In October, following the conclusion of the peak season, Shanchi series electric vehicles—stripped of promotional campaigns—saw their monthly sales slide to 42,000 units.
Neither Shanchi nor its general distributors were upset; if anything, everyone felt a collective sigh of relief. Finally, they had managed to accumulate a bit of inventory.
"Let's continue to control shipment volumes through November and December. Try to stockpile as much inventory as we can."
Producing just over 40,000 units a month simply wasn't enough to meet demand—not by a long shot.
Every top-tier manufacturer and their distributors had anticipated an explosive market, but none of them had accurately calculated the sheer speed of that explosion.
In this era, big data models didn't exist yet, and the older generation of entrepreneurs and businessmen didn't put much faith in experts; they trusted their own practical judgment.
Moreover, even the experts failed to predict this velocity of expansion; it was tracking almost identically to the rapid growth of computer user adoption.
Fortunately, the production lines at the Beilun factory had already entered the debugging phase. Once debugging finished and workers finished their training, a batch of veteran employees could be directly transferred over from the existing plant.
Using veterans to guide newcomers meant production could start the moment things were ready, without needing to wait rigidly for a formal opening ceremony.
"Most people are desperate to push out as much inventory as possible, but here we are trying to ship out as little as we can,"
Lin Yumin said with a wry smile.
Capacity constraints had always been the single biggest headache plaguing Shanchi. As the executive in charge of domestic sales operations, Lin Yumin often felt like a housewife from an impoverished family, scratching and clawing to ration out scarce market shares.
The old idiom about a clever woman struggling to cook a meal without rice applied to him quite fittingly.
Over the past year, aside from Tan Jincheng himself, Lin Yumin was arguably the person who wished most fervently for the Beilun factory's construction to accelerate, as it would finally lift a mountain off his shoulders.
"Uncle Lin and Uncle Wu, you two haven't had it easy this past year either, constantly traveling all over the country. Without getting into too many details, let's make sure you get a few extra days off around the New Year to head home and get some well-deserved rest."
There were only three of them in the office. The primary agenda was reviewing the sales challenges faced over the past year, summarizing gains and losses, which kept the atmosphere relatively relaxed.
The three men hadn't sat down to chat like this in a long time. For Shanchi to reach its current heights, both Lin and Wu had played monumental roles; the establishment of the early sales channels was entirely built on their hustle alongside Tan Jincheng.
Without these two, relying solely on Tan to run around the country single-handedly, those distribution channels could never have been built so rapidly, and Shanchi wouldn't have saved so much precious time.
Calling them "uncle" wasn't just because they had been colleagues with his father and belonged to the same generation; it was also a sign of deep respect for their contributions to the company's growth.
A thousand soldiers are easy to find, but a general is hard to come by.
"That sounds wonderful! The last few times President Tan's father came over, neither of us happened to be in Beilun, so we missed the chance to get together. Heading home early will give us a proper window to catch up,"
Lin Yumin laughed.
In truth, both men would have loved to buy property in Ningbo and bring their families over, but their children were at critical academic junctures.
Unlike Zhang Wenzu—who was a hopeless academic slacker—their kids actually needed stability, forcing them to temporarily put those plans on hold.
As things stood, they would likely have to wait until their children graduated from high school and entered university before experiencing a full family reunion.
"Old Lin is busy; running the overseas channels, I've had it relatively easy by comparison,"
Wu Zhenping said modestly.
"You can't look at it that way, Uncle Wu. You have to travel internationally, which is its own kind of hardship. Everyone's worked hard, so let's keep pushing through a bit longer. Once our channels and production capacity stabilize, everyone can finally ease up."
Tan then added with a smile,
"If all goes according to plan, within five years both of my uncles will hit the retirement threshold, and your workloads won't have any pressure left at all."
Within five years, Wu Zhenping would be just 40 years old, and Lin Yumin only 41.
Reaching the age of 40 without having to worry about money—it had to be said that Tan's promise carried an immense amount of seductive appeal. No matter how exhausting the grind was right now, that provided plenty of motivation.
In reality, this was already the best-case scenario they could have imagined.
Shanchi's sales operations couldn't remain under their personal control forever; a few years down the line, they would inevitably be rotated into other positions to prevent Shanchi from running into the kind of sudden management vacuum Shanchi faced when Yu Lin resigned.
Both men came out of state-owned enterprises, so they naturally understood the art of conversation. Reading between the lines of Tan's words, they could deduce that they would hold the reins of the Sales Department for a maximum of five more years.
Even so, what of it? Within five years, Shanchi would be sprinting toward an IPO, and they were tied into the employee stock incentive program. If the listing succeeded, they genuinely could retire at 40.
If it didn't succeed, it didn't matter either—they would simply rotate into another post. Their compensation packages were locked in, and they wouldn't be hurting for cash.
"Haha, then we'll have to trouble President Tan to carry us forward. Only with you leading the company's progress can we ride the coattails to a good life."
"Haha, retiring within five years—that sounds even more comfortable than your old man's life, President Tan. Before we left our old jobs, we never even dared to dream of something like this."
And they truly hadn't dared. Before leaving Petrochemical, they simply hadn't wanted to waste their youth and wanted to take a gamble while they were still young.
Yet the raw vitality of the private economy in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region and Shanchi's explosive growth had left them utterly breathless.
People here seemed perpetually allergic to rest, and business negotiations were remarkably straightforward with very few pretentious hoops to jump through.
