2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 380 First Arrival at Tencent
To avoid suspicion, Zhao Wu only went to the company to meet with Tan Jincheng on the afternoon of the second day after Tan Jincheng's arrival.

When I arrived at the company, I felt that the employees' spirit and energy seemed different from when the acquisition took place.

Everyone had a faint smile on their face.

Upon inquiring, it was learned that the first thing the young boss of Flash Motors did upon arriving in Shenzhen was to raise the salaries of all the company's employees.

"That's really simple and straightforward," Zhao Wu chuckled to himself.

This is really typical of Boss Tan. After learning that Flashtek wanted to acquire his company, Zhao Wu also did some research on Flashtek.

When acquiring Bafang Electric in Suzhou, Boss Tan gave everyone a collective pay raise, and now he's using the same tactic on the electronics factory.

It must be said that this method is indeed simple and direct, and it is also the fastest and best way to stabilize people's hearts, bar none.

People travel thousands of miles just for money; no worker can refuse a raise unless it's not enough.

As the boss, Zhao Wu certainly understood this, but he did not approve of Tan Jincheng's behavior.

Frontline employees in electronics factories are easy to recruit; they're practically everywhere. There's absolutely no need to retain employees by increasing the company's operating costs.

Considering the sensation caused by Flash's annual meeting last year, Zhao Wu felt that Tan Jincheng was probably trying to increase his own popularity through this method.

It's perfectly reasonable for young people to want a good name.

At their first meeting, Zhao Wu was struck by Tan Jincheng's youth—he was incredibly young.

Wearing a long-sleeved casual shirt with a solid-color inner layer, jeans, and sneakers, Tan Jincheng's short hair was a stark contrast to the formal attire he had seen in the reports.

If you hadn't seen his photo, you would never imagine that the young man in front of you is a billionaire entrepreneur.

Zhao Wu believes that the 6.63 million figure on Forbes is nonsense, as is the claim that the other 100-plus people with assets of 8 million each are also nonsense.

Of course, it's certain that Tan Jincheng won't make it into the top 500. Apart from the listed companies that can be valued, most of the private enterprises on the list cannot be accurately valued, and most of the rich people on the list underreport their wealth.

There aren't as many people who resent the rich these days, but there aren't as many security cameras on every street as there are a decade or two later.

More than a decade later, in the era of short videos, the kind of videos of children that are everywhere on the internet no longer exist. Whenever Tan Jinyue accidentally appears on camera, the reporters always blur her face.

This doesn't even need a reminder; they're far more principled than future journalists.

After Forbes published Tan Jincheng's assets, the biggest change was that Flash Motors quietly established a security department. These people were basically Lai Yiu-fai and Lau Su-man's comrades, as well as some people introduced from the Beicang District.

Every time Zhang Suzhi took Tan Jinyue out, a driver would accompany them.

There was no other way; the child was still young, and Tan Jincheng dared not gamble with such things.

Like other large factories, Flash's new factory also has a police station, and the attendance system at the headquarters has been upgraded.

As for his father, Tan Jincheng doesn't need to worry. He works at the petrochemical company, and he has invested so much in his hometown. Both Yicheng and the petrochemical company will ensure his safety.

However, Tan Jincheng had also reminded his father not to run around unnecessarily or attend every dinner party. Now he had the right to refuse people.

Tan Jincheng even sent a driver to Gu Hongshun and his wife's side.

"President Tan looks even younger in person than in the reports. It's truly a case of the younger generation surpassing the older one," Zhao Wu remarked.

To be honest, Zhao Wu felt offended when an unknown out-of-town company came to his door for the first time and said it wanted to buy his company. "My company is doing well, and you want to buy it?"
So initially he refused outright, not even wanting to talk about it.

However, things changed quite a bit later. First, an investor came to mediate through the introduction of the district's direct management department leader, and then a Tencent investment manager stepped in to mediate as well.

This made Zhao Wu realize that this company called Hangxin New Energy was not simple; the middleman did not hide anything, saying that it was a subsidiary of the recently popular Flash Group, which was engaged in lithium battery development and application business.

He had also learned about Tan Jincheng's previous acquisitions and investments in companies in the industry chain.

Everything he does is done in a blitzkrieg style. Tan Jincheng, whom he had never met, gave him the impression of being fast-paced and domineering. Companies that cooperate with him all want to take a stake, which is a very rare occurrence.

The top leaders of the relevant authorities have all intervened, and even Tencent has asked someone to intercede on their behalf. This matter is definitely not that simple.

After careful consideration, Zhao Wu ultimately decided to accept Hangxin's offer and retain 10% of the shares. On the one hand, he knew that FlashCheer had excellent export channels, and he could make some money by expanding the export business of 3C products. On the other hand, he also wanted to keep something in mind.

In Zhao Wu's view, Tan Jincheng was trying to force a sale, but in reality, it was just that his generation's way of thinking made him overthink things. If he really didn't agree, Tan Jincheng wouldn't and wouldn't be able to do anything.

If you let Kuang Ping and Tencent act as intermediaries, they'll do you a favor, but if they resort to underhanded tactics, nobody will agree to it.

