again or even make up for the losses of the two times without any competitors.
Think about it, there will be no competitors when making acquisitions, and no merchants to refer to when supplying goods, which means they have the pricing power for buying and selling. They can even decide the output of African rubber. When that time comes, if China wants to buy rubber from Africa again, it will be up to the merchants from Country A to have the final say.
In Xia Juhua's opinion, long-term dependence on a company or region is very dangerous, just like China's initial dependence on the Kangaroo Country for iron ore in the past life, which led to the loss of pricing power and being controlled by the Kangaroo Country for several years.
So she asked Director Yang: "If Country A proposes a price reduction this time and asks Province L to stop purchasing rubber from Roberts, what will the ministry think?" What she can think of, the ministry should also be able to think of, and Director Yang must have the answer in his mind now.
Director Yang's expression was not relaxed: "The country's current foreign exchange policy is not loose. If the merchants from Country A take the initiative to propose a price reduction, the ministry will naturally welcome it. Compared with the national chess game, the rubber manufacturing industry of Province L is still..."
Xia Juhua interrupted Director Yang rudely, even though it was a bit rude: "But if there was no transaction between Province L and Roberts, would Country A have taken the initiative to propose a price reduction? After Roberts went bankrupt because of our breach of contract, Country A once again became the only supplier. Would he still be willing to sell rubber to China at a low price?"
Director Yang and his team had considered this possibility when they were in Beijing. Now, hearing that Xia Juhua had also considered this issue and that her opinion was basically the same as that of the ministry, he couldn't help but smile: "So what you mean is that you don't agree with the merchants from Country A lowering their prices?"
Xia Juhua shook her head quickly: "Of course we welcome a price reduction, but we can't let them set the conditions."
Director Yang had seen Xia Juhua's straightforwardness when she was negotiating with the people from Country A, so he was not too surprised. However, Director Tang and others were different - now when everyone does things, they have to set a tone first. Even if they want to ask for something, they have to move forward in a roundabout way. No one has ever expressed it as straightforwardly as Xia Juhua.
Seeing that several people were as shocked as he was at the beginning, Director Yang felt that he had a companion and encouraged Xia Juhua to continue. Xia Juhua's opinion was very simple, that is, the two countries' companies should purchase rubber in Africa based on their own abilities. As for China's rubber procurement, the two companies should compete based on their own needs.
China will purchase rubber from the company that offers the lowest price!
"Will Roberts have no opinion on you or Province L?" Director Yang felt that although the method proposed by Xia Juhua was new, it was obviously more beneficial to China, so he accepted it without any hesitation. Instead, he paid attention to the relationship between Xia Juhua and Roberts.
After all, it was the presence of Roberts and his cooperation with Xia Juhua that made the businessmen from Country A feel a sense of crisis.
Xia Juhua felt that there was no need to worry about this: "Roberts is a businessman." Businessmen value profit, and as long as there is profit to be made, he can resolve his temporary anger himself.
With a unified opinion, the meal was over and everyone went back to their rooms to rest and refresh themselves before waiting for the arrival of the businessman from Country A.
Before returning to her room, Xia Juhua knocked on Qi Weidong's door, but no one answered. It seemed that they had not returned yet. She was not worried that anything had happened to them - the current public security situation was not yet at a point where severe punishment was necessary. The two children had just gone out to eat a meal and go shopping, so there would be no big problem.
The next morning, Xia Juhua was awakened by Qi Weidong knocking on the door. He came to tell Xia Juhua that he had found out a place where she could have Guangzhou's special morning tea yesterday, and asked Xia Juhua if she wanted to go with them.
Now there is actually a place to eat Guangzhou's special morning tea, Xia Juhua really wants to see it. However, the A country people have not arrived for a day, so she can't go alone without telling Director Yang, so she can only let Qi Weidong and the others go by themselves, and she will go to taste it after sending the A country businessmen away.
Xia Juhua found it incredible that she could taste authentic Guangzhou morning tea in her life. She was still a little dazed when she arrived at the restaurant.
Director Yang and others thought that she was about to face businessmen from Country A and was under too much psychological pressure. No matter how reasonable what Xia Juhua said yesterday was, her image as a rural woman in everyone's eyes would not change in a short time, so isn't it normal to have some psychological pressure?
Even they felt a little excited and nervous.
The businessmen who flew from Country A to Yangcheng Airport were equally excited and nervous. When they saw Director Yang and others waiting at the departure gate, they all showed their identical big white teeth and waved to them.
Apart from a courtesy hug for Director Yang, no one attempted to hug or shake hands with Xia Juhua: although several months had passed, they still remembered Xia Juhua's strange insistence at the expo and not to make trouble for herself.
However, Xia Juhua's appearance in the procession to welcome them made the merchants from Country A feel that their trip should be fruitful. After all, the amount of rubber they provided to China was 10,000 tons more than the two times that Roberts provided. This was something China, which could not produce rubber itself, could not resist. Didn't Xia Juhua, who had a say in China's rubber purchases, have to come to welcome them?
With such expectations, the businessman from Country A felt that he should let Xia Juhua realize his financial strength, so he generously presented her with a gift: a heavy gold necklace with strong African characteristics.
In her previous life, Xia Juhua didn't even have a 2-gram gold ring. When she saw this necklace that was as thick as her little finger, she was really stunned - how much is this worth? What do these people from Country A want to do? !
Not only did she wave her hands to show that she didn't want it, she also tried to hide behind Director Yang to prove her determination to refuse to the people from Country A.
Was it actually foreigners who taught the Chinese people to give gifts before getting married? Xia Juhua didn't want to believe what was happening before her eyes.
Director Yang told Ter from Country A through the translator that his gift was too expensive and that Xia Juhua, as a state employee, could not accept such an expensive gift.
Tel took back the necklace with some regret, but took out another small box and handed it to Xia Juhua. He also specifically stated to Director Yang that the things in the box were much lighter than the necklace, so Xia Juhua should be able to accept it.
International friends have been rejected once, and it would be impolite to reject them again. Director Yang nodded to Xia Juhua, who reluctantly took it: From Roberts's perspective, if she accepted Tel's gift now, future cooperation might be a little troublesome.
She had reason to believe that after leaving China, Country A would let everyone who should know know that she had accepted his gift.
Sure enough, when he saw Xia Juhua taking the box, Tel's mouth almost grinned from ear to ear: "Xia, I hope we can have a pleasant cooperation in the future."
Xia Juhua raised the box in her hand and asked Ter whether she was happy working with him and whether it had anything to do with the things in the box. If so, she would return the box to him immediately.
Ter hurriedly laughed even louder, saying that he understood Xia Juhua was joking with him, and even though it was a joke, Xia Juhua should rest assured that their cooperation had nothing to do with the gift in the box: "This is a gift for seeing an old friend."
Well, seeing the gift from an old friend made it easier. After Xia Juhua returned to the guesthouse, she didn't even go back to her room. She followed Director Yang to his room and said, "Director Yang, you have to testify for me that I have never opened this box. Now I'm giving this box to you. It has nothing to do with me anymore."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
