Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 711 Everything is Ready
Garden villas on Huashan Road.

Zhou Zhengdong walked around the villa twice and felt very satisfied.

Outside the villa, Zhou Yali wandered around the huge lawn, comparing it with the dilapidated garden in her memory. "The difference is too big. I remember there was a garbage dump in that corner, but now it's all been cleared away. And over there, it used to be a grove of mixed trees, but now it's all been replaced with metasequoia."

There's also a swimming pool..."

She turned to look at Chen Fan, "So it used to be a stinking puddle, didn't it?"

Chen Fan walked over slowly with his hands in his pockets. "It's not a stinky ditch. This used to be a swimming pool, but no one maintained it, and the equipment was damaged. When it rained, water accumulated and it became a small lake. Over time, it naturally started to smell."

Zhou Yali pouted, "That's still a stinky puddle."

Chen Fan pursed his lips; what she said wasn't entirely wrong.

The puddles in that old swimming pool are indeed starting to smell.

Zhou Yali opened her arms and took a deep breath. "This pool is a whole size bigger than the old one, and the equipment has been replaced with new ones. Swimming here in the summer must be very comfortable."

Chen Fan frowned slightly. "This kind of outdoor swimming pool should be fine for the next few years, but it would be best to build a house to cover it up."

Zhou Yali turned to look at him, blinked, then turned back to look outside the wall, and said in confusion, "There aren't any tall buildings around here, so no one should be able to see inside, right?"

Chen Fan hummed twice, "There isn't one now, but who knows if there will be one in the future? Besides, outdoor swimming pools are easily polluted by rainwater. Building a shed is not troublesome, and it can ensure both privacy and hygiene. Isn't that great?"

Zhou Yali took two steps closer, leaned in beside him, and whispered, "Brother, you seem particularly confident about the development in the mainland. Do you have some inside information?"

Chen Fan glanced at her. "I don't have any inside information, but since you've decided to invest in the mainland, don't overthink it. Just focus on running the company well."

I am very confident that Shanghai's future performance will be excellent.

Zhou Yali rolled her eyes, then raised an eyebrow slightly, "Fine, don't tell me then."

Chen Fan shrugged and said nothing more.

He realized that when talking to Zhou Yali, he didn't have to give her an answer to every question. Sometimes she would just say it casually, and even if he saw the answer, he wouldn't be interested.

Zhou Yali looked at the swimming pool again, squinted and pondered for a while, then clapped her hands and said, "It is indeed necessary to build a swimming hall, and also to build a covered corridor to connect with the main building, so that no matter if there is a strong wind or a heavy rain outside, it will not affect swimming."

At this moment, Zhou Zhengdong walked out of the main building. Chen Fan glanced at him, but didn't bother to argue with Zhou Yali, and turned and walked away.

As they got closer, Chen Fan said loudly, "Uncle, how about setting up our Shanghai office here?"

Before Zhou Zhengdong even arrived, he raised his hand and waved.

Chen Fan was slightly taken aback. Did this mean they disagreed?
Is this not enough to meet the requirements of an office?
As Zhou Zhengdong approached, he said loudly, “This place is nice, but too nice, and too big. I was just thinking about it, and the office won’t need many people. One office director who also handles business, one receptionist, and three to five maintenance staff will be enough. We don’t even need an accountant. The clerk can organize the documents and do the bookkeeping.”

Zhou Yali turned to look at him, "Then what should we do?"

Chen Fan pointed to the two annex buildings to the side, "That's fine. One can be used for offices, and the other for accommodation, so it won't disturb the main building."

He then gestured twice, "Those two buildings are by the wall. Just mark out an area there to isolate them, and it won't affect this place. Then open a door in the isolation wall, which will make it easier for you to come and go."

Zhou Yali shook her head repeatedly, "Wouldn't that ruin this garden villa?"

The original area of ​​more than 20 acres has been reduced by several acres to build houses, making the back garden much smaller.

If you cut out another part, or even just a small piece from a regular rectangle, it just looks awkward.

