Rebirth of Siheyuan starts in the 1980s

Chapter 568 Uninvited Sun Yuden

Author: Tang Juyi

Chapter 568 Uninvited Sun Yuden

After leaving the manuscript of the novel to the young editor Yuno Watanabe, Cao Zhiqiang went directly back home and continued to create quietly, plagiarizing, no, original creation for his next masterpiece "Snow Country".

However, I had just returned to my newly rented house, had just finished a cup of hand-brewed coffee, and before I had even taken two sips, I received a call from Anping.

During the phone call, Anping asked him to go back quickly because someone came to visit him and said that he was the section chief of the second sales department of TAIYO YUDEN Company, who came to discuss cooperation in China.

At first, Cao Zhiqiang didn't understand it, but when Anping repeated the name of the company again, said that the other party had two tape production lines that he wanted to transfer, and asked if we were interested in buying them, he suddenly understood.

TAIYO YUDEN, isn't this just Taiyo Yuden? It can be considered an unknown niche company.

Originally, Cao Zhiqiang didn't know about this company, but in his previous life, Cao Zhiqiang's father was a music enthusiast and liked cassettes very much. He collected a lot of cassette tapes, including a tape called "That's" because the name was quite special and he was old in his previous life.

Dad treasured this tape very much, so Cao Zhiqiang learned a little about the company that produced this tape.

That's tape is a very niche but exquisite tape. Later, it was basically produced with metal tapes. The sound performance is very good, no worse than famous brand tapes such as Sony.

The manufacturer of That's tape is a relatively small company in Japan, Taiyo Yuden.

According to Cao Zhiqiang's understanding, Taiyo Yuden originally engaged in ceramic capacitors. Later, as the business expanded, they began to produce cassette tapes in the 1970s. However, this was only a side business and not their main business.

Relatively speaking, this company is more flexible, has gone abroad for a long time, and has certain connections with China.

However, it is not the mainland, but Baodao Province.

Yes, if Cao Zhiqiang remembers correctly, this company set up a branch in Baodao as early as 1967, still mainly producing capacitors.

Generally speaking, this company is not outstanding in the tape business. Compared with mainstream tape companies such as Sony, TDK, Maxell, and Fujifilm, it is very weak.

But no matter how weak it is, it is still a Japanese company. It can possess Japan's mature technology and production lines, which is far beyond what the current domestic companies can match.

Not only are the number of domestic tape manufacturers currently small in China, but the tapes are also very inferior to ordinary tapes. In terms of timbre, distortion, etc., they are completely incomparable with imported tapes.

For example, Hongguang Publishing House's current largest partner, the Tiantan tape factory in Beijing, actually introduced American technology and production lines in order to mass-produce domestic tapes. Otherwise, it would not have the technology.

Other partners, such as Baihua Tape Factory in Jinan, also imported production lines, but they were all obsolete foreign technologies. They were iron oxide tapes, the lowest quality among ordinary tapes, and they were just cheap.

But in fact, at least in Japan, the second-generation chromium dioxide tape has matured as early as the 1970s, and the relatively cost-effective cobalt-containing iron oxide tape has been developed for many years. Even in 1978, the American 3M

The company has also developed mature metal tapes long ago.

In other words, domestic tape manufacturers, one after another, are all lagging behind foreign countries, at least for now.

But even for those backward tapes, domestic supply exceeds demand, and this situation of shortage will not change for at least ten years.

On the contrary, in Japan, the industry at this time has generally overcapacity, such as tape production capacity, which has long been overcapacity.

Because of this, Japanese companies are eager to go global, and the mainland market is undoubtedly the biggest cake.

It's just that the country is so poor at present that even the government is in urgent need of foreign exchange, let alone ordinary local factories.

Japanese tape manufacturers all make money. If you don't have money, they will cooperate with you.

Of course, in addition to money, there is another way, which is to engage in joint ventures, but the country currently lacks corresponding laws and regulations, so many Japanese manufacturers are hesitant to do so.

In other words, before they can find reliable domestic big players to cooperate with, those major Japanese manufacturers will not dare to enter the market easily for fear of being cheated.

Cao Zhiqiang remembers that in the past life, it was not until 1984, or around 1986 to be exact, that Japan's tape production lines were introduced in large quantities in China, using material processing methods to produce higher-quality tapes.

