2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 892 "Donated by Director Ma!"

"It feels like being in a fairyland, it's so comfortable."

On the fifth day of the first lunar month, Tan Jincheng and his entourage, led by relevant personnel from Guizhou Province, plunged into the mountains near Gui'an New Area.

The temperature in the mountains is lower than in the city, and it's a bit chilly at this time of year, but it makes Tan Jincheng, who is wrapped in a down jacket, feel very relaxed and happy.

The weather was quite nice today. Although it was a bit chilly, the group took a leisurely stroll through the mountains, which was quite enjoyable.

"Right? The mountains here are completely different from those in Zhejiang Province. President Tan should come and see more of them."

"Hey, you're absolutely right. A long time ago, I even thought about taking a road trip all over the country to see the beautiful landscapes of our motherland, but alas."

The leader surnamed Chen said thoughtfully, "So, the electric vehicle coastal road trip that FlashTech organized back then is somewhat related to President Tan's idea?"

Tan Jincheng was slightly taken aback: "I didn't expect you to still remember this, leader. Yes, it is indeed related."

The leader surnamed Chen, who was born in the hometown of Xi Shi, had a period of experience governing Ningbo. From 2007 to 2012, he served in the province, in charge of propaganda.

These five years have also been a period of rapid development for Tan Jincheng's career. As a rising young entrepreneur in Zhejiang Province, the two have had a lot of contact in terms of publicity.

Although they had no personal relationship, they were old acquaintances.

Although Tan Jincheng was very fond of your province, he needed an intermediary, and the strong recommendation from the leader surnamed Chen was one of the reasons.

Although his term is only six months long, this does not affect the fact that, as a key national project, Tan Jincheng is not too worried about any problems that might arise with ByteDance's data center.

Moreover, he clearly remembered that in another year or two, a large number of companies would place their data centers in Guizhou Province, including Apple, which had handed over its domestic data to the cloud.

"Haha, how could I not remember? This event caused quite a stir back then. Our industrial base was relatively weak at that time, so being able to travel long distances by electric bike was a real achievement."

According to the leader surnamed Chen, the planning of Flash's "Ten Thousand Miles of Coastal Journey" event back then was very innovative. By combining a large number of professional media outlets with online videos, it not only effectively promoted the performance of its own products, but also promoted some scenic but underdeveloped areas, which boosted the local tourism industry.

This event was very popular back then, and even in today's environment, that series of videos still gets a good number of views.

The provincial authorities also interviewed and reported on it at the time. It was around that time that he began to notice Tan Jincheng, who was just over 20 years old at the time. He never expected that many years later, this young man would have achieved so much.

"Yes, things are getting better day by day, and we were very grateful for the help from the city and the province."

Tan Jincheng was able to develop so quickly at that time because he benefited greatly from the government. Without strong support, he would not have been able to achieve such smooth and rapid progress.

"Mr. Tan, take a look. The climate here is suitable, and the geology is very stable. It is very suitable as a data center."

After catching up, the leader began to promote the advantages of his company's industrial chain.

Before 2017, traditional internet companies mainly placed their data centers in Inner Mongolia (such as China Telecom's cloud computing information park), Sichuan, and coal-rich provinces such as Shanxi and Hebei, in addition to core cities with well-developed infrastructure like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

Sichuan Province has the Chrysanthemum Factory's big data center, while Ali's data centers are mainly located in Shanxi and Hebei provinces.

Mobile data centers are mainly located in cities in East China rich in coal resources. Although there is policy support, your province does not have any competitive advantage at this time.

In terms of policies, other regions also have them. In terms of cheap electricity, not to mention the provinces rich in coal resources, even the neighboring Sichuan province is no less advantageous in terms of climate and power resources.

Furthermore, because they built their facilities earlier, they have a greater advantage, at least in terms of infrastructure such as roads.

Besides discussing the climate, power resources, and policies of Gui'an New Area, he could only bite the bullet and introduce the barren mountains without even a decent road.

There is indeed some connection between the two, but after many years, he cannot be sure whether this connection can play a decisive role.

Thinking about this, a thought suddenly struck him: "Does President Tan still have some businesses in Chongqing? Is it some of the assets he acquired from Lifan Motors?"

Tan Jincheng was taken aback, not understanding why this matter was brought up suddenly when the introduction was going well.

However, he immediately understood.

"Yes, this place is indeed very good. Although the infrastructure is still somewhat incomplete, this location is very suitable for the construction of a data center. If it could be hidden inside the mountain, it would be even safer."

