The Industrial Giant Reborn

Hong Kong, Kai Tak Airport:

"Mr. Bei, over here, our people are already waiting for us." After getting off the plane, after more than half an hour of queuing, Zhou Jiayang finally saw in the distance the relationship between himself and the master architect Bei Jinming. Raising the sign, he couldn't help but said with a smile.

"Oh, people from your company?" Bei Jinming looked at his name in the distance, and couldn't help but feel a little emotional. After staying in the United States for so many years, it has been a long time since he saw his Chinese name.

"Yes, hey, I saw our chairman." Zhou Jiayang said in surprise.

"Your chairman? The chairman of Hutchison Group?" Bei Jinming said.

Zhou Jiayang corrected: "Mr. Bei, the current Hutchison has changed its name to Hutchison Whampoa."

"Okay, haha, the same thing, people always have bad memory when they get old." Bei Jinming said with a smile.

After a while, several people walked up to the sign with their own name on it. The person holding the sign was a bodyguard, and the one in front was Chen Zhiwen.

"Chen Sheng, this is Mr. Bei Jinming, a master architect. Mr. Bei, this is the chairman of our company, Chen Zhiwen." Zhou Jiayang quickly introduced them.

"Mr. Bei Jinming, I have admired your name for a long time." Chen Zhiwen naturally knew the person in front of him, and immediately smiled and shook hands.

"Mr. Chen, I've admired your name for a long time. You bought Hutchison in Hong Kong, and you're wearing it in Chinatown in the United States!" Bei Jinming said with a smile.

"I didn't expect my fame to be so big!" Chen Zhiwen laughed. There are many people in the United States who know about Red Bull, and some know about Costco, but most people don't know the relationship between these two and Chen Zhiwen. Knowing that these two belong to foreign capital, this is the same as many people in the 21st century who do not know whose brand Pulse belongs to. It is enough to drink some, and it should be the same in Chinatown.

However, the 1970s was the era of rapid economic development in Hong Kong. Its external influence was the largest in the entire Chinese world, and the immigrant population was the same. This also led to Cantonese being the main language in Chinatown, and the acquisition of Chinese capital in Hong Kong. It is normal for Chinatown in the United States to receive rumors about a major event of one of the four foreign firms.

"Of course, in Chinatown, Hong Kong is now the pride of the Chinese people. Previously, Bao Yugang became the world's shipping king. Later, you bought a British bank. Last month, there were a lot of topics about you after dinner." Bei Jin Ming said with a smile.

"Compared to the charter king, I'm still far behind." Chen Zhiwen said modestly, "Mr. Bei, this way please."

In terms of worth, the current Chen Zhiwen is really inferior to Bao Yugang, the world's shipping king. According to the estimate of the New York Times in 1974, Bao Yugang is worth between 700 and 1 billion US dollars, and he is the richest man in the Chinese world. It's just pediatrics. As a ship king, every order he makes can attract the attention of political leaders from various countries. When Bao Yugang goes to some countries, he is accompanied by at least minister-level people. It is said that in Bao Yugang's office, hanging It is full of photos of him posing with dignitaries from various countries.

It is really that the orders for large cargo ships are so strong that they can easily drive tens of thousands of jobs and affect the economic lifeline of a big city. To reach this level, Chen Zhiwen estimates that he will have to develop for 5 years.

As a VIP at Kai Tak Airport, Chen Zhiwen's fleet can directly drive into the dedicated VIP channel, and when the money is in place, he can buy various services.

A number of Mercedes-Benz S-class cars shuttled through the crowd and left from the airport.

"I came to Hong Kong ten years ago. The architecture at that time is very different from what it is now?" After the car drove out of the Hung Hom Cross-Harbour Tunnel, I couldn't help being surprised when I saw the clusters of skyscrapers.

"Hong Kong has developed rapidly in the past ten years. On Hong Kong Island, basically 3-5 buildings with more than 20 floors are completed every month. This is due to the economic downturn in the past two years. After a few years, this figure It may be doubled." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"I went to Yanjing in the mainland two years ago. I really hope that one day, there will be such buildings everywhere in our country!" Bei Jinming said with emotion.

"Mr. Bei has been to Yanjing?" Chen Zhiwen asked in surprise. Although it is not difficult for rich people to go to the mainland now, they can only choose some designated cities, such as Guangdong, Shanghai, and Yanjing. This area is still relatively strict. Foreigners want to go, generally it must be a very important official business, not to mention two years ago, when diplomatic relations with the United States were just re-established, and everything had just begun to change external strategies. It is more difficult to enter.

"Haha, one of my classmates is responsible for receiving foreign guests in Yanjing. He invited me to Yanjing to redesign the local foreign hotel, so I went there." Bei Jinming replied.

"Oh, that's how it is." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, not talking about foreign strategies, but the 43 Act a few years ago, to import multiple large-scale industrial equipment worth 4.3 billion U.S. dollars from abroad, it is necessary to communicate with overseas countries, and it is also necessary to allow Overseas businessmen, technical personnel, diplomatic officials, etc. enter the country. Among them, Yanjing must be the place to go. In this way, there has never been a place that has received large-scale foreign guests. It must be at a loss. Please invite Bei Jinming, a world-renowned Chinese Designers are also normal.

Soon, the car arrived at Park Wan Road in Admiralty.

"Mr. Bei, this is the location of the future Xinghe headquarters building. This 5-storey building will be demolished next month. With the time for follow-up cleaning and official procedures, construction should begin after next year, so I Hope to finalize the design drawing before then.”