That is to say, since then, various domestic tape brands have been dazzled, such as Skylark, Xinni, Tianqin, Diamond, Feifei, Rose, Tieying, etc., but in essence they are all imported.

Second-hand molds and raw materials, and goods processed with supplied materials, are more similar to small workshops, not really large production lines.

For example, TCL, which became famous in its previous life, was originally a small tape workshop that processed supplied materials. Later, due to fate, it gradually became bigger and stronger, and it gradually became a giant.

TCL is just one of the few successful cases. Those who engaged in processing with supplied materials like TCL, 90% of them died.

Of course, there is no TCL yet, there is only a joint venture company TTK Home Appliances Company, which mainly produces audio tapes.

This TTK company is already very powerful and is one of the earliest 13 joint venture companies in China.

It's rare here in the north, but in the south, TTK audio tapes produced by TTK Company are very common.

However, the joint venture partner of this TTK company is a Hong Kong businessman, so the production line is actually a second-hand production line from abroad. You can imagine its quality.

If you have seen the photos of TTK's early manufacturers, you will know that the factory is said to be a joint venture, but in fact it is no different from a small workshop. The so-called production line is just some molds and the like, and then uses key parts imported from Hong Kong.

Assembling production tapes.

It's just that the scale of this kind of workshop-style production is relatively large, so the output of TTK tapes can keep up, but it is incomparable with the regular production lines of the Beijing Tape Factory.

However, this kind of enterprise is more flexible and lacks the rigid structure of large state-owned enterprises, so it can eventually go out.

In fact, Japanese manufacturers are not willing to enter China on a large scale now because they are worried about this.

Because most of the current domestic enterprises are state-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises understand everything, especially Japan. Therefore, unless they are large companies that can get policies, such as TDK, they are like small companies, such as Taiyang.

Yuden, I dare not go in.

Now that Taiyo Yuden has come to us on his own initiative, he must have smelled something.

But it's normal. It seems that Taiyo Yuden's headquarters is in Tokyo, and the company is small, so it can be more shameless. This is very normal.

After thinking about this, Cao Zhiqiang stopped drinking coffee, washed his face a little, changed into a formal suit, and went straight out to find Anping.

After taking a taxi and walking to the house where Anping lived, we saw Anping receiving two men in suits and ties.

One of the two men looked to be in his forties, and the other looked to be in his early twenties. They were a typical business team where the old leads the new.

Cao Zhiqiang is also familiar with this model, but he was familiar with it from watching island country love action movies in his previous life.

The kind of movies I watched in my previous life had many similar plots, but it was just a man and a woman, usually an older female boss and a younger male subordinate, or an older male boss and a younger female subordinate.

Cao Zhiqiang remembered that he searched for it because of this, but after actually searching, he realized that it was really just a plot.

In fact, Japanese companies do have a tradition of older bosses bringing younger subordinates to discuss business together, but they are all of the same gender.

In other words, if you are a male boss, your subordinates are usually male subordinates.

On the other hand, if you are a female boss, your subordinates will usually also be female subordinates.

The model where men and women work together without getting tired is what I call Greater China. This model is not popular in Japan, at least not in the conservative 1980s.

With this in mind, Cao Zhiqiang, under Anping's introduction, shook hands with the two salesmen who were obviously just here to test the waters, and then began to sit down and talk.

As for these two men, the older one is called Ikeda Kouta and the younger one is named Takaguchi Shu.

Among them, the title printed on Kota Ikedani's business card is the section chief of the second sales department, and the other one is a general employee.

Even though the section chief seems to be very good, the corresponding domestic department heads are actually not exactly like this.

In the 1980s, the section chiefs here in Japan, just like the managers in the country in the late 1990s, were already dead.

However, in large companies, section chiefs are still very powerful and generally have the right to operate independently.

In other words, in theory, there is nothing wrong with the other party sending a section chief to talk to you.

Of course, it is more likely that the section chief acted on his own initiative, and Taiyo Yuden’s senior management did not have this idea.

However, Japan still has a similar situation where the lower level suppresses the upper level. If the grassroots salesmen have negotiated the business and prepared a plan and submitted it to the senior management for approval, then the company will implement the plan.

In other words, in some large companies in Japan, the power of grassroots section chiefs is actually quite great. Once they can get good business, they can kill it first and then deal with it later.

After a brief exchange of greetings, the other party directly explained his intention to Cao Zhiqiang.

