Time flies faster than anything else. As December rolls around, another year is quietly drawing to a close.
For corporations, December marks the time to hand in their annual report cards, making it arguably the busiest month of the year for accounting departments.
For the everyday blue-collar worker, however, their year runs on a different calendar: it kicks off between the eighth and tenth day after the Spring Festival and wraps up in the late twenties of the twelfth lunar month, right before New Year's Eve.
This year's New Year's Eve falls relatively late—February 17th—leaving a little over two months until the holiday.
Consequently, even with December officially here, frontline worker Xu Xinglei felt zero sense of urgency. Instead, he was brimming with drive because he had just landed a new position.
Tan Jincheng had a phenomenal memory, but with the company's rapid expansion and new hires coming in through channels he didn't personally interview, he naturally couldn't remember every frontline worker. Xu Xinglei happened to be one of them.
Ever since their accidental chat in the cafeteria, Xu's supervisor had known that this young man was acquainted with the boss. Combined with Xu's consistent hard work, diligence, and honest character, his managers naturally began looking out for him a bit more.
Even Zhao Xinbin, who was close with Xu, enjoyed some collateral benefits, which mostly manifested in preferable shift scheduling and priority access to corporate welfare perks.
From a high-level executive's perspective, these perks were trivial—at the end of the day, you still had to show up and do the work. But at the grassroots level, workers actually cared quite a bit about these small gestures.
During the new factory's equipment debugging and trial production phase following worker training, veteran employees were needed to take the newcomers under their wing. Xu's line leader immediately thought of him and asked if he was interested.
Naturally, he was interested. Aside from offering lighter day-to-day duties compared to regular assembly work, being a group leader came with a bump in base pay. Only a fool would pass up an opportunity like that.
Manufacturing compensation structures differed completely from the tech and internet sectors—there were no corporate title ranks like P-grades here.
Your pay was tied strictly to your exact job description: standard assembly line workers earned assembly wages, maintenance workers earned maintenance pay, quality inspectors earned inspection rates, and technical staff earned technician pay.
Of course, there were minor sub-tiers based on factors like seniority, but within the same workshop and work team, everyone's wages remained relatively close.
The real differentiators for take-home pay were overtime hours, night-shift allowances, and seniority bonuses. Overall, it operated on a pure "more work, higher pay" model, leaving little room to argue about fairness.
In truth, many factory jobs required very little specialized skill; virtually anyone could do them. Attempting to talk about rigid corporate fairness for those positions didn't work—if you didn't like the terms, management could simply swap you out for someone else.
This system had both pros and cons. The upside was that everyone started on equal footing, and if you wanted to earn more money, you simply put in more overtime hours.
The downside was that over long periods, the repetitive grind eroded people's ambitions, turning them complacent.
Furthermore, upward mobility channels were exceedingly narrow. Many people entered the factory as assembly workers and spent their entire lives hitting the exact same screws, seeing zero hope for advancement.
This was precisely what made factory employment heavily criticized by outsiders. However, Tan Jincheng viewed it differently.
First, Shanchi was currently in a stage of rapid expansion. Entering the factory during this growth phase meant far more opportunities; as long as you were willing to hustle, paths upward existed.
While promotional channels were limited, having some upward mobility was infinitely better than having none at all.
Someone like Xu Xinglei had practically secured a group leader position. Moving forward, if he performed well leading his team and passed performance evaluations, he could climb another tier upward.
Another reason stemmed from Tan's core philosophy: people worked to make a decent living and earn solid money.
As long as the compensation was good, that was enough. Whenever you got tired of it down the road, you could always step out and run a small business of your own.
Expecting to spend an entire lifetime climbing the corporate ladder as a factory worker carried a very low statistical probability.
Every profession had a functional lifespan; compared to tech programmers struggling to find jobs after 35, working in a manufacturing plant wasn't quite as precarious.
In the future, as the enterprise continued to scale, employee headcounts swelled, and institutional rigidity set in, Shanchi would inevitably run into various organizational bottlenecks, and Tan Jincheng would undoubtedly be branded a "black-hearted capitalist" by disgruntled voices.
At least for now, however, that wasn't the case. As Xu led his newly assigned batch of recruits through trial production at the new plant, he could vividly sense the soaring morale among the newcomers.
The new factory sat quite far from the district center, bordering the Fenghua-Yinzhou belt. The location was relatively remote; at the end of 2006, the surrounding area still retained a rural landscape, making daily living somewhat inconvenient for anyone commuting from afar.
Management had anticipated this during the plant's initial design phase. They had acquired a parcel of land in a nearby village specifically to zone and build a dedicated employee dormitory zone, keeping the daily commute to a ten-minute walk. While remote, its winning grace was sheer convenience.
The company ran a cafeteria providing three meals a day, and the grounds even housed a small convenience store. Handling all meals and daily needs on-site saved employees from spending extra cash.
For an employee like Xu Xinglei, who loved saving money, aside from lacking elaborate recreational outlets, life here was remarkably straightforward and convenient.
Xu had already been working at Shanchi for 30 months. After deducting daily living expenses and occasionally sending remittances home, he managed to stash away at least 2,000 yuan every month.
Combined with his year-end bonuses from 2005 and 2006, he had accumulated roughly 80,000 yuan in personal savings.
Eighty thousand yuan in cash was a sum he wouldn't have even dared to dream of previously.
With a promotion, a pay raise, and escalating income streams ahead, his savings would only continue to grow.
This Lunar New Year, he planned to head home a bit earlier; with the bride price (caili) comfortably covered, he intended to go on matchmaking dates and see if he could finally settle down and get engaged.
If things worked out, he could even bring his wife back with him to live in the company's designated couple dormitories.
Just thinking about it filled him with warmth and satisfaction.
