Reborn Tycoon Rise

"Of course it's better!" Xu Zhi replied with a smile, but he knew that in the original history, Baosteel only started to officially put into production in 1985, because before the start of construction, the entire Shanghai city was poorly prepared, including roads. The wharf's infrastructure capacity was weak. Even before construction started, it was discovered that the water in the Yangtze River was highly saline and unsuitable for circulating water in steel plants. It was also forced to build a pipeline to transport water from 70 kilometers away.

However, the Baosteel project also has its successes. In the third phase of Baosteel's construction project, the domestic equipment rate increased from 12% in the first phase, to 21% in the second phase, and to 80% in the third phase. After that, domestic capabilities Producing advanced steel equipment on its own has also laid the foundation for the mainland to become the world's largest steel manufacturer after entering the 21st century.

Therefore, as for the Baosteel project itself, it was a loss to spend 8 billion US dollars, and it was ripped off by Japan. However, judging from the layout of the country's steel industry, it was still a good deal.

Xu Zhi continued: "As far as I know, Japanese steel plants use high-quality iron ore from Australia and Brazil. This kind of ore does not seem to be available in China, right?"

Qi Lin laughed and said: "I didn't expect that Mr. Xu would be so knowledgeable about the steel industry. In fact, the central government's plan to build Baosteel is to take advantage of the geographical advantages of the coast. In the future, Baosteel will all use imported iron ore!"

"Does this require a lot of foreign exchange?" Xu Zhi asked.

Qi Lin smiled and said: "Currently, the international price of iron ore is not expensive. Imported iron ore is always much cheaper than imported steel."

"That's true." Xu Zhi didn't say anything more. In the 1980s, the country's foreign exchange was mainly derived from oil exports. However, in the era when Baosteel was built, international oil prices have been at low prices for a long time, and iron ore has risen a little, resulting in domestic There is a serious shortage of foreign exchange.

It is said that in the late 1980s, a large amount of foreign exchange earned by relying on Hong Kong capital in eastern Guangdong and Shenzhen was diverted by the state to support Baosteel, which almost forced Shenzhen City to issue its own foreign exchange certificates.

However, the Baosteel project reminded him of one thing, a big business that he had almost forgotten.

After returning to the hotel from the machinery factory, Xu Zhi welcomed a special guest.

"Sit down!" Xu Zhi smiled and asked, "How about staying in Shanghai during this time?"

Wu Peng said: "It's not bad. You don't know how cheap things are here. It only costs a few dozen yuan, which can last me half a month."

"Of course, the average salary in the Shanghai Stock Exchange is less than one hundred. Your tens of dollars should be foreign exchange coupons. This is the ultimate magic weapon!" Xu Zhi replied with a smile. The person who came was none other than Wu Peng. Two years ago, Xu Zhi arranged for him to join his family's toy company. Later, he was specially arranged to station in the Shanghai office so that he could collect some information about Shanghai and the mainland according to the company's development needs and prepare for future investments.

Wu Peng took out a document, handed it to Xu Zhi and said: "This is the result of my investigation in the past six months. The people on the document are all elites of Shanghai Art Film Studio, which is very suitable for the future of our Changxing Comics Company. needs.”

"There must be more than a hundred people here!" Xu Zhi flipped through it and found about a dozen pages. Each page introduced some people's work status, family background, etc.

"Yes, didn't you say the more the better? In addition to the studio, I also found some good talents in several universities in Shanghai and Jinling. They all have good comic talents. I brought them back to Xiangjiang to train them. You can definitely become a talent." Wu Peng said with a smile.

Xu Zhi nodded and said: "Yes, with these people joining us, it's time for our comic company to leave the small city of Xiangjiang!"

Changxing Comics has been serializing Sou Shen Ji comics for a long time since two years ago and achieved good results. At the same time, it used existing funds to recruit comic talents from Hong Kong and the Bay Area. After two years, the comic staff There are already more than a hundred people.

The purpose of Xu Zhi's creation of a comic company was to enter the Japanese comic market in the future, but even if Xu Zhi could produce simple comics for later generations, he could only provide a general plot.

It is difficult for him to control how to draw comics, some details of the story, and the style of the characters. If people from Xiangjiang or other regions are allowed to directly draw these classic comics, even if the results are not bad, they may not be suitable for the Japanese market.

Xu Zhi pays more attention to the layout of comics than games. You must know that in the field of games, except for super classic games like Mario, most games have a lifespan. No matter how profitable they are, they can only be made for a while. Only by developing new games can it be possible to maintain market share.

But comics are different. A classic comic will not be eliminated for decades, and the copyright is extremely long-lasting. Xu Zhi knows a lot about these comics, and their ability to attract money is no less than that of games. At the same time, they have a long lifespan and can become A long-term cash flow.

In the past two years, Xu Zhi has hired many comics professionals and even professor-level people from Japan with high salaries, and also sent some employees to study in Japan, just to let these people understand the Japanese market and the needs of comic lovers.

Some people who have made great progress have also achieved good results and have begun to understand the characteristics of Japanese animation. Changxing Company's first comic for the Japanese market, Crayon Shin-chan, became an instant hit in the Japanese market, with sales of up to 600,000 per issue. Book.

After successfully testing the water, it is natural to continue to work hard. However, there are too many comics that Xu Zhi can provide, which also require a large number of cartoonists to draw. Not to mention that if we enter the field of animation broadcasting in the future, every second of animation programs on TV will be They are all composed of 24 cartoons, and there are simply not enough local employees in Xiangjiang.

In order to supplement enough painting employees, the mainland with a population of 1 billion is naturally the first choice.

Domestic animation has a long history, from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. It is not only diverse in variety, but also not inferior to Japanese and American comics in the same period in terms of content and artistry. Even early Japanese comics were influenced by mainland animation.

But after entering the late 1970s, the country focused mainly on developing the economy, and everything else, including cultural development, was affected. Even if the animation foundation was good, there was no money to buy equipment, train new people, and pay wages, and the level of comics was still there. How to make progress?

If history has no influence, then in the 1980s, many domestic comic institutions will become OEM factories for Japanese animation companies, specializing in processing a large number of basic paintings for them. This has severely affected the improvement of domestic comic standards.

At present, the organization with the highest level of domestic cartoons is Shanghai Art Film Studio, which is also one of the oldest animation studios in the mainland. It has produced films such as Black Cat Sheriff, Havoc in Heaven, Avanti, At the peak of its productions such as "The Wanderings of San Mao", its production of art films accounted for 80% of the country's art films, and one company basically monopolized the domestic art industry.

This film studio is one of Xu Zhi's key targets, and Wu Peng was arranged to come here to find out the true situation and level of its internal employees.

Wu Peng said with a smile: "Although Shanghai's economy has developed well in recent years, the life of ordinary people is still not that good. The same is true for the employees of Shanghai Art Studio. Many people even have housing problems. As long as We are willing to pay, so poaching them should not be a problem.”

"Poaching people? That's too low-level!" Xu Zhi said with a smile.