In fact, their purpose of coming is very simple. Just like what Anping said on the phone, they are just here to sell products, and the so-called products are tape production lines and related accessories.

"Cao-san!" Kota Iketani said with a gentle smile, "Although our production line is not the latest, it is absolutely reliable in performance, reasonable in price, and very cost-effective. As long as you buy our production line, it will definitely be worth your money!"

Speaking of this, Ikegaya Kota winked at his subordinates, and then the young man named Takaguchi Shu quickly picked up the briefcase and took out a stack of information and enlarged photos from it.

"Cao-san." Kota Iketani smiled and pushed the information over, "This is the basic information for our two production lines. You can take a look at it first. If you don't understand anything, I can explain it to you at any time."

After Cao Zhiqiang took the information, he first looked at the photos.

The photos are developed and enlarged, and are still photos of the tape production line taken from various angles.

There are photos of the production line when it is empty and still photos of the production line producing tapes.

Although it is not a video, but just looking at the photos, the production line is relatively new. It is not an old workshop mold, but a real automated production line.

Of course, the automated production line here refers to the standard of this era, and it is completely incomparable to the automated production lines Cao Zhiqiang has seen.

At least in Cao Zhiqiang's view, this production line is relatively rough and lacks the mechanical beauty he saw in his previous life. Many equipment and cables are exposed, but it should be very practical.

At least this kind of open and exposed production line should not be difficult to repair.

After looking at the photos, Cao Zhiqiang started reading the information again.

The information is all in Japanese, not Chinese as Cao Zhiqiang thought.

Looking at this situation, Cao Zhiqiang probably knew that this was most likely the result of Kota Iketani's own initiative.

Because if a company like Taiyo Yuden is really making high-level decisions, it would at least provide a Chinese explanation when cooperating with a Chinese like Cao Zhiqiang.

But it doesn’t matter, Japanese is just Japanese, and he doesn’t seem to have any trouble anyway.

After reading the information, he didn't understand the specific parameters, but at least he understood a few points.

That is, these two production lines were put into production in 1975, and it has been eight years since then.

The production line of 1975 is naturally not a high-end technology. At least it is not a chromium dioxide tape, let alone a metal tape, but the most common iron oxide tape.

However, although they are all iron oxide tapes, because when they were first put into production, they purchased the most advanced equipment at the time, and they could provide corresponding raw materials and accessories, so the electroacoustic properties of the produced tapes are definitely better than

Ordinary iron oxide tape is good, at least it should be better than the ordinary domestic tapes.

According to the above statement, the technology of tapes produced using this production line and accessories provided by Taiyo Yuden is comparable to that of TDK's TDK-AD type tapes.

TDK-AD tapes are high-end tapes among ordinary iron oxide tapes. They are the ones with particularly good electroacoustic performance. Their sound quality exceeds Sony's CHF tapes. Even in Japan, they are mid- to high-end tapes.

Of course, this kind of mid-to-high-end tape is compared with ordinary iron oxide tapes and cannot be compared with chromium dioxide tapes, cobalt-containing tapes and metal tapes.

In other words, in fact, this kind of tape can only be considered mid-range in Japan, but if it is placed in China, it is a high-end tape.

Because this kind of ordinary iron oxide tape is of better quality, there seems to be no domestic manufacturer that can produce this kind of tape at present.

In my memory, the earliest mid- to high-end tapes with AD in China seemed to be the Shanghai S-AD type tapes produced by the Shanghai Tape Factory, but that was 86 years later.

In other words, at least in 1983, domestic production lines for ordinary iron oxide tapes were all low-end, and there was no production line or technology that could compete with TDK-AD tapes.

After reading the information, Cao Zhiqiang nodded, put down the information, raised his head and asked Ikeda Kota: "It looks pretty good, what price are you going to offer?"

When Cao Zhiqiang asked about the price, the smile on Kota Ikeya's face became even brighter.

Because if you can ask about the price, you are really interested. Otherwise, you won’t ask about the price at all, and you’ll just say some clichés.

"It's very cheap." Kota Iketani said with a smile, "Two production lines, the technology package is taught, and it only costs 6 million!"

"Yen?" Cao Zhiqiang raised an eyebrow.

Kota Iketani's face hardened, and then he laughed dryly and said: "Cao Sang, you are joking, of course it's US dollars!"

(End of chapter)