Throughout November, the Shanchi Group continued to throttle back shipment volumes, dropping total monthly output to 40,000 units.
In December, as the new factory's production lines gradually came online following trial runs, the capacity crunch would finally experience some relief.
For the Shanchi series of electric vehicles, the single most crucial milestone in December was securing certification as a "National Inspection-Free Product"—a designation that ordinary citizens placed immense trust in during this era.
In Chairman Tan's eyes, this certification was fundamentally useless fluff, but since consumers swore by it, he had no choice.
"If you aren't even a National Inspection-Free Product, how do you have the nerve to call yourself a famous brand?"
That was the exact pushback frontline retail outlets had faced repeatedly over the past year or more. Explaining that the brand had only recently been founded fell on deaf ears; skeptical consumers simply wouldn't buy it.
Shanchi had laid extensive groundwork to secure selection as a national inspection-free brand.
Over the past year, Shanchi had heavily invested in upgrading its customer service infrastructure, bolstered by the powerful marketing halo of serving as the exclusive electric vehicle sponsor for the Olympic Games.
Consequently, clearing the hurdle shouldn't pose much of a problem.
Tan didn't intervene excessively in those bureaucratic procedures. Aside from attending lectures at Ningbo University, his primary focus recently had been mapping out the future industrial architecture for Hangxin New Energy.
The Beijing research institute had shipped him a mountain of academic reference materials, reading through which left Tan with a splitting headache.
Gu Qingqing rarely saw Tan scratching his head in frustration, prompting her to tease playfully,
"Finally encountered something even you don't understand?"
The two of them currently lived very much like an ordinary college couple—attending classes together, returning home near Ningbo University, and heading back to Beilun whenever work demands required it.
Gu Qingqing rarely stayed in the dormitories anymore. By now, she was practically a minor celebrity at Ningbo University, and with Orange Technology's daily operations becoming increasingly hectic, living in the dorms would have made juggling both worlds impossible.
"It's pretty complex. I can forget about mastering the technical physics behind it, but I can at least map out the high-level business direction,"
Tan said with a light smile.
Hangxin New Energy's future business focus could be broken down into three core pillars: power battery systems, energy storage systems, and lithium battery materials. Their strategic layout would revolve around these three verticals.
Power battery systems were undoubtedly the most critical, but since the commercial application scenarios for new energy vehicles remained narrow at this stage, laying heavy bets there was slightly premature.
The early supply chain could be established starting from upstream mining, lithium materials, and energy storage. Combining the market intelligence collected by Zeng Jishiy, Zhao Xinyi, and the Megalith Investment team, Tan recognized quite a few of these companies.
After all, back in his past life when he entered the markets as a retail investor, it coincided with the absolute peak of the new energy boom—it was just a pity he hadn't made any money back then.
As for mobile phone batteries, Hangxin New Energy shouldn't bother building a dedicated manufacturing plant from scratch; doing so felt too rushed. With 2007 right around the corner, society was already entering the 2.5G era.
Waiting to construct a factory building from the ground up would be too late. It was far wiser to adopt the Bafang Electric model—acquiring equity stakes in existing players through a mix of capital injection and technology sharing.
"You'll need to take a trip down to Shenzhen soon, bring Chief Engineer Lu along, and track down a company called Dexian Electronics. They're located in Longgang District, Shenzhen, and run by a guy named Zhao Wu. Go talk to them about a partnership."
Zhao Xuhui, on the other end of the line, asked,
"What kind of partnership structure are we looking at?"
"We provide the capital and technology in exchange for an equity stake in their company, securing a controlling majority just like we did with Bafang Electric. Go hash out the specifics with them. If negotiations fall through, Shenzhen has other battery manufacturers we can approach instead."
Many people might not recognize Dexian Electronics, but if you mentioned a certain consumer brand associated with them, plenty of people would instantly know: Pisen.
Pisen's most prominent impression on consumers later on seemed to be power banks, but they originally cut their teeth manufacturing batteries—supplying digital cameras, laptops, and mobile phones, establishing themselves as a household battery brand nationwide.
Later on, perhaps unable to outcompete the heavyweights in the core battery cell market, they pivoted toward 3C peripheral accessories, building a remarkably successful accessories business post-transition.
The company had been founded in late 2003 and officially commenced operations in early 2004. They currently owned a 50-mu factory in Shenzhen's Longgang District with a workforce nearing 1,000 employees.
At this stage, their business operations remained heavily concentrated on computer and digital camera accessories.
"Understood. I'll confer with Chief Engineer Lu tomorrow and lock down a travel date,"
Zhao Xuhui acknowledged.
"Alright. I'll email you the partnership proposal draft later today so you can review it beforehand."
Partnering with Dexian Electronics would instantly equip Hangxin New Energy with a mature factory and an established workforce.
Furthermore, Dexian's 3C accessory product lines could form a synergistic cross-complement with Jingyi Industry's overseas trade division.
"You're drafting the strategic proposal yourself?"
Tan hadn't bothered stepping into another room to make the phone call; the apartment was relatively compact, and the two of them shared a single home study.
"Yep, just a quick partnership framework. If you're sleepy, go ahead and head to bed first."
A company could suffer if it relied too heavily on PowerPoint presentations, but operating entirely without them was impossible either.
While Tan detested corporate cultures where employees obsessed over slide decks, he personally loved using decks to pitch ideas and "charm" prospective partners or investors.
He glanced at the digital clock on the desk: 10:30 PM.
"I'll stay up and keep you company. It's still early."
Inside the quiet little apartment, a young single man and woman sat together—the man burning the midnight oil over corporate strategy while the woman quietly kept vigil by his side, perfectly embodying the image of young sweethearts just stepping out into society and grinding together for their future.
(End of Chapter)