Seeing her say that, Chen Fan could only shrug and say, "Well, there's nothing I can do. If we don't choose this place, we'll have to go to the apartment building that was prepared for you."

Zhou Zhengdong walked over and asked, "What do the residential buildings look like?"

Before Chen Fan could speak, Zhou Yali said, "It's similar to my brother's house. It's a two-and-a-half-story structure with an attic, and the yards are about the same size."

Zhou Zhengdong thought for a moment and nodded slightly, "That's enough. The first floor can be used as offices, the second floor as dormitories for senior executives, the third floor as dormitories for the general staff, and the attic as a document storage room. It's just right."

Chen Fan shrugged. "Anyway, both of these are registered under Ya Li's name, so you can use them as you like."

After he finished speaking, he looked at the garden villas. The main building was a large house with a total construction area of ​​more than 2,000 square meters, similar to the old building of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles that he visited that day. There were also two annex buildings with a usable area of ​​nearly 300 square meters each, which were perfect for office use.

If it were for living purposes, it would be similar to the Prince Ning's mansion, but also quite large.

Moreover, even the Prince Ning's mansion is not as big as this place; it's too spacious.

Zhou Zhengdong and Zhou Yali just returned from the airport. They had a cup of tea at home, rested for a while, and then came out to check out the office premises.

They flew almost every two or three days during this period, visiting Benjamin, France, and the United States.

Because Zhou Zhengdong was a professional lawyer at the Office of the United States Trade Representative and the Office of the General Counsel, Fujitsu, Lucent, and Alcatel did not play any tricks and frankly discussed the qualifications and requirements for becoming agents.

Fujitsu offers the most lenient terms and the best value for money. Alcatel is the best in terms of quality and sincerity, with the highest technical content, a very reasonable price, and a three-year free maintenance period.

Although Lucent's prices were higher than Fujitsu's and its quality was slightly lower than Alcatel's, making it seem like the least cost-effective option, they had very strong lobbying power in Washington. By joining forces with Alcatel, they could bypass COCOM's restrictions without any worries and legally and legitimately import their products into the country.

Since it didn't require much of a deposit—only a mere three million US dollars for all three companies combined—Zhou Zhengdong simply went ahead with his original plan and signed agency agreements with all three companies at once.

Originally, all three companies wanted to monopolize the market, which is why they openly offered the most favorable terms. However, seeing that Zhou Zhengdong wanted to take it all, none of them were satisfied.

However, Zhou Zhengdong was no pushover either.

He directly presented them with domestic maps and population data, and asked them a very practical question: "With hundreds of cities and nearly a billion people, which government would use only one company's communication equipment? Who dares to take on this responsibility? And which company has such a big appetite?"
Faced with such a huge market, your focus shouldn't be on monopolizing it, but rather on how to gain a larger market share in the competition. Being first will help you stay ahead of your competitors!

Faced with the confident Zhou Zhengdong, all three companies asked the same question.

"Since I can't have it all to myself, I can simply delegate the agency rights to someone else. Why does it have to be you?"

Zhou Zhengdong remained confident, "I can advance the payment for the goods for three, five, or even longer periods. If you think others can accept that, then you're welcome to go find someone else. Don't forget, at the same time, the people you find must be able to contact high-level officials in mainland China!"

All three companies are multinational giants. As soon as Zhou Zhengdong made contact with them, he had already thoroughly investigated his background, including his relationship with Chen Fan.

They had to admit that finding someone who could provide advance payment for goods was easy, but finding someone in mainland China who could be contacted and trusted was extremely difficult.

Since there is already a perfect candidate in front of us, and their conditions are not bad in any way, why go to the long way around?

In a very short time, Zhou Zhengdong became the head of Wanmuchun Communication Equipment Service Company and obtained the agency rights for three multinational giants.

This company is registered in New York, USA, and has offices in Jasmine Hill, New Jersey, USA, Paris, France, and Tokyo, Japan. It also has a branch office in Hong Kong, Asia, to coordinate manufacturer connections and customer service.

Two additional offices were established in mainland China, specifically responsible for the sales and maintenance of the equipment.