As he spoke, Tan Jincheng casually pointed to the hilltop where they were currently located.

Based on the design of air-raid shelters, if servers are placed inside a mountain, and supporting facilities are built nearby, along with roads, it would create a massive digital industrial park.

"Inside the mountain?"

The leader's eyes lit up. This design was indeed excellent. Wasn't this the biggest advantage of your province? Compared to other regions, putting the server inside the mountain was definitely the safest option.

Currently, there are no hole-type data centers in China. Tan Jincheng's plan is not just about his data center construction, but also provides them with a new approach to attracting investment.

What is the core element of a data center? Isn't it security?

"That is indeed a very good idea. What do you think, Mr. Tan?"

Most people in the upper class know Tan Jincheng's personality. This young man is very direct and doesn't like beating around the bush. He prefers to say what he means directly.

Moreover, he had dealt with Tan Jincheng when he was in Zhejiang Province, and knew a little about this extremely talented young man.

"I think this place is pretty good. I also really like this part of your province. ByteDance's data center can be located here."

Having received that hint from the other party, Tan Jincheng knew that the data center was now his, and he had to repay the favor as part of his achievements before leaving office.

However, this aligns with his thinking; he had never considered placing the data center in another province.

The leader surnamed Chen nodded in satisfaction. It was so comfortable to discuss cooperation with such a straightforward entrepreneur. If it was okay, it was okay; if it wasn't okay, it wasn't okay. If everyone was like this, then attracting investment would be much simpler.

The leader surnamed Chen still carried the work habits he had when he was in Zhejiang Province. Tan Jincheng was interested in investing, and he was interested in attracting investment. The two hit it off immediately, and everything else became much simpler.

Friday, December 10, 2017.

ByteDance and Gui'an Large Data Center officially signed a memorandum of understanding, and the national-level data center plan with a total investment of no less than 60 billion yuan was officially established in Guizhou Province.

It has only been a week since the two parties first met. Although there are no specific design intentions yet, the cooperation between the two parties has been basically finalized.

This also relieved the province. According to Tan Jincheng's idea, if the cave-style data center plan is officially finalized, then the mountains in the province will have a place to be used.

Gui'an New Area can really be transformed into a large data center industrial park, which is exciting to think about.

"Please give your data center a name, Mr. Tan, so that it will be easier to get approval from higher authorities."

Within a week, Tan Jincheng had a very pleasant experience, and the people from Guizhou Province who were cooperating with him for the first time also felt the unique qualities of this young entrepreneur.

He would strive for the necessary preferential treatment, but he wouldn't make any excessive demands. He always put the company's needs first and didn't waste time with unnecessary talk. Considering the reputation he had built up when investing in various places, everyone was even more excited.

But what excited them the most was the news coming from across the ocean.

On the same day that Tan Jincheng arrived in Guizhou Province, Cheng Linfeng's flight to New York also took off. All the formalities were completed during the Spring Festival. Cheng Linfeng, along with the team assigned to him by Tan Jincheng, flew to Wall Street to begin his cash-out journey.

As Cheng Linfeng took off, Musk, who was far away in North America, also helped Tan Jincheng contact a top legal team in North America at his request to provide legal assistance for this cash-out.

That said, the madman's attitude towards the old man taking office was not very good.

Musk was both pleased and somewhat amused by Tan Jincheng's plan to reduce his holdings of Tesla shares by 690 million. The cash-out amount of over $17 billion is approximately 120 billion yuan at the current exchange rate.

This single cash-out is enough to cover the overall investment and construction of ByteDance's data center in your province.

"Director Ma donated a data center to us, hehe."

Cheng Linfeng reports his work progress to Tan Jincheng every day. Tesla's stock performed well in January, rising 17.90% overall and closing at $251.93.

Tesla had a good first quarter, with deliveries far exceeding last year's figures. The Model S and Model X remain Tesla's leading models.

Although production is in the ramp-up phase, judging from the data in January, Tesla's first-quarter deliveries should be around 2.5 vehicles, an increase of more than 60% compared to the same period in 2016.

This is very beneficial for Tesla's stock price, and also very beneficial for Tan Jincheng's reduction of holdings.

If the expected price increase is realized, then his shares will naturally sell easily, and there will be no need to offer a significant discount.

Nvidia's stock price, however, did not change much, with an overall increase of only 2.29% in January.

"Haha, Director Ma even asked me about Wei Lai. He didn't ask secretly, and he said that Wei Lai will be one of their biggest competitors."

"Oh, what do you say?"

