13 - On The Road
On the land of China in the early 1990s, highways were still only a thing of dreams. Other than that pitiful, roughly 300 kilometers long Chenda Expressway, which was the only one in the country, most drivers didn't even know the concept of a "dual four-lane roadway". Complex road conditions, pavement in bad repair, and poor connections between provincial and national roads were the real conditions facing long-distance transportation. Therefore, in these years, as long as one had some qualifications, most of the people travelling far from home would rather take the train instead of jolting around on the cement and asphalt roads.
After driving through a provincial road, the scarface let out a long sigh of relief. Even if they avoided most of the unpaved roads in the countryside, this ride still wouldn't be very pleasant. Every time they drove past potholes in the road or bridges, he couldn't help but turn his head to look behind him, only hoping that the ropes bundling the goods could be stronger to better secure the precious electrical appliances. It was still a clear day, and if by any chance they were unlucky enough to encounter a rainy season, the canopy and tarpaulin would have to be put up to the test. This wasn't just an ordinary fear, they had to constantly be on edge.
Fortunately, this time the driver was really good. Glancing at the teenager beside him, the scarface finally became a little more convinced. They had set out in the early morning, and had been driving for nearly ten hours all the way. Besides stopping once in the middle to eat lunch and to refuel, there were barely even a few minutes of rest. With such high-intensity driving, the child never uttered a few words of exhaustion, and even the expression on his face hadn't changed much. He didn't know what to say about him, but he was glad that the kid hadn't yet been corrupted by society and turned into someone sly and shrewd. One should know that in these years, being a driver was regarded as a well-liked, secure occupation. Not to mention favouring and giving gifts, there were practically no people who'd even dare to offend the drivers of those expensive cars worth tens of thousands of dollars.
When they looked at the road signs by the side of the road, they had almost reached the boundary of Chenzhou [1], which should also be their first delivery point.
"Little Chen, turn right at the next intersection, we should be there soon."
He didn't mention where they were going, but Chen Yuanming didn't care. He followed the other person's instructions and drove onto a relatively flat dirt road. About 20 minutes later, a small village appeared before them.
"The third house west of the village entrance, park by the door."
The playful demeanor that he had put on for the entire trip also slowly vanished, and the scarface sat up straight, paying attention to their surroundings. Due to the fact that they were participating in a smuggling trade, a little more care should be taken in regards to the handover of the goods. This wasn't the smuggling paradise of Zhuhai, the farther you go inland, the greater the intensity of cracking down on the crimes of speculative buying and selling. Both of the parties doing the deliveries must avoid densely populated, middle-to-large tier cities, and they also had to make sure that the place of reception wasn't too remote. The two sides both had to have credible, reliable people present, to prevent some people from taking advantage of things. In their small network, Chenzhou was just an appetizer.
A few minutes later, the truck stopped outside a small yard, and the scarface jumped out of the car and knocked on the door with a fairly rhythmic beat. With a squeak, the door opened. A head poked out from inside, it was a kid with a round head, and he looked like he hadn't even reached the age of 12 yet. He looked around them with his eyes before opening the door. The scarface waved to Chen Yuanming, and the big truck slowly entered the courtyard.
The little yard was just slightly smaller than the yard they used to store goods. There was only a simple parking shed by the side of the yard, there wasn't even a warehouse. After parking the truck, the scarface didn't get Chen Yuanming to unload the goods, but instead called him down from the car and dragged him by the shoulders to the building on the north side of the courtyard.
This was a makeshift brick house that was only around ten square meters in size. The furnishings inside the room were quite simple, with a small round table, a wooden bed, and some toiletries. At this time, a large bowl full of rice was sitting on the table, and there were also two hot dishes, one meat and one vegetable. They had probably been kept warm in the pot the entire time, and were still giving off steam. The scarface pressed Chen Yuanming down onto a small wooden stool, smiled and pointed to the insulating pot on the table, "Eat first! There's only plain water today, you'll have to continue driving tomorrow, so there's no alcohol for now."