The maintenance work will be outsourced to the operations and maintenance branch of New York-based Wanmuchun Technology Co., Ltd., whose operations center is located in Hong Kong, but its operations are conducted in mainland China.

Chen Fan felt overwhelmed when he heard about the division of labor between the father and daughter.

It's just a telecommunications service company, yet they've made it so complicated. They really aren't afraid of making things difficult.

It sounds complicated, but it's actually quite simple.

Zhou Zhengdong's company only handles the agency work, earning profits from advance payments and sales margins; all other operations and maintenance fall under Zhou Yali's company. It seems this father and daughter are determined to see the division of their family business through to the end!

After traveling around for a while, the two finally met up in Hong Kong, made arrangements for people to handle the company's establishment and recruitment, and then returned to China together.

On the one hand, he needed to establish an office; on the other hand, Zhou Zhengdong also needed to officially launch his marketing campaign.

He planned to skip the New Year and work on creating a model project as soon as possible.

Chen Fan is now accompanying them to see the office address.

However, the first attempt was unsuccessful, as it was rejected by both of them.

"Actually, this place is quite nice, but it's too nice, so it's not suitable."

Zhou Zhengdong got into the car, fastened his seatbelt, and said seriously, "In the startup phase, we can't be too comfortable. There's no reason to have employees work in a villa. This villa is not even as good as the mansions of many American billionaires. It's a waste to use it as an office. It's not as good as the kind of small villa you live in."

Zhou Yali nodded repeatedly, "It was too old before, so we didn't notice it when we looked at it. Now it's been completely renovated, even the floors are new. It looks great from every angle. It's really not suitable as an office building."

She turned to look at Chen Fan, who was driving, and said, "Brother, you bought such a large piece of land in Beijing and built an office building there. Why didn't you build one like that in Shanghai? You could have just moved in directly. That would have been great."

Chen Fan glanced at her and said, "I only built this building on a piece of land that I live on. Why don't you also set aside a piece of land from that garden villa? It doesn't have to be much, just two or three acres will do. There are still fifteen or sixteen acres left, so it won't affect the overall layout."

Don't worry, I'll take care of all the paperwork and procedures. I'll make sure everything goes smoothly. How about that?

Zhou Yali chuckled dryly, "No need for that. It's just that time is too tight. We need it right away. Let's use that little villa as a temporary shelter for now, and we'll talk about it later."

Chen Fan suppressed a laugh and soon drove to the small villa. As he got out of the car, he said, "You'd better hurry, otherwise the housing prices in Shanghai will keep rising and it won't be worth it."

After opening the gate and entering the courtyard, Zhou Zhengdong quickly looked around and then made his decision, "This is it."

As Zhou Yali said, time was too tight, and he hoped to open immediately. He was reluctant to give up the garden villa, but this small villa could serve as a substitute.

However, he likes this little house, and once he makes money, he will find another place to move to.

Once the office address was finalized, Zhou Zhengdong clapped his hands and laughed, "I'll arrange for someone to handle the formalities tomorrow. An office isn't a company; we just need to register it with the relevant authorities. After that, we can open for business!"

He turned to Chen Fan and asked, "Xiao Fan, have you been able to contact that deputy chief engineer of the Shanghai Telephone Bureau that you mentioned last time?"

Chen Fan nodded. "Anytime is fine."

In fact, the day after He Qingsheng called him, Zhang Xing, the deputy chief engineer of the municipal telephone bureau, contacted Chen Fan.

It couldn't be easier for the city telephone bureau to find him; they would call him dozens of times a day, and he would be cornered as soon as he returned from outside.

After explaining the situation, Chen Fan said that as long as he contacted his uncle, he would immediately arrange for them to meet.

After hanging up the phone, Chen Fan was still marveling at how amazing it was to have a technological advantage; customers were chasing after him to buy the product, instead of him having to try every means to sell it to others.

Seeing his uncle's eagerness, Chen Fan became a little worried.

If there are too many orders, won't you be overwhelmed?
Just don't accept orders that you can't fulfill.