President Tan frequently entertained clients right in the company cafeteria or even treated them to fast food—try pulling that stunt back in Yicheng, and your business deal would undoubtedly go up in smoke.
"As for the electric vehicle business, my layout for the next five years is complete. Moving forward, aside from tracking construction progress, my focus will shift entirely to controlling sales and production. My personal focus will likely pivot heavily toward the lithium battery sector, so I'll still have to rely on my two uncles to shoulder the burden at the company."
By the end of 2010, Shanchi's production capacity would likely reach 7 million to 7.5 million units annually—a scale that should comfortably guarantee Shanchi's sales wouldn't face constraints prior to 2016.
In other words, Tan had already mapped out production capacity all the way to 2010. Crucially, he had designed it with the post-2010 New National Standards for electric vehicles in mind, firmly securing Shanchi's position in the industry's top three.
While taking the number-one spot was fantastic, ensuring a spot in the top three was more than enough.
Tan remained rather easygoing about it; not every time-traveler harbored an obsession with becoming the absolute richest person on earth—at least, Tan had never entertained such thoughts.
Lin Yumin nodded.
"This is what we're here for, President Tan. You don't need to give us special instructions."
Wu Zhenping echoed the sentiment.
Even so, both men remained somewhat curious.
Orange Technology was currently valued at over 200 million yuan, and the apparel business managed by Zhang Xupeng was also roaring along with leased factories, retail storefronts under renovation, and outsourced manufacturing partners already lined up.
Yet President Tan seemed completely indifferent to those two lucrative sectors, instead pouring massive capital and unmatched attention into the lithium battery industry—a venture with high upfront cash burn and an uncertain market outlook.
Word had it that the Megalith Investment Company had even spun up a dedicated securities department specifically to backstop the lithium battery factory, and that Tan was actively headhunting elite talent in the battery space.
As for the factory over in Chunxiao, although progress felt relatively incremental, construction was steadily advancing brick by brick.
Judging by Tan's various moves across the board, whether it was electric vehicles, fashion, or internet platforms, once an enterprise reached a certain scale, he would pull back on aggressive expansion.
But when it came to lithium batteries, he continuously funneled money into it drop by drop, like an endless capital sinkhole.
It almost looked as though he intended to plow every penny earned straight into lithium batteries.
Pity that neither of them understood a thing about battery technology; that future domain was destined to have nothing to do with them.
Subordinates—especially close ones—trying to guess their boss's underlying motives was nothing new. While Tan occasionally came off as a bit mischievous and slick, he wasn't the type of deeply unfathomable old fox who hid his cards entirely.
Tan's investments in lithium batteries were indeed methodical and phased: whenever cash flow allowed, he would buy up stocks in the sector—even if it was just a few hundred thousand yuan at a time—accumulating assets piece by piece.
At the headquarters building, an entire floor had been reserved for Hangxin New Energy. Anyone willing to jump ship was slotted right in, combining research outputs from the Beijing research institute to push market commercialization.
Currently, the Beijing research institute's R&D direction for lithium cells was concentrated primarily on two-wheeled electric vehicles and mobile phone applications.
Since they were already building lithium batteries, the mobile phone battery business was an opportunity too good to pass up.
Beyond accumulating technical know-how for automotive-grade battery packs, it would also fortify Hangxin New Energy's financial health, preventing the division from remaining perpetually in the red.
As for manufacturing entire smartphones, the Shanchi Group lacked both the institutional capability and the sheer bandwidth for it.
However, securing a foothold in the critical component supply chain while staying aligned with Shanchi's development strategy was entirely feasible.
With the dawn of the smartphone era arriving in 2009, and mass mainstream popularization slated for around 2011, they still had a five-year runway.
Hehe, when the time came, Orange Technology would execute its app development strategy while Hangxin New Energy dominated the smartphone battery sector.
Aside from lacking a standalone smartphone brand of their own, who could dare claim these two ventures wouldn't generate astronomical profits?
As someone who had spent his past life as an ardent Android custom-ROM enthusiast, Tan remembered a multitude of wildly popular early-stage apps. Just like Kaixin001 and Happy Farm, their technical development hurdles were remarkably low.
Their pre-installed device deployment footprints would be terrifyingly large, and they could later be monetized for astronomical sums.
As for phone batteries, the ideal goal was breaking into Apple's supply chain; if that failed, securing OEM battery orders for domestic Chinese smartphone brands was just as lucrative.
Early players like Coolpad, Lenovo, ZTE, Meizu, and Lei Jun's Xiaomi—alongside Apple itself—were all prospective clients for Hangxin New Energy.
Even pre-smartphone gray-market knockoff phones and the sprawling merchant networks of Huaqiangbei could become potential clients for Hangxin New Energy. That represented an unimaginably massive market—a true, prime piece of juicy meat.
One had to admit: equipped with over a decade of cognitive foresight ahead of his peers, Tan's advantages were glaringly obvious. This synergy of Internet + Physical Industry walking on two legs, supercharged by the massive cheat code of historical memory, gave him an unstoppable edge.
Had he focused purely on the electric vehicle sector, a few years down the line Tan genuinely could have crushed his industry competitors into dust.
To say nothing else—if Tan hadn't poured his single-minded obsession into lithium batteries, simply leveraging the cash flows, equity financing, and capital market maneuvering of his existing companies would have allowed him to push Shanchi Technology's debt-to-asset ratio below 20%.
For instance, when funding the Tianjin factory investment, Shanchi Technology wouldn't have even needed a bank loan; they could have financed the entire build out of pocket.
(End of Chapter)