"I don't drink alcohol." Looking at the lone pair of chopsticks and bowl on the table, Chen Yuanming only responded back lightly and sat down to eat. After ten or more hours of continuous driving, his mental state had already become very tense and strained. Coupled with the cold lunch they had at noon that even a dog would find shabby, he was really exhausted now, and it was great to finally have a hot meal.
Looking at Chen Yuanming's calm attitude, the scarface smiled and patted the boy's shoulder. Doesn't get curious, doesn't talk much, doesn't meddle, there's no partner who's less troublesome than this one.
"I have to head out and handle some things first. If you get tired later on then just go to sleep early." The scarface pointed to the simple and crude bed at the side, "I won't come back tonight, tomorrow morning we'll hit the road at 7 o'clock."
Chen Yuanming's mouth was stuffed full of food, seeming like he was really hungry, but he wasted no time and nodded his head, expressing that he understood. The scarface smiled slightly, patted the other person's shoulder again, turned around and walked out the door.
When the scarface's retreating back disappeared outside the door, Chen Yuanming slowed down the speed at which he was eating the food, and squinted slightly, his eyes sweeping around the entire room. It was still early at this time, and it appeared to be only 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening, but the room was quite dim. The only window in the room was opened underneath the roof beam, it was only around the width of a ruler, and it didn't let through much light at all. The door to the room faced the courtyard wall, so there was no way to spy on anything happening inside the courtyard. On the drive here, Chen Yuanming had also chatted intermittently with the scarface a few times. Although that man seemed like he'd be talkative and liked to brag, he never casually talked about the really important things. He had carefully probed a few times but still didn't manage to get any hints.
However, after these two days of observation, he realized that this smuggling band wasn't exactly the same as what he had heard from that Fujianese man in his previous life. Recalling his vague impressions of the past, right now it wasn't the prime time for smuggling TVs. The consumption tax reform of TV sales in the late 1980s and the upcoming abolition of the two-pricing system in the early 1990s would liberalize the market economy [2], and it would also cause the TV reselling industry to hit its lowest point. He remembered that a book he had read in his past life had given a relevant introduction to this, telling the story of a well-known entrepreneur who had wanted to make a fortune by reselling TVs but ended up losing a lot of money instead. Now that he thought about it, it's in these two years that the TV-related industries will undergo some major changes.
At this time, the two Ma Lei brothers only had three trucks in total. Like for this trip, they had only filled up the truck with around 200-300 color TV sets and a few dozen sets of stereos, all of which were Japanese-manufactured products. At most, each set would only be worth a few hundred dollars in profit, and if an entire truckful of goods were to be smoothly sold out, in the best-case scenario, they'd make around 100,000 dollars in earnings. He had also heard that on another trip of theirs, it also involved the color-TV business, but it was for a well-known domestic brand. By relying on the two-pricing system to catch a price difference, and evading some other TV retail taxes, after going back and forth like this, there was a total profit of 2-300 000.
However, smuggling and reselling required money. A little here, a little there, making contacts and laying the groundwork, and investing a lot of money in maintaining interpersonal relationships and connections. After doing this for a long time, making four or five million a year wouldn't be a problem. However, earning money like this can make one go crazy, and the boundary from where becoming one of those wealthy upstarts on the southeast coast ends was still a long way from "being the very best". Over the course of the next two years, the TV industry will only deteriorate day by day, becoming even more difficult for business development. This wasn't like those powerful and influential people up in the north who could do business with Russia and rely on that easy method for a long time. The pressure of competition in the south was too great, and it wasn't easy to get ahead.
But from the mouth of the Fujianese foreman, the two brothers were quite good. By the time they were imprisoned in 1996, their business had already expanded to Nanjing [3]. Because the scale of operations was too large, that's why a small fry like him (the Fujianese foreman) was able to escape unpunished and wasn't involved in the legal case.