After a thought, Chen Fan finally remembered He Qingsheng's request, so he spread his hands to Zhou Zhengdong and said, "Where's your notebook? I'll write down a contact person."

Zhou Yali immediately came over, took out a pen and a small notebook from her handbag and handed them to him, saying, "I have these. I'm still Dad's special assistant, so I can go into the trade representative's office."

Curious, she leaned closer to Chen Fan and saw that he had written an address, a name, and a phone number on it. "Who is this? What does he do?"

After Chen Fan finished writing, he returned the notebook to her and said with a smile, "He's an official from the telephone bureau in Jiangnan Province. You want to sell equipment, right? Just contact him, and we can talk."

Zhou Zhengdong immediately leaned over, his face full of excitement, "As expected of Xiao Fan, you really have a wide network of connections and great abilities. Once this order is signed, your uncle will give you a commission!"

Zhou Yali immediately said, "Daddy, can you be a little more reliable? Do you think my brother cares about your commission? He can easily make millions of dollars with just a few strokes of his pen."

Chen Fan looked at the two people with excited faces and couldn't help but chuckle to himself.

I hope you can still maintain this good mood when you can't keep up with the orders.

Oh, and I should remind them to make sure they have enough money in hand. It would be ridiculous if they couldn't pay for the goods and couldn't complete the order.

However, the US financial industry is highly developed, and debt collateral is very popular. It should be easy to get a loan for such a high-quality debt contract.

……

The office location has been selected, and now everything is ready; we're just waiting for the right opportunity.

The three returned home, but the two sisters weren't there, so Chen Fan had to cook for them himself. He made two cups of tea and got Zhou Yali a bottle of soda. Then he sat down on the sofa, holding his teacup, looked at the two of them, and asked, "Lili and Tiantian are taking their final exams these days. After they finish their exams, we'll go back to Jiangnan. It should be around the 18th or 19th."

He then looked at Zhou Yali and asked, "Are you going to continue setting up the office here, or come back with me? Or perhaps go back to the United States?"

Zhou Yali immediately turned to look at her father, her eyes full of expectation.

She had visited Lujiawan once before. Although there were no scenic spots there, the rural scenery of Jiangnan and the harmonious interpersonal relationships in the village made her feel very comfortable.

Besides, that place is practically her brother's "hometown," and she has always wanted to go back and see it again.

Now I just hope my dad will have mercy and give me a long vacation.

Seeing his daughter's expression, Zhou Zhengdong naturally understood what she was thinking, but he deliberately frowned and looked deep in thought.

After a long while, when Zhou Yali was feeling anxious and hopeless, he grinned and said, "My team will arrive in Shanghai tomorrow to prepare for the two offices. I will leave that to them."

He turned to his daughter. "We won't need you for a while. Are you going back to America to be with Mommy, or would you like to go to Jiangnan with Xiaofan?"

Without hesitation, Zhou Yali clenched her fist and shouted, "To Jiangnan!"

Zhou Zhengdong raised an eyebrow slightly, "You really don't consider your mother at all?"

Zhou Yali waved her hand dismissively, "She has her aunt and uncle with her, and Aunt Lan and the others, so she wouldn't even think about me. I'd better not hang around in front of her and get in her way."

Zhou Zhengdong shook his head repeatedly, "Luckily, we'll have a younger brother soon. If we relied on you, you might be driven crazy by us later."

Chen Fan nodded in agreement, "Yes, very likely."

Zhou Yali immediately went berserk, "Brother, whose side are you on?!"

Chen Fan looked at her, puzzled.

The next second she realized that Zhou Zhengdong had already divided the family property among his daughters and was helping her start her own business and become independent.

And since he was Zhou Yali's partner, from that perspective, he and Zhou Yali were indeed on the same side, while Zhou Zhengdong was an "outsider".

He then spread his hands and chuckled, "Then you should prepare these next couple of days, get your work arranged, and we'll go together then."

Zhou Yali immediately held up two fingers, making a victory sign, and exclaimed, "Yay!"

(End of this chapter)