"There are still 4 months. If it is urgent, there should be no problem. It's just that projects like Chen Sheng don't invite bids? Just let me come?" Bei Jinming asked with a smile.

"Mr. Bei was able to beat hundreds of famous American architects to win the design project of the Kennedy Library. How can these architectural design companies in Hong Kong compare with you." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said: "Just like Zhou Sheng and you in the United States Speaking of which, in the future, whether it is Hutchison Whampoa or Galaxy Properties, there will be a large number of construction projects, and I hope to reach a long-term cooperation with Mr. Bei."

Bei Jinming's ability, whether it is the historical achievements that have been made now, or the design of various buildings in Hong Kong and the Mainland in the past, is enough to prove that there is no problem, and it will only be the best of the best. Cooperating with him will be of great significance to Chen Zhiwen's planning in the real estate industry.

Just to say a little bit, in the original history in 1988, the Bank of China (Hong Kong) won a piece of land in Central and wanted to build a skyscraper as its headquarters, but because of the shortage of funds, it was seen as a joke by other British consortiums in Hong Kong. The construction cost of a skyscraper is definitely not something that the Bank of China, which lacks funds, can build.

However, Bank of China invited Bei Jinming to build the 70-storey, 367-meter-high Bank of China Tower with a total construction area of ​​129,000 square meters at a cost of US$130 million, which is 70% of the same level of buildings.

The cost of a building, especially the super building that Chen Zhiwen wants to build in the future, is in the unit of 100 million. It is a lot of money to reduce the cost of each building by 5%, let alone 30%.

"Okay, how about I give you a 20% discount based on the normal quotation in the American market?" Bei Jinming said with a smile: "This is the first building I designed in Hong Kong, which is very meaningful."

"Mr. Bei, you're being polite." Chen Zhiwen smiled, and didn't refuse the kindness. It's not that he values ​​the 20% discount, but that everyone is not a person who only cares about money. Appropriate preferential cooperation will make future cooperation better.

Bei Jinming nodded with a smile, and then said: "I need to take a few photos here, it may take a while."

"Is it for collecting data?" Chen Zhiwen asked.

"No, the collection of data requires a professional team. They will come to Hong Kong in a few days to collect the land characteristics, foundation detection, and understand the annual wind speed, rainstorm and other weather conditions. This requires very professional equipment and people. I am now Just take a few photos of the surrounding area, get a simple understanding of the nearby architectural style, and first come up with your own ideas." Bei Jinming said.

"That's okay. We can walk around. There is one more thing that needs to be entrusted to Mr. Bei." Chen Zhiwen said that he also has a certain understanding of architectural design. Designing a building is not a design and decoration. Many issues need to be considered, especially for safety.

Because some places have loose geology, some places are in the earthquake zone, some places are near the sea, some places have rock formations below, some places have typhoons, or there are extremely cold and hot weather, etc. All these issues need to be considered, and none of them can If you make a mistake, you need to build the building at the lowest cost while ensuring safety. Otherwise, it is naturally easy to spend all your money to build a safe building.

This is also the reason why large architectural firms charge according to the construction cost. The taller the building, the higher the design cost. It is said that the design cost of future Dubai buildings is about 15%.

"What's the matter?" Bei Jinming asked.

"Go this way." Chen Zhiwen guided the direction, he was more familiar with this side, and because the bodyguards spread out, keeping a certain distance, that is, to ensure that they would not affect his boss, but also ensure relative safety.

"I set up a Huagang Fund in Hong Kong. Its subsidiary has a project called Zhiwen Primary School. My idea is to build about 30 schools in Hong Kong. However, this is also because Hong Kong's economy is not bad and the population is large. Not many, 30 primary schools are enough. In the future, if the mainland can be more open, my idea is to open the Zhiwen Primary School project to every place in the country that needs it." Chen Zhiwen explained as he walked.

"Every place? The mainland is huge. If we really do this, the number will be tens of thousands?" Bei Jinming was also stunned by this grand plan.

"Thousands of thousands are true, but it will not be a one-time investment. I believe I can do this in the future." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile. The value is still very high. To build a primary school with basic functions, maybe only 10,000 yuan is enough. Even if there are 10,000 primary schools, including future inflation, it may be hundreds of millions or more.

Of course, taking into account various administrative costs, silent costs, etc., this number will be much larger than the theoretical one, but Chen Zhiwen is fully confident that this will not be a problem for him, not to mention that it may span one or two years. In ten years, the annual demand is not much. You must know that if the direction is correct, any investment now can easily earn billions or even more in the future.

This grand plan for the mainland is even more meaningful than a few central buildings.

"I admire Chen Sheng's mind. I can't wait for it." Bei Jinming sighed.

"Don't dare." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile, he is not pure charity, he still hopes to continue this charity project to increase his fame and satisfy his selfish desire to be recorded in history.

"Then do you know what I can do to help?" Bei Jinming immediately became interested when he heard about such a grand charity project. He originally thought that he could get a big client by coming to Hong Kong. It is more meaningful to make your own contribution to the project.

"Each school can make different changes in the structure and shape according to its own area and environment, but what I hope is to make a unified style. In terms of aesthetics, I don't pursue beauty. Generally speaking, it can't be bad. Remember, when you see this in the future, you will think that this is Zhiwen Primary School.” Chen Zhiwen roughly described it, but he is not a professional in construction, and often the description of his requirements may not be clear.

"I understand what you mean, how about this, let's discuss after I draw a few design drawings?" Bei Jinming said.