Today, after making this trip with the scarface, Chen Yuanming realized that their business was still far from that scale. There could be two reasons for this: one is that they've just started their business, and they haven't figured out a real money-making method. The other reason could be that their real business operations hadn't been revealed yet, and the Fujianese man was just a small fry from the outside, only having some superficial knowledge of things. From what Chen Yuanming thought, both reasons could be true.
However... Swallowing the food in his mouth, he retracted his gaze and laughed at himself. Who cares what kind of business they're doing, not getting in contact with it and not getting involved too deeply was actually the best choice for him. Currently, the city of Zhuhai was just a stepping stone for him to get started, if he drops too hard into the water, the losses would only outweigh the gains. It was better to concentrate on his own plans instead.
Having figured this out, Chen Yuanming didn't delay any longer. After quickly finishing his dinner, he threw himself on to the bed. This time the drowsiness came quickly. Maybe it's because he had become too numb from driving all day, but he didn't even have any nightmares, and slept soundly until daybreak.
Early the next morning, when he got out of bed, the smell of rice was already wafting in from outside. Stepping through the door, he saw a small table propped up in the courtyard. The scarface was holding his forehead with a pained expression, bickering with the little kid beside him. When he saw Chen Yuanming coming out, he cried out piteously.
"Hurry up and eat! Yesterday I drank too much and I vomited twice, and now you see this little devil is causing even more trouble..." He waved his hand at the child like he was shooing away a fly, "Hurry up and scram! Or I'll tell your dad to give you a beating!"
Although he was sporting the bitter appearance of someone recovering from a hangover, the man looked calm, as if nothing had happened last night. In the distance, some cargo could clearly be seen missing from their truck, it had probably been transported away at night. Chen Yuanming glanced around and then looked away, nodded, and sat down to start eating.
Half an hour later, the new blue Liberation truck drove out from the small courtyard, heading towards their next destination.
Along the way, they stopped twice, once in a small village like before, and the other time they simply slept in the car for a night. It wasn't until the third day that they finally arrived at their next important stop, the city of Wuhan [4]. At this time, the goods in their truck had already pretty much all been cleaned out. Instead of parking in a remote village as usual, they chose to stay at a hotel on the outskirts of Wuhan.
"A-Ming [5], you stay here for two days and have a good rest. I'm going to the city first to retrieve some cargo, we'll set out once the goods have arrived." After interacting □□ for some time, the scarface had already changed his form of address towards Chen Yuanming, and he very properly told him, "If you want to play, then you can also go out to play. Here's your overtime pay for driving, take it first and have some fun with it, you're so young, don't stay holed up inside a room all the time."
Two hundred dollars were crammed into his hands. The scarface blinked at Chen Yuanming, and shook the car keys as he swaggered out of the hotel. Now that there was no one by his side, and he didn't have any extra tasks to do, Chen Yuanming let out a breath. It was time to go check out the city streets.
Footnotes:
Chenzhou: A city in Hunan province (see images below).Two-pricing system: Or "dual-track price system". It's a situation in which the same product or service is sold at different prices in different markets. I found online that apparently in China, the dual-track price system is the intermediate price system from the state-controlled price system to the free market price system. In China prior to 1978, most prices were set by the government alongside quantity targets. When the need for reform was accepted, there arose the question of how to move the economy from a planned one towards a market-oriented system. Chinese economic reformers took the view that the best way was to keep the existing planned economy, but to gradually build up a free market system alongside it. In 1981, the central government allowed some enterprises which had fulfilled their planned production quotas, to sell their surplus output at market prices, while their planned quota production was sold at state-set prices. This strategy was implemented from 1979-1993. (I'm sorry, I really don't know enough about these things to be able to properly explain it... But if you read up about planned economies and market economies on Google, it can probably help with your understanding for this section.)Nanjing: Capital city of Jiangsu province (see images below).Wuhan: Capital city of Hubei province, it's also where the current coronavirus originated from