Cheng Linfeng chuckled: "They mainly inquired about our car models, but they talked most about the EP9. He even said that if the next batch is produced, he would like us to reserve one for him."

Tan Jincheng laughed heartily; he wasn't surprised by this at all.

The release of the Wynn EP9 caused quite a stir. Although it was controversial and couldn't be mass-produced, its performance was undeniable.

With the technology of Cylindrical sports cars and the team provided by Lotus, the EP9 has a lot of British heritage. First of all, in terms of power, the EP9 can output a powerful 1360 horsepower and accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in just 2.7 seconds.

It accelerates from 0 to 200 km/h in just 7.1 seconds, and has a top speed of 313 km/h.

Pure electric sports cars are outstanding in terms of power, acceleration, top speed, range and handling. Although they cannot be mass-produced, they can still run on the Nürburgring Nordschleife without any problems.

During the New Year's Day holiday, the EP9, led by Hu Zhengnan, went to the Nürburgring Nordschleife for a lap, and its lap time of 6 minutes and 45.90 seconds broke the record for the fastest lap time of a domestic car.

Wei Lai didn't publicize this achievement much; Hu Zhengnan just celebrated it on Weibo, and not many people knew about it. However, it still attracted considerable attention in the racing community, so it's normal that Musk noticed it.

"Unfortunately, we can't mass-produce them yet, nor can they be legally driven on the road. Hopefully, we can produce a legally driven Weilai sports car in the future. Tell Factory Manager Ma that I can reserve one for him in the second batch."

The reason for not promoting the EP9 on a large scale is twofold: firstly, it can only run on the track and cannot be driven on public roads; secondly, the production cost is too high, and although Weilai possesses these technologies, it is still unable to control them.

When Hu Zhengnan celebrated on Weibo, some people in the comments section sarcastically said that it was just Lotus technology with a different skin and could not be considered his own technology.

That makes sense, and Tan Jincheng accepted it readily. But Lotus is still mine, isn't it? One day, Weilai will produce a mass-producible and legally roadworthy sports car. The Lotus Jiangcheng factory is already in operation. Once we've absorbed the technology, building a sports car won't be a problem.

"Okay, then I'll tell him that this sale was thanks to his help. But this guy doesn't have a good relationship with the old man. Will we get implicated?"

Cheng Linfeng secretly thought that this madman got a good deal. Only six EP9s were produced in the first batch, and he couldn't get any. The second batch was planned to produce only 20. Although he wanted one for his collection, he was too embarrassed to say so.

Didn't you see that the boss uses his own car as a display vehicle in Beijing?

“Okay, I understand. Foreigners are more pragmatic. Their help is also driven by self-interest. Just operate according to their way of thinking. If you don’t understand, you can ask Shen Nanpeng for advice. I’ve already spoken to him.”

Nvidia and Tesla are planning to reduce their stakes significantly, and Tan Jincheng wants to dispose of them all at once. This will inevitably require him to seek cooperation with more institutions, including top investment banks such as Sequoia Capital, Vanguard, and BlackRock, all of which have expressed interest in the shares of these two companies.

No one understands the value of these two shares better than them. Although it can make Tan Jincheng, this "foreigner," a fortune, they will definitely not lose out.

"Okay, I know."

What makes your province happy is this: at a reception, Tan Jincheng, who had a few drinks, inadvertently revealed that they had prepared the total construction funds for the data center. Although it was just a sentence, everyone involved is shrewd.

The next day, the leader surnamed Chen invited Tan Jincheng to his home, implying that he wanted to find out if Tan Jincheng's story was true.

Tan Jincheng, known as the "Cash King of Zhejiang Province," is known to everyone for his wealth. However, it is also known that Tan Jincheng's assets are mostly securities. There has been no news of any major moves by ByteDance's advertising platform recently, except for Nvidia's three-month share reduction plan.

Moreover, given that the acquisition of Meizu cost nearly 200 billion yuan, people are still somewhat apprehensive about ByteDance's data center plan, which claims a total investment of no less than 60 billion yuan.

Tan Jincheng replied with a smile: "It is indeed true. We are currently dealing with Tesla shares. Preliminary negotiations have been reached, and this time we can reduce our holdings of Tesla shares by about 120 billion yuan at once."

Although a memorandum of understanding has been signed, Tan Jincheng is not yet able to leave your province. The specific site selection, area, design method, environmental impact assessment, and other related plans all need to be discussed by both parties.

The project, named "Juliang Seven Star Data Center" based on its geographical location, has been officially approved, and the project team is currently in the process of setting up the facility.

"How many?"