The money was enough, and the premium was very generous. Zhao Wu had never had so much money in his account before, but he still felt empty inside. He didn't enjoy the New Year at all.

Zhao Wu had known about Tan Jincheng's upcoming visit for some time, but the formal meeting was delayed until this afternoon. This was partly to avoid suspicion, and partly because he felt uneasy. If it weren't for the clause he signed during the acquisition guaranteeing a smooth company handover, Zhao Wu would have genuinely avoided seeing him.

Tan Jincheng could sense Zhao Wu's resistance, which he could understand.

Founded in 03, the company managed to go public with its 3C peripheral business. Tan Jincheng knew Zhao Wu's capabilities; he had bought plenty of their 3C products in his past life, though the quality was just so-so.

Especially the earlier ones, the quality was really poor. But thinking about the wage levels he saw yesterday, Tan Jincheng could understand why the quality was so bad.

If you're not willing to pay people, who's going to be willing to put in the effort to do quality control for you?

Sometimes I think about how unreasonable domestic consumers are. Every product and industry improves gradually by spending money to try and fail. Consumers who try new things are always the most wronged.

Of course, Tan Jincheng didn't know what the industrial history was like abroad back then, but he guessed it was probably similar; businessmen all over the world are the same.

Tan Jincheng chatted casually with Zhao Wu for an hour, mainly handing over company business in a business-like manner. Although Zhao Wu felt uncomfortable, he still reminded Tan Jincheng of everything that needed to be reminded.

Tan Jincheng was already quite satisfied with achieving this; everyone has their own ambitions, and those with ability never want to be subordinate to others.

Even if he couldn't recruit them, Tan Jincheng didn't think it was a big deal. The development of the electronics industry was more about following the trend of the times. Lei Jun once said that even a pig can fly if it stands in the right place at the right time.

Zhang Xuhui had investigated more than just Dexian Electronics. The factories in Shenzhen were doing incredibly well, and even without Zhao Wu, Dexian Electronics wouldn't have fared much worse.
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It takes about half an hour to get from Jintang Industrial Park to Tencent's headquarters.

On Monday, March 12, Tan Jincheng, along with Gu Qingqing and two others, arrived at Tencent headquarters at the agreed time.

Before getting out of the car, Tan Jincheng took out a stack of business cards from his bag and instructed Li Yaohui and Liu Suman: "Watch my expression. If I nod to anyone, find a chance to slip Cheng Hao's business card to him."

Liu Suman looked surprised and puzzled. She didn't go out with Tan Jincheng often and couldn't understand what her boss was doing.

Gu Qingqing was also very curious. She only knew that Tan Jincheng had poached people during his visit, but she didn't quite understand how he did it.

In Gu Qingqing's view, Tan Jincheng must have been the central figure during the visit. How did he manage to contact the other company's employees without anyone noticing?

It was only then that she understood.

Lai Yiu-fai calmly accepted the business card, clearly showing he was a worldly man.

"This isn't the first time?"

After putting some distance between herself and the boss and his wife, Liu Suman asked Li Yaohui in a low voice.

Lai Yiu-fai glanced at Lau Su-man and grinned, "Hmm, be discreet later. They gave us so many business cards; it seems they're going to poach quite a few people this time."

He is familiar with the process.

The person who came to receive Tan Jincheng was an old acquaintance, Wang Wensong, who greeted him warmly as soon as they met.

"Mr. Tan, it's been a long time! Happy belated New Year!"

"Do you have any red envelopes? I heard that in Guangdong province, you have to give red envelopes to unmarried people during the Lunar New Year, no matter how old they are?" Tan Jincheng asked with a smile, holding Wang Wensong's hand.

Wang Wensong was taken aback. It wasn't the end of the first month of the lunar calendar yet, so giving a red envelope wouldn't be a bad idea, but he really hadn't thought about giving Tan Jincheng a red envelope.

"Haha, just kidding. I have to thank Mr. Wang for what happened last time. I'll be staying in Shenzhen for a few more days. I'll treat you to a meal sometime when you're free."

Wang Wensong laughed heartily: "How can we let President Tan treat us when we're in Shenzhen? Tencent will definitely treat us; let's go, our boss is in the office."

"Not to the QQ Space project team?" Tan Jincheng asked, somewhat puzzled.

Before coming, Tan Jincheng never thought he would be able to meet Brother Ma. He only extended an invitation to visit through Huang Xitong and Wang Wensong.

After its transformation in 05, Tencent's gaming business performed well, and Pony Ma (Ma Huateng, founder of Tencent) has found a new way to monetize traffic.

The prototype of BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) is not yet very obvious, but T, which has hundreds of millions of QQ users and has found a new way to monetize, can already be seen as a social media giant.

Wang Wensong said with some pride, "Our boss heard that President Tan was coming to visit, so he specially set aside a day for the company."

Indeed, while Tan Jincheng holds a certain position in the physical industry, Orange Technology, despite its popularity in the internet sector, is not even considered a rising star.

If you go to Wuzhen for the Internet Conference, you won't even be qualified to sit at the table.

However, this thing doesn't exist yet.

For someone as busy as Little Ma to want to see me, it can't just be out of curiosity. What does he want to do?

(End of this chapter)