Chapter 164: The Late Spring Chill

In the following days, Li Xian made a clear division of responsibilities, handing over all matters related to the paper industry to Zhang Dagong.

In fact, there were no significant difficulties in the current operations of New Bei Paper Industry. With strong support from Beilin and a series of honors following the provincial public wall incident, the company's development was progressing smoothly.

Besides the Beilin paper mill, the company was also planning to merge two paper mills in Ice City.

The sales department was performing well. Using Li Xian's previous marketing strategies, the Xinlang Special Roll Paper and napkins had started to penetrate into Liaoning and Jilin provinces, which bordered Longjiang Province.

Order volumes were steadily increasing, and production capacity was being expanded. Chen Shulin was already planning to advertise the sanitary paper on the provincial TV stations of the two provinces.

With the company's backend stable, Li Xian contacted Xu Mao and recovered the 12 million yuan from the disposed machinery.

According to the current market situation, first-tier cities had the highest recognition of sanitary napkins among women. For reasons of profit and brand promotion, he planned to target first-tier cities in the early stages of business development. This revealed the geographical disadvantage of Longjiang.

Considering factors like raw material supply and market entry timing, he decided not to build a factory himself but to acquire an existing state-owned factory for production, leveraging its already complete production structure to enter the market directly.

Taking all these factors into account, he focused on Dalian, a city with a state-owned sanitary napkin factory named Honghua.

After finalizing all the company matters, he took Si Yang and Shang Fei and directly took the train to Dalian, preparing to discuss potential contracting or acquisition possibilities with the local supervisory departments.

Li Xian had been to Dalian twice before, but it was clear that the current Binhai city was still far from the bustling metropolis it would become years later. The buildings were not as high or numerous, and the roads had only a sparse number of cars, lacking the later scene of busy traffic.

Nevertheless, with its location on the Bohai Sea, adjacent to Northeast China, and separated from the Shandong Peninsula by sea, Binhai was an emerging city with a promising future. As a window for Northeast China's opening-up and its largest port city, its future brilliance was already beginning to show.

As he rode in a taxi, high-rise buildings had started to appear around the Railway Hospital and People's Square. The Jinma Building, which had been in use since 1991 in the development zone, stood tall against the skyline, echoing the nearby Silver Sail Hotel.

On the streets, unlike the small city of Beilin, women wore brightly colored thin cotton jackets or coats. Fashionable young women flaunted their figure-hugging skirts and trench coats. The rhythm of their long legs and high heels exuded the confidence and elegance of the new era.

Among the crowd, foreign faces with blonde hair and blue eyes were visible.

On the distant seaside, students from the Maritime Academy shouted slogans during drills, while sunburned men raced for a football on the beach.

The April sea breeze had already brought a touch of warmth.

After settling into the Silver Sail Hotel, Li Xian immediately used the contact information provided by Liu Wanfa to call the office of Director Wan Chunhui of the Binhai State-owned Assets Management Office.

Before Li Xian set out for Binhai, he had a brief meeting with Liu Wanfa. It was evident that Liu, as the top leader in Beilin, was quite dissatisfied with Li Xian's decision to leave Beilin and go to Binhai.

Thus, the call was hard-won, requested only after Li Xian painstakingly explained that the sanitary napkin industry required a region with convenient transportation and a complete industrial chain.

The call was quickly connected, but the response was not very warm. Perhaps out of respect for the local leader, Director Wan reluctantly agreed to a meeting in the afternoon.

At 3 p.m.

After waiting for a full two hours at the State-owned Assets Office, Li Xian finally met Director Wan.

When Li Xian and his team inquired about the feasibility of acquiring the Honghua sanitary napkin factory, Director Wan directly gave a negative answer.

"You private enterprises always think things are so simple," Director Wan said, extinguishing his cigarette and waving his hand. "Don't always talk about economic reforms. We know how state-owned factories are performing. I advise you local businesses to do honest business and take profits when you can. Don't stretch your hands too far, or you'll get into trouble, and we will too."

This attitude puzzled Li Xian.

The wave of economic reforms had already started, and even Ice City had begun to actively respond to the country's policy of "grabbing the big and letting go of the small," even though it had not yet been officially proposed but was implied. This policy aimed at piloting the cleanup and reform of non-priority enterprises' assets.

As a more open and commercially active area, Binhai's government should have no reason to resist local enterprises acquiring state-owned enterprises.

Seeing that there were no outsiders in the office, Li Xian smiled and offered Director Wan another cigarette. "Director Wan, do you have time tonight? I'm new here and came specifically to meet you. Could you give us a chance to have a thorough discussion?"

Despite the saying that one should not strike a smiling face, Director Wan decisively shook his head. "Don't try that with me. This matter you're talking about is absolutely not feasible. I don't have time to waste with you. You can do as you please."

At that moment, the office door was knocked, and two blonde foreigners entered after hearing Director Wan's response.

Seeing these two, Director Wan immediately greeted them with a smile and stood up to welcome them. With the help of the translators they brought, the discussion quickly shifted to matters of developing district land.

Seeing that he was completely ignored while the foreigners were treated like VIPs, Li Xian took a deep breath and waved to his equally angry subordinates, Si Yang and Shang Fei, before storming out.

Outside the State Assets Office, Si Yang kicked a stone lion at the door with frustration.

"What the hell! Did you see that guy's attitude? It's like he's meeting his own father! What's wrong with local enterprises? Isn't our New Bei Paper Industry's profitability better than that of any state-owned factory of similar size? Damn it!"

Shang Fei, also fuming, said with a red face, "Who does he think he is! Why look down on us so much? If we weren't trying to save time with a direct acquisition, wouldn't we just open our own factory? Bah!"

"Bah, bah, bah!"

Cursing, Shang Fei spat several times at the State Assets Office door, seemingly not feeling relieved.

Amidst the anger of his subordinates, Li Xian's frown deepened.

This attitude was wrong.

As he pondered, a gentle sea breeze blew a newspaper to his feet.

It was a newspaper that had been expired for several days, seemingly used to wrap something, with grease stains on it, but the content was still vaguely visible.

When he saw a news item on it, he suddenly realized why Director Wan had that attitude earlier!

He remembered: in April 1993, at the transition from spring to summer, the early wave of economic reforms in China... there was a late spring chill.

And he, unfortunately, had arrived at the wrong time.

Seeing him staring at the newspaper, Shang Fei tilted her head curiously.

Her sharp eyes caught the news content under the grease stains, and she expressed some surprise.

"Ah? Shen Taifu was arrested? Oh no! Yu Zuomin is also in trouble? What does this mean?"

Hearing her exclamation, Si Yang's glasses nearly fell off.

"No, no, no, who got arrested? Who's in trouble?" He snatched the newspaper.

Seeing those two names, he sat down on the ground in shock.

"Could this be related to the reforms?"

Sitting on the cold ground, Si Yang murmured.