The leader surnamed Chen was a bit stunned. He had seen all kinds of situations, and the figure of 120 billion yuan did not scare him, but this was the first time he had seen such a "bizarre" thing.

Who the hell prepares double the construction funds before even starting a project?

The way she looked at Tan Jincheng was also somewhat ambiguous.

Tan Jincheng smiled faintly. Such a person naturally knew who was supporting him. He was not afraid, but he also did not want the other party to misunderstand that the 120 billion yuan was all prepared for the data center.

"This is the total value, but we won't receive that much. We'll also need to pay some handling fees. Besides, transferring it all back to China won't be easy. However, you don't need to worry about the data center construction plan."

The travel expenses of Cheng Linfeng's team, the fees of the legal team, and the public relations expenses on Wall Street are all huge expenses. Apart from these, the bulk of the expenses are the concessions to institutions.

The total cost is likely to exceed 10%, and the net proceeds could exceed 100 billion yuan.

Moreover, he didn't intend to transfer all of this money back to RMB assets. He wanted to keep some US dollars and other assets such as gold abroad to facilitate future overseas investments.

He nodded slowly and said, "I see. I was mistaken. But this is good too. President Tan is still the same person who doesn't cause trouble for the local government."

"However, you should still leak some information about this to others; it will be beneficial for you as well."

ByteDance's overall investment in Meizu Technology is a package of plans including acquisitions, financial support, and strategic cooperation with Weilai. The total investment will exceed 200 billion yuan. Apart from the mobile phone business, the intelligent vehicle system actually had no revenue for a long time. To put it bluntly, Tan Jincheng found Meizu an unprofitable job.

Any forward-thinking plan will be praised by some as visionary, but others will question its success. No one knows how Meizu will perform in the future.

It could be a very profitable company, or it could be a bottomless pit.

Tan Jincheng is not short of money, but for investments of 200 billion or 60 billion yuan at a time, it is impossible for him to sell or pledge all his securities. It is normal for the market to have doubts.

"Okay, I will release some information to the outside world later."

Tan Jincheng nodded, understanding that this was a well-intentioned reminder. In a way, they were "one of their own," as his career path and Tan Jincheng's path to wealth overlapped in many ways with that person's.

Although they had no personal relationship and didn't communicate much, they understood each other implicitly.

"Okay, it's good that President Tan understands. I'm not worried about President Tan's determination. The main thing is that we can't ignore the doubts from the outside world."

This whole affair is a consequence of Meizu's lightning-fast acquisition. Although the hype has died down, the fact that Huang's family was ruthlessly ousted by Tan Jincheng has certainly shocked everyone.

Tan Jincheng has always been seen as gentle and refined, and his actions and plans are subtle and unassuming. However, as the companies he invests in and acquires grow and expand, people suddenly realize: "Holy crap, it's this guy again. He's made a fortune."

However, this was just a sentiment and did not generate any resistance towards Tan Jincheng.

In the eyes of some, Meizu's acquisition this time is undoubtedly a "forced robbery". They are naturally afraid of the ruthless methods shown by Tan Jincheng, and they are afraid that this will happen to them.

What's your opinion on Lifan?

Before Tan Jincheng could continue thinking, the leader asked another question, which was still as whimsical as ever.

"Lifan? How to evaluate it? It's too deeply entrenched to be reformed, but if you deal with some of the peripheral businesses, it's still an excellent company; of course, their biggest problem is that the founder is too old."

Mr. Yin is now 79 years old, another year older. No matter how well he takes care of himself, he can't escape the effects of age. He can live a good life by taking care of his health, but managing a business is a bit of a challenge.

In 2016, Lifan improved its financial situation significantly through a series of capital operations, including selling assets to Wei Lai and transferring automobile production qualifications to Li Bing's Wenjie. It avoided large-scale losses, which led to a decent performance of its stock in the following months.

The most outrageous thing is that they borrowed back the car production license that they sold to Li Bing. Wenjie is still just a PowerPoint presentation about making cars, so they are happy to earn a rental fee while also protecting their car production license.

However, both parties agreed that the loan period would only be two years, after which the loan would not be extended to them.

Lifan clearly doesn't want to give up on its car business yet. It's better to wait and see what happens in two years. Let's try and see if there's any hope. In 2016, Lifan claimed to have sold 128,700 cars, and its SUV model launched in June claimed to have sold more than 50,000 units.

Tan Jincheng didn't quite believe these two sets of figures. He knew about their SUV that sold for 70,000 yuan. It was indeed cheap and had attracted many consumers in the early stages. In fact, its design was a significant improvement over their previous pure copying, and it was quite eye-catching.

However, the old problems haven't changed much: high fuel consumption, loud noise, poor sealing, and various abnormal noises inside the car are just some of the quality issues that continue to arise. The power is also extremely weak.

It's like those movies that are all show and no substance; they might fool some people into going to the theater at the beginning, but once word gets out, they're ruined.

Lifan is still the same Lifan, still short-sighted, wasting its investment in design.

"Okay, I know."

The leader surnamed Chen nodded but did not speak further. Tan Jincheng knew it was time to leave, so he made an excuse and left. Watching Tan Jincheng's departing figure, he seemed to be deep in thought.

He'll have to move to Chongqing in the second half of the year; that's basically confirmed. To put it bluntly, he's going there to put out fires.

After the New Year, he began collecting economic data about Chongqing and learned a great deal about Lifan's problems. Indeed, as Tan Jincheng said, it had many flaws, but it was still an excellent company.

Of course, the biggest problem is that the founder is too old.

Compared to the aging owner of Lifan, he greatly admired Tan Jincheng's way of doing things. He also knew that the young man was interested in some of Lifan's assets, and he had even personally visited Chongqing at the beginning of last year.

"I wonder if they're still interested? Never mind, let's focus on getting this project implemented first."

After thinking for a while without any clue, he knew Tan Jincheng's position above him and could not order the other party to do anything. All he could do was cooperate and achieve a win-win situation. At this moment, he thought of the strange behavior of this young man who ran to Malaysia last March, and a smile involuntarily appeared on his lips.

"He's a smart guy."

Let nature take its course. With such a national-level project as the Juliang Seven Stars Data Center now in operation, he has gotten what he wanted, no matter what. We can't ask for more.

After more than half a month of consultations between the two parties, the 7-Data Center project of Juliang was officially approved.

On February 28, Tan Jincheng, founder of ByteDance's advertising platform, and the Guizhou Provincial Government jointly held a press conference to officially launch the data center project.

The first cave-style data center in China, the Giant Engine Seven Star Data Center, covers a total area of ​​approximately 47 square meters (about 770 acres), with a tunnel area of ​​over 3 square meters.

The entire data center consists of a cave data center, an extended data center outside the cave, and a research and development living support area. It adopts fourth-generation data center technology and has high concealment, high protection, and high security.

The entire data center is divided into Phase I and Phase II projects, with a planned capacity of 30 servers. Phase I will be able to accommodate more than 5 servers after its completion.

This data center will store the global core data of the four core companies under ByteDance's Big Data Engine Holdings: Weilai, Orange, Flashpoint, and Meizu, providing highly secure and reliable cloud services.

Light industry (Flash) + mobile phones (Meizu) + automobiles (Weilai) + artificial intelligence (Chengzi)!

A complete ecosystem is gradually taking shape. Compared to Xiaomi's ecosystem, Juhuasuan's ecosystem includes the automotive sector.

Compared to companies like BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) that build internet ecosystems, the massive ecosystem system adds two more hardware systems on top of the foundation of internet companies.

The layman looks at the excitement and the insider looks at the doorway.

The media were excited about Tan Jincheng's extravagant spending since November of last year, having spent nearly 30 billion yuan in just three months; of course, they also admired Tan Jincheng's ability to make money.

Tesla cashed out $14.5 billion and Nvidia cashed out $43.6 billion, totaling over 40 billion yuan. After spending nearly 30 billion yuan, they still have over 10 billion yuan left!

"Haha, there aren't actually that many. There are a lot of concessions and fees involved. You might not know that the media doesn't, but you do."

As soon as the press conference ended, Tan Jincheng received several phone calls, including from Lei Jun and Pony Ma. Pony Ma also wanted to build a data center in Guizhou Province and came to Tan Jincheng to inquire about the details.

In addition, there's Boatman Brother and Li Auto from the same province, both of whom are curious about Tan Jincheng's creation of this brand-new ecosystem.

"That's impressive. You made such a huge investment without spending a single penny. How about we talk about it in the capital in a few days?"

"No problem."

It's March again, and the Two Sessions are here once more. Boss Tan, who is known for making big moves at the beginning of the year, has brought a whole new level of excitement to the Two Sessions with a national-level data center project.

Whether in physical stores or online, Weilai's series of actions from 2016 to early 2017 were closely related to the hot topics of this year's Two Sessions.

Tan Jincheng, who made a last-minute escape last year, is destined to be the focus this year.

